Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (12 December 1890 – 12 April 1963) was a Polish

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

, a prominent figure in the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic. He originated many novel ideas in

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

. Among these was

categorial grammar Categorial grammar is a family of formalisms in natural language syntax that share the central assumption that syntactic constituents combine as functions and arguments. Categorial grammar posits a close relationship between the syntax and seman ...

, a highly flexible framework for the analysis of natural language syntax and (indirectly) semantics that remains a major influence on work in

formal linguistics Formal linguistics is the branch of linguistics which uses applied mathematical methods for the analysis of natural languages. Such methods include formal languages, formal grammars and first-order logical expressions. Formal linguistics also forms ...

. Ajdukiewicz's fields of research were

model theory In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between theory (mathematical logic), formal theories (a collection of Sentence (mathematical logic), sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a Structure (math ...

and the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

Biography

Ajdukiewicz was born in 1890 in Tarnopol in

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

, which at that time, due to

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

, was annexed by

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

( The Austrian Partition). His father was a senior civil servant. Ajdukiewicz studied at the

University of Lwów The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

, and lectured there, as well as in Warsaw and in Poznań. He received his PhD degree with the thesis on

Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aest ...

's philosophy of space. He was Rector of the University of Poznań from 1948 to 1952. He was one of the founders of the journal ''

Studia Logica ''Studia Logica'' (full name: Studia Logica, An International Journal for Symbolic Logic), is a scienific journal publishing papers employing formal tools from Mathematics and Logic. The scope of papers published in Studia Logica covers all scient ...

'' in its current incarnation, editing it from 1953 to his death.

Work

In his early epistemological system, which he called Radical Conventionalism, Ajdukiewicz analyzed any

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

as a set of expressions or sentences, with inferential ''rules of meaning'' that specify the relation of one expression to another, or to external data. There are three kinds of rules: Axiomatic, Deductive, and Empirical. Following the rules, one can map all knowable sentences of a language. However, some languages' vocabularies can produce ''disconnected'' sentences, which are only partly mapped by the ''meaning rules''. Therefore, when one uses a language, even scientific one, a ''conceptual apparatus'', an untranslatable set of meanings, is needed too, and with it a choice of the problems to be settled. For this reason the theory is a form of

conventionalism Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Unspoken rules play a key role in the philosophy's structur ...

, and it is radical because even simple experiential reports are exposed to these language-wide considerations. Ajdukiewicz discarded this theory as the 1930s progressed.

Bibliography

*1921 "Z metodologii nauk dedukcyjnych" *1923 "Główne kierunki filozofii" *1928 "Główne zasady metodologii nauk i logiki formalnej" *1931 "O znaczeniu wyrażeń" *1934 "Logiczne podstawy nauczania" *1938 "Propedeutyka filozofii" *1948 "Epistemologia i semantyka" *1949 "Zagadnienia i kierunki filozofii" *1952 "Zarys logiki" *1964 "Zagadnienia empiryzmu a koncepcja znaczenia" *1965 "Logika pragmatyczna" *1960–1965 "Język i poznanie. Wybór pism" *1966- Selected articles in "Logiczna Teoria Nauki" ( Logical Theory of Science) Ed. T.Pawłowski, Printed PWN, Warszawa. *Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''Pragmatic Logic'',

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after ...

, Reidel, 1974 *Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''Problems and Theories of Philosophy'', Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

, 1975 *Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: ''The Scientific World-Perspective and Other essays 1931–1963'',

, Reidel, 1977

External links

Polish Philosophy Page: Kazimierz AjdukiewiczLwów–Warsaw school of logic
at the

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. E ...

. Sections on Categorial Grammar and Radical Conventionalism. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ajdukiewicz, Kazimierz 1890 births 1963 deaths Writers from Ternopil 20th-century Polish philosophers Philosophers of science Polish logicians Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences University of Lviv alumni University of Lviv faculty University of Warsaw faculty

Biography

Work

Bibliography

See also

External links