The following references (including the reviews from ZfM) might be of some
interest (to someone):
[1] Batog, Tadeusz; Murawski, Roman:
"Stanislaw Piatkiewicz and the beginnings of mathematical logic in Poland"
_Historia Mathematica_, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 68-73, 1996.
It is generally believed that the first discussions in Poland of
modern mathematical logic were (in print) Jan Lukasiewicz's book
"O zasadzie sprzecznosci u Arystotelesa: Studyum krytyczne" (Krakow;
Akademia Umiejetnosci) of 1910, and (orally) Kazimierz Twardowski's
lectures at Lvov University in 1899. But well before either, in
1888, Stanislaw Piatkiewicz published a major paper, "Algebra w
logice" in Sprawozdania dyrektora c.k.IV gimnazyum we Lwowie za rok
szkolny 1888 (reports of the Royal Imperial Grammar School No. IV
in Lvov; cf. the German Programmschriften). This was a competent
summary of Boole's work, and mentioned a wide range of authors on
mathematical logic (Leibniz, Boole, Ploucquet, Hamilton, de Morgan,
Jevons, Grassmann, and Schroeder; but not Frege). The authors suggest,
surely correctly, that his work did not succeed in awakening interest
in mathematical logic because Piatkiewicz was merely a schoolteacher
rather than an academic. [ J. Mackenzie (Sydney) ]
[2] Wojcicki, Ryszard:
"The Postwar Panorama of Logic in Poland" (pp. 497-508) in _Logic and
scientific methods_, edited by Dalla Chiara et al. Proceedings of the
Tenth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science, Florence, Italy, August 19-25, 1995. Synthese Library 259,
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. [ISBN: 0-7923-4383-2]
Since the author maintains that logic in Poland "was never affected
in a drastic and direct way by political principles" this account
focuses purely on the lively logical schools that thrived between
1945 and 1989. Though there were efforts to spread the Marxist
ideology in all intellectual areas, logic managed to remain resistant
to conversion, or even lip-service, to a Marxist "dialectical" logic.
Among the most prominent institutions promoting logic was the Section
on Logic of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which the author headed
for a long time. It was responsible for two of the Polish post-war
journals _Studia Logica_ and _Bulletin of the Section of Logic_. The
Polish Academy was also the home of the Banach Mathematical Center
which did much work in logic. The most prominent figure of this time
was Andrzej Mostowski and the author states that "in a sense all the
leading logicians of the post-war period were students of Mostowski."
Particular emphasis is placed on the algebraic logic which originated
with Lindenbaum and Tarski and was carried on by H. Rasiowa. The
most prominent figure in foundations of mathematics was Czeslaw Ryll-
Nardzewski who formed a school at Wroclaw University. Another
center was formed at Jagiellonian University at Cracow by S. Surma
in the 1960s. This account lists many, if not all, names of those
active in logic during this communist period and includes some
autobiographical remarks about the important role the author played.
The bibliography with only thirteen items seems small in proportion
to the coverage of the article but it does give the most important
works and some other broad surveys. [ A.C. Lewis (Indianapolis) ]
[3] Wolenski, Jan:
"Mathematical logic in Poland 1900-1939: People, circles, institutions,
ideas", _Modern Logic_, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 363-405, 1995.
The author presents a comprehensive and very readable description
of Poland's emergence to one of the leading nations in mathematical
logic. He considers biographical, sociological and institutional
aspects in combination with the history of ideas, giving a lot of
impressing and astonishing facts about the history of Polish logic
between 1895 and World War II.
The first center of logical research was Lvov University where
K. Twardowski was appointed to the chair of philosophy in 1895. He
gathered a group of young people interested in logic, among them
J. Lukasiewicz, K. Ajdukiewicz, T. Czezowski, T. Kotarbinski, and
Z. Zawirski. The second center was Cracow with St. Zaremba as "the
pioneer of modern logical interests" (p. 367). After World War I,
Warsaw became the main logical center, and it grew into "certainly
the most 'logically' populated place in the world" (p. 375). Two
chairs of mathematical logic were established to which Lukasiewicz
and St. Lesniewski were appointed.
The excellent institutional integration of mathematical logic in
academic education and the successful teaching of its advocates were
reasons for its quick development, but also the fruitful collaboration
of logicians and mathematicians. Mathematical logic and foundational
studies were part of the "Janiszewski program", the project to
establish a Polish Mathematical School.
The author summarizes the disastrous effects of World War II for
Polish logicians: "The Lindenbaums, Pepis, Presburger, Salmucha,
Schmierer and Wajsberg were killed by the Germans, Hetper and
Herzberg perished in the Soviet Union, and Chwistek died in 1944
in Moscow. Lesniewski died just before the war, Smolka in 1947, and
Zawirski in 1948. Bochenski, Hiz, Jordan, Lejewski, Lukasiewicz,
Mehlberg, Poznanski, Sobocinski and Tarski left Poland in 1939-1948.
The war also stopped normal education. Several completed writings
were destroyed or lost" (p. 381).
In the second part, the author considers ideas and results with
special attention to the relation between logic, philosophy and
mathematics. He finds a great variety of positions due to the fact
that the Warsaw Logical School was not bound to any philosophical
ideology. Typical examples were Lukasiewicz and Tarski, "both were
ready to investigate any logical problem independently of whether
it originated in logicism, intuitionism, or formalism" (p. 385).
The paper ends with a list of the main results of Polish logic in
propositional calculus, predicate logic, non-classical logics,
metalogic, metamathematics, foundations, and the history of.
[ V. Peckhaus (Erlangen) ]
With best regards,
Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Moshe' Machover wrote:
| Dear Colleagues,
|
| A friend of a friend of a friend of mine would like to find out about the
| Polish contribution to logic. Can any one help with a bibliography on the
| subject? Even relevant encyclopedia articles could be useful. The person in
| question can read Polish as well as English.
|
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