Stanislaw Lesniewski 1886 – 1939
Stanislaw Lesniewski was a Polish logician, philosopher of mathematics, and the most uncompromising formalist of the Lwow-Warsaw school. After studies under Kazimierz Twardowski at Lwow and a doctorate under Hans Cornelius at Munich, he held the chair of the philosophy of mathematics at Warsaw, where he developed his three interrelated formal systems: Mereology, the logic of parts and wholes; Ontology, his general theory of names and predication; and Protothetic, a comprehensive logic of propositions and quantifiers. The extreme rigor of his standards meant that much of his work survives only through his pupils, above all Alfred Tarski.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Polish
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Stanislaw Lesniewski:
“Logic must rest on principles whose evidence we cannot doubt.”
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Attributed to Stanislaw Lesniewski:
“A class is the whole of its members, not a thing apart.”
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Attributed to Stanislaw Lesniewski:
“Definition must be eliminable without loss.”
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Attributed to Stanislaw Lesniewski:
“Formal systems are the precise instruments of philosophical thought.”
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Attributed to Stanislaw Lesniewski:
“What can be said clearly must first be axiomatized.”