Tadeusz Kotarbinski 1886 – 1981
Tadeusz Marian Kotarbinski was a Polish philosopher and logician and one of the leading figures of the Lwow-Warsaw school of analytic philosophy. Long-time professor at Warsaw, he served as the first president of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1957 to 1962. His Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic and the Methodology of the Sciences founded the ontological doctrine he called reism, according to which only concrete bodies exist, and the Treatise on Good Work founded the discipline of praxiology, the general science of efficient action. His independent ethical writings drew on Confucian and Stoic motifs to articulate a secular humanist morality.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Polish
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Analytic
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Tadeusz Kotarbinski:
“Only individual bodies exist.”
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Attributed to Tadeusz Kotarbinski:
“Efficient action is the proper subject of praxiology.”
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Attributed to Tadeusz Kotarbinski:
“The good life requires the disciplined avoidance of waste.”
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Attributed to Tadeusz Kotarbinski:
“Names of properties and relations are useful, but they do not name distinct beings.”
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Attributed to Tadeusz Kotarbinski:
“Practical reasoning is the engine of every honest civilization.”