POLIS"H ESSAYS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF

THE NATURAL SCIENCES

BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

EDITED BY ROBERT S. COHEN AND MARX W. WARTOFSKY

VOLUME 68

POLISH ESSAYS IN THE

PHILOSOPHY OF THE NATURAL

SCIENCES

Edited by

WI:.ADYSI:.A W KRAJEWSKI

University of Warsaw

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY

DORDRECHT : HOLLAND / BOSTON: U.S.A.

LONDON:ENGLAND

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Polish essays in the philosophy of the natural sciences.

(Boston studies in the philosophy of science; v. 68) Translated from the Polish. Inclus1es bibliographies and indexes. 1. Science-Philosophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Science­

Methodology-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Philosophy, Polish­Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Krajewski, Wladyslaw. II. Series. Q174.B67 vol. 68 [Q175.3] SOls [501] 81-13887 ISBN-13: 978-90-277-1287-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-7705-1 001: 10.1007/978-94-009-7705-1

This volume of translations from the Polish was prepared for publication by R. S. Cohen with the editorial assistance of C. R. Fawcett.

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EDITORIAL PREFACE

Modern philosophy has benefited immensely from the intelligence and sensitivity, the creative and critical energies, and the lucidity of Polish scholars. Their investigations into the logical and methodological founda­tions of mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, ethics and esthetics, psychology, linguistics, economics and jurisprudence, and the social sciences - all are marked by profound and imaginative work. To the centers of empiricist philosophy of science in Vienna, Berlin and Cambridge during the first half of this century, one always added the great school of analytic and methodological studies in Warsaw and Lw6w. To the world centers of Marxist theoretical practice in Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Rome and elsewhere, one must add the Poland of the same era, from Ludwig Krzywicki (1859-1941) onward. (From our preface to Wiatr [1979p.

Other movements also have been distinctive in Poland. Phenomenology was developed in the impressive school of Roman Ingarden at Cracow, semiotics from the early work of the philosopher and psychologist Kazimierz Twardowski at Lw6w in the 1890's, with masterful develop­ment by his disciples Kotarbinski and Ajdukiewicz onward, conceptual foundations of physics in the incisive methodological reflections of Marian Smoluchowski, and mathematical logic from Jan I:.ukasiewicz and Stanislaw Lesniewski to Tarski, Mostowski, and many others.

For this volume of papers on the critical understanding of the natural sciences, our friend and colleague, Wladislaw Krajewski, has invited three dozen of the younger Polish philosophers to contribute results of their quite recent investigations, mainly from the last decade. We hope that this book will fill the gap remaining among the admirable English language collections of modern Polish philosophy edited by Pelc [1978], Przelecki and W 6 jcicki [1977], and Wiatr [1979]. Other works of individual scholars are also available in English, such as Giedymin's edition of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's principal papers [1978], and Ajdukiewicz's Pragmatic Logic [1974], and our edition of Henry Mehlberg's 1935 'Essai sur la tbeorie causale du temps' in the collection of his writings Time, Causality and the Quantum Theory (Boston Studies 19, 1980).

Professor Krajewski has introduced the book with a useful survey of Polish philosophy of science, from the extraordinary Witelo's Perspectiva

v

vi EDITORIAL PREFACE

(c. 1270), in the tradition of aI-Hazen, to our own time. This book also contains an unusually rich 'Bibliography of Polish Philosophy of Science', the most complete available to our knowledge. We expect that readers will surely be led by our contributors, their own references, the Bibliog­raphy, and Krajewski's 'Introduction', to further study of both tradi­tional and contemporary contributions from Poland to scientific and philosophical enlightenment.

* * * We regret that during the course of preparation of this book, one of the authors, Dr Tadeusz Nadel-Turonski, died at 36, and also the great Polish philosophical leader, Tadeusz Kotarbinski at 95.

* * * We are glad to acknowledge the kind permission granted by the publishers of C. F. von Weizsacker's book The Unity of Nature to quote many passages from that work in the final paper of this book: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (for the English translation) and Hanser (for the original German edition). We also acknowledge permission granted by Gruner, publisher of Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities to reprint the 1975 paper by J. Misiek from that journal. And we acknowledge the cooperation of the Polish authors' representative institution, Agencja Autorska, for their cooperation in arranging the permissions for this book.

We are most grateful to Carolyn Fawcett, who compiled the name index and the 'Bibliography of Works of Non-Polish Authors', edited both Bibliographies, and undertook the principal tasks of reading proofs and assisting in the revision of the English translations.

Readers should note that references in the text to Polish authors' works are given in square brackets, while references to works by non­Polish authors are given in parentheses; these refer to the appropriate Bibliographies.

* * * As Krajewski, writing in 1980, suggests, the 'theoretical' dogmatism in Poland some decades ago - "that sad time", he writes - was oppressive for Marxists and non-Marxists alike, as dogmatisms have always tended to be in other times and places. We welcome this collection of original and lively papers to the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. May the sad time of today pass quickly.

Center for the Philosophy and History of Science ROBER T S. COHEN Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY

January 15, 1982

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITORIAL PREFACE V

W. KRAJEWSKI/Introduction: Polish Philosophy of Science Xl

I. GENERAL METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

S. AMSTERDAMSKI / Reflections on Science and Rationality 3

A. MOTYCKA / The Epistemological and Methodological Sense of the Concept of Rationality 19

A. SIEMIANOWSKI / On Two Kinds of Conventionalism with Respect to Empirical Sciences 31

w. NIEDZWIEDZKI / Realism and Instrumentalism: On A Priori Conditions of Science 43

I. SZUMILEWICZ-LACHMAN / Once More about Empirical Sup-port 51

E. CHMIELECKA / The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification: A Reappraisal 63

E. PIETRUSKA-MADEJ / Continuity and Anticumulative Changes in the Growth of Science 75

A. I:.ODyNSKI / Some Remarks in Defense of the Incommensur-ability Thesis 91

A. MIS / Marxism and the Controversy over the Development of ~~ce 100

J. SUCH / Are there Definitively Falsifying Procedures in Science? 113

W. PATRY AS / The Pluralistic Approach to Empirical Testing and the Special Forms of Experiment 127

I. NOW AKOW A / Dialectical Correspondence and Essential Truth 135

J. SZYMANsKI/Testing Idealizational Laws 147

M. K. STASIAK / Practical Idealization 153

Vll

viii T ABLE OF CONTENTS

II. FORMAL ANALYSIS

J. M. ZYTKOW / An Interpretation of a Concept in Science by a Set of Operational Procedures 169

w. STRA WINSKI / A Formal Definition of the Concept of Sim-plicity 187

E. KAI:.USZyNSKA / Characteristics of Additive Quantities 197

III. ONTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

J. MISIEK / On the Concept of Matter z. AUGUSTYNEK / Time Separation w. KRAJEWSKI/Four Conceptions of Causation

IV. PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS AND INFORMATION THEORY

A. LUBOMIRSKI / On the Philosophy of Mathematics z. CACKOWSKI / Information, Regulation, Negentropy M. LUBANSKI / Information and Signal

V. PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICS

211 215 223

239 249 265

T. NADEL-TURONSKI / Principles of Physics as Meta-laws 277 M. TEMPCZYK / Structural Laws in Physics 287 I. RA YSKI / Controversial Problems of the Probabilistic Inter-

pretation of Quantum Phenomena 299 M. BIELECKI/Quantum Mechanics and the Structure of Physical

Theories 309 M. CZARNOCKA and I.M. ZYTKOW / Difficulties with the Reduc-

tion of Classical to Relativistic Mechanics 319

VI. PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS

E. MICKIEWICZ-OLCZYK / Genetic and Historical Explanation in Biology 335

K. I:.ASTOWSKI / The Idealizational Status of Theoretical Biology 353

T ABLE OF CONTENTS ix

Z. PIATEK / Chomsky's Inconsistencies in his Critique of Evolu-tionary Conceptions of Language 365

VII. OTHER PAPERS

A. SYNOWIECKI / The Problem of the Chemical Organization of Matter in the Light of a Closed Development Model 377

R. W A WRZYNCZAK / An Outline of a Simulation Model of Science as a Part of the Model of Action 391

E. OLSZ EWSKI / The Notion of Technological Research and its Place among other Informational Activities 407

s. OLCZYK and M. PRZANOWSKI/ Difficulties with Absolutism: The Case of Von Weizsiicker's Philosophy 413

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

ABBREVIA TIONS USED IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHIES 433 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF POLISH PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL SCIENCE 435 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NON-POLISH AUTHORS CITED 459

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 469

INDEX OF NAMES 471

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 481

Wl:.ADYSl:.AW KRAJEWSKI

INTRODUCTION: POLISH PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Polish philosophy, including the philosophy of science, has long and rich traditions. In the thirteenth century a Silesian philosopher and mathema­tician named Vitelo wrote a treatise about light: Perspectiva. The greatest Polish scientist was, of course, Mikolaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1543); his De Revolutionibus was a classic work on natural philoso­phy. Adam Burski (1560-1611), who, in Dialectica Ciceronis, advocated stoic empiricism, recommended the use of the inductive method prior to Bacon. Bacon's methodology was propagated by Jan Jonston (I 603-1675) who collaborated with the famous Czech educationist, Jan Amos Komensky, in Leszno (a Polish town where Komensky escaped from religious persecution). They wrote in Latin.

In the eighteenth century scientists and philosophers in Poland began to write in Polish (however, literature in the Polish language had existed since the fifteenth century). Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830), a mathematician and philosopher, supported empiricism. His brother, J~drzej Sniadecki (1768-1838), a chemist and biologist, appealed to the unity of experience and reason; in his Theory of Organic Beings* [1804] he stated - for the first time in the history of science - that proteins are the chemical basis of life. An eminent mathematician, J6zef Hoene-Wronski (1778-1853), elaborated a rationalist and metaphysical philosophy. There were other metaphysical philosophers as well.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, positivism and scientism spread in Poland, as in other European countries. A program of this movement was formulated by Julian Ochorowicz (1850-1917). Adam Mahrburg (1860-1913) criticized teleology, which was expounded by the Catholic philosophers. Wladyslaw Bieganski (1857-1917), a physician and philosopher, proclaimed in his turn a 'neoteleology' (a kind of ex­planation according to purposive-function).

Philosophical ideas were developed by some distinguished scientists. Marian Smoluchowski (1872-1917), the famous physicist, stressed the

• Written and published in Polish. Henceforth in this Introduction I shall give the titles of Polish works in English. For full details of the works published after 1930, see the Bibliography of Polish Authors.

Xl

Wladyslaw Krajewski (ed.). Polish Essays in the Philosophy of the Natural Sciences. xi-xxviii. Copyright © 1982 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.

xii W. KRAJEWSKI

role of hypotheses, especially of the atomistic one; he also did interesting research on the methodological status of statistical laws, considering chance, which forms the basis of these laws (so-called 'calculable chance') to be a special kind of causal relation. The biologists, Benedykt Dybowski (1833-1930) and J6zef Nussbaum-Hilarowicz (1859-1917), engaged in polemics with Catholic philosophers hostile to Darwinism. Antoni Boleslaw Dobrowolski (1872-1954), a geophysicist and one of the founders of cryology (the science of low temperatures), criticized every 'magic­mysticism' and speculative philosophy; he tried to create a science of science. On the other hand, Wladyslaw Natanson (1864-1939), an eminent physicist, claimed that science is perfectly compatible with religion. Samuel Dickstein (1851-1939), a mathematician and historian of science, expressed some interesting ideas concerning the philosophy of mathe­matics.

At the beginning of this century, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938), a former student of Franz Brentano, proclaimed a program of exact philosophy. He analyzed different philosophical and psychological con­cepts and thus initiated analytical philosophy in Poland. He was the founder of the so-called Lw6w-Warsaw school, which played a crucial role in Polish philosophy between the two World Wars when it had close ties with the Vienna Circle. The following co-workers of Twardowski were the main members of this school:

Tadeusz Kotarbinski (1886-1981) proclaimed 'reism' or 'concretism', a version of materialism and nominalism (only concrete material things exist). His book, Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal logic and Methodology of Science [1929], played a great role in philosophical education in Poland, both before and after World War II. Kotarbinski was also a founder of 'praxiology', a general science of human action. Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890-1963) did very valuable research in formal logic and methodology, especially on the language of science. He stressed the role of terminological conventions in science and even proposed a 'radical conventionalism', but afterwards shifted to more moderate views. His main papers, written in German, appeared in Erkenntnis. Tadeusz Czezowski (1889-1981) analyzed different philosophical concepts, and dealt with methodology, semantics and axiology. Izydora D~mbska (1904- ) did research on methodology and axiology, history of philo­sophy and history of science.

Other members of the Lw6w-Warsaw school were mainly co-workers of Kotarbinski and Ajdukiewicz. Dina Sztejnbarg (now Janina Kotar-

INTRODUCTION xiii

binska, T. Kotarbinski's wife) wrote about determinism and other methodological problems. Janina Hossiasson-Lindenbaum (1899-1942; murdered by the Nazis) wrote about induction. Henry (Henryk) Mehlberg (1904--1979, from 1949 in America) wrote about time. Edward Poznanski (died in Israel) wrote about operational definitions. Maria Kokoszynska­Lutmanowa and Seweryna I::.uszczewska-Rohmanowa (1904--1978) ela­borated some problems of logic and methodology. It is worth noting that women have played an essential role in Polish philosophy and play it still (the authors of this volume include nine women).

The development of Polish philosophy of science was deeply influenced by the mathematical logic which has flourished in Poland since the First World War. Jan I::.ukasiewicz (1878-1956), the famous creator of many­valued logic also took up many philosophical questions; he tried to justify indeterminism using a three-valued logic. Stanislaw Lesniewski (1886-1939) created his own logical systems, among them 'mereology', which affected Kotarbinski's reism. I::.ukasiewicz and Lesniewski founded the Warsaw logic school. The most distinguished of its members were Alfred Tarski (1901- ,since 1939 in America), known for his studies in different branches of logic, and especially for his theory of truth, and Andrzej Mostowski (1913-1975), known for his works on the foundations of mathematics. Adolf Lindenbaum (died in the Vilnius ghetto during the German occupation), Leon Chwistek, Stanislaw Jaskowski and Jerzy Slupecki should also be mentioned.

Some philosophers connected with the Lw6w-Warsaw school took up problems in the philosophy of science, especially of physics. Zygmunt Zawirski (I 882-I 948) wrote about time and tried to apply many-valued logic to the interpretation of quantum mechanics (before Hans Reichen­bach and Paulette Hvrier). His disciple, Joachim Metallmann (1899-1942, murdered by the Nazis) wrote a book on determinism (he distin­guished causal, statistical and morphological determinism). Boleslaw Gawecki (1889- ) wrote about causality in physics and about the theory of knowledge.

Among the physicists, Czeslaw Bialobrzeski (I878-1953) discussed various philosophical problems. He opposed positivism and pointed out the indeterminism of quantum mechanics, trying to interpret it in terms of Aristotle's philosophy.

It is worth mentioning that an eminent sociologist, Stanislaw Ossowski (1897-1963) and his wife Maria Ossowska (1896-1976), philosopher and ethicist, both closely connected with the Lw6w-Warsaw school,

xiv W. KRAJ[WSKI

wrote a pioneering paper 'Science of Science' [1936], in which they analyzed different aspects of science.

There were also other philosophical currents in Poland. A phenome­nological school was created by Roman Ingarden (1893-1970), a former student and disciple of Husserl. There were numerous Thomist philo­sophers, mainly at the Catholic universities and theological faculties. Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz (1886-1980), a historian of philosophy and of aesthetics, was close to them; his three-volume History of Philosophy (the last volume appeared after the war) played an essential role in philosophical education, similar to the role of Kotarbinski's Elements. On the other hand, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939), a well­known playwright and philosopher, developed a 'biological monadism'. However, all these currents hardly touched the philosophy of science.

A new situation arose in 1945. Before the war, Marxist philosophy was represented at Polish universities to a very limited degree (by Stefan Rudnianski and, partly, by Leon Chwistek). After the war, Marxism was widespread. However, until 1949, other philosophical currents were still lively and the competition among them was fruitful. Vivacious polemics took place between Marxists and Thomists. Adam Schaff was the most active among the former, Kazimierz Kl6sak, among the latter. Both Marxist and non-Marxist books were widely published. As Ossowski wrote, Poland, where various philosophical streams cross and compete, might become an arena in which new philosophical ideas arise. However, after 1949 the situation rapidly changed. A 'Stalinization' of all of cultural life occurred (though this process was milder in Poland than in many other countries).

In 1949-51, non-Marxist chairs of philosophy were eliminated from the state universities; only the chairs of logic remained (Kotarbinski and Ajdukiewicz had to confine themselves to teaching logic, Ingarden and Tatarkiewicz to the translating and editing of philosophical classics). True, two Catholic universities, in Lublin and Warsaw, remained Thomist. The publishing possibilities of the non-Marxist philosophers were severely limited. Many contracts were cancelled by the publishing houses. Kotar­binski's book, Treatise on Good Work [1955], was one of the exceptions.

The dogmatism of the Stalin era seriously affected the quality of Marxist philosophy of that time. The communist philosophers, usually young ones, sharply criticized 'bourgeois' philosophers, not only Thomists and phenomenologists but also the influential Lw6w-Warsaw school (including Twardowski, Kotarbinski and Ajdukiewicz) as idealistic,

INTRODUCTION xv

metaphysical, etc. Dialectical and historical materialism was propagated in a primitive Stalinist form. The philosophers of science, following the Soviet philosophy of that time, condemned cybernetics, 'formal' genetics (,Mendelism-Morganism'), relativistic cosmology (with its closed models of the universe), the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics, the theory of resonance in chemistry, etc., accusing them of idealism or mechanism. I shall not mention the names of philosophers active in that sad time. I must only admit that I was one of them.

After the so-called 'Polish October' in 1956, the situation changed. Non-Marxist philosophers were again allowed to give lectures and seminars at the universities; only the mass-lectures for students of non­philosophical departments were reserved for Marxists. The latter, in any case the majority of them, got rid of dogmatism. We 'discovered' that cybernetics and Mendelian genetics are not mechanistic, that rela­tivistic cosmology is not 'idealist' and the universe is, or may be, finite, although all materialists, from Democritus to Engels, held it to be infinite, that motion and change do not contain logical contradiction, in spite of the views of Hegel, Engels and Lenin, etc. The Lw6w-Warsaw school was no longer criticized. On the contrary, its former critics pointed out its merits, especially in the development of logic and semantics which turned out not to be 'idealistic' (cf. Introduction to Semantics by Adam Schaff [1960]). The expression 'bourgeois philosophy' was mostly replaced by the expression 'non-Marxist philosophy'.

The glorious traditions of Polish logic were continued by Ajdukiewicz, Kotarbinski, Czezowski, Mostowski, Slupecki, Kokoszynska-Lutmanowa, Kotarbinska, I:.uszczewska-Rohmanowa and their former students: Roman Suszko (1919-1979), Jerzy 1:.08, Andrzej Grzegorczyk, Helena Rasiowa, Klemens Szaniawski, Marian Przel~cki, Ryszard W6jcicki, Jerzy Pelc, Stanislaw Surma, Witold Marciszewski, Tadeusz Kubinski, Leon Koj, Halina Mortimer and others. In particular, Ajdukiewicz's book, Pragmatic Logic, which appeared posthumously. in 1965, made a stir.

Many Marxist philosophers, in any case the philosophers of science, tried to familiarize themselves with the achievements of Polish logic and the analytic philosophy in general. In 1957, an all-Polish ~eminar on the philosophy of science started at the newly organized Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its main participants were: Helena Eilstein (she was the head of the seminar) and Wladyslaw Krajewski from Warsaw, Zdzislaw Augustynek and Zdzislaw

xvi W. KRAJEWSKI

Kochanski from Cracow, Stefan Amsterdamski from t.odz, Irena Szumi­lewicz from Gdansk, Jan Such from Poznan and Waclaw Mejbaum from Wroclaw. We studied and discussed the works of Carnap, Reichenbach, Popper, Hempel, Nagel, Bunge, Griinbaum as well as books by Soviet philosophers of science. We had personal contacts and discussions with philosophers of science from the USSR (Kedrov, Omelyanovsky, Svyet­chnikov, Sachkov, Akchurin, Ovchinnikov), the German Democratic Republic (Ley, Horz), Czechoslovakia (TondI, Berka), Bulgaria (Poli­karov), Yugoslavia (Markovic, Kniazeva) and also from the USA (R. S. Cohen, A. Griinbaum). We studied the achievements of physics, biology and cybernetics. We discussed what is still valuable and alive in the works of the classics of Marxism and what must be abandoned. The participants in this seminar published the following books: The Material Unity of the World by Eilstein and others [1961]; Law, Necessity, Prob­ability by Amsterdamski, Augustynek and Mejbaum [1964]; The Theory of the Thermal Death of the Universe [1961] and The Direction of Time [1964], both by Szumilewicz; The Problem of Finality in Biology [1966] by Kochanski; Causal Connection [1967b] by Krajewski.

The possibility of reducing biological laws to physico-chemical ones became the subject of a lively discussion (initiated by Helena Eilstein and Gustaw Kerszman). Among the Polish philosophers of science, the view soon prevailed that the traditional Marxist 'anti-reductionist' standpoint should be revised. Reduction is both possible and desirable in principle. However, the features of biological objects must be taken into account in the course of the reduction and, in a sense, the specific quality of the biolo­gical level may be acknowledged. Probably, a reduction of sociological laws to biological ones is possible in principle, too, though we cannot perform it yet. Some philosophers of science, e.g., Czeslaw Nowinski (1906-1981), remained hostile to every reduction.

In Poznan, Jerzy Giedymin, after his attendance at Popper's seminar in London, organized a group of logicians and philosophers who elaborated a hypotheticist methodology and criticized the inductive method. Other logicians (Ajdukiewicz, Kotarbinska) argued against them, in defence of induction. In 1965 Giedymin moved to England but the Poznan group, headed by Jerzy Kmita, continued its activity.

There were conferences with discussions among philosophers of science and logicians. In 1964 a conference on theory and experience took place in Warsaw. The papers were read by Wojcicki, Przel~ki, Mortimer, Giedymin, Mejbaum, Eilstein and Krajewski. The proceedings were

INTRODUCTION xvii

published in the book, Theory and Experience, edited by Eilstein and Przel~ki [1966].

There were also discussions with physicists, biologists and cyberneti­cists. A logician and cyberneticist, Henryk Greniewski (1903-1972), analyzed certain philosophical problems of cybernetics and technology. Similar problems were also taken into account by Stanislaw Lem, a well­known science fiction writer, especially in his Summa technologiae [1964]. Oskar Lange, in the last period of his life, became a cybernetician and philosopher. He published a small but very valuable book, Whole and Development in the Light of Cybernetics [1962]. In this book he tried to express some ideas of dialectic materialist ontology in a precise cyber­netic language. The editorial board of Studia Filozojiczne, headed by Helena Eilstein, organized interesting discussions about Lange's and Lem's books.

Some epistemological problems were elaborated by Izydora D~mbska in Cracow. She published a valuable book, On Instruments and Objects of Cognition [1967]. In Lublin Narcyz I:ubnicki wrote essays on episte­mology and methodology. His younger co-worker, Zdzislaw Cackowski, published two books: Cognitive Contents of Perceptions [1962] and Prob­lems and Pseudo problems [1964]. In Toruo., some logical and epistemolo­gical problems were elaborated by Tadeusz Czezowski and his co-workers: Slawomir Rogowski, Leon Gumao.ski, Boguslaw Wolniewicz (now at Warsaw). The latter published a book on Wittgenstein's philosophy, Things and Facts [1968].

All the above-mentioned philosophers worked in the manner of analyti­cal philosophy, i.e., they tried to be precise and to base their analysis on science. Some of them were Marxists and others were not; sometimes they were even opposed to materialism.

There were also other philosophical attitudes. Many Polish philoso­phers, including Marxists, were interested in questions concerning the human situation in society and in the world. They were closer to classical philosophy, sometimes to existentialism or phenomenology. Here, in the first place the historians of philosophy should be mentioned: Leszek Kolakowski, Bronislaw Baczko, and their numerous co-workers, and also among younger persons Krzysztof Pomian and Andrzej Walicki. Also many ethicists (Marek Fritzhand and Henryk Jankowski) and aestheticians (such as the leading aesthetician, Stefa1'l Morawski) were close to them. I wrote in one of my Polish essays [1963] about two schools of thought in Marxist philosophy, connected with non-Marxists' philoso-

xviii W. KRAJEWSKI

phical currents: the 'scientistic' or analytic school and the 'humanistic' or anthropological one. True, the 'humanists' did not affect the philosophy of science. (In similar fashion, Baczko also wrote in the same year, 1963, about two 'styles of thinking' in Marxist philosophy: analytically-episte­mological and synthetically-anthropological.) These two schools differed in many respects (I use the past tense but these differences still exist, and not to a lesser extent). I shall briefly mention the main controversial questions. I shall designate the first school by SP (scientific philosophers) and the second one by AP (anthropological philosophers).

1. What is philosophy about? SP continued the Democritean and Aristotelian tradition, according to which philosophy speaks, in the first place, about the world and its cognition and only on this basis about human beings, society, etc. They developed a scientific ontology, episte­mology, methodology. AP continued the Socratic and Epicurean tradi­tion, according to which philosophy speaks, in the first place, about human beings and their actions, praxis. They developed mainly philosophy of man, philosophy of history, ethics, aesthetics.

2. Is philosophy based on science? SP continued the tradition of materialism (and positivism): philosophy is a science sui gener;s which should be based on particular sciences, both natural and social ones, should analyze their concepts and methods, and generalize their results. AP continued the tradition of classical German philosophy and some contemporary currents (phenomenology, existentialism): philosophy is an autonomous domain of thinking, it is not a science.

3. What are the methods of philosophy? According to SP, scientific methods; first of all, analysis and then synthesis. Formal logic (mathe­matics, cybernetics, etc.) is very useful for philosophical analysis. Accord­ing to AP, special philosophical methods are required, such as dialectical reasoning, hermeneutics, etc.

4. What is the basic part of Marxist philosophy? According to SP, dialectical materialism; according to AP, historical materialism. In epistemology, SP pointed out the growth of science through relative truths to absolute truth while AP pointed to human practice as the creator of knowledge and to its dependence on social conditions.

5. What is valuable in non-Marxist philosophy? SP criticized positivism but highly valued the logical and methodological achievements of logical empiricism and the entire analytic philosophy (they were, for this reason, called 'positivists' by AP). AP criticized Hegelianism, existentialism and phenomenology, but valued highly many sides of those philosophical

INTRODUCTION xix

currents and held in contempt all kinds of positivism (they were called 'Hegelians' by SP).

6. What is most valuable in the Marxist tradition? SP pointed out Marxian economics and the philosophical ideas of Engels, Lenin, Plek­hanov, Kautsky, Bukharin, etc. AP pointed to the philosophical ideas of the young Marx, some writings of Lenin, and the philosophical works of Lukacs, Gramsci, etc. (It is worth noting that Gramsci, proclaiming his 'philosophy of practice', accused Plekhanov and Bukharin of positivism and Aristotelianism).

In short, AP held SP not to be 'genuine philosophers', and SP held AP to be 'speculative philosophers'. Both claimed that their way of develop­ment of Marxist philosophy is the proper one. I will add that in a later period many participants of both schools ceased to consider themselves Marxists; however, SP continued to elaborate 'scientific philosophy', and AP, 'genuine philosophy'.

There were Marxists in Poland who were neither SP nor AP. Some of them accused both schools of 'revisionism' and deviation from orthodox Marxism towards idealism (AP) or positivism and mechanism (SP). Some of these Marxist philosophers dealt with the philosophy of science. Czes­law Nowinski elaborated problems of epistemology and philosophy of biology. He stressed dialectics and historicism and valued highly, besides the classics of Marxism, the works of Jean Piaget. Jaroslaw t.adosz, who elaborated the philosophy of mathematics (and later turned to the political sciences), took a similar position. He too opposed 'deviations' from orthodox Marxism and examined some of Piaget's ideas in an effort to use them in his Essays on the Epistemology of Mathematics [1968].

Other streams of Polish philosophy persisted too. In Cracow, Roman Ingarden and his phenomenological school resumed activity in different branches of philosophy after 1956, but not in the philosophy of science. Ingarden's pupil, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, moved to the U.S.A. In Cracow, Danuta Gierulanka published a book on the Problem of Speci­ficity in Mathematical Cognition [1962]. Andrzej P61tawski dealt with some epistemological problems.

Thomist philosophy - sometimes associated with phenomenology -continued to develop at the Catholic universities. The most eminent Catholic philosophers were Stefan SwieZawski, Mieczyslaw A. Kr~piec and Karol Wojtyla (now Pope John Paul II). Some Catholic philosophers took up problems in the philosophy of science. Stanislaw Mazierski wrote about determinism and indeterminism in philosophy and physics.

xx W. KRAJEWSKI

Stanislaw Kaminski wrote about the classification of the sciences and other philosophical problems. Boleslaw Gawecki published books on 'evolution­ary realism' in epistemology [1967] and on causality in physics [1969] in a Catholic publishing house. In some respects their papers are close to the methods used in analytical philosophy. Mieczyslaw Lubanski dis­cussed philosophical problems of information theory quite in the analyti­cal way.

In 1968 the development of Polish philosophy was, once more, disturbed by political events (the so-called 'events of March'). Many eminent philosophers, both AP and SP, charged with political destructiveness, with 'revisionism' in Marxism, sometimes with 'Zionism', were dismissed from universities or removed from other posts. Some of them emigrated to the West, among them the philosophers of science Helena Eilstein (now in the USA) and Zdzislaw Kochanski (who died in 1978). Stefan Amster­dam ski and Irena Szumilewicz-Lachman lost their jobs at the universities and only after some years were employed by the Polish Academy of Sci­ences. Some zealous philosophers joined the campaign against 'revision­ism' and blamed 'bourgeois' philosophy. However, a return to Stalinism in philosophy was, of course, impossible. All currents of Polish philosophy continued to develop.

Of the older generation, Kotarbinski wrote further papers on praxi­ology, Czezowski on logic and axiology; Tatarkiewicz wrote books on the history of aesthetics; D~mbska published two books: On Conventions and Conventionalism [I 975a] and a collection of papers, Signs and Thoughts [1975c].

The logicians of the younger generations were active, as before. In Warsaw, Suszko elaborated non-Fregean logic and 'diachronic logic'; Szaniawski worked on decision theory, Przel~cki, formal methodology and semantics; Pe1c and Barbara Stanosz worked on semiotics, Adam Nowaczyk, on formal methodology. In Cracow, Surma and others dealt with the history of logic. In Wroclaw, Wojcicki, Mejbaum, and Elzbieta Kaluszynska elaborated formal methodology. Wojcicki's book, Formal Methodology of the Empirical Sciences [1974a], has played a great role which may be compared with the role of Ajdukiewicz's Pragmatic Logic. Zygmunt Ziembinski in Poznan and Zygmunt Ziemba in Warsaw devel­oped deontic logic.

Some Marxist philosophers elaborated problems of the theory of know 1-edge. Zdzislaw Cackowski, dealing with problems on the border of episte­mology and philosophy of man, published a book on Man as the Subject

INTRODUCTION xxi

of Action and Knowledge (1979], Stanislaw Rainko, a book on The Role of the Subject in Cognition [1979]; and Tadeusz Jaroszewski wrote Reflec­tions on Praxis [1974]. Adam Schaff wrote Essays on Structuralism [1975].

Philosophers of science continued their activity. In Cracow, Zdzislaw Augustynek elaborated various logico-philosophical problems of time in the light of relativity theory; he published several books: Properties of Time [1970]; The Nature of Time [1975]; Past, Present, Future [1979b]. In Warsaw, two of my books appeared: Engels on the Motion of Matter and Its Lawfulness [1973b] and Necessity, Chance, Statistical Law (1977c]. Zbigniew Majewski wrote Dialectic of the Structure of Matter [1974] where - its title to the contrary notwithstanding - he developed a program of reductionism. Adam Synowiecki, from Gdansk, published a book, The Problem of Mechanism in the Natural Sciences [1969].

In Poznan, Jan Such published three books: On the Universality of Scientific Laws [1972b]; Problems of the Verification of Knowledge (1975b] and Is there an Experimentum Crucis? [1975a]. Jerzy Kmita, dealing with the philosophy of the humanities, published a book on Methodological Problems of Humanistic Interpretation [197lb]. A younger Poznan philo­sopher, Leszek Nowak, is even more active. In his book, Foundations of Marx's Methodology of the Sciences [197lb] he undertook a reconstruc­tion of the method used by Marx in Das Kapital and pointed out that it was the method of idealization which is also used in physics and other sciences. In numerous further books, Nowak elaborated an'idealizational' and 'essentialist' conception of science, introducing many new concepts. These books were criticized by some Polish philosophers and logicians, and strongly supported by others.

Many young philosophers elaborated problems of the philosophy of physics: Michal Tempczyk and Jan Zytkow in Warsaw, Jozef Misiek in Cracow, Wiktor Niedzwiedzki and Tadeusz Nadel-Turonski in t,odz, Izabella Nowakowa in Poznan, and others. Philosophical problems were also discussed by physicists: Jerzy Rayski, Andrzej Trautman, Jerzy Plebanski, J6zef Werle, Zygmunt Chylinski and Jan Jerzy Slawianowski.

Philosophical problems of biology were elaborated in Warsaw by Czeslaw Nowinski, Andrzej Bednarczyk and Jozef StuchliDski, in t,6dz by Elzbieta Mickiewicz-Olczyk, in Crac6w by Zdzislawa PiQ,tek, in Poznan by Krzysztof I:,astowski and others. A biologist Wladyslaw Kunicki-Goldfinger discussed some philosophical problems in Heritage and Future [1974]. Another biologist, Adam Urbanek, discussed many methodological problems in The Scientific Revolution in Biology [1973].

xxii W. KRA1EWSKI

Some philosophical problems of mathematics were elaborated by Izydora D~mbska, Andrzej Lubomirski and others.

An astronomer and priest, Michal Heller, treated different philosophi­cal problems in his popular books, Towards the Universe [1971], Encoun­ters with Science [1974] and others. Philosophical problems of astronomy were discussed, from a materialist point of view, by Stanislaw Butryn.

Methodological problems of the social sciences were taken up by Kle­mens Szaniawski, Stefan Nowak and their co-workers in Warsaw, by Tadeusz Pawlowski in 1:6dz, and others. Jerzy Topolski in Poznan has written on the methodology of history. Adam Podg6recki, Henryk Stonert, Andrzej Siemianowski and Stefan Ziemski elaborated the method­ology of the 'practical sciences'. Eugeniusz Olszewski and Jerzy Szyman­ski dealt with problems of the philosophy of technology.

During the last decade, philosophers of science in Poland as in many other countries, discussed the problems of the growth of science very much, especially the logical status of the correspondence principle in physics and, in general, relations between successive theories. Different views have been represented in two collections of papers: The Correspond­ence Principle in Physics and the Growth of Science, edited by Krajewski, Mejbaum and Such [Krajewski et al. I 974a] , and Relations between Theories and the Development of Science, edited by Krajewski, Pietruska­Madej and Zytkow [Krajewski et al. 1978]. There were also many discus­sions of more general problems, especially on the role of internal and external factors and on historicism in the study of science. Kmita in his Essays on the Theory of Scientific Knowledge [1976] claims that science should be explained by historical conditions, which he holds to be a postulate of Marxism. Also Amsterdamski, in his book, Between Ex­perience and Metaphysics [1975a], stresses the role of historical conditions and, in general, external factors in science, but without appealing to Marxism. Amsterdamski and Szumilewicz support the idea of incom­mensurability, propagated, as we know, by Kuhn and Feyerabend, though they do not go so far as the latter. Krystyna Zamiara, from Poznan, supports some other ideas of Feyerabend. Many Polish philoso­phers and logicians oppose these ideas. I myself argued many times against the theses of incommensurability, untranslatable languages, etc., pointing out the crucial role of internal factors in science. Similar views are presented by Jan Zytkow, Andrzej Lewenstam and many others.

Some authors investigate the methodological aspects of particular theories and revolutions in the history of science. Eltbieta Pietruska-

INTRODUCTION xxiii

Madej has written a book on Lavoisier's work, Methodological Problems of the Revolution in Chemistry [1975], Kazimierz Slc;czka, on Lyell's uniformitarianism [1975], Andrzej Bednarczyk, on Goethe's theory of morphological type [1973]. A new book by Pietruska-Madej, The Search for Laws of the Growth of Science [1980] analyzes various philosophical problems of the growth of science, especially relations between the de­scriptive, prescriptive and axiological aspects of the science.

Contemporary Polish philosophy of science is not unknown in the West. Kotarbinski's works on praxiology and logic have been translated into English and French. Books by Ajdukiewicz, Stefan Nowak, Topolski and Ziembinski have been published in English in the Synthese Library (D. Reidel Publishing Co.). The same Library also includes three collec­tions of papers translated from the Polish: Twenty-five Years of Logical Methodology in Poland, edited by Przelc;cki and Wojcicki [1977]; Semiotics in Poland 1894-1969, edited by Pelc [1978]; and Polish Essays in thl! Methodology of the Social Sciences, edited by Wiatr [1979]. Przelc;cki published a small book, The Logic of Empirical Theories, written originally in English [London 1969]. Amsterdamski's Between Experience and Meta­physics (translated from the Polish) appeared in [1975a]. As a partial polemic against this book I published - directly in English - my Cor­respondence Principle and Growth of Science [1977a]. Recently Wojcicki published an English book, Topics in the Formal Methodology of Empiri­cal Sciences [1979], which is a new version of his earlier Polish book [1974a] mentioned above.

The present volume is devoted to the philosophy and especially the methodology of the natural sciences and to the philosophy of science in general. It includes thirty-five papers written by thirty-six authors. (In order to present new authors, I did not include authors who participated in the three Synthese Library collections mentioned above.) One of the authors (Przanowski) is a young physicist, one (Rayski) is an eminent physicist, one (Olszewski) is a historian of technology, and the others are philosophers. The majority took their master's degrees in different sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology) and their doctorates in philosophy. Half of the authors live and work in Warsaw, the others in Poznan, t.odi, Cracow, Gdansk and Lublin. The majority teach at universities where many have the rank of professor.

The authors represent different philosophical views. Many of them consider themselves Marxists, though some of them stress this while

xxiv W. KRAJEWSKI

others do not. Some are former Marxists who do not consider themselves Marxists any more. Some others were never Marxists, two are Catholic philosophers (and one of them a priest). However, as the reader may observe, this diversity does not affect the contents of the papers, in that the philosophy of science is to a great extent independent of general philosophical outlook, of Weltanschauung. In contemporary Thomist philosophy, a demarcation is made between the Philosophy of Nature (which is closely connected with Thomist metaphysics) and the philosophy of science (which is more independent). The Marxists make no such division; they usually speak of philosophy of science (or philosophy of natural sciences). However, some of them connect it more closely with Marxist dialectic, while others treat it more independently, using logical analysis rather than dialectical reasbning. The former are closer to tradi­tional philosophy, the latter closer to science. Almost all authors of this volume belong to the latter group.

Independently of this, there are, as we have mentioned, deep contro­versies within contemporary philosophy of science, and these are lively in Poland. These controversies are, to some extent, present in this volume.

This volume is divided into seven parts. The first includes fourteen papers, devoted to general problems of science, its methodology and its growth. Stefan Amsterdamski, developing the ideas of his book [1975a], claims that one cannot speak about the rationality of science in general, because the criteria of rationality change in the course of history. On the other hand, Alina Motycka analyzes the concept of rationality in general and, comparing its different interpretations, finds their common features; she distinguishes epistemological and methodological concepts of ration­ality but stresses their close connection.

Andrzej Siemianowski analyzes different versions of conventionalism and distinguishes its two main types: the methodological and the philo­sophical (or epistemological); the former does not always lead to the latter (it may be connected with hypotheticism in the epistemology).

Wiktor Niediwiedzki criticizes instrumentalism and at the same time stresses the existence of a priori postulates in science. He does not explain whether he holds this a priori to be absolute or relative.

Irena Szumilewicz-Lachman takes up another controversial issue in contemporary philosophy of science: when does a fact give empirical support to a theory? She claims that, in order to answer this question, we must take into account some problems of the context of discovery. On the other hand, Ewa Chmielecka claims that it is impossible to 'unite'

INTRODUCTION xxv

the context of discovery and the context of justification: when we consider one of them, the other one 'vanishes'.

Elibieta Pietruska-Madej discusses problems of cumulative and re­volutionary models of the growth of science. She points out the ambiguity of the notion of scientific revolution and proposes replacing it by the concept of anti-cumulative change, distinguishing three kinds of such changes. This approach assumes a continuity of science. On the other hand, Andrzej t.odynski tries to defend the incommensurability thesis, stressing meaning-variance, the role of historical conditions, etc., in a Kuhnian way. Andrzej Mis proposes a third conception of the growth of science which he calls Marxist: man is an acting being, science is 'a moment of practice', scientific revolutions are determined by changes in practice (use of instruments, etc.) Nevertheless, the goal of knowledge is always the same, hence there is a continuity. This paper is a typical example of the anthropological or 'praxist' interpretation of Marxism.

Jan Such analyzes the problem of the experimentum crucis. According to him, a definitively falsifying procedure is possible because a played-out theory never comes back in its old shape; moreover, gradually, more and more its faults emerge. On the other hand, Wojciech Patryas, who dis­cusses some problems of empirical testing and develops an idea of plural­ism (as competition between tested hypotheses), claims that usually only 'degrees of inadequacy' of two hypotheses are compared, hence the experimentum crucis is impossible.

rzabella Nowakowa, using Leszek Nowak's conceptual apparatus, elaborates a concept of 'dialectical correspondence' and a concept of 'essential truth'; she aims at describing the progress of science by them. Jerzy Szymanski is, in part, critical of Nowak's conceptions. He claims that idealizationallaws, which disregard side-factors, are tested in science not only by the procedure of concretization, i.e., the gradual taking into account of side-factors in theory, but often also by the creation of experi­mental systems in which side-factors are practically eliminated. Makary K. Stasiak, who develops similar ideas, calls the creation of such systems 'practical idealization'.

The second part of volume includes three papers containing a formal analysis of some concepts (though many other papers use formalization to a greater or lesser extent, too). Jan Zytkow constructs a scheme of interpretation of a scientific concept by means of a set of coherent opera­tional procedures. He does not consider such a set as a complete definition of the concept (in contradistinction to classical operationalism). Witold

xxvi W. KR AIEWSKI

Strawinski proposes a very general formal definition of simplicity (strictly speaking, of the relation 'simpler than'), applying it to material objects, to formalized systems, etc. Elzbieta Kaluszynska criticizes the formal conceptions of quantity elaborated by Ajdukiewicz and Wojcicki as being one-sided. She develops her own conception of an additive quantity, taking into account both empirical (operational) and theoretical (idealiza­tional) levels.

The papers in the third part analyze some ontological concepts. Jozef Misiek proposes a new definition of matter, using the concept of interac­tion. Zdzislaw Augustynek analyzes the concept of time-separation in light of the special theory of relativity; based on this, he defines the concept of time, the concept of present and non-present, etc. In my paper, four conceptions of causation are discussed; according to the materialist (dynamical) one, causation is interpreted as a transmission of energy and/or information.

The next three parts of the volume are devoted to the philosophical problems of particular sciences. The fourth part treats the problems of mathematics and information theory. Andrzej Lubomirski sketches the main issues in the philosophy of mathematics; he points out the role of axiology and the historical approach to mathematics.

Zdzislaw Cackowski connects the concept of information with activity and regulation. He opposes the view that information is identical with negentropy: it is only the part of negentropy which is transmitted and received. On the other hand, Mieczyslaw Lubanski considers information (and the signal) as a structural element of reality; he points out the systemic character and the fuzziness of information.

The fifth part deals with the philosophy of physics. Tadeusz Nadel­Turonski considers some general laws of physics, usually called principles, as meta-laws expressed in meta-language. Michal Tempczyk writes about structural laws, pointing out that one may apply some ideas of struc­turalism to physics. Jerzy Rayski discusses the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to him, probability means our chance of guessing whether an event happens or not, but not an immanent property of an ensemble of events. This, together with time reversibility, allows for a corrected interpretation of QM. Marek Bielecki proposes a pattern of the structure of a physical theory which fits quantum mechanics well. Malgorzata Czarnocka and Jan Zytkow show that the reduction of classical mechanics to relativistic mechanics (assuming v <: c) encoun­ters various difficulties which are rarely noticed.

INTRODUCTION xxvii

The sixth part deals with the philosophy of biology and, in part, linguistics. Eli;bieta Mickiewicz-Olczyk analyzes the concept of explana­tion in biology and distinguishes between genetic and historical explana­tion; she also shows that they satisfy Hempel's model. Krzysztof t.as­towski (L. Nowak's co-worker) discusses the idealizational status of theoretical biology. He analyzes the Hardy-Weinberg law and the law of natural selection from this point of view. Zdzislawa Pi~tek points out some inconsistencies in Chomsky's criticism of evolutionary con­ceptions of language; she also accuses him of underestimating biological evolution.

The last part includes four papers which can hardly be classified into any of the above-mentioned groups. Adam Synowiecki deals with the history of chemistry, applying some of Hegel's ideas to the development of views of the structure of matter. Ryszard Wawrzynczak constructs a cybernetic 'simulation model' of scientific activity. Eugeniusz Olszewski considers technological research as a kind of informational action and as an element of so-called full innovative cycle. And last, Slawoj Olczyk and Maciej Przanowski criticize Weizsacker's attempt to base physics on an absolutist metaphysics which associates Platonic ontology with Kantian epistemology.

Only three papers included in this volume have been previously published in English (two of them not in identical versions). My paper, the oldest one in this volume, was published in Polish in 1964 (Studia Filozojiczne, No. 36) and in English in [1966]; however, I have now made small changes in it (and in the title). The paper by J. Misiek was published in 1975 in Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 1, No.4}; the paper by Z. Pi~tek appeared in a longer version in 1976 in Philosophical Papers, no. 6, published by the Jagellonian University in Cracow.

Some other papers were published earlier in Polish (or in other lan­guages) but many of them have now been revised by the authors. The majority of papers have been written especially for this volume. Some of them were translated by various translators, others were written in English by the authors. The English was then corrected by Brigitte Bojarska and Slawomir Magala; and finally edited by Carolyn R. Fawcett and R. S. Cohen: we are very indebted to them.

I am also indebted to Stefan Amsterdamski, Zdzislaw Augustynek, Andrzej Chmielecki, Robert S. Cohen, Helena Eilstein, Stanislaw Kra-

XXVIII W. KRAJEWSKI

jewski, Mieczyslaw Lubanski, Alina Motycka, Elibieta Pietruska, Andrzej Siemianowski, Irena Szumilewicz-Lachman, Hanna Temkin and Jan Zytkow for their remarks concerning earlier versions of this introductory paper.

On 14 December 1979 one of our authors, Tadeusz Nadel-Turonski, died suddenly in G6teborg, Sweden, at the age of 36. He received his M.Sc. degree in Theoretical Physics from Moscow University in 1967 and his Ph.D. from I:.odi University in 1973, having written a thesis on the 'Logical Theory of Science as Idealization' (supervisor Professor R. Wojcicki). His death, painful for all his friends, is a serious loss for Polish philosophy of science.

Dept. of Philosophy, Warsall' University

W. KRAJEWSKI