Work · Analytic Philosophy
Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic and Methodology of the Sciences
The textbook of the Lwów–Warsaw School and the main statement of reism: only things exist; words for properties and relations are abbreviations.
Introduction
Kotarbiński published the “Elements” in Lwów in 1929; the book became the standard textbook of the Lwów–Warsaw School. It treats the theory of knowledge, formal logic and the methodology of the sciences with the precision the school demanded. At the same time it is the main statement of reism: Kotarbiński argues that genuine names denote only things and that sentences with abstract nouns must be paraphrased into sentences about things to be meaningful. A second edition appeared in 1961, and the English translation “Gnosiology: The Scientific Approach to the Theory of Knowledge” in 1966. Critics, among them members of the school itself, questioned whether all abstract talk, especially in mathematics, can be translated in this way.
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