Kluwer Academic Publishers
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series,
vol. 54 (1998)
ISBN 0-7923-4504-5
Stanisław Leśniewski (1886-1939) was one of the most influential and prominent Polish logicians of the twentieth century, and a co-founder of the Warsaw School of Logic. He is best known for the creation of a unique system of the foundations of mathematics comprising three deductive theories: Protothetic, Ontology, and Mereology.
Despite Leśniewski's notable contributions to logic and the foundations of mathematics, he only managed to publish a few hundred pages, leaving a substantial portion of his work unpublished at the time of his death. Unfortunately, in 1944, all of his unpublished manuscripts were lost in the fire of bombed Warsaw.
The roots of Protothetic can already be found in Leśniewski's early research conducted between 1912 and 1914. The `deductions' that can be found in his 1916 work on the general theory of sets are based on his logical intuitions which eventually were captured in the axioms and directives of Protothetic and Ontology. In 1921, having developed his systems of Mereology and Ontology, Leśniewski was ready to search for a general system `of first principles', which he named Protothetic.
This volume is a collection of the major contributions to Protothetic. The title Leśniewski's Systems: Protothetic does not imply that all relevant papers on Protothetic are included, as some were omitted due to similarity or volume constraints. Also excluded are Leśniewski's own papers dealing with Protothetic, as they are already republished in Stanisław Leśniewski: Collected Works, 1992.
This book is a part of The Leśniewski Collection consisting of:
- Leśniewski's Systems: Ontology and Mereology,
J. T. J. Srzednicki, V. F. Rickey and J. Czelakowski eds.;
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, 13,
Ossolineum and Kluwer Academic Publishers (1984).
- S. Leśniewski's Lecture Notes in
Logic.
J. T. J. Srzednicki and Z. Stachniak, eds.,
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, 24.
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- Stanisław Leśniewski: Collected Works,
S. J. Surma, J. T. J. Srzednicki, and D. I. Barnett, eds.; with
an Annotated Bibliography by V. F. Rickey,
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, 44,
PWN -- Polish Scientific Publishers and Kluwer Academic
Publishers (1992).
- Leśniewski's Systems: Protothetic,
J. T. J. Srzednicki and Z. Stachniak eds.; Z. Stachniak volume
editor, Kluwer Academic Publishers (1998).
Contents
Editor's Foreword
I. Peter M. Simons. Nominalism in Poland
II. Frederick V. Rickey. A survey of Leśniewski's logic
III. Alfred Tarski. On the primitive term of logistic
IV. Bolesław Sobociński. An investigation of Protothetic
V. Jerzy Słupecki. St. Leśniewski's Protothetics
VI. Bolesław Sobociński. On the single axioms of Protothetic
VII. Frederick V. Rickey. Axiomatic inscriptional syntax
Part II: the syntax of Protothetic
book_proto.htm
VIII. Audoenus Le Blanc. Investigations in Protothetic
Appendix: The Protothetic Bibliography
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ZBIGNIEW STACHNIAK
