Selected bibliography on Tadeusz Kotarbinski

Index of the Section: "The Rediscovery of Ontology in Contemporary Thought"

• Table of Formal and Descriptivists Ontologists (PDF - from Bernard Bolzano to present time)

• Ontologists of the 19th and 20th Centuries (a selection of critical judgments about some of the greatest philosophers of the recent past)

• Living Ontologists (a list of authors with an interest in ontology, with synthetic Bibliographies)

Tadeusz Kotarbinski from Ontological Reism to Semantical Concretism

A SELECTION OF WORKS BY KOTARBINSKI

N.B. Works avalaible only in Polish are not enclosed.

1. Le réalisme radical. In Proceedings of the seventh International congress of philosophy, held at Oxford, England, September 1-6, 1930. Edited by Ryle Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1931. pp. 488-500
2. "The development of the main problem in the methodology of Francis Bacon," Studia Philosophica 1: 107-117 (1935).
3. "The fundamental ideas of Pansomatism," Mind 64: 488-500 (1955).
   Originally published in Polish in 1935.
4. "La logique en Pologne," Études Philosophiques 11: 231-241 (1956).
   Reprinted in. Raymond Klibansky (ed.) - Philosophy in the Mid-Century. A survey - Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1958 pp. 44-52.
5. "Jan Łukasiewicz's works on the history of logic," Studia Logica 8: 57-62 (1958).
6. "The concept of action," Journal of Philosophy 57: 215-221 (1960).
7. "The property of a good plan," Methodos 13: 189-201 (1961).
8. "Postulates for economic modes of action," Methodos 13: 175-188 (1961).
9. "The aspiration of praxologists," Methodos 13: 163-174 (1961).
10. Leçons sur l'histoire de la logique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1964.
    Original Polish edition 1957.
    Translated by Anna Posner and with an introduction by René Poirier
11. Praxiology. An introduction to the sciences of efficient action. New York: Pergamon Press 1965.
    Originally published in Polish in 1955.
    Translated by Olgierd Wojtasiewicz.
12. Gnosiology. The scientific approach to the theory of knowledge. Oxford: Pergamon Press 1966.
    Original Polish edition 1929; second revised edition 1961.
    Translated from the Polish by Olgierd Wojtasiewicz; translation edited by G. Bidwell and C. Pinder
13. "Franz Brentano comme réiste," Revue Internationale de la Philosophie 78: 459-476 (1966).
    English translation in: Linda Mc Alister (ed.) - The philosophy f Franz Brentano - London, Duckworth, 1976, pp. 194-203.
14. "Reism: issues and prospects," Logique et Analyse 11: 441-458 (1968).
15. "La philosophie de la technique de Dupréel," Revue Internationale de la Philosophie 22: 156-166 (1968).
16. "The problem of the existence of the future," Polish Review 13: 7-22 (1968).
    Originally published in Polish in 1913.
17. "La justification active," Logique et Analyse 41-42: 273-279 (1968).
18. L'evolution de la praxéologie en Pologne. In Philosophy of science . Edited by klibansky Raymond. Firenze: La Nuova Italia 1968. pp. 438-450
    Contemporary philosophy. A new survey - vol. II
19. "The problem of the rationality of reasonings based on imperative sentences," Studia Filozoficzne 4: 131-137 (1970).
20. "Les formes positives et négatives de la cooperation," Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 75: 316-325 (1970).
21. "Ethical evaluation," International Philosophical Quarterly 11: 335-340 (1971).
22. "The methodology of practical skills: concepts and issues," Metaphilosophy 2: 148-171 (1971).
23. "Notions and problems of general methodology and the methodology of practical sciences," Dialectics and Humanism: 157-164 (1973).
24. "Determinism and fatalism in face of activity," Dialectics and Humanism: 3-11 (1974).
25. "Sources of general problems concerning the efficiency of actions," Dialectics and Humanism: 5-15 (1975).
26. "The general concept of plan," Dialectics and Humanism: 15-32 (1983).
27. Philosophical self-portrait. In Kotarbinski: logic, semantics and ontology. Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1990. pp. 1-6
    
    

STUDIES ABOUT THE WORK OF KOTARBINSKI

1. Kotarbinski: logic, semantics and ontology . Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1990.
   "Preface VII; Notes on Contributors IX; Tadeusz Kotarbinski: Philosophical self-portrait 1; Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: Review-article: T. Kotarbinski's Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic and Methodology of the Sciences 7; Alfred Gawronski: Psychologism and the principle of relevance in semantics 23; Peter Geach: Names in Kotarbinski's Elementy 31; Andrzej Grzegorczyk: Consistent reism 39; Henryk Hiz: A note about reism 47; Janina Kotarbinska: Puzzles of existence 53; Czeslaw Lejewski: On the dramatic stage in the development of Kotarbinski's pansomatism 69; Marian Przelecki: Semantic reasons for ontological statements: the argumentation of a reist85; Tadeusz Pszczolowski: Philosophical and methodological foundations of Kotarbinski's praxiology 97; Vito F Sinisi: Kotarbinski's theory of genuine names 107; Vito F Sinisi: Kotarbinski's theory of pseudo-names 119; Barry Smith: On the phases of reism 137; Klemens Szaniawski: Philosophy of the concrete 185; Jan Wolenski: Kotarbinski, many-valued logic, and truth 191; Boguslaw Wolniewicz: Concerning reism 199; Ewa Zarnecka-Bialy: The voice of the past in Kotarbinski's writings 205; References 213; Index of names: 225; Index of subjects 229.
2. Coniglione Francesco, "Kotarbin'ski's Reism and the Vienna Circle," Axiomathes 11: 37-69 (2000).
3. Gasparski Wojciech, "A philosophy of practicality: a treatise on the philosophy of Tadeusz Kotarbinski," Acta Philosophica Fennica 53: 11-114 (1993).
   "This monograph answers the question concerning the philosophical outlook and the intellectual heritage of the Polish thinker Tadeusz Kotarbinski.Kotarbinski called his own system praxiology. This book has also a wider aim, namely, to describe the "phenomenon of Tadeusz Kotarbinski in the Polish philosophy of the twentieth century". The reader can see how the whole intellectual period full of new methodological and philosophical ideas emerges and changes due to the influence of Kotarbinski during those eighty years that have passed since the publication of his first, seminal essays. The Polish methodology of science has been wonderfully fruitful and the same can be said of the methodology of practical endeavors, as Professor Gasparski shows in this book."
4. Hiz Henry, "Kotarbinski's praxeology," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15: 238-243 (1954).
   "Kotarbinski developed a general theory of action. It abstracts from moral, esthetic and other qualities of action and studies only the efficacity. He provides an analysis of what it means to do something, to be an agent, a perpetrator. It means that his voluntary act is a necessary condition for something to occur. An analysis of negligence, refraining from doing something, collective action and a variety of the methods of efficacity is given."
5. Lejewski Czeslaw. On the dramatic stage in the development of Kotarbisnki's pansomatism. In Ontologie und Logik. Ontology and Logic. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1979. pp. 197-214
   Proceedings of an International Colloquium (Salzburg, 21-24 September 1976)
   Discussion pp. 215-218
6. Niiniluoto Ilkka, "Kotarbinski as a scientific realist," Erkenntnis 56: 63-82 (2002).
   "Tadeusz Kotarbinski is widely recognized as a major philosopher of the Lvov-Warsaw school. His reism, which is a contribution to semantics and ontology, is still discussed and debated, and his most original creation, praxiology, has grown into an entire research field. However, Kotarbinski's philosophy of science has not received much attention by later commentators. This paper attempts to correct this situation by considering the hypothesis that Kotarbinski succeeded already in 1929 in formulating a position that can be regarded as an early version of scientific realism. Unlike most other "scientific philosophers'' before the mid-thirties, he was able to combine ontological realism (by defending a form of physicalism and nominalism) and semantical realism (by defending the classical correspondence theory of truth). He was also a critical epistemological realist. Further, in spite of the instrumentalist flavour of his reductionist programme in eliminating terms apparently referring to abstract entities, Kotarbinski accepted theories as statements with truth values and theoretical entities as long as they can be understood as physical bodies."
7. Poli Roberto. The dispute over Reism: Kotarbinski - Ajdukiewicz - Brentano. In Polish scientific philosophy. Edited by Coniglione Francesco, Poli Roberto, and Wolenski Jan. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1993. pp. 339-354
   "Kotarbinski's ontology (called reism) maintains that there are only things. According to this theory, all genuine names refer to things and all the terms that refer to non-things (properties, qualities, events, etc.) are pseudo-names or onomatoids. After the criticisms of Ajdukiewicz, reism turned into a semantic theory stating that onomatoids should be used only in paraphrasable by other expressions containing only terms. I shall try to restate the ontological reading of reism resorting to the theory of substance and accident advanced by Brentano in his last philosophical analysis."
8. Simons Peter. Nominalism in Poland. In Polish scientific philosophy. Edited by Coniglione Francesco, Poli Roberto, and Wolenski Jan. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1993. pp. 207-231
   "The principal defenders of nominalism in Poland were Lesniewski and Kotarbinski. Several senses of nominalism' are distinguished. Lesniewski attacked Twardowski's theory of general objects, rejected set theory, and proposed an ontologically neutral, nominalistically acceptable logic. I examine how this neutrality is to be attained despite higher-order quantificationKotarbinski denied that there is anything except bodies (reism) and attempted to eliminate statements apparently about other things, but reism is inadequate for explaining true predications. Their student Tarski was also a nominalist, but he did not argue for his views in print."
9. Sinisi Vito, "Kotarbinski's theory of genuine names," Theoria 30: 80-95 (1964).
10. Sinisi Vito, "Kotarbinski' theory of pseudo-names," Theoria 31: 218-241 (1965).
11. Sinisi Vito, "A few comments on a few comments on Concretism," Theoria 33: 72-77 (1967).
12. Sinisi Vito, "The development of Ontology," Topoi 2: 53-61 (1983).
13. Skolimowski Henryk, "A few comments on Concretism," Theoria 32: 75-78 (1966).
14. Smith Barry. Tadeusz Kotarbinski. On things and their phases. In Austrian philosophy. The legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court 1994. pp. 201-254
15. Smith Barry. On the phases of Reism. In Actions, Products, and Things. Edited by Chrudzimski Arkadiusz and Łukasiewicz Dariusz. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag 2006. pp. 121-182
16. Szaniawski Klemens, "Philosophy of the concrete," Dialectics and Humanism 4: 67-72 (1977).
    "This is a brief appreciation of the philosophical ideas of Tadeusz Kotarbinski, written on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. The discussion is limited to his doctrine of Reism, asserting the existence of things only. The evolution of Reism is sketched and some difficulties concerning its tenets are pointed out. Finally, the author stresses the role of Kotarbinski's teaching in the development of philosophy in Poland."
17. Szaniawski Klemens, "Philosophical ideas of Tadeusz Kotarbinski," Reports on Philosophy 8: 25-32 (1984).
18. Wolenski Jan, "Reism and Lesniewski's Ontology," History and Philosophy of Logic 7: 167-176 (1986).
    "This paper examines relations between Reism, the metaphysical theory invented by Tadeusz Kotarbinski, and Lesniewski's Calculus of Names. It is shown that Kotarbinski's interpretation of common nouns as genuine names, i.e., names of things is essentially based on Lesniewski's logical ideas. It is pointed out that Lesniewskian semantics offers better prospects for nominalism than does semantics of the standard first-order predicate calculus."
19. Wolenski Jan, "Tadeusz Kotarbinski and the Lvov Warsaw School," Dialectics and Humanism 17: 14-24 (1990).
    "This paper is intended to show the place of Kotarbinski's philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School and his influence on the development of this movement in Polish philosophy. The author describes links of Kotarbinski's views with ideas developed by other outstanding members of the Lvov-Warsaw School, particularly Twardowski and Lesniewski. Moreover, Kotarbinski's conception of so called small philosophy was a typical exposition of general metaphilosophical views of the Lvov-Warsaw School."
20. Wolenski Jan, Reism in the Brentanist tradition. In The School of Franz Brentano. Edited by Albertazzi Liliana, Libardi Massimo, and Poli Roberto. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1996. pp. 357-376
21. Wolenski Jan. Tadeusz Kotarbinski - Reism and science. In Polish philosophers of science and nature in the 20th century. Edited by Krajewski Wladyslaw. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2001. pp. 47-51