O zasadzie sprzecznosci u Arystotelesa

ukasiewicz, Jan (1878-1956). O zasadzie sprzeczno ci u Arystotelesa. Studyum krytyczne. [4], 210, [2]pp. Krakow: Akademia Umiejetno ci, 1910. 199 x 140 mm. Half cloth, paste paper boards ca. 1913, number stamped on spine, label and deaccessioning stamp of the University of Lodz's Biblioteka Instytutu Filosofii. Library stamps / markings on title, verso title and one other leaf, but very good.

First Edition, and very scarce on the market, with no copies in auction records. ukasiewicz's first book, on the principle of contradiction in Aristotle's writings, marks his earliest attempt to "open up on logic vistas comparable to those opened in geometry by the introduction of non-Euclidian systems" (McCall, Polish Logic, 1920-1938, p. 2).

ukasiewicz, a Polish logician and philosopher, introduced mathematical logic into Poland and was one of the principal founders, architects and teachers of the Warsaw school of logic. "His most famous achievement was to give the first rigorous formulation of many-valued logic. He introduced many improvements in propositional logic, and became the first historian of logic to treat the subject's history from the standpoint of modern formal logic . . .

"Of all the works ukasiewicz published before World War I, one most clearly anticipated his later concerns. This was the 1910 monograph On the Principle of Contradiction in Aristotle. It marked a crucial turning point in the development of the Lwów-Warsaw school. For ukasiewicz it represented the first sustained questioning of the assumptions of traditional Aristotelian logic.

" ukasiewicz introduces the project of his monograph, a critical investigation of the legitimacy of the Principle of Contradiction (PC) as variously formulated by Aristotle, in the context of its critique by Hegel and the opportunity to re-examine the PC in the light of the development of mathematical logic from Boole to Russell . . .

" ukasiewicz distinguishes three different, non-equivalent versions of PC in Aristotle: an ontological version, a logical version, and a psychological version, as follows:

Ontological (OPC): No object may at the same time possess and not possess the same property.

Logical (LPC): Contradictory statements are not simultaneously true.

Psychological (PPC): No one can simultaneously believe contradictory things.

" ukasiewicz criticises Aristotle for on the one hand claiming PC cannot be proved, and on the other hand attempting an indirect or pragmatic ‘proof' . . . ukasiewicz described himself later as attempting in the monograph to devise a ‘non-Aristotelian logic' but admits that he did not succeed, principally because at this stage he was not prepared to reject the principle of bivalence (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Rare in commerce.