Jan Wolenski

The author opposes two kinds of rationalism to irrationalism. The first kind of rationalism, approved by the author, considers as rational these cognitive procedures that can be communicated and verified intersubjectively. The author calls this view – after K. Ajdukiewicz – anti-irrationalism. On the other hand, irrationalism is a position that negates the need of ability to communicate intersubjectively and to verify cognitive procedures. The views of mystics or of H. Bergson could be an example of irrationalism. The second kind of irrationalism is apriorism, i.e. the position that ascribes certainty to cognitive results achieved by intuition. Data coming from intuition are not intersubjectively communicable, intersubjectively verified and they are not subject to falsification, hence the second kind of rationalism, i.e. apriorism, is in fact irrationalism. Phenomenology, stressing the importance of apriori cognition, would then have many things in common with irrationalism.

Klemens Szaniawski has been dealing with many philosophical problems, but the philosophical foundations of statistics and theory of decision were his main interest. Unfortunately, he did not present his results and considerations in a synthetic monograph. One can suppose, however, that it would be an attempt to look at science from the point of view of someone who makes epistemic decisions and to regard statistical inferences as paradigmatic scientific procedures. The material concerning that subject contained in Szaniawski's published papers justifies the claim that it would be an extremely interesting synthesis. The author presents consequences for naturalism and antinaturalism that the discussions surrounding the foundations of statistics and decision theory has brought about. He often employs the results obtained by Szaniawski

Poland has played an enormous role in the development of mathematical logic. Leading Polish logicians, like Lesniewski, Lukasiewicz and Tarski, produced several works related to philosophical logic, a field covering different topics relevant to philosophical foundations of logic itself, as well as various individual sciences. This collection presents contemporary Polish work in philosophical logic which in many respects continue the Polish way of doing philosophical logic. This book will be of interest to logicians, mathematicians, philosophers, and linguists.

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory.