Jan Łukasiewicz Life, Work, Legacy

Abstract

Jan Łukasiewicz was one of leading logicians of the XX-th century, universally regarded as the father of many-valued logics which proved to be the language for many paradigms of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, inventor of the Polish notation whose dual, the Reverse Polish notation has become implemented in computers and calculators, renowned historian of logic especially of logics of Stoics school and of Aristotle, twice the Rector of Warsaw University in academic years 1922/23 and 1931/32, Minister of Religious Beliefs and Public Enlightenment in the Paderewski cabinet in 1919, earlier in Ministry of Education in provisional Jan Kanty Steczkowski cabinet in 1918, born in Lwów at the time of autonomization of Galicia, student at the Lwów University at the time of its start toward flourishing, in Warsaw between 1915 and 1944, then an exile in Germany, Belgium and finally in Ireland, far from dear Lwów and Poland. He was one of pillars of the world famous Warsaw School of Logic alongside of Warsaw School od Mathematics, Lwów School of Mathematics, Warsaw - Lwów School of Philosophy together with Kazimierz Twardowski, Alfred Tarski, Stanisław Leśniewski, Stefan Banach, Hugo Steinhaus, Juliusz Schauder, Stanisław Mazur, Stanisław Ulam, Wacław Sierpiński, Kazimierz Kuratowski, Stefan Mazurkiewicz, Adolf Lindenbaum, Mordechaj Wajsberg, Bolesław Sobociński and many others. They worked in often difficult conditions, living through two world wars, regional conflicts, many of them lost all their possessions and archives, forced to rebuild their lives anew, often overseas, but always devoted to Poland and its causes

Additional notes

Valuable reviews and information on Jan Łukasiewicz’s life and legacy are given in:

Peter Simmons. Jan Łukasiewicz. In: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lukasiewicz/

Jacek Jadacki, Piotr Surma. Jan Łukasiewicz: Pamiȩtnik (Jan Łukasiewicz. Memoirs). Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, Warszawa, 2013.

Piotr Surma. Jan Łukasiewicz. Pamiȩtnik (fragmenty)(Memoirs (fragments)). Rocznik Historii Filozofii Polskiej T. 2/3 , 2009/2010, 313-380.

Selected works of Jan Łukasiewicz were edited by Ludwik Borkowski for PWN and North Holland, 1970.

A review of ideas of propositional, modal and many-valued logics along with discussion of fuzzy and rough reasoning methods and accounts of mereology and rough mereology with applications to analysis of data, granular computing and behavioral robotics are given in

Lech Polkowski. Approximate Reasoning by Parts. An Introduction to Rough Mereology. Springer Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg, 2011.

Recollections of the lost world of Lwów and its University can be found in:

Recollections of Professor Tomasz Cieszyński on Rudolf Weigl: http://www.lwow.home.pl/weigl/cieszynski.html

Recollections of Professor Tomasz Cieszyński on Jakub Karol Parnas: http://www.lwow.home.pl/parnas.html

Recollection of Tadeusz Riedl on Stefan Banach: http://kielich.amu.edu.pl/Stefan_Banach/riedl.html

Alfred Jahn on Banach, Schauder, Institute of Rudolf Weigl: Z Kleparowa w Świat Szeroki (From Kleparów into the Wide World). Zakład Narodowy Im. Ossolińskich. Wrocław, 1991.

Roman Ingarden on Schauder: Juliusz Schauder - personal reminiscences. Topol. Methods Nonlinear Anal. 2 (1993), no. 1, 1–14. https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.tmna/1479287168

Józef Wittlin on Lwów: ‘Mój Lwów’ (‘My Lwów’). Czytelnik. Warszawa, 1991. See also: http://www.lwow.home.pl/przekroj/wittlin.html

https://www.youtube.com?watch?v=neDnpgZPPvY

Notes on authors of non-scientific quoted here texts:

Karolina Lanckorońska was a professor of University of Lwów in 1939. During the war she acted as a liason to Home Army and an officer to the Polish Help Committee (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, RGO). In this character she travelled through Kresy and in Tarnopol was arrested by Krüger, responsible for murdering in Lwów of 40 professors of University and Polytechnic who confirmed to her his participation in that act. She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp from which she was liberated by demands of the Italian Royal Family. She was the witness at the Krüger process after the war. She spent the rest of her life in Rome where she edited the monumental series of documents on Poland and the relations with the Papacy ‘Antemurale’ (‘Bulwarks’).

Tomasz Cieszyński was the son of the renowned professor of medicine in Lwów University, murdered by the Krüger commando. He was the lice feeder at the Rudolf Weigl Institute and after war in 1945 in Kraków met with professor Jakub Parnas who was allowed to travel to Poland, of course accompanied by the Security officer. From him we know some details of Parnas life in Russia as told by Parnas himself.

Tadeusz Riedl met Banach at the Rudolf Weigl Institute and became more familiar with him when Banach came to live in his parents house in Lwów in 1945.

Alfred Jahn was an assistant at the University in 1939 and along many others became a worker in Typhoid Institute of Rudolf Weigl. He personally knew Schauder who was his mathematics teacher at Gymnasium. He was most probably the last who had seen Schauder alive, walking along the street in Lwów. After war he became a professor at Wrocław University and its Rector in the critical time of student protests in 1968.

Roman Ingarden as Jahn, had Schauder as his professor of mathematics in Gymnasium and at the University. He met Schauder during the war and Schauder’s life in hiding and was able by his contacts with the Home Army to provide Schauder with documents allowing travel. This was the primary cause of Schauder death as Schauder was walking when seen by Jahn to a bath in a factory in which Ingarden worked because he wanted bath before travel to Warsaw. On this walk Schauder was apprehended by a patrol and shot when trying to escape.

Józef Wittlin, a poet (collection ‘Hymny’ (‘Hymns’) written during the defense of Lwów in November 1918) and writer (‘Sól Ziemi’ (‘The Salt of the Earth’) published in 1935 which brought him a nomination to Nobel prize in literature in 1937), wrote ‘My Lwów" when on immigration in the US during the 2nd World War and it was first published in 1946.