Jerzy Giedymin
Encyclopedia
Jerzy Giedymin was a philosopher and historian
of mathematics
and science
.
origin, was born in 1925.
He studied at the University of Poznan
under Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
. In 1953 Jerzy Giedymin succeeded Adam Wiegner at the Chair of Logic
at the Faculty of Philosophy.
The so-called Poznan School was a Marxist current of philosophy marked by an idealisational theory of science which emphasised the scientific features of Marxism in close confrontation with contemporary logic and epistemology.
In 1968 Giedymin moved to England and attended seminars by Karl Popper
at the London School of Economics
.
In 1971 he came to Sussex to become Professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the University of Sussex
.
Giedymin died during a trip to Poland on 24 June 1993.
's conventionalist philosophy was fundamentally misunderstood and thus underestimated. Giedymin argues that Poincaré was at the origin of much of the 20th century's innovations in relativity theory and quantum physics.
Giedymin's standpoint was much influenced by his exposure to Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's perception of the history of ideas which in defiance of traditional empiricism reviews the philosophy of science of the early 20th century in the light of pragmatic conventionalism.
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of mathematics
Philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics and to understand the place of...
and science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
.
Life
Giedymin, of PolishPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
origin, was born in 1925.
He studied at the University of Poznan
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
under Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz was a Polish philosopher and logician, a prominent figure in the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic. He originated many novel ideas in semiotics, including the "categorial grammar" used by many formal linguists...
. In 1953 Jerzy Giedymin succeeded Adam Wiegner at the Chair of Logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
at the Faculty of Philosophy.
The so-called Poznan School was a Marxist current of philosophy marked by an idealisational theory of science which emphasised the scientific features of Marxism in close confrontation with contemporary logic and epistemology.
In 1968 Giedymin moved to England and attended seminars by Karl Popper
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH FRS FBA was an Austro-British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics...
at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
In 1971 he came to Sussex to become Professor at the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
.
Giedymin died during a trip to Poland on 24 June 1993.
Work
Giedymin was convinced that Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...
's conventionalist philosophy was fundamentally misunderstood and thus underestimated. Giedymin argues that Poincaré was at the origin of much of the 20th century's innovations in relativity theory and quantum physics.
Giedymin's standpoint was much influenced by his exposure to Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's perception of the history of ideas which in defiance of traditional empiricism reviews the philosophy of science of the early 20th century in the light of pragmatic conventionalism.
Books
- Jerzy Giedymin, Z problemow logicznych analizy historycznej [Some Logical Problems of Historical Analysis], Poznanskie towarzystwo przyjaciol nauk. Wydzial filologiczno-filozoficzny. Prace Komisji filozoficznej. tom 10. zesz. 3., Poznan, 1961.
- Jerzy Giedymin, Problemy, zalozenia, rozstrzygniecia. Studia nad logicznymi podstawami nauk spolecznych [Questions, assumptions, decidability. Essays concerning the logical functions of the social sciences], Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne. Oddzial w Poznaniu. Rozprawy i monografie. No. 10, Poznan, 1964.
- Jerzy Giedymin ed., Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz: The scientific world-perspective and other essays, 1931-1963, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1974 ISBN 9027705275
- Jerzy Giedymin, Science and convention: essays on Henri Poincaré’s philosophy of science and the conventionalist tradition, Oxford: Pergamon, 1982 ISBN 0080257909
Articles (selection)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Confirmation, critical region and empirical content of hypotheses", in Studia Logica, Volume 10, Number 1 (1960)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "A generalization of the refutability postulate", in Studia Logica, Volume 10, Number 1 (1960)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Authorship hypotheses and reliability of informants", in Studia Logica, Volume 12, Number 1 (1961)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Reliability of Informants", in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, XIII (1963)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "The Paradox of Meaning Variance", in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 21 (1970)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Consolations for the Irrationalist", in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 22 (1971)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Antipositivism in Contemporary Philosophy of Social Sciences and Humanities", in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 26 (1975)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "On the origin and significance of Poincaré's conventionalism", in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Vol.8, No.4 (1977)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Revolutionary changes, non-translatability and crucial experiments", in Problems of the Philosophy of Science, Amsterdam: North Holland, 1968
- Jerzy Giedymin, "The Physics of the Principles and Its Philosophy: Hamilton, Poincaré and Ramsey", in Science and Convention: Essays on Henri Poincaré's Philosophy of Science and the Conventionalist Tradition. Oxford: Pergamon (1982)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Geometrical and Physical Conventionalism of Henri Poincaré in Epistemologial Formulation", in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 22 (1991)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Conventionalism, the Pluralist Conception of Theories and the Nature of Interpretation", in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 23 (1992)
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Radical Conventionalism, Its Background and Evolution: Poincare, Leroy, Ajdukiewicz", in Vito Sinisi & Jan Wolenski (ed.), The Heritage of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1995 ISBN 90-5183-808-5
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Ajdukiewicz's Life and Personality", in Vito Sinisi & Jan Wolenski (ed.), The Heritage of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1995 ISBN 90-5183-808-5
- Jerzy Giedymin, "Strength, Confirmation, Compatibility", in Mario Bunge (ed.), in Critical Approaches to Science and Philosophy (Science and Technology Studies). Piscataway, N.J.:Transaction Publishers (1998)
About Jerzy Giedymin
- Laurent Rollet, Le conventionnalisme géométrique de Henri Poincaré : empirisme ou apriorisme ? Une étude des thèses de Adolf Grünbaum et Jerzy Giedymin, Université de Nancy 2, 1993
- Laurent Rollet, "The Grünbaum-Giedymin Controversy Concerning the Philosophical Interpretation of Poincaré's Geometrical Conventionalism" in Krystyna Zamiara (ed.) The Problems Concerning the Philosophy of Science and Science Itself, Poznan, Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora (1995)
- Krystyna Zamaria, "Jerzy Giedymin – From the Logic of Science to the Theoretical History of Science", in Wladyslaw Krajewski (ed.), Polish Philosophers of Science and Nature in the 20th Century, Amsterdam, 2001 ISBN 90-420-1497-0
External links
- Obituary: Jerzy Giedymin Obituary published in The Independent
- The Poznan School Presentation of the Poznan school
- Polish Logic of the Postwar Period Article by Jan Zygmunt of the University of Wrocław
- The Giedymin - Grünbaum Controversy Concerning the Philosophical Interpretation of Geometrical Conventionalism Article by Laurent Rollet
- French Conventionalism and its Influence on Polish Philosophy Article by Anna Jedynak in Parerga – MIĘDZYNARODOWE STUDIA FILOZOFICZNE, No. 2 (2007)