Chwistek, Leon(1884–1944)
Leon Chwistek, a Polish mathematical logician, philosopher, aesthetician, essayist, and painter, was a lecturer at the University of Kraków and from 1930 a professor of mathematical logic at the University of Lvov.
Theory of Realities
The central problem of Chwistek's philosophy was a criticism of the idea of a uniform reality. It had been shown by Bertrand Russell that in logic admission of the totality of all functions of x produces contradictions; Chwistek claimed that in philosophy, likewise, many obscure and misleading thoughts result from the assumption of a single all-inclusive reality.
The results of this criticism led Chwistek to the thesis of a plurality of realities. Out of many possible realities four are particularly important to philosophy. The first, the reality of natural objects, is assumed by common sense; natural objects are of a given form regardless of our perception. Chwistek's defense of natural reality and our knowledge of it is reminiscent of the British commonsense philosophy of the nineteenth century. The objects studied in physics are not natural; the telescopic and microscopic worlds, matter, and the particles upon which the forces are supposed to act form a second reality. They are constructions, not something naturally given.
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