The Polish philosopher, logician, painter, and aesthetician Leon Chwistek was born in Zakopane, Poland on January 13, 1884. His father was a doctor, and his mother a pianist. As a philosopher, Chwistek was particularly noted for his opposition to the metaphysical and idealistic modes of thought that were so prevalent in his lifetime.

Chwistek grew up in the pleasant town of Tatras where he was a friend of Stanislaw Witkiewicz. As a student in Cracow, he studied mathematics and philosophy at the Jagellonian University at the same time that he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.

After earning a doctorate in 1906, Chwistek became a teacher at the same gymnasium where he himself had studied. Upon being awarded a scholarship, he traveled abroad to study logic and mathematics, and attended the lectures of David Hilbert and Henri Poincaré.

After the First World War, Chwistek began lecturing in mathematics at the...