On the Formal Approach to Describing Natural Language. Notes on the Margin of Leśniewski’s Ontology

• Autorzy: Halina Święczkowska
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

This article is an attempt to recreate the intuitions which accompanied Leśniewski when he was creating his calculus of names called Ontology. Although every reconstruction is to some extent an interpretation, and as such may be defective, still, there are reasons justifying such reconstruction. The most important justification is the fact that both Leśniewski and his commentators stressed that ontology originated from reflections about ordinary language, in which sentences such as A is B appear in one of the meanings associated with them in Ontology, and that the users of the Polish language use such sentences accordingly and properly identify them. Assumed it is so, let us try, based on Leśniewski’s guidelines as well as comments and elaborations on Ontology (Leśniewski 1992: 364-382, 608-609; Kotarbiński 1929: 227-229; Rickey 1977: 414-229; Simons 1992: 244; Lejewski 1960: 14-29), to evaluate the accuracy of this approach, referring also to certain knowledge of the Polish language. To make it clear, this article is not about Ontology as a formal theory of language. It is solely an attempt to assess whether some syntactical constructs of the Polish language and this language’s properties are significant conditions of a proper understanding of Ontology, and whether Ontology is, in fact, in a relationship with the ethnic language of its author.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Leśniewski’s Ontology; formal approach to natural language; Polish language

• Wydawca: Sciendo
• Czasopismo: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric
• Rocznik: 2015
• Tom: 42
• Numer: 1
• Strony: 67-78

Daty

wydano

2015-09-01

online

2015-11-26

Twórcy

autor

Halina Święczkowska

• University of Białystok

Bibliografia

• Ajdukiewicz, K. (1960).Wsprawie uniwersaliow. In K. Ajdukiewicz, Język i znaczenie, vol. 1. Warszawa: PWN.
• Black, M. (1944). Russell’s Philosophy of Language. In P. Schlip (Ed.), Philosophy of B. Russell.
• Frege, G. (1960). On Concept and Object. In P. Geach, M. Black (Eds.), Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gotlob Frege. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Hiż, H. (1977). Descriptions in Russell’s theory and in ontology. Studia Logica 4.
• Kotarbiński, T. (1966). Gnoseology. The scientific approach to the theory of knowledge. London: Pergamon.
• Kotarbiński, T. (1986). Drogi dociekań własnych. Warszawa: PWN.
• Luschei, E. C. (1962). The Logical Systems of Leśniewski. Amsterdam: North Holland.
• Lejewski, Cz. (1958). On Leśniewski’s ontology. Ratio 1.
• Lejewski, Cz. (1960). A re-examination of the Russelian theory of descriptions. Philosophy 35.
• Leśniewski, S. (1992). Foundations of Ontology. In S. Leśniewski, Collected Works. Warszawa: Kluwer Academic Publishers & PWN.
• Leśniewski, S. (1992). On the Foundations of Mathematics. In S. Leśniewski, Collected Works. Warszawa & Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers & PWN.
• Saloni, Z. Świdziński, M. (1981). Składnia wspołczesnego języka polskiego. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa UW.
• Rickey, V. F. (1977). A Survey of Lesniewski’s Logic. Studia Logica 4.
• Simons, P. (1992). On understanding Leśniewski. In P. Simons, Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Simons, P. (1992). Leśniewski’s Logic and its Relations to Classical and Free Logics. In P. Simons, Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Woleński, J. (1985). Filozoficzna szkoła Lwowsko-warszawska. Warszawa: PWN.

Identyfikatory

DOI

10.1515/slgr-2015-0031