Tadeusz Marian Kotarbià Âski (; 31 March 1886 â 3 October 1981) was a Polish philosopher, logician and ethicist.
A pupil of Kazimierz Twardowski, he was one of the most representative figures of the LwówâÂÂWarsaw School, and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) as well as the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). He developed philosophical theory called reism () and an ethical system called independent ethics. Kotarbià Âski also contributed significantly to the development of praxeology.
Henryk Greniewski and Kazimierz Pasenkiewicz were doctoral students under Kotarbià Âski.
Tadeusz Kotarbià Âski was born on 31 March 1886 in Warsaw, then Congress Poland, Russian Empire, into an artist's family. His father, Mià Âosz Kotarbià Âski, was a painter his mother, Ewa Koskowska, was a pianist and composer. His uncles were Józef Kotarbià Âski, an important figure in Polish theater circles, and Wilhelm Kotarbià Âski, a talented painter. Expelled from secondary school in 1905 for participating in a strike, Kotarbià Âski managed to graduate two years later. He studied first as an unenrolled student at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, attending mostly lectures on mathematics and physics; then architecture in Lviv and Darmstadt, to finally settle for studies in philosophy and classical philology at the University of Lviv. His professors were some of the most esteemed philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of his time: Kazimierz Twardowski, Jan à Âukasiewicz, Wà Âadysà Âaw Witwicki and philologist Stanisà Âaw Witkowski. He received his PhD with the thesis Utilitarianism in the Ethics of Mill and Spencer in 1912.
After graduation, he taught classical languages at Warsaw's Mikoà Âaj Rey Gymnasium (secondary school). In 1918 he began a lecturing career in philosophy at Warsaw University; from 1929 to 1930 he was dean of humanities. In the interwar period, Kotarbià Âski was involved in social affairs. He actively fought against anti-semitism, ultranationalism and clericalism. He wrote mainly for the monthly "Racjonalista", an organ of the Polish Association of Freethinkers. During the persecution of students of Jewish origin at Polish universities, when right-wing organizations tried to designate separate sectors in lecture halls for non-Polish students, he jointly joined their protest, during which he conducted his lectures while standing. He was an opponent of the ghetto benches introduced at the University of Warsaw in 1937. In his activities, close to the left-wing and socialist groups, he was a member of the Polish Teachers' Union, being in the years 1937âÂÂ1939 president of the Higher School Section.
After World War II, along with other eminent men of learning, he helped create a state university in à Âódà º. In 1945 Kotarbià Âski became the first rector of the University of à Âódà º, holding this post until 1949 while simultaneously working at the University of Warsaw. His model of work became a benchmark for future generations of scholars at the University of à Âódà º.
Reism is a pansomatism (from Greek: ÃÂᾶý 'all' + ÃÂῶüñ 'body') ontology as well as semantic theory developed by Kotarbià Âski and most extensively exposed in his major work: Elements of the Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic and Methodology of the Sciences, first published in 1929. Kotarbià Âski was the creator of the term reism, a word derived from Latin res 'thing'.
Kotarbià Âski's ontological reism approach assumes that the only things that exist, and thus the only ontological category to be used, are individual, concrete objects (or bodies) in opposition to doctrines allowing for the existence of such categories as universals, states of affairs, properties, relations, sets, classes, mental constructs, etc.
In its semantic formulation, Kotarbià Âski postulated that meaningful sentences have to contain so-called genuine names (referring to concrete objects) as opposed to abstract objects' names or non-genuine names (onomatoids). He also distinguished onomatoids from empty names, which he considered to be 'reistic'. Sentences with onomatoids only were in his view meaningless, whereas those with empty names meaningful.
Reism has been anticipated by philosophers preceding Kotarbià Âski (Leibniz, Brentano and his pupils and earlier nominalists and materialists), but it was Kotarbià Âski who developed it to the complete, systematic exposition and gave it its name.
In 1958 in Philosophical Studies 4(7) Kotarbià Âski published Developmental Stages of Concretism, an essay in which he discussed the construction and evolution of his theory starting from the early concretism or nominalism, passing through seven stages of re-elaboration and finally culminating in pansomatism. Kotarbià Âski used terms: reism, pansomatism and concretism as equivalents to some extent throughout his works.
Kotarbià Âski was the most prominent representative and promoter of the science of efficient action, called praxeology. Scholars consider Kotarbià Âski's works in praxeology as the most systematic exposition of the foundations of this young science, particularly in his Traktat o dobrej robocie (A Treatise on Good Work) and, to some extent, his earlier publication called Szkice praktyczne (Essays on Practice).
Kotarbià Âski posited that praxeology is a science that is broader than the science of work as it contains philosophical elaboration of the concept of action, especially in the context of human work process, including the recommendations and general solutions for human activities in different fields. His position is considered partially descriptive in the sense that its aim is to understand relevant features of actions, but that the classifications it produces have normative objectives. Kotarbià Âski's contribution to the understanding of the nature of action is considered foundational for action theory (philosophy)
Three years after publishing A Treatise on Good Work, Kotarbià Âski persuaded the Polish Academy of Sciences to establish a Laboratory for General Questions of Work Organization (Pracownia Ogólnych Problemów Organizacji Pracy), later upgraded into a Department of Praxeology. Starting in 1962, it published a periodical, Materiaà Ây Prakseologiczne (Praxeological Papers), later renamed Prakseologia (Praxeology).