This paper describes the work of the Polish logician Jan Kalicki (1922?1953). After a biographical introduction, his work on logical matrices and equational logic is appraised. A bibliography of his papers and reviews is also included.

The life and work of Moj?esz Presburger (1904?1943?) are summarised in this article. Although his production in logic was small, it had considerable impact, both his own researches and his editions of lecture notes of Adjukiewicz and ?ukasiewicz. In addition, the surviving records of his student time at Warsaw University provide information on a little-studied topic.

Notes on the life of Adolf Lindenbaum, a complete bibliography of his published works, and selected references to his unpublished results.

In this contribution we shall characterize matrix consequence operation determined by a direct product and an ultraproduct of a family of logical matrices. As an application we shall describe finite consequence operations with the help of ultrapowers.

The purpose of this article is to highlight a selected few of Alfred Tarski's career achievements. The choice of these achievements is subjective. Section 1 is a general sketch of his life and work, emphasizing his role as researcher, teacher, organizer and founder of a scientific school. Section 2 discusses his contributions to set theory. Section 3 discusses his contributions to the foundations of geometry and to measure theory. Section 4 looks at his metamathematical work, and especially the decision problem (...) for formalized theories. Section 5 is a selected bibliography to illustrate Sects. 1–4. (shrink)

In this paper we extend some techniques from the theory of conse- quences operations and logical matrices into the wider area of entailment relations.

This paper revisits the life of Adolf Lindenbaum in light of new research findings, then looks at two areas among many—metric spaces, and decompositions of point sets—where his work has been underappreciated.

The first part of the paper is a reminder of fundamental results connected with the adequacy problem for sentential logics with respect to matrix semantics. One of the main notions associated with the problem, namely that of the degree of complexity of a sentential logic, is elucidated by a couple of examples in the second part of the paper. E.g., it is shown that the minimal logic of Johansson and some of its extensions have degree of complexity 2. This is (...) the first example of an exact estimation of the degree of natural complex logics, i.e. logics whose deducibility relation cannot be represented by a single matrix. The remaining examples of complex logics are more artificial, having been constructed for the purpose of checking some theoretical possibilities. (shrink)

The aim of this note is to give an example of application of model theory to the theory of logical matrices. . More precisely, we show that Wojtylak's representation theorem is an immediate consequence of a result due to Mal'cev . Throughout the present note we assume that matrices, and classes of matrices under consideration are of the same xed similarity type. Suppose that K is an arbitrary class of matrices, and M is a matrix . We say that M1 (...) 2 K is called a replica of M in the class K i there is a homomorphism h of M onto M1 such that for every homomorphism g of M into arbitrary N 2 K there exists a homomorphism f of M1 into N such that g = f h. (shrink)

x1. This paper is a contribution to matrix semantics for sentential logics as presented in Los and Suszko [1] and Wojcicki [3], [4]. A generalization of Lindenbaum completeness lemma says that for each sentential logic there is a class K of matrices of the form such that the class is adequate for the logic, i.e., C = CnK.

. In our paper, presented here in abstract form, we consider the sentential logic with semi-negation. It should be stressed, however, that our main interest is not that logic itself but rather more general matters concerning the theory of matrix semantics for sentential logics. The logic with semi-negation provides a relevant example for elucidating such basic notions of matrix semantics as degree of complexity, degree of uniformity, and self-referentiality. Thus our paper being a contribution to the theory of matrix semantics (...) may be treated as a sequel to [1]. (shrink)

In this paper being a sequel to our [1] the logic with semi-negation is chosen as an example to elucidate some basic notions of the semantics for sentential calculi. E.g., there are shown some links between the Post number and the degree of complexity of a sentential logic, and it is proved that the degree of complexity of the sentential logic with semi-negation is 20. This is the first known example of a logic with such a degree of complexity. The (...) results of the final part of the paper cast a new light on the scope of the Kripke-style semantics in comparison to the matrix semantics. (shrink)

The notion of a conditionally distributive lattice was introduced by B. Wolniewicz while formally investigating the ontology of situations . In several of this lectures he has appealed for a study of that class of lattices. The present abstract is a response to that request.

Reviews : Zygmunt Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity ; Steven Seidman and David G. Wagner, Postmodernism and Social Theory ; Stephen Crook, Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Wa ters, Postmodernization: Change in Advanced Society ; Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity—Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Post-modern Culture.

Introduction: Morality in Modern and Postmodern Perspective Shattered beings are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke As signalled in its ...

'Community' is one of those words that feels good: it is good 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels good because of the meanings which the word conveys, all of them promising pleasures, and more often than not the kind of pleasures which we would like to experience but seem to miss. 'Community' conveys the image of a warm and comfortable place, like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day. Out (...) there, in the street, all sorts of dangers lie in ambush; in here, in the community, we can relax and feel safe. 'Community' stands for the kind of world which we long to inhabit but which is not, regrettably, available to us. Today 'community' is another name for paradise lost - but for a paradise which we still hope to find, as we feverishly search for the roads that may lead us there. But there is a price to be paid for the privilege of being in a community. Community promises security but seems to deprive us of freedom, of the right to be ourselves. Security and freedom are two equally precious and coveted values which could be balanced to some degree, but hardly ever fully reconciled. The tension between security and freedom, and between community and individuality, is unlikely ever to be resolved. We cannot escape the dilemma but we can take stock of the opportunities and the dangers, and at least try to avoid repeating past errors. In this important new book, Zygmunt Bauman takes stock of these opportunities and dangers and, in his distinctive and brilliant fashion, offers a much-needed reappraisal of a concept that has become central to current debates about the nature and future of our societies. (shrink)

Life in Fragments is a continuation of the themes and motifs explored in Zygmunt Bauman's acclaimed study, Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell, 1993).

Why do most of us consider ourselves free but also believe there is little we can change in the way the world is run - individually, severally, or even collectively? Why has the growth of individual freedom coincided with the growth of collective impotence? Bauman argues that this condition hangs on the agora - the space where private and public meet to seek the creation of 'public good', a 'just society', or 'shared values'. The problem is that little remains of (...) such old style spaces. We cannot, he argues, overcome our collective impotence without resorting to politics and using the vehicle of political agency. Three orientation points for a reconstruction of politics are suggested: the republican model of the state and of citizenship, basic income as a universal entitlement, and re-enabling the institutions of autonomous society by catching up with the controlling extraterritorial powers in an age of globalization. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman is one of the leading figures in contemporary social thought. His work ranges across issues of ethics, culture and politics. It never forgets that social thought ought to help men and women make sense of their lives and aspire towards something different. His books and essays always focus on the here and now: violence and moral indifference, globalization, consumerism, politics and individualization. They cast a sharp eye on the panaceas of ‘there is no alternative'; the embrace of (...) community and the fads of the ‘counselling boom'; through which men and women are told that they can achieve biographical solutions to what are, in fact, systemic problems. In this new book, Zygmunt Bauman and Keith Tester engage in five accessible conversations that uncover and explore the assumptions and commitments underpinning Bauman's ground-breaking social thought. The conversations show how those commitments have influenced Bauman's analyses of modernity, postmodernity and ‘liquid modernity'. The book ranges widely, from autobiographical reflection through to pointers for the understanding and future of Bauman's social thought. The conversations illustrate the moral substance of Bauman's refusal to accept that the world cannot be made different. They show why social thought is a human necessity. Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman is a book which will offer fresh insight into Bauman's work for those who are familiar with it, and provide an engaging and helpful entry point for those who are new to it. (shrink)

We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all too often our action fails to address the true causes of our worries. When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our own failings and weaknesses for our discomforts and defeats. And in doing so, we make things worse rather than better. Reasonable beings that we are, how does this happen and why does it go on happening? These are the questions addressed in this (...) new book by Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most original and perceptive social thinkers writing today. For Bauman, the task of sociology is not to censor or correct the stories we tell of our lives, but to show that there are more ways in which our life stories can be told. By bringing into view the many complex dependencies invisible from the vantage point of private experience, sociology can help us to link our individual decisions and actions to the deeper causes of our troubles and fears - to the ways we live, to the conditions under which we act, to the socially drawn limits of our imagination and ambition. Sociology can help us to understand the processes that have shaped the society in which we live today, a society in which individualization has become our fate. And sociology can also help us to see that if our individual but shared anxieties are to be effectively tackled, they need to be addressed collectively, true to their social, not individual, nature. The Individualized Society will be of great interest to students of sociology, politics and the social sciences and humanities generally. It will also appeal to a broader range of readers who are interested in the changing nature of our social and political life today. (shrink)

A proposal for individual responsibility in communal life.