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Kazimierz Twardowski (part I)

1. Life Kazimierz Twardowski was born in Vienna on October 20, 1866. His

father, Pius, was a member of Austrian Civil service. Both Pius Twardowski and

his wife, Malwina (maiden name Kuhn), were Polish. Twardowski grew up in

the atmosphere of moderate religiosity and fervent patriotism.

At the age of twelve, Twardowski entered the Viennese Theresianum

(Theresian Academy) where he received comprehensive education. The

Academy provided him with solid education in the subject of secondary school

education but also in many languages, including classical ones (Greek and

Latin). Already at Theresianum, Twardowski became acquainted with

philosophical works and philosophical problems. Thanks to discipline of the

school, Twardowski practiced systematic work.

He graduated from Theresianum in 1885 and in the same year he began

studies at University in Vienna. He studied psychology, classical philology,

mathematics, physics and philosophy. The most important philosopher in

Vienna at that time was certainly Franz Brentano, who became Twardowski’s

model of philosophical researcher and teacher. Twardowski took his doctorate in

philosophy in 1891, by virtue of a dissertation on the views of Descartes on

ideas and perceptions (under supervision of Robert Zimmerman). The following

year he married Kazimiera Kołodziejska. He wrote about her many years later:

I lack the words to portray the love with which, in her infinite goodness, my wife has

never ceased to surround me. As the wisest of counsels and most dependable of helpers in all

of life’s affairs, she had the greatest part in anything useful that was given me to accomplish.

Twardowskis had three daughters: Helena, Aniela and Maria. The

youngest became later the wife of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, who was

Twardowski’s student and one of the greatest representatives of the Lvov-

Warsaw School.

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Thanks to a grant from Austrian Ministry of Culture and Education, in

1892 Twardowski travelled to Leipzig and Munich. After coming back from

Germany, Twardowski worked in mathematical bureau in life insurance branch

of the Civil Servants’ Union of the Austrian Monarchy. At the same time he

worked as a tutor and wrote his habilitation dissertation.

He achieved his habilitation in 1894 on the basis of the dissertation On

content and object of presentations. This dissertation is (as yet) his most known

philosophical study abroad (probably because it was written in German and not

in Polish).

After achieving habilitation, in the academic year 1894/1895 Twardowski

started lecturing in Vienna as a Privatdozent. Being a Pole he had rather no

chance to receive a chair of philosophy in Vienna.

At that time, the chair of philosophy in Lvov University vacated and

Twardowski, exactly on his twenty-ninth birthday, was appointed the professor

of philosophy in Lvov. He remained in Lvov University for 35 years. During

this period, he was the main organizer of philosophical life and became a

founder of the most important philosophical school in the history of Polish

philosophy.

Twardowski devoted himself mostly to didactic work and tried to

organize Polish philosophical and – wider speaking – scientific and cultural life.

But he remained scientifically active. He wrote mostly in Polish (creating, by the

way, an important part of contemporary Polish philosophical terminology) and

that is why his later scientific achievements are not broadly known.

In his mature life, Twardowski published relatively little because of the

following reasons. Firstly, he devoted exceptionally much time for didactic work

and performed many public functions having little time for strictly scientific

work. Secondly, he was satisfied with resolving problems or finding resolutions

in oral discussions; usually he was not interested in publishing the results of

them. Thirdly, he liked when his students developed his thoughts (even if they

did not mention that he was the source of their ideas). Fourthly, he was a

perfectionist and did not want to publish works which were not enough

elaborated.

Twardowski died in 1936. During his funeral, one of his students,

Władysław Witwicki, said:

Several months ago the Professor told one of members of our group that he was happy

and he gave the reasons for this. He referred to his age, because he had not expected he would

live so long. He had seen Poland regain its independence, which was for him a source of

permanent joy. For many years he worked with dedication as a professor of philosophy, and if

he had to choose his profession over again, he would choose the same again. He particularly

enjoyed the attitude of his disciples towards himself, an attitude which was quite exceptional

and the extraordinary character of which he fully realized.... All this was said by a man who

was gravely ill but was not broken by the fact; on the contrary, here was a man who had

dominated his sufferings. This statement of his really reminds one of the last letters written by

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Epicurus to Hermarchus. And this is not a coincidence, because the Professor deliberately

shaped his attitude after the pattern of the old Greek masters of autonomous ethics. This is

why during the last years of his life he showed others by his own example how to endure

physical pain and turn it into one more opportunity for the victory of concentrated will.

2. Components of Twardowski’s posture

2.1. Twardowski as a teacher It was mainly the Twardowski’s personality and his dedication to teaching

and organizing work that made the rise of the Lvov-Warsaw School possible.

Twardowski started almost from scratch. As Witwicki wrote:

[Twardowski] found the lecture halls almost empty. Several of his acquaintances – and

several bolder strangers used to come in, partly out of courtesy, and partly out of the curiosity

in order to see how the young professor looked and lectured. Gradually the hall became more

filled and soon it could not accommodate all those willing to listen; with the lapse of time the

lectures had to be transferred outside the university because no university hall could

accommodate the listeners who from the early morning hurried to secure themselves a place.

Witwicki writes here about Twardowski’s lecture on philosophy for

students of all fields. But Twardowski, shortly after moving to Lvov, started to

organize serious philosophical studies at Lvov University. He passed whole his

own library to University and founded philosophical seminar.

Another devoted student of Twardowski, Izydora Dąmbska, describes

how work of seminar looked like:

The seminar was the meeting place for students of all years beginning with the second.

It was there that under the direction and the most careful attention of the professor they

prepared themselves for independent scholarly work. Classic philosophical works were read

and interpreted jointly (always in the original, which required the knowledge of foreign

languages). Every participant in the seminar would work out his topic, and at the end of the

year would submit the result to the professor for appraisal. It often occurred that one’s second

seminar paper was an independent scholarly contribution and could serve as a doctoral thesis

or a thesis for the candidate to professorial examination. Twardowski secured for his students

ideal conditions for work. Each member of the seminar could use the reading room, to which

he had his own key; from 7 am. to 10 p.m. in that reading room he had his own desk and

could avail himself of the necessary books from a large library (which in 1930 had some

8,000 items). Rigorous and unconditionally binding regulations, thought over in minutest

details, secured the smooth functioning of this unique students’ work room. Everyone had the

right and the opportunity to have frequent contact with the professor who, every day,

invariably received students in his office between noon and 1 p.m. He used to spend some

eight to nine hours daily in the seminar, often visiting the reading room and having many

personal contacts with the members of the seminar. Such was the outer framework of his

work, which was an educational activity unique of its kind. In order to acquire a better

knowledge of his disciples, Twardowski kept detailed files, in which every student had his

record with the assessment of papers and examinations and a description of interests and

achievements. Twardowski also kept all the papers of his disciples in the seminar archives.

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One of the most characteristic features of Twardowski as a teacher was

that he did not force on his students any world view, any philosophical doctrine,

any area of research. What he was trying to teach them was rather the method of

work. There were two main postulates essential to this method: the postulate of

precision and the postulate of justification. According to the first postulate,

every thesis should be expressed with maximal clarity and accuracy. According

to the second one, every conviction should be expressed with the strength

proportional to the strength of its justification.

This Twardowski’s posture bore fruit in the fact that scientific interests of

his students were really varied. Some of them became mostly logicians, others –

mostly historians of philosophy, others – psychologists, estheticians, ethicists,

etc. Some of them chose areas of science outside philosophy. But all of them

were trained in the history of philosophy and in logic. Twardowski also

inculcated them devotion to systematic work and love of reality.

2.2. Sources of Twardowski’s philosophical conceptions In his scientific research, Twardowski was influenced mostly by Franz

Brentano and also by Brentano’s disciples – Alexius Meinong and Anton Marty

(called Brentano’s Minister for Language). Also Bernard Bolzano influenced

Twardowski’s views to some extent.

From Brentano, Twardowski inherited realism and absolutism in the

theory of truth. Similarly to Brentano, Twardowski believed that consciousness

is a complex of acts which are different from their contents and that scientific

philosophy should be based on descriptive psychology and analysis. After

Brentano, Twardowski was also against metaphysicism in philosophy, i.e.

against investigations that in advance assume a definite solution of philosophical

problems.

2.3. Conception of philosophy Twardowski considers philosophy as a complex discipline, composed of

particular disciplines: history of philosophy, psychology, logic, ethics,

aesthetics, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, etc. On the other hand, he pointed

to some characteristic features of all philosophical disciplines:

We thus have to point to a common characteristic on the strength of which we include

the various philosophical disciplines in a single group. That common characteristic consists in

a certain property of the objects with which the philosophical disciplines are concerned. All

philosophical disciplines investigate objects which are given to us either exclusively in our

inner experience or in both inner and external experience. It is easy to deduce the various

branches of philosophy from this definition of philosophical disciplines.

Being given in inner, introspective experience is, according to

Twardowski, a distinctive property of the domain of philosophy.

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The popular view in the philosophy of 19th century was psychologism.

This view has two aspects: methodological and ontological. Methodological

psychologism says that one of the most important methods of philosophy is

introspective analysis of own mental acts. The thesis of the ontological

psychologism reads: objects such as values, meanings, and judgments are just

mental (psychic) objects, and the sciences which deal with them (axiology and

logic, respectively) are parts of psychology. Being a methodological

psychologist, Twardowski refused psychologism in the ontological version. The

crucial work in which Twardowski expresses his antipsychological views in

relation to ontology is Actions and Products. Comments on the Border Area of

Psychology, Grammar and Logic (1912).

3. Twardowski’s metaphysics

3.1. The pluralistic conception of being

Let us consider two objects: a city (e.g. Warsaw) and a number (e.g.

number two). They have almost nothing in common. Warsaw is a spatio-

temporal object, very complex, cognizable thanks to external senses (in fact –

maybe it is not cognizable as a whole, but we may cognize it through its parts).

Number two is something that we cannot see or hear. It is extra-temporal and

extra-spatial. It is an ideal or abstract object, as we are used to saying.

Metaphysicians who consider such different kinds of objects as Warsaw

and number two divide into two subsets. Some of them claim that there are

many different ways of existence, e.g. number two exists differently than the

city of Warsaw: the first is ideal, the second – real. Other metaphysicians claim

that there is only one way of existence but many different kinds of objects.

Twardowski belonged to the second group. He was among those

metaphysicians who assume that there is one mode of existence and only

different kinds of beings. The varied class of beings one can categorize in few

ways by distinguishing existential, ontical or metaphysical categories.

3.1.1. Kinds of beings Let us see what categories of objects were distinguished by Twardowski.

From the existential point of view, he proposed three classifications of

entities and distinguished:

(a) possible and impossible entities.

(b) factual (i.e. existing) and only intentional (i.e. in fact unexisting)

entities;

(c) real and unreal entities.

Impossible entities (e.g. an oblique square, a devoted-of-weight body)

possess contradictory properties. All other entities are possible.

Examples of real entities are: a shrill tone, a tree, redness. On the

contrary, absence [of something], change [of something] or space - are unreal.

Intentional objects are only objects of our thoughts (they are only

imagined ones); beings which are not only objects of our thoughts are factual.

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Real entities (e.g. a shrill tone, a tree, redness) and unreal entities (e.g. ,

absence [of something], change [of something] or space) can be factual (e.g.) as

well as intentional. If we see a tree, this seen tree is both a real and factual

entity; if we only imagine this tree, it is a real but intentional entity. If we find

an absence of amber in our chest, this absence is unreal but factual; if we only

imagine this absence, and if in fact we have a piece of amber in our chest, this

absence is unreal and intentional at the same time.

3.1.2. From the metaphysical point of view Twardowski distinguished:

(a) individual and general entities;

(b) simple and complex entities;

(c) ultimately physical and psychical entities.

An individual entity (e.g. Kazimierz Twardowski, the universe, the day

prior to the battle of Marathon, the number thousand) is an entity which, apart

from components common to many entities, has at least one specific component.

For instance: Kazimierz Twardowski has many properties common to many

entities: being-a-philosopher, being-a-man, possessing-three-daughters etc., but

he possesses also some properties which are specific only to him, e.g. being-

born-on-the-22th-of-October-1866-in-Wien-on-Favoritenstraβe-20.

A general entity is a set of components common to many entities

presented (i.e. imagined or conceived) as a certain homogeneous whole.

Examples of general entities are: number in general, triangle in general,

judgment in general etc.

A simple entity is an entity completely unanalyzable (i.e. in which we

cannot distinguish any parts), e.g. coexistence, equality, a spiritual being. A

complex entity is an entity in which we can isolate at least two components;

examples of such entities are: a sequence of numbers, a house, a man.1

A physical entity (e.g. someone’s brain) is a spatially extensive and

sensually perceptible entity. A psychical entity (e.g. any state of consciousness –

a presentation, a feeling etc.) is devoid of spatial extension – and it is accessible

only in individual introspection.

3.1.2. Components of entity According to Twardowski, every entity – irrespective of its existential and

metaphysical category – is a homogeneous whole, composed of various

properties. Whatever can be distinguished in a given entity is a component of

this entity: a concrete component, if it is distinguishable factually, or an abstract

component, if it may be distinguished only intentionally. Take a red rose as an

example. Its stem and its petals are its concrete components, since one may

distinguish them factually (e.g. tear off the petals from the stem). But redness of

this rose is its abstract component: we may «separate» redness from the rose

1 We must remember that if we recognize all the particular relations to other entities as components of a given

entity – we can speak only of relatively simple entities; allowing such an assumption, we must say that there are

no absolutely simple entities at all. We should distinguish simple and complex entities from entities presented

(respectively) as simple, or as complex.

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only mentally (in our imagination). All the properties (such as redness) and

relations are abstract components of entities.

3.1.3. Ontical categories Many philosophers (Aristotle was the first, probably), proposed a list of

ontical (ontological) categories, i.e. a list of the most general kinds of entities.

According to Twardowski, there are three main ontical categories:

(1) things and persons (e.g. a piece of paper, Lvov, Stanislaus Augustus);

(2) states, and especially:

(a) properties (e.g. a given color);

(b) changes (e.g. motion, activity, suicide);

(c) acts (e.g. writing);

and finally:

(3) relations (e.g. fraternity).

3.2. Acts and products

3.2.1. Acts. Impermanent and permanent products. Physical and

psychical acts Distinction between actions (acts – in general) and products is important

step in the way to refusal of psychologism. It has also a great importance in

ontology.

Acts are special kinds of states which are connected with some special

phenomena and things that are products of them. Products are entities that come

into being as results of definite acts. For example: a picture is the product of

painting, an inscription is the product of writing, a thought is the product of

thinking.

The distinction between acts and products seems to be clear. However,

sometimes it becomes complicated. Note that sometimes one uses the same

(ambiguous) word to name both: act and its products. It happens especially

while talking on psychic acts, e.g. the term „an idea” may mean both act (of

having an idea of something) and product of its act. Mixing acts of thinking with

products of these acts leads to many misunderstandings.

Twardowski distinguishes relatively impermanent products, which can be

separated from correspondent acts only mentally (by abstraction), and relatively

permanent products. A jump as the product of jumping or a dance as the product

of dancing – can be distinguished from acts only mentally and are relatively

impermanent. A sculpture as a product of sculpturing is a relatively permanent.

Products of physical acts – i.e. physical products – are either impermanent

(e.g. a cry as the product of involuntary crying), or permanent (e.g. a plait as the

product of plaiting). Permanent products of physical acts exist longer than the

acts which have created them.

All the products of psychical acts – i.e. psychical products – are

impermanent (e.g. a thought as the product of thinking, a sensation as the

product of sensing, a decision as the product of deciding).

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3.2.2. Material of acts and intentional acts Twardowski notices that some acts are directed at some entities. Entities –

things in particular – to which physical acts are directed, constitute the material

of these acts (e.g. sand in which there is (a trace of) a footprint). The product of

a physical act directed at a certain material is not this material itself but a new

structure of this material (created by the act): the product of a directed physical

act inheres in the material of this act.

This entity, to which a certain spiritual act is directed, constitutes the

object of this act (e.g. when we imagine a Tatra landscape – this landscape is the

objects of our act of imaging). Acts which are directed at some objects are

intentional acts. According to Twardowski, all psychical acts are intentional.

Twardowski adds that there are properties of products which do not

belong to acts creating these products. For instance, it happens that a dream

comes «false», but not an act or dreaming. A question – but not questioning –

can be unintelligible.

3.3. Components of consciousness In Twardowski’s conceptual scheme, spiritual acts and their products

which can be only mentally separated are called “empirical components of

consciousness” or “psychical facts”. They are cognizable only by self-

consciousness. Only states or somebody’s own consciousness are immediately

cognizable by a given human being.

Try to think about something, e.g. about your favorite dish, about Institute

of Philosophy at Warsaw University or about the melody of Robert Schumann’s

“Dreaming”. Our thinking of something consists in presenting a certain object in

our mind.

In Brentanian tradition, inherited by Twardowski, presenting is the basic

kind of spiritual acts. It is a necessary condition of all other, secondary and more

complicated spiritual acts, in particular of judging, feeling and deciding. On the

other hand, judging is the necessary condition of feeling and deciding.

Presenting and judging, as well as reasoning, are kinds of thinking:

(a) presenting is thinking of something (e.g. of Sphinx, of ice cream I

have just eaten);

(b) judging is thinking that something is such-and-such (e.g. that Sphinx

is huge, that the ice cream was delicious);

(c) reasoning is thinking about something (e.g. about the solution of a

riddle or about the influence of ice cream on my throat).

All secondary spiritual acts are bipolar and we can match them in the

following way:

(a) allowing – denying;

(b) rejoicing – worrying;

(c) desiring – refraining.

The first one of every pair is a positive, the second one – a negative act.

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According to Twardowski all spiritual acts – basic as well as secondary –

are intentional (i.e. directed at something). And every act possesses a certain

object.

3.4. Act, content, and object of presentation Imagine the Institute of Philosophy at Warsaw University. Many people

have presented (themselves) this object but probably every presentation was

different from another; however, all these presentations have the same object.

Thus, Twardowski distinguished the content of presentation from its object

(which were not precisely distinguished in Brentano's school).

The product of an act of presenting is the content of a given presentation.

This content is what is presented in a given act. The object of a given act is

presented by the content of this act.

Suppose that he person A presents himself the city where Twardowski was

born; the person B present himself the city where the congress after Napoleon’s

wars took place. Both presentations have the same object (scil. Vienna), but they

have different contents.

Twardowski was convinced that every presentation has exactly one

object. On the other hand every entity – including impossible, intentional, and

unreal entities – can become the object of a presentation. These convictions can

be explained by analogy to names: according to Twardowski, there is always

one and only one object named by a given name used in a given utterance.

Saying that Warsaw University is a university we have in mind the fact that one

object (here Warsaw University) is identical with another – but also one – object

(here with a certain university).

The difference between an act, a content and an object of presentation is

real, not just logical. Twardowski gives the following arguments for that thesis:

(1) The existence of a content of presentation is not a condition of the

existence of an object. A given content of presentation is an existing entity

whenever the act of this presentation exists; whereas the object can be an

existent, as well as non-existent and even impossible entity. Object of

presentation of the Institute of Philosophy is real – but the object of presentation

of Pegasus is not real.

(2) Two presentations with different contents (e.g. the presentation of the

city located at the site of Roman Juvavum and the presentation of the birthplace

of Mozart) can have the same object.

(4) Some properties of an object of presentation cannot be properties of

the corresponding content. For example, the object of a presentation of the

golden mountain is extensive and golden etc.; the content of this presentation is

neither extensive, nor golden.

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3.5. Images Among presentations, Twardowski distinguished images, i.e. intuitive

presentations, and concepts, i.e. unintuitive ones.

3.5.1. Concreteness and vagueness of images The intuitiveness of images consists in their concreteness and vagueness.

A given presentation is concrete if attributes of its object are (co)presented

by the content in an undifferentiated way, and consequently are not

differentiated in this content.

For instance, auditory impressions received during a perception of violin

sounds blend, and even if someone is able to distinguish violin sounds from e.g.

piano sounds, he does not distinguish components of the former sounds during

the process of their perception. When we imagine, for instance, a certain person,

all the attributes of this person create an undifferentiated whole, and they can be

isolated only by analysis.

A given image is vague if only some components of the presented object

are explicitly (co)presented by its content.

For instance, in an image of a toothache, the feeling of the ache is in

general distinct; on the other hand, the impressions of drilling or extracting are

indistinct. When we imagine a face of any person, the features of this face – the

profile, the form of the lips etc. – appear sometimes more distinct than, for

instance, the color of the eyes.

Only entities, which are, were or could be perceived or self-perceived, can

be intuitively presented objects – e.g. our pain, our joy and our convictions are

such entities that can be perceived intuitively.

3.5.2. Perceptive, reproductive and productive images There are three general kinds of images: perceptive, reproductive and

productive ones. Perceptive images are fundamental, and all other images are

derivative.

Perceptive images are images taking place for instance during perceiving

an orange just seen, a melody just heard, or anger just experienced.

The content of perceptive images is a synthesis of some components:

sense impressions and psychical elements. For instance, sight impression does

not allow us to think of objects surrounding us as of three-dimensional objects.

However, we perceive them as three-dimensional objects because of our

previous perceptions and judgments which create in us a permanent disposition

(habit) to see objects three-dimensionally.

According to Twardowski, every perception consists of such a content, of

corresponding impressions, and also of a judgment stating the existence of the

object of the constitutive image. Thus, perceptions are a kind of judgments.

Reproductive images are memorial reproductions of perceptive images.

The examples are: an image of a landscape seen a day before, an image of an

affection in the moment of death of a friend who died long ago; an image of a

melody heard some time ago, etc.

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Productive images are composed of the following components:

(a) an underlying image, and particularly the reproductive image of the

entity similar to the object to be productively imagined;

(b) an image of judgment that either assigns to the productively imagined

object such properties that de facto are not properties of this object at all, or

denies it the properties that it in fact possesses;

(c) an image of the initially imagined object but with the first properties or

without the second properties mentioned above.

Productive images divide into involuntary ones (e.g. an image of a dragon

in a dream) and voluntary ones (e.g. an image of joy to be experienced at some

future moment when dreams come true).