Nauka Polska. Jej Potrzeby, Organizacja i Rozwój 2019 [Language: Polish]“Table of Contents” and “A Word from the Editor”
A Word from the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
SCIENCE
POZNAN REFLECTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS.
Roman Murawski, Logic at the University of Poznan. . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Antoni Szczuciński, Towards Supra-Locality. Comments on the Development of Physics at the University of Poznan . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Janusz Skoczylas, Geological Sciences in Greater Poland. On the 100th Anniversary of Academic Geology in Poznan. . . . . . .51
Andrzej Gulczyński, Foundations of Civil Law in Poznan . . . . . . . . .81
Jan Grad, „Methodological School of Poznan” — Achievements, Evaluations, and Controversies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
Anita Magowska, A Few Remarks about Medicine Changing overthe Century, Also in Poznan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
STUDIES ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Jaromir Jeszke, Poznan Scholars of the Interwar Period in the Pagesof Polish Journal of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
REVIEWS
Monika Wiśniewska: How to Cultivate the History of Artistic Education? Joanna Grabowska, Academy of Fine Arts in Cracowin the Years 1945-1956, series: „Monografi e z Dziejów Oświaty”, 8vol. 50, Warsaw, Ludwik and Alexander Birkenmajer Institutefor the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, OficynaWydawnicza ASPRA, 2018, p. 416 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165
CHRONICLE
In Memoriam: A Meritorious for Science and Society (Jerzy Lesław Wyrozumski,1930–2018) (Jerzy Strzelczyk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179
In Memoriam: Andrzej Ziabicki, Wspomnienie (Andrzej Wasiak) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190
Report on the Activities of the Józef Mianowski Fund — A Foundationfor the Promotion of Science from October 2018 to March 2019 (Joanna Schiller-Walicka) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203
A Word from the Editor [http://naukapolska.locloud.pl/items/show/92]
“Table
of Contents” and Nauka
Polska. Jej Potrzeby, Organizacja i
Rozwój, 2019, http://naukapolska.locloud.pl/items/show/90.
A
Word from the Editor
The
jubilee volumes of Polish Journal of Science (Pol.
Nauka Polska), devoted to the selected scientific community, have
their own tradition. We have decided to dedicate the current volume
to the University of Poznan, which inaugurated its activity a hundred
years ago, on May 7, 1919, as the Wszechnica Piastowska. The date was
not accidental, it referred to the 400th anniversary of the
foundation of the Lubrański Academy in Poznan. The original name,
however, did not last long. The opponents, among the creators of the
new University, claimed that “there is no evidence that the
well-deserved Piast dynasty was bustling around the founding of a
university in Poznan” (J. Kostrzewski). The university was called
the University of Poznan from 1920 to 1955. Threatened by the
compulsory patronage of one of the communist leaders, it recognized
the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz as worthy of this honor. From a
hundred-year perspective, six outstanding Poznan scholars have shared
their reflections and interpretations of the history of selected
disciplines with the readers of Polish Journal of Science: Professor
Roman Murawski, a logician, Professor Antoni Szczuciński, a
physicist and philosopher of science, Professor Janusz Skoczylas, a
geologist and geology historian, Professor Andrzej Gulczyński, a
legal historian, Professor Jan Grad, a culture expert, and Professor
Anita Magowska, a historian of medical science. These are various
views on selected areas of science taught in Poznan, both in the
chronological dimension and the approach to the problem. The editors
had no ambition or opportunity to show the synthesis of the research
of the University of Poznan. Its elements can be found in numerous
publications issued on the occasion of the jubilee of the University
of Poznan and universities originating from it. The reflections
presented in this volume, however, represent the main trends of
scientific studies: formal, natural, social, humanistic, and medical
sciences. This variety should, according to the Editorial Board,
allow to show the specificity of the University of Poznan. Readers
will assess whether this idea has succeeded. The birth of a new
university community was also shown in the pages of Polish Journal of
Science published in the interwar period. In the process of
diagnosing the state of Polish science at the threshold of state
independence, the participation of “Poznan” scholars is visible
(the quotation marks used are justified). The University of Poznan in
the era of the publication of the first volumes of the Yearbook
(1918– 1919) was only at the organizational stage, and the Poznan
science community, dominated by the Poznan Society of Friends of
Sciences, was transforming into a university. From this perspective,
one can speak of scholars from Cracow, Lviv, or Warsaw, who acquired
their creative competences and abilities there, and brought them to
the new academic community. Their views on the needs of the
scientific disciplines they represent, published in the pages of
Polish Journal of Science, can be treated as a kind of program
manifesto, an ideological contribution to the emerging reality of
Poznan and co-creating a new university community. Sometimes there
were visions of the development of a given discipline, sometimes
views on the organization of science, or the concepts of its
popularization. There were also fears, doubts, and disputes,
appropriate for the community of the older universities from which
they came. This issue has also been reflected in this volume. Roman
Murawski showed the history of logic in Poznan in several dimensions,
pointing to its connections with the Lviv-Warsaw philosophical school
in the interwar period and the Poznan school of cultural research in
the 1970s and its impact on various communities. Departments covering
this subject, most often associated with the methodology of science,
acted for the benefit of researchers in natural sciences, humanities,
and law. The author showed unused opportunities as well. These
included the liquidation in 1937 of the Department of Theory and
Methodology of Sciences at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural
Sciences of the University of Poznan, and the vacancy of its head
Alfred Tarski. He was not accepted in Poznan because of its Jewish
origin. Professor Murawski emphasizes that Tarski is currently
mentioned as one of the four greatest logicians of all time —
alongside Aristotle, Gottlob Frege, and Kurt Gödel. The question
that will remain open forever is how the fate of Poznan’s logic
would unfold in the case of Alfred Tarski’s appointment to the
above-mentioned Department. However, there is a more general
reflection that although history does not always teach a lesson, as
Cicero wanted, and probably is not the most dangerous product that
the intellect produced, as Paul Valéry warned, but it still retained
its warning power. Antoni Szczuciński in his paper referred to the
history of physics at the University of Poznan, presented its
origins, referred to scientific work in conditions of incomplete
openness of science in the post-World War II era. He analyzed the
work on the construction of a laser in Poznan and pioneer theories in
the field of nonlinear optics (Arkadiusz Piekara and Stanisław
Kielich). In the final part, he considers the success of research on
the explanation of the giant magnetoresistance (Józef Barnaś). In
this context, the author stressed the importance of interdisciplinary
studies and the fact that Poznan physics has undergone a development
path from locality to supra-local activity and focused on didactics
within the framework of global scientific competition. In the paper
devoted to the history of geology in the Poznan scientific community,
Janusz Skoczylas referred to very early attempts by Greater Poland
peoples to take up this issue, long before the independent discipline
emerged, from John Jonston (1603–1675) beginning. Many of them,
however, operated outside the region, without contributing to the
knowledge of the geological structure and mineral deposits of Greater
Poland, and most publications in this field until 1918 came from
German scholars. The author outlined the problems with the cast of
the first departments and geological and mineralogical institutes
forming the University. Characterizing the geological studies
undertaken in the interwar period, he stressed that the development
of this type of research in Greater Poland was institutionally
associated primarily with the University of Poznan, the Polish
Geological Institute, as well as with private companies. He showed
the personnel and didactic policy as well. In the years 1951–1984,
research and education in the fi eld of geology were carried out at
the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences, and then within the
Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences. Janusz Skoczylas
pointed out that the breakthrough years were 1987–1991, when in
1988, after 36 years of interruption, regular studies in the field of
geology were reactivated. With the latter event involves significant
quantitative and qualitative development of geological research in
Poznan, an important center of study in this area. The paper by
Andrzej Gulczyński deals with the foundations of civil law in
Poznan. The author notes the tradition of educating lawyers at the
Lubrański Academy and the Jesuit College, which was interrupted
during the partitions. At the same time, he emphasizes that the
independent, unchanged position in the evolving structure of the
University has been preserved only by the Law School, which only
modified the name and internal configuration. Andrzej Gulczyński
focused on the legal professions of civil law professors. This
perspective made it possible to show the personal and diverse
entanglements of the figures depicted in the realities of the
emerging University in a reborn Poland, under the conditions of
changes in legal systems that they were sometimes the authors. The
first Poznan civil law specialists, apart from the area of study and
academic roles, also performed various social functions, practiced
their legal professions, and sometimes engaged politically. Selected
personalities include members of the Competent Tribunal, the Supreme
Court, the Poznan City Council, members of the Sejm of the Republic
of Poland, and even the Rector of the University of Poznan. The
author emphasizes in the paper, above all, their contribution to the
construction of modern civil law in the interwar period. The “Poznan
methodological school” is the subject of reflection of Jan Grad.
This idea was born over 50 years ago with the publication of the book
by Jerzy Kmita and Leszek Nowak “Studies on the Theoretical
Foundations of Humanities” (Pol. Studia nad teoretycznymi
podstawami humanistyki). It set a new dimension of study and
discussion in the community of Poznan logicians and philosophers of
science, taking into account the perspective of the “humanistic
coefficient” of Florian Znaniecki and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz.
According to Jan Grad, an important moment was the transition from
Ajdukiewicz’s “experiential logic” to Marxist research on
society, which retains its analytical assumptions. Later, as the
author points out, the Poznan methodological school was attributed to
researchers referring to the historical epistemology developed by J.
Kmita from the mid-1970s (theoretical history of science) or to the
social theory of culture developed by him, which characterizes
“Poznan school of culture.” These studies caused many disputes
and discussions (not only in the country) due to the unorthodox
approach to the theoretical heritage of the creators of Marxism,
using the methodological research model developed in the Poznan
academic community. Anita Magowska discussed the issue of Poznan
medicine against the problems that plagued this field of science in
the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Starting from 1919,
from a local Poznan perspective, she analyzed the issues of health
economics and the health care condition. She analyzed, among others
the issue of obtaining by some clinics of additional income outside
the budget subsidy system, but also the political conditions in which
their managers were to work, especially after World War II. Reaching
for the sources of the university’s medical community in Poznan,
the author emphasizes that “during the organization of the
University of Poznan, the Medical School’s Faculty Council was
looking for candidates for clinic managers among local doctors,
pupils of prestigious German, Swiss, and French universities with
academic achievements appropriate to the habilitation.” The
contemporary face of medicine, based on international publications
and scientific societies of a global dimension, leads Anita Magowska
to state that the fall of the position of a master in shaping the
professional attitudes of doctors. And also to the conclusion that
“the features of the development of medicine in the 20th century
should be considered: the devaluation of life and death and the
abolition of human existence from the spiritual dimension,
fascination with medical technologies and the common belief that
thanks to them you can be healed from all diseases, subordination of
medical practice and international health to health economics.”
Acting as the part of the Józef Mianowski Fund — A Foundation for
the Promotion of Science, we document in the pages of the Yearbook
its activities in the field of supporting science, the main statutory
goal, and the activity of the bodies of the Fund. Hence, the presence
in the submitted volume of reports on the election of new
authorities, but also reviews and discussions of important, we think,
books, published with the financial support of the Foundation. This
is connected with the submission of the last homage to people who
have rendered great service to Polish science and the Foundation. We
say goodbye to Professor Jerzy Lesław Wyrozumski (1930-2018), a
scholar of great merits, a long-term chairman of the Scientific
Council of the Józef Mianowski Fund, and a member of the Program
Board of our Yearbook.
Jaromir
Jeszke Editor-in-Chief
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