Professor (ordinarius) of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. PhD in mathematics, 'Habilitation' in philosophy, state conferred title professor of humanities. Former chair of the Academic Council of the Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. Co-chair of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews. Co-author of the core exhibition in Polin, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw.
Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism (ed. by Andrea Vestrucci), Sophia studies in cross-cultural philosophy of traditions and cultures, vol. 43, Dec 31, 2023
Sometimes an oscillation takes place between two incompatible approaches to an experienced situat... more Sometimes an oscillation takes place between two incompatible approaches to an experienced situation: from one to another, then back and then again, and again. The oscillation is not an additional ingredient but an essential aspect of the situation. Both approaches are needed but having assumed one of them the participant is led to the realization of the need of the other. A process of this kind occurs in interfaith dialogue: we oscillate between considering the other religion from an objective standpoint and perceiving it from the perspective of my own religion. Some kind of oscillation is present in other situations. Several examples are given to show that the process can be seen as familiar even though it has hardly been identified as a separate phenomenon to be analyzed. According to the present author, it is related to but possibly distinct from complementarity as it is known in physics. A preliminary attempt is made to formulate the logic of the oscillation process, which can be called sequential paraclassical logic.
Religious Truth (ed. A. Goshen-Gottstein), Apr 2, 2020
This chapter is a philosophically oriented exploration of truth which tackles a specific challeng... more This chapter is a philosophically oriented exploration of truth which tackles a specific challenge to the truth within Judaism, but that challenge potentially applies to other traditions as well. It engages with the more theoretical question of what we mean when we speak of truth in a religious context. Judaism is a textual tradition that appeals to historical reality. It is thus highly historical. What happens when factual certitude falters and we lose the safe moorings of faith in the plain sense of historical accounts that provide the basis for the religious life? Stanislaw Krajewski's efforts are an attempt to salvage or uphold a notion of truth in textual and historical matters, despite various uncertainties that we are confronted with. It also addresses the ultimate challenge of truth: identifying or pointing to the immutable element in religion — that which transcends the processes of change and growth that characterize everything, religion included. The chapter tackles the challenges that history poses to religious truth on multiple levels.
After the 1968 emigration, very few Jews remained in Poland, and even more miniscule was the num... more After the 1968 emigration, very few Jews remained in Poland, and even more miniscule was the number of “Jewish Jews.” Since then the number has grown somewhat, and much of it is due to the process of de-assimilation; i.e., some people with Jewish ancestors raised in completely Polonized families began to recover, reclaim, and readapt their Jewish background. An analysis of this phenomenon is ofered with a series of putative reasons for its occurrence. The individuals constituting the “products” of de-assimilation are the majority of Polish Jews today and form much of the current leadership. While individuals everywhere can strengthen their ties to the Jewish people and can experience teshuvah or another kind of “Judaization,” the process of de-assimilation does not seem to be reducible to those moves. It begins with no Jewish identity, and is highly dependent on the attitudes and cultural trends in the majority society. It does not remove the de-assimilationists from the majority culture. The phenomenon is general and deserves to be studied as a sociological mechanism working in other cases of assimilation to a majority culture. In the Jewish case, it is especially dramatic. Probably the frst example can be found in the evolution of the Marrano communities settled in Holland. The presence of de-assimilation seems to diferentiate some European, frst of all East European, communities from the globally dominant American and Israeli ones. Probably this rather new concept is needed to describe a signifcant part of the world of the Jews of twentyfrst century Europe.
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook, Cláudio Carvalho, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese (Hrsg), Baden-Baden: Verlag Karl Alber, 139-162. , 2023
How is it possible to resolve the problem arising from contradictory opinions regarding Franz Ros... more How is it possible to resolve the problem arising from contradictory opinions regarding Franz Rosenzweig’s and Hermann Cohen’s use of mathematics? A natural way out is proposed: while mathematics is essential for "The Star of Redemption" in the context of discovery, it is not essential in the context of justification.
To appear in Jewish History Quarterly 2023; has appeared. , 2023
It is argued that all the Polish “professional” revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century –... more It is argued that all the Polish “professional” revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century – all, not just Jews among them – formed not only a category but also a group tied by common values, relations, experiences, and a group identity. At the same time, those individuals of Jewish extractions who were active in the general, non-Jewish movement, did not feel that they formed a subgroup. While we may try to identify Jewish traits of the socialist leaders and devoted activists raised in assimilated Jewish families, we may not assume that they formed a Jewish group or were substantially Jewish just because they were Jewish by origin. In order to determine to what extent and in what sense they were Jewish, the following features of the Jewish leaders of Polish leftist parties of that era are analysed: assimilation together with the belief in its value; ‘Europeanism’; attitude to the Polish language; opposition to Jewish nationalism; idealism and highest ethical standards; identification with modernism and science; quasi-religious messianic Marxism. If some of these attributes are seen as Jewish, it is Jewishness of a highly paradoxical nature. Generally, the reasons for which some assimilated Jews became radical leftists and later communists were mostly social, had to do with their marginal status, but their involvement was significantly coloured by their Jewish heritage. While the leftist leaders who were Jewish by origin could have gone back to Jewish life, none of them did. However, some of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren did. This recent development makes it easier to include their ancestors into the annals of Jewish history.
Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice (ed. by Bharat Sriraman), Springer, 2022
Modern mathematics has been shaped by the process of secularization of science. Yet even some pre... more Modern mathematics has been shaped by the process of secularization of science. Yet even some present-day mathematicians use religious terms behind the (mathematical) scenes. How essential this is remains debatable. Before modernity, everything, including mathematics, was perceived from a religious perspective. Deeper connections existed for Pythagoreans, and nowadays there is a revival of Pythagoreanism. Mathematics was used by medieval theologians, and even the founders of modern science, for instance, Newton, Leibniz, Boole, Cantor, referred to religion. From the present perspective, those theological aspects seem mostly irrelevant. The concept of actual infinity had a fundamentally religious meaning before the nineteenth century. Now, only a few see mathematical infinity as a notion common to mathematics and theology. Religious origins of some mathematical concepts can be detected, for example, Indian origins of zero, possible Christian sources of the initiation of the algebraic approach, the creative function of naming applied to infinite entities. On the other hand, mathematical illustrations of theological concepts are possible, even though genuine mathematical models do not seem to be essential or testable. Generally, religious needs and motivations played a role in the development of mathematics, and mathematical metaphors helped theologians. To perceive this connection as relevant now requires sensitivity to the realm of the religious.
The penultimate version of the chapter to appear in: Sriraman, Bharat (ed) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham, 2022.
Already available online at DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_77-2
This text on the religious legacy of Polish Jews has appeared, accompanied by many illustrations,... more This text on the religious legacy of Polish Jews has appeared, accompanied by many illustrations, as a chapter in the book Legacy of Polish Jews (ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Tamara Sztyma, Warsaw: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2021, pp. 47-65). To quote, please refer to that book.
S U M M A R Y : The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the h... more S U M M A R Y : The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the human mind based on Gödel's incompleteness theorem is revisited. Its history is reviewed. The proof, also known as the Lucas argument and the Penrose argument, is refuted. It is claimed, following Gödel himself and other leading logicians, that anti-mechanism is not implied by Gödel's theorems alone. The present paper sets out this refutation in its strongest form, demonstrating general theorems implying the inconsistency of Lucas's arithmetic and the semantic inadequacy of Penrose's arithmetic. On the other hand, the limitations to our capacity for mechanizing or programming the mind are also indicated, together with two other corollaries of Gödel's theorems: that we cannot prove that we are consistent (Gödel's Unknowability Thesis), and that we cannot fully describe our notion of a natural number.
NOTE: This paper is slightly improved compared to the penultimate version available here (at the author's academia page).
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed.by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018, 2018
The paper constitutes the 4th chapter, pages 68-84, of the book
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig... more The paper constitutes the 4th chapter, pages 68-84, of the book Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed. by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018.
This article describes three aspects of the Jewish-Christian relationship as presented in The Star of Redemption: complementarity, partnership, and the absence of the common historical roots. In addition, it introduces the problem of the purely racial definition of Jews as well as the issue of whether a synthesis of the two religions is possible. Krajewski then defines »deep« interreligious dialogue and discusses the impact of Rosenzweig’s system on dialogue. The article concludes by describing two basic approaches to the plurality of religions and the oscillation from the »suprareligious« to the »religious-specific« and back. The oscillation model provides another meaning of the »and«.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.02 The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-comput... more DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.02 The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the human mind based on Godel’s incompleteness theorem is revisited. Its history is reviewed. The proof, also known as the Lucas argument and the Penrose argument, is refuted. It is claimed, following Godel himself and other leading logicians, that antimechanism is not implied by Godel’s theorems alone. The present paper sets out this refutation in its strongest form, demonstrating general theorems implying the inconsistency of Lucas’s arithmetic and the semantic inadequacy of Penrose’s arithmetic. On the other hand, the limitations to our capacity for mechanizing or programming the mind are also indicated, together with two other corollaries of Godel’s theorems: that we cannot prove that we are consistent (Godel’s Unknowability Thesis), and that we cannot fully describe our notion of a natural number.
In courses of logic for general students the general and existential quantifiers are the only one... more In courses of logic for general students the general and existential quantifiers are the only ones distinguished from among all possible quantifier expressions of the natural language. One can argue that other quantifiers deserve mention, even though there are good reason for emphasizing the familiar ones: namely, they are the simplest, the universal quantifier is a counterpart of the operation of generalizing, the number of nested quantifiers is a good measure of logical complexity, and the expressive power of the general quantifier and its dual is considerable.
THIS PAPER HAS BEEN AVAIALBLE AT THE AUTHOR'S ACADEMIA SITE;
THE PROGRAM FOR SOME REASON UPLOADED IT AGAIN...
The Euclidean ideal of mathematics as well as all the foundational schools in the philosophy of m... more The Euclidean ideal of mathematics as well as all the foundational schools in the philosophy of mathematics have been contested by the new approach, called the "maverick" trend in the philosophy of mathematics. Several points made by its main representatives are mentioned-from the revisability of actual proofs to the stress on real mathematical practice as opposed to its idealized reconstruction. Main features of real proofs are then mentioned; for example, whether they are convincing, understandable, and/or explanatory. Therefore, the new approach questions Hilbert's Thesis, according to which a correct mathematical proof is in principle reducible to a formal proof, based on explicit axioms and logic.
John Paul II’s Encounters with Polish Jews, Studies in Jewish Christian Relations 15, no. 1 (2020), 1-18., 2020
An examination of the official encounters in Poland of Pope John Paul II with representatives of ... more An examination of the official encounters in Poland of Pope John Paul II with representatives of the Polish Jewish community. This study includes a first-hand account of the atmosphere of the meetings and their backgrounds. This article also offers an analysis of the Pope’s addresses.
This is the English part of the bilingual, Polish-English, little book "What I Owe to Interreligi... more This is the English part of the bilingual, Polish-English, little book "What I Owe to Interreligious Dialogue and Christianity," based on the 2014 Aleksander and Alicja Hertz Annual Memorial Lecture.
God's name " Elohim, " common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always used with verbs... more God's name " Elohim, " common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always used with verbs in the singular even though it is in the plural form. It is shown here that the ungrammatical usage can be seen as the best solution to a natural problem. Namely, tradition assumes that it should be impossible to talk about a general category of gods within which the one God could be located. The best and perhaps the only way to prevent the implicit pluralization of the unique God is to put his name in plural even though it is intended to be used as if it were singular. One cannot form the plural form of the name that is already grammatically plural! Surprisingly, this explanation seems to have been considered by neither classical nor modern commentators.
Published in "Eidos" 2 (4), 2018, 115-121. (This is only a slight modification of the former version of the paper displayed on the author's academia.edu page.)
This is a draft of the paper that will introduce the volume "Theological Discourse and Logic" (ed... more This is a draft of the paper that will introduce the volume "Theological Discourse and Logic" (ed. by Marcin Trepczynski and Stanislaw Krajewski), an issue of Logica Universalis. Abstract The 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion, held in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017, is summarized. Then the connective "and" is analyzed; we focus on its meaning in the title of the congress and the title of the present volume. Finally, all the eleven papers included here are briefly introduced; we indicate whether logic or theology is the primary topic in the given paper. See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11787-019-00238-w (Unfortunately, it was not released by the publisher as an open access paper.)
Journal of Applied Logics — IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications 6(6), pp. 999-1005, 2019
This is the introductory paper, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, to the issue "Lo... more This is the introductory paper, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, to the issue "Logic and the Concept of God" of the Journal of Applied Logics — IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications, Special Issue "Concept of God", Guest Editors: Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, vol 6 (6), pp. 999-1005.
Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism (ed. by Andrea Vestrucci), Sophia studies in cross-cultural philosophy of traditions and cultures, vol. 43, Dec 31, 2023
Sometimes an oscillation takes place between two incompatible approaches to an experienced situat... more Sometimes an oscillation takes place between two incompatible approaches to an experienced situation: from one to another, then back and then again, and again. The oscillation is not an additional ingredient but an essential aspect of the situation. Both approaches are needed but having assumed one of them the participant is led to the realization of the need of the other. A process of this kind occurs in interfaith dialogue: we oscillate between considering the other religion from an objective standpoint and perceiving it from the perspective of my own religion. Some kind of oscillation is present in other situations. Several examples are given to show that the process can be seen as familiar even though it has hardly been identified as a separate phenomenon to be analyzed. According to the present author, it is related to but possibly distinct from complementarity as it is known in physics. A preliminary attempt is made to formulate the logic of the oscillation process, which can be called sequential paraclassical logic.
Religious Truth (ed. A. Goshen-Gottstein), Apr 2, 2020
This chapter is a philosophically oriented exploration of truth which tackles a specific challeng... more This chapter is a philosophically oriented exploration of truth which tackles a specific challenge to the truth within Judaism, but that challenge potentially applies to other traditions as well. It engages with the more theoretical question of what we mean when we speak of truth in a religious context. Judaism is a textual tradition that appeals to historical reality. It is thus highly historical. What happens when factual certitude falters and we lose the safe moorings of faith in the plain sense of historical accounts that provide the basis for the religious life? Stanislaw Krajewski's efforts are an attempt to salvage or uphold a notion of truth in textual and historical matters, despite various uncertainties that we are confronted with. It also addresses the ultimate challenge of truth: identifying or pointing to the immutable element in religion — that which transcends the processes of change and growth that characterize everything, religion included. The chapter tackles the challenges that history poses to religious truth on multiple levels.
After the 1968 emigration, very few Jews remained in Poland, and even more miniscule was the num... more After the 1968 emigration, very few Jews remained in Poland, and even more miniscule was the number of “Jewish Jews.” Since then the number has grown somewhat, and much of it is due to the process of de-assimilation; i.e., some people with Jewish ancestors raised in completely Polonized families began to recover, reclaim, and readapt their Jewish background. An analysis of this phenomenon is ofered with a series of putative reasons for its occurrence. The individuals constituting the “products” of de-assimilation are the majority of Polish Jews today and form much of the current leadership. While individuals everywhere can strengthen their ties to the Jewish people and can experience teshuvah or another kind of “Judaization,” the process of de-assimilation does not seem to be reducible to those moves. It begins with no Jewish identity, and is highly dependent on the attitudes and cultural trends in the majority society. It does not remove the de-assimilationists from the majority culture. The phenomenon is general and deserves to be studied as a sociological mechanism working in other cases of assimilation to a majority culture. In the Jewish case, it is especially dramatic. Probably the frst example can be found in the evolution of the Marrano communities settled in Holland. The presence of de-assimilation seems to diferentiate some European, frst of all East European, communities from the globally dominant American and Israeli ones. Probably this rather new concept is needed to describe a signifcant part of the world of the Jews of twentyfrst century Europe.
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook, Cláudio Carvalho, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese (Hrsg), Baden-Baden: Verlag Karl Alber, 139-162. , 2023
How is it possible to resolve the problem arising from contradictory opinions regarding Franz Ros... more How is it possible to resolve the problem arising from contradictory opinions regarding Franz Rosenzweig’s and Hermann Cohen’s use of mathematics? A natural way out is proposed: while mathematics is essential for "The Star of Redemption" in the context of discovery, it is not essential in the context of justification.
To appear in Jewish History Quarterly 2023; has appeared. , 2023
It is argued that all the Polish “professional” revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century –... more It is argued that all the Polish “professional” revolutionaries at the turn of the 20th century – all, not just Jews among them – formed not only a category but also a group tied by common values, relations, experiences, and a group identity. At the same time, those individuals of Jewish extractions who were active in the general, non-Jewish movement, did not feel that they formed a subgroup. While we may try to identify Jewish traits of the socialist leaders and devoted activists raised in assimilated Jewish families, we may not assume that they formed a Jewish group or were substantially Jewish just because they were Jewish by origin. In order to determine to what extent and in what sense they were Jewish, the following features of the Jewish leaders of Polish leftist parties of that era are analysed: assimilation together with the belief in its value; ‘Europeanism’; attitude to the Polish language; opposition to Jewish nationalism; idealism and highest ethical standards; identification with modernism and science; quasi-religious messianic Marxism. If some of these attributes are seen as Jewish, it is Jewishness of a highly paradoxical nature. Generally, the reasons for which some assimilated Jews became radical leftists and later communists were mostly social, had to do with their marginal status, but their involvement was significantly coloured by their Jewish heritage. While the leftist leaders who were Jewish by origin could have gone back to Jewish life, none of them did. However, some of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren did. This recent development makes it easier to include their ancestors into the annals of Jewish history.
Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice (ed. by Bharat Sriraman), Springer, 2022
Modern mathematics has been shaped by the process of secularization of science. Yet even some pre... more Modern mathematics has been shaped by the process of secularization of science. Yet even some present-day mathematicians use religious terms behind the (mathematical) scenes. How essential this is remains debatable. Before modernity, everything, including mathematics, was perceived from a religious perspective. Deeper connections existed for Pythagoreans, and nowadays there is a revival of Pythagoreanism. Mathematics was used by medieval theologians, and even the founders of modern science, for instance, Newton, Leibniz, Boole, Cantor, referred to religion. From the present perspective, those theological aspects seem mostly irrelevant. The concept of actual infinity had a fundamentally religious meaning before the nineteenth century. Now, only a few see mathematical infinity as a notion common to mathematics and theology. Religious origins of some mathematical concepts can be detected, for example, Indian origins of zero, possible Christian sources of the initiation of the algebraic approach, the creative function of naming applied to infinite entities. On the other hand, mathematical illustrations of theological concepts are possible, even though genuine mathematical models do not seem to be essential or testable. Generally, religious needs and motivations played a role in the development of mathematics, and mathematical metaphors helped theologians. To perceive this connection as relevant now requires sensitivity to the realm of the religious.
The penultimate version of the chapter to appear in: Sriraman, Bharat (ed) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham, 2022.
Already available online at DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_77-2
This text on the religious legacy of Polish Jews has appeared, accompanied by many illustrations,... more This text on the religious legacy of Polish Jews has appeared, accompanied by many illustrations, as a chapter in the book Legacy of Polish Jews (ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Tamara Sztyma, Warsaw: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2021, pp. 47-65). To quote, please refer to that book.
S U M M A R Y : The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the h... more S U M M A R Y : The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the human mind based on Gödel's incompleteness theorem is revisited. Its history is reviewed. The proof, also known as the Lucas argument and the Penrose argument, is refuted. It is claimed, following Gödel himself and other leading logicians, that anti-mechanism is not implied by Gödel's theorems alone. The present paper sets out this refutation in its strongest form, demonstrating general theorems implying the inconsistency of Lucas's arithmetic and the semantic inadequacy of Penrose's arithmetic. On the other hand, the limitations to our capacity for mechanizing or programming the mind are also indicated, together with two other corollaries of Gödel's theorems: that we cannot prove that we are consistent (Gödel's Unknowability Thesis), and that we cannot fully describe our notion of a natural number.
NOTE: This paper is slightly improved compared to the penultimate version available here (at the author's academia page).
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed.by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018, 2018
The paper constitutes the 4th chapter, pages 68-84, of the book
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig... more The paper constitutes the 4th chapter, pages 68-84, of the book Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed. by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018.
This article describes three aspects of the Jewish-Christian relationship as presented in The Star of Redemption: complementarity, partnership, and the absence of the common historical roots. In addition, it introduces the problem of the purely racial definition of Jews as well as the issue of whether a synthesis of the two religions is possible. Krajewski then defines »deep« interreligious dialogue and discusses the impact of Rosenzweig’s system on dialogue. The article concludes by describing two basic approaches to the plurality of religions and the oscillation from the »suprareligious« to the »religious-specific« and back. The oscillation model provides another meaning of the »and«.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.02 The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-comput... more DOI: http://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxiv1.02 The alleged proof of the non-mechanical, or non-computational, character of the human mind based on Godel’s incompleteness theorem is revisited. Its history is reviewed. The proof, also known as the Lucas argument and the Penrose argument, is refuted. It is claimed, following Godel himself and other leading logicians, that antimechanism is not implied by Godel’s theorems alone. The present paper sets out this refutation in its strongest form, demonstrating general theorems implying the inconsistency of Lucas’s arithmetic and the semantic inadequacy of Penrose’s arithmetic. On the other hand, the limitations to our capacity for mechanizing or programming the mind are also indicated, together with two other corollaries of Godel’s theorems: that we cannot prove that we are consistent (Godel’s Unknowability Thesis), and that we cannot fully describe our notion of a natural number.
In courses of logic for general students the general and existential quantifiers are the only one... more In courses of logic for general students the general and existential quantifiers are the only ones distinguished from among all possible quantifier expressions of the natural language. One can argue that other quantifiers deserve mention, even though there are good reason for emphasizing the familiar ones: namely, they are the simplest, the universal quantifier is a counterpart of the operation of generalizing, the number of nested quantifiers is a good measure of logical complexity, and the expressive power of the general quantifier and its dual is considerable.
THIS PAPER HAS BEEN AVAIALBLE AT THE AUTHOR'S ACADEMIA SITE;
THE PROGRAM FOR SOME REASON UPLOADED IT AGAIN...
The Euclidean ideal of mathematics as well as all the foundational schools in the philosophy of m... more The Euclidean ideal of mathematics as well as all the foundational schools in the philosophy of mathematics have been contested by the new approach, called the "maverick" trend in the philosophy of mathematics. Several points made by its main representatives are mentioned-from the revisability of actual proofs to the stress on real mathematical practice as opposed to its idealized reconstruction. Main features of real proofs are then mentioned; for example, whether they are convincing, understandable, and/or explanatory. Therefore, the new approach questions Hilbert's Thesis, according to which a correct mathematical proof is in principle reducible to a formal proof, based on explicit axioms and logic.
John Paul II’s Encounters with Polish Jews, Studies in Jewish Christian Relations 15, no. 1 (2020), 1-18., 2020
An examination of the official encounters in Poland of Pope John Paul II with representatives of ... more An examination of the official encounters in Poland of Pope John Paul II with representatives of the Polish Jewish community. This study includes a first-hand account of the atmosphere of the meetings and their backgrounds. This article also offers an analysis of the Pope’s addresses.
This is the English part of the bilingual, Polish-English, little book "What I Owe to Interreligi... more This is the English part of the bilingual, Polish-English, little book "What I Owe to Interreligious Dialogue and Christianity," based on the 2014 Aleksander and Alicja Hertz Annual Memorial Lecture.
God's name " Elohim, " common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always used with verbs... more God's name " Elohim, " common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always used with verbs in the singular even though it is in the plural form. It is shown here that the ungrammatical usage can be seen as the best solution to a natural problem. Namely, tradition assumes that it should be impossible to talk about a general category of gods within which the one God could be located. The best and perhaps the only way to prevent the implicit pluralization of the unique God is to put his name in plural even though it is intended to be used as if it were singular. One cannot form the plural form of the name that is already grammatically plural! Surprisingly, this explanation seems to have been considered by neither classical nor modern commentators.
Published in "Eidos" 2 (4), 2018, 115-121. (This is only a slight modification of the former version of the paper displayed on the author's academia.edu page.)
This is a draft of the paper that will introduce the volume "Theological Discourse and Logic" (ed... more This is a draft of the paper that will introduce the volume "Theological Discourse and Logic" (ed. by Marcin Trepczynski and Stanislaw Krajewski), an issue of Logica Universalis. Abstract The 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion, held in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017, is summarized. Then the connective "and" is analyzed; we focus on its meaning in the title of the congress and the title of the present volume. Finally, all the eleven papers included here are briefly introduced; we indicate whether logic or theology is the primary topic in the given paper. See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11787-019-00238-w (Unfortunately, it was not released by the publisher as an open access paper.)
Journal of Applied Logics — IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications 6(6), pp. 999-1005, 2019
This is the introductory paper, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, to the issue "Lo... more This is the introductory paper, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, to the issue "Logic and the Concept of God" of the Journal of Applied Logics — IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications, Special Issue "Concept of God", Guest Editors: Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre, vol 6 (6), pp. 999-1005.
It is claimed that forgiveness is a necessary condition of genuine reconciliation. Generally, for... more It is claimed that forgiveness is a necessary condition of genuine reconciliation. Generally, forgiveness requires repentance. If no repentance is required, the guilty person is treated lightly, as if she was not adult. According to the Jewish tradition, there is no possibility of forgiving in the name of someone else. This tradition also insists that the person who was harmed must forgive when faced with a sincere request to forgive. All the difficulties connected to the process of penitence, forgiveness, and reconciliation become especially hard and intense when related to the mass murder of Jews during World War II.
Dialog chrześcijańsko-żydowski – dialog międzyreligijny czy ekumeniczny? Christian-Jewish Dialogue – interreligious or ecumenical dialogue?, Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego Jana Pawła II, Lublin 2020, 87-103, 2020
Chrzescijanstwo Swiat Polityka. Zeszyty myśli społecznej Kościoła Nr 22, pp. 38-45, 2018
Abstract: Pointing out to the uniqueness of the Holocaust is hardly justified by its objective ch... more Abstract: Pointing out to the uniqueness of the Holocaust is hardly justified by its objective characteristics as they can be observed in other mass murders as well. The thesis of the uniqueness of the Holocaust is, in fact, an assumption, however, this assumption is generally considered to be justified. It can be explained by indicating that by murdering Jews, Hitler wanted to oppress Biblical God, whose visible sign are the chosen people. Since, from this perspective, Jews are incomparable, their extermination can be seen as incomparable.
Abstrakt: Wskazywanie na wyjątkowość Zagłady Żydów jest mało uzasadnione jej obiektywnymi właściwościami, bo można je spotkać i w innych masowych mordach. Teza o wyjątkowości Zagłady jest w gruncie rzeczy założeniem, jednak założeniem-w powszechnym odczuciu-uzasadnionym. Można to wyjaśnić przez wskazanie na to, że mordując Żydów, Hitler chciał pognębić biblijnego Boga, którego widzialnym znakiem jest naród wybrany. Ponieważ z tej perspektywy Żydzi są nieporównywalni, ich zagłada może być postrzegana jako nieporównywalna.
This is Chapter II of my 2003 Polish book on Goedel's Theorem. It's been available in internet fo... more This is Chapter II of my 2003 Polish book on Goedel's Theorem. It's been available in internet for quite some time, so I have put it here.
'Twierdzenie Goedla a (nie)mechaniczność umysłu' - rozdz. II mojej ksiazki "Twierdzenie Goedla i jego interpretacje filozoficzne", IFiSPAN Warszawa, 2003. Jest od dawna w internecie, więc dałem je tutaj.
Published in:
Epistemologia doświadczenia religijnego w XX-wiecznej filozofii rosyjskiej i żydows... more Published in: Epistemologia doświadczenia religijnego w XX-wiecznej filozofii rosyjskiej i żydowskiej, red. J. Dobieszewski, S. Krajewski, J. Mach, Universitas, Kraków 2018, 97-109.
Abstract (of the Polish paper)
Henryk Elzenberg underwent an evolution from rationalism and an a... more Abstract (of the Polish paper)
Henryk Elzenberg underwent an evolution from rationalism and an appreciation of logic to an extreme opposition against scientism and the “bureaucrats of precision” from the Lvov-Warsaw School of philosophy. In the current academic philosophy the unfortunate division between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy is very deep. Can the “continental” philosophy be defined by referring to its contents or methods? Some proposals are discussed but none seems sufficiently convincing. Can the division itself be overcome? Some try to proceed in both the analytic and the non-analytic modes, for example Putnam, but he does not attempt a synthetic approach. Badiou does, but his system is not satisfactory and does involve errors when using results coming from advanced mathematical logic. Anyway, philosophy must function somewhere between the two poles: the scientific, logical one and the humane, literary one. In our era computers provide a new source of experience that needs to be considered in philosophy. Digital simulation sheds new light upon the problem, What constitutes humanness? To approach this problem the two modes seem equally necessary. As an example of using both logic and the philosophy of dialogue an example developed earlier by the present author is given: an ultimate strengthening of the Turing Test is proposed, or a thought experiment in which a child is raised from birth entirely by robots and the question is whether the resulting adult is more or less “normal”.
Henryk Elzenberg ewoluował od racjonalizmu i zachwytu logiką do radykalnej opozycji wobec scjentyzmu i „biurokratów ścisłości” ze Szkoły lwowsko-warszawskiej. W obecnej filozofii akademickiej istnieje nieszczęśliwy ostry podział na filozofię analityczną i tzw. kontynentalną. Czy tę filozofię nieanalityczną da się określić w sposób pozytywny? Zasugerowanych jest kilka pomysłów, ale żaden nie wydaje się dostatecznie dobry. Czy ten podział do się przezwyciężyć? Niektórzy próbują, np. Hilary Putnam i Alain Badiou, ale Putnam nie próbuje syntezy, a Badiou próbuje, ale rezultat jego działań rozczarowuje i nie jest wolny od błędów, gdy filozof powołuje się na zaawansowaną logikę matematyczną. W każdym razie filozofia musi funkcjonować pomiędzy dwoma biegunami: naukowym, logicznym i humanistycznym, literackim. W naszych czasach nowym źródłem doświadczeń powinny być dla filozofii komputery. Możliwość cyfrowej symulacji każe na nowo rozważyć pytanie o specyfikę człowieka. W tej dziedzinie oba podejścia do filozofii stają się niezbędne. Przykładem uwzględnienia zarówno logiki, jak i filozofii dialogu, jest zaproponowane wcześniej przez autora ostateczne wzmocnienie Testu Turinga, czyli eksperyment myślowy, w którym dziecko jest od urodzenia wychowywane przez roboty i ma się okazać, czy tak ukształtowany człowiek jest w miarę „normalny”.
Martin Buber był filozofem i był Żydem, a co więcej, był żydowskim liderem i ideologiem. Jednak a... more Martin Buber był filozofem i był Żydem, a co więcej, był żydowskim liderem i ideologiem. Jednak aby go nazwać filozofem żydowskim, należałoby stwierdzić, że jego filozofia jest w jakimś treściowym sensie żydowska. Buber był myślicielem religijnym i wybitnym znawcą Biblii, ale zarazem utrzymywał dystans wobec rzeczywistego judaizmu. Okazuje się, że niektóre wątki jego dojrzałej myśli są zgodne z judaizmem, a inne nie. Na przykład ważność etyki, nacisk na zwyczajny świat, niewyrażalność Boga, tworzenie wspólnoty poprzez wspólne odniesienie do transcendencji – to elementy zgodne z tradycją judaizmu. Natomiast niezgodny jest np. religijny anarchizm, ignorowanie prawa religijnego, deprecjacja studiów talmudycznych, nieuznawanie objawienia historycznego, brak partnerstwa Boga i człowieka. Wydaje się, że im mniej żydowski jest komentator, tym bardziej oczywista jest dlań żydowskość filozofii Bubera, i odwrotnie: im bardziej jest żydowski, tym więcej widzi kontrargumentów. Podejrzewam, że jest tak dlatego, iż nieżydowscy buberolodzy, którzy są chrześcijanami lub wyrośli w świecie zdominowanym przez chrześcijaństwo, traktują niechrześcijańskie elementy jego myśli jako motywy z konieczności żydowskie.
Biografia i bibliografia Andrzeja Grzegorczyka, logika i filozofa.
Studia Semiotyczne 2015, nr X... more Biografia i bibliografia Andrzeja Grzegorczyka, logika i filozofa. Studia Semiotyczne 2015, nr XXVIII–XXIX, 63–88.
(z Magdaleną Czyż) „Epoka po ‘Nostra aetate’. W 50. rocznicę soborowej deklaracji”, Więź 3 (jesie... more (z Magdaleną Czyż) „Epoka po ‘Nostra aetate’. W 50. rocznicę soborowej deklaracji”, Więź 3 (jesień 2015), 154-163.
God's name "Elohim," common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always use... more God's name "Elohim," common in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition, is always used with verbs in the singular even though it is in the plural form. It is shown here that the ungrammatical usage can be seen as the best solution to a natural problem. Namely, tradition assumes that it should be impossible to talk about a general category of gods within which the one God could be located. The best and perhaps the only way to prevent the implicit pluralization of the unique God is to put his name in plural even though it is intended to be used as if it were singular. One cannot form the plural form of the name that is already grammatically plural! Surprisingly, this explanation seems to have been considered by neither classical nor modern commentators.
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Papers by Stanislaw Krajewski
series of putative reasons for its occurrence. The individuals constituting the “products” of de-assimilation are the majority of Polish Jews today and form much of the current leadership. While individuals everywhere can strengthen their ties to the Jewish people and can experience teshuvah or another kind of “Judaization,” the process of de-assimilation does not seem to be reducible to those moves. It begins with no Jewish identity, and is highly dependent on the attitudes and cultural trends
in the majority society. It does not remove the de-assimilationists from the majority culture. The phenomenon is general and deserves to be studied as a sociological mechanism working in other cases of assimilation to a majority culture. In the Jewish case, it is especially dramatic. Probably the frst example can be found in the evolution of the Marrano communities settled in Holland. The presence of de-assimilation seems to diferentiate some European, frst of all East European, communities from the globally dominant American and Israeli ones. Probably this rather new concept is needed to describe a signifcant part of the world of the Jews of twentyfrst century Europe.
In order to determine to what extent and in what sense they were Jewish, the following features of the Jewish leaders of Polish leftist parties of that era are analysed: assimilation together with the belief in its value; ‘Europeanism’; attitude to the Polish language; opposition to Jewish nationalism; idealism and highest ethical standards; identification with modernism and science; quasi-religious messianic Marxism. If some of these attributes are seen as Jewish, it is Jewishness of a highly paradoxical nature.
Generally, the reasons for which some assimilated Jews became radical leftists and later communists were mostly social, had to do with their marginal status, but their involvement was significantly coloured by their Jewish heritage.
While the leftist leaders who were Jewish by origin could have gone back to Jewish life, none of them did. However, some of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren did. This recent development makes it easier to include their ancestors into the annals of Jewish history.
The penultimate version of the chapter to appear in: Sriraman, Bharat (ed) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham, 2022.
Already available online at DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_77-2
NOTE: This paper is slightly improved compared to the penultimate version available here (at the author's academia page).
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed. by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018.
This article describes three aspects of the Jewish-Christian relationship as presented in The Star of Redemption: complementarity, partnership, and the absence of the common historical roots. In addition, it introduces the problem of the purely racial definition of Jews as well as the issue of whether a synthesis of the two religions is possible. Krajewski then defines »deep« interreligious dialogue and discusses the impact of Rosenzweig’s system on dialogue. The article concludes by describing two basic approaches to the plurality of religions and the oscillation from the »suprareligious« to the »religious-specific« and back. The oscillation model provides another meaning of the »and«.
THIS PAPER HAS BEEN AVAIALBLE AT THE AUTHOR'S ACADEMIA SITE;
THE PROGRAM FOR SOME REASON UPLOADED IT AGAIN...
The book was published in 2017 by The Judaica Foundation in Cracow, and available at its site www.judaica.pl/index1.php?zmien_jezyk=EN&podstrona=publikacje&podmenu=&id=
(NB. The printed version is on pages 71-127; the present pagination has nothing to do with it.)
Published in "Eidos" 2 (4), 2018, 115-121.
(This is only a slight modification of the former version of the paper displayed on the author's academia.edu page.)
Abstract
The 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion, held in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017, is summarized. Then the connective "and" is analyzed; we focus on its meaning in the title of the congress and the title of the present volume. Finally, all the eleven papers included here are briefly introduced; we indicate whether logic or theology is the primary topic in the given paper.
See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11787-019-00238-w
(Unfortunately, it was not released by the publisher as an open access paper.)
The whole volume is available free of charge at https://www.collegepublications.co.uk/ifcolog/?00035
series of putative reasons for its occurrence. The individuals constituting the “products” of de-assimilation are the majority of Polish Jews today and form much of the current leadership. While individuals everywhere can strengthen their ties to the Jewish people and can experience teshuvah or another kind of “Judaization,” the process of de-assimilation does not seem to be reducible to those moves. It begins with no Jewish identity, and is highly dependent on the attitudes and cultural trends
in the majority society. It does not remove the de-assimilationists from the majority culture. The phenomenon is general and deserves to be studied as a sociological mechanism working in other cases of assimilation to a majority culture. In the Jewish case, it is especially dramatic. Probably the frst example can be found in the evolution of the Marrano communities settled in Holland. The presence of de-assimilation seems to diferentiate some European, frst of all East European, communities from the globally dominant American and Israeli ones. Probably this rather new concept is needed to describe a signifcant part of the world of the Jews of twentyfrst century Europe.
In order to determine to what extent and in what sense they were Jewish, the following features of the Jewish leaders of Polish leftist parties of that era are analysed: assimilation together with the belief in its value; ‘Europeanism’; attitude to the Polish language; opposition to Jewish nationalism; idealism and highest ethical standards; identification with modernism and science; quasi-religious messianic Marxism. If some of these attributes are seen as Jewish, it is Jewishness of a highly paradoxical nature.
Generally, the reasons for which some assimilated Jews became radical leftists and later communists were mostly social, had to do with their marginal status, but their involvement was significantly coloured by their Jewish heritage.
While the leftist leaders who were Jewish by origin could have gone back to Jewish life, none of them did. However, some of their grandchildren or great-grandchildren did. This recent development makes it easier to include their ancestors into the annals of Jewish history.
The penultimate version of the chapter to appear in: Sriraman, Bharat (ed) Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Springer, Cham, 2022.
Already available online at DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19071-2_77-2
NOTE: This paper is slightly improved compared to the penultimate version available here (at the author's academia page).
Rosenzweig Jahrbuch / Rosenzweig Yearbook 11, Das »Und« im Werk Franz Rosenzweigs / The »And« in Franz Rosenzweig’s Work, ed. by Matthew Handelman, Ephraim Meir, Christian Wiese, Verlag Karl Alber in der Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg / München 2018.
This article describes three aspects of the Jewish-Christian relationship as presented in The Star of Redemption: complementarity, partnership, and the absence of the common historical roots. In addition, it introduces the problem of the purely racial definition of Jews as well as the issue of whether a synthesis of the two religions is possible. Krajewski then defines »deep« interreligious dialogue and discusses the impact of Rosenzweig’s system on dialogue. The article concludes by describing two basic approaches to the plurality of religions and the oscillation from the »suprareligious« to the »religious-specific« and back. The oscillation model provides another meaning of the »and«.
THIS PAPER HAS BEEN AVAIALBLE AT THE AUTHOR'S ACADEMIA SITE;
THE PROGRAM FOR SOME REASON UPLOADED IT AGAIN...
The book was published in 2017 by The Judaica Foundation in Cracow, and available at its site www.judaica.pl/index1.php?zmien_jezyk=EN&podstrona=publikacje&podmenu=&id=
(NB. The printed version is on pages 71-127; the present pagination has nothing to do with it.)
Published in "Eidos" 2 (4), 2018, 115-121.
(This is only a slight modification of the former version of the paper displayed on the author's academia.edu page.)
Abstract
The 2nd World Congress on Logic and Religion, held in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017, is summarized. Then the connective "and" is analyzed; we focus on its meaning in the title of the congress and the title of the present volume. Finally, all the eleven papers included here are briefly introduced; we indicate whether logic or theology is the primary topic in the given paper.
See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11787-019-00238-w
(Unfortunately, it was not released by the publisher as an open access paper.)
The whole volume is available free of charge at https://www.collegepublications.co.uk/ifcolog/?00035
visible sign are the chosen people. Since, from this perspective, Jews are incomparable, their extermination can be seen as incomparable.
Abstrakt: Wskazywanie na wyjątkowość Zagłady Żydów jest mało uzasadnione jej obiektywnymi właściwościami, bo można je spotkać i w innych masowych mordach. Teza o wyjątkowości Zagłady jest w gruncie rzeczy założeniem, jednak założeniem-w powszechnym odczuciu-uzasadnionym. Można to wyjaśnić przez wskazanie na to, że mordując Żydów, Hitler chciał pognębić biblijnego Boga, którego widzialnym znakiem jest naród wybrany. Ponieważ z tej perspektywy Żydzi są nieporównywalni, ich zagłada może być postrzegana jako nieporównywalna.
'Twierdzenie Goedla a (nie)mechaniczność umysłu' - rozdz. II mojej ksiazki "Twierdzenie Goedla i jego interpretacje filozoficzne", IFiSPAN Warszawa, 2003. Jest od dawna w internecie, więc dałem je tutaj.
Epistemologia doświadczenia religijnego w XX-wiecznej filozofii rosyjskiej i żydowskiej, red. J. Dobieszewski, S. Krajewski, J. Mach, Universitas, Kraków 2018, 97-109.
Henryk Elzenberg underwent an evolution from rationalism and an appreciation of logic to an extreme opposition against scientism and the “bureaucrats of precision” from the Lvov-Warsaw School of philosophy. In the current academic philosophy the unfortunate division between analytic philosophy and continental philosophy is very deep. Can the “continental” philosophy be defined by referring to its contents or methods? Some proposals are discussed but none seems sufficiently convincing. Can the division itself be overcome? Some try to proceed in both the analytic and the non-analytic modes, for example Putnam, but he does not attempt a synthetic approach. Badiou does, but his system is not satisfactory and does involve errors when using results coming from advanced mathematical logic. Anyway, philosophy must function somewhere between the two poles: the scientific, logical one and the humane, literary one. In our era computers provide a new source of experience that needs to be considered in philosophy. Digital simulation sheds new light upon the problem, What constitutes humanness? To approach this problem the two modes seem equally necessary. As an example of using both logic and the philosophy of dialogue an example developed earlier by the present author is given: an ultimate strengthening of the Turing Test is proposed, or a thought experiment in which a child is raised from birth entirely by robots and the question is whether the resulting adult is more or less “normal”.
Henryk Elzenberg ewoluował od racjonalizmu i zachwytu logiką do radykalnej opozycji wobec scjentyzmu i „biurokratów ścisłości” ze Szkoły lwowsko-warszawskiej. W obecnej filozofii akademickiej istnieje nieszczęśliwy ostry podział na filozofię analityczną i tzw. kontynentalną. Czy tę filozofię nieanalityczną da się określić w sposób pozytywny? Zasugerowanych jest kilka pomysłów, ale żaden nie wydaje się dostatecznie dobry. Czy ten podział do się przezwyciężyć? Niektórzy próbują, np. Hilary Putnam i Alain Badiou, ale Putnam nie próbuje syntezy, a Badiou próbuje, ale rezultat jego działań rozczarowuje i nie jest wolny od błędów, gdy filozof powołuje się na zaawansowaną logikę matematyczną. W każdym razie filozofia musi funkcjonować pomiędzy dwoma biegunami: naukowym, logicznym i humanistycznym, literackim. W naszych czasach nowym źródłem doświadczeń powinny być dla filozofii komputery. Możliwość cyfrowej symulacji każe na nowo rozważyć pytanie o specyfikę człowieka. W tej dziedzinie oba podejścia do filozofii stają się niezbędne. Przykładem uwzględnienia zarówno logiki, jak i filozofii dialogu, jest zaproponowane wcześniej przez autora ostateczne wzmocnienie Testu Turinga, czyli eksperyment myślowy, w którym dziecko jest od urodzenia wychowywane przez roboty i ma się okazać, czy tak ukształtowany człowiek jest w miarę „normalny”.
Wydaje się, że im mniej żydowski jest komentator, tym bardziej oczywista jest dlań żydowskość filozofii Bubera, i odwrotnie: im bardziej jest żydowski, tym więcej widzi kontrargumentów. Podejrzewam, że jest tak dlatego, iż nieżydowscy buberolodzy, którzy są chrześcijanami lub wyrośli w świecie zdominowanym przez chrześcijaństwo, traktują niechrześcijańskie elementy jego myśli jako motywy z konieczności żydowskie.
Studia Semiotyczne 2015, nr XXVIII–XXIX, 63–88.