The Concept of Truth in the Lvov–Warsaw School

Peter Simons (Trinity College, Dublin, Universitá della Svizzera Italiana)

Call for Participation
AP in V4 Lecture Series — Analytic Philosophy in Visegrad Countries

Title: The Concept of Truth in the Lvov–Warsaw School
Speaker: Peter Simons (Trinity College Dublin)
Date and time: 12 February 2026, 16:00–17:30 CET (4:00–5:30 p.m. CET)
Format: Online lecture (5/9 in the lecture series)

Organised by: Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (Slovakia), University of Ostrava (Czech Republic), and University of Warsaw (Poland), with the support of the Visegrad Fund.
Project website: https://ff.osu.eu/ap-in-v4/
Lecture series page: https://ff.osu.eu/ap-in-v4/lectures/

If you are interested in joining, please contact: [email protected]


Abstract

Arguably the foremost development among theories of truth in the twentieth century was Alfred Tarski’s paper “On the Concept of Truth in the Languages of the Deductive Sciences” (“Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych”), first published in 1933. It is the single most influential piece to come out of the Lvov–Warsaw School. Tarski’s work and its ramifications influenced work on truth throughout most of the rest of the century. But the paper did not arise in a vacuum: philosophers and logicians in the School from Twardowski onwards laid great stress on truth as a central concept in logic and philosophy, and their discussions have roots going far back in the history of philosophy.

Not only Twardowski but also his first-generation pupils Łukasiewicz, Leśniewski, Kotarbiński and Ajdukiewicz made important contributions to the topic. And while Tarski brought technical brilliance to the discussion, his own theory has its shortcomings as a general account of truth. This talk will trace the course of discussions within the School, outline how they influenced subsequent treatments, and assess how far their work brought the theory of truth towards final adequacy.


About the speaker

Peter Simons is a British-Austrian philosopher and one of the key figures in contemporary metaphysics and ontology. He is Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and has also held chairs in philosophy at the University of Leeds, as well as posts in Salzburg and visiting positions in Lugano. His research focuses on ontology, mereology (the theory of parts and wholes), truthmaker theory, the history of logic, and the history of Central European philosophy from Bolzano and Brentano to Tarski.

He is the author of the classic monograph “Parts: A Study in Ontology” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987) and “Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski: Selected Essays” (Kluwer, 1992), and has written more than two hundred articles and chapters on metaphysics, logic, and the Central European analytic tradition. Together with Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith, he co-founded the Seminar for Austro-German Philosophy, which played an important role in bringing the Austro-Polish tradition of analytic philosophy to wider international attention. His achievements have been recognised by his election as a Fellow of the British Academy and membership in the Academia Europaea, the Royal Irish Academy, and the Polish Academy of Sciences.