Robert Satloff - Muslim Heroes of the Holocaust.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Former Rumsfeld/Wolfwowitz Deputy: Iraq War Is A ‘Major Debacle,’ ‘Classic Case Of Failure’
Former Rumsfeld/Wolfwowitz Deputy: Iraq War Is A ‘Major Debacle,’ ‘Classic Case Of Failure’
The National Defense University is an elite military institute funded by the Department of Defense. Both President Dwight Eisenhower and Gen. Colin Powell studied there, and diplomat and historian George Kennan — best known as “the father of containment” — taught at the university.
Given the institution’s ties to the Defense Department, it’s therefore significant that it has chosen to publish a withering critique of the Iraq war written by Joseph J. Collins, a former senior Pentagon official who served under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Collins’s conclusions were based, in part, “on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations,” and were completed in fall 2007. From his study:
Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle.
The war’s political impact also has been great. Globally, U.S. standing among friends and allies has fallen. Our status as a moral leader has been damaged by the war, the subsequent occupation of a Muslim nation, and various issues concerning the treatment of detainees.
To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means. After the major combat operation, U.S. policy has been insolvent, with inadequate means for pursuing ambitious ends. It is also a case where the perceived illegitimacy of our policy has led the United States to bear a disproportionate share of the war’s burden.
Collins also notes that “senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect.” He insists, however, that he is not trying to lay blame on his former bosses.
The National Defense University is an elite military institute funded by the Department of Defense. Both President Dwight Eisenhower and Gen. Colin Powell studied there, and diplomat and historian George Kennan — best known as “the father of containment” — taught at the university.
Given the institution’s ties to the Defense Department, it’s therefore significant that it has chosen to publish a withering critique of the Iraq war written by Joseph J. Collins, a former senior Pentagon official who served under Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Collins’s conclusions were based, in part, “on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations,” and were completed in fall 2007. From his study:
Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle.
The war’s political impact also has been great. Globally, U.S. standing among friends and allies has fallen. Our status as a moral leader has been damaged by the war, the subsequent occupation of a Muslim nation, and various issues concerning the treatment of detainees.
To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means. After the major combat operation, U.S. policy has been insolvent, with inadequate means for pursuing ambitious ends. It is also a case where the perceived illegitimacy of our policy has led the United States to bear a disproportionate share of the war’s burden.
Collins also notes that “senior national security officials exhibited in many instances an imperious attitude, exerting power and pressure where diplomacy and bargaining might have had a better effect.” He insists, however, that he is not trying to lay blame on his former bosses.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Jesse Ventura: Give me LIBERTY Hannity:NO Give NEOCON Berlin
Jesse Ventura: Give me LIBERTY Hannity:NO Give NEOCON Berlin
Saturday, April 12, 2008
George Galloway Vs David Frum On Bush trip to Israel
George Galloway Vs David Frum On Bush trip to Israel
Friday, April 11, 2008
Wizyta premiera Tuska w Izraelu prof. dr hab Bobusław Wolniewicz
Wizyta premiera Tuska w Izraelu prof. dr hab Bobusław Wolniewicz
Bogusław Wolniewicz (ur. 22 września 1927 w Toruniu) - filozof i logik. Publicysta i felietonista m.in. Telewizji Trwam, Radia Maryja , Naszego Dziennika. W 2005 r. startował w wyborach parlamentarnych z listy Platformy Janusza Korwin-Mikke.
Życiorys
Studiował w latach 1947-1951 na Uniwersytecie Mikołaja Kopernika pod kierunkiem Tadeusza Czeżowskiego. Do 1953 r. był asystentem w Katedrze Logiki UMK, a od 1956 r. wykładowcą na WSP w Gdańsku. W 1963 r. został przeniesiony do Katedry Filozofii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego z inicjatywy Adama Schaffa. Do 1998 r. był profesorem w Instytucie Filozofii UW, kiedy to odszedł na emeryturę. W latach 1956 - 1981 członek PZPR.
Nauka
Bogusław Wolniewicz specjalizuje się w filozofii religii i filozofii współczesnej. Dystansuje się od głównych nurtów filozofii XX wieku i przyjmuje tezy wielkich myślicieli, m.in.: Arystotelesa, Leibniza, Hume'a, Kanta i szczególnie Wittgensteina. Krytyczny wobec freudyzmu, fenomenologii, postmodernizmu i fundamentalizmu religijnego, a od lat 90. XX wieku także marksizmu, reprezentuje postawę analityczną i metafizyczną. Główne założenia jego myśli to aksjologiczny absolutyzm w wersji racjonalistycznej i metafizyczny pesymizm w spojrzeniu na człowieka oraz społeczeństwo.
Postanowieniem prezydenta Aleksandra Kwaśniewskiego z dnia 11 listopada 1997 roku, za wybitne zasługi dla nauki polskiej, został odznaczony Krzyżem Oficerskim Orderu Odrodzenia Polski.
Polityka
Bogusław Wolniewicz startował w wyborach parlamentarnych w 2005 r. z list Platformy Janusza Korwin-Mikke, ale nie został posłem.
9 kwietnia 2006 Wolniewicz, wraz z o. Mieczysławem Krąpcem i ks. Czesławem Bartnikiem, zainicjował Społeczny Niezależny Zespół ds. Etyki Mediów, poparty m.in. przez przedstawicieli świata nauki i mediów, który postawił sobie za cel "informować rzetelnie opinię publiczną w kraju i na świecie o wszelkich poczynaniach w mediach i wokół nich, które zagrażają bądź obyczajności, bądź swobodzie publicznej dyskusji"[1]. Wolniewicz wyraził przekonanie, że Rada Etyki Mediów chce "nałożyć Polsce kaganiec na swobodę publicznej dyskusji" i "wprowadzić skrytą cenzurę"[2]. Inicjatywa ta miała miejsce po tym, jak Rada Etyki Mediów oraz Marek Edelman skrytykowali[3] Radio Maryja za nadanie, określanego przez nich jako antysemickiego, felietonu[4] Stanisława Michalkiewicza, a kieleckie Stowarzyszenie im. Jana Karskiego zażądało od prokuratury wszczęcia postępowania przeciwko autorowi[5].
Wybrane pisma
Ontologia sytuacji : podstawy i zastosowania, Warszawa : Państwowe Wydaw. Naukowe, 1985.
Filozofia i wartości : rozprawy i wypowiedzi : z fragmentami pism Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1993.
Filozofia i wartości, 2, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1998.
Logic and metaphysics : studies in Wittgenstein's ontology of facts, Warszawa : "Znak, Język, Rzeczywistość" : Polskie Towarzystwo Semiotyczne, 1999.
Filozofia i wartości, 3, Z fragmentem "Księgi tragizmu" Henryka Elzenberga i jego uwagami o "Dociekaniach" Wittgensteina, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2003.
Boguslaw Wolniewicz and the Formal Ontology of Situations
INTRODUCTION
"The theory presented below was developed in an effort to clarify the metaphysics of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The result obtained, however, is not strictly the formal twin of his variant of Logical Atomism. but something more, general, of which the latter is lust a special case. One might call it an ontology of situations. Some basic ideas of that ontology stern from Stenius Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Oxford, 1968 and Suszko Ontology in the Tractatus of L. Wittgenstein - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 1968.
Let L be a classic propositional language. Propositions of L are supposed to have their semantic counterparts in the realm of possibility, or as Wittgenstein put it: in logical space. These counterparts are situations, and S is to be the totality of them. The situation described by a proposition a is S(a). With Meinong we call it the objective of a."
From: Boguslaw Wolniewicz - A formal ontology of situations - Studia Logica 41: 381-413 (1982). pp. 381-382.
"Different ontologies adopt different notions of existence as basic. Aristotle's paradigm of existence is given by the equivalence:
(A) to be = to be a substance.
On the other hand, the paradigm of existence adopted in Wittgenstein's Tractatus is given by the parallel equivalence:
(W) to be = to be a fact.
Now, an Aristotelian substance is the denotation of an individual name, whereas a Wittgensteinian fact is the denotation of a true proposition. It seems therefore that the notions of existence derived from these two paradigms should be quite different, and one might readily expect that the metaphysical systems erected upon them will display wide structural discrepancies.
It turns out, however, that in spite of this basic difference there runs between these two systems a deep and striking parallelism. This parallelism is so close indeed that it makes possible the construction of a vocabulary which would transform characteristic propositions of Wittgenstein's ontology into Aristotelian ones, and conversely. To show in some detail the workings of that transformation will be the subject of this paper.
The vocabulary mentioned is based on the following four fundamental correlations:
Aristotle
Wittgenstein
1) primary substances (substantiae primae)
atomic facts
2) prime matter (materia prima)
objects
3) form (forma)
configuration
4) self-subsistence of primary substances (esse per se)
independence of atomic facts
Aristotle's ontology is an ontology of substances, Wittgenstein's ontology is an ontology of facts. But concerning the respective items of each of the pairs (1)-(4) both ontologies lay down conditions which in view of our vocabulary appear to be identical. To show this let us confront, to begin with, the items of pair (1): substances and facts.
(The interpretation of Aristotle adopted in this paper is the standard one, to be found in any competent textbook of the history of philosophy. Therefore, with but one exception, no references to Aristotle's works will be given here.)Relatively to the system involved substances and facts are of the same ontological status. Aristotle's world is the totality of substances (summa rerum), Wittgenstein's world is the totality of facts (die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen). For Aristotle whatever exists in the basic sense of the word is a primary substance, for Wittgenstein - an atomic fact. Moreover, both ontologies are MODAL ones, allowing for different modes of being (modi essendi); and both take as basic the notion of `contingent being' (esse contingens), opposed to necessary being on the one hand, and to the possibility of being on the other. Both substances and facts are entities which actually exist, but might have not existed. The equality of ontological status between substances and facts is corroborated by the circumstance that both are PARTICULARS, there being - as the saying goes - no multiplicity of entities which FALL UNDER them.
Substances and facts stand also in the same relation to the ontological categories of pairs (2) and (3). Both are always COMPOUND entities, a substance consisting of matter and form, and a fact consisting of objects and the way of their configuration. But in neither of the two systems is this compoundness to be understood literally as composition of physically separable parts or pieces. The compoundness (compositio) of a substance consists in its being formed stuff (materia informata), and the compoundness of a fact in its being a configuration of objects.
In view of correlation (4) we have also an equality of relation which a substance bears to other substances, and a fact to other facts. Self-subsistence is the characteristic attribute of primary substances: substantia prima = ens per se. If we take this to mean that each substance exists independently of the existence or non-existence of any other substance we get immediately the exact counterpart of Wittgenstein's principle of logical atomism stating the mutual independence of atomic facts. It should be noted that thus understood the attribute of self-subsistence or independence is a relative one, belonging to a substance - or to a fact - only in virtue of its relation to other substances - or facts.
From a Wittgensteinian point of view Aristotle's substances are not things, but hypostases of facts, and thus their names are not logically proper names, but name-like equivalents of propositions. (By that term we mean roughly either a noun clause of the form `that p', or any symbol which might be regarded as a definitional abbreviation of such clause.) Surely, from the Aristotelian point of view it might be easily retorted here that just the opposite is the case: substances are not `reified' facts, but on the contrary - facts are 'dereified' substances. Without passing judgement on these mutual objections let us note in passing that their symmetric character seems to be itself an additional manifestation of the parallelism discussed."
From: Boguslaw Wolniewicz - A parallelism between Wittgensteinian and Aristotelian ontologies. In Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Vol. IV. Edited by Cohen Robert S. and Wartofsky Marx W. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company 1969. pp. 208-210 (notes omitted).
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (Works in Polish are not enclosed)
In 1970 Boguslaw Wolniewicz published a Polish translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus logico-philosophicus.
A difference between Russell's and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. In Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie. Wien, 2. - 9. September 1968 - Vol. II. Wien: Herder 1968. pp. 263-267
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.193-197
"A note on Black's 'Companion'," Mind 78: 141 (1969).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - p. 229.
"It is a mistake to suppose that in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" the meaning of Urbild has any connexion with that of picture. "
A parallelism between Wittgensteinian and Aristotelian ontologies. In Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Vol. IV. Edited by Cohen Robert S. and Wartofsky Marx W. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company 1969. pp. 208-217
Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the philosophy of science 1966/1968.
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.198-207
"Four notion of independence," Theoria 36: 161-164 (1970).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.127-130.
WFour (binary) relations of independence I(p,q) between propositions are distinguished: the Wittgensteinian I sub-w, the statistical I sub-s, the modal I sub-m, and the deductive I sub-d. The validity of the following theorem is argued for: I sub-w(p,q) implies I sub-s(p,q) implies I sub-m(p,q) implies Isub-d(p,q). "
Wittgensteinian foundations of non-Fregean logic. In Contemporary East European philosophy. Vol. 3. Edited by D'Angelo Edward, DeGrood David, and Riepe Dale. Bridgeport: Spartacus Books 1971. pp. 231-243
"The notion of fact as a modal operator," Teorema: 59-66 (1972).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 218-224
"The notion of fact /fp = "it is a fact that p"/ is characterized axiomatically, and the ensuing modal systems shown to be equivalent to tT, S4 and S5 respectively."
Zur Semantik des Satzkalküls: Frege und Wittgenstein. In Der Mensch - Subjekt und Objekt (Festchrift für Adam Schaff). Edited by Borbé Tasso. Wien: Europaverl. 1973. pp.
Sachlage und Elementarsätz. In Wittgenstein and his impact on contemporary thought. Proceedings of the Second International Wittgenstein Symposium, 29th August to 4th September 1977, Kirchberg/Wechsel (Austria). Edited by Leinfellner Elisabeth. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1977. pp. 174-176
"Objectives of propositions," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 7: 143-147 (1978).
"The paper sketches out a semantics for propositions based upon the Wittgensteinian notion of a possible situation. The objective of a proposition is defined as the smallest situation verifying it. Two propositions are assumed to have the same objective iff they are strictly equivalent. Formulas are given which determine the objectives of conjunction and disjunction as functions of the objectives of their components. finally a link with possible-world semantics is established."
"Situations as the reference of propositions," Dialectics and Humanism 5: 171-182 (1978).
"The reference of propositions is determined for a class of languages to be called the "Wittgensteinian" ones. A meaningful proposition presents a possible situation. Every consistent conjunction of elementary propositions presents an elementary situation. The smallest elementary situations are the "Sachverhalte"; the greatest are possible worlds. The situation presented by a proposition is to be distinguished from that verifying it, but the greatest situation presented is identical with the smallest verifying. The reference of compound propositions is then determined as a function of their components."
"Les situations comme corrélats semantiques des enoncés," Studia Filozoficzne 2: 27-41 (1978).
Wittgenstein und der Positivismus. In Wittgenstein, the Vienna circle and critical rationalism. Proceedings of the third International Wittgenstein Symposium, 13th to 19th August 1978, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Austria). Edited by Bergehel Hal, Hübner Adolf, and Eckehart Köhler. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1978. pp. 75-77
"Some formal properties of objectives," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 8: 16-20 (1979).
"The objectives of propositions as defined in an earlier paper are shown here to form a distributive lattice."
A Wittgensteinian semantics for propositions. In Intention and intentionality. Essay in honour of G. E. M. Anscombe. Edited by Diamond Cora and Teichman Jenny. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1979. pp. 165-178
"More than once Professor Anscombe has expressed doubt concerning the semantic efficacy of the idea of an 'elementary proposition' as conceived in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein himself eventually discarded it, together with the whole philosophy of language of which it had been an essential part. None the less the idea is still with us, and it seems to cover theoretical potentialities yet to be explored. This paper is a tentative move in that direction.
According to Professor Anscombe, (*) Wittgenstein's 'elementary propositions' may be characterized by the following five theses:
(1) They are a class of mutually independent propositions.
(2) They are essentially positive.
(2) They are such that for each of them there are no two ways of being true or false, but only one.
(4) They are such that there is in them no distinction between an internal and an external negation.
(5) They are concatenations of names, which are absolutely simple signs.
We shall not investigate whether this is an adequate axiomatic for the notion under consideration. We suppose it is. In any case it is possible to modify it in one way or another, and for the resulting notion still to preserve a family resemblance with the original idea. One such modification is sketched out below."
"On the lattice of elementary situations," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 9: 115-121 (1980).
"On the verifiers of disjunction," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 9: 57-59 (1980).
"The Boolean algebra of objectives," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 10: 17-23 (1981).
"This concludes a series of papers constructing a semantics for propositional languages based on the notion of a possible "situation". Objectives of propositions are the situations described by them. The set of objectives is defined and shown to be a boolean algebra isomorphic to that formed by sets of possible worlds."
"A closure system for elementary situations," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 11: 134-139 (1982).
"On logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 11: 84-88 (1982).
"Ludwig Fleck and Polish philosophy," Dialectics and Humanism 9: 25-28 (1982).
"A formal ontology of situations," Studia Logica 41: 381-413 (1982).
"A generalized Wittgensteinian semantics for propositional languages is presented, based on a lattice of elementary situations. Of these, maximal ones are possible worlds, constituting a logical space; minimal ones are logical atoms, partitioned into its dimensions. A verifier of a proposition is an elementary situation such that if real it makes true. The reference (or objective) of a proposition is a situation, which is the set of all its minimal verifiers. (Maximal ones constitute its locus.) Situations are shown to form a Boolean algebra, and the Boolean set algebra of loci is its representation. Wittgenstein's is a special case, admitting binary dimensions only."
Contents:
0. Preliminaries;
1. Elementary Situations
1.1.The Axioms; 1.2.Some Consequences; 1.3. W-Independence; 1.4.States of Affairs;
2. Sets of Elementary Situations
2.1.The Semigroup of SE"-Sets; 2.2.The Lattice of Minimal SE"-Sets; 2.3.Q-Spaces and V-Sets; 2.4.V-Equivalence and Q-Equivalence; 2.4.V-Classes and V-Sets;
3. Objectives of Propositions
3.1. Verifiers of Propositions; 3.2. Verifying and Forcing; 3.3. Situations and Logical Loci; 3.4. Loci and Objectives of Compound Propositions 3.5. The Boolean Algebra of Situations;
4. References
"Truth arguments and independence," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 12: 21-28 (1983).
"Logical space and metaphysical systems," Studia Logica 42: 269-284 (1983).
"The paper applies the theory presented in "A formal ontology of situations" (Studia Logica, vol. 41 (1982), no. 4) to obtain a typology of metaphysical systems by interpreting them as different ontologies of situations.
Four are treated in some detail: Hume's diachronic atomism, Laplacean determinism, Hume's synchronic atomism, and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. Moreover, the relation of that theory to the "situation semantics" of Perry and Barwise is discussed."
"An algebra of subsets for join-semilatttices with unit," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 13: 21-24 (1984).
"A topology for logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 13: 255-259 (1984).
"Suszko: a reminiscence," Studia Logica 43: 317-321 (1984).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.302-306
"Die Grundwerte einer wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassaung," Conceptus 19: 3-8 (1985).
"The scientific world-view is one of the fundamentals of our culture. It can be characterized in part by its specific system of values. A world-view is regarded as a scientific one if "truth" is one of its primary values, that is, as a value which is not a means, but an end in itself. Truth is served in particular by the two instrumental values of conceptual clarity and openness to critique. Their standing is (at present) low, for two reasons. (1) Unclear thinking not only promotes social idols; its consequences are also often difficult to see clearly and immediately. (2) In any case truth is of no interest (in a biological sense) to human beings; therefore, critique can at best be a socially tolerated activity. On the other hand, truth is not only a value, but also a force which in the long run cannot be held back; this fact gives some hope to adherents of the scientific world-view. "
"Discreteness of logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 15: 132-136 (1986).
"Entailments and independence in join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 18: 2-5 (1989).
"The paper generalizes Wittgenstein's notion of independence. in a join-semilattice of elementary situations the atoms are the Sachverhalte, and maximal ideals are possible worlds. A subset of that semilattice is independent iff it is free of "ontic ties". This is shown to be equivalent to independence in von Neumann's sense."
"On atomic join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 18: 105-111 (1989).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 307-312.
The essence of Logical Atomism: Hume and Wittgenstein. In Wittgenstein. Eine Neubewertung. Akten 14. Internationale Wittgenstein-Symposium. Vol. 1. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1990. pp. 106-111
"A question about join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic: 108 (1990).
Concerning reism in Kotarbinski. In Kotarbinski: logic. semantics and ontology. Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1990. pp. 199-204
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.265-271
Elzenberg's logic of values. In Logic counts. Edited by Zarnecka-Bialy Ewa. Dordrecht: Kluwe 1990. pp. 63-70
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 286-292 (with the title: Elzenberg's axiology"
"1. Values are what our value-Judgements refer to, and the passing of Judgements is one of our vital activities, like sleeping and breathing. We constantly appraise things as good or bad, pretty or ugly, as noble or base, well-made or misshapen. No wonder that both the act of appraisal and that which it refers to - i.e. the real or spurious values - have been always the source of philosophical reflexion. In systematic form such reflexion is what we call axiology.
In Polish philosophy it was Henryk Elzenberg (1887-1967) who reflected upon matters of axiology most deeply and incisively.
(...)
3. Leibniz had said somewhere: "There are two mazes in which the human mind is most likely to get lost: one is the concept of continuity, the other is that of liberty". This admits of generalization: all concepts are mazes, viz mazes of logical relations between the propositions that involve them.
One such maze is the concept of 'value'. Possibly, it is even the same as one of the two mentioned by Leibniz, only entered - so to say - by another door. For it would be in full accord with Elzenberg's position - and with that of Kant too - to adopt the following characteristic: values are what controls the actions of free agents. Thus the concepts of value and of liberty should constitute one conceptual maze, or - which comes to the same - two mazes communicating with each other.
To get a survey of such logical maze the first thing is to fix the ontological category of the concept in question. Thus, in our case, we ask what kind of entities are those 'values' supposed to be. (Ontological categories are the most general classes of entities, the summa genera A term even more general has to cover literally everything: like 'entity' or 'something'. For everything is an entity, just as everything is a something.)
Different ontologies admit different sets of categories. The categories most frequently referred to are those of 'objects', 'properties', and 'relations'; the more exotic ones are those of an 'event', a 'set', a 'function', or a 'situation'. One point, however, is of paramount importance: the categories admitted In one ontology have to be mutually disjoint". p. 63; 66.
"A sequel to Hawranek/Zygmunt," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 20: 143-144 (1991).
Needs and value. In Logic and ethics. Edited by Geach Peter. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1991. pp.
On the discontinuity of Wittgenstein's philosophy. In Peter Geach: philosophical encounters. Edited by Lewis Harry. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1991. pp. 77-81
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 13-17.
"A question of logic in the philosophy of religion," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 22: 33-36 (1993).
On the synthetic a priori. In Philosophical logic in Poland. Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1994. pp. 327-336
Logic and metaphysics. Studies in Wittgenstein's ontology of facts. Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Semiotyczne 1999.
Contents: Preface 11; Discontinuity of Wittgenstein's philosophy 13; 1. Elementary situations as a lattice of finite length 19; Elementary situations as a semilattice 73; 3. Independence 127; 4. Elementary situations generalized 137; 5. Auxiliary studies 193; 5.1 The Logical Atomisms of Russell and Wittgenstein 193; 5.2 A parallelism between Wittgenstein and Aristotle 198; 5.3 Frege's semantics 207; 5.4. The notion of fact as a modal operator 218; 5.5 "Tractatus" 5.541 - 5.542 224; 5.6 History of the concept of a Situation 229; 6. Offshoots 243 6.1 Languages and codes 243; 6.2 Logic and hermeneutics 254; 6.3 Kotarbinski's Reism 265; 6.4 On Bayle's critique of theodicy 271; 6.5 Elzenberg's axiology 286; 6.6 Needs and values 293; 6.7 Suszko: a reminiscence 302; Supplements 307; Indices: Index of subjects 317; Index of names 326; Index of Tractatus references 329.
"Atoms in semantic frames," Logica Trianguli 4: 69-86 (2000).
"Elaborating on Wittgenstein's ontology of facts, semantic frames are described axiomatically as based on the notion of an elementary situation being the verifier of a proposition. Conditions are investigated then for suchframes to be atomic, i.e. to have lattice-theoretic counterparts of his "Sachverhalte"."
"Extending atomistic frames," Logica Trianguli 5 (2001).
Tractatus 5.541 - 5.542. In Satz un Sachverhalt. Edited by Neumaier Otto. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag 2001. pp. 185-190
"In Wittgenstein's "Tractatus", thesis 5 is the Principle of Extensionality: all propositions are truth-functions of their clauses. This, however, has been often thrown into doubt. There are - it is said - compound propositions whose truth-value does not depend on that of their clauses. The usual example given are the so-called intensional contexts, like "John thinks that p", or "John says that p". And indeed, the truth-value of "p" is patently immaterial here to that of the whole proposition which it is part of.
Wittgenstein's retort are the following much discussed theses, adduced here in a translation of our own:
5.54 In the general propositional form, propositions occur in one another only as bases of truth-operations.
5.541 At first sight it seems that a proposition might occur in another also in a different way.
Particularly in certain propositional forms of psychology, like "A believes that p is the case", "A thinks p", etc.
For taken superficially, proposition p seems here to stand to the object A in some sort of relation.
(And in modem epistemology - Russell, Moore, etc. - these have actually been construed that way.)
5.542 However, "A believes that p", "A thinks p", "A says p" are clearly of the form " 'p' says p "; and this is not correlating a fact with an object, but a correlation of facts by correlating their objects.
The objection is met here in two steps. Firstly, it is pointed out that a proposition of the form "John says that p" is actually of the form "'p' says that p". The idea is this: the proposition "John says that Jill has a cat" means: John produces the sentence "Jill has a cat", the latter saying by itself that Jill has a cat. In such a way propositions get independent of the persons producing them, and communicate some objective content. It is surely not by John's looks that we come to know about Jill's cat, but merely by his words. Whom they stem from, is irrelevant.
In his second step Wittgenstein follows Frege's interpretation of indirect speech, but with modifications. He points out that the formula " 'p' says that p " is equivalent to some compound proposition in which neither the proposition "p" as a syntactic unit, nor anything equivalent to it, does occur although there occur all the logically relevant constituents of "p" separately.
(...)
The distinction between abstract and concrete states of affairs is not drawn explicitly in the "Tractatus". But it fits well thesis 5.156, if we expand that thesis by a few words of comment, added here in brackets:
5.156(d) A proposition may well be en incomplete image of a particular (concrete) situation, but it is always the complete image (of an abstract one).
The circumstance that in 5.156 not "states of affairs", but "situations" are mentioned, is of no consequence in our context. We assume that states of affairs are just atomic situations, and so the distinction between "concrete" and "abstract" applies to both."
"Extending atomistic frames: part II," Logica Trianguli 6: 69-88 (2003).
"The paper concludes an earlier one (Logica Trianguli, 5) on extensions of atomistic semantic frames. Three kinds of extension are considered: the adjunctive, the conjunctive, and the disjunctive one. Some theorems are proved on extending "Humean" frames, i.e. such that the elementary situations constituting their universa are separated by the maximally coherent sets of them ("realizations")."
"On a minimality condition," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 34: 227-228 (2005).
Bogusław Wolniewicz (ur. 22 września 1927 w Toruniu) - filozof i logik. Publicysta i felietonista m.in. Telewizji Trwam, Radia Maryja , Naszego Dziennika. W 2005 r. startował w wyborach parlamentarnych z listy Platformy Janusza Korwin-Mikke.
Życiorys
Studiował w latach 1947-1951 na Uniwersytecie Mikołaja Kopernika pod kierunkiem Tadeusza Czeżowskiego. Do 1953 r. był asystentem w Katedrze Logiki UMK, a od 1956 r. wykładowcą na WSP w Gdańsku. W 1963 r. został przeniesiony do Katedry Filozofii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego z inicjatywy Adama Schaffa. Do 1998 r. był profesorem w Instytucie Filozofii UW, kiedy to odszedł na emeryturę. W latach 1956 - 1981 członek PZPR.
Nauka
Bogusław Wolniewicz specjalizuje się w filozofii religii i filozofii współczesnej. Dystansuje się od głównych nurtów filozofii XX wieku i przyjmuje tezy wielkich myślicieli, m.in.: Arystotelesa, Leibniza, Hume'a, Kanta i szczególnie Wittgensteina. Krytyczny wobec freudyzmu, fenomenologii, postmodernizmu i fundamentalizmu religijnego, a od lat 90. XX wieku także marksizmu, reprezentuje postawę analityczną i metafizyczną. Główne założenia jego myśli to aksjologiczny absolutyzm w wersji racjonalistycznej i metafizyczny pesymizm w spojrzeniu na człowieka oraz społeczeństwo.
Postanowieniem prezydenta Aleksandra Kwaśniewskiego z dnia 11 listopada 1997 roku, za wybitne zasługi dla nauki polskiej, został odznaczony Krzyżem Oficerskim Orderu Odrodzenia Polski.
Polityka
Bogusław Wolniewicz startował w wyborach parlamentarnych w 2005 r. z list Platformy Janusza Korwin-Mikke, ale nie został posłem.
9 kwietnia 2006 Wolniewicz, wraz z o. Mieczysławem Krąpcem i ks. Czesławem Bartnikiem, zainicjował Społeczny Niezależny Zespół ds. Etyki Mediów, poparty m.in. przez przedstawicieli świata nauki i mediów, który postawił sobie za cel "informować rzetelnie opinię publiczną w kraju i na świecie o wszelkich poczynaniach w mediach i wokół nich, które zagrażają bądź obyczajności, bądź swobodzie publicznej dyskusji"[1]. Wolniewicz wyraził przekonanie, że Rada Etyki Mediów chce "nałożyć Polsce kaganiec na swobodę publicznej dyskusji" i "wprowadzić skrytą cenzurę"[2]. Inicjatywa ta miała miejsce po tym, jak Rada Etyki Mediów oraz Marek Edelman skrytykowali[3] Radio Maryja za nadanie, określanego przez nich jako antysemickiego, felietonu[4] Stanisława Michalkiewicza, a kieleckie Stowarzyszenie im. Jana Karskiego zażądało od prokuratury wszczęcia postępowania przeciwko autorowi[5].
Wybrane pisma
Ontologia sytuacji : podstawy i zastosowania, Warszawa : Państwowe Wydaw. Naukowe, 1985.
Filozofia i wartości : rozprawy i wypowiedzi : z fragmentami pism Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1993.
Filozofia i wartości, 2, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1998.
Logic and metaphysics : studies in Wittgenstein's ontology of facts, Warszawa : "Znak, Język, Rzeczywistość" : Polskie Towarzystwo Semiotyczne, 1999.
Filozofia i wartości, 3, Z fragmentem "Księgi tragizmu" Henryka Elzenberga i jego uwagami o "Dociekaniach" Wittgensteina, Warszawa : Wydział Filozofii i Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2003.
Boguslaw Wolniewicz and the Formal Ontology of Situations
INTRODUCTION
"The theory presented below was developed in an effort to clarify the metaphysics of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The result obtained, however, is not strictly the formal twin of his variant of Logical Atomism. but something more, general, of which the latter is lust a special case. One might call it an ontology of situations. Some basic ideas of that ontology stern from Stenius Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Oxford, 1968 and Suszko Ontology in the Tractatus of L. Wittgenstein - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 1968.
Let L be a classic propositional language. Propositions of L are supposed to have their semantic counterparts in the realm of possibility, or as Wittgenstein put it: in logical space. These counterparts are situations, and S is to be the totality of them. The situation described by a proposition a is S(a). With Meinong we call it the objective of a."
From: Boguslaw Wolniewicz - A formal ontology of situations - Studia Logica 41: 381-413 (1982). pp. 381-382.
"Different ontologies adopt different notions of existence as basic. Aristotle's paradigm of existence is given by the equivalence:
(A) to be = to be a substance.
On the other hand, the paradigm of existence adopted in Wittgenstein's Tractatus is given by the parallel equivalence:
(W) to be = to be a fact.
Now, an Aristotelian substance is the denotation of an individual name, whereas a Wittgensteinian fact is the denotation of a true proposition. It seems therefore that the notions of existence derived from these two paradigms should be quite different, and one might readily expect that the metaphysical systems erected upon them will display wide structural discrepancies.
It turns out, however, that in spite of this basic difference there runs between these two systems a deep and striking parallelism. This parallelism is so close indeed that it makes possible the construction of a vocabulary which would transform characteristic propositions of Wittgenstein's ontology into Aristotelian ones, and conversely. To show in some detail the workings of that transformation will be the subject of this paper.
The vocabulary mentioned is based on the following four fundamental correlations:
Aristotle
Wittgenstein
1) primary substances (substantiae primae)
atomic facts
2) prime matter (materia prima)
objects
3) form (forma)
configuration
4) self-subsistence of primary substances (esse per se)
independence of atomic facts
Aristotle's ontology is an ontology of substances, Wittgenstein's ontology is an ontology of facts. But concerning the respective items of each of the pairs (1)-(4) both ontologies lay down conditions which in view of our vocabulary appear to be identical. To show this let us confront, to begin with, the items of pair (1): substances and facts.
(The interpretation of Aristotle adopted in this paper is the standard one, to be found in any competent textbook of the history of philosophy. Therefore, with but one exception, no references to Aristotle's works will be given here.)Relatively to the system involved substances and facts are of the same ontological status. Aristotle's world is the totality of substances (summa rerum), Wittgenstein's world is the totality of facts (die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen). For Aristotle whatever exists in the basic sense of the word is a primary substance, for Wittgenstein - an atomic fact. Moreover, both ontologies are MODAL ones, allowing for different modes of being (modi essendi); and both take as basic the notion of `contingent being' (esse contingens), opposed to necessary being on the one hand, and to the possibility of being on the other. Both substances and facts are entities which actually exist, but might have not existed. The equality of ontological status between substances and facts is corroborated by the circumstance that both are PARTICULARS, there being - as the saying goes - no multiplicity of entities which FALL UNDER them.
Substances and facts stand also in the same relation to the ontological categories of pairs (2) and (3). Both are always COMPOUND entities, a substance consisting of matter and form, and a fact consisting of objects and the way of their configuration. But in neither of the two systems is this compoundness to be understood literally as composition of physically separable parts or pieces. The compoundness (compositio) of a substance consists in its being formed stuff (materia informata), and the compoundness of a fact in its being a configuration of objects.
In view of correlation (4) we have also an equality of relation which a substance bears to other substances, and a fact to other facts. Self-subsistence is the characteristic attribute of primary substances: substantia prima = ens per se. If we take this to mean that each substance exists independently of the existence or non-existence of any other substance we get immediately the exact counterpart of Wittgenstein's principle of logical atomism stating the mutual independence of atomic facts. It should be noted that thus understood the attribute of self-subsistence or independence is a relative one, belonging to a substance - or to a fact - only in virtue of its relation to other substances - or facts.
From a Wittgensteinian point of view Aristotle's substances are not things, but hypostases of facts, and thus their names are not logically proper names, but name-like equivalents of propositions. (By that term we mean roughly either a noun clause of the form `that p', or any symbol which might be regarded as a definitional abbreviation of such clause.) Surely, from the Aristotelian point of view it might be easily retorted here that just the opposite is the case: substances are not `reified' facts, but on the contrary - facts are 'dereified' substances. Without passing judgement on these mutual objections let us note in passing that their symmetric character seems to be itself an additional manifestation of the parallelism discussed."
From: Boguslaw Wolniewicz - A parallelism between Wittgensteinian and Aristotelian ontologies. In Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Vol. IV. Edited by Cohen Robert S. and Wartofsky Marx W. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company 1969. pp. 208-210 (notes omitted).
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (Works in Polish are not enclosed)
In 1970 Boguslaw Wolniewicz published a Polish translation of Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus logico-philosophicus.
A difference between Russell's and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. In Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie. Wien, 2. - 9. September 1968 - Vol. II. Wien: Herder 1968. pp. 263-267
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.193-197
"A note on Black's 'Companion'," Mind 78: 141 (1969).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - p. 229.
"It is a mistake to suppose that in Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" the meaning of Urbild has any connexion with that of picture. "
A parallelism between Wittgensteinian and Aristotelian ontologies. In Boston studies in the philosophy of science. Vol. IV. Edited by Cohen Robert S. and Wartofsky Marx W. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company 1969. pp. 208-217
Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the philosophy of science 1966/1968.
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.198-207
"Four notion of independence," Theoria 36: 161-164 (1970).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.127-130.
WFour (binary) relations of independence I(p,q) between propositions are distinguished: the Wittgensteinian I sub-w, the statistical I sub-s, the modal I sub-m, and the deductive I sub-d. The validity of the following theorem is argued for: I sub-w(p,q) implies I sub-s(p,q) implies I sub-m(p,q) implies Isub-d(p,q). "
Wittgensteinian foundations of non-Fregean logic. In Contemporary East European philosophy. Vol. 3. Edited by D'Angelo Edward, DeGrood David, and Riepe Dale. Bridgeport: Spartacus Books 1971. pp. 231-243
"The notion of fact as a modal operator," Teorema: 59-66 (1972).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 218-224
"The notion of fact /fp = "it is a fact that p"/ is characterized axiomatically, and the ensuing modal systems shown to be equivalent to tT, S4 and S5 respectively."
Zur Semantik des Satzkalküls: Frege und Wittgenstein. In Der Mensch - Subjekt und Objekt (Festchrift für Adam Schaff). Edited by Borbé Tasso. Wien: Europaverl. 1973. pp.
Sachlage und Elementarsätz. In Wittgenstein and his impact on contemporary thought. Proceedings of the Second International Wittgenstein Symposium, 29th August to 4th September 1977, Kirchberg/Wechsel (Austria). Edited by Leinfellner Elisabeth. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1977. pp. 174-176
"Objectives of propositions," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 7: 143-147 (1978).
"The paper sketches out a semantics for propositions based upon the Wittgensteinian notion of a possible situation. The objective of a proposition is defined as the smallest situation verifying it. Two propositions are assumed to have the same objective iff they are strictly equivalent. Formulas are given which determine the objectives of conjunction and disjunction as functions of the objectives of their components. finally a link with possible-world semantics is established."
"Situations as the reference of propositions," Dialectics and Humanism 5: 171-182 (1978).
"The reference of propositions is determined for a class of languages to be called the "Wittgensteinian" ones. A meaningful proposition presents a possible situation. Every consistent conjunction of elementary propositions presents an elementary situation. The smallest elementary situations are the "Sachverhalte"; the greatest are possible worlds. The situation presented by a proposition is to be distinguished from that verifying it, but the greatest situation presented is identical with the smallest verifying. The reference of compound propositions is then determined as a function of their components."
"Les situations comme corrélats semantiques des enoncés," Studia Filozoficzne 2: 27-41 (1978).
Wittgenstein und der Positivismus. In Wittgenstein, the Vienna circle and critical rationalism. Proceedings of the third International Wittgenstein Symposium, 13th to 19th August 1978, Kirchberg am Wechsel (Austria). Edited by Bergehel Hal, Hübner Adolf, and Eckehart Köhler. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1978. pp. 75-77
"Some formal properties of objectives," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 8: 16-20 (1979).
"The objectives of propositions as defined in an earlier paper are shown here to form a distributive lattice."
A Wittgensteinian semantics for propositions. In Intention and intentionality. Essay in honour of G. E. M. Anscombe. Edited by Diamond Cora and Teichman Jenny. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1979. pp. 165-178
"More than once Professor Anscombe has expressed doubt concerning the semantic efficacy of the idea of an 'elementary proposition' as conceived in the Tractatus. Wittgenstein himself eventually discarded it, together with the whole philosophy of language of which it had been an essential part. None the less the idea is still with us, and it seems to cover theoretical potentialities yet to be explored. This paper is a tentative move in that direction.
According to Professor Anscombe, (*) Wittgenstein's 'elementary propositions' may be characterized by the following five theses:
(1) They are a class of mutually independent propositions.
(2) They are essentially positive.
(2) They are such that for each of them there are no two ways of being true or false, but only one.
(4) They are such that there is in them no distinction between an internal and an external negation.
(5) They are concatenations of names, which are absolutely simple signs.
We shall not investigate whether this is an adequate axiomatic for the notion under consideration. We suppose it is. In any case it is possible to modify it in one way or another, and for the resulting notion still to preserve a family resemblance with the original idea. One such modification is sketched out below."
"On the lattice of elementary situations," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 9: 115-121 (1980).
"On the verifiers of disjunction," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 9: 57-59 (1980).
"The Boolean algebra of objectives," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 10: 17-23 (1981).
"This concludes a series of papers constructing a semantics for propositional languages based on the notion of a possible "situation". Objectives of propositions are the situations described by them. The set of objectives is defined and shown to be a boolean algebra isomorphic to that formed by sets of possible worlds."
"A closure system for elementary situations," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 11: 134-139 (1982).
"On logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 11: 84-88 (1982).
"Ludwig Fleck and Polish philosophy," Dialectics and Humanism 9: 25-28 (1982).
"A formal ontology of situations," Studia Logica 41: 381-413 (1982).
"A generalized Wittgensteinian semantics for propositional languages is presented, based on a lattice of elementary situations. Of these, maximal ones are possible worlds, constituting a logical space; minimal ones are logical atoms, partitioned into its dimensions. A verifier of a proposition is an elementary situation such that if real it makes true. The reference (or objective) of a proposition is a situation, which is the set of all its minimal verifiers. (Maximal ones constitute its locus.) Situations are shown to form a Boolean algebra, and the Boolean set algebra of loci is its representation. Wittgenstein's is a special case, admitting binary dimensions only."
Contents:
0. Preliminaries;
1. Elementary Situations
1.1.The Axioms; 1.2.Some Consequences; 1.3. W-Independence; 1.4.States of Affairs;
2. Sets of Elementary Situations
2.1.The Semigroup of SE"-Sets; 2.2.The Lattice of Minimal SE"-Sets; 2.3.Q-Spaces and V-Sets; 2.4.V-Equivalence and Q-Equivalence; 2.4.V-Classes and V-Sets;
3. Objectives of Propositions
3.1. Verifiers of Propositions; 3.2. Verifying and Forcing; 3.3. Situations and Logical Loci; 3.4. Loci and Objectives of Compound Propositions 3.5. The Boolean Algebra of Situations;
4. References
"Truth arguments and independence," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 12: 21-28 (1983).
"Logical space and metaphysical systems," Studia Logica 42: 269-284 (1983).
"The paper applies the theory presented in "A formal ontology of situations" (Studia Logica, vol. 41 (1982), no. 4) to obtain a typology of metaphysical systems by interpreting them as different ontologies of situations.
Four are treated in some detail: Hume's diachronic atomism, Laplacean determinism, Hume's synchronic atomism, and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. Moreover, the relation of that theory to the "situation semantics" of Perry and Barwise is discussed."
"An algebra of subsets for join-semilatttices with unit," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 13: 21-24 (1984).
"A topology for logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 13: 255-259 (1984).
"Suszko: a reminiscence," Studia Logica 43: 317-321 (1984).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.302-306
"Die Grundwerte einer wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassaung," Conceptus 19: 3-8 (1985).
"The scientific world-view is one of the fundamentals of our culture. It can be characterized in part by its specific system of values. A world-view is regarded as a scientific one if "truth" is one of its primary values, that is, as a value which is not a means, but an end in itself. Truth is served in particular by the two instrumental values of conceptual clarity and openness to critique. Their standing is (at present) low, for two reasons. (1) Unclear thinking not only promotes social idols; its consequences are also often difficult to see clearly and immediately. (2) In any case truth is of no interest (in a biological sense) to human beings; therefore, critique can at best be a socially tolerated activity. On the other hand, truth is not only a value, but also a force which in the long run cannot be held back; this fact gives some hope to adherents of the scientific world-view. "
"Discreteness of logical space," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 15: 132-136 (1986).
"Entailments and independence in join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 18: 2-5 (1989).
"The paper generalizes Wittgenstein's notion of independence. in a join-semilattice of elementary situations the atoms are the Sachverhalte, and maximal ideals are possible worlds. A subset of that semilattice is independent iff it is free of "ontic ties". This is shown to be equivalent to independence in von Neumann's sense."
"On atomic join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 18: 105-111 (1989).
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 307-312.
The essence of Logical Atomism: Hume and Wittgenstein. In Wittgenstein. Eine Neubewertung. Akten 14. Internationale Wittgenstein-Symposium. Vol. 1. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky 1990. pp. 106-111
"A question about join-semilattices," Bulletin of the Section of Logic: 108 (1990).
Concerning reism in Kotarbinski. In Kotarbinski: logic. semantics and ontology. Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1990. pp. 199-204
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp.265-271
Elzenberg's logic of values. In Logic counts. Edited by Zarnecka-Bialy Ewa. Dordrecht: Kluwe 1990. pp. 63-70
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 286-292 (with the title: Elzenberg's axiology"
"1. Values are what our value-Judgements refer to, and the passing of Judgements is one of our vital activities, like sleeping and breathing. We constantly appraise things as good or bad, pretty or ugly, as noble or base, well-made or misshapen. No wonder that both the act of appraisal and that which it refers to - i.e. the real or spurious values - have been always the source of philosophical reflexion. In systematic form such reflexion is what we call axiology.
In Polish philosophy it was Henryk Elzenberg (1887-1967) who reflected upon matters of axiology most deeply and incisively.
(...)
3. Leibniz had said somewhere: "There are two mazes in which the human mind is most likely to get lost: one is the concept of continuity, the other is that of liberty". This admits of generalization: all concepts are mazes, viz mazes of logical relations between the propositions that involve them.
One such maze is the concept of 'value'. Possibly, it is even the same as one of the two mentioned by Leibniz, only entered - so to say - by another door. For it would be in full accord with Elzenberg's position - and with that of Kant too - to adopt the following characteristic: values are what controls the actions of free agents. Thus the concepts of value and of liberty should constitute one conceptual maze, or - which comes to the same - two mazes communicating with each other.
To get a survey of such logical maze the first thing is to fix the ontological category of the concept in question. Thus, in our case, we ask what kind of entities are those 'values' supposed to be. (Ontological categories are the most general classes of entities, the summa genera A term even more general has to cover literally everything: like 'entity' or 'something'. For everything is an entity, just as everything is a something.)
Different ontologies admit different sets of categories. The categories most frequently referred to are those of 'objects', 'properties', and 'relations'; the more exotic ones are those of an 'event', a 'set', a 'function', or a 'situation'. One point, however, is of paramount importance: the categories admitted In one ontology have to be mutually disjoint". p. 63; 66.
"A sequel to Hawranek/Zygmunt," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 20: 143-144 (1991).
Needs and value. In Logic and ethics. Edited by Geach Peter. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1991. pp.
On the discontinuity of Wittgenstein's philosophy. In Peter Geach: philosophical encounters. Edited by Lewis Harry. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1991. pp. 77-81
Reprinted in: Logic and metaphysics (1999) - pp. 13-17.
"A question of logic in the philosophy of religion," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 22: 33-36 (1993).
On the synthetic a priori. In Philosophical logic in Poland. Edited by Wolenski Jan. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1994. pp. 327-336
Logic and metaphysics. Studies in Wittgenstein's ontology of facts. Warsaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Semiotyczne 1999.
Contents: Preface 11; Discontinuity of Wittgenstein's philosophy 13; 1. Elementary situations as a lattice of finite length 19; Elementary situations as a semilattice 73; 3. Independence 127; 4. Elementary situations generalized 137; 5. Auxiliary studies 193; 5.1 The Logical Atomisms of Russell and Wittgenstein 193; 5.2 A parallelism between Wittgenstein and Aristotle 198; 5.3 Frege's semantics 207; 5.4. The notion of fact as a modal operator 218; 5.5 "Tractatus" 5.541 - 5.542 224; 5.6 History of the concept of a Situation 229; 6. Offshoots 243 6.1 Languages and codes 243; 6.2 Logic and hermeneutics 254; 6.3 Kotarbinski's Reism 265; 6.4 On Bayle's critique of theodicy 271; 6.5 Elzenberg's axiology 286; 6.6 Needs and values 293; 6.7 Suszko: a reminiscence 302; Supplements 307; Indices: Index of subjects 317; Index of names 326; Index of Tractatus references 329.
"Atoms in semantic frames," Logica Trianguli 4: 69-86 (2000).
"Elaborating on Wittgenstein's ontology of facts, semantic frames are described axiomatically as based on the notion of an elementary situation being the verifier of a proposition. Conditions are investigated then for suchframes to be atomic, i.e. to have lattice-theoretic counterparts of his "Sachverhalte"."
"Extending atomistic frames," Logica Trianguli 5 (2001).
Tractatus 5.541 - 5.542. In Satz un Sachverhalt. Edited by Neumaier Otto. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag 2001. pp. 185-190
"In Wittgenstein's "Tractatus", thesis 5 is the Principle of Extensionality: all propositions are truth-functions of their clauses. This, however, has been often thrown into doubt. There are - it is said - compound propositions whose truth-value does not depend on that of their clauses. The usual example given are the so-called intensional contexts, like "John thinks that p", or "John says that p". And indeed, the truth-value of "p" is patently immaterial here to that of the whole proposition which it is part of.
Wittgenstein's retort are the following much discussed theses, adduced here in a translation of our own:
5.54 In the general propositional form, propositions occur in one another only as bases of truth-operations.
5.541 At first sight it seems that a proposition might occur in another also in a different way.
Particularly in certain propositional forms of psychology, like "A believes that p is the case", "A thinks p", etc.
For taken superficially, proposition p seems here to stand to the object A in some sort of relation.
(And in modem epistemology - Russell, Moore, etc. - these have actually been construed that way.)
5.542 However, "A believes that p", "A thinks p", "A says p" are clearly of the form " 'p' says p "; and this is not correlating a fact with an object, but a correlation of facts by correlating their objects.
The objection is met here in two steps. Firstly, it is pointed out that a proposition of the form "John says that p" is actually of the form "'p' says that p". The idea is this: the proposition "John says that Jill has a cat" means: John produces the sentence "Jill has a cat", the latter saying by itself that Jill has a cat. In such a way propositions get independent of the persons producing them, and communicate some objective content. It is surely not by John's looks that we come to know about Jill's cat, but merely by his words. Whom they stem from, is irrelevant.
In his second step Wittgenstein follows Frege's interpretation of indirect speech, but with modifications. He points out that the formula " 'p' says that p " is equivalent to some compound proposition in which neither the proposition "p" as a syntactic unit, nor anything equivalent to it, does occur although there occur all the logically relevant constituents of "p" separately.
(...)
The distinction between abstract and concrete states of affairs is not drawn explicitly in the "Tractatus". But it fits well thesis 5.156, if we expand that thesis by a few words of comment, added here in brackets:
5.156(d) A proposition may well be en incomplete image of a particular (concrete) situation, but it is always the complete image (of an abstract one).
The circumstance that in 5.156 not "states of affairs", but "situations" are mentioned, is of no consequence in our context. We assume that states of affairs are just atomic situations, and so the distinction between "concrete" and "abstract" applies to both."
"Extending atomistic frames: part II," Logica Trianguli 6: 69-88 (2003).
"The paper concludes an earlier one (Logica Trianguli, 5) on extensions of atomistic semantic frames. Three kinds of extension are considered: the adjunctive, the conjunctive, and the disjunctive one. Some theorems are proved on extending "Humean" frames, i.e. such that the elementary situations constituting their universa are separated by the maximally coherent sets of them ("realizations")."
"On a minimality condition," Bulletin of the Section of Logic 34: 227-228 (2005).
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's terror
Mr. James Hoge, Jr., Editor September 14, 2002
Foreign Affairs
58 East 69th street
N. Y. C., NY 10021
Dear Mr. Hoge:
In your letter of September 9, 2002, to Mr. Moskal, you refer to me by name, therefore, please, allow me to answer some of your basic contentions.
You treat the massacre of Jedwabne of 1941 as a Polish national crime - a serious misrepresentation of the history of Poland. It is a tremendous disappointment to see the editor of a prestigious publication having taken such a dubious and unsupportable position. It is a well-established historical fact that the Germans were in charge and controlled the commission of their atrocities at gun point. The Brumberg-Gross contention that the secondary roles in German crimes by people who were held at gun point, represent Polish national responsibility is absurd.
You apparently share with Abraham Brumberg his contention of Poland's "discredited heritage" (quoted in your letter). Abraham Brumberg denigrates and belittles the fact that more Poles than members of any other nationality sacrificed their lives in saving Jews from the Nazis. About 100,000 Poles were executed by Germans for helping Jews. Ironically many thousands of Poles were imprisoned and sent to the Gulag under the false accusation that they had collaborated with the Nazis. In reality their real crime was that they were a threat to Stalin's complete domination of the Polish state. The fact is that during the war and its aftermath a greater number of Polish Christians were killed than Polish Jews. Poland apparently lost the great majority of her pre-war patriotic Jewish intelligentsia which would now be speaking up in defense of Poland's good name.
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's terror apparatus as members of Polish government. Poles, who know their history, are outraged by having the crimes of Nazi invaders attributed to them.
Until the site of the atrocity in Jedwabne is fully exhumed and thoroughly examined by forensic scientists, you are not justified in accepting a Brumberg-Gross version of events. These authors as well as self serving opportunistic politicians in the Polish government and their supporters have their reasons for propagating their version of events, which is largely contradicted by reliable eyewitness accounts and lacking in scientific evidence. The size and nature of the two graves at Jedwabne make impossible the assertions of J. T. Gross and Abraham Brumberg
The long term friendship of two peoples can not be based on Voltaire's notion that history is a lie agreed upon.
Sincerely,
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, a survivor of 64 months of Gestapo prisons and Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin (number 28865), is the author of "Poland, an Illustrated History" (Hippocrene Books, New York, 2000), "Jews in Poland, a Documented History" (Hippocrene Books, New York, 1993), "Poland, a Historical Atlas" (Hippocrene Books, 1987).
Blacksburg, P. O. Box 10037, VA 24062
cc: Hon. Peter G. Peterson
cc: Hon. Edward J. Moskal
Who is to express regrets for the collaboration between the "Jewish committees" and the NKVD in Soviet occupied Poland? Then, the last memory of Poland by many a Polish citizens before the door was slammed shut on a boxcar bound for Siberia was that of a Jewish militiaman slamming the door. (There was no similar collaboration between Polish Catholics and the Nazis for example.) However, the problem of an apology by the Jews for collaboration is more complicated.
Practically all of the over three million Jewish victims gassed in German gas chambers were arrested by Jewish ghetto policemen who brutally escorted them to the rail terminal. The last experience of Jewish victims in Poland packed into boxcars, bound for the gas chambers, was that of a Jewish ghetto polic slamming shut the death car door. It is a matter of record that an average Jewish policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto sent to gas chambers about twenty two hundred victims. In this tragedy what kind of an act of contrition is due and by whom?
So far Polish Catholics do not seek reparations, moral or financial, from Jews. They hope that mutual respect can replace the rather counterproductive charge and countercharge pattern which the propaganda pamphlet The Neighbors, by J. T. Gross, engenders. Enough is definitely enough.
More difficult problem to discuss is that of the architects of the holocaust who were of Jewish background themselves like Reinhold Heydrich who designed the final solution so that it would be performed by the Jews themselves. The motivation of these architects of the holocaust was prove themselves faithful to the Third Reich as well as acting out their own Jewish self-hatred so well known among decedents of mixed Jewish-Christian marriages. Heydrich's, and possibly Hitler's, hatred of their own Jewish blood was a product of the racist German society in which they grew up. To deal with the Jewish problem and eventually enforce the "Final Solution," Heydrich selected others, whom he believed to have this "pathological Jewish self-hate," such as Globocnik, Eichmann, Knochen, Dannecker, etc. as described by Gerald Reitlinger in SS - Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1956). Hitler was very sensitive to matters of Jewish ancestry because his own father, Alois Schiklgruber born out of wedlock, allegedly had a Jewish father.
Chronology of Hitler's Efforts to Persuade Poland to Join the Anti-Comintern Pact. (from Józef Lipski's Diplomat in Berlin 1933-39)
Aug. 5, 1935 Hitler declared good Polish German relations are of primary importance. German proposals included: military cooperation, alliance against Russia, an air pact, etc.
Aug. 31, 1936 German gold payments to Poland for transit through Pomerania between Germany and East Prussia settled and declared by Hitler as a financial and not political matter.
Nov. 25, 1936 the Anti Comintern Pact signed by Germany and Japan.
Aug. 13, 1937 German Japanese consultations on their pressure on Poland to join the Anti Comintern Pact (their analysis of Polish politics). Japanese Gen. Sawada suggested a carrot and stick approach. The Nazis were to order ethnic Germans in Poland to cease anti-Polish hostilities and concentrate the German army on Poland's borders and occupy Klajpeda Memel in Lithuania (the latter happened in March 1939). Herman Goering used his "hunting trips to Poland to persuade the Poles to join the Anti-Comintern Pact.
Nov. 6, 1937 Italy Joined the German Japanese Anti Comintern Pact the need for Poland's participation in the pact stressed.
Nov. 9, 1937 Minister Beck comments evasively on the participation of Poland in the Anti Comintern Pact.
Nov. 10, 1937 German and Polish Ambassadors to the Quirinal discuss the pact in Vatican.
Jan. 12, 1938 Italian proposals of membership in the Anti Comintern Pact by Poland, Spain, and Brasil.
Feb. 4, 1938 Minister von Ribbentrop' s intensified campaign to get Poland into the Anti Cominten Pact.
March 31, 1938 German pressure on Poland to sign the Anti Comintern Pact in a direct conference.
Sept. 27, 1 938 during Czech crisis Germany asked about Poland's attitude towards the pact.
Oct. 24, 1938 Germany offered a general settlement of Polish German problems within the pact.
Jan. 26, 1939 Ribbentrop told in Warsaw that Poland will not join the Anti Comintern Pact.
March 31, 1939 Poland, Gr. Britain and France exchanged common defense guarantees.
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Born Sept. 3, 1921
Lwów, Poland
in Dec 1939 left Warsaw. Dec 30, 1939 arrested by Ukrainians serving the Gestapo in Dukla, then transferred to Barwinek, Krosno, Jaslo, Tarnów, Oswiecim, arrived in Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen on Aug. 10, 1940.
April 19, 1945 started on the Death March of Brandenburg from Sachsenhausen; escaped gunfire of SS-guards and arrived to Schwerin and freedom on May 2, 1945.
September 1945 arrived in Brussels, Belgium; obtained admission as a regular student at the Catholic University: Institute Superieur de Commerce, St. Ignace in Antwerp.
in 1954 graduated in Civil Engineering at the top of his class. Was invited to join honorary societies: Tau Beta Pi (general engineering honorary society), Phi Kappa Phi (academic honorary society equivalent to Phi Beta Kappa), Pi Mu (mechanical engineering honorary society), and Chi Epsilon (civil engineering honorary society). Taught descriptive geometry at the University of Tennessee;
in 1955 graduated with M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering.
in 1955 started working for Shell Oil Company in New Orleans. After one year of managerial training was assigned to design of marine structures for drilling and production of petroleum.
in 1960 started working for Texaco Research and Development in Houston, Texas as a Project Engineer. Authored total of 50 American and foreign patents on marine structures for the petroleum industry;
wrote an article: The Rise and Fall of the Polish Commonwealth - A Quest for a Representative Government in Central and Eastern Europe in the 14th to 18th Centuries. Started to work on a Tabular History of Poland.
in 1972 moved to Blacksburg, Virginia. During the following years worked as Consulting Engineer for Texaco, also taught in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as Adjunct Professor in the College of Civil Engineering teaching courses on marine structures of the petroleum industry. Designed and supervised the construction of a hill top home for his family, also bought 500 acre ranch (near Thomas Jefferson National Forest) where he restored 200 years old mill house on a mountain stream.
in 1978 prepared Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. The dictionary included a Tabular History of Poland, Polish Language, People, and Culture as well as Pogonowski's phonetic symbols for phonetic transcriptions in English and Polish at each dictionary entry; the phonetic explanations were illustrated with cross-sections of speech (organs used to pronounce the sounds unfamiliar to the users). It was the first dictionary with phonetic transcription at each Polish entry for use by English speakers
in 1981 prepared Practical Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1983 prepared Concise Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. Wrote an analysis of Michael Ch ci ski's Poland, Communism, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism. Also selected crucial quotations from Norman Davies' God's Playground - A History of Poland on the subject of the Polish indigenous democratic process.
in 1985 prepared Polish-English Standard Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. Also prepared a revised and expanded edition of the Concise Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, also published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1987 prepared Poland: A Historical Atlas on Polish History and Prehistory including 200 maps and graphs as well as Chronology of Poland's Constitutional and Political Development, and the Evolution of Polish Identity - The Milestones. An introductory chapter was entitled Poland the Middle Ground. Aloysius A. Mazewski President of Polish-American Congress wrote an introduction. The Atlas was published by Hippocrene Books Inc. and later by Dorset Press of the Barnes and Noble Co. Inc. which sends some 30 million catalogues to American homes including color reproduction of book covers. Thus, many Americans were exposed to the cover of Pogonowski's Atlas showing the range of borders of Poland during the history - many found out for the firsttime that Poland was an important power in the past. Total of about 30,000 atlases were printed so far.
In 1988 the publication of Poland: A Historical Atlas resulted in a number of invitations extended by several Polonian organizations to Iwo Pogonowski to present Television Programs on Polish History. Pogonowski responded and produced over two year period 220 half-hour video programs in his studio at home (and at his own expense.) These programs formed a serial entitled: Poland, A History of One Thousand Years. Total of over 1000 broadcasts of these programs were transmitted by cable television in Chicago, Detroit-Hamtramck, Cleveland, and Blacksburg.
in 1990-1991 translated from the Russian the Catechism of a Revolutionary of 1869 in which crime has been treated as a normal part of the revolutionary program. Started preparation of the Killing the Best and the Brightest: A Chronology of the USSR-German Attempt to Behead the Polish Nation showing how the USSR became a prototype of modern totalitarian state, how this prototype was adapted in Germany by the Nazis.
in 1991 prepared Polish Phrasebook, Polish Conversations for Americans including picture code for gender and familiarity, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1991 prepared English Conversations for Poles with Concise Dictionary published by Hippocrene Books Inc. By then a total of over 100,000 Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionaries written by Pogonowski were sold in the United States and abroad.
in 1992 prepared a Dictionary of Polish, Latin, Hebrew, and Yiddish Terms used in Contacts between Poles and Jews. It was prepared for the history of Jews in Poland as well as 115 maps and graphs and 172 illustrations, paintings, drawings, and documents, etc. of Jewish life in Poland. This material was accompanied by proper annotations.
in 1993 prepared Jews in Poland, Rise of the Jews as a Nation from Congressus Judaicus in Poland to the Knesset in Israel, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. in 3000 copies. Foreword was written by Richard Pipes, professor of history at Harvard University, and Pogonowski's school mate in the Keczmar school in Warsaw. Part I included: a Synopsis of 1000 Year History of Jews in Poland; the 1264 Statute of Jewish Liberties in Poland in Latin and English translation; Jewish Autonomy in Poland 1264-1795; German Annihilation of the Jews. In appendixes are documents and illustrations. An Atlas is in the Part III. It is divided as follows: Early Jewish Settlements 966-1264; The Crucial 500 Years, 1264-1795; Competition (between Poles and Jews) Under Foreign Rule, 1795-1918; The Last Blossoming of Jewish Culture in Poland, 1918-1939; German Genocide of the Jews, 1940-1944; Jewish Escape from Europe 1945-1947 - The End of European (Polish) Phase of Jewish History (when most of world's Jewry lived in Europe). Pogonowski began to write a new book starting with the Chronology of the Martyrdom of Polish Intelligentsia during World War II and the Stalinist Terror; the book in preparation was entitled Killing the Best and the Brightest.
in 1995 prepared Dictionary of Polish Business, Legal and Associated Terms for use with the new edition of the Practical Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionary and later to be published as a separate book.
in 1996 Pogonowski's Poland: A Historical Atlas; was translated into Polish; some 130 of the original 200 maps printed in color; the Chronology of Poland was also translated into Polish. The Atlas was published by Wydawnictwo Suszczy ski I Baran in Kraków in 3000 copies; additional publications are expected. Prepared Polish-English, Eglish-Polish Compact Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1997 finished preparation of the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics including over 200,000 entries, in three volumes on total of 4000 pages; it is published by Hippocrene Books Inc; the Polish title is: Uniwesalny S ownik Polsko-Angielski. Besides years of work Pogonowski spent over $50,000 on computers, computer services, typing, and proof reading in order to make the 4000 page dictionary camera ready; assisted in the preparation of second edition of Jews in Poland, Rise of the Jews from Congressus Judaicus in Poland to the Knesset in Israel published in fall of 1997. Prepared computer programs for English-Polish Dictionary to serve as a companion to the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary printed by the end of May 1997.
in 1998 Pogonowski organized preparation of CD ROM for the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary, Practical English-Polish Dictionary, Polish Phrasebook for Tourists and Travelers to Poland, all published earlier by Iwo C. Pogonowski. The Phrasebook includes 280 minutes of bilingual audio read by actors. Started preparation for a new edition of Poland: A Historical Atlas. New Appendices are being prepared on such subjects as: Polish contribution to Allied's wartime intelligence: the breaking of the Enigma Codes, Pune Munde rocket production; Poland's contribution to the international law since 1415; Poland's early development of rocket technology such as Polish Rocketry Handbook published in 1650 in which Poles introduced for the first time into the world's literature concepts of multiple warheads, multistage rockets, new controls in rocket flight, etc. Poland's Chronology is being enlarged to reflect the mechanisms of subjugation of Polish people by the Soviet terror apparatus. Continued preparation of the Killing the Best and the Brightest: A Chronology of the USSR-German Attempt to Behead the Polish Nation, including the 1992 revelations from Soviet archives as well as the current research in Poland. Continued preparation of two-volume English Polish Dictionary, a companion to the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary published in 1997. Reviewed Upiorna Dekada by J. T. Gross.
in 1999 Pogonowski continued writing Poland - An Illustrated History and preparing for it 21 maps and diagrams and 89 illustrations.
in 2000 Pogonowski prepared, in a camera ready form, Poland - An Illustrated History; it was published by Hippocrene Books Inc. NY 2000 and recommended by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under President Carter, as "An important contribution to the better understanding of Polish history, which demonstrates in a vivid fashion the historical vicissitudes of that major European nation."
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's terror
Mr. James Hoge, Jr., Editor September 14, 2002
Foreign Affairs
58 East 69th street
N. Y. C., NY 10021
Dear Mr. Hoge:
In your letter of September 9, 2002, to Mr. Moskal, you refer to me by name, therefore, please, allow me to answer some of your basic contentions.
You treat the massacre of Jedwabne of 1941 as a Polish national crime - a serious misrepresentation of the history of Poland. It is a tremendous disappointment to see the editor of a prestigious publication having taken such a dubious and unsupportable position. It is a well-established historical fact that the Germans were in charge and controlled the commission of their atrocities at gun point. The Brumberg-Gross contention that the secondary roles in German crimes by people who were held at gun point, represent Polish national responsibility is absurd.
You apparently share with Abraham Brumberg his contention of Poland's "discredited heritage" (quoted in your letter). Abraham Brumberg denigrates and belittles the fact that more Poles than members of any other nationality sacrificed their lives in saving Jews from the Nazis. About 100,000 Poles were executed by Germans for helping Jews. Ironically many thousands of Poles were imprisoned and sent to the Gulag under the false accusation that they had collaborated with the Nazis. In reality their real crime was that they were a threat to Stalin's complete domination of the Polish state. The fact is that during the war and its aftermath a greater number of Polish Christians were killed than Polish Jews. Poland apparently lost the great majority of her pre-war patriotic Jewish intelligentsia which would now be speaking up in defense of Poland's good name.
I am unaware of any organized Jewish efforts to save Polish lives at the time when Jews were in disproportionally favored position within the Stalin's terror apparatus as members of Polish government. Poles, who know their history, are outraged by having the crimes of Nazi invaders attributed to them.
Until the site of the atrocity in Jedwabne is fully exhumed and thoroughly examined by forensic scientists, you are not justified in accepting a Brumberg-Gross version of events. These authors as well as self serving opportunistic politicians in the Polish government and their supporters have their reasons for propagating their version of events, which is largely contradicted by reliable eyewitness accounts and lacking in scientific evidence. The size and nature of the two graves at Jedwabne make impossible the assertions of J. T. Gross and Abraham Brumberg
The long term friendship of two peoples can not be based on Voltaire's notion that history is a lie agreed upon.
Sincerely,
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, a survivor of 64 months of Gestapo prisons and Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin (number 28865), is the author of "Poland, an Illustrated History" (Hippocrene Books, New York, 2000), "Jews in Poland, a Documented History" (Hippocrene Books, New York, 1993), "Poland, a Historical Atlas" (Hippocrene Books, 1987).
Blacksburg, P. O. Box 10037, VA 24062
cc: Hon. Peter G. Peterson
cc: Hon. Edward J. Moskal
Who is to express regrets for the collaboration between the "Jewish committees" and the NKVD in Soviet occupied Poland? Then, the last memory of Poland by many a Polish citizens before the door was slammed shut on a boxcar bound for Siberia was that of a Jewish militiaman slamming the door. (There was no similar collaboration between Polish Catholics and the Nazis for example.) However, the problem of an apology by the Jews for collaboration is more complicated.
Practically all of the over three million Jewish victims gassed in German gas chambers were arrested by Jewish ghetto policemen who brutally escorted them to the rail terminal. The last experience of Jewish victims in Poland packed into boxcars, bound for the gas chambers, was that of a Jewish ghetto polic slamming shut the death car door. It is a matter of record that an average Jewish policeman in the Warsaw Ghetto sent to gas chambers about twenty two hundred victims. In this tragedy what kind of an act of contrition is due and by whom?
So far Polish Catholics do not seek reparations, moral or financial, from Jews. They hope that mutual respect can replace the rather counterproductive charge and countercharge pattern which the propaganda pamphlet The Neighbors, by J. T. Gross, engenders. Enough is definitely enough.
More difficult problem to discuss is that of the architects of the holocaust who were of Jewish background themselves like Reinhold Heydrich who designed the final solution so that it would be performed by the Jews themselves. The motivation of these architects of the holocaust was prove themselves faithful to the Third Reich as well as acting out their own Jewish self-hatred so well known among decedents of mixed Jewish-Christian marriages. Heydrich's, and possibly Hitler's, hatred of their own Jewish blood was a product of the racist German society in which they grew up. To deal with the Jewish problem and eventually enforce the "Final Solution," Heydrich selected others, whom he believed to have this "pathological Jewish self-hate," such as Globocnik, Eichmann, Knochen, Dannecker, etc. as described by Gerald Reitlinger in SS - Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1956). Hitler was very sensitive to matters of Jewish ancestry because his own father, Alois Schiklgruber born out of wedlock, allegedly had a Jewish father.
Chronology of Hitler's Efforts to Persuade Poland to Join the Anti-Comintern Pact. (from Józef Lipski's Diplomat in Berlin 1933-39)
Aug. 5, 1935 Hitler declared good Polish German relations are of primary importance. German proposals included: military cooperation, alliance against Russia, an air pact, etc.
Aug. 31, 1936 German gold payments to Poland for transit through Pomerania between Germany and East Prussia settled and declared by Hitler as a financial and not political matter.
Nov. 25, 1936 the Anti Comintern Pact signed by Germany and Japan.
Aug. 13, 1937 German Japanese consultations on their pressure on Poland to join the Anti Comintern Pact (their analysis of Polish politics). Japanese Gen. Sawada suggested a carrot and stick approach. The Nazis were to order ethnic Germans in Poland to cease anti-Polish hostilities and concentrate the German army on Poland's borders and occupy Klajpeda Memel in Lithuania (the latter happened in March 1939). Herman Goering used his "hunting trips to Poland to persuade the Poles to join the Anti-Comintern Pact.
Nov. 6, 1937 Italy Joined the German Japanese Anti Comintern Pact the need for Poland's participation in the pact stressed.
Nov. 9, 1937 Minister Beck comments evasively on the participation of Poland in the Anti Comintern Pact.
Nov. 10, 1937 German and Polish Ambassadors to the Quirinal discuss the pact in Vatican.
Jan. 12, 1938 Italian proposals of membership in the Anti Comintern Pact by Poland, Spain, and Brasil.
Feb. 4, 1938 Minister von Ribbentrop' s intensified campaign to get Poland into the Anti Cominten Pact.
March 31, 1938 German pressure on Poland to sign the Anti Comintern Pact in a direct conference.
Sept. 27, 1 938 during Czech crisis Germany asked about Poland's attitude towards the pact.
Oct. 24, 1938 Germany offered a general settlement of Polish German problems within the pact.
Jan. 26, 1939 Ribbentrop told in Warsaw that Poland will not join the Anti Comintern Pact.
March 31, 1939 Poland, Gr. Britain and France exchanged common defense guarantees.
Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski
Born Sept. 3, 1921
Lwów, Poland
in Dec 1939 left Warsaw. Dec 30, 1939 arrested by Ukrainians serving the Gestapo in Dukla, then transferred to Barwinek, Krosno, Jaslo, Tarnów, Oswiecim, arrived in Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen on Aug. 10, 1940.
April 19, 1945 started on the Death March of Brandenburg from Sachsenhausen; escaped gunfire of SS-guards and arrived to Schwerin and freedom on May 2, 1945.
September 1945 arrived in Brussels, Belgium; obtained admission as a regular student at the Catholic University: Institute Superieur de Commerce, St. Ignace in Antwerp.
in 1954 graduated in Civil Engineering at the top of his class. Was invited to join honorary societies: Tau Beta Pi (general engineering honorary society), Phi Kappa Phi (academic honorary society equivalent to Phi Beta Kappa), Pi Mu (mechanical engineering honorary society), and Chi Epsilon (civil engineering honorary society). Taught descriptive geometry at the University of Tennessee;
in 1955 graduated with M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering.
in 1955 started working for Shell Oil Company in New Orleans. After one year of managerial training was assigned to design of marine structures for drilling and production of petroleum.
in 1960 started working for Texaco Research and Development in Houston, Texas as a Project Engineer. Authored total of 50 American and foreign patents on marine structures for the petroleum industry;
wrote an article: The Rise and Fall of the Polish Commonwealth - A Quest for a Representative Government in Central and Eastern Europe in the 14th to 18th Centuries. Started to work on a Tabular History of Poland.
in 1972 moved to Blacksburg, Virginia. During the following years worked as Consulting Engineer for Texaco, also taught in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as Adjunct Professor in the College of Civil Engineering teaching courses on marine structures of the petroleum industry. Designed and supervised the construction of a hill top home for his family, also bought 500 acre ranch (near Thomas Jefferson National Forest) where he restored 200 years old mill house on a mountain stream.
in 1978 prepared Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. The dictionary included a Tabular History of Poland, Polish Language, People, and Culture as well as Pogonowski's phonetic symbols for phonetic transcriptions in English and Polish at each dictionary entry; the phonetic explanations were illustrated with cross-sections of speech (organs used to pronounce the sounds unfamiliar to the users). It was the first dictionary with phonetic transcription at each Polish entry for use by English speakers
in 1981 prepared Practical Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1983 prepared Concise Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. Wrote an analysis of Michael Ch ci ski's Poland, Communism, Nationalism, Anti-Semitism. Also selected crucial quotations from Norman Davies' God's Playground - A History of Poland on the subject of the Polish indigenous democratic process.
in 1985 prepared Polish-English Standard Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. Also prepared a revised and expanded edition of the Concise Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics, also published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1987 prepared Poland: A Historical Atlas on Polish History and Prehistory including 200 maps and graphs as well as Chronology of Poland's Constitutional and Political Development, and the Evolution of Polish Identity - The Milestones. An introductory chapter was entitled Poland the Middle Ground. Aloysius A. Mazewski President of Polish-American Congress wrote an introduction. The Atlas was published by Hippocrene Books Inc. and later by Dorset Press of the Barnes and Noble Co. Inc. which sends some 30 million catalogues to American homes including color reproduction of book covers. Thus, many Americans were exposed to the cover of Pogonowski's Atlas showing the range of borders of Poland during the history - many found out for the firsttime that Poland was an important power in the past. Total of about 30,000 atlases were printed so far.
In 1988 the publication of Poland: A Historical Atlas resulted in a number of invitations extended by several Polonian organizations to Iwo Pogonowski to present Television Programs on Polish History. Pogonowski responded and produced over two year period 220 half-hour video programs in his studio at home (and at his own expense.) These programs formed a serial entitled: Poland, A History of One Thousand Years. Total of over 1000 broadcasts of these programs were transmitted by cable television in Chicago, Detroit-Hamtramck, Cleveland, and Blacksburg.
in 1990-1991 translated from the Russian the Catechism of a Revolutionary of 1869 in which crime has been treated as a normal part of the revolutionary program. Started preparation of the Killing the Best and the Brightest: A Chronology of the USSR-German Attempt to Behead the Polish Nation showing how the USSR became a prototype of modern totalitarian state, how this prototype was adapted in Germany by the Nazis.
in 1991 prepared Polish Phrasebook, Polish Conversations for Americans including picture code for gender and familiarity, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1991 prepared English Conversations for Poles with Concise Dictionary published by Hippocrene Books Inc. By then a total of over 100,000 Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionaries written by Pogonowski were sold in the United States and abroad.
in 1992 prepared a Dictionary of Polish, Latin, Hebrew, and Yiddish Terms used in Contacts between Poles and Jews. It was prepared for the history of Jews in Poland as well as 115 maps and graphs and 172 illustrations, paintings, drawings, and documents, etc. of Jewish life in Poland. This material was accompanied by proper annotations.
in 1993 prepared Jews in Poland, Rise of the Jews as a Nation from Congressus Judaicus in Poland to the Knesset in Israel, published by Hippocrene Books Inc. in 3000 copies. Foreword was written by Richard Pipes, professor of history at Harvard University, and Pogonowski's school mate in the Keczmar school in Warsaw. Part I included: a Synopsis of 1000 Year History of Jews in Poland; the 1264 Statute of Jewish Liberties in Poland in Latin and English translation; Jewish Autonomy in Poland 1264-1795; German Annihilation of the Jews. In appendixes are documents and illustrations. An Atlas is in the Part III. It is divided as follows: Early Jewish Settlements 966-1264; The Crucial 500 Years, 1264-1795; Competition (between Poles and Jews) Under Foreign Rule, 1795-1918; The Last Blossoming of Jewish Culture in Poland, 1918-1939; German Genocide of the Jews, 1940-1944; Jewish Escape from Europe 1945-1947 - The End of European (Polish) Phase of Jewish History (when most of world's Jewry lived in Europe). Pogonowski began to write a new book starting with the Chronology of the Martyrdom of Polish Intelligentsia during World War II and the Stalinist Terror; the book in preparation was entitled Killing the Best and the Brightest.
in 1995 prepared Dictionary of Polish Business, Legal and Associated Terms for use with the new edition of the Practical Polish-English, English-Polish Dictionary and later to be published as a separate book.
in 1996 Pogonowski's Poland: A Historical Atlas; was translated into Polish; some 130 of the original 200 maps printed in color; the Chronology of Poland was also translated into Polish. The Atlas was published by Wydawnictwo Suszczy ski I Baran in Kraków in 3000 copies; additional publications are expected. Prepared Polish-English, Eglish-Polish Compact Dictionary with complete phonetics, published by Hippocrene Books Inc.
in 1997 finished preparation of the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary with complete phonetics including over 200,000 entries, in three volumes on total of 4000 pages; it is published by Hippocrene Books Inc; the Polish title is: Uniwesalny S ownik Polsko-Angielski. Besides years of work Pogonowski spent over $50,000 on computers, computer services, typing, and proof reading in order to make the 4000 page dictionary camera ready; assisted in the preparation of second edition of Jews in Poland, Rise of the Jews from Congressus Judaicus in Poland to the Knesset in Israel published in fall of 1997. Prepared computer programs for English-Polish Dictionary to serve as a companion to the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary printed by the end of May 1997.
in 1998 Pogonowski organized preparation of CD ROM for the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary, Practical English-Polish Dictionary, Polish Phrasebook for Tourists and Travelers to Poland, all published earlier by Iwo C. Pogonowski. The Phrasebook includes 280 minutes of bilingual audio read by actors. Started preparation for a new edition of Poland: A Historical Atlas. New Appendices are being prepared on such subjects as: Polish contribution to Allied's wartime intelligence: the breaking of the Enigma Codes, Pune Munde rocket production; Poland's contribution to the international law since 1415; Poland's early development of rocket technology such as Polish Rocketry Handbook published in 1650 in which Poles introduced for the first time into the world's literature concepts of multiple warheads, multistage rockets, new controls in rocket flight, etc. Poland's Chronology is being enlarged to reflect the mechanisms of subjugation of Polish people by the Soviet terror apparatus. Continued preparation of the Killing the Best and the Brightest: A Chronology of the USSR-German Attempt to Behead the Polish Nation, including the 1992 revelations from Soviet archives as well as the current research in Poland. Continued preparation of two-volume English Polish Dictionary, a companion to the Unabridged Polish-English Dictionary published in 1997. Reviewed Upiorna Dekada by J. T. Gross.
in 1999 Pogonowski continued writing Poland - An Illustrated History and preparing for it 21 maps and diagrams and 89 illustrations.
in 2000 Pogonowski prepared, in a camera ready form, Poland - An Illustrated History; it was published by Hippocrene Books Inc. NY 2000 and recommended by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under President Carter, as "An important contribution to the better understanding of Polish history, which demonstrates in a vivid fashion the historical vicissitudes of that major European nation."
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
It's Time to wake up George Galloway & JFK "I'm speechless!"
It's Time to wake up George Galloway & JFK "I'm speechless!"
Friday, April 4, 2008
Jan Paweł II Częstochowa John Paul II Czestochowa 1983
Jan Paweł II Częstochowa - John Paul II Czestochowa 1983
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko 1746 - 1817 Hero of America and Poland
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko 1746 - 1817Hero of America and Poland
http://www.tvpolonia.com/player/index.php?path=58&mov=603343806.wmv&play=1
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko 1746 - 1817Hero of America and Poland
Thaddeus Kosciuszko was born in Poland on February 4, 1746, son of Ludwik and Tekla Kosciuszko. He attended school in Lubieszow and then the Cadet Academy in Warsaw before continuing his engineering studies in Paris, France. By the time Kosciuszko arrived in America from Poland in 1776, he was a skilled engineer who came to offer his services to the American colonies in their struggle for independence. On October 18, 1776 Kosciuszko was commissioned as Colonel of Engineers by the Continental Congress and began his outstanding service of fortifying battle sites, many of which became turning points in America's fight for independence against the British.
Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia in 1776, Kosciuszko read the Declaration of Independence and was moved to tears because he discovered in this single, concise document everything in which he truly believed. When he discovered that Thomas Jefferson was responsible for drafting the Declaration, he felt compelled to meet him. A few months later, while moving south with the Continental Army, Kosciuszko stopped in Virginia to meet with Jefferson. After a very warm reception, the two men spent the day comparing philosophies and eventually became the best of friends.
In the early days of the war, Kosciuszko helped to fortify the Philadelphia waterfront at Fort Mercer. Shortly after, he was transferred to New York, where he helped with fortifications along the Hudson and planned the defense for Saratoga. The Battle of Saratoga became known as one of military history's most famous struggles for independence and proved to be a turning point in the war.
In 1778, Kosciuszko was made chief engineer of West Point, New York. This fortification became known as the American Gibraltar because it was unable to be penetrated by the British Army. Eventually West Point became a military academy.
In 1783, Kosciuszko was appointed Brigadier General and was awarded the Cincinnati Order Medal by General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Washington also presented Kosciuszko with two pistols and a sword as gifts for his outstanding service to America.
After the colonies won their independence, Kosciuszko returned to Poland in 1784 to help his own country win independence from the surrounding European powers. Kosciuszko was the national hero of the 1794 insurrection. After the successful battle of Raclawice on April 4, 1794, first Warsaw and then Wilno were liberated from enemy occupation. Kosciuszko was wounded in the failed revolt and taken prisoner by the Russians. Upon his release from prison, he returned to America on August 18, 1797, which he considered his "second home." He received a hero's welcome when he reached the Philadelphia waterfront along the Delaware River. Afterward, he secured a residence at 3rd and Pine Streets, which is now the Kosciuszko House, a national memorial to this hero of the American Revolution.
Kosciuszko was admired by general and foot soldier alike, both for his technical knowledge and for his sympathetic understanding and generosity. Jefferson wrote of Kosciuszko, "He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known." Tragically, Kosciuszko, a devoted champion of the poor and oppressed, never witnessed the arrival of freedom in his homeland, Poland.
Kosciuszko was a firm believer of equality and requested, before leaving the United States for the second time, that the money from his estate be used to buy freedom for slaves, help to educate them and provide them with enough land to support themselves.
Kosciuszko spent the last years of his life in Switzerland, where on October 15, 1817 he died at the age of 72. He is buried in Wawel Castle, in Krakow, Poland, among the tombs of the Polish Kings.
In 1828 a Corps of Cadets erected a monument to Kosciuszko at West Point, where his work was of vital importance to America in the Revolution.
You can learn more about General Thaddeus Kosciuszko when you visit the Kosciuszko House, Third and Pine Streets, or the Polish American Cultural Center Museum, 308 Walnut Street, both in historic Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Kosciuszko House, 3rd and Pine Streets in Historic Philadelphia, PA.
View of Kosciuszko's Room at 3rd and Pine Streets.
Kosciuszko's Advice to a Youth
To do honor to your family and yourself and at my recommendation, you must reread what follows every day so that it will be engraved on your memory on which your well being will depend.
Rise at four in the summer and six in the winter. Your first thoughts must be directed towards the Supreme Being; worship Him for a few minutes. Set yourself to work with reflection and intelligence, either at your prescribed duty carried out in the most scrupulous manner, or perfect yourself in some science in which you should have true mastery. Avoid lying under any circumstances in your life, but always be frank and loyal and always tell the truth. Never be idle but be sober and frugal even hard on yourself while indulgent to others. Do not be vain nor an egotist. Before speaking or answering on something, reflect and consider well in order not to lose your point and say something stupid. Never fail to give due recognition under any circumstances to the person who is in charge of your well being. Anticipate his desires and his wishes. Pay close attention with proper humility. Look for an opportunity to be useful. As you are a foreigner in the country, redouble your concern and efforts to gain trust and preference over the natives legitimately by your merit and superior knowledge. If a secret is entrusted in you, keep it religiously; in all your actions you must be upright, sincere and open; no dissimulation in your speech, do not argue but seek the truth calmly and with modesty, be polite and considerate to everyone, agreeable and obliging in society, humane and helpful to the unfortunate according to your means. Read instructive books to embellish your mind and improve your spirit. Do not degrade yourself by making bad acquaintances, but rather those with high principles and reputation thus your conduct should be such that the whole world approves it and that wherever you may be it will be considered irreproachable.
T Kosciuszko
Kosciuszko Tribute Ceremony
Milestones in the Life of General Kosciuszko
The Will of General Kosciuszko
Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial
An Army Born in Revolution (An article from Common Dreams.com)
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Statue in Philadelphia
http://www.tvpolonia.com/player/index.php?path=58&mov=603343806.wmv&play=1
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko 1746 - 1817Hero of America and Poland
Thaddeus Kosciuszko was born in Poland on February 4, 1746, son of Ludwik and Tekla Kosciuszko. He attended school in Lubieszow and then the Cadet Academy in Warsaw before continuing his engineering studies in Paris, France. By the time Kosciuszko arrived in America from Poland in 1776, he was a skilled engineer who came to offer his services to the American colonies in their struggle for independence. On October 18, 1776 Kosciuszko was commissioned as Colonel of Engineers by the Continental Congress and began his outstanding service of fortifying battle sites, many of which became turning points in America's fight for independence against the British.
Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia in 1776, Kosciuszko read the Declaration of Independence and was moved to tears because he discovered in this single, concise document everything in which he truly believed. When he discovered that Thomas Jefferson was responsible for drafting the Declaration, he felt compelled to meet him. A few months later, while moving south with the Continental Army, Kosciuszko stopped in Virginia to meet with Jefferson. After a very warm reception, the two men spent the day comparing philosophies and eventually became the best of friends.
In the early days of the war, Kosciuszko helped to fortify the Philadelphia waterfront at Fort Mercer. Shortly after, he was transferred to New York, where he helped with fortifications along the Hudson and planned the defense for Saratoga. The Battle of Saratoga became known as one of military history's most famous struggles for independence and proved to be a turning point in the war.
In 1778, Kosciuszko was made chief engineer of West Point, New York. This fortification became known as the American Gibraltar because it was unable to be penetrated by the British Army. Eventually West Point became a military academy.
In 1783, Kosciuszko was appointed Brigadier General and was awarded the Cincinnati Order Medal by General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Washington also presented Kosciuszko with two pistols and a sword as gifts for his outstanding service to America.
After the colonies won their independence, Kosciuszko returned to Poland in 1784 to help his own country win independence from the surrounding European powers. Kosciuszko was the national hero of the 1794 insurrection. After the successful battle of Raclawice on April 4, 1794, first Warsaw and then Wilno were liberated from enemy occupation. Kosciuszko was wounded in the failed revolt and taken prisoner by the Russians. Upon his release from prison, he returned to America on August 18, 1797, which he considered his "second home." He received a hero's welcome when he reached the Philadelphia waterfront along the Delaware River. Afterward, he secured a residence at 3rd and Pine Streets, which is now the Kosciuszko House, a national memorial to this hero of the American Revolution.
Kosciuszko was admired by general and foot soldier alike, both for his technical knowledge and for his sympathetic understanding and generosity. Jefferson wrote of Kosciuszko, "He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known." Tragically, Kosciuszko, a devoted champion of the poor and oppressed, never witnessed the arrival of freedom in his homeland, Poland.
Kosciuszko was a firm believer of equality and requested, before leaving the United States for the second time, that the money from his estate be used to buy freedom for slaves, help to educate them and provide them with enough land to support themselves.
Kosciuszko spent the last years of his life in Switzerland, where on October 15, 1817 he died at the age of 72. He is buried in Wawel Castle, in Krakow, Poland, among the tombs of the Polish Kings.
In 1828 a Corps of Cadets erected a monument to Kosciuszko at West Point, where his work was of vital importance to America in the Revolution.
You can learn more about General Thaddeus Kosciuszko when you visit the Kosciuszko House, Third and Pine Streets, or the Polish American Cultural Center Museum, 308 Walnut Street, both in historic Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Kosciuszko House, 3rd and Pine Streets in Historic Philadelphia, PA.
View of Kosciuszko's Room at 3rd and Pine Streets.
Kosciuszko's Advice to a Youth
To do honor to your family and yourself and at my recommendation, you must reread what follows every day so that it will be engraved on your memory on which your well being will depend.
Rise at four in the summer and six in the winter. Your first thoughts must be directed towards the Supreme Being; worship Him for a few minutes. Set yourself to work with reflection and intelligence, either at your prescribed duty carried out in the most scrupulous manner, or perfect yourself in some science in which you should have true mastery. Avoid lying under any circumstances in your life, but always be frank and loyal and always tell the truth. Never be idle but be sober and frugal even hard on yourself while indulgent to others. Do not be vain nor an egotist. Before speaking or answering on something, reflect and consider well in order not to lose your point and say something stupid. Never fail to give due recognition under any circumstances to the person who is in charge of your well being. Anticipate his desires and his wishes. Pay close attention with proper humility. Look for an opportunity to be useful. As you are a foreigner in the country, redouble your concern and efforts to gain trust and preference over the natives legitimately by your merit and superior knowledge. If a secret is entrusted in you, keep it religiously; in all your actions you must be upright, sincere and open; no dissimulation in your speech, do not argue but seek the truth calmly and with modesty, be polite and considerate to everyone, agreeable and obliging in society, humane and helpful to the unfortunate according to your means. Read instructive books to embellish your mind and improve your spirit. Do not degrade yourself by making bad acquaintances, but rather those with high principles and reputation thus your conduct should be such that the whole world approves it and that wherever you may be it will be considered irreproachable.
T Kosciuszko
Kosciuszko Tribute Ceremony
Milestones in the Life of General Kosciuszko
The Will of General Kosciuszko
Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial
An Army Born in Revolution (An article from Common Dreams.com)
General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Statue in Philadelphia
Generał Polskich Nadziei - Władysław Anders
Generał Polskich Nadziei - Władysław Anders
Generał Polskich Nadziei - Władysław Anders - cz। 1; dokument fabularyzowany kraj
http://www.tvpolonia.com/player/index.php?path=58&mov=498149367.wmv&play=1
Generał Polskich Nadziei - Władysław Anders - cz। 1; dokument fabularyzowany kraj
http://www.tvpolonia.com/player/index.php?path=58&mov=498149367.wmv&play=1
Generał Polskich Nadziei - Władysław Anders - cz। 2; dokument fabularyzowany kraj
http://www.tvpolonia.com/player/index.php?path=58&mov=963344982.wmv&play=1
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