{{Short description|Polish philosopher and mathematician}} thumb|Leon Chwistek [[File:Witkacy-Udzielny BYK na urlopie, portret Leona Chwistka.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Leon Chwistek by Witkacy, 1913]] '''Leon Chwistek''' (Kraków, Austria-Hungary, 13 June 1884 – Barvikha near Moscow, Russia, 20 August 1944) was a Polish logician, philosopher, mathematician, avant-garde painter, theoretician of modern art and literary critic.
==Career and philosophy== In 1919 he was one of the founders of the Polish Mathematical Society. From 1922, he lectured in mathematics for natural scientists at the Jagiellonian University, where he obtained his habilitation in 1928 in mathematical logic.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/leon-chwistek |language=pl |title=Leon Chwistek |website=culture.pl |access-date=11 April 2024}}</ref>
Starting in 1929, Chwistek was a Professor of Logic at the University of Lwów in a position for which Alfred Tarski had also applied. His interests in the 1930s were in a general system of philosophy of science, which was published in a book translated in English 1948 as ''The Limits of Science''.<ref>{{cite book | doi=10.1007/978-90-481-2401-5_15 | title=The Golden Age of Polish Philosophy | year=2009 | pages=203–219 | last1 = Linsky | first1 = Bernard| chapter=Leon Chwistek's Theory of Constructive Types | isbn=978-90-481-2400-8 }}</ref>
In the 1920s–30s, many European philosophers attempted to reform traditional philosophy by means of mathematical logic. Leon Chwistek did not believe that such reform could succeed. He thought that reality could not be described in one homogeneous system, based on the principles of formal logic, because there was not one reality but many.
After the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of Lwów (renamed to Lviv) by the USSR, he remained at the university. He also started cooperation with ''Czerwony Sztandar''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Bohdan Urbankowski, The Red Mass, or the Smile of Stalin, vol. 1, Warsaw 1998, p. 123}}</ref> In September 1940, he joined the Union of Soviet Writers of Ukraine. In June 1941, just before the entry of the German troops, he evacuated from Lviv together with the Soviet troops deep into Russia. From 1941 to 1943, he lived in Tbilisi, where he taught mathematical analysis, and from 1943 in Moscow. He was active in the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/leon-chwistek |language=pl |title=Leon Chwistek |website=culture.pl |access-date=11 April 2024}}</ref>
Chwistek argued against the axiomatic method by demonstrating that the extant axiomatic systems are inconsistent.<ref>First chapter of Chwistek, ''The Limits of Science''</ref>
==Artist== Chwistek developed his theory of the multiplicity of realities first with regard to the arts. He distinguished four basic types of realities, then matched them with four basic types of painting.
The four types of realities were: :1. popular reality (common-sense realism) :2. physical reality (constructed by physics) :3. phenomenal reality (sensory impressions) :4. visionary/intuitive reality (dreams, hallucinations, subconscious states).
The types of painting corresponding to the above were: :1. Primitivism :2. Realism :3. Impressionism :4. Futurism Chwistek never intended his views to constitute a new metaphysical theory. He was a defender of "common sense" against metaphysics and irrational feeling. His theory of plural reality was merely an attempt to specify the various ways in which the term, “real,” is used. Chwistek's fellow artist and closest friend, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, harshly criticized his philosophical views. Witkiewicz's own philosophy was based on a monadic character to the individual's existence, embracing a multiplicity of existences, with the world being made up of a multiplicity of Particular Existences. In his 1919 painting titled ''Fencing'' inspirations from avant-garde trends prior to World War I such as cubism, Italian futurism, and Robert Delaunay’s simultanism can be observed.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://culture.pl/en/work/fencing-leon-chwistek |title=Fencing – Leon Chwistek |website=culture.pl |author=Przemysław Strożek |access-date=11 April 2024}}</ref> <gallery class="center" widths="170" heights="130"> Leon Chwistek Szermierka 1919.jpg|''Fencing'', 1919 Leon Chwistek - Portret Tytusa Czyżewskiego.jpg|''Portrait of Tytus Czyżewski'', c.1920 Leon Chwistek, Akt kobiecy - Motyle, c. 1920.jpg|''Female Nude – Butterflies'', c.1920 Leon Chwistek - Bathers.jpg|''Bathers'', c.1920 Leon Chwistek, Leżący akt kobiecy, c. 1922.jpg|''Reclining Female Nude'', c.1922 Leon Chwistek, Leda, c. 1925.png|''Leda'', c.1925 Chwistek Feast.jpg|''Feast'', 1925 Leon Chwistek Wenus 1928.jpg|''Venus'', 1928 Leon Chwistek, Karuzela, 1936.png|''Carousel'', 1936 Leon Chwistek Akt kobiety 1939.jpg|''Nude'', 1939 </gallery>
==Works== * ''The limits of science. Outline of logic and of the methodology of the exact sciences.'' Translated from the Polish by Helen Charlotte Brodie and Arthur P. Coleman; introduction and appendix by Helen Charlotte Brodie. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948
==See also== * History of philosophy in Poland * List of Poles
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == {{commons}} *{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030221329/http://www.fmag.unict.it/~polphil/PolPhil/Chwi/Chwistek.html |date=October 30, 2007 |title=Polish Philosophy Page: Leon Chwistek }} * [http://culture.pl/en/artist/leon-chwistek Profile of Leon Chwistek] at [http://culture.pl/en/artist/leon-chwistek Culture.pl] * [http://www.culturapolaca.es/es,wydarzenia,1157.html Instituto Polaco de Cultura: Artola, Inés R. (2015), ''Formiści: la síntesis de la modernidad (1917 – 1922). Conexiones y protagonistas''], Granada: Libargo, {{ISBN|978-84-938812-7-6}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chwistek, Leon}} Category:1884 births Category:1944 deaths Category:Artists from Kraków Category:Polish logicians Category:Polish mathematicians Category:20th-century Polish painters Category:20th-century Polish male artists Category:Polish male painters Category:20th-century Polish philosophers Category:Refugees of World War II