University of Melbourne

Graduate Student, Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry

PhD by Research

Philosophy (PASI)

Thesis Title: The Road towards Paraconsistency: Jan Łukasiewicz and the Principle of Contradiction

About

My general research interests encompass three broad areas of inquiry: history of philosophy (as history or genealogy of ideas), philosophy of logic (as an investigation of philosophical problems generated by logical systems), and cultural theory (with a focus on the philosophical, social, and political implications of contemporary theories and practices of art and representation).

Within these disciplines, the specific focus of my research over the past years has been the history of the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) and the emergence of non-classical conceptions of logic in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century.

It is a curious and largely unexplored fact that in 1910, the same year that Russell and Whitehead published the first volume of the Principia Mathematica, a cluster of works appeared that openly challenged the traditionally undisputed universal validity and truth of the principle of non-contradiction. Three philosophers in particular, Jan Łukasiewicz (1878-1956), Alexius Meinong (1853-1920), and Nicolas A. Vasil’év (1880-1940), all published works that challenged the universal validity of the PNC in 1910.

Among these works, the monograph by the young Polish philosopher Jan Łukasiewicz on The Principle of Contradiction in Aristotle  presents a particularly innovative and pioneering critique of the principle in its historical, logical, and ontological dimensions. Unfortunately, Łukasiewicz' monograph has remained unavailable to English readers to date. Only an accompanying article by the same title, also published in 1910, has been translated into English.

At present, I am in the final stages of completing my PhD dissertation titled “The Road towards Paraconsistency: Jan Łukasiewicz and the Principle of Contradiction” at the University of Melbourne (expected submission date: January 2012). The dissertation consists of an English translation of Łukasiewicz' monograph, which is intended to make his early work accessible to a broader English speaking readership, as well as an analysis and interpretation of the work and a chapter by chapter commentary.

My current work on Łukasiewicz is a continuation of an earlier project, which encompassed a translation of Edward Conze's 1932 monograph Der Satz vom Widerspruch (The Principle of Contradiction). Conze’s substantial, 525-pages book presents a Marxist analysis of the history of the theoretical formulations of the principle of contradiction in relation to their material, social and economic foundations within the Western tradition (and, to a lesser extent, also within Eastern traditions). Tragically, the first edition of the book was almost completely destroyed just a few months after its publication during the Nazi book burning campaigns in the spring of 1933. Only a handful of copies survived. As a result, Conze’s work remained virtually unavailable to scholarship for many decades, despite the vast scope and breadth of its erudite treatment of the history of the principle from Aristotle’s days to the beginning of the 20th century. My translation and introduction to Conze's book is scheduled for publication by Lexington Books in the spring of next year (2012).

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