STANISŁAWA ZAREMBY FILOZOFICZNA KONCEPCJA NAUKI

This paper presents Stanislaw Zaremba’s contribution to the philosophy of science. Zaremba is widely known as a mathematican but his philosophical works are less known. His philosophical view of physics and mathematics is strlongly influenced by the French philosophy of science (H. Poincré, P. Duhem). We could also find parallels with D. Hilbert’s view on axiomatisation of physics. He proposed some interesting methodological concepts (e.g. distinction between two stages of theory building: creative and axiomatic, which is similar to later famous Reichenbach’s distinction between “the context of discovery and the context of justification.”). Zaremba presented consistent view of the theory of physics as a deductive structure but certain assumptions related to methods of physics are controversial. His philosophical articles were known to continental philosophers of science, mainly French ones. Unfortunately, Polish philosophers of science from the Lvov–Warsaw School only occasionally cited Zaremba’s papers. It seems that members of the Viena Circle did not know Zaremba’s philosophical papers. In this paper I try to show that Zaremba’s philosophical publications are an important, but forgotten, part of Polish philosophy of science before World War II.