The Lvov-Warsaw School after 1950

Although most historians of philosophy agree about the date of the Lvov-Warsaw School’s beginning (the year 1895, when Kazimierz Twardowski was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy in Lvov), the question of the end of the School’s activities is an object of controversies. A few decades ago, the prevailing view was that the School ceased to exist between 1939 and 1950 as a result of World War II and its aftermath. Today, it is more and more common to say that the School also existed in the second half of the 20th century, although in a slightly different form than before. After presenting this controversy over the Lvov-Warsaw School’s existence in the first part of the paper, in the second and third parts I sketch the history and main features of the School and the reasons why World War II and its consequences caused its collapse. In the fourth part, I first list the criteria of the existence of philosophical schools and then analyze to what degree the Lvov-Warsaw School fulfilled these criteria after 1950. I end with some remarks on the recent developments of the Lvov-Warsaw philosophical tradition.