Blaustein and His Times

Leopold Blaustein (1905–1942 [or 1944]) was educated at Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov and graduated under Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938), a student of Franz Brentano (1838–1917) in Vienna. Blaustein’s academic activity covered almost two decades—the 1920s and 1930s—when philosophy in Poland was renewed as a scientific discipline and dominated by (but certainly not reducible to) the Lvov–Warsaw School. Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), who was also Blaustein’s teacher in Lvov, once described this renewal as a change in the “philosophical atmosphere” in Poland; for him, Twardowski “[…] did in fact outline in a certain sense a new period of Polish philosophy. Namely, he imposed on philosophical research in Poland a new style of work.” Ingarden explains that this renewal consisted in an attempt to have clear-cut philosophical notions and well-defined language, in addition to solid justifications for discussed theses. To that extent, Twardowski’s efforts can be regarded as a broad meta-philosophical project which was developed in diverging directions, including logic, ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, etc.