13
A Word from the Editor
The jubilee volumes of Polish Journal of Science (Pol. Nauka Polska), devoted to the selected scientifi c community, have their own tradition. We have decided to dedicate the current volume to the University of Poznan, which inaugurated its activity a hundred years ago, on May 7, 1919, as the Wszechnica Piastowska. The date was not accidental, it referred to the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Lubrański Academy in Poznan. The original name, however, did not last long. The opponents, among the creators of the new University, claimed that “there is no evidence that the well-deserved Piast dynasty was bustling around the founding of a university in Poznan” (J. Kostrzewski). The university was called the University of Poznan from 1920 to 1955. Threatened by the compulsory patronage of one of the communist leaders, it recognized the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz as worthy of this honor.
From a hundred-year perspective, six outstanding Poznan scholars have shared their refl ections and interpretations of the history of selected disciplines with the readers of Polish Journal of Science: Professor Roman Murawski, a logician, Professor Antoni Szczuciński, a physicist and philosopher of science, Professor Janusz Skoczylas, a geologist and geology historian, Professor Andrzej Gulczyński, a legal historian, Professor Jan Grad, a culture expert, and Professor Anita Magowska, a historian of medical science. These are various views on selected areas of science taught in Poznan, both in the chronological dimension and the approach to the problem. The editors had no ambition or opportunity to show the synthesis of the research of the University of Poznan. Its elements can be found in numerous publications issued on the occasion of the jubilee of the University of Poznan and universities originating from it. The refl ections presented in this volume, however, represent the main trends of scientifi c studies: formal, natural, social, humanistic, and medical sciences. This variety should, according to the Editorial Board, allow to show the specifi city of the University of Poznan. Readers will assess whether this idea has succeeded.
The birth of a new university community was also shown in the pages of Polish
Journal of Science published in the interwar period. In the process of diagnosing
the state of Polish science at the threshold of state independence, the participation of “Poznan” scholars is visible (the quotation marks used are justifi ed). The University of Poznan in the era of the publication of the fi rst volumes of the Yearbook (1918– 1919) was only at the organizational stage, and the Poznan science community,
14
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR
dominated by the Poznan Society of Friends of Sciences, was transforming into a university. From this perspective, one can speak of scholars from Cracow, Lviv, or Warsaw, who acquired their creative competences and abilities there, and brought them to the new academic community. Their views on the needs of the scientifi c disciplines they represent, published in the pages of Polish Journal of Science, can be treated as a kind of program manifesto, an ideological contribution to the emerging reality of Poznan and co-creating a new university community. Sometimes there were visions of the development of a given discipline, sometimes views on the organization of science, or the concepts of its popularization. There were also fears, doubts, and disputes, appropriate for the community of the older universities from which they came. This issue has also been refl ected in this volume.
Roman Murawski showed the history of logic in Poznan in several dimensions, pointing to its connections with the Lviv-Warsaw philosophical school in the interwar period and the Poznan school of cultural research in the 1970s and its impact on various communities. Departments covering this subject, most often associated with the methodology of science, acted for the benefi t of researchers in natural sciences, humanities, and law. The author showed unused opportunities as well. These included the liquidation in 1937 of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Sciences at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Poznan, and the vacancy of its head Alfred Tarski. He was not accepted in Poznan because of its Jewish origin. Professor Murawski emphasizes that Tarski is currently mentioned as one of the four greatest logicians of all time — alongside Aristotle, Gottlob Frege, and Kurt Gödel. The question that will remain open forever is how the fate of Poznan’s logic would unfold in the case of Alfred Tarski’s appointment to the above-mentioned Department. However, there is a more general refl ection that although history does not always teach a lesson, as Cicero wanted, and probably is not the most dangerous product that the intellect produced, as Paul Valéry warned, but it still retained its warning power.
Antoni Szczuciński in his paper referred to the history of physics at the University of Poznan, presented its origins, referred to scientifi c work in conditions of incomplete openness of science in the post-World War II era. He analyzed the work on the construction of a laser in Poznan and pioneer theories in the fi eld of nonlinear optics (Arkadiusz Piekara and Stanisław Kielich). In the fi nal part, he considers the success of research on the explanation of the giant magnetoresistance (Józef Barnaś). In this context, the author stressed the importance of interdisciplinary studies and the fact that Poznan physics has undergone a development path from locality to supra-local activity and focused on didactics within the framework of global scientifi c competition.
In the paper devoted to the history of geology in the Poznan scientifi c community, Janusz Skoczylas referred to very early attempts by Greater Poland peoples to take up this issue, long before the independent discipline emerged, from John Jonston (1603–1675) beginning. Many of them, however, operated outside the region, without contributing to the knowledge of the geological structure and mineral deposits of Greater Poland, and most publications in this fi eld until 1918 came
15
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR
from German scholars. The author outlined the problems with the cast of the fi rst departments and geological and mineralogical institutes forming the University. Characterizing the geological studies undertaken in the interwar period, he stressed that the development of this type of research in Greater Poland was institutionally associated primarily with the University of Poznan, the Polish Geological Institute, as well as with private companies. He showed the personnel and didactic policy as well. In the years 1951–1984, research and education in the fi eld of geology were carried out at the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences, and then within the Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences. Janusz Skoczylas pointed out that the breakthrough years were 1987–1991, when in 1988, after 36 years of interruption, regular studies in the fi eld of geology were reactivated. With the latter event involves signifi cant quantitative and qualitative development of geological research in Poznan, an important center of study in this area.
The paper by Andrzej Gulczyński deals with the foundations of civil law in Poznan. The author notes the tradition of educating lawyers at the Lubrański Academy and the Jesuit College, which was interrupted during the partitions. At the same time, he emphasizes that the independent, unchanged position in the evolving structure of the University has been preserved only by the Law School, which only modifi ed the name and internal confi guration. Andrzej Gulczyński focused on the legal professions of civil law professors. This perspective made it possible to show the personal and diverse entanglements of the fi gures depicted in the realities of the emerging University in a reborn Poland, under the conditions of changes in legal systems that they were sometimes the authors. The fi rst Poznan civil law specialists, apart from the area of study and academic roles, also performed various social functions, practiced their legal professions, and sometimes engaged politically. Selected personalities include members of the Competent Tribunal, the Supreme Court, the Poznan City Council, members of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, and even the Rector of the University of Poznan. The author emphasizes in the paper, above all, their contribution to the construction of modern civil law in the interwar period.
The “Poznan methodological school” is the subject of refl ection of Jan Grad. This idea was born over 50 years ago with the publication of the book by Jerzy Kmita and Leszek Nowak “Studies on the Theoretical Foundations of Humanities” (Pol. Studia nad teoretycznymi podstawami humanistyki). It set a new dimension of study and discussion in the community of Poznan logicians and philosophers of science, taking into account the perspective of the “humanistic coeffi cient” of Florian Znaniecki and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. According to Jan Grad, an important moment was the transition from Ajdukiewicz’s “experiential logic” to Marxist research on society, which retains its analytical assumptions. Later, as the author points out, the Poznan methodological school was attributed to researchers referring to the historical epistemology developed by J. Kmita from the mid-1970s (theoretical history of science) or to the social theory of culture developed by him, which characterizes “Poznan school of culture.” These studies caused many disputes and discussions (not only in the country) due to the unorthodox approach
16
A WORD FROM THE EDITOR
to the theoretical heritage of the creators of Marxism, using the methodological research model developed in the Poznan academic community.
Anita Magowska discussed the issue of Poznan medicine against the problems that plagued this fi eld of science in the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Starting from 1919, from a local Poznan perspective, she analyzed the issues of health economics and the health care condition. She analyzed, among others the issue of obtaining by some clinics of additional income outside the budget subsidy system, but also the political conditions in which their managers were to work, especially after World War II. Reaching for the sources of the university’s medical community in Poznan, the author emphasizes that “during the organization of the University of Poznan, the Medical School’s Faculty Council was looking for candidates for clinic managers among local doctors, pupils of prestigious German, Swiss, and French universities with academic achievements appropriate to the habilitation.” The contemporary face of medicine, based on international publications and scientifi c societies of a global dimension, leads Anita Magowska to state that the fall of the position of a master in shaping the professional attitudes of doctors. And also to the conclusion that “the features of the development of medicine in the 20th century should be considered: the devaluation of life and death and the abolition of human existence from the spiritual dimension, fascination with medical technologies and the common belief that thanks to them you can be healed from all diseases, subordination of medical practice and international health to health economics.”
Acting as the part of the Józef Mianowski Fund — A Foundation for the Promotion of Science, we document in the pages of the Yearbook its activities in the fi eld of supporting science, the main statutory goal, and the activity of the bodies of the Fund. Hence, the presence in the submitted volume of reports on the election of new authorities, but also reviews and discussions of important, we think, books, published with the fi nancial support of the Foundation. This is connected with the submission of the last homage to people who have rendered great service to Polish science and the Foundation. We say goodbye to Professor Jerzy Lesław Wyrozumski (1930-2018), a scholar of great merits, a long-term chairman of the Scientifi c Council of the Józef Mianowski Fund, and a member of the Program Board of our Yearbook.
Jaromir Jeszke Editor-in-Chief
