The Relationship Between Judgments and Perceptions from the Point of View of Twardowski’s School

Abstract

The terms ‘judgment’ and ‘perception’ were undoubtedly two of the most important terms used in psychological and logical theories formed in the School of Kazimierz Twardowski. The issue of mutual relation between correlates of these terms has been a concern of many School’s representatives for many decades. However, a comprehensive study of the analysis of the School’s representatives in this respect has not yet appeared in philosophical literature. The main aim of this chapter is to fill this gap by pursuing the following specific objectives. (1) Review the evolution of views of the School’s representatives (Maria Adler, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Stefan Baley, Tadeusz Czezowski, Henryk Mehlberg, Stefan Oleksiuk, Kazimierz Twardowski and Wladyslaw Witwicki) on the relation between judgments and perceptions; (2) Formulation of main results conducted in the School and their classification. It was found that the School’s representatives, who dealt with the issue of relation between judgments and perceptions, can be divided into two groups: (a) Those who tried to determine the place of judgments and perceptions in the overall structure of psyche by seeking an answer to the question ‘Are judgments a kind of perceptions (or inversely)?’ and ‘Are judgments an element of perceptions (or vice versa)?’ (Twardowski, Baley, Witwicki, Adler, Czezowski, Oleksiuk). Views of this group have evolved from stating the relation of genus proximum-definiendum (early Twardowski’s analyses) to stating the co-existence relation (Baley) or ‘part-whole’ relation (Witwicki, Czezowski, Adler) between judgment and perception. (b) Those who tried to determine the justifying power of perceptions for truthfulness of judgments related to them (Mehlberg, Ajdukiewicz). The result of research carried out by these School’s representatives was rejection of the possibility of logical justification of judgments by appropriate perceptions and statement of cause–effect relation between them (post-war analyses of Ajdukiewicz).