Twardowski's distinction between actions and products

Johannes L. Brandl

pp. 23-34

in: Katarzyna Kijania-Placek, Jan Woleński (eds), The Lvov-Warsaw school and contemporary philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1998

Abstract

Twardowski's distinction between actions and products is one of his most celebrated contributions to the Lvov-Warsaw School and to philosophy in general.¹ The distinction is intended to serve several purposes: It should help to steer a middle course between psychologism and Platonism in logic and epistemology; it should support a non-relativistic conception of truth; and it should provide a theory of linguistic meaning as a special kind of psycho-physical product. There is, however, a serious problem in interpreting Twardowski's distinction, since it can be drawn either on the ontological level as a distinction between two kinds of entities, or on the conceptual level as a distinction between two ways of conceiving of just one kind of entity. Depending on how one resolves this ambiguity, Twardowski's distinction behaves quite differently in its intended applications.

Cited authors

Twardowski Kazimierz

Plato