Nauka o nauce Marii i Stanisława Ossowskich - signum temporis nowoczesności
"The Science of Science" by Maria and Stanisław Ossowski - Signum Temporis of Modernity

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses a unique - since co-authored - publication by Mariaand Stanis³aw Ossowski, which appeared in 1935 under the title "Nauko nauce" ("The Science of Science"). I put forward a hypothesis that thesetwo scientists, who both before and after this date developed wholly independent research programs, in this one case formulated a common, ambitious program for the study of progress of human knowledge. They responded to the atmosphere of the modernist era, which pinned great hopes in a positive impact of science on all domains of reality - one of these domains was to be science itself. My paper underlines that from the perspective of sociology of knowledge it is interesting to analyse the evolution of both scientists' opinions on various science-related questions in the context of historical events (especially experiences linked to war, German occupation and different stages of postwar totalitarianism) in which Maria and Stanisław Ossowski actively participated. My analysis reveals that some of their opinions were changed, while other remained relatively constant - the latter including the belief that science is a specific form of cognitive reflection, separated from other forms by a boundary which, admittedly, may be modified in the course of history and, furthermore, is not susceptible to precise definition, but which nevertheless should not be erased. In order to establish this boundary it is essential to apply critical and precise thought characterized by high semantic culture – exactly the type of thought which Maria and Stanisław Ossowski assimilated largely under the influence of the Lvov-Warsaw school of philosophy. The paper draws attention to the fact that Stanisław Ossowski discussed problems related to science of science in his last book "O osobliwościach nauk społecznych" ("On Peculiarities of Social Sciences"), worth considering in the context of the fascination of Polish sociology, resurrected in the wake of October 1956, with empirical sociology, then dominant in the world and especially in the United States.

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