Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, General basis for criticism of the views by Vienna Circle and related ones (Vicious circle allegation)

Abstract

The article presents a new version of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s treatise entitled General basis for criticism of the views by Vienna Circle and related ones (Vicious circle allegation), whose basis was constituted by a previously unknown typescript, discovered in the Central Historical Archives in Lvov. Apart from 54 pages of typescript, also an envelope, the cover, and the title page have survived, as well as one page with a started translation of the speech into German, perhaps written by Roman Ingarden. The envelope was undoubtedly addressed by Witkacy, using his favorite violet ink: “Mr. / Doctor Roman Ingarden / Professor of J.K. University / Zachariewicza 7 Street m.8 / Lvov”. The typescript contains corrections, removals, postscripts, numeration of some pages, arrows showing the desired paragraph layout and annotations revoking the removals, hand-written by the author with violet ink and orange crayon.

The editions of the treatise so far (from 1978 and 2003, constituting the fifth volume of Psychophysical issue edited by Bohdan Michalski) were based on a different text material. The edition’s author compared three variants of the text: the first edition’s autograph, consisting of seventeen sheets, the second edition of the first variant, consisting of forty-three sheets, and a surviving typescript of the second variant, of which sheets 1–6 have survived. The editor undoubtedly did not know the Lvov typescript. The treatise found in Lvov archives is almost two times larger in size, more ordered – probably due to potential university-related readers and possible printing. Almost half of it is previously unknown text, with the remaining part significantly altered by the author.