Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum

Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaum (1899–1942) was a Polish logician and philosopher. She discovered^[1] the raven paradox, also known as Hempel's paradox. Carl Hempel popularized the raven paradox through an article in Mind in 1945. Her gender and her death at the hands of the Nazis only two years after her publication may help account for her not receiving the credit she deserves for it in English-speaking world.

Personal life

She studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw, the lecturers were: Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski and Jan Łukasiewicz. She received her Ph.D. dissertation on the Justification of Inductive Reasoning . She graduated from the University of Cambridge in the semester 1929/1930. She was a friend of Karl Popper. While she pursued her research, she taught philosophy in high school. After the outbreak of World War II, lived in Vilnius, where she engaged in the activities of the Vilnius Philosophical Society. Her husband was mathematician Adolf Lindenbaum. In April 1942, she and her husband were arrested by the gestapo and she was shot by the Nazis.

Research interests

At the center of her scientific activity was the logic of induction. She focused on the following issues:

• Types of induction
• Applying the theory of probability to the logic of induction
• Justification of inductive inference conclusions
• Psychological analysis of inductive reasoning.

References

• Jedynak, Anna (2001). "Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaumowa - The Logic of Induction". In Krajewski, Władysław. Polish philosophers of science and nature in the 20th century. Poznań studies in the philosophy of the sciences and the humanities 74. Editions Rodopi B.V. (published April 2002). pp. 97–102. ISBN 9789042014978.