The Calculus of Names—The Legacy of Jan Łukasiewicz

Abstract

With his research on Aristotle’s syllogistic, Jan Łukasiewicz initiates the branch of logic known as the calculus of names. This field deals with axiomatic systems that analyse various fragments of the logic of names, i.e., that branch of logic that studies various forms of names and functors acting on them, as well as logical relationships between sentences in which these names and functors occur. In this work, we want not only to present the genesis of the calculus of names and its first system created by Łukasiewicz, but we also want to deliver systems that extend the first. In this work, we will also show that, from the point of view of modern logic, Łukasiewicz’s approach to the syllogistic is not the only possible one. However, this does not diminish Łukasiewicz’s role in the study of syllogism. We believe that the calculus of names is undoubtedly the legacy of Łukasiewicz.