The Plurality of Realities. Collected Essays

The Plurality of Realities. Collected Essays

Leon Chwistek

The Plurality of Realities. Collected Essays contains four texts by Leon Chwistek, which deal with his original philosophical conception called the theory of plurality of realities". This collection is essential not only for understanding the fully-fledged version of Chwisteks conception, but also for surveying its development over a span of five years (19161921). Reading these essays in chronological order allows us to notice all stages of its development, beginning with its first sketches, drawn in the book Meaning and Reality, where only two realities are considered, and finishing with Chwisteks most famous essay, The Plurality of Realities, where he discusses four different realities: the reality of things, the reality of physics, the reality of impressions, and the reality of imaginations.

The collection is preceded by two introductory essays (written by Karol Chrobak). The first presents Leon Chwistek against the background of the intellectual, cultural, and political life of the interwar period in Poland. The second focuses on Chwisteks conception of the plurality of realities, and gives a critical account of its most widespread interpretations.