According to widespread knowledge, the Warsaw Department of Logical Semiotics is the only academic institution in the world with such a profile among scientific disciplines dealing with signs and meaning. The subject ‘logical semiotics,’ included in the regular philosophical studies program, is also a distinctive feature of the Warsaw University curriculum. The question at issue arises: ‘Does this mean that its scholars are engaged in exotic research in Warsaw that diverges from global trends? Or is there something valuable in the research perspective defined by the term logical semiotics that global trends fail to capture?’ This lecture will aim to answer the question of understanding logical semiotics from genetic and systematic perspectives. The origin of the research conducted in Warsaw in the field of logical semiotics dates back to the luminaries of the Lvov-Warsaw School, a scientific methodological formation that brought together the most eminent Polish philosophers and logicians. The school, founded by Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938) in Lwów, obtained its second and eventually most important center in Warsaw, where Twardowski's students played a crucial role, among others, Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956), Stanisław Leśniewski (1886–1939), Tadeusz Kotarbiński (1886–1981), Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963), and later their students, including such prominent figures as Alfred Tarski (1901–1983) and, what is especially important here, Jerzy Pelc (1924–2017), the founder of the Department of Logical Semiotics and the Polish Semiotic Society, and the president of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (1984–1994). A systematic answer to the question of the impact sphere of logical semiotics will be based on conceptual-operational distinctions concerning the structure of scientific disciplines and the dependencies (logical, methodological, and institutional) between them. Against this backdrop, logical semiotics will be presented as a relatively independent discipline that also plays an important bridging role between linguistics and logic, as well as between formal logic and philosophical disciplines. As reference sources during the lecture, the following positions will be cited: Ajdukiewicz, Kazimierz, Epistemology and Semiotics (1948); Jadacki, Jacek, Metodologia i semiotyka [Methodology and Semiotics] (2010); Martin, Richard M. von, Logical Semiotics & Mereology (1992); Pelc, Jerzy, Logical Semiotics in the Writings of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz (1987); Pelc, Jerzy, Studies in Functional Logical Semiotics of Natural Language (1971); Pelc, Jerzy (ed.), Semiotics in Poland. 1894-1969 (1979); and Studia Semiotyczne [Semiotic Studies] (1970-).

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