Stanisław Ossowski (22 May 1897 – 7 November 1963) was aPolishsociologist. He heldprofessorships atUniversity of Łódź (1945–1947) andUniversity of Warsaw (1947–1963).
Ossowski was born on 22 May 1897 inLipno, Poland.
Ossowski first contributed tologic andaesthetics before moving on tosociology. He studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw, his teachers were i.a. Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Jan Łukasiewicz and Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He also studied in Paris (Collège de France), in Rome and in London. He took part in the 1920 war. Doctorate (Analysis of the notion of a sign, 1925) wrote to Tadeusz Kotarbiński at the University of Warsaw. He took part in the September campaign. He spent the occupation in Lviv and Warsaw. He taught sociology at an underground university.
He was a proponent ofhumanistic sociology andantinaturalism, differentiating between thenatural sciences and thesocial sciences. He believed that all phenomena of social life had a consciousness aspect. For example, a social bond, especially ethnic or national, is the result of imaginations and beliefs. Their pathological forms, such as racism or chauvinism, were strongly denounced by Ossowski, while praising positive manifestations such as patriotism ("private homeland" or "ideological homeland").
Ossowski was one of the greatest intellectual and moral authorities in post-war Poland, he has had a strong influence on Polish sociologists, includingZygmunt Bauman andJerzy Szacki.
In 1949 Ossowski was a founding member, and from 1959 to 1962 vice-president, of theInternational Sociological Association. In 1956 he was a founding member of the reactivatedPolish Sociological Association and became its first president (1957–1963).
Ossowski was married toMaria Ossowska, a fellow sociologist andsocial philosopher.
Maria Ossowska and Stanisław Ossowski are considered among the founders of the field of "science of science" due to their authorship of a seminal 1935 paper, "The Science of Science."[1][2]
In 1951 he was removed from teaching. He was returned to the right to conduct classes afterPolish October 1956.
An indication of the esteem in which he was held by certain sections of Polish society is a statue of him erected in Central Warsaw.
