Published : 2025-12-30

Jan Nepomucen Kamiński – Forgotten Philosopher of Language

Abstract

The article discusses the overlooked work of Jan Nepomucen Kamiński, a Polish philosopher of language from the nineteenth century. In his writings, Kamiński poses the question: Is the Polish language a philosophical language? This issue differs from the approach to problematizing language seen in twentieth-century linguistics and philosophy of language. Likewise, his responses to this question diverge from the standards of twentieth-century scientific methodology. Kamiński's answers reference ideas from the speculative philosophy of language known since the Renaissance, including concepts like phonetic symbolism, Kabbalah, unique etymologies, and the mysticism of numbers. The article focuses on the mechanism of forgetting, which has led to Kamiński's work being analyzed mainly in terms of the peculiarities of the history of science. For this interpretation of Kamiński's philosophy of language, the theories of Georges Canguilhem, a French historian and philosopher of science, were employed.

Keywords:

Jan Nepomucen Kamiński, philosophy of language, history of science, forgotten biographies, Georges Canguilhem



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Bytniewski, P. (2025). Jan Nepomucen Kamiński – Forgotten Philosopher of Language. Biografistyka Pedagogiczna [Biographical Studies in Education], 10(4), 293–305. https://doi.org/10.36578/BP.2025.10.92

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"Biografistyka Pedagogiczna" received funding for the years 2022-2024 from the funds of the Minister of Education and Science under the programme „Rozwój Czasopism Naukowych”.

Project duration: 2023-2024.

The amount of co-financing is 65 992,00 PLN

Contract number: RCN/SP/0434/2021/1