Maria Ossowska

Maria Ossowska (1896 to 1974) was a Polish sociologist and social philosopher who worked chiefly on the philosophy and sociology of morality. Born Maria Niedźwiecka in Warsaw, she studied under the philosopher Tadeusz Kotarbiński, took a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Warsaw in 1925 with a thesis on Bertrand Russell, and is often mentioned as a member of the Lwów-Warsaw school. She taught in the Polish underground university system from 1941 to 1945, was a professor at the University of Łódź and then at the University of Warsaw, was barred from teaching between 1952 and 1956 when sociology was removed from Polish universities, and directed the Institute for the History and Theory of Ethics of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1952 to 1962. Her books include Bourgeois Morality (1956), Social Determinants of Moral Ideas (1963) and Moral Norms (1970). With her husband Stanisław Ossowski she is counted among the founders of the science of science, through their 1935 paper on the subject.