[4] During World War II, risking his life, he conducted underground lectures in German-occupied Warsaw[5] (one of the audience members was Czesław Miłosz).

[6] After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising (August–October 1944) he again consciously risked his life when retrieving a manuscript from the gutter, where a German soldier had hurled it (this and other materials were later published as a book, in English translation titled Analysis of Happiness).

In March 1950 Tatarkiewicz was demoted and banned from teaching after seven of his students (including Henryk Holland and Leszek Kołakowski), who were activists in the Polish United Workers' Party, presented a "Letter of 7" which denounced him for "privileging 'objective-bourgois' science instead of Marxist engagement" and opposing "the construction of socialism in Poland".

"[13] Tatarkiewicz belonged to the interwar Lwów–Warsaw school of logic, created by Kazimierz Twardowski, which gave reborn Poland many scholars and scientists: philosophers, logicians, psychologists, sociologists, and organizers of academia.

Of the below incomplete listing of his works, his 1909 German-language doctoral thesis, and his History of Philosophy, Łazienki warszawskie, Parerga, and Memoirs have not been translated into English.