Józef Maria Bocheński

Józef Maria Bocheński (Czuszów, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, 30 August 1902 – February 8, 1995, Fribourg, Switzerland) was a Polish Dominican, logician and philosopher.

Life

After taking part in the 1920 campaign against aggression of the Soviet Russia, he took up legal studies in Lwów, then studied economics in Poznań. Bocheński earned a doctorate in philosophy (he studied in Freiburg, 1928–31). He was also an alumnus of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome where he studied Sacred Theology from 1931 to 1934 earning a doctorate in Sacred Theology and lecturing in logic until 1940.

During World War II he served as chaplain to Polish forces during the 1939 invasion of Poland, was taken prisoner of war, escaped the Germans and reached Rome. He joined the Polish Army and served as chaplain first in France, then in England. He fought as a soldier in 1944 in the Italian campaign of the Polish II Corps at Monte Cassino.

In 1945 he received the chair in the history of twentieth-century philosophy at the University of Fribourg (of which he was rector in 1964-66); he founded and ran the Institute of Eastern Europe there, and published the journal Studies in Soviet Thought and a book series concerned with the foundations of Marxist philosophy (Sovietica).

Bocheński served as consultant to several governments: West Germany (under Konrad Adenauer), South Africa, the United States, Argentina, and Switzerland.

Before 1989 none of his works were published officially in Poland.

The Cracow Circle

Bocheński is perhaps the most famous exponent of the Cracow Circle, which has been called "the most significant expression of Catholic thought between the two World Wars."^[1] The Circle was founded by a group of philosophers and theologians that, in distinction from traditional neo-Thomism, embraced modern formal logic and it applied to traditional Thomist philosophy and theology. ^[2] Inspired by the logical clarity of Aquinas, members of the Circle held both philosophy and theology to contain "propositions with truth-values…a structured body of propositions connected in meaning and subject matter, and linked by logical relations of compatibility and incompatibility, entailment etc." "The Cracow Circle set about investigating and where possible improving this logical structure with the most advanced logical tools available at the time, namely those of modern mathematical logic, then called ‘logistic’." ^[3] Other members of the Circle included Jan Salamucha^[4] and Jan F. Drewnowski.

Importance of Formale Logik, Fribourg et Munich, Karl Alber, 1956 concerning the substitution of Robert Blanché's logical hexagon for the square of opposition

Robert Blanché translated a passage of the work in Structure intellectuelles page 39 : « Hindu logic knows of three logical propositions and not the four of western logic. For it Some S are P does not signify Some S at least are P but Some S are P but not all.» This precious text shows that Indian tradition explicitly speaks of the existence of partial quantity the third quantity to be considered along with totality apprehended by A the universal affirmative of the square and zero quantity apprehended by E the universal negative of the square. To the two universals A and E entertaining a relationship of contrariety, one should add the third contrary constituted by the double negation of the first two. As the subcontrary I contradicts E and the subcontrary O contradicts A, the logical proposition apprehending partial quantity can be represented by the conjunction of I and O : I & O. In Robert Blanché’s logical hexagon dealt with in Structures intellectuelles (1966), this conjunction is symbolized by the letter Y. Let us add that the logical hexagon can be simplified into a triangle pretty easily. If we want to do justice to Indian logic, this logical triangle should be named Indian triangle. Robert Blanché published with Vrin his Structures intellectuelles in 1966, and since then, many scholars think that the logical square (or square of opposition representing four values should be replaced by the logical hexagon which by representing six values is a more potent figure because it has the power to explain more things about logic and natural language. The study of the four propositions constituting the square is found in Chapter 7 and its appendix, Chapter 8. Most important also is the immediately following Chapter 9, dealing with the problem of future contingents. This chapter and the subsequent ones are at the origin of modal logic. Perhaps Blanché's hexagon is particularly useful in the domain of modal logic, in so far as it explains clearly the nature and importance of the bilateral possible. The notion of "bilateral possible" is crucially important to understand both logic and natural language when applied to modal values.

Works

• Elementa logicae graecae (1937)
• Manuale di filosofia bolscevica (1946)
• La logique de Théophraste (1947)
• Europäische Philosophie der Gegenwart (1947)
• Précis de logique mathématique (1948)
• ABC tomizmu (1950)
• Der sowjetrussische Dialektische Materialismus (1950)
• Ancient formal logic (1951)
• Szkice etyczne (1953)
• Die zeitgenössischen Denkmethoden (1954)
• Die kommunistische Ideologie und die Würde, Freiheit und Gleichheit der Menschen im Sinne des Grundgesetzes für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland vom 23.5.1949 (1956)
• Formale Logik (1956) translated in English as A history of formal logic (1961)
• Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (Diamat) (1962)
• The Logic of Religion (1965)
• Wege zum philosophischen Denken (1967)
• Guide to Marxist philosophy: an introductory bibliography (1972)
• Philosophy, an introduction (1972)
• Marxismus-Leninismus. Wissenschaft oder Glaube? (1973)
• Was ist Autorität? (1974)
• Lógica y ontología (1977)
• Sto zabobonów. Krótki filozoficzny słownik zabobonów ("One Hundred Superstitions. A Short Philosophical Dictionary of Superstitions", 1987).
• Logika i filosofia (1993)
• Miedzy logika a wiara (1994)
• Szkice o nacionalizmie i katolicyzmie polskim (1994)
• Wspomnienia (1994)
• Lewica, religia, sowietologica (1996)
• The Road to Understanding. More than Dreamt of in Your Philosophy (1996), ISBN 1-886670-06-4

See also

• History of philosophy in Poland
• List of Poles
• Philosophy in the Soviet Union

Notes

References