Józef Maria Bocheński

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

Cracow Circle[]

Bocheński is perhaps the most famous exponent of the Cracow Circle Thomism, 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 applied it 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 and Jan F. Drewnowski.

Précis de logique mathématique[]

Bochenski said "that once when he went to visit Lukasiewicz before the war [World War II], Lukasiewicz conveyed him inside excitedly, indicated a complex formula, beginning something like 'CCC...', and said, 'Look at this beautiful and self-evidently true formula.' Clearly the formula's truth was not immediately evident to the bemused Bochenski."^[4]

In Bocheński's Précis de logique mathématique, he uses this notation, in the style of Łukasiewicz:^[5]

The logical hexagon for the square of opposition[]

Robert Blanché quoted a passage of Bochenski’s Formale Logik in Structures intellectuelles (1966, 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 passage 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 Blanché’s logical hexagon this conjunction is symbolized by the letter Y. Many scholars^[who?] think that the logical square of opposition, representing four values, should be replaced by the logical hexagon, which has the power to express more relations of opposition.

Works[]

• Elementa logicae graecae (1937), Rome: Anonima Libraria Catolica Italiana.
• Manuale di filosofia bolscevica (1946)
• La logique de Théophraste (1947), 1987 reprint, New York, Garland Publishing.
• Europäische Philosophie der Gegenwart (1947), Bern: A. Francke.
• Précis de logique mathématique (1948), Bussum, North Holland: F. G. Kroonder.
• ABC tomizmu (1950), London: Veritas.
• Der sowjetrussische Dialektische Materialismus (1950)
• Ancient formal logic (1951)
• Szkice etyczne: Zebrał i ułożył Adam Bocheński (1953), London: Veritas.
• 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), [Bonn]: Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst.
• Bibliographie der Sowietischen Philosophie (1959), Fribourg: Ost-Europa Institut.
• Formale Logik (1956) translated into English as A history of formal logic (1961)
• Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (Diamat) (1962)
• (co-edited with Gerhart Niemayer) Handbook on Communism(1962), New York: Praeger.
• The Logic of Religion (1965)
• Wege zum philosophischen Denken (1967)
• Guide to Marxist philosophy: an introductory bibliography (1972), Chicago: Swallow Press.
• Philosophy, an introduction (1972), New York: Harper & Row.
• Marxismus-Leninismus. Wissenschaft oder Glaube? (1973), München: Olzog.
• Was ist Autorität?: Einf. in d. Logik d. Autorität (1974), Fribourg: Herder.
• Logic and Ontology (1974)
• Sto zabobonów. Krótki filozoficzny słownik zabobonów ("One Hundred Superstitions. A Short Philosophical Dictionary of Superstitions", 1987).
• Logika i filozofia (1993)
• Miedzy logika a wiara (1994)
• Szkice o nacjonalizmie i katolicyzmie polskim (1994), Komorów: Wydawn. Antyk, Marcin Dybowski.
• Wspomnienia (1994), Kraków: Philed.
• Lewica, religia, sowietologia (1996), Warsaw: Zakon Ojców Dominikanów.
• The Road to Understanding. More than Dreamt of in Your Philosophy (1996), ISBN 1-886670-06-4

See also[]

• Analytical Thomism
• Commutative property
• History of philosophy in Poland
• List of Poles

Notes[]

External links[]

• More about the Cracow Circle