Joseph Maria Bocheński

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Joseph Maria Bocheński, 1991

Joseph Maria Franciszek Emanuel Bocheński OP ( pol.Józef Maria Bocheński , born August 30, 1902 in Czuszów , Poland ; † February 8, 1995 in Freiburg , Switzerland ), usually JM Bocheński for short , also Innocentius Marie , was a Polish philosopher and logician.

Life

As the son of a large landowner, Bocheński studied law at the University of Lemberg , then economics at the University of Poznan from 1920 to 1926. He joined the Dominican Order in 1927. He then began studying philosophy and education at the University of Friborg (Switzerland) in 1928. With the work The Doctrine of the Thing in itself by Straszewski (1848–1921) Bocheński was awarded a doctorate in 1931. phil. PhD.

Bocheński then began studying theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome in 1931 and graduated in 1934 with a doctorate. theol. He taught logic in Rome until 1940. During these years there was intensive contact with the Polish analytical school. From 1940 to 1945 he served in the Polish Armed Forces in Scotland and Italy . From 1945 he held the chair for the history of philosophy in the 20th century at the University of Freiburg, where he was the rector of the university from 1964 to 1966. He has accepted visiting professorships in the USA several times. In 1972 he retired .

In addition to his academic work, he worked in various fields. In 1948 he founded the Union mondiale des sociétés catholiques de philosophie . He founded the Eastern European Institute in Freiburg in 1957 and 1961 the journal Studies in Soviet Thought and the journal series Sovietica . Bocheński wrote an expert opinion for the German federal government on the ban on the KPD (BVg August 17, 1956).

philosophy

Bocheński was drawn to analytical philosophy and viewed himself as a cosmocentric Platonist with an Aristotelian character . His work focused on the history of philosophy, the history of logic and the logical investigation of important fundamental problems. The philosophy of religion he considered logic of religion.

Bocheński epistemologically represented a hypothetical realism and, in the modern discussion of universals, an individualistic moderate realism. Bocheński defended this position in 1956 in a public discussion with Alonzo Church as a Platonist and Nelson Goodman as a nominalist. Bocheński endeavored to prove that knowledge and religious belief, as different forms of human knowledge, do not contradict each other. Ultimately, both religion and philosophy lead to a divine idea.

In contrast to the theologian, however, the philosopher searches for the divine idea for the sake of a reasonable explanation of the world. The philosopher starts from the reality of the outside world, which he also considered recognizable. However, knowledge has its limits where it encounters ideal beings, such as the sacred as a primal given. Finally, the idea of ​​the divine is seen as so different from all tangible reality that in it conceptually only what it is not can be grasped.

In addition to a series of works on questions of philosophy and the history of philosophy, Bocheński's works on logic are of particular importance. His decades of historical research into logic reached a climax with the publication of a comprehensive textbook on the history of logic. Based on Jan Łukasiewicz , he organically combined the classic syllogistics of Aristotle with the modern logic calculus . The comparative analysis of the logic of Theophrastus and Aristotle led to fundamental insights into modal logic and its history. He achieved lasting results with the representation of the syntactic categories .

Bocheński used logic implicitly in the traditions of scholasticism as an instrument of justification and evidence for the Thomism he advocated . Starting from the positions of neo-scholastic philosophy, he dealt with dialectical materialism , positivism and existentialism . Bocheński saw dialectical materialism as an opponent, which he described from his theological position not only as an error, but as a sin .

Fonts

  • De cognitione exsistentiae Dei per viam causalitatis relatae ad fidem catholicam (= Studia Gnesnensia, 14 = Dział teol., 7 ). Dissertation. Księg. św. Wojciecha, Poznań (Posen) 1936.
  • Elementa logicae Graecae. 1937
  • Nove Lezioni di Logica Simbolica. 1938
  • S. Thomae Aq. 1940
  • De modalibus. 1940
  • La logique de Théophraste. 1947
  • Contemporary European Philosophy. Francke, Bern 1947
  • On Analogy. 1948
  • Précis de logique mathématique. 1949
  • Soviet Russian dialectical materialism (Diamat). 1950
  • Ancient Formal Logic. 1951
  • The contemporary ways of thinking. 1954; UTB, Stuttgart 1993 10 , ISBN 3-7720-1202-7 .
  • The Problem of Universals: A Symposium. Bocheński, JM; Church, A .; Goodman, N., [Aquinas Symposium, Department of Philosophy of the University of Notre Dame, March 9-10, 1956] Notre Dame Press 1956
  • Formal logic. Alber Freiburg / Munich 1956 (= Orbis academicus 3, 2), 2002 6 , ISBN 3-495-48071-4 .
  • The Logic of Religion. 1965
    • German edition: The logic of religion. Translated by Albert Menne , 1968
  • The dogmatic foundations of Soviet philosophy. 1958
  • Handbook of World Communism , 1958 as co-editor
  • Paths to Philosophical Thinking. Introduction to the basic concepts. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1959, new edition 1995, ISBN 978-3-451-04020-7 .
  • As editor: Logical-philosophical studies . With essays by P. Banks, A. Menne , I. Thomas u. JM Bocheński himself: Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1959
  • Bibliography of Soviet Philosophy I-VII . Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1959–1968.
  • Ground plan of logistics , 1954 (German edition of Précis de logique mathématique , translated, revised and expanded by Albert Menne)
  • Philosophy. An Introduction , 1962
  • Why studies in Soviet Philosophy, 1963
  • Logic of Religion , 1968
  • Science and Belief , 1969, in: L. Reinisch (Ed.): Limits to Knowledge.
  • Marxism-Leninism , 1973
  • What is authority Introduction to the Logic of Authority , 1974
  • Self-presentation. In: Ludwig J. Pongratz (Hrsg.): Philosophy in self-portrayals . Volume I. Meiner, Hamburg 1975
  • Memories of a Logician , 1983, in: Logical Philosophizing: Festschrift for Albert Menne for his 60th birthday. With introductory memories from IM Bocheński. Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1983, ISBN 3-487-07421-4 .
  • Authority, Freedom, Faith. Social Philosophical Studies , 1988
  • God's existence and essence, Logical Studies on Summa Theologiae I, qq.2-11 Philosophia Verlag, Analytica series, 2003.
  • Handbook of worldly wisdom , Pigmentar GmbH, Bad Sassendorf 2015, ISBN 978-3-945692-02-8 .
  • Hundert Superstitions , Pigmentar GmbH, Bad Sassendorf 2017, ISBN 978-3-945692-10-3 .
  • Military ethics at a glance , Pigmentar GmbH, Bad Sassendorf 2018, ISBN 978-3-945692-12-7

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bocheński, Joseph Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bocheński, IM; Innocentius Marie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish philosopher and logician
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Czuszów , Poland
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1995
Place of death Freiburg im Üechtland , Switzerland