Józef M Bocheński and the Cracow Circle

Authors: Jan Woleński

Publish Date: 2013/08/22

Volume: 65, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 5-15

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Abstract

Józef M Bocheński began his philosophical career as an eclectic philosopher then switched to Thomism and finally became a representative of the analytic school As a Thomist he wanted to reform this orientation by the resources of modern formal logic This tendency culminated in the establishment of the Cracow Circle established in 1936 whose members were Bocheński Jan F Drewnowski Jan Salamucha and Bolesław Sobociński However the program of the Cracow Circle was rejected by most Thomists who considered traditional logic as an entirely sufficient device of philosophy Bocheński was very disappointed by this attitude of his Thomist fellows His evolution toward analytic philosophy free of any ideological pressure can be regarded as his reaction to the conservatism of ThomismBocheński’s philosophical development comprised three phases I omit his engagement with Soviet studies as well as his political and moral views He began as an eclectic philosopher His PhD thesis about the concept of Ding an sich in Maurycy Straszewski a Polish philosopher of secondary importance symbolizes this phase1 This topic was suggested to Bocheński by Mark de Munnyck a professor of philosophy in Fribourg Switzerland Bocheński explicitly said that he was forced to write this dissertation by de Munnyck who was his supervisor In fact Bocheński had a very low opinion of his PhD thesis and even suggested in private conversations with the author that he was ashamed of it Bocheński’s second phase began about 1930 when he became familiar with mathematical logic In the beginning he taught himself this field by reading works of Bertrand Russell Bocheński always considered the Principia Mathematica as one of the most important books for him Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz Alonzo Church and Haskell Curry Reading of Ajdukiewicz resulted in Bocheński’s contacts with the LvovWarsaw School particularly with works of Polish logicians In the 1930s he personally met Ajdukiewicz and other leading representatives of this school namely Jan Łukasiewicz Stanisław Leśniewski Alfred Tarski and Tadeusz Kotarbiński2 Bocheński as a Dominican father accepted Thomism as his philosophical background Contacts with logicians convinced him that the traditional scholasticism should be modernized by using devices taken from modern symbolic logic3 This task became the main goal of the socalled Cracow Circle a group of Catholic philosophers formed in 1936 see below for details The third phase of Bocheński’s philosophy starting in the 1960s consisted in an essential modification of his earlier views He explicitly said that he became an analytic philosopher and did not wish to be considered as a Thomist

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