JM Bocheński’s method of philosophical analysis

Authors: Marek Lechniak

Publish Date: 2013/08/27

Volume: 65, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 17-26

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to reconstruct Bocheński’s method of philosophical analysis as well as to clarify the purpose of that method and its basic elements In the second part of the paper I will compare Bocheński’s method with the methods of modern applied ontologyJM Bocheński conducted benchmark analyses of a number of concepts belonging to different domains such as authority religion the free society the industrial enterprise In these analyses Bocheński applied a method he developed himself in which logical tools were of vital importance In the article I will reconstruct the purpose of that method and its basic elements In the second part of the paper I will compare Bocheński’s method with the methods of modern applied ontologyBocheński’s philosophical activity can be briefly described as philosophical analysis or its result as analytic philosophy In his programmatic statement presented in “Über die analytische Philosophie” Bocheński 1986a “Logic and Ontology” Bocheński 1974c and in numerous observations contained usually in the introductions to his analytic works Bocheński insisted that he cultivated a kind of basic research which seeks to understand what other disciplines presuppose It is analytic philosophy in which one conducts “a simple sober logical analysis of language … Therefore analytic philosophy is primarily an analysis of language words are indeed not taken into account here in the abstract sense ie in isolation from the living language On the contrary different ways of using words are explored to determine their meaning better That is to say however that these meanings are determined by continuous comparison with the reality reflected in language” Bocheński 1974a p 12The program of practicing analytic philosophy can be summarized in the following schema a philosopher using the tools of logic the consequence of the use of logic is simplicity and sobriety performs linguistic analysis based on the examination of words in ordinary language in order to grasp their meaning such an approach assumes of course the correspondence of language and reality which is reflected in languagePhilosophical analysis is of a logical character Therefore philosophy adopts according to Bocheński the form of applied logic “This may seem strange to a reader who regards logic as a reasoning technique In fact logic is a completely different thing it is above all a theory of the most general simplest connections between all things and thus a great tool not as much for reasoning as for analysis” Bocheński 1974a 12 It is worth mentioning that Bocheński pointed to three important functions of logic in philosophy namely the educational function paidagogos the instrumental function organon and the informational function meros by means of which some logical statements lead to the solution of philosophical problems However the most important function of logic is its use as a tool for the analysis of concepts Russell’s theory of descriptions Tarski’s theory of truth or his own conceptual analyses serving as examples Bocheński 1988a bBocheński’s analytic papers are in line with the program of Polish analytic philosophy initiated by K Twardowski and J Łukasiewicz whose followers include among others T Kotarbiński K Ajdukiewicz and T Czeżowski In the paper “Analiza i konstrukcja pojęcia przyczyny” Łukasiewicz 1961 9–65 Łukasiewicz distinguished two operations aimed at the determination of the concept analysis and construction “To provide a logical analysis of a concept or an abstract object is to find all its features and explore the relationships that occur between them with a particular emphasis on the necessary relationships that is on the designation of both defining and consecutive characteristics” Łukasiewicz 1961 12 But as he noted it is not possible to provide all the features of a given concept because besides absolute features it has an unlimited number of relative features An additional difficulty stems from the fact that in everyday language we use the word corresponding to the concept in various situations usually knowing which thing we have in mind Therefore to obtain the definition of a concept the analysis must be supplemented with a structural element “To create or construct an abstract object means to find certain features to consider which of them can be connected with each other and which should be removed and thereby to obtain a complete collection of features connected by relationships that would constitute precisely the object of research” Łukasiewicz 1961 p 131 Thus according to Łukasiewicz the meaning of a word in ordinary language is to be reconstructed and the determination of the meaning of a name should resemble efforts towards providing a regulatory definitionBocheński as we will show by studying examples of his analysis of concepts applied Łukasiewicz’s program Philosophical analysis aims at defining clearly the concepts used in other disciplines Modern development helps philosophers recognize that they can do a favor for other disciplines that not only they alone but others can utilize their results In the Middle Ages there was much discussion about the role of philosophy as ancilla theologiae Many modern philosophers found that offensive—How could their dignified wisdom be a servant Their indignation might not have been as radical had they heard the term ‘auxiliary’ instead of ‘servant’ discipline– since such is the meaning of the medieval ‘ancilla’ None of the mathematicians feels offended by the fact that an astronomer uses his science as an auxiliary discipline Why would philosophers react differently Bocheński 1993 46Philosophy is to be a propaedeutic to the domains of specific sciences Aristotle attributed this role to the Organon Bochenski listed four distinctive features of analytic philosophy—focusing on small tasks rather than creating syntheses clear expression relying on logical tools objectivity—allow philosophical propaedeutic to be seen as neutral in content That neutrality is due to the fact that the analysis is carried out solely in order to determine the basic properties of the analyzed concept Bocheński 1974a p 13 and philosophical analysis is based on the most general categories of ontology and ontologically understood logic Bocheński 1974c 285–288

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