Abstract
Following his retirement from teaching in 1972 J. M. Bocheński entered into a creative phase of his scholarly career characterized by, among other things, a marked shift to ‘naturalism’ to the detriment of philosophical ‘speculation’ of any kind (comprising much of classical metaphysics, ‘world views’, ‘ideologies, ‘moralizing’—for him so many nefarious ‘superstitions’). During this period he examined issues which bear on the human condition in a way that was at once constructive and critical—constructive by virtue of the logical analyses of such concepts as authority, critical by dint of his refusal to take seriously any so-called ‘anthropocentric’/‘humanist’ thinking attempting to secure a special standing for ‘Man’ in the world. These attitudes come to expression in his last work devoted to worldly wisdom, the practical rationality required to ensure a long and happy life. I examine, first, some of the background of this work, with an eye to the naturalism it is based on, provide a schematic overview of the contents of the study, and concentrate on a couple of key issues related to the question as Bocheński understood it. The salient issue concerns his insistence that whatever else it may be the wisdom that is conducive to the long and happy life is not to be confused, conceptually, with any sort of morality: worldly wisdom and the categorical commands of morality stand in no essential relation to each other and may indeed be contradictory … to the detriment of morality, according to Bocheński. Throughout, but especially in the concluding section, I express some doubts about the cogency of this position.
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Notes
For the sake of accuracy, I should note that Bocheński began describing his position as ‘naturalist’ only later, more or less at the time he started examining the ‘superstitions’ pervading philosophical thinking and popular mentalities. I suppose also that in the contemporary jargon Bocheński would have wished to count himself among the non-reductionist naturalists (= “cosmocentric categorical pluralists”), the question remaining whether this kind of naturalism has to be physicalism ‘all the way down’.
Philosophy in Fribourg had a longstanding Thomist identity, and Bocheński had of course come to Fribourg, initially as a student in the 1930s and then as professor following World War II, with the reputation of a Thomist bent on renovating Thomism by means of contemporary logical tools. With the passage of time, however, his increasingly ‘naturalist’, not to say ‘scientistic’, attitude as regards the practice of philosophy appeared to put a strain on this program.
For the record, let it be noted that in the last course Bocheński taught at Fribourg in the winter and spring semesters of 1971–1972 he treated the ‘philosophy of love’ with special reference to Sartre, Scheler, and Freud (I regret to admit that my notes have not survived). In fact Bocheński considered turning the course into a book (he teased his students by asking for their “advice”: “should I write about love or consider instead authority?,” he would inquire, impishly.)
Well known for his studies of Soviet philosophy, Bocheński was not without a degree of sympathy for Marxist-Leninist “cosmocentrism.” Discussions among Soviet philosophers concerning the philosophical foundations of their ontology tended to pit Hegelians against Aristotelians, in part with regard to the dialectics of nature. Though Bocheński reviled that idea as utter (logical and ontological) nonsense, he recognized in it the Soviet commitment to ‘categorial pluralism’, no bad thing in his view. He acknowledged that Marx belonged among the proponents of anthropocentrism but tended on the whole to treat him as a sociologist rather than as a philosopher. Though he appeared to respect what he labeled as the Neo-Marxism that came into existence in the late 1950s and early 1960s in a number of socialist states, he devoted no research to the sometimes radically anthropocentric views among representatives of the current (e.g. Kołakowski whose 1959 text “Karl Marx i klasyczna definicja prawdy” [Karl Marx and the classical definition of truth] can well count among the ‘classics’ of the genre).
During this period he composed, among the studies worthy of mention, Was ist Autorität? (1974), Sto zabobonów (One hundred superstitions; 1987/1994), a collection entitled Über den Sinn des Lebens und über die Philosophie. Aufsätze (1987), another titled Autorität, Freiheit, Glaube. Sozialphilosophische Studien (1988), and, in 1992, Podręcznik mądrości tego świata (French: Manuel de la sagesse du monde ordinaire, 2002). Of considerable importance as a kind of philosophical testament are the interviews Bocheński imparted to a Polish admirer, Jan Parys, and published in 1988 as Między logiką a wiarą (French: Entre la logique et la foi, 1990a).
Bocheński often referred to what he considered the parlous state of philosophy throughout the nineteenth century, blaming this on, among other sources, the influence, both positive and negative, of Kant. Besides ‘anthropocentrism’ philosophy during the nineteenth century was characterized, according to him, by an erroneous conception of the nature of logic, in particular the penchant for psychologism. To be sure, Bocheński marked the exceptions with force: Frege first of all and the turn in 1900 when Husserl published the Prolegomena and the first volume of Logische Untersuchungen. For his “potted history” of the main lines of development of philosophical thinking in the European context, cf. Bocheński 1990b. Readers who are proficient in Polish can turn to a course of lectures on the history of European philosophy, not including the twentieth century (for that cf. Bocheński 1956), that he offered to Polish military personnel in Edinburgh in 1942–1943 in Edinburgh (Bocheński 1993).
In addition to Sto zabobonów (One Hundred Superstitions), there is a shorter essay, originally published in the Parisian Kultura, “Przeciw humanizmowi” (1985; translated as “Gegen den Humanismus,” 1988). According to Bocheński, a ‘humanist’ mistakenly believes that ‘man’ stands apart, is above nature, is marked by something special that distinguishes him from, say, his pet dog. No such view is well-founded, he claims, all the less so when he turn to what ‘science’ tells us about the world. He sums up his critical views about philosophies that have succumbed to superstitions of various sorts in two late essays, “The spiritual situation of the age” (1990b) and “Did we not waste our time?”(1991), the latter being as well his farewell to the philosophical sovietology of which he was one of the chief architects.
These ‘terms of abuse’ are Bocheński’s own, which he used with increasing frequency in his later years thus signaling his ‘attitudes’.
See the contribution in this issue by Jan Woleński who characterizes Bocheński’s ‘Aristotelianism’ as comprising empiricism, ontology as logic, the priority of the real over the ideal. In this connection, I do not recall Bocheński ever mentioning such Aristotelian concepts as final causes and potency and act.
His criticisms of ‘world-view’ philosophies include sharp rebukes directed to their misguided attempts to deal with so-called ‘existential questions’—misguided because they violate logical, i.e., scientific thinking. Cf. Bocheński 1990b, 1991. In the end, it remains unclear what kind of recommendations Bocheński would offer to philosophers who are attracted by the ‘existential’ questions.
So as not to run the risk of misrepresenting Bocheński here are examples of the precepts that should govern my relations to others (you, my reader!). Relations with others, Bocheński asserts, are of extreme importance, but ‘importance’ is parsed in recommendations such as: “As long as you have not come to know him well, consider every man you meet as a dangerous (méchant) imbecile [117].” “Do not concern yourself with another except when (1) he can be useful or dangerous for you, (2) you can help him, (3) you are responsible for him [117–118].” And, the recommendation to be friendly (aimable) acquires its first concrete form in the precept: “Be particularly friendly in regard to rich and powerful men.” And this is followed by the precept: “Render services willingly which cost you nothing or very little.” In what follows I will not discuss in any detail the precepts governing our relations to others (of which he develops more than forty!); Bocheński regarded these as derived from the fundamental principle of the primacy of life. .
Although I have no doubt ‘overstated’ the point, Bocheński’s prescriptions throw up more questions than clear positions in regard to personal interrelations. And, moreover, there is room for perplexity in this regard given Bocheński’s membership of the Dominican community. A key perhaps that helps mitigate some of the perplexity here is that by all appearances Bocheński conceived the Dominican community as a hierarchical institution within which positions are apportioned according to the exercise of two kinds of authority—epistemic (that of the expert) and deontic (that of the superior)—which can be combined in the same individual. Another order to which Bocheński attributed much significance is the military order, one entirely governed by relations of (epistemic and deontic) authority), to the exclusion of sentiments. Of course, the Dominican order like the military order professes recognition of “higher values”—paying witness to the divine law; defending the nation’s integrity—and this recognition of the higher values on the part of all the members of the respective orders serves to reinforce the relations of authority within the order thus providing “social cement” without recourse to interpersonal relations of an affective kind. The point about the latter, at least according to Bocheński in the Manuel, is that they carry the danger of dependencies and thus the loss of (rational and practical) autonomy. This suggests that to be a member of an order in the sense described has to be strictly regulated thus allowing the individual who has chosen to don the robes or been called to arms to preserve an inviolate sense of self to which the order contributes nothing “constitutive” other than providing the context in which the individual can “pay homage” to the higher values.
Bocheński is not concerned in the Manuel to take sides in the debates about the ‘essence’ of wisdom starting with the “ancients.” It is not easy to classify his position, though he himself denies that he has anything original to say. For a contemporary survey of debates concerning ‘wisdom’ as well as a substantive proposal differing considerably—in attitude—from Bocheński’s, cf. Ryan 2012, 2013)
Long before writing the Manuel Bocheński had taken a stand in favor of axiological intuitionism of the kind he attributed to Max Scheler whereby values and what they command us to do/not to do are given intuitively (Bocheński 1959, 1961). We simply ‘see’, with some kind of certainty, that such and such is demanded of us, is forbidden, the fallback being that anyone who doesn’t see is ‘value blind’ (as Bocheński professed to be with regard to the value of music). I am suggesting that Bocheński’s ‘argument’ in behalf of the fundamental principle of the long and happy life is of the same kind—it is intuitionist. The difficulty it seems to me with ‘intuitive evidence’ of this kind is that it acts as a kind of bludgeon: once you ‘see’ it, you have to (a) recognize it for what it is worth, and (b) act accordingly whether or not it has any importance for you, whether or not it is something you appropriate and care about. I will have more to say about this, but let it be noted the term value does not crop up, even once, throughout the Manuel.
For a critique of Bocheński’s axiological intuitivism and more generally the kind of value theory it sustains, cf. Lobkowicz 2003.
Tatarkiewicz wrote a ‘fundamental’ work in the domain, Analysis of Happiness (Polish 1962; English 1976).
Frankfurt is ready to admit that finding something important and caring for it, and thereby giving my will a structure, in that some things become necessary while others fall away as a matter of course, assuming I am wholehearted, is not in itself anything ‘moral’, morality having to do with my relations to others. All the same, reading Frankfurt one is struck by the comparative absence in Bocheński’s account of the ‘command’ to live a long and happy life of any sense of caring for it, wanting it for oneself in the sense of the term ‘love’ which Frankfurt has made his trademark. But then this is, it appears, another entry point into the question about integration.
It may be objected to me that my discussion of the happy life à la Bocheński distorts his views. For instance, one of his sub-precepts, belonging to group (4), the precepts pertaining to autonomy, enjoins one to act in conformity with one’s own ideal [38]. However, I believe that what Bocheński means by ‘ideal’ is not the ideal I have in mind in relation to self-integration. His examples are, first, that of an officer who understands that it belongs to him to be courageous, to exercise authority, and to remain faithful to his oath to serve. These are in fact ‘virtues’ (Bocheński admits that in this case the sapiential precept of commitment to some ideal corresponds to moral factors) that are independent of the officer’s will: he is duty-bound to behave in accordance with them whether or not he appropriates them as a point of personal honor. They go with the job. The second example is curious: that of the small-time merchant who is diligent, savvy, pushy, insolent, even conniving (ibid.). Certainly not ‘moral’ qualities, not virtues, we would say, however much we might grudgingly admire the ‘savoir-faire’ this character displays. But the point here too is that these are ‘ideals’ that go with the job and it is the ‘job’ that this character has invested importance in, this is the way he chooses to be, to the exclusion of other ways and fashions. Bocheński simply takes this for granted; to the contrary, I think it has a lot to do with becoming a person of a certain character, circumstances, sensibilities, and capacities allowing, and that wisdom, however useful it is to subscribe to its precepts, is subordinate to this task and acquires its value on this basis.
Notice in addition how by his choice of examples Bocheński means once again to discharge his idea of wisdom of any moral force: from the perspective of wisdom it is a mere happenstance that the officer cleaves to moral virtues for the sake of his ‘ideal’, but that alone gives him no moral superiority in comparison with the petty merchant whose ideal may contravene the virtues touted by the moralists but could well contribute significantly to his happiness ( … ‘he said, laughing all the way to the bank’)!.
Cf. the contribution to this issue by Anna Brożek.
We would have in this case a form of ‘natural law’ theory.
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Świderski, E.M. Bocheński on the human condition: is a long and happy life the whole story?. Stud East Eur Thought 65, 135–153 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-013-9177-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-013-9177-7