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(BOCHENSKI
AND SALAMUCHA)
ABSTRACT. This paper reports some attempts undertaken in Poland in the 1930s
to modernize Thomism by means of modern logic. In particular, it concerns J.M.
Bochenski and J. Salamucha, the leading members of the Cracow Circle. They
attempted to give precise logical form to the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. Other
works concerned the concept of transcendentals, the levels of abstraction, and the
concept of essence.
KEY WORDS: essence, logic, transcendentals
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tion. However, the second pattern is not easy, because while any
national philosophy must respect the situation in world philosophy,
on the one hand, it must also try to remain relatively independent
and thereby original, on the other hand. Thus, a national philosophy should adopt ideas from various sources, but it should likewise elaborate them in an orginal way. Twardowskis advice to
his students was: (a) you must know what is going on in current
philosophy; (b) try to assimilate novelties. Twardowski, an excellent
teacher, very soon attracted many young Polish philosophers; and
they soon found their own way, namely, a logically oriented philosophy. Although Twardowski himself did not work in mathematical
logic and even warned against some possible negative consequences
(symbolomania, pragmatophobia) of applying mathematical logic
in philosophy, he is commonly considered to be the father of logic
and logical philosophy in Poland. This is clearly asserted by Alfred
Tarski:
Almost all researchers who pursue the philosophy of the exact sciences in Poland,
are indirectly or directly the disciples of Twardowski, although his own work
could hardly be counted within this domain.2
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their philosophical views, quickly grasped the need to replace traditional logic
by mathematical logic. Hence at the Congress in Cracow the representatives
of logistic stressed that [. . .], independently of the accepted world-view and
the philosophical current, one must apply the principles discovered by logic in
performing ones own inferences. This was emphasized by Prof. K. Ajdukiewicz
during one discussion. He simply said that [. . .] one must be aware that modern
logic should be applied by everyone who wants to infer something responsibly,
independently of assumptions underlying the given philosophical system. This
concerns theists and atheists, Catholics or, let us assume, satanists. Modern logic
must be used in proofs of Gods existence no less than in other proofs. One
should know that modern logic neither assumes nor implies any metaphysics, but
if by using it one derives philosophical consequences, this means that extralogical
theses were assumed. Declarations of this kind were provoked by interventions
of various participants of the Congress who, speaking more or less precisely
and responsibly, expressed a couple of reservations concerning the possibility or
necessity of applying logistic in philosophy. Different accents could be found
in such speeches. The standpoint that an excessive preciseness and responsibility in inferences can damage philosophy [. . .] was the exception. [. . .] The
[other] group declared that philosophy, in particular metaphysics, has its own
scientific methods, and that only these methods lead to proper results. On the other
hand, according to this view, the application of mathematical logic, for example
to metaphysics in a manner similar to that occurring in the special sciences,
only simplifies and vulgarizes problems without producing proper solutions. The
representatives of this standpoint almost never questioned the importance of
mathematical logic (incidentally, they seldom had sufficient knowledge of it), but
only denied its usefulness in investigating philosophical questions.13
In the light of this report, the discussion during the meeting organizing by Michalski mirrored a more general controversy concerning
the nature of philosophy and its methods conducted at the Cracow
Congress. It is very probable that Sobocinski also summarized
standpoints concerning the application of modern logic in Thomism.
Thus, the Cracow Circle undertook methodological problems which
were vital for all Polish philosophy.
The Cracow Circle had its own general program. Let me once
more stress its basic feature by citing the following:
Mathematical logic strongly influenced the development of the philosophical
sciences in Poland. Its achievements and methods began to be applied to various
extralogical problems. Mathematical logic taught Polish philosophers how to be
precise in arguments and directed their attention to the importance of logical and
semantic analysis in elaborating philosophical problems.14
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Thus, for Bochenski, logic was the way to change Thomism into a
normal scientific philosophy.
Of course, it is much easier to propose a philosophical programme than to realize it. Fortunately, we can also cite concrete
attempts to pursue the declared claims in the case of the Cracow
Circle. I will briefly illustrate this by four examples: (a) a discussion about the proofs of Gods existence; (b) Salamuchas treatment
of levels of abstraction; (c) Salamuchas treatment of the concept
of essence; (d) Salamuchas suggestions about how to formalize
analogical concepts.21
Ad (a) It is not surprising that Thomas Five Ways became the
main object of logical analysis, even before the Cracow Circle
began its official history.22 The general direction was guided by
the view that the Aristotelian syllogistic used by Aquinas himself
and his followers until our times was not enough for a proper
analysis of the arguments. A full treatment must exhibit all the
assumptions, logical as well extralogical, in particular, the physical
ones, and apply much more advanced logical tools than traditionally admitted. Salamucha tried to outline an axiomatic treatment
based on the logic of relations. He argued that ontology can be
modelled by linear ordering with the first element identified as the
primum movens immobile. This attempt required assuming that the
relation of moving is connected. According to Salamucha, although
the logical structure of ex motu demonstration is sound, its physical
assumptions are not acceptable from the point of view of modern
science. Salamuchas pioneering analysis gained a wide influence.
Bochenski, in his review of Salamuchas paper, argued that Thomas
had in mind not the first universal movens but motionless being.23
Another point raised by Bochenski was that the moving relation
does not need to be connected. Bochenski returned to the problem
in the last years of his life.24 He entirely rejected the proofs from the
degrees of perfection and the teleogical structure of the world, that
is, the fourth and fifth ways. The other proofs could be improved,
but although it is possible to demonstrate (following Aristotle) the
existence of God conceived philosophically, this being is not the
person in the sense of the Old and New Testaments. In general, the
Five Ways are rather ways of persuasion than proofs in the strict
logical sense.25
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NOTES
Prof. E. Swiderski)
and the Geneva-Lausanne IRIS project on the Philosophy and
History of Logic (Director Prof. K. Mulligan).
1 This school is extensively presented in H. Skolimowski, Polish Analytical
Philosophy, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1967; and in J. Wolenski,
Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 1989. See also Z. Wolak, Neothomism and the Lvov-Warsaw School
(in Polish), Osrodek Badan Interdyscyplinarnych, Krakw, 1993, and the papers
collected in Logic and Metaphilosophy (in Polish), Z. Wolak (ed.), Osrodek Badan
Interdyscyplinarnych, Krakw, 1995.
2 A. Tarski, [A Letter to O. Neurath 25. IV. 1930], trans. from German by J.
Tarski, Grazer Philosophische Studien 43 (1992), p. 20.
3 I. Dambska,
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312
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313
vocatio in consilio, a phrase used in the Middle Ages; see Between Logic and
Faith (see note 13), p. 62.
29 P. Banks, On the Philosophical Interpretation of Logic: An Aristotelian
Dialogue (see note 17), p. 14.
30 Between Logic and Faith (see note 13), p. 15.
31 Ibid., p. 19.
32 Ibid., p. 139.
33 See, for example, S. Kami
nski, What Does the Application of Formal Logic
to Classical Metaphysics Mean? (in Polish), Roczniki Filozoficzne 12 (1961),
pp. 107112.
Institute of Philosophy
Jagiellonian University
ul. Grodzka 52
31-044 Krakow
Poland