A Most Remarkable Polish Philosopher Peter Simons Unless you live in the world of theatre or film or politics or sport, you rarely get to meet people whom you can truly describe as “larger than life”. Academia has more than its fair share of boring people: being clever does not mean being interesting. But one academic I met on several occasions before he died was definitely larger than life, and he was Polish. He was Father Józef Maria Bocheński.
Bocheński studied philosophy and theology at the Jagiellonian University in the 1930s where he was a member of the group around the charismatic Father Jan Salamucha, who was murdered by the Nazis in 1944. Bocheński went to Rome, and ended his days as a Professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He took orders as a Dominican but was not always to be seen in his white habit. Whenever I saw him though he wore a normal black or grey
suit. He was a tall, thin and striking figure, ascetic in appearance though, as we shall see, not in tastes. Bocheński’s specialities were the history of logic and Marxism. He wrote an excellent collection of translations of texts from the history of logic, and for many years edited the journal Soviet Studies. I think he was probably one of the Vatican’s expert Kremlin-watchers. He always claimed there were strong cultural affinities between Marxism and Catholicism: they appealed to similar kinds of people for similar reasons, and sometimes to the very same person, at the same or different times. Bocheński once made the world news headlines when he mediated in a hostage-taking siege in Switzerland. He always enjoyed the limelight. Bocheński was so colourful a personality that it is hard to know where to start describing him. His work as an historian of logic is notable, as are his works on the concept of authority. But I shall just mention two non-academic things about him: one I heard about from colleagues, the other he told me himself. The first is his love of fast cars and aeroplanes, the other his military achievements. Neither is a trait regularly associated with philosophers, and even less with monks. His love of fast sports cars is well documented. How it came about, I do not know. But Bocheński had at different times a Porsche and a Ferrari, and he drove them very fast around Germany’s Autobahnen. From what I have heard, I doubt if he drove them very well, but he died in bed so it was well enough for him to survive. Monks do not own private property, but Bocheński’s book royalties were so considerable he was able to persuade his Father Superior to buy a car for the order so he could use it. He always stressed that Dominicans held as an order no vow of poverty so it was all right for them to have a luxury car. Rumour has it that Bocheński was one of the fastest things on the Autobahn, but I also heard that he was overtaken one day and lost some of his lust for speed because he was no longer the fastest. But there was a way he could go faster and that was by aeroplane. He told me himself in the monastery in Fribourg how this came about. Bocheński spent some time teaching at Notre Dame University in Indiana. One day he was approached by an American gentleman who shook his hand warmly and introduced himself as the husband of a mature student. The lady in question had
become infatuated with philosophy and logic by reading Bocheński’s work, and had by being so preoccupied made her husband’s life much quieter and more pleasant, at least according to the husband. He was so grateful that he offered to buy Bocheński anything he desired, saying he was rich and retired and had no children. Now here is where you or I would think of asking for say a crate of wine or a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica or at most a holiday in the Bahamas. This is what distinguishes mice from men. Bocheński, the avid fan of speed, was no mouse and knew what he wanted: a private aeroplane and a set of flying lessons. The grateful student’s husband duly bought him the plane and the lessons, and at over 60 Father Bocheński qualified as a pilot, carrying on flying until he was around 80. Mind you, there is evidence that his flying was of a similar calibre to his driving. A friend of mine who is himself a pilot, told me he was once flown from Geneva to Fribourg by Bocheński and that it was the most frightening experience of his life: they practically flew through a thunderstorm. The other story can be objectively checked from the records of Salzburg Airport. Bocheński in the 1970s was giving lectures in Salzburg and flew the couple of hours from Fribourg to do it. He landed at Salzburg Airport in the wrong direction, against the instructions of the control tower, a potentially very dangerous manoeuvre. They instantly confiscated his licence and forced him to re-take his pilot’s test. So during the two weeks of his lecture course Bocheński was always reading his flying manual while lecturing about authority or religion or whatever. In the end he passed his test, got his licence back and was allowed to fly out, but he left his reputation as a flyer behind him. More unequivocally positive was Bocheński’s military career. He told me that he fought in four campaigns: in 1920 in Poland, in 1939 in Poland, in 1940 in France, and in 1944 in Italy. The first time he was just a boy. The second time he was already a priest and had the prospect of a teaching job at the Pontifical University in Rome when war broke out. In the fighting against the Wehrmacht Bocheński was captured. He was held with other prisoners in line and interrogated in German (Bocheński was a linguistic prodigy and spoke ten or twelve languages fluently). One officer said to him disparagingly “Du bist ein Saujude”, “You are a filthy Jew”. Bocheński drew himself up to his full height
of over six feet and said “Ich bin katholischer Geistlicher”, “I am a Catholic cleric”. “Ist dasselbe!”, “It’s the same!” was all the reply he got. Then the officer asked what he did and learnt that he was a Privatdozent at the Jagiellonian University. This German officer was in fact himself a lecturer in history at a German university. Immediately the man’s manner changed: he clicked his heels and made a little formal bow, offering his hand and saying “Gestatten Sie, Herr Kollege”, “Allow me (to introduce myself), dear colleague”. He then gave Bocheński a cigarette and let him walk about freely. Bocheński stressed to me that one should try to escape very early when captured and he made his escape out of the back window of the officers’ toilet immediately afterwards. Eventually he was allowed to proceed to Rome, which he did so illegally via Austria. From there he joined exiled Poles fighting alongside the French in Southern France. There was no active fighting: the French gave up on hearing of the rout of their army in the North. Bocheński told me that the cowardly attitude and behaviour of the French soldiers and officers was so disgraceful that he forever lost all respect for the French military. Thereafter Bocheński was back in Rome but after Italy went over to the Allies he joined the famous Polish Second Army in Italy, commanded by General Anders, and was Field Chaplain to Anders himself. He thus witnessed one of the bloodiest and most heroic frontal attacks of the war, the taking of Monte Cassino. The great parent Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino stands near the road from Naples to Rome, high on a strategically commanding hill. It proved so difficult to take that the Allies reluctantly bombed it to dust – reluctantly because the library contained many important treasures. However the town had still to be taken and German resistance was strong. The final assault (there had been several unsuccessful ones) was a combined effort of British and Polish troops. After fierce and bloody fighting both managed to take their objectives. Having taken them, and with fighting having died down, Anders, who had not slept for two days, went into his quarters to grab some sleep. Bocheński witnessed what happened next. The staff phoned around the forward positions and learnt from each in turn that the position had been taken but with up to 30% casualties, unacceptably high, too high to withstand the expected counter-attack.
The British commander, who had met similar resistance, phoned the Polish staff to talk to Anders and advise withdrawing from the town. He asked Anders’s adjutant to bring the general to the phone. The adjutant said he could not, because the general was sleeping. “Well wake him up!”, demanded the British general. “I dare not, he’ll be angry!”, replied the adjutant. The British general agreed then to wait for a little while until General Anders woke up. Soon the General emerged rubbing his eyes and asking how things were. The bad news about casualties and the suggestion to withdraw were relayed to him. Anders gave the order to ring up the British general so they could co-ordinate the withdrawal. Just as the man was about to pick up the phone it rang, and one of the forward positions reported “No enemy in sight”. In quick succession the other positions made similar reports, so that by the time the two generals could confer it was clear that the Germans had been quicker to withdraw than the Allies and that the Poles and British had won the battle for the town. Bocheński held this up as an instance of chance at work in deciding military events. Had Anders not been asleep, the battle would have been lost by default, so in effect the general won the battle in his sleep! Bocheński won an extremely prestigious award from the Polish Army, not for his military service as such but for formulating a code of conduct for soldiers. For all I know it may be in use to this day. Father Bocheński told me these stories over tea in his rooms at the Dominican Monastery in Fribourg. He asked me to go there because he was very impressed by my book Parts, which he claimed was like a book out of the 13th century. That, coming from him, was a great compliment. He always said the Renaissance was a disaster for logic. The last time I saw him was at a meeting in Grenoble in 1992, on Polish logic. By then he was over ninety and walking with difficulty. He told me one more funny story. As a student he and some pals had been drinking in Kraków. Coming out of the pub, they espied a statue of a famous benefactrix of Kraków, who had paid to build an aquaduct carrying fresh water to the city. The plinth at the base bore a saying of hers to the effect that nothing was better than water. The drunken young students were not willing to let this statement go without contradiction so they urged Bocheński to mount the plinth with their help and he proceeded loudly to
declaim a speech extolling the virtues of alcohol over water. Then he noticed his friends disappearing quickly. Unable to get down without help, he had to remain until assisted down by several nice helpful policeman who proceeded to charge him with disorderly behaviour and put him in the police gaol for the night. So much for friends, he said. Bocheński was a forthright and outspoken figure and often made himself unpopular, but it did not seem to worry him. He once got very cross with a colleague of mine who thought that theology was not a science. He seems to have been rather a misogynist. Certainly one of my female colleagues says he used to make very belittling remarks about women in philosophy, looking at her (she was actually a rather good logician). But I say “seems to have been rather a misogynist” because there may be more to it than that. After his death there was a battle about his papers. These have gone to the Dominicans in Poland, and they have placed a ban on access until something like 2050, which is from a scientific point of view a criminally long time. Why should they want to hide his work? Two theories have been suggested and both are credible. One is that his private religious beliefs are in fact not in line with Catholic dogma, and not just a little, that he is perhaps a theist but not even a Christian, and the order is trying to avoid a scandal whereby one of their foremost figures is seen to be denying central features of doctrine. The other story is that in his papers is a file or index of several women including pictures and rather intimate details. The suggestion is that he may have had a string of secret mistresses, again something not acceptable to the order or the church, and too hot to be made public. There may even be one or more children. I stress that neither rumour is substantiated. They could be both false, or one true, or indeed both true. For the Catholic church either would be highly embarrassing, and the fact that the papers are forbidden to outsiders suggests they contain something the church and order do not want to get out in a hurry. Either way, Bocheński is confirmed in his status as definitely larger than life.
