He was born in Czuszów (in Lesser Poland) on the 30th of August, 1902, and died in Fribourg (Switzerland) on the 8th of February, 1995. After his experience of frontline fighting during the Polish-Soviet war, he commenced legal studies in Lviv (1920); two years later he moved to Poznań where he studied economy for four years under the supervision of, for instance, Florian Znaniecki and Czesław Znamierowski. In 1926, in spite of his declared agnosticism, he entered a seminary and then joined the Dominican Order in 1927, being ordained priest in 1932. Having obtained a doctorate in philosophy (which he studied in Fribourg in 1928-31), and in theology (Rome, 1931-34), he lectured on logic at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (PUST; also known as the Angelicum) until 1940. During the Second World War he was a chaplain to Polish troops fighting in the September Campaign of 1939 (in General Kleeberg’s Group). Following his escape from German captivity, he managed to get to Rome, where he organized help for Kraków scholars held in German concentration camps. Then he joined the Polish Army in France as a chaplain, and after the lost battle of France he moved with the troops to England. In 1944 he took part in the Italian campaign of the Polish II Corps in 1944, fighting at Monte Cassino. In 1945, he became the head of the Department of History of 20th-century Philosophy at the University of Fribourg and was the rector of that academy in 1964-66. He also founded and headed the Institute for Eastern Europe in Fribourg, and edited a magazine called ‘Studies in Soviet Thought’, as well as a series of studies dedicated to the fundamentals of Marxism (‘Sovietica’). Regarded as a belligerent anti-Communist, he was not allowed officially to publish his works in his homeland before 1989 although he lectured at numerous European, American, and even African universities, and was the chairman of the Union of Societies of Logic and Methodology of Science. Meanwhile, he was admitted to membership in the Polish Academy of Arts and Science as late as 1994. Bocheński was the holder of honorary doctorates of many universities (several Italian academies, one American and one Argentinian, as well as two Polish universities: the Jagiellonian University and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw). He was also the founder and first rector of the Polish Catholic Mission in Switzerland. Being held in high repute as a Sovietologist, Bocheński was also an adviser of several governments, namely, of the Federal Republic of Germany’s cabinet of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as well as of the governments of the Republic of South Africa, the United States, Argentina, and Switzerland. His works include: Zarys historii filozofii (1993), Der sowjetrussische Dialektische Materialismus (1950), Współczesne metody myślenia, (1988; The Methods of Contemporary Thought, 1968); Die kommunistische Ideologie und die Würde, Freiheit und Gleichheit der Menschen im Sinne des Grundgesetzes für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland vom 23.5.1949 (1956); Der Sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (Diamat) (1962); The Logic of Religion (1965; Logika religii, 1990); Was ist Autorität? (1974; Co to jest autorytet?, in: Logika i filozofia. Wybór pism, 1993); Marxismus- Leninismus. Wissenschaft oder Glaube (1973); and Sto zabobonów. Krótki filozoficzny słownik zabobonów (1987).
