Sformalizowana analogia proporcjonalności w ujęciu Józefa Marii Bocheńskiego i jej zastosowanie w dyskursie religijnym

Abstract

The article presents a formal scheme of the analogy of proportionality formulated by Józef Maria Bocheński. Bocheński applies his theory to religious discourse in order to claim that the meaning of this discourse does not have to be established exclusively in a negative way, in opposition to the claims made by negative theology. The aim of this article is to show that the application of analogy to religious discourse does not work. Bocheński’s theory is criticized in three aspects.Firstly, by adopting the assumptions of the theory of analogy, one can easily prove that some relations considered within religious discourse are indistinguishable, thus leading to confusion. Secondly, analogy as utilized by Bocheński takes only the formal properties of relations into account, making religious discourse almost materially empty. Thirdly, any attempt to treat analogy as an isomorphism of relations results in difficulties with defining the domains of these relations. The conclusion emphasizes one more fact: the analogy of proportionality offered by Bocheński and applied to religious discourse is simply impractical and useless since nobody uses it.