The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

Copyright © 2014
Avello Publishing Journal
ISSN: 2049 - 498X

Issue 1 Volume 4:
The Paradox of Nietzschean Atheism

Fausto Fraisopi

THE QUASI-ONTOLOGY OF “AN SICH”

Bernard Bolzano’s Theory of Science between Leibnitian Ars
Combinatoria and the Husserlian Idea of mathesis universalis

ABSTRACT
Starting from the critical position that Husserl assumes against Bolzano and his
idea of mathesis universalis, this paper focuses and emphasizes Bolzano’s project for
a mathesis and the differences between this project and Leibniz’s. Putting into an
historical perspective these three forms of mathesis, by Leibniz, Bolzano, and
Husserl, we / I open in so doing a theoretical perspective concerning the non-
ontological dimension of idealities they form and articulate mathesis as such. The
an-ontological Combinatorics of propositions and of ideas in themselves,
suggests, Bolzano maintains, the possibility of a treatment of Combinatorics
independently from these ontological and metaphysical presuppositions that
formed and structured the Leibnitian ars combinatoria. In this sense, the
philosophical position of a “semantic Platonism,” assumed by Bolzano, opens the
perspective of a non-metaphysical but modular mathesis that we can articulate and
widen beyond an ontological commitment.

KEYWORDS

Ontology, Combinatorics, Propositions in themselves, Semantic Platonism, mathesis

universalis

1
 Fausto Fraisopi

In the § 10 of the third book of Ideas pertaining a pure Phenomenology and a

phenomenological Philosophy, concerning the relation between psychology and
phenomenology, Husserl sketches at the same time the phenomenological
dependency of Bolzano’s theory of propositions in themselves. Such a digression
depends essentially on many misunderstandings that Husserl recognizes in the
reception of his idea of Phenomenology:

“With the misunderstanding of the essence of phenomenology is

connected the fact that recently, and probably with regard to the
impulses that I received from Lotze and Bolzano and of which I
am aware as always with the greatest gratitude, some have called
these great investigators founders of phenomenology and have
done so in such manner that it must simply seem as if the best way
into phenomenology would be by returning to their writings as the
primal sources of the new science” [HUSSERL 1980, 49; Hua. 5,
57].

Yet, following Husserl’s position, Bolzano’s logical conception must not be

overestimated. This is because Bolzano’s and Husserl’s Logic are very different,
in the way that treat (???) the place of a non-empiristic (i.e. transcendental)
psychology and, in particular, the fundamental function of eidetic intuition:

“But the great Logic of Bolzano has so little pertinence here that he
had not even the slightest inkling of phenomenology – of
phenomenology in the sense that my writings represents. From the
idea of an eidetic investigation of Intuition, from that of an apriori
that arises there, a founding of philosophy and psychology upon
eidetic cognition, Bolzano is as far removed as Mill, since extreme
empiricist utterances are found in his works which are no less so
than those of Mill” [Ibidem].

The gap between the phenomenological role of eidetic intuition and the position
of subjective acts in Bolzano could not be clearer. For this reason, Husserl
begins to describe the different way of mathesis universalis that phenomenology
can build in opposition to the “naïve” idea of mathesis that can be founded
(implicitly or explicitly) in the Theory of Science. The difference between the sketch

2
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

of mathesis given by Bolzano in his Works and the phenomenological project of

mathesis universalis consists, for Husserl, in the radicalism by which
Phenomenology investigates the acts that grasp idealities or truths in themselves.
For Husserl, the gap could not be greater:

“My way to phenomenology was essentially determined by the

mathesis universalis (Bolzano did not see anything of this either), and
for the conception of the idea of such a mathesis, to which I was
pushed by my studies on formal mathematics, the sketch by
Bolzano of a limited bit of this idea, a bit of the theory of
propositions in themselves and truths in themselves, was of
inestimable value. Had I not already had the pure idea in the
mathematical sphere and not already had it also for the sphere of
logical mathematics, which in the most recent period has been
worked out (independently of Leibniz), then I would have seen the
sense of Bolzano’s theory just a little as all those have seen it who
use and cite his Theory of Science”[Ibidem].

At this point, we could ask ourselves in which sense it is possible that the theory
of propositions and truth in themselves can have an “inestimable value” without
presenting, at the same time, more than “a bit” of the idea of a mathesis universalis.
And even if in Bolzano there is only “a bit” of the idea of a mathesis universalis as
such, what is the function of this “in themselves”? It is a secondary or a
determinant one? Husserl seems here no attribute to Bolzano’s theory this
Platonism that many interpreters claim to find in his Theory of Science:

“The extensive working out of a pure logic of ideas and

propositions in themselves, which in no way were
recognized by Bolzano as ideal essentialities of the eidetic
Intuition in my Platonizing sense, gave me a firm substrate
for reflection; with this, as with the whole formal mathesis, are
connected the problems that forced me to progress from
psychology to phenomenology. But even the problems were
alien to Bolzano. One can learn from him much formal
logic, for he was a great investigator in that […]; but
phenomenology is just a little to be learned from him as
critique of reason” [HUSSERL 1980, 50-51; Hua. 5, 59].

3
 Fausto Fraisopi

Husserl also divides the challenge of developing a mathesis universalis into two
different tasks: That of formal logic and that of the critique of reason.
Concerning the task of the formal logic, we can attribute to Bolzano his
important role; but concerning the task of the critique of reason and
phenomenology, as theory of transcendental subjectivity, the phenomenology “is
just a little to be learned” from the theory of propositions and ideas in
themselves. This theory, far from being acceptable for a phenomenology of acts
representing “eidetic intuition,” seems to be only a sketch of the method of
Combinatorics in the pure realm of “the formal.” We will not, at this point,
discuss the exactness of Husserl’s interpretation, but only try to understand the
function, from a phenomenological and a historical point of view, of the “an
sich” for the construction of a mathesis universalis.

In Formal and Transcendental Logic, when Husserl discusses once more the question
of the mathesis, and this time only with respect to the “formal,” in particular with
respect to the relation between formal ontology and pure apophantic, Bolzano’s
role seems to be minor and Husserl’s criticism became stronger as it was in the
third book of Ideas. However, what is more interesting here is the historical
perspective in which the theory of the “an sich” by Bolzano is inserted. This
perspective begins with Viete and the algebraization of calculus:

“The genuine discovery of the formal was first made, at the

beginning of the modern age, by way of Viete’s establishment of
algebra – that is to say, by way of the reduction of the theory of
numbers and quantities to a deductive technique – and them
attained its pure sense through Leibniz, whose mathesis universalis
obviously has thrust of completely every restriction to even the
highest materially filled universality” [HUSSERL 1969, 80; Hua
17, 70].

The profound difficulty of thinking together the formal (formal ontology as

formalized treatment of “something”) and the apophantic, shows all the limits,
in Husserl’s view, of the Theory of Sciences. It also underscores the gap between a
phenomenological development of the project of a mathesis universalis and a non-

4
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

phenomenological one: “How hard it is to think the matter through to the end
and penetrate, in this manner, either from logical analytics into formal
mathematics or the reverse, and how highly Leibniz’s achievement in this respect
is therefore to be esteemed, on sees from the case of Bernard Bolzano”
[HUSSERL 1969, 84; Hua 17, 74].
From the point of view of the apophantic, Bolzano develops a deep attempt in
the systematization and definition of the “formal” as such: “In his admirable
Wissenschaftslehre [Theory of Science], published in 1837, he has already gone far
enough to project systematically a theory of propositions in themselves and
truths in themselves, as a self-contained apophantic analytics.” Nonetheless, the
flaw of this sketch of a pure mathesis must be found on the side of ontological
treatment:

“On the other side, even in 1810, in his Beiträge zu einer begrundeten
Darstellung der Mathematik [Contributions to a More Grounded Exposition
of Mathematics] he makes an attempt at a fundamental definition of
mathematics, which already approaches the idea of a formal a priori
theory of objects – to be sure, without penetrating to its actual
sense (as I shall show forthwith, at the close of this questions). And
yet Bolzano does not go far enough to think the two ideas, that of a
analytics of propositions and that a formal mathematical analytics,
through to the end and discover their internal equivalence, nor
even far enough to take into consideration the possibility of an
algebraic theorization of the formation with which logic is
concerned, parallel to that of the formations with which formal
mathematics, in the usual sense, is concerned. In short, much as he
learned from Leibniz, he falls short of Leibniz’s insights. […] In a
word, Bolzano did not attain the proper concept of the formal, the
concept that defines formal ontology; though in a certain manner
he touched upon it” [HUSSERL 1969, 85; Hua 17, 75].

The reasons for this insufficient treatment of formal ontology resides in the
indetermination of the relation between the “empty form, anything-whatever, as
the highest genus whose subordinate differentiations are likewise empty forms”,
and “the universal region “the possibly factually existent (the real in the broadest
sense) which is differentiated into particular regions”. In this sense, in addition to
leaving aside the determination of this difference, Bolzano also left aside, in

5
 Fausto Fraisopi

Husserl’s conception, the determination of the difference between the

subsumptions of forma particularizations under formal universalities and the
subsumptions of regional particularizations likewise under formal universalities
on the other side. This leads to confounding the relation between the apophantic
and the formal (and formalized treatment) of ontology in the perspective of a
mathesis universalis as such.
Besides the logic of besser verstehen, adopted from the great philosophers’
interpretations of the history of thought, it seems important to try to understand,
independently from the great or the mall function that can have for a
phenomenology as such, the role of Bolzano’s attempt of Combinatoric for a
post-Kantian and overall for a non onto-theo-logical project of mathesis universalis
[RUSNOCK 2000, 129 fww]. In every case, Husserl was right to underline three
aspect of Bolzano’s Theory of propositions and ideas in themselves: The great
importance of the statement of existence of these elements as such for the
project of mathesis, the character of indetermination of formal ontology by
Bolzano, the placement of Bolzano’s sketch of mathesis between Leibniz and the
new Leibnitian projects of mathesis at the beginning of twentieth century. What
Husserl does not say, or is not interested in saying, is in which way that sketch of
a theory of science is decisive and determinant to release the project of a mathesis
universalis as such from the perspective of a onto-theo-logical metaphysics, by
which the Leibnitian project of mathesis always remained limited. Furthermore,
what Husserl does not say is that the importance of Bolzano’s theory of
propositions and ideas in themselves stand out from the indetermination not
only of the idea of formal ontology as such, but of the ontological status of this
“an sich” as well. If this “an sich” is not a Platonistic entity as the “essence”
grasped in eidetic intuition is, however, determined from a very interesting form
of Platonism, that “semantic Platonism” which precisely allowed to liberate the
project of mathesis universalis from the form (and the metaphysical realm) of onto-
theo-logy.
When first reading the Theory of science, we do not necessarily notice the
inherent ambiguity in the paragraphs concerning the theory of propositions and
representations. The ambiguity at issue has to do with ontological notions.
Almost two centuries later, we could agree that the source is to be found in “an
sich”, the ontological-formal status that many contemporary interpreters

6
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

attribute to Bolzano. On the other hand, Bolzano’s ontology in itself, or better

his fundamental meta-ontological thesis, prevents us from attributing to the “an
sich,” in its proper philosophical horizon, a status that may be properly called
“ontological”. We could here attack the so-called “ontological-formalist” trend −
almost always superficial and false − that aims at attributing to the doctrine of
“an sich” an essentially untrue (incorrect) ontology: We lose not only the
historical and exegetic adherence but also the speculative eloquence of the
ontological ambiguity of “an sich” and the deep ontological consequences that
can come out of this theory.
What is, finally, this ambiguous “an sich”? How, after the theoretical position
of “an sich”, did it put down itself in the history of ontology? If we observe with
more attention, the “an sich” appeared at first as a “bad patch” of classical
ontology, that is, as a “passage at the limit” − as an extenuation − of its
fundamental categories. The approach of the Theory of Science seems at first to be
fundamentally an extension of Platonism. Following this position, it is
impossible, however, to define the theory of “an sich” as a kind of Platonism
and, in particular, of logical Platonism. Given that Plato introduces the
ontological status of the idea as a warrant of the stability of formal relations −
that is basically the issue of Phaidon − Bolzano, on the contrary, presents the
formal relations of “an sich”, those that simply give the ontological domain its
meaning, as devoid of any possible ontological status.
The position defined as “logical Platonism” appears indeed more as a poor
extension of the concepts of “Platonism” and “Realism” in the foundations of
mathematics. Moreover, independent of the question of the consistence of such
a position, the latter appears more and more projected on Bolzano ex post, from
the problematic field of set theory, than intrinsically related to the position that
Bolzano maintains in his main works. If we observe with more attention, even if
we acknowledge such a Platonism in Bolzano, such a link is impossible in
relation to the fundamental assumption (almost always implicit) of a Platonism
assumed in relation to formal entities. Even in the most recent definitions of
Platonism [MADDY 1990, 20-36] the hypostatisation became possible in
relation to mathematical objects or sets of objects (by its canonical and
traditional form). Bolzano was deeply aware of this necessary assumption when

7
 Fausto Fraisopi

he began to define the existential problem in the sense of “propositions in

themselves”:

“The underlying objective idea, however, the idea in itself, of which

the subjective idea is just the apprehension, is not, and cannot be,
an existing thing. This is not because [...] there are no golden
mountains; rather because, were the ideas in themselves something
real, the propositions in themselves, of which they are the parts,
would also have to be real” [BOLZANO 2004, 41].

Now, there is a strong anti-Platonist assumption in relation to the possibility

of hypostatising a propositional form (simple or complex) as an existing entity.
Bolzano poses the awareness of this impossibility at the basis of his reasoning,
because he is deeply aware that when we have to operate with a formal and
syntactical form, the hypostatisation becomes more problematic (if not
meaningless) than a simple hypostatisation of semantic entities.
In any case, if a logical Platonism did indeed exist, it would bring with it a
strong ontological assumption, viz. an assumption explicitly expressed, an
ontological commitment about the formal entities which count as “objects”: a
strong ontological assumption needs the introduction of second order quantified
variables. This is impossible and finds no occurrence in Bolzano’s theory or, at
least, in the theory of “an sich” as proposed by the Theory of science.
However, the approach of the Theory of science is not only far from Platonism,
it is also far from a certain Aristotelian perspective that determined and oriented
the late-scholastic German metaphysics, particularly concerning logic. In almost
all logic handbooks of the Aetas kantiana − and even before, starting from Meier
− there was no doubt in acknowledging the logical priority of concept, viz. of the
formal representation of an object (thing), over proposition [Satz] or judgement
[Urteil]. From this speculative point of view, they were, as a whole,
mereologically dependent on their parts.
This logical scheme of construction of deductive chains from a single objectal
representation (the substance) whereby, with the inherence of a predicate, a
judgement and therefore a syllogism and syllogistic chains (epi- or pro-
syllogisms) were formed, basically determined the classical ontologies (and in the
end the Leibnitian ontology, which was to be grounded upon the assumption of

8
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

the ontological nature of the relation of inherence) [RUSSELL 2008, 12, 42-50].
But what seems more interesting for our purposes is that the logical scheme also
determines Bolzano’s ontology, following the articulation between effective
being [wirkliches Sein] and property [Beschaffenheit]: This essentially sketches the
conceptual gap between the ontology of things and the quasi-ontology of
propositional forms in the Theory of science. Nevertheless, what determines the
innovative break of the Theory of science is exactly this logical “propositionalism”
that switches − in relation with the “an sich” and the logical realm (das Logische) –
the mereological order of dependence between representation (idea) and
proposition, therefore opening many new perspectives on the formation of
deductive chains.
We cannot, for the moment, state that Bolzano definitely breaks this
fundamental symmetry between logic-formal relations (structured in relation to
the conceptual pair object/determination) and the ontological realm (structured in
relation to the relation of inherence). It is however unquestionable that, with this
inversion, Bolzano can break, to begin with, a symmetry that was almost natural
in logical theories, as it relates to their epistemological utility. This implies a
refusal, though a temporary refusal, of a naive theory of correspondence
[Korrespondenztheorie]:

“For precisely this reason I cannot grant the identity of the two
expressions: “This judgment is in accordance with truth” and “This
judgment is in accordance with reality”; even if the two are often
confused, and can be confused, especially whenever the truth in
question concerns an existing object, as in the case of the apple
tree” [BOLZANO 2004, 113].

By this act of breaking, or calling into question, the logical structures of late
scholastic metaphysics (in particular of the mereological priority of ideas upon
the judgement) and, consequently, by the calling into question of the
fundamental and meta-ontological assumptions of metaphysics, the ambiguous
ontological status of the “an sich”, its “quasi-ontology” finds its “natural place”.
This quasi-ontology is forcefully embedded − assuming the mereological
dependence, in the realm of “an sich”, between proposition and representation −
already in the first definition of proposition in itself as such. This first definition

9
 Fausto Fraisopi

is basically a negative one, to which will follow a positive (but not very clarifying)
characterization:

« I wish to show as clearly as possible what I mean by a proposition

in itself. In order to accomplish this, I want to define first what I
mean by a spoken proposition or a proposition which is expressed
in words. With this name I wish to designate any speech act, if
through it anything is asserted or expressed; that is to say, whenever
it is one of the two, either true or false in the usual sense of these
words; or, as one can also say, if it either correct or incorrect. [...]
Given that it is understood what I mean by a spoken proposition, I
should like to note that there are also propositions which are not
presented in words but which somebody merely thinks, and these I
call mental propositions. Obviously, in the expression ‘spoken
proposition’, I differentiate the proposition itself from this
articulation. In same way I differentiate a proposition from the
thoughts of it in the expression ‘mental proposition’” [BOLZANO
1973, 20]

It is at this point that Bolzano introduces the so-called “positive” definition

of the proposition in itself:

“A proposition in itself I call that particular entity which one must

necessarily associate with the word ‘proposition’ if he wants to
follow me in the above distinction. It is that very entity which one
thinks of as being a proposition when one asks whether or not
somebody has articulated it, or whether or not somebody has
thought it. The same entity I mean by the word ‘proposition’ if, for
brevity’s sake, I use it without the additional phrase ‘in itself’. In
other words, by proposition in itself I mean any assertion that
something is or not the case, regardless whether or not somebody
has put it into words, and regardless even whether or not it has
been thought” [BOLZANO 1973, 20-21].

Another clarification of the quasi-ontological status of the “an sich” is

presented by the definition (once again at first negative) of the representation in
itself, or simply “representation”, the mereologically dependent component of
the proposition in itself. In the § 48. 2, Bolzano states:

10
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

“Anything that can be part of a proposition in itself, without being

in itself a proposition, I wish to call an idea in itself, or simply an idea
or objective idea. This will be the quickest and easiest way of
conveying my meaning to those who have understood what I mean
by a proposition in itself” [BOLZANO 1973, 61].

Bolzano states this since, as a mereological component depending on the

proposition in itself, the representation in itself will be obtained from the same
method. This mereological dependence was used, at first, by Bolzano, to define
not only categorematic but also, and at the same time, syncategorematic terms.
Those terms, conceived as mereologically dependent on the proposition in itself,
are homogeneous with it, from the point of view of non-ontological, quasi-
ontological status. They have no (clearly assertible) ontological status: Exactly
like propositions in themselves, they do not presuppose “a living being of
whatever form as the subject in which it is accomplished”. On the other hand,
like a judgement or a statement, the subjective representation (idea) or the simple
expressed name, has a “real existence at the time when they are present in a
subject, just as they have certain effects”.
Exactly in the same way in which the proposition in itself is linked out of an
“ontological” realm, from the one ontological realm of the judgement and
statement, we have to divide the effective state from the non effective state, i.e.,
on one hand, the subjective representation and the expressed name and, on the
other hand, the representation in itself. This latter corresponds only to “every
subjective representation” and, consequently, it cannot correspond to something
ontologically determined: “by objective idea I mean the certain something which
constitutes the immediate matter [Stoff] of a subjective idea, and which is not to
be found in the realm of the real. An objective idea does not require a subject
but subsists [bestehen], not indeed as something that exists, but as a certain
something even though no thinking being may have it; also, it is not multiplied
when it is thought by one, two, three, or more beings, unlike the corresponding
subjective idea, which is present many times” [BOLZANO 1973, 61].
This step of negative definition − whereby the mereological dependence leads
to the definition of the three syntactic components (representation-subject,
representation-predicate and the concept of connection) − induces this feeling of
ontological ambiguity of the “an sich”. The cause, as we will see (and as we have

11
 Fausto Fraisopi

already sketched), is that the syntactical structure of the proposition in itself

(representation-subject, connection, representation-predicate or determination) is
not so much a copy or a mirror image (and therefore derivative) of the
ontological relation in the stronger sense we can find between substance and
property [Beschaffenheit]. [SIEBESTIK 1992, 33 fww]
This appears now − as Jan Sebestik says – to be an ontological difference.
Yet, for us, contrary to Sebestik’s interpretation, this ontological difference
corresponds little to an ontological dualism or, better, to an ontology (already a
largely Meinongian one) whose domain is articulated in two classes of objects:
Objects for which we need to say that they exist and, on the other hand, objects
to which the ambiguous expression “there is” applies. It is precisely this aspect of
the theory of the Wirklichkeit that represents the originality of the meta-
ontological approach of Theory of science and On the mathematical method. The very
same thesis was to soon become an essential point of discussion in the exchange
with Exner.
The representation-subject’s “an sich” − which “subsists” [besteht] − doesn’t
bring itself to the “für sich” [for him] of the substance, of the wirkliches Sein (about
which we must affirm that it properly exists). This impossibility of superposing
both comes from the unavailability of a direct (automatic) superposition of the
syntactical form to the underlying ontology.
This is a meta-ontological thesis, which, as we will soon see in relation to
Combinatorics, represents the speculative presupposition, is full of
consequences. First, it is, as Benoist says, “the liberation of the category of thing
in relation to the canonical sense of being”. Nevertheless, if we consider it more
attentively, this main importance consists in the fact that this thesis is presented
for the first time (explicitly) as a meta-ontological thesis, even if “ante litteram”.
This “meta-” is justified precisely by an asymmetry that, for Bolzano, never
became an ontological dualism or, what amounts to the same thing, a logical
Platonism. This meta-ontological thesis affirms indeed an asymmetry, which had
never been affirmed before, neither by the critique of reason nor by the onto-
theo-logy it criticizes. This is because the question was concerning essentially the
possibility of affirming the existence of beings not outside of the ontology as
such but only outside of the horizon of perceptive experience.

12
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

The Kantian equivalence between “immanent ontology” and “analytic of

pure understanding”, in fact, from this point of view, adopted the same
speculative grammar of late scholastic metaphysics, only inserting a limitation to
perceptive impression in the possibility of speaking about ontology as such. This
introduction was decisive, but at the same time co-essential, from a meta-logical
point of view, to the onto-theo-logical thesis which we would criticize.
The Kantian prohibition provided by immanent ontology concerns beings
(roughly speaking, “objects”) like “soul”, “God” or a collection of objects like
“world” and does not affect as such the possibility to speak of a subsistence
[bestehen] concerning sense, or concerning a formal structure, as the subsistence
of a certain something [ein gewisses Etwas].
Here, Bolzano seems to follow Kant’s strong epistemological realism, but
only if we do not consider that quasi-ontological Nature of the “an sich”. As a
result, it is this “Nature” that correctly acknowledges the meta-ontological thesis
in all its importance. The quasi-ontological Nature of the “an sich” opens a
thematic space where we can describe an ontological horizon and where, at the
same time, we can fix its exception as residual. This residual field of that
thematic and meta-ontological space, which represents the outside of the
ontological domain of wirkliches Sein, does not contain many metaphysical beings
− described in themselves as Realities [Realitäten] − but only a-physical beings,
completely different from the thing with its properties (like a Kantian heritage)
as well as from mental states, i.e. the judgements or the subjective representation
as paqemata thς ψuchς. That meta-ontological thesis is indeed so radical that it
includes, in the domain of ontology, the mental states – taken as acts of grasping
the non-ontological, the quasi-ontological objects of “an sich”:

“A truth in itself is not just a thought or recognized truth

considered in abstracto, i.e. wrenched from its psychological context.
For even out of its psychological context (i.e. without a
consideration of this context), each recognized truth still has an
existence as a cognition or judgment in a certain individual at a
certain time; further, it has a greater or lesser intensity and
vividness, and is made with a greater or lesser degree of
coincidence: all predicates than in no way apply to truths in
themselves” [BOLZANO 2004, 113].

13
 Fausto Fraisopi

The thematic space described in the meta-ontological thesis of “an sich”

contains completely new objectivities [Gegenständlichkeiten], residual beings, other
than physical things or mental states. On the one hand, there is therefore the
space of so-called “semantic objectivism” − that is not really logical Platonism −
whose objectivities cannot be fully individuated. On the other hand, there is the
horizon of the effective, which is rendered meaningful by the thesis of
epistemological realism: Without exception, objects have and must denote a
space-time individuation. Is there ontology without individuation i.e.
independently from the quantification of variables? In this case, can we also call
it “ontology”? Should we rather consider the place of this ontology in an
ontological Neverland? Bolzano’s answer to the two first questions is clearly and
definitely negative. The answer to the third is, in terms of Bolzano’s philosophy,
uncertain: We must complete it with another theoretical step.
But why, at least, does the “an sich” appear to be provided with a quasi-
ontological status rather than affirmed as a flatus vocis? Has the kind of Platonism
allowing us to speak about propositions and representations in themselves in a
non-nominalistic way finally been excluded? This is the alternative Bolzano tries
to avoid for his meta-ontological perspective, as is sketched in § 51.
The element that removes this alternative is to be found in this same
mereological interlocking that brings from the whole of the proposition in itself
to the objective representations as parts and then, to the syntactic articulation
between representation-subject/connection/representation-predicate. This
notion, meta-logical and meta-ontological at the same time, is the “something”
[Etwas], the thing [Ding] that introduces the neutral notion of “object”
[Gegenstand] into Bolzano’s meta-ontology.

“Also, the question “what does the word ‘thing’ mean for me?” has
been answered. For me, it is equivalent to “something”, and
accordingly the widest concept of all” [BOLZANO 2004, 110/1].

The “something” (or object) plays precisely the role of relativizing the
wirkliches Sein, and is to present itself as a “general form” grounded upon the
primitive character of the relation between representation and what is
represented. The “something” is so general and comprehensive that it cannot be
defined by means of thought: a form that resides even above the distinction

14
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

between concrete and abstract. The mere fact of speaking about something in a
merely logical way, and therefore, in the perspective of Theory of science, upon the
meta-ontological separation from the Wirklichkeit, involves a proto-theory of the
object that allows us to “speak about”. Bolzano states:

“Even an idea, since it too is something, and thus an object (in the
widest sense of the word), can have characteristics. Thus, for
example, a certain idea might have the characteristic of simplicity,
another than of compositeness” [BOLZANO 2004, 43].

The “something”, that is described in the thematic opening of Bolzano’s

meta-ontology − exceeds also, so to speak, that quasi-ontology that oversteps the
bounds of the horizon of effectivity [Wirklichkeit] to grasp the objectivity of
logical and formal structures: the meaning, being impotent to constitute the form
of the “an sich”, its structures, and to determine the primitive relation between
representation and what is represented, acknowledged in the “something” − so
that, because of this, even the non-objectual representation depends from this
relation − is “transcendental”.
It is precisely the “something”, as the general form of concept [Begriff] that
describes the thematic space of meta-ontology. Nevertheless, this sketch of a
theory of object [Gegenstandstheorie] not only extends our ontological outfit but, at
the same time, allows us to face a new form of Combinatorics. This describes a
new way to think the essence of logic.
Indeed, this potentially infinite Combinatorics of the “something”, i.e. of the
representations and propositions in its quasi-ontological autonomy, is so large as
to overstep the capacities [Fahigkeiten] of the subject, overstepping the domain of
the meaningful [cogitabile]

1) to consider the different sizes of ideas bring us to the idea of a

representation which size will be larger than that of all other
representations. But after a deep reflection, we must acknowledge
that such a representation cannot exists.

“I mean nevertheless that they exists such ideas who are absolutely
widest and highest. And I mean that the idea of a certain something
[Etwas] or that of an object in general is already such a

15
 Fausto Fraisopi

representation. Because we state of a idea, that she get an extension

if they are certain objects those are be represented by him. The
extension of a idea cannot consequently be wider than in the case
of she contain any object that can be given. That’s precisely what
realise the representation of an object or a something in general.
Who agree with this will can easily find many other representations
of the same size: i. e. the idea what isn’t nothing like all the others
who contain the concept of negation two for two” [BOLZANO,
1929, §99, 53].

The possibility “of saying something meaningful”, determines not much the
“something” and the autonomy described from this general form. At the same
time, this possibility cannot determine the extension and the release of the logical
Combinatorics between representations and propositions in themselves. Indeed,
the meaningful [cogitabile] appears already as a representative composition of the
“something” and the possibility (necessarily subjective) of meaning as such −
therefore, the possibility of grasping a proposition and an idea in themselves
(modifier and not determining predicate) − it appears also entirely different from
the “something”. The meaningful is constitutively contained in an ontology from
an already necessarily “ontologized” form of being.
By this assumption, Bolzano can overtake all late scholastic tradition and, at
the same time, the Kantian theory of modality, according to which the possible
was understood only as “possible experience”, as functional to its inclusion in
the domain of effectivity [Wirklichkeit]. Nevertheless, this overtaking became
possible only on the ground of the so called “revolution of analyticity”. At first,
this overtaking is, so to speak, a parte ante − oriented to the Leibnitian ideal of a
universal logical language, which had been almost completely excluded from the
transcendental philosophy and had completely lost its importance in the late-
scholastic metaphysical system of Wolff. But the issue of this renovation of the
Leibnitian project needs full understanding. As Joëlle Proust says:

“Without undertaking the Leibnitian project of an universal

characteristic, because of its defiance in regard to symbolizing
formalism, the Theory of science offers a speculative equivalent: there
is the ideal set of significations, decomposable in their element and
fixed. That’s not the symbolism who creates this precise and

16
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

definitive determination of sense, but its belonging to a set that is

pure and separated from the variations linked to individual
existence and to the future of language” [PROUST 1987, 84].

Bolzano establishes, in his speculative perspective, the idea of a universal

logical language – one that cannot necessarily be formalized by symbols −
radicalizing two basic Leibnitian concepts: The inexplicit idea of a substantial
independence of eternal truths from divine understanding, and the combinatoric
idea of substitutivity salva veritate i .
The quasi-ontology of “an sich”, indeed, simply radicalizes the assumption on
which Leibniz was ambiguous in §§ 43-46 of Monadology, i.e., the radically anti-
Cartesian thesis about the impossibility of creation (or only modification) of
eternal truthsii. The prerogative that the quasi-ontology of “an sich” can concede
to God is only an infinitely more powerful grasp of propositions and
representations in themselves than men can ever obtain.
The proposition in itself, ontologically independent from human
understanding, assembles men and God in the same impossibility to affect in any
way the “an sich”: neither men nor God create the significations by which they
obtain knowledge. Nevertheless, as we have already said, there is another
difference in relation to the Leibnitian onto-theo-logy, that makes it so that the
Bolzanian project in the Theory of science is oriented to a completely other
epistemic dimension. Indeed, in spite of the greatness of the Leibnitian project
of mathesis universalis, we must make the same remarks concerning the Leibnitian
Combinatorics: it always constitutively develops itself in connection with a
strong metaphysical presupposition. By this presupposition, the proposition
always represents, in a logical image, the relations and the states between
monads, of which God is the root (the source)iii. Is it the same for Bolzano?
Exactly speaking, no, because the relation − as we will see − is inverted.
The quasi-ontology of “an sich” and the combinatorial nature that will be
assigned to the logical objectivity given the absolute neutrality of the something,
describes a space entirely and ontologically autonomous of the Combinatorics
(in the sense of autonomy from an ontology and not, like for logical Platonism,
of an autonomous ontology!). Only after this statement of the ontological
autonomy − but only from an epistemological point of view − must we try to
establish the correspondence (the specularity) between a proposition in itself,

17
 Fausto Fraisopi

grasped in its completely self-subsistent objectivity, and a state of affairs. The

judgement of a transcendental ego is neutralized and, therefore, is also
neutralized by the Kantian prejudice against analytic judgement. A
Combinatorics that is not oriented in a metaphysical sense of the primitive
notion − framed in an onto-theo-logic viewiv − nor structured by a simply
syntactical form, must reinstate the concept of analyticity and enlarge the notion
of truth. As Joëlle Proust says, “the new revolution that Bolzano creates
concerning analyticity consists in the fact that this analyticity is grounded more
upon what the proposition of a same family doesn’t says than on what it does
say”. The research does not concern intentions or concepts but references of
which we must only compare the extension. We must not ask if a predicate
“belongs” to a concept, but if the individuals obtained from the predicate
include individuals that are indicated by the subject. By the Leibniz’s syntactical
criterion of truth, the partial definition must prove that the predicate was as well
contained in the subject. On the contrary, Bolzano proposes a semantic
criterion”. This criterion is at first semantic “because it supposes the reference to
an objective world where things can be enumerated and classified following its
properties”. It is at the same time, therefore, “extensional, because the models
contain classes of individuals respectively related by relations of inclusion”.
“That’s also inclusion both classes that explains what is the convenience between
terms” [Proust 1987, 111]. In spite of the definition given in On the mathematical
method, a definition clearly and exclusively formal [Bolzano 2004, 47], the
combinatorial possibility of substitution salva veritate, far from presenting in itself
only a senseless mechanical game, plays the rule of sense-making. The method of
variation, a mathematical model only of predicative logic substitution, plays the
most fundamental rule for science, i.e. that of grasping new propositional entities
ontologically autonomous and therefore new truths in themselves:

“I showed in the preceding that there are universally satisfable as

well as non-satisfiable propositions, given that certain of their parts
are considered variable. It was also shown that propositions which
have either of these properties on the assumption that i,j....are
variable, do not retain this status if different or additional ideas are
taken as variable. It is particularly easy to see that no proposition
could be formed so as to retain such a property if all its ideas were

18
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

considered variable. For if we could arbitrarily vary all constituent

ideas of a proposition, we could transform it into any other
proposition whatever, and thus could turn it into a true, as well as a
false, proposition. But it would be important enough to deserve
notice if a proposition contained even a single idea which could be
arbitrarily changed without altering the truth or falsity of the
proposition; i. e. the propositions which could be obtained from it
through the arbitrary alteration of this one idea would either all be
true or false, provided only they have reference. Borrowing this
expression from Kant, I allow myself to call propositions of this
kind analytic. All other propositions, i.e. all those which do not
contain any ideas which can be changed without altering their truth
or falsity, I call synthetic” [BOLZANO 1973, §148, 198].

This logical opening would be impossible without the quasi-ontology of “an

sich”, which safeguards the value of propositional truth from the subjective
dimension and renews − on the basis of the method of variation − the meaning
of analyticity. There is no more need to recur to the conceptual pair
implicit/explicit, as it happens, on the contrary, in Leibniz, Kant, and in post-
Kantian Logic as well.
The conceptual component, endowed with an entirely different status,
subsists “elsewhere” − an elsewhere that is nowhere in the sense of spatial and
temporal individuation, but that is elsewhere only in the meta-ontological sense. It
is elsewhere in relation to the implicit and explicit, as in mental states, those that
belong exclusively to the cogitatio possibilis, to the meaningful and not to the
autonomy of semantic entities. For this reason, the Bolzanian concept of
Combinatorics must rest unsatisfied by a simple explanation based upon the
conceptual pair implicit/explicit:

“Generally, it seems to me that none of these explications

sufficiently emphasizes what makes these propositions important. I
believe that this importance lies in the fact that their truth or falsity
does not depend upon the concept of which they are composed,
but that it remains the same irrespective of the changes to which
some of their concepts are subjected, provided only that reference
of the proposition is not destroyed” [BOLZANO 1973, § 148,
201].

19
 Fausto Fraisopi

Bolzano reaffirms here not only that postulate of mereological priority of the
proposition with respect to representation in itself as a fundamental thesis
against the traditional conception of analytic judgement – a conception which
represents, finally, the presupposition of a Platonic hypostatization of semantic
entities. Bolzano affirms here, moreover, the semantic (but non-ontological)
importance of Combinatorics.
The proposition in its autonomous consistence already has its truth-value,
and its truth-value does not prejudge the importance of the variation or
substitutivity salva veritate, in spite of the adoption of a transcendental point of
view. Indeed, from a transcendental point of view (a logic that acknowledges to
the judgement the function of revealing a new truth as synthetic judgements), an
analytic judgement is fully useless, because it hides already in itself, implicitly, the
truth.
The cognitive enrichment of the analytic resides clearly sic et simpliciter in the
Combinatorics of autonomous quasi-ontological entities. Otherwise, as Bolzano
states at the beginning of § 12, the value of the analytic judgement would be far
too small. The cognitive richness of analyticity must also be strongly stated
because the variation is exactly not a question of a banal logical operation. The
variation does not just explicate what was only implicit, but also, allows us to
grasp new propositions in its quasi-ontological autonomy: new entities that,
belonging to the “same family”, come with a truth-value in themselves.
Is it true, then, that Bolzano comes back to a “pre-critical conception of
truth”? It is true, indeed, that he searches for the definition of truth not in the
product of a judgment (as an ontological event, or as a mental state) but only in
the correspondence between a proposition and a state of affairs. But this remark
does not do full justice to the radicalism of the Bolzanian approach.
The ontological autonomy of propositions and the method of variation
introduce in the realm of conceptual a different complexity from those that
characterized pre-Kantian logic and ontology. Bolzano’s “ordo idearum”, so to
speak, do not receive its grasp on reality because is perfectly isomorphous to the
idea the God has of this reality. Bolzano enlarges our ontological outfit via the
introduction of the quasi-ontology of “an sich” in order to pursue a double
speculative approach: 1) the negation of the naive symmetry between ordo rerum
and ordo idearum, found in late scholastic metaphysics, and of its foundation in

20
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

the onto-theo-logical presupposition (i. e. Wolff’s divine understanding); 2) the

enlargement of our sights on the horizon of ideality of formal structures. This
enlargement concerns precisely mathematics; not solely, as it happened with
Kant, the pro-syllogistic chains of consecutio rationum. Moreover, Bolzano
develops, as the theoretical point we was searching for, an essential and decisive
dissymmetry from an epistemological point of view: a dissymmetry between the
realm of wirkliches sein, of ontology, whose opening is fixed and whose objects are
necessarily what they are, and the quasi-ontological field of an infinitely formal
Combinatorics that enlarges itself more and more.
The enrichment of the Bolzanian universe is therefore not only to be found
in the introduction of the quasi-ontology of “an sich”, as if this latter were an
absolutely static component, but precisely in its dynamism. This field of semantic
objects (as horizon of speech) can inflate and enlarge indefinitely, keeping safe
formal consistence at the same time. This change entirely the situation, because
the reassignment of these entities in the realm of knowledge of reality,
(necessarily structured by semantic idealities) is based upon this dissymmetry
between a ontology and a quasi-ontology.
Indeed, by the syntactical operations of substitution, which enlarge our
semantical-formal outfit, only our knowledge of reality is to become enriched (at
least in its possibility). If the quasi-ontology of “an sich” cannot effectively
produce anything in ontology, in the domain of the wirkliches Sein, it has,
nevertheless, a real and massive productivity with respect to our approach to
reality, our approach to relational configurations of effective being. This is
fundamentally far more essential than simple, naive productivity. The “quasi”
ontology of “an sich”, in its ambiguity, inserts precisely this dissymmetry in the
epistemological meaning and opens, at the same time, by means of
Combinatorics, an enlarged possibility of a conceptual (representational) grasp of
reality. This was impossible for pre-critical and critical conceptions of analyticity.
But this ambiguity must face a dilemma, even if we do not want to accept it as an
epistemological hypothesis as such. The dilemma consists in the decision that we
can make − from a speculative and meta-ontological point of view − about this
“quasi”. We could pursue the enlargement to our ontological outfit and admit −
why not? − one, two, three, n other ontologies. We could also affirm an
ontological dualism where one of two ontological fields is constituted by many

21
 Fausto Fraisopi

classes (typologies) of formal objects, each enriching itself in a indefinine,

inflationistic way. That’s the Meinongian way of ontology.
But we can nevertheless come back, more attentively, to the subjective
modalities by which the specular dissymmetry between formal idealities and the
ontological realm is articulated. This is the phenomenological way of ontology.
There are, essentially, two speculative projects strictly related to two different
concepts of the descriptive method. We must decide, at least, which between
these two projects contributes more deeply to define a mathesis universalis. The
mathesis, in this renewed sense, can only represent the same science that, as
Bolzano states in § 1 of Theory of science, appears in all the treatises we can
compose starting from this fundamental ambiguity of the quasi-ontology of “an
sich”.

22
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

REFERENCES LIST

BOLZANO B., On the mathematical method and correspondence with

Exner, Translated by Paul Rusnock and Rolf George, Amsterdam-
Atlanta, Rodopi, 2004

BOLZANO B., Theory of science, Edited, with an introduction, by Jan

Berg. Translated from the German by Burnham Terrell - D. Reidel
Publishing Company, Dordrecht and Boston 1973

BOLZANO B., Wissenschaftslehre, in Bernard Bolzano-Gesamtausgabe,

Bd. II.3, Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, 1929,

DANEK J., Weiterentwicklung der Leibnizschen Logik bei

Bolzano, Hain, Misenheim a.G., 1970

HUSSERL E., Formale und transzendentale Logik, Hua 17, Den Haag,
M. Nijoff, 1974; transl. Formal and transcendental Logic, Den Haag, M.
Njioff, 1969, p. 80.

HUSSERL E., Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und

phänomenologischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch, Die Phänomenologie und die
Fundamente der Wissenschaften, Hua 5, Den Haag, M. Nijoff, 1952;
transl. Ideas pertaining to a pure Phenomenology and to a phenomenological
Philosophy, Third Book, The Phenomenology and the Foundation of the
Sciences, in Husserl Collected Works, Volume I, Dordrecht-Boston-
London, 1980.

LEIBNIZ G.W., Generales Inquisitiones de Analysi Notionum et

Veritatum, in Opuscules et fragments inédits, 356-398, 2.
Nachdruckauflage, Hildesheim-Zürich-New York, 1988

LEIBNIZ G.W., Discourse on Metaphysics, Correspondance with Arnauld

and Monadology, Translated by George R. Montgomery, Open Court,
La Salle, 1902, II ed. Prometheus Book, 1992.

23
 Fausto Fraisopi

MADDY P., Platonism in Mathematics, Oxford, Clarendon Press,

1990

PROUST J., Questions de forme. Logique et proposition analytique de Kant

à Carnap, Paris, Fayard, 1987

RUSNOCK P., Bolzano´s philosophy and the emergence of new mathematics,

Atlanta-Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2000

RUSSELL B., A critical exposition of philosophy of Leibniz, Cosimo,

New York, II ed., 2008

SIEBESTIK J., Logique et mathématique chez Bernard Bolzano, Paris,

Vrin, 1992

TARSKI A., Introduction to logic and to Methodology of Deductive Sciences,

Dover, New York,1941, II ed. 1994.

24
 The Quasi-Ontology of the « an sich » by Bolzano

NOTES
i For this principle, see the formalisation given by TARSKY 1994, 55. See also LEIBNIZ, 1988,
362 : “Coincidit A ipsi B, si alterum in alterius locum substitui potest salva veritate, seu si
resolvendo utrumque per substitutionem valorum < (seu definitionem) > in locum terminorum,
utrobique prodeunt eadem, eadem inquam formaliter, ut si utrobique prodeat Salva enim veritate
fiunt mutationes quae fiunt substituendo definitionem in locum definiti vel contra. < Hinc
sequitur, si A coincidit ipsi B, etiam B coincidit ipsi A >”.
ii LEIBNIZ , 1992, 260-261.
iii See the interesting approach of DANEK, 1970, 35-73.
iv See LEIBNIZ, 1988, 360 :« Termini primitivi simplices vel interim pro ipsis assumendi, sunto:

Terminus (quo comprehendo tam Ens quam Non-Ens). Ens < seu possibile > (intelligo autem
semper concretum, quia abstacta tanquam non necessaria exclusi). Existens (licet revera reddi possit
causa existentiae, et definiri posset Existens, quod cum pluribus compatibile est quam quodlibet
aliud incompatibile cum ipso. Nos tamen his tanquam altioribus abstinemus). Individuum (Etsi enim
Ens omne revera sit individuum, nos tamen terminos definimus, qui designant, vel quodlibet
individuum determinatum, ut Home seu quilibet homo, significat quodlibet individuum naturae
humanae paticeps. At certum individuum est hic, quem designo vel monstrando vel addendo notas
distinguentes (quanquam < enim > perfecte distinguentes ab aliis individuis occurentibus).) Ego
(est aliquid peculiare, et difficulter explicabile in hac notione, ideo cum integralis sit, ponendam <
hic > putavi) ».

25