Seminar in Contemporary Philosophy - B

Bolzano. Who is the greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century? For some (of us), there is no contest: it is Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848). The first analytic philosopher (Sebestik), the grandfather of analytic philosophy (Dummett), Bolzano is much more than just the great anticipator – of Frege’s semantic platonism, Tarski’s analysis of logical consequence, Quine’s theory of logical truth. Yes, he did anticipate all these reinvented wheels. But he is much more. A post-Leibnizian, post-Kantian monadologist, an early and non-Anglo-Saxon utilitarian, a rationalist divine, a proto set-theorist, an early advocate of logical rigour in mathematics, an anti-sectarian, anti-nationalist liberal, dogged by ill health, persecuted by church and state for his unorthodox and uncomfortable views, he was marginalised for the rest of the nineteenth century. It took until the late twentieth century for his genius to be recognised. Can a philosopher born a quarter millennium ago be a contemporary? Can we learn from his successes and his failures? Let us see. The most important of his writings, the four-volume Wissenschaftslehre, is now available in English translation, so in due course, the world may catch up with us pioneer Bolzano advocates. Theory of Science is the work that anchors his claim to greatness, but his achievements in other subdisciplines of philosophy merit serious scrutiny, because of his prime analytical virtue: clarity. No human is infallible, and nor was Bolzano, but if any philosopher should count as the Patron of Analytic Philosophy at USI, it is he.

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