Semantics and ontology: Reflections on the Wissenschaftslehre of Bolzano

Abstract

The article addresses certain fundamental passages from Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre, by analyzing some of his key concepts such as «propositions in themselves» or «representations in themselves». We focus on the peculiar ontological status of these «entities in themselves» (an sich) presented by Bolzano, in order to show that his work develops an authentic semantic theory of the dimension of sense and of the thinkable, which not only does not depend on ontology but it exceeds it.