Bernard Bolzano: Study of science – Different types of propositions

From general characteristics of all or most propositions, Bolzano moves to characteristics that could be used to classify different propositions. He begins by noting that no propositions are truly simple, because they all have subject, copula and predicate. Still, he points out, we can differentiate between simple propositions, where both the subject and the predicate are simple (copula is, of course, always simple “have”), and complex propositions, where at least one of the subject and the predicate is not simple.

Another of Bolzano's divisions concerns the question, whether some of the representations in a proposition are intuitions. Thus, he calls a proposition with nothing but pure concepts a conceptual proposition (conceptual truth, if it is a true proposition) and a proposition with at least one intuition an empirical proposition.

Bolzano notes that in his suggested form of propositions, the predicate is always abstract. Then again, depending on whether the subject is abstract or concrete, we could speak of abstract and concrete propositions. Bolzano points out that some representations are not abstract nor concrete (e.g. pure intuitions), so if such happens to be the subject of a proposition, this proposition is then not abstract nor concrete.

Bolzano lists types of propositions involving notions of collections, which due to their simplicity we need not go through in detail. Thus, he mentions e.g. collective and distributive propositions, with collective and distributive representations as their subjects (“ A, B and C together…” and “each of A, B and C…” being exemplary forms) which differ from propositions with collective and distributive predicates (both have the form “A has b and c”, but in one the predicate is understood collectively, in the other distributively). We might still mention Bolzano’s assertion of equality (“characteristic m belongs to objects A, B, C… together”), assertion of difference (“relation of A, B, C… to F, G, H… is such that the first have a characteristic m, the latter don't”) and determination (“characteristic m belongs exclusively to A, B, C…).

Moving on to propositions with negative representations, Bolzano thinks that since completely negative representations represent no object and thus no characteristics, they cannot appear as subject or predicate in any propositions. On the other hand, he continues, “something that is no A” can, so that we could at least have propositions with negative subjects.

Bolzano notes that often negation is said to be attached to copula, but he thinks it is actually the predicate that is actually then negative. True, he admits, language does often attach negation to the verb, but so it does with probability or necessity, which, according to him, do not characterise the copula, but the whole proposition. Thus, Bolzano concludes, negation seemingly attached to copula is actually attached to the whole proposition and indicates that the proposition is false. He justifies this statement with the example of a proposition with many objects in the subject: “all A do not have b” does not mean that for each A, they would not have b, but only that it is not true that all A have b. Even if the subject is singular object, we can say “A has no b”, which indicates a lack of characteristic b, that is, a characteristic of not-b, which Bolzano then takes as the defining moment of negative propositions, in difference from affirmative propositions.

Bolzano notes an interesting connection between negative and collective propositions. While propositions with collective and distributive predicates are equivalent when affirmative, they are not so when negative: “A has not the collection of characteristics b, c …” means not the same as “A has not any of characteristics b, c…”, because in the former case it still can have some of the characteristics in the collection. Generally all types of propositions have their affirmative and negative version, and if there’s nothing remarkable about their difference, I shall not mention them, even if Bolzano does.

From the standpoint of logic itself, Bolzano notes, it is remarkable that some propositions handle either representations or other propositions. If a proposition deals with a representation, he points out, its subject must then be a representation of a representation. A simple example is a proposition stating that a representation has – or has not – objects. Indeed, all the notions dealt in Bolzano's discussion of representations have their own corresponding propositions – for instance, we might assert a representation to be general or to be comprehend by another representation – and I will also skip this part of Bolzano's account as rather simple repetition.

Moving on to propositions about propositions, Bolzano notes that at this point he can deal only with propositions about characteristics of propositions, since their relations haven't been considered yet. In fact, he at this point mentions only the affirmation of A, saying that a proposition A has truth, and the corresponding negation of A, which says that proposition A has no truth.

Previous types of propositions appear in all sciences, Bolzano continues, but there are some that are useful, although they appear only in some sciences. His first example is the existential proposition that asserts or denies the existence of something.

An important type of propositions for Bolzano is formed by those describing mental phenomena, that is, effects caused by the soul, either within the soul itself or outside it. Two of such phenomena are already familiar to us, namely, subjective representations and. judgements. In addition to these, Bolzano mentions sensations of convenience or inconvenience, accompanying representations, wishes or desires, caused by judgements that certain objects would cause a sensation of convenience, volitions, which differ from desires by concerning what we should do, no matter if it is inconvenient, and actions, which are changes caused by volition on our soul or on certain other substances, primarily our organs and through them surrounding objects. All of these phenomena, Bolzano suggests, come with their own propositions, which may or may not assert the person e.g. sensing something.

An important subtype of propositions concerning mental phenomena is formed by propositions with the concept described by the German word Sollen (what ought to or should be done). Bolzano notes that the concept of Sollen properly applies only to actions or actually to decisions of will: each decision has a characteristic it should have. Thus, he defines an ethically good decision as such that is as it should be, whether it is a duty or just commendable decision, and the corresponding proposition he then calls an ethical proposition. On the other hand, Bolzano notes, propositions like “it should rain” use the concept improperly, expressing merely the uncertainty of what is asserted. A related notion is that what we may or are allowed to do, which can be defined as not something we should not do, and the corresponding proposition Bolzano calls an assertion of permission.

Another important subtype of propositions involving mental phenomena Bolzano considers are propositions about desires or problems (something is desired to be done). He is especially interested in problems that assert a wish for truth with certain characteristics, that is, in questions. More precisely, Bolzano explains, questions do not ask for truths in themselves (as he has said many times, these do not exist), but their appearance in mind as a thought or their linguistic expressions. He lists some subspecies of questions, such as questions for truth or falsity of a given proposition (e.g. is it true that God exists), questions about predicates for given subjects (e.g. what are the characteristics of triangles) and questions about subject for given predicates (e.g. who is the tallest person on Earth). An important subtype for sciences is formed of practical or technical questions, which Bolzano also calls problems in a stricter sense and which require truths describing how to reach a certain goal. Some questions, he notes, are determined in the sense that they correspond to only one or several equivalent truths, some are undetermined or correspond to many non-equivalent truths, while others are impossible or imaginary in the sense that they demand characteristics that are not to be found in any truth.

Bolzano goes on to mention some quite basic divisions of propositions: they can have a subject that represents no object or a subject that represents at least one object, and if latter, they can have only one object or many and maybe even infinite objects. He also points out the division that has already been mentioned many times, at least covertly, namely, that of true and false propositions.

Furthermore, Bolzano again reminds the reader that truth or falsity is an unchanging feature of a proposition, and if we appear to speak of propositions changing truth value, we are actually speaking of linguistic expressions that can change the proposition they signify, if they include words like now or this. He develops this idea by suggesting that we could think of some parts of propositions as variables, where the change of the variable part could generate propositions with different features – proposition referring to no object could become a proposition referring to some object or a true proposition could become false. If we determined the possible results of the variable, Bolzano notes, we could then measure how many of these variations are true and how many false. Thus, he defines validity of a proposition as a relation of the number of its true variations to the number of all variations: of course, this proportion is dependent on what parts are chosen as being variable. Bolzabo then defines a universally valid or formally true proposition as having the validity of 1, while a universally invalid or formally false proposition has then the validity of 0.

Related to this notion of validity, Bolzano points out that no proposition is formally true or false, if all its representations are taken as variables. Still, he thinks, it is of interest if there is at least one representation, such that taking it as variable, the proposition is formally true or false (for instance, “a human that is evil deserves no praise”, when the representation “human” is taken as variable). Bolzano decides to call such propositions analytical, while a synthetical proposition is then such that it has no representation that could be taken as variable so that the proposition would then be formally true or false. He then goes on to list some examples of very general analytical truths: identical or tautological proposition “A is A” – or as Bolzano prefers to say, “A has a” – “A that is B is A”, “A that is B is B” and “every object is either B or not-B”. He points out that all the examples he just listed were such that they are formally true, if all but logical parts (whatever that means – Bolzano admits that the notion is hazy) are taken as variables and decides to call them logically analytical propositions.

Another feature related to the notion of variables in propositions is what Bolzano calls a conversion of a proposition, where two representations within the same proposition change their place. If such replacing does not change the truth value of the proposition (for instance, if it is true both that Titus loves Cajus and that Cajus loves Titus), he calls the proposition convertible or reciprocable proposition. Bolzano then defines analytically reciprocable proposition as such where the changed representations could be anything without changing truth or falsehood, like in the proposition “A that is B is A”.

Bernard Bolzano: Study of science – What are propositions made of?

Having described various characteristics and relations of representations in great detail, Bolzano turns next to certain combinations of representations or propositions. He reminds the reader that we are again talking about propositions in themselves, not our thoughts of propositions or judgements. In Bolzano’s opinion, he has sufficiently justified the notion of a proposition in itself in his fundamental theory, so he can right away move to discussing their further characteristics. Just like with representations, he will begin with general characteristics of all or most of propositions, then move on to speak about different types of internal characteristics propositions and finally deal with different relations propositions have to one another. Somewhat differently from representations, Bolzano will then consider propositions involving such relations and in the last section propositions that have a linguistic expression which makes it hard to analyse their constituents.

Starting with the characteristics of all propositions, Bolzano begins with the most obvious one that propositions in themselves do not exist unlike our thoughts or assertions about propositions. He adds another quite familiar characteristic that a proposition is composed of representations, which makes it then sensible to define a content of a proposition as the sum of all its parts. What is perhaps not as evident is that propositions can be used to make indefinitely more new propositions, Bolzano notes: we can make representations out of propositions or of collections of them, and when something is said of this representation, we formulate a new proposition with the original ones as its constituents.

Bolzano is dedicated to the idea that every proposition is either true or false. True, he admits, a verbal expression might be true in one sense and false in another or its truth could be completely indeterminate, but this is not true of propositions in themselves. Furthermore, as Bolzano has pointed out earlier, every proposition is fixed to a particular time, so that it is either always true or always false, that is, incapable of changing its truth or falsity.

Bolzano states that at least all true propositions, and if not all, at least many of the others also, concern some object. The representation of this object, he continues, is then a constituent of the proposition, namely, its subject. Furthermore, Bolzano adds, if not all, at least many propositions assert some characteristic about this object, and the representation of this characteristic is the constituent of the proposition called the predicate. In addition to the subject and the predicate, he concludes, a proposition must still contain a third representation connecting the predicate to the subject or the copula, which Bolzano always takes to be the representation of having.

“A has b”, where A represents an object and b its abstracted characteristic, is for Bolzano a general formula of propositions. He admits that all propositions do not appear to fit into this formula, but thinks that on a closer analysis they can be seen to follow it. Thus, Bolzano argues, every proposition contains a verb, which always contains, according to him, the representation of having. For instance, “A works” can be analysed into “A is working” and this again further into “A has the characteristic of working”. Generally, Bolzano says, every proposition of the form “A is B”, where B means a concrete object with some characteristic b, can be turned into a form “A has b”. This is true, he insists, even of propositions with seemingly simple verbs like “A should”, “A acts”, “A wants” and “A senses”, which he turns into propositions “A has an obligation”, “A has activity”, “A has a want” and “A has a sensation”. A peculiar case is that of the propositions of the form “A is”, but Bolzano thinks they could be transformed into “A has existence”.

There are still quite difficult looking propositions, such as the traditional hypothetical and disjunctive propositions, and Bolzano is willing to ignore them for now and to deal with them later. Instead, he notes that the supposed inflections of the verb according to its person, number or gender are just a feature of natural language, which has the habit of repeating information, just in case the listener or the reader misses something, and do not concern the copula. Similarly, Bolzano says, the temporal determination of verbs – even when dealing with timeless entities, like numbers – is just another feature of the natural language, and in a proposition it is actually the subject that is determined by time (in other words, it always represented an object at some time – or then a timeless entity). Similar questions concern such additional determinations as “often”, “rarely” and “probably”, which he understands to relate the whole proposition to our capacity of knowledge or to other propositions. Then again, negation Bolzano considers to be a determination of the predicate (in other words, “that picture is not beautiful” means actually “that picture has a lack of beauty”).

Bolzano has now managed to define the concept of proposition through the concept of representation: it is a combination of two arbitrary representations through the concept of having, where having is the copula, that which has is the subject and that which is had is the predicate. Yet, he adds, there is nothing to guarantee that a representation is a simpler concept than proposition, since we could also define representations as constituents of propositions.

Bolzano has already mentioned that most and at least all true propositions speak of some objects. This makes it sensible to define, like with representations, the extension of proposition and to distinguish it from the mere quantity of this extension. In fact, Bolzano states, the extension of a proposition is simply the same as the extension of its subject, and indeed, the subject points out all the objects the proposition is about. On the contrary, extension of the predicate, he adds, is not the same as the extension of the proposition and it is quite indeterminate, which portion of this extension is handled by the proposition: for instance, “Caius has understanding” does not mean that Caius has every sort of understanding, but only that he has the kind of understanding he has, and which kind, is uncertain.

Bernard Bolzano: Study of science – Kinds of characteristics

The final section of Bolzano’s study of representations concerns relations representations have to other things, although Bolzano notes many of them have to be left later, when these other things are treated specifically. Still, he begins by defining a correct representation of an object simply as a representation that truly is a representation of that object and similarly an incorrect representation of an object as one that is not. Bolzano points out that correctness and incorrectness are only external characteristics or relations of representation to a certain object, so that we cannot speak of correct or incorrect representations in isolation, although he does make the exception that imaginary representations can be always called incorrect, because they are not representations of any object.

Bolzano continues by noting that a correct representation of an object can be complete in the sense that any characteristics of the object can be derived from the proposition stating that the object is represented by the representation and truths recounting the characteristics of the representation – other representations are then incomplete. He explains further that a complete representation does not need to contain all the characteristics of the object as its constituents – indeed, he adds, there would be an infinity of such characteristics. Bolzano points out that a representation of an individual object is always a complete representation: otherwise, some characteristics of the object could not be derived from this representation, so that we could have another object without these characteristics fitting the representation, which would then not be a representation of just this individual object. This means, he argues, that all intuitions are complete representations.

Furthermore, Bolzano notes, if there are no two actually existing objects with the exact same characteristics, all complete representations must be singular representations, because a representation with multiple objects would have to leave some of their individual characteristics undetermined. He also adds that just like with the notion of correctness, we cannot say from a representation by itself whether it is complete, but this requires comparison with the object: the same representation can be complete for one and incomplete for another object. Bolzano will go on to note the same thing for nearly all notions studied in this chapter, and indeed, it is rather obvious, since he is dealing with notions inherently dependent on relations of representations to other things.

Bolzano moves on to discuss especially notions related to characteristics. Characteristics as such are, of course, not representations, but features of objects, thus, he underlines in many places that we are here actually speaking of representations of characteristics: despite the importance of difference for explaining the inclusion of these notions in a discussion of representations, we can usually just ignore it and just speak of characteristics directly.

Bolzano begins simply by defining a correct characteristic as such that belongs to an object corresponding to a certain representation (other characteristics are, of course, incorrect). A more interesting notion is that of an essential characteristic, which he defines as characteristic that is correct for an object of a pure concept (other characteristics are then inessential). Evidently, the less objects there are in the concept chosen, the more the object has essential characteristics. Thus, Bolzano argues, for a singular and therefore complete concept, all the characteristics of the object are essential. He also suggests that if a characteristic can be expressed by a pure concept, it will be essential for some pure concept (for instance, the concept of something that has this characteristic).

Bolzano defines as absolutely proper or exclusive characteristic as one that belongs to this object and no other and contextually proper or exclusive characteristic as one that belongs to this object and no other in some kind, to which the object belongs. Characteristics that do not fit even the definition of contextually exclusive characteristic are then common or shared characteristics. Bolzano notes that for an exclusive characteristic, the representation “something that has this characteristic” is a complete representation of the object, since it represents only this object.

Bolzano goes on to point out that absolutely or contextually exclusive characteristics can be used for recognising the object that has them and could then be called its distinguishing feature (Kennzeichen). Such a distinguishing sign can then consist of several characteristics, which he calls marks, defining them as characteristics that at leas in connection with others are suitable for recognising an object. If a collection of such marks are enough for recognising the object, Bolzano states, they should be called sufficient marks, while otherwise they are object: if a single mark is sufficient by itself, it is then also a distinguishing sign.

Bolzano also divides marks into immediate and mediate marks, where a mediate mark is essentially a mark of a mark: for instance, speaking is an immediate mark of reason and thus a mediate mark of humanity, he explains. Furthermore, Bolzano defines affirmative mark as a characteristic that does not belong to all things of a kind, but to some of them, and negative mark or condition as a characteristic that belongs to all things of a kind, but not exclusively to them. The meaning of these definitions lies in that a presence of positive mark can always reveal that an object belongs to the kind, but its absence does not guarantee that an object does not belong to it, while conversely the absence of negative mark shows that an object does not belong to a kind, while its presence does not guarantee that an object belongs to the kind. In this sense, distinguishing signs of some kind can then be called both affirmative and negative.

Bolzano defines original or constitutive characteristic as such that its representation is already a constituent in the representation describing the object – other characteristics of the object are then called derived or consecutive. He notes that if the representation in question is a pure concept, an original characteristic is essential to that concept. Then again, Bolzano assures the reader, an original characteristic need not be internal, because some representation of an object can concern only its relations: Bolzan’s example is the representation of the middlemost rose on his window.

Bolzano considers the question whether an original characteristic can be used as a distinguishing sign of the object. He notes that if we are dealing with an original characteristic connected to a general representation, the answer is negative, since then the characteristic cannot be exclusive to the object in question. Then again, if we are dealing with a singular representation, Bolzano ponders, the question hinges on whether any of the original characteristics could be used to derive the others. He ends the discussion of original characteristics by pointing out that although representation of each characteristic of an object belongs to constituents composing the representation of the object, we cannot say that each constituent of its representation is original or even expresses characteristic of the object (a simple example is a representation of not-red that has red as its constituent, which still is not characteristic of the object).

Bolzano ends the discussion of representations with the notion of a difference between two objects by defining it as a characteristic that belongs to one, but not to the other object. Like all characteristics, he notes, differences can be divided into internal and external, essential and inessential, shared and proper, and original and derived. Furthermore, Bolzano differentiates a numeric difference between individual things from a specific or generic difference between kinds and quantitative differences involving difference of quantities from all other, which he calls qualitative differences.

Bolzano also considers the question whether all two objects (that is, not just two representations of the same object) differ by some characteristic. He notes the obvious answer that the characteristic of being this object and not the other does the trick, but then specifies the question to ask for internal differences and not mere relations. Bolzano himself believes, like Leibniz, that this is true of actually existing objects. He argues for this by asking the reader to picture two completely identical objects: in order to be identical, they would have to be surrounded by exactly identical things and experience the exact same events – otherwise, these things and events could change their features from one another – which all is extremely improbable. In any case, Bolzano concludes, the Leibnizian principle seems to be true about at least most things.