Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

This is the first complete English translation of Bernard Bolzano's four-volume Wissenschaftslehre or Theory of Science, a masterwork of theoretical philosophy. Bolzano (1781-1848), one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, was a man of many parts. Best known in his own time as a teacher and public intellectual, he was also a mathematician and logician of rare ability, the peer of other pioneers of modern mathematical logic such as Boole, Frege, and Peirce. As Professor of Religion at the Charles University in Prague from 1805, he proved to be a courageous and determined critic of abuses in church and state, a powerful advocate for reform. Dismissed by the Emperor in 1819 for political reasons, he left public life and spent the next decade working on his "theory of science," which he also called logic. The resulting Wissenschaftslehre, first published in 1837, is a monumental, wholly original study in logic, epistemology, heuristics, and scientific methodology. Unlike most logical studies of the period, it is not concerned with the "psychological self-consciousness of the thinking mind." Instead, it develops logic as the science of "propositions in themselves" and their parts, especially the relations between these entities. It offers, for the first time in the history of logic, a viable definition of consequence (or deducibility), and a novel view of probability. Giving constant attention to Bolzano's predecessors and contemporaries, with particular emphasis on Kant, this richly documented work is also a valuable source for the history of logic and philosophy. Each volume of the edition is accompanied by a detailed introduction, which alerts the reader to the historical context of Bolzano's work and illuminates its continued relevance.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.