Abstract
Abstract This chapter contains translations of excerpts from three early texts by Bolzano (written around 1810): ▪ the 1810 booklet Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics; ▪ the unpublished manuscript Aetiology; ▪ the unpublished manuscript General Mathematics. Topic-wise, the texts centre around scientific method and the foundations of mathematics. In the Contributions Bolzano discusses grounding in connection with three topics: the classification of mathematical disciplines, the notion of ground-revealing proofs and its relation to syllogistic inferences, and finally the notion of axioms or basic propositions. In the Aetiology Bolzano presents his first attempt at a rigorous, axiomatic theory of grounding and relates the concept of grounding to several concepts and issues in mathematics. In the part of General Mathematics we present here, Bolzano critically assesses the Principle of Sufficient Reason and some related metaphysical issues.
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