How to Distinguish Simple Objectless Ideas

Abstract

Bernard Bolzano offers a criterion of individuation for ideas, according to which ideas are distinct if and only if they represent different objects or are composed differently. It fails to individuate ideas that are both simple and fail to represent, in particular syncategorematic ideas and logical constants. However, Bolzano also provides the means to close this gap. He suggests that we can distinguish ideas if they are not substitutable for each other in propositions, which we can, in turn, distinguish in terms of their truth-values. This paper explicates this suggestion and develops it into an improved individuation criterion for ideas: ideas also are distinct if we cannot replace them for one another in propositions salva veritate.