Abstract

Contemporary historians of logic tend to credit Bernard Bolzano with the invention of the semantic notion of consequence, a full century before Tarski. Nevertheless, Bolzano's work played no significant rôle in the genesis of modern logical semantics. The purpose of this paper is to point out three highly original, and still quite relevant themes in Bolzano's work, being a systematic study of possible types of inference, of consistency, as well as their meta-theory. There are certain analogies with Tarski's concerns here, although the main thrust seems to be different, both philosophically and technically. Thus, if only obliquely, we also provide some additional historical perspective on Tarski's achievement.