Bolzano on Time and History

Abstract

The topics of time, history, historiography and historical method appear rather
peripherally in Bolzano’s writings. Nevertheless, Bolzano has some interesting things
to say here and there; partly his views are uncommon, partly he anticipates later
philosophical ideas by decades. Bolzanos perhaps most interesting contribution in the
field, his Bayesian account of historical credibility, was analyzed earlier (Löffler
1997). The present paper gives a short survey of Bolzano’s accounts of time and
causation and his critique of German idealist conceptions of historical laws.