Mathesis universalis, formal ontology, and regional ontologies in Edmund Husserl’s pure logic

Abstract

The article analyzes the structural role played by mathesis universalis in Edmund Husserl’s thought, based on his reading of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his project for a rigorous grounding of logic and science. First, the study reconstructs Husserl’s interpretation of mathesis universalis as a mathematics of pure forms, distinguishing it from both psychologism and a merely operational or calculative conception of logic. Second, it examines the expansion of pure logic toward a formal ontology of the object in general. Within this framework, the systematic relationship between formal ontology and regional ontologies is analyzed. Finally, the article argues that only through its integration into transcendental phenomenology does mathesis universalis transform from a naïve logic into a rigorous philosophical discipline, capable of grounding both formal and empirical sciences through the essential correlation between being and consciousness.