applicable to objects of any ontological category that entities enjoysimply in virtueof
being entities. Formal logic studies those features that the objects of logic have in
virtue of their form alone—validity being a paradigmatic logical feature an argument
has not in virtue of content but rather in virtue of form.^58 Similarly, formal ontology
studies those features that objects have simply in virtue of their form, that is, in virtue
of their being an object rather than their being an object of a specific type.^59 Sub-
branches of this putativefield allegedly are the theory of identity, the theory of
plurals, mereology, and the study of ontological dependence and ground.
This way of thinking of formal ontology appears to be Husserl’s around the time of
theLogical Investigations.^60 Formal ontology is the theory of objectsas such.^61 In
order for formal ontology to be a science, it must not be a hodgepodge collection of
truths but rather its subject matter must be governed bylawsthat are in turn
grounded in the essences of the things that science studies.^62 If formal ontology is
to be a science, then objectsas suchmust be law-governed in virtue of the strict
essence of objectsquaobjects.^63 Husserl conceives of formal ontology as a proper
part of the science of pure logic he articulates; the complementary part is formal logic
construed as the science of the relationships that pure meanings bear to one another,
where meanings themselves are ideal, abstract objects not located in space or time,
and include propositions and their constituents.^64 The following are some of the
reasons that formal ontology and formal logic are appropriately subsumed under
pure logic. First, in some sense, meaning and object are connected notions, since
meanings are directed towards objects.^65 Second, both disciplines are bodies of
necessary truths. Third, these truths have the same evidential basis, which for Husserl
is the intuition of essences, and accordingly are both appropriately classified as a
priori sciences.^66 Fourth, both sciences concern notions that are applicable with
(^58) In the tradition I am discussing, the objects of formal logic are not components of a natural language,
but rather meanings and propositions construed as mind-independent abstract objects. 59
60 See Poli (1993: 10).
In his introduction to Husserl (2005a: xii), Moran says that formal ontology is the theory of the
nature 61 (my emphasis) of objects in general. See also Poli (1993) and Varzi (2010).
Husserl (2005b: 3). See also Husserl (1973: 11), where formal ontology is characterized as“the theory
of something in general and its derived forms. 62 ”
See Husserl (2005a: 17–21). See also Smith (1989) and Smith and Smith (1995: 29) for discussion of
formal ontology as a science. 63
By“strict essence”I mean a notion of essence not straightforwardly equivalent to the standard notion
of ade reessential feature, but rather the kind of notion articulated by Fine (1994a and 1995b), among
others. This notion will be the focus of chapter 9. 64
66 Bell (1999: 94) agrees that formal ontology is a part of logic.^65 Husserl (1969: 78–9).
Smith (1995: 330) says that formal ontology concerns itself with formal essences. I concur with this
claim as well; according to Husserl, it is of the essence of an object that it stand in part–whole relations and
relations of dependence, that it be a constituent of states of affairs and propositions, that it have properties
and stand in relations, and so forth. Each of these features appealed to in the statement of an object’s
essence is appropriately titled a“formal essence.”Note that Husserl is arguablynotthefirst philosopher to
approach formal ontology via phenomenological investigation. Crusius, an important precursor of Kant,
understands ontology to be the universal science of objects as such, whose principles are discovered via
“investigation”but because these principles are universal, any particularexemplarof them is an apt starting