True Objects and Fulfilments Under Assumption in the Young Husserl

In the year 1894, Husserl had not been already contaminated by Bolzano’s realism. It was then that he conceived a theory of assumptions in order to “save an existence” for mathematical objects. Here we would like to explore this theory and show in what way it represented a convincing alternative to realistic ontology and its counterpart: the correspondence theory of truth. However, as soon as he designed it, Husserl shoved away all the implications for his theory of assumptions, and merely abandoned it. We would also like to consider the wrong reasons for this renouncement, which undoubtedly have to do with the dichotomy between signification and perception in his elaboration of phenomenology.