Synthese (2009) 167:33–65

DOI 10.1007/s11229-007-9277-3

Why Euclid’s geometry brooked no doubt:

J. H. Lambert on certainty and the existence of models

Katherine Dunlop

Received: 8 August 2007 / Accepted: 27 November 2007 / Published online: 21 December 2007
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract J. H. Lambert proved important results of what we now think of as

non-Euclidean geometries, and gave examples of surfaces satisfying their theorems.
I use his philosophical views to explain why he did not think the certainty of Euclid-
ean geometry was threatened by the development of what we regard as alternatives
to it. Lambert holds that theories other than Euclid’s fall prey to skeptical doubt. So
despite their satisfiability, for him these theories are not equal to Euclid’s in justifi-
cation. Contrary to recent interpretations, then, Lambert does not conceive of mathe-
matical justification as semantic. According to Lambert, Euclid overcomes doubt by
means of postulates. Euclid’s theory thus owes its justification not to the existence of
the surfaces that satisfy it, but to the postulates according to which these “models” are
constructed. To understand Lambert’s view of postulates and the doubt they answer, I
examine his criticism of Christian Wolff’s views. I argue that Lambert’s view reflects
insight into traditional mathematical practice and has value as a foil for contemporary,
model-theoretic, views of justification.

Keywords Epistemology of mathematics · Non-Euclidean geometry · History of

model theory · Proof by construction · J. H. Lambert

Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) was a philosopher of mathematics as well as

one of its greatest 18th-century practitioners. This paper explicates his view of the
nature and justification of geometrical knowledge. Lambert belongs to a tradition that
takes geometry as a paradigm of certainty, in the sense of invulnerability to skeptical
doubt. On this view, geometry’s certainty resides in its first principles and is transmit-
ted, through the usual techniques of geometrical proof, to the theorems. Commentary

K. Dunlop (B)
Department of Philosophy, Brown University, P. O. Box 1918, Providence, RI 02912, USA
e-mail: Katherine_Dunlop@Brown.edu

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in this tradition analyzes the first principles to determine the source of their certainty
and the extent to which other sciences can share it. At the same time, Lambert’s
mathematical work anticipates the theories now known as elliptical and hyperbolic
geometries and the modern view of geometry as an uninterpreted formal system. His
apparent willingness to regard Euclid’s first principles as mere strings of symbols, and
to entertain alternatives to them, raises questions about his view of their certainty. (At
the least, it prompts us to ask how Lambert understands this certainty. Together with
the fact that his discussion of certainty is directed at a philosophical rival, it leads us
to discount his remarks as merely rhetorical, or even disingenuous.)
I believe Lambert’s remarks on certainty are sincere and deserve to be taken seri-
ously. He signals their relevance to his mathematical research by including both his
own account of the certainty of Euclid’s Elements, and criticism of rival accounts,
in his presentation of what is now known as non-Euclidean geometry. I will use his
philosophical views to explain why, for him, the certainty of Euclidean geometry was
not impugned by the development of what we regard as alternatives to it.
In Sect. 1, I examine his now-famous essay on the theory of parallels. Lambert
proposes to leave the contraries of Euclid’s parallel postulate uninterpreted, in order
to determine what follows merely from their syntax. He describes situations in which
these consequences are realized. Based on this work, commentators credit Lambert
with a modern view of mathematical justification as semantic or model-theoretic. On
this view, a theory is made certain by the existence of a model, i.e. a structure in which it
is realized. I discuss this interpretation of Lambert in Sect. 2. While it brings to light an
important feature of Lambert’s approach, I do not think it wholly captures the method
of his mathematical investigation or the thrust of his philosophical remarks. Lambert
is primarily concerned with the justification of geometrical concepts. I will argue
that for Lambert, the existence of situations that can described only by alternatives
to Euclid’s geometry does not legitimate the concepts with which they are described.
Despite their realization in these “models”, the theories known to us as elliptical and
hyperbolic geometry lack the certainty that Lambert sees as distinctive to geometry.
So for Lambert, these theories are not genuine alternatives to Euclid’s.
The remaining sections of the paper develop an alternative interpretation of
Lambert’s notion of geometrical certainty. I begin in Sect. 3 with Lambert’s criti-
cism of a prominent 18th-century account of mathematical certainty. Lambert objects
to this view that it does not trace geometry’s claims back to genuinely simple concepts.
In Sect. 4, I argue that on Lambert’s view, geometry owes its certainty not just to the
simplicity of its fundamental concepts, but also to the practical character of some of
its principles. He identifies its postulates, first principles in the form of “rules” or
“orders”, as the source of its certainty. Section 5 concerns the skeptical doubt that
Lambert takes the postulates to answer. I argue that he understands it as a challenge to
the universal applicability of geometrical concepts, and explain why it can be answered
by principles that are practical in character. So on his view, a theory is not shown to
be possible by its application to a situation unless that “model” is constructed under
the direction of postulates.
Lambert’s views are of interest on several counts. From an assumption equivalent
to the existence of more than one parallel to a given line, together with Euclid’s
other first principles, Lambert extracts consequences that he regards as significant

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and even desirable—but not the contradiction that he believes this theory harbors. For
Lambert, even the ability to concretely represent a situation in which a given line has
no parallels does not put its possibility beyond doubt. Study of his views leads us to
appreciate how much was achieved by the model- and proof-theoretic conceptions on
which hyperbolic and elliptical geometries qualify as equal to Euclid’s in rigor. It also
promises to illuminate the constructivist tradition in the philosophy of mathematics. As
I explain below, Lambert can be taken to offer an account of the merits of constructive
methods of proof. Finally, Lambert’s views, especially his account of geometry, deeply
influenced Kant’s philosophical development. Lambert is even said1 to have alerted
Kant to the logical possibility of non-Euclidean geometries and the impossibility of
presenting their objects in what Kant calls “intuition”. Unfortunately, I cannot trace
the connection between Lambert and Kant in this paper.2

1 Syntax and semantics in Lambert’s theory of parallel lines

To understand how Lambert frames his investigation of the theory of parallels, some
historical background is necessary. In Euclid’s Elements, proofs begin from principles
of three different kinds: definitions, axioms, and postulates. Euclid leaves the work of
explaining this distinction to his commentators. Prima facie, the axioms and defini-
tions appear to differ in content. The definitions concern geometrical objects (points,
lines, figures, and planes), while the axioms hold of mathematical objects in general,
including quantities treated in arithmetic and algebra. The postulates also concern
specifically geometrical objects, and are further distinguished by their grammatical
form. They are infinitive constructions,3 preceded by a passive imperative. The latter
(‘Hιτ ήσ θ ω) can be translated “Let it be asked that”, so that the first postulate, for
instance, reads “Let it be asked: to draw a straight line from any point to any point”.
While the first three postulates concern the construction of lines and circles, the
fourth stipulates that all right angles are to be equal, and the fifth is the infamous
Postulate of Parallels.4 From the 16th-century onwards, editions of Euclid’s Ele-
ments sought to sharpen the distinction among kinds of first principles, and unify the
principles belonging to each, by omitting the fourth and fifth postulates and listing

1 Perhaps most recently in Gordon Brittan’s contribution to the Blackwell Companion to Kant. Brittan turns
to Lambert’s argument for the absurdity of the “second hypothesis” (no. 23, below) to shed light on Kant’s
claim that the impossibility of a two-sided rectilinear plane figure “rests”, in Kant’s words, “not on the
concept in itself, but on its construction in space, i.e. on the conditions of space and its determinations”
(2006, p. 234). Brittan does not take up the question of whether the results of Lambert’s Theorie (first
published 1786) were known to Kant prior to the publication of the Critique’s first edition (1781), in which
this claim occurs. Webb answers in the negative (1995, pp. 6–7).
2 I discuss Kant’s relationship with Lambert in “Postulates and Definitions in the ‘Prize Essays’ of Lambert
and Kant”, in progress. That and the present paper are heavily indebted to the work of Alison Laywine, in
particular her (forthcoming).
˜
3 As an anonymous referee pointed out, the verb εı́ναι (to be) appears in the infinitive in the fourth postulate,
although it is conjugated in the customary translation “That all right angles are equal”.
4 “Let it be asked: that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same
side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which
are the angles less than the two right angles”.

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them instead as axioms.5 By Lambert’s time, their place among the axioms was so
secure6 that he had no occasion to consider whether they should be postulates. So
to his knowledge, the only principles concerned with parallels were an axiom and a
definition.7
Lambert begins his essay on parallels by observing that the axiom of parallels “is
incontestably neither as clear nor as evident as the others”, so that one’s “first reaction”
is to demand proof of it (1786, Sect. 2). Yet according to Lambert, this dissatisfaction is
misplaced. He considers the objections to which Euclid’s procedure is subject. Among
these is “that in order to prove the Euclidean axiom rigorously, or to establish geometry
at all, one may neither visualize nor make a representation of the thing itself (von der
Sache selbst)”. Lambert contends that this objection does not apply. Euclid’s failure to
observe the restriction does not explain the apparent defect in the axiom of parallels,
since he violates it with respect to axioms that do not seem as objectionable: “It is clear
that with such a requirement one can also contest the twelfth Euclidean axiom, that

5 Postulate 5 was already listed as an axiom in the first printed Greek edition (1533; see Bonola 1955, p. 17)
and in 15th-century Latin translations of the Elements (Stäckel and Engel 1968, p. 17). The trend of listing
Postulates 4 and 5 as axioms came to prominence with the influential 1589 edition of the Elements by the
Jesuit Christopher Clavius. His commentary shaped 17th-century reflection on mathematics. His textbooks
were used in Jesuit institutions (such as La Flèche, where Descartes studied), and his broader views on
the status of the mathematical sciences were reflected in their curricula. His work on the foundation of
mathematics was central to Renaissance debates, both within and outside the Jesuit tradition, concerning
the relationship of mathematics to natural science (see Dear 1995, p. 34 and Mancosu 1996, pp. 13–14).
These debates in turn influenced British thinkers—most importantly Isaac Barrow, the teacher of Newton,
and Hobbes—as well as Continental thought. See Mancosu, passim. Clavius’s revised scheme came to
domainate early modern treatments of Euclid. Thus, in (1663/1683), Barrow claims that Postulates 4 and
5 are “inaccurately” listed as postulates by Euclid, “(if it be done by him, and these Propositions have not
crept into a Place not belonging to them, by the Fault of others) and therefore they are more rightly reckoned
Axioms by Geminus, Proclus, and most other interpreters” (p. 132). Although Roberval (1675) does not
scruple to add to Euclid’s list of first principles, he omits the fourth and fifth postulates from it, instead
deriving them as theorems. Borelli’s 1658 edition retains the parallel principle as a postulate, but David
Gregory’s well-known 1703 edition makes it an axiom (Bonola, ibid.). Shabel concludes, from her study
of early modern editions of the Elements, that in them “the five postulates are typically reduced to three”
and the fourth and fifth postulates “are taken for axioms” (2003, pp. 44–45). She cites nine 18th century
editions of the Elements, six in English and three in German; her study also includes French editions and
additional seventeenth- and 18th-century mathematical works. Further evidence that Euclid’s Postulate 5
was classified as an axiom in the 18th century is given in the following note.
6 Lambert’s main source for earlier discussion of the principle was the 1763 dissertation of G. S. Klügel.
Three pieces of historical evidence strongly suggest that in Lambert’s and Klügel’s context, its place among
the axioms was taken for granted. First, Klügel was the student of A. G. Kästner. In his “Was heisst in
Euclids Geometrie möglich?”, Kästner states explicitly that this axiom has a unique status in Euclid, in
that it is not among the three postulates but is yet “assumed as possible” (1790, p. 392). Second, of the 28
attempted proofs analyzed by Klügel, Saccheri’s exercised a special influence on Lambert (Bonola 1955,
p. 44; cf. Ewald 1996, p. 155). Saccheri, following Clavius, lists the principle as an axiom (Euclides ab
omni naevo vindicatus (1733), translated in Stäckel and Engel (1968, p. 46). Third, Adickes (commenting
on Kant’s Reflexionen, Ak. 14:24) notes that in Segner’s 1773 translation of Euclid (“(die) beste damalige
Übersetzung”), the principle of parallels occurs as the eleventh axiom. Adickes cites Klügel’s dissertation
and other attempted proofs of the principle from the 1770s and 1780s, but does not indicate that any of
these authors classified the principle as a postulate rather than an axiom.
7 The 23rd definition in Heath’s edition, “Parallel straight lines are straight lines which, being in the same
plane and being produced indefinitely in both directions, do not meet one another in either direction”.

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two straight lines do not enclose a space”.8 So on Lambert’s view, Euclid’s manner
of proceeding “can be quite adequately justified” if the “representation of the thing
(Sache, which can also be translated ‘subject-matter’)” is presupposed.
A goal of this paper is to explain what Lambert means by “representation of the
thing”. One way to understand what this representation contributes to geometry is to
consider alternative ways in which its role might be filled. Lambert contrasts Euclid’s
approach to recent treatments of parallels which rely on definitions, claiming that
Euclid’s procedure is “all the more justified” because it “encounters fewer difficulties
than” the attempts made until now “to proceed differently” (Sect. 3). His aim is to
motivate his own attempt to “proceed differently” than Euclid, by distinguishing it from
these fruitless attempts to do without representation of the thing (or subject-matter).
Lambert claims that prior attempts to proceed differently with respect to parallels try
in vain to supplant representation of the thing (or subject-matter) with definitions. He
charges that the appeal to definitions merely diverts attention from the problem without
solving it,9 for this approach merely “imports” into the definitions the “difficulties
that are in the subject-matter (Sache)” (Sect. 5). Strikingly, Lambert does not regard
definitions as deductively basic, but demands justification for them. As he contrasts the
recent treatments of parallels with Euclid’s, Lambert charges that the former violate
a dictum that Euclid “continually observed”: that “every definition, until it has been
proved, is an empty hypothesis” (Sect. 6). In this and the next section, we will see how
Lambert thinks Euclid proves his own definition of parallels.
Lambert aims to prove the axiom of parallels without relying on either definitions
or representation of the thing. His strategy is to assume the negation of the axiom and
derive a contradiction. He gives the following account of his proposed method:
[Here] one can abstract from everything that I earlier called representation of
the thing. And since Euclid’s postulata and other axioms have been expressed
in words, it can and should be demanded that the proof never appeal to the thing
itself [sich nirgends auf die Sache selbst berufe], but that the proof should be
carried out purely symbolically—when this is possible. In this respect, Euclid’s
postulata are as it were like so many algebraic equations which one already has
in front of oneself and from which one is to compute x, y, z, etc. without looking
back to the thing itself [ohne dass man auf die Sache selbst zurück sehe] (1786,
Sect. 11, trans. Ewald).10
Here, Lambert describes a method of proof that does not appeal to the semantic content
of sentences. He suggests that in “purely symbolic” proof of this kind, the premises
are treated like algebraic equations, strings whose interpretation is not fully specified.

8 This “axiom”, not in Euclid, is interpolated in later editions of the Elements. See Shabel (ibid.) and Heath
(1956, pp. 232–234).
9 Lambert argues that one “could at any rate infer” that the difficulties were “more often hidden (in the
definitions) than in the subject-matter itself” from “the fact that (in recent decades), when a widespread
mania for demonstrations was the prevailing fashion, more of a fuss would have been made had the Euclidean
procedure (been retained)” (Sect. 5).
10 Lambert immediately notes that a diagram, though not essential to the proof, may serve as a heuristic or
a pedagogical or psychological aid. Since the postulates “are not exactly such formulas, one can concede
the drawing of a figure as a guideline [Leitfaden] for the proof” (1786, Sect. 11, trans. Ewald).

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To formulate his reductio assumptions, Lambert draws on the earlier (1733) work
of Girolamo Saccheri. Saccheri is often credited as the first to try to prove Euclid’s
axiom by assuming its falsity and deriving a negation.11 A “Saccheri quadrilateral”
CDEF has two right angles C, E at its base and equal sides DC, FE. Angles D, F
are equal, and if Euclid’s axiom holds, they must both be right. Saccheri attempted
to show that contradiction follows from either the assumption that both are obtuse or
the assumption that both are acute. Lambert constructs a Saccheri quadrilateral cdDC
by erecting a perpendicular AB to a segment on which lie points c, A, C; extending a
line from B on each side to points d and D, such that angles dBA and ABD are right
(Sect. 29); and erecting perpendiculars cd, CD at c and C (Sect. 30). He proceeds
to study the “Lambert quadrilateral” ABDC, which has three right angles ( A, B, C).
Lambert tries to show that the “hypotheses” that the fourth angle is obtuse or acute
lead to contradiction. He shows what must hold of plane figures if either hypothesis is
assumed together with Euclid’s axioms and remaining postulates. His results include
some important theorems of what are now known as elliptical (or Riemannian) and
hyperbolic (or Lobachevskian) geometry, concerning the sums of interior angles of
figures.
To the extent that Lambert’s proofs are “purely symbolic”, he can be said to develop
these geometries in their uninterpreted form. He later appears (as I explain in the
next section) to propose models for these theories. His distinction between syntax and
semantics thus seems to accord with ours in locating an object of study—uninterpreted
language and its interpretation—on each side of the divide.
With this conception of geometry as a pure deductive system comes one way to
understand the dependence of definitions. If Euclid’s axioms can be considered for-
mally, as a pure deductive system, so can the definitions of geometrical objects. As
Hilbert puts it in his Foundations of Geometry, we can think of geometry’s axioms
as “completely and exactly describing” the relations that hold between points, lines,
and places and are designated “by means of such words as ‘are situated’, ‘between’,
‘parallel’, ‘congruent’, ‘continuous’, etc.” (1938, p. 3). The axioms thus state neces-
sary and sufficient conditions on any objects that are to be regarded as points, lines, and
planes. Hilbert takes the axioms to “implicitly define” the notions of point, line, and
plane. These notions can also be explicitly defined by introducing atomic predicates
P, L, N to abbreviate complex relational formulas entailed by the axioms. So long
as the definitions are uninterpreted, it is trivial to derive them from the axioms within
a deductive system. In this sense, the axioms (and, we might add, postulates) justify
the definitions. Lambert’s method, as he describes it, could supply justification of this
kind.
But Lambert does not think Euclid justifies the definitions in this way. As we saw,
Lambert’s own method differs from Euclid’s just in that Euclid uses, while Lambert
eschews, representation of the thing. Yet Lambert’s account of geometry must have
a place for Euclid’s method, since he regards Euclid’s “manner of proceeding” as
responsible for geometry’s certitude. If Lambert’s approach to geometry is, like ours,
to separate its syntax from its semantics and investigate each, then he ought to regard

11 See Torretti (1984, p. 45), Black (1959, p. 155), and Bonola, who takes this strategy to be “distinctive
to” Saccheri (1955, p. 22).

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Euclid’s proofs as entailments in either the syntactic or semantic sense. Since his notion
of syntactic consequence does not apply to Euclid’s proofs of definitions, he should
regard them as a kind of semantic entailment. As I will explain, he seems to hold that
the definitions are justified by associating the defined term with an object in what we
would think of as a model. In arguments of this kind, axioms and postulates are prior to
definitions, in two ways. First, they are used to show that models that satisfy the rest of
the theory also contain objects denoted by the defined terms; second, since they must
be satisfied within such models, they determine the class of models in which to seek
such objects. Definitions are thus in a sense “proved from” axioms and postulates.
On the modern conception, the (explicit) definitions of an uninterpreted theory do
no more than clarify the logical structure of its axioms and postulates. The only gauge
of the definitions’ “correctness and certainty” is the status of the theory as a whole.
The usual way to justify a theory, on this view, is to interpret it within a model. This
shows at least that the theory is consistent, and perhaps that it holds of an especially
important domain. Just as an uninterpreted theory’s first principles, in general, are
justified by showing the theory is true with respect to a model, so the theory’s definitions
are justified by showing that the defined terms have referents within the model. The
explicit definitions P, L, N can thus be justified by metatheoretic analogues asserting
that certain objects stand in the appropriate relations.
From a post-Gödelian point of view, it seems that geometry’s definitions cannot be
justified, in this sense, from its own first principles. No powerful consistent theory can
prove its own consistency. If geometry’s definitions only explicate the structure that
is already contained in its axioms and postulates, introducing names for objects that
are related in the appropriate ways, then the existence of such objects is tantamount to
geometry’s satisfaction. So it cannot be proved within geometry itself. Yet Lambert’s
conception of definition is rather different. On his view, the content of definitions may
outrun that of the axioms and postulates.
Throughout his works, Lambert emphasizes the distinction between “simple” and
“complex” concepts. He holds that only complex concepts have definitions, while
“axioms and postulates actually contain only simple concepts” (as he writes to Kant,
Ak. 10:65). Since the concepts that comprise axioms and postulates are not complex,
while defined concepts are not simple, the satisfaction of geometry’s axioms and
postulates in a model does not immediately entail the existence of objects falling
under the defined concepts (the “applicability” of the definitions, for short). So there
is a gap, requiring argument to fill it, between the satisfaction of the axioms and
postulates and the instantiation of (complex) concepts such as “parallel line”. There
is, in other words, room for the justification of definitions that Lambert appears to
supply.
But while the definitions go beyond the postulates in this sense, they still do not
constitute a theory of the kind that could be proved from the axioms and postulates.
Lambert holds (as I explain more fully in Sect. 2 below) that genuine objects, of
the kind that can make definitions true, can be represented only in accordance with
axioms and postulates. Because the complex concepts depend in this way on the simple
concepts for their applicability, as well as their very conceivability, every model that
contains objects falling under the complex concepts (i.e. in which the definitions
are applicable) must also satisfy the axioms and postulates. So if the axioms and

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Fig. 1 From Ewald (1996, p. 160)

postulates could prove the applicability of the definitions, they would also prove their
own satisfaction. The fact that the axioms and postulates contain simple concepts,
while the concepts contained in definitions are complex, does not ultimately leave
room for direct, rigorous argument from the former to the latter.
Yet the axioms and postulates can, without threat of contradiction, have a central
role in the justification of the definitions. The definitions depend on the axioms and
postulates in the sense that these principles determine the class of interpretations
in which instances of defined concepts are to be sought. We would say that they
“implicitly define” the definienda.
This attenuated notion of semantic consequence seems to fit Lambert’s account of
Euclid. On Lambert’s account of the Elements, the definition of parallels (as coplanar
straight lines which, “being produced indefinitely in both directions, do not meet in
either direction”) “remains open” until Propositions I.27–28. One point Lambert seems
to make, with the use of this phrase, is that the definition is not used in the proof of any
proposition prior to I.27.12 So until Euclid attempts to prove I.27, he does not need
to justify this definition. But Lambert seems also to mean that in the proof of I.27,
Euclid supplies the needed justification. Proposition I.27 asserts that two straight lines
are parallel if a straight line which intersects them “makes the alternate angles equal
to one another”. Together with I.28, it shows that if the intersection of two straight
lines with a transversal creates equal alternate angles, an exterior angle equal to one
interior and opposite, or interior angles on one side equal to two right angles, then the
lines do not meet. As Lambert puts it,

one learns [in these propositions] that, if the angles FCB + CBD = 180◦ or if
the angles FCB = CBA, then the lines AB, CF do not intersect in the direction
either of F or of G [(Fig. 1)]. One thereby learns that ([the definition] is not
an absurdity or an empty figment of the imagination [nicht ein Unding oder
leeres Hirngespinnst]; but that non-intersecting straight lines actually occur in
the realm of truth [im Reiche der Wahrheit]. For until now one this definition
remained open [blieb ausgestellt] . . . (Sect. 3).

12 Lambert does not specifically refer to the use of the definition in proofs. He in fact says that the axiom
of parallels (Euclid’s fifth postulate) is “put off” until proposition I.29. Meanwhile, one “learns to know the
thing itself”, as one learns in the proofs of I.27 and I.28 that the lines AB, CF do not intersect. Until these
proofs, the definition “remained open; and until now one could also allow the axiom to remain open”. In
saying that “one could allow” the axiom to remain open, he most likely means that one does not use it in
proofs; although he does not say so, the definitions are also open in this sense.

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There are two senses in which the definition is no longer “open”: it is no longer
dispensable; and it is no longer open to question. This passage suggests, to the con-
temporary reader, that the term “parallel line” is first associated with objects in a
certain domain in the proofs of I.27 and I.28. If the axioms and postulates are also
satisfied under this interpretation, then the definition of “parallel line” is “proved” in
the relevant sense from them.
To prove I.27, Euclid constructs a transversal to the given pair of lines and
stipulates that the resulting alternate angles are equal. In the diagram of I.27, he gives
us objects that satisfy the antecedent of the proposition. Euclid proceeds to argue by
contradiction that the paired lines do not meet in either direction. Euclid can be taken
to show that the consequent of I.27, which is a deductive consequence of the unin-
terpreted theory,13 is also a semantic consequence. Under a literal interpretation, it is
true “in” the diagram. That is, if the objects in the diagram are regarded as “lines”
and the relational expressions “situation”, “betweenness”, etc., have their ordinary
spatial meaning, then these objects are related in just the ways specified by Euclid’s
definitions.
So the proof, in effect, presents an interpretation and shows that Euclid’s theory
of parallels is sound with respect to it. We could take this to be Lambert’s point. The
question “left open”, and foreclosed by I.27, would then be whether Euclid’s theory
has an interpretation of a certain kind, so that the objects defined by it are not mere
“figments of the imagination”. The interpretation in question is not given by naming
a set and associating certain relations on its members with terms of the theory, as in
modern model theory. Rather, it is given through the diagrammatic representation of a
space containing the relevant objects. The axiom of parallels, in supplying a criterion
for the intersection of the lines (namely, the relationship of the interior angles created
by the transversal on each side), serves to associate the term “parallel line” with objects
in this model and so vindicates the definition. The remaining axioms and postulates
justify this association, in an obvious way: they are used to derive contradiction from
the assumption that the objects in question do not satisfy the defining condition (viz.
non-intersection). Let us call this view of the justification of definitions the “bare
model-theoretic” interpretation.

2 The importance of diagrammatic representation

The bare model-theoretic interpretation is of use to us mainly as a foil for richer

interpretations. For I think it clearly fails to capture important features of Lambert’s
view. To show only that the definitions are satisfied in some model or other would

13 To read Euclid’s own argument for I.27 in this way, as showing that a certain proposition is satisfied in
the diagram, is to distinguish it from the syntactic argument that establishes this proposition as a deductive
consequence. Euclid does not provide a separate argument to establish the deductive entailment. So we
might ask what entitles Lambert, as we are reading him, to regard what is claimed in I.27 as a deductive
consequence of the axioms. The answer is presumably that Lambert first considers the argument for I.27
as the kind of “purely symbolic proof” of which, on his view, any of Euclid’s propositions must be capable
(“since Euclid’s postulata and other axioms have been expressed in words”, (1786, Sect. 11)). While Euclid
may not regard his propositions as syntactic consequences, Lambert is free to take them that way.

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not be to justify them, according to Lambert. He stresses the importance of showing

them to be satisfied under an interpretation on which the axioms and postulates also
hold. He appears to hold that definitions can be shown to have the “obviousness”, or
certainty, required of geometrical principles only by showing that they are satisfied
under such an interpretation. This is a further sense in which, on his view, axioms and
postulates are central to the justification of definitions.
Lambert argues that if Euclid’s axiom of parallels cannot be symbolically proved
from his first principles, we must seek others that entail it and “have the same
obviousness (Evidenz) as the Euclidean do” (1786, Sect. 11). Lambert’s conditions
on the adequacy of alternative principles indicate that for him, the “obviousness” of
Euclid’s principles consists in a kind of applicability. Lambert demands that alterna-
tives to Euclid’s axioms and postulates be represented just as clearly and concretely
as Euclid’s. Accordingly, he maintains that a search for alternative principles cannot
proceed by “purely symbolic” reasoning, but must involve “the contemplation and
representation of the subject-matter (Sache)”.14 Nor can definitions be justified by
syntactic derivation alone. Because Lambert is interested only in proof from “obvi-
ous” principles, a syntactic derivation of a definition will justify it only if the premises
are themselves applicable to the same extent as Euclid’s axioms and postulates. Thus
a putative definition must ultimately be shown to hold of “subject-matter” described
by (as we would put it, to hold in a model of) the axioms and postulates.
This aspect of Lambert’s view is not out of keeping with contemporary
model-theoretic approaches to justification. As we noted, from this point of view
one can confer special status on a theory by interpreting it with respect to a particular
domain. For instance, hyperbolic geometry can be shown to hold of Euclidean space if
“plane” refers to the unit disk and “line” to open chords on it, by making the “distance”
between two points a function of the relationships of each point’s distance from the
endpoints of the chord on which they lie. This interpretation (the Klein model) shows
hyperbolic geometry to be consistent relative to Euclidean geometry, and can be taken
to give this theory “concreteness” or even “obviousness” that it otherwise lacks.15
Although Lambert’s stated goal is to deduce Euclid’s axiom of parallels from
either Euclid’s own axioms and postulates or equally obvious alternatives, he also
indicates that the “hypotheses” of the acute and obtuse angle—which contradict
Euclid’s axiom—can be represented concretely, thus with “obviousness”. Comparison
of these with Euclid’s axioms and postulates helps to clarify the latter’s status.
Lambert takes steps towards specifying subject-matter that these hypotheses could
be said to describe. He claims to find it “remarkable” (merkwürdig) that the second
hypothesis, the hypothesis of the obtuse angle, holds (statt hat) “if instead of plane

14 It would be “absurd (ungereimt)” to “demand that the new postulates and axioms should be found without
any thought about the subject matter—out of thin air, as it were” (Sect. 11).
15 Eugenio Beltrami, for instance, appears to have taken this attitude towards the model. In his “Essay on
the Interpretation of Noneuclidean Geometry”, Beltrami maintains that truth accumulates in “the science
of mathematics”, so that once “gained”, it cannot be “negated” by “the triumph of new concepts”. Euclid’s
geometry, in particular, belongs to a “scientific edifice” whose “solidity” cannot be damaged by “attempts at
radical innovation in basic principles”. So by finding “a real substrate for” hyperbolic geometry in Euclid’s,
we show that hyperbolic geometry has a subject-matter that entitles it to a place in science (Stillwell 1996,
p. 7).

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triangles one takes spherical triangles” (1786, Sect. 82). As Lambert explains, the sum
of their interior angles satisfies two conditions which follow from this hypothesis: it
exceeds 180◦ , and the “excess” of this sum over 180◦ is proportional to the trian-
gle’s area. Lambert then observes that the formula for the area of a spherical triangle
((α + β + γ − π )r 2 , for a triangle with interior angles α, β, γ , and sphere of radius r )
does not depend on the axiom of parallels, so that it holds under all three hypotheses.
From this, he continues, “I should almost conclude that the third hypothesis would
occur (komme . . . vor) in the case of an imaginary spherical surface (einer imaginären
Kugelfläche)”.
Lambert’s phrase “imaginary spherical surface” is perhaps √most naturally taken
to refer to the surface of a sphere of radius ir (a multiple of −1). For substitution
of an imaginary value for r in the area formula yields r 2 (π − α − β − γ ). Area
thus depends on the same quantity as on the hypothesis of the acute angle, where the
sum of a triangle’s interior angles is less than 180◦ , and its area is proportional to
its “defect” under 180◦ , which is expressed (converting degree to radian measure) as
(π − α − β − γ ).
For Lambert, the imaginary spherical surface may be more than a mere construct
of the imagination. It corresponds to a physical situation that goes unmentioned in
(1786), but features in his earlier work. In 1768, Lambert published the first systematic
development of the hyperbolic trigonometric functions. To motivate the theory, he
shows how to apply the functions in natural science. When imaginary values are
substituted in the trigonometric functions for triangles on the surface of an (ordinary)
sphere, the functions become hyperbolic. Accordingly, Lambert begins his article with
a problem in astronomy requiring data on celestial bodies below the horizon,16 whose
solution requires the use of the sine function for an imaginary arc. Mathematically
speaking, a sphere on which triangles have imaginary sides and real angles is no
different from a sphere with imaginary radius.17 Thus, the theory based on the third
hypothesis can be “modeled” by a physical situation and may have the same practical
rationale as hyperbolic trigonometry.
Many commentators, discounting Lambert’s use of the subjunctive and the qualifi-
cations he inserts, suppose that he thinks the third hypothesis’s possibility is demon-
strated by its relationship to the imaginary spherical surface. Lanczos contrasts the
second hypothesis, which is realized only where straight lines are finite and the straight
line joining two points is not unique, with the third hypothesis, which

16 See Manning (1975, p. 313).

17 It makes no difference whether the sides of spherical figures or the radius of the sphere is
regarded as imaginary, for the operation of multiplying the sides of a triangle on the sphere’s surface
by i is equivalent to the multiplication of the sphere’s radius by i. For instance, the sine and cosine
of triangles on a sphere with angles A, B, C and sides a, b, c are expressed by sin a/sin A =
sin b/sin B = sin c/sin C and cos a = cos b cos c + sin b sin c cos A (respectively). They may be
rewritten in terms of the sphere’s radius as (sin a/r )/sin A = (sin b/r )/sin B = (sin c/r )/sin C and
(cos a/r ) = (cos b/r )(cos c/r ) + (sin b/r )(sin c/r )cos A. Substituting an imaginary value for r (qi)
in these formulas yields (sinh a/q)/sin A = (sinh b/q)/sin B = sinh (c/q)/sin C and cosh a/q =
(cosh b/q)(cosh c/q) − sinh(b/q)sinh(c/q)cos A, by the formulas sinh x = (e x + e−x )/2 = cos i x
and cosh x = (e x − e−x )/2 = 1/i sin i x. The latter were known to Lambert.

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would be realized—according to Lambert—on a sphere with an imaginary

radius. Here the straight lines are infinite and unique, and thus all the postu-
lates are realized, except the fifth postulate. Lambert’s book . . . is thus a genuine
exposition of non-Euclidean geometry (1970, p. 63)
For Lanczos, Lambert is “the first discoverer of non-Euclidean geometry who realized
that it was an entirely possible form of geometry” (ibid.). Similarly, Roberto Torretti
interprets Lambert’s notion of a “representation of the subject-matter”, required to
justify an axiom system, as “the modern idea of a model, that is, of an object or
domain of objects which happens to fulfill precisely the conditions abstractly stated in
the hypotheses of the system”.18 Torretti claims that Lambert’s willingness to count
the imaginary sphere as a model “shows how broadly he conceived of this kind of
‘representation’, for an imaginary sphere is not something we could visualize or mold
in clay or in papier mâché, but a purely intelligible entity” (1984, pp. 50–51).
Yet Lambert does not regard the imaginary spherical surface as a model in our
sense, that is, as demonstrating the consistency of the theory. After Lambert supplies
subject-matter for the theory that substitutes the hypothesis of the acute angle for
Euclid’s axiom of parallels, he continues to try to refute it. He admits that he cannot
prove that it contradicts any principle of Euclid’s. Yet he argues that if it were true
(statt hätte),
we would have an absolute measure of the length of every line and the volume
[Inhalt] of every planar and solid figure. This now contradicts a proposition
that one can without reservation include among the principles [Grundsätze] of
geometry, and which no one has doubted until now, namely that there is no
absolute measure (Sect. 79).19
At the close of the essay, Lambert sketches two ways in which he thinks the third
hypothesis might yet be shown to contradict Euclid’s other first principles.20 So in his
attempt to prove a contradiction, the imaginary spherical surface seems to have the

18 Torretti emphasizes that this conception requires an abstract way of stating the conditions satisfied by
the model. Hence it exceeded the grasp of the 19th-century geometers after whom the most familiar models
of non-Euclidean geometry are now named: “Strictly speaking, a model can be conceived only in relation
to an abstract axiomatic theory. If you are given a set of sentences S which contain undefined terms, you can
look for a model of S, that is, a domain of entities where, through an arbitrary but consistent interpretation
of terms, the sentences of S come true. In this strict sense, we cannot ascribe a model-building intention
to,” for instance, “Klein, who in 1871 did not have the notion of an abstract axiom system” (p. 132). But
Torretti claims that this conception was available to Lambert thanks to his “formalist” approach, “which
likened the premises of a deductive system to a set of algebraic equations whose terms may denote any
object satisfying the relations expressed therein” (p. 50).
19 He also argues that it contradicts the principle “(which) I would once and for all rather assume as self-
evident, instead of Euclid’s axiom (of parallels), that a line, which intersects (one) perpendicular (to a line
DH, as in (Fig. 1)) at right angles, and extends itself towards (another) perpendicular (to DH) without
intersecting it, could not be a straight line”.
20 His final suggestion is to consider the line formed by connecting the endpoints of perpendiculars of
equal length erected at equal distances along a straight line. Lambert asserts that the line thus formed “is not
a straight line, rather a part of a regular polygon that can be inscribed in a circle”, and that this contradicts
the assumption that the segments whose endpoints are joined are perpendicular. According to Rosenfeld,
the flaw in this argument was first identified in 1905.

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same role as the diagrams in Euclid’s proofs by contradiction (such as Proposition I.6
of the Elements).21 It illustrates a situation that is to be proven contradictory.
Thus, commentators who regard Lambert’s notion of justification as model-theoretic
deny that he regards the imaginary spherical surface as a model. Judson Webb, for
instance, says of Lambert that he discovers a “sense in which both (the second and
third hypotheses) could be said to be ‘true’, namely, that they are true or hold in some
structure” (1995, p. 4). He even suggests that for Lambert, the existence of a structure
in which a theory is satisfied (i.e. a model) proves the theory’s soundness, and so
proves and explains its syntactic consistency.22 Yet Webb hedges on the question of
whether Lambert believed that the theory consisting of the third hypothesis and the
rest of Euclid’s axioms and postulates had a model. Since “it is unclear . . . just what he
meant by an ‘imaginary sphere’, he can hardly be said to have proved the consistency
of hyperbolic geometry, nor . . . can even his belief in its consistency be said to have
been free of doubt” (1995, p. 6). Jeremy Gray answers this question in the negative.
He interprets Lambert’s remark about the satisfaction of the third hypothesis as merely
conjectural, and argues that Lambert’s diffidence “marks him as a correct and inspired
thinker. The notion of a sphere of imaginary radius is quite unclear . . . To advance as
far as knowledge permits without disguising conjecture as discovery is the business
of research” (1989, p. 75).
Although they disagree as to whether the third hypothesis has, for Lambert, the
obviousness required of a geometrical principle, these commentators all take this
obviousness to consist in the existence of a (more or less) concretely represented struc-
ture that satisfies the principle. From this point of view, the obviousness of Euclid’s first
principles—his axioms and postulates—arises from the diagrammatic representation
of a situation, a model if you like, that satisfies them. The link between obviousness
and diagrammatic representability explains the importance Lambert puts on the sat-
isfaction of the axioms and postulates in the model that (on this reading of Lambert)
vindicates a principle as certain. For the axioms and postulates have models that can be
diagrammatically represented, and to show a principle to be satisfied in such a model
just is to prove that the principle is obvious, in this sense. This way of understand-
ing the certainty of the first principles (which they transmit to all geometrical truth)
is narrower than the bare model-theoretic view outlined in the previous section. On

21 Lambert does not, so far as I know, specifically mention the occurrence of diagrams in reductio proofs.
But he indicates that the use of diagrams in geometry is no guarantee against contradiction. Lambert writes
in (1918) that in geometry it is “easier to cognize mistakes in the proofs” (Sect. 7), because “one sees every
step one takes” (Sect. 10), just as “one cannot easily err” in “the concepts of the figures”, “because they
are simple and lie before the eyes” (Notanda 1). But he insists that “it is not the case that one cannot be
mistaken in geometry. One can for example take all the ill-fated (übelgerathene) squarings of the circle, of
which 100 and more have been proposed, every one containing paralogisms” (Sect. 6).
22 Lambert claims “I should almost conclude that the third hypothesis would occur (komme . . . vor) in the
case of an imaginary sphere. At least, there must always exist something (Etwas) on account of which it
cannot be refuted on the plane as easily as the second hypothesis” (Sect. 82). For Webb, the second sentence
“seems to suggest nothing less than this: if you cannot derive a contradiction from an hypothesis (together
with other axioms) in a purely symbolic fashion, then there must exist a structure or sphere (however
imaginary!) in which it is fulfilled along with those other axioms—and which explains why you cannot do
so” (1995, p. 5; cf. 2006, p. 273, no. 106).

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it, the diagrammatic representation of the situation was incidental to the principles’
justification. On this view, it is essential.
I agree with these commentators that for Lambert, the obviousness of a theory
depends on the concreteness with which its subject-matter is represented. But I think
there is more to Lambert’s view of the representation of subject-matter (or of the
thing). First of all, since Lambert does not regard the provision of subject-matter for
a theory as proof of its consistency, there is still the question of how he understands
the property it confers on the theory, which he calls “obviousness” (for Lanczos it is
“possibility”, for Webb, “truth”).
Another outstanding question concerns Lambert’s attitude towards the second
hypothesis: what does it gain from representation of its subject-matter? As noted,
Lambert’s use of the indicative to express the situation in which it obtains contrasts
with his use of the subjunctive to express the satisfaction of the third hypothesis
on the imaginary spherical surface. So we should ask whether the second hypothe-
sis, in its application to (ordinary) spheres, has the obviousness Lambert requires of
a geometrical theory. We will see that it does not. Lambert’s refusal to count it as
obvious indicates that for him, concrete representation of a subject-matter is merely a
necessary, not sufficient, condition on obviousness.
To say that the representation of the surface of an (ordinary) sphere confers obvi-
ousness on a theory, we must of course specify the theory for which it is a model. By
the time Lambert specifies subject-matter for the second hypothesis, he has already
proved that it contradicts Euclid’s postulates and remaining axioms. To show that the
assumption of the second hypothesis leads to contradiction, Lambert considers the
properties of a figure constructed by extending the side a of a Lambert quadrilateral,
which bounds its acute angle, and the side b, opposite a.23 The contradiction can-
not be derived from the second hypothesis in its application to spherical figures. For
Lambert’s argument assumes, in accordance with Euclid’s second postulate, that the
sides of quadrilaterals can be infinitely extended. But figures on the surface of a
sphere are bounded by its great circles, which cannot be. So the second hypothesis can
belong to a theory that has this surface as a model, as long as the theory does not
include either Euclid’s axiom of parallels or his second postulate, and primitive terms
(such as “line” and “plane”) occurring in Euclid’s other axioms and postulates are

23 Lambert considers a series of perpendiculars BA, B A , B A , B A , . . . B A , erected on a, whose

1 1 2 2 3 3 n n
first members are side BA of the Lambert quadrilateral, which intersects both a and b at right angles, and
side B1 A1 , which intersects a at a right and b at an acute angle. Lambert shows, first, that these segments
decrease in length, and second, that the difference between each segment and the succeeding one increases.
He assumes that the lines a, b are infinite, so that the sum of the differences is unbounded. Thus, n can be
taken sufficiently large that, as Lambert puts it, “the sum of the differences necessarily at some point begins
to exceed (BA).” He argues that “this cannot happen, for it would be for the line (b), thus far extended,
to sink under the likewise extended line (a): this would clearly contradict the proposition that, on account
of the right angles (at points A, B), (a, b) cannot converge” (1786, Sect. 64). Lambert appears to think of
the line a as an axis, so that when b crosses it, the subsequent segments Bn An are assigned “negative”
coordinates. For he remarks that the contradiction “does not lie merely in this, that the (segments B1 A1 ,
B2 A2 . . .) further from BA become ever smaller. For one could think that they diminish in an asymptotic
manner, without ever becoming equal to 0 or indeed negative” (Sect. 62).
Lambert claims that the second hypothesis is “still more immediately” proved impossible by the fact
that “the line (b) on both sides of the segment AB sinks under the line (a), and therefore the two lines
(a, b) must enclose a space” (Sect. 64).

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given an appropriate interpretation. The question is whether the principles that hold
of figures on this surface constitute a theory that is genuinely comparable to Euclid’s.
Lambert appears to share the consensus view that they do not. It was not news,
in the second half of the 18th-century, that Euclid’s parallel axiom did not hold of
arcs on a sphere. But Lambert’s contemporaries did not regard the arcs as lines. More
generally, they did not conceive of spheres as objects in what we would think of as the
domain of planar geometry.24 Rather than regard spheres as the “planes” of a space
of which Euclid’s principles might or might not hold, they conceived them simply as
objects in (three-dimensional) Euclidean space. Lambert does not seem to question
the orthodox view of spherical geometry as a special case of Euclidean geometry,
rather than a counterexample to some of Euclid’s principles. He clearly does not take
the fact that the second hypothesis is satisfied on a spherical surface to show that it
could belong to a geometry after all. Just after noting that the second hypothesis holds
“if instead of spherical triangles one takes plane triangles”, he repeats that it is “more
easily contradicted” than the third hypothesis (1786, Sect. 82).
So while the representation of the surface of an (ordinary) sphere is perfectly con-
crete, for Lambert it does not confer obviousness on a theory that disagrees with
Euclid’s axiom of parallels (and second postulate). It seems not to count as what
Lambert calls “representation of the subject-matter” (or “thing itself”) for any such
theory. His failure to accept the spherical surface as an interpretation of the notion
“plane” is surprising. For it suggests that the notions such as “line” and “plane”, as
conceived by him, are open to only certain interpretations. Yet this restriction on pos-
sible, interpretations is evidently in tension with his methodological pronouncement,
that he will treat geometric terms like algebraic symbols, “without looking back to
the thing itself” (Sect. 11). Having come so close to the modern view that geometry
can be treated purely syntactically, as a collection of sentences with no interpretation,
what keeps him from adopting it?
I would claim that at this juncture, Lambert is more influenced by epistemological
preconceptions concerning geometry than by his aspiration towards purely symbolic
proof. For I think we can see why the principles that hold of figures on the surface
of an (ordinary) sphere, despite their realization in this concrete model, do not have
the “obviousness” or certainty that Lambert requires of a geometrical theory. The rest

24 Because of its important applications, spherical geometry was hardly less familiar to Lambert and his
contemporaries than the Euclidean geometry of the plane. Yet they did not think that the latter was falsified
by the former’s applicability, because they thought the geometries applied to different kinds of things. See
Stump, who argues that it would be a “very natural response”, to an argument that bases the unprovability
of the parallel postulate in Euclidean space on the observation that its negation holds of a surface within
this space, “that curved surfaces cannot tell us anything about the properties of non-Euclidean planes”. In
the absence of “a fully uninterpreted conception of the mathematical primitives”, on which “geometries
are nothing more than the relations expressed in the axioms”, our “preexisting ideas about the properties of
surfaces” cannot be dismissed as irrelevant (2007, p. 26). Similarly, Gray argues that “only on a Riemannian
program could . . . this simple model (of an appropriate distance metric on a hemisphere) be understood as
illustrative of anything comparable with Euclid’s geometry of space” (1989, p. 156). Webb explains more
fully that the application of elliptical “geometry” to the sphere, or more generally the “consistency of (this)
set of geometrical sentences”, could not be compared with Euclid’s achievement because it did not provide
for the measurement of planar figures (2006, pp. 211–212). Cf. Lanczos (1970, p. 63) and Stillwell (2002,
pp. 341–342).

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of this paper draws on Lambert’s philosophical works to explain how he understands

this certainty. In the following section (Sect. 3), I explain why it is so important to
Lambert to prove the possibility of complex concepts (to which definitions pertain)
from simple concepts (as codified in axioms and postulates). In Sect. 4, I show that
Lambert traces the certainty of Euclidean geometry to a very specific source, namely
Euclid’s postulates. I will articulate the role played by the postulates, as Lambert
conceives it, and explain why the certainty they confer on Euclid’s geometry is not
shared by any alternative theory.

3 Lambert faults Wolff’s attempt to justify geometrical concepts

We saw Lambert commend Euclid for adhering to the dictum that “every definition,
until it has been proved, is an empty hypothesis” (Sect. 6). In (1786), he stresses
the importance of showing that the complex concept introduced by a definition is
not an “absurdity or a figment of the imagination”. He treats Euclid’s procedure as
an exemplary response to a certain kind of skepticism. He explains how it met the
objections brought by “the Sophists of Euclid’s day”: since they did not “simply
demand only words”, but “conceded the representation of the thing (Vorstellung der
Sache)”, they had to acknowledge geometry’s rigor (Sect. 3). He seems to require, as
a condition on adequacy, of any geometry that it vindicate its concepts from doubt of
this kind. To understand this view of geometry, we must understand more precisely
what it forces the skeptic to concede.
Lambert’s fullest discussion of geometry’s method and certainty is an extended
critique of one particular attempt to introduce mathematical method into philosophy.
The German philosophical scene of the mid-1700s was dominated by the views of
Christian Wolff (1679–1754), who prided himself on bringing mathematical method to
philosophy. Lambert concludes that Wolff fails in his aim, for the metaphysics he leaves
behind still lacks geometry’s certainty. In his unfinished essays (1915) and (1918),
Lambert compares the “Sophist” who challenges Euclidean geometry to the skeptics
who doubt the reality of outer objects (1918, Sects. 11, 48).25 He maintains, here26
and elsewhere, that geometry vanquishes doubt, while metaphysics is still plagued
by it. Although Wolff advertises his method as “mathematical”, its failure to bring

25 In Sect. 48, Lambert compares to the Sophist to an “egoist”. In Sect. 11, he observes that geometry does
not admit the controversies that divide “idealists” from “materialists” (and the different national schools
from one another). In Lambert’s context, skeptics were routinely classified into two categories: idealists,
who doubt the existence of bodies, and egoists, who doubt the existence of anything outside the individual
mind (see Beiser 2002, pp. 28–29). In the notes prefixed to (1918), Lambert suggests that Euclid’s method
does not actually answer these skeptics, for a geometer “can be an egoist” (Not. 12). Yet the skeptic’s doubts
about existence do not threaten any conclusion of geometry, for geometry “is independent of everything
in existence (von allen existentibus), namely, one can abstract from it” (Not. 11). So geometry, as found in
Euclid’s Elements, has all the certainty it requires.
26 “One must be little acquainted with metaphysics as it is now and geometry, should the difference in their
correctness and certainty be not at once apparent. In the first all is so orderly that one sees every step that
one takes, as this light is (I freely admit) in metaphysics either still wholly lacking, or where it yet shines
it uncovers only a chaos of concepts, whose action, possibility, and correctness is still after a long time not
so evident that one can be content with them” (1918, Sect. 10).

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certainty to metaphysics shows that it is inferior to, and cannot be identified with,
Euclid’s. As Lambert criticizes Wolff’s method, he is led to explicate Euclid’s, and
thereby illuminates the doubts that he takes Euclid to answer.
Lambert begins (1918) by noting that two factors are responsible for geometry’s
certainty (Notanda 1). The first is that its theorems are so securely grounded on its
first principles. Lambert applauds Wolff’s insight that the form of geometrical proof
transmits certainty from the principles to the theorems. Wolff shows “that by means of
the mathematical method, the certainty of the theorems could be brought in line with
(auf . . . gebracht werden) that of the principles (Grundsätze) and definitions,” which
makes “the question (of deciding their truth) remarkably simpler” (1915, Sect. 18).
However, Lambert does not entirely accept Wolff’s conception of geometry’s deduc-
tive method. In (1771), Lambert distinguishes two elements within this conception.
Lambert has no objection to the first component, which is just that the theorems can
be proved from the principles by the familiar techniques of Euclidean proof. But (as
we will see) he has reservations about Wolff’s understanding of the certainty transmit-
ted by proof. Wolff holds that certainty originates in “pure principles” (Grundsätze)
that can serve as a basis because one admits them “as soon as one understands the
words”. He grounds the principles’ certainty, that is, on immediate understanding of
the words they contain. His account of their certainty suggests a second way in which
to extend their certainty to the whole theory: namely, to define all other words in terms
of these primitives. So Wolff institutes a second project, parallel to the derivation of
theorems: he “demands, further still, that words which might have some obscurity
must be defined” (Sect. 21).
Wolff’s search for definitions is thus part of his attempt to model geometry’s
inferential method. It is also, Lambert believes, the means by which Wolff seeks to
replicate the second factor responsible for geometry’s certainty, namely the possibility
of its concepts. Lambert maintains that “in metaphysics with respect to concepts” one
should emulate the procedure by which Euclid demonstrates the possibility of figures
(1918, Notanda 3). Wolff attempts to prove the possibility of concepts by providing
definitions for them.
A definition, on Wolff’s view, contains “marks” which express criteria by which
objects falling under the defined concept can be recognized. According to Wolff, a
definition can be shown to correspond to a possible thing by analyzing it into its
component marks, and ensuring that both they and the modes of their combination are
possible. Combination, as Wolff understands it, is subject to only one constraint: to
be combined, marks must be logically consistent.
As Lambert points out in (1771), this method (the “method of analysis”) is not
dispositive. First, our failure to find contradiction between the marks of a concept is
no guarantee of the absence of contradiction.27 Secondly, to show that a combination

27 In (1915), Lambert makes the point through an analogy between the analytic method of proof and the
analysis of concepts. He has already argued that the analytic method of proof cannot decide a proposition’s
truth or falsity. It thus yields nothing in application to propositions that are “wholly or in part mistaken
(irrig)”: one can neither prove such a proposition, nor “conclude on this basis that it is incorrect.” So
one “must always argue on other grounds that it is in fact false, and can say only so much: what can be
proved according to the analytic method is true. But not the other way around: it must be false on this
account, because we cannot execute the proof” (Sect. 33). He claims that the analytic method is more

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of simpler concepts is consistent is not to show that these concepts are themselves
possible. Now, as Lambert acknowledges, Wolff does not hold that every concept’s
possibility must be proved by means of analysis.28 For instance, he does not try to
derive the concept of parallel line, as he has defined it, from simpler concepts. In
practice, his method terminates with relatively simple concepts whose possibility is
proved empirically. They are either abstracted from experience, or represent quali-
ties directly given in experience.29 Wolff’s method thus points toward what Lambert
regards as the true ground of the possibility of concepts, namely the concepts of figures
that are “simple and lie before the eyes” (1918, Notanda 1). According to Lambert,
geometry is safe from error “at least as it regards the simplest among all our concepts”
(Notanda 3).
Yet Lambert objects that the method of analysis cannot terminate where it does if it
is to suffice for Wolff’s purposes. He implies that the concepts in which it terminates
are not simple in the relevant sense. Lambert concedes that Wolff’s method serves
“if one is to find possibilities a posteriori or by means of experience”. Just as the
possibility of individual concepts can in some cases be proved empirically, so can
the possibility of modes of combination (1771, Sect. 20). Yet this method will not
work for certain concepts. On Lambert’s account, Wolff’s treatment of the concept
of parallel line illustrates the limitations of his method. Since Wolff does not give a
combinatorial proof of this concept, Lambert infers that Wolff counts it as abstracted
rather than combined.
Lambert grants that concepts abstracted from examples need no further proof, but
insists “one must nevertheless play fair with the reader and show him how one has
abstracted the concept” by producing the examples and giving “an account of all the
precautions one has taken in the abstraction” (1786, Sect. 4). In the case of parallel
lines, however, “this would have been quite out of the question”, for “however many

Footnote 27 continued
fruitful in application to concepts, because it sometimes decides consistency (which is to concepts as truth
is to propositions). The method of analysis “proceeds wholly otherwise” in application to concepts because
“one can at least often discover (the) incorrectness (when a concept is in fact incorrect), if one pursues it far
enough to reach the marks that contradict one another” (Sect. 34). But since (as Lambert stresses) we are
not guaranteed to find a contradiction, our failure to find one is no proof of consistency. Lambert’s failure
to say here that finding a model does prove consistency may be further evidence that he does not hold a
model-theoretic view of justification.
28 In (1965), Wolff describes the process by which concepts are analyzed into marks, which are further
analyzed into their component marks (I.17). He concedes that “it is no ways necessary, and very rarely is it
possible, for us to bring this analysis to a conclusion, that is, to carry it on till we come to such notions, as
cannot be farther analyzed; but we may be satisfied with carrying it on so far as is necessary to our present
purpose”, which may be to define a concept or demonstrate a proposition (I.18). Since our inability to
fully analyze a concept does not show that it is genuinely unanalyzable (i.e. simple), the concepts in which
definitions terminate—concepts whose marks cannot be made distinct by analysis—must still be shown to
be possible.
29 Thus Wolff, in (1965), distinguishes three means by which a concept’s possibility can be proved, corre-
sponding to the means by which it was acquired. Certain concepts are obtained directly from, and can be
immediately grounded on, experience. Once a concept has been acquired, other concepts can be obtained
from—and justified with reference to—it, in one of two ways. The first is abstraction, which omits certain
specific determinations of the given concept, to yield a more general concept. The second is to append
further determinations to the given concept, in “arbitrary combinations” whose possibility must be proved
by analysis (I.30).

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of these one draws, there remain two marked deficiencies. First, the drawing lacks
geometrical precision. Second, it is absolutely impossible to continue both lines into
the infinite.” Therefore, no experience of a diagram of putatively parallel lines can
show that the two will not at any point intersect. Since no “precautions” could justify
generalizations based on such imperfect examples, Lambert concludes that in this case
“one does not get anywhere a posteriori and with abstraction” (1786, Sect. 5). The
case of parallels thus makes clear that “experience and examples do not show at once
how far the possibilities reach” (1771, Sect. 20). By resting his claims of possibility
on experience of this sort, Wolff thus halts his procedure before the true extent of
possibility is revealed.
Lambert argues further that Wolff cannot bring his method to its intended com-
pletion. Because Wolff does not properly distinguish between simple and complex
concepts, but rather “takes concepts as he finds them” (1771, Sect. 11, cf. Sect. 23),
he is caught in a vicious circle. Lambert claims that in order to count as a proof
of possibility, a definition must meet two conditions: “the defined word must repre-
sent a possible and correct (richtig) concept, and the definition must exactly indicate
(angeben) this concept”. He then asserts that if a definition does not self-evidently
satisfy these requirements, it must be proved to do so. Appealing to the distinction
between simple and complex concepts, he argues that no definition self-evidently sat-
isfies the conditions, “since simple concepts cannot be defined through inner marks,
while complex concepts absolutely require proof of their generality and possibility”.
Thus, if one “does not begin with the simple concepts, but instead others are mingled
with them, it will always seem as if the defining and proving were never at an end”.
The method of analysis, as practiced by Wolff, “neither can nor must be carried on
endlessly”, but rather comes to a “standstill” (1771, Sect. 22).
The analogy between the derivation of theorems and the definition of concepts
suggests an alternative strategy. Just as theorems (Lehrsätze), which “are not to be
admitted without proof”, proceed from first principles (Grundsätze), which are admitted
“as soon as one understands the words”, in the same way derived concepts
(Lehrbegriffe) should be related to primary concepts (Grundbegriffe). Primary con-
cepts “must be those that one admits and assumes in themselves, but to the (derived
concepts) something must still be added, which connects them to the (primary con-
cepts)”. Lambert claims it to be “clear” that “what must still be so added is likewise a
manner of proof” (1915, Sect. 25). So on Lambert’s view the analytic method must be
supplemented by a synthetic method (Sect. 35), which begins with the simple concepts
and is best exemplified by Euclid’s way of proceeding.
Euclid takes the simple concepts as a basis for first principles, which he uses
to secure the possibility of the remaining concepts and principles. Lambert puts it
most concisely in his correspondence with Kant, where he explains that composed
(zusammengesetzte) concepts are “not conceivable a priori in themselves” (Ak. 10:65).
Rather, the possibility of composition must be derived from first principles, namely
axioms (Grundsätze) and postulates. In particular, postulates “state the universal
and necessary possibilities of the composition (Zusammensetzung) and unification
(Verbindung) of the simple concepts” (Ak. 10:52). Since the concepts in which pos-
tulates are expressed cannot presuppose the acts of combination that they enjoin,
postulates (together with axioms) occur only in simple concepts (Ak. 10:65; cf. 1771,

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Sect. 23). Lambert claims that in general, simple concepts “indicate axioms and postu-
lates that found scientific cognition and are everywhere of the same kind as Euclid’s”
(Ak. 10:66).
So the justification of complex concepts, as Lambert conceives it, must make use
of postulates, since they are the only indication of the ways in which simple concepts
may be combined. Throughout his philosophical writings, Lambert emphasizes the
importance of deriving complex concepts from genuinely simple ones. The indispens-
ability of postulates for the derivation of complex concepts thus appears to explain
their importance for all cognition. Yet I believe that for Lambert, the justificatory
force of Euclid’s postulates depends on more than the simplicity of the concepts they
contain. In the following section (Sect. 4), I will argue that for Lambert, the postu-
lates’ justificatory force depends on their practical character. On his view, a principle
is marked as practical by its form, which is that of a standing order. In Sect. 5, I will
explain how the postulates’ practical character enables them to turn back skeptical
doubt.

4 The practical character of the postulates

Lambert suggests that simplicity of concepts is not the only factor responsible for the
certainty of Euclid’s geometry, and neglected by Wolff. Both axioms and postulates
are couched in simple concepts. But Lambert attributes Wolff’s lack of success to his
neglect of a feature that is common to postulates and problems, rather than postulates
and axioms.30
Here, Lambert appeals to a distinction, tacitly made by Euclid, among the kinds
of propositions proved in geometry. The Elements demonstrate propositions of two
kinds: problems, whose solution shows “what it was required to do”, and theorems,
whose solution shows “what it was required to prove”.31 On Lambert’s analogy
between propositions and concepts, the problems must be likened to derived concepts
(Lehrbegriffe) rather than primary concepts (Grundbegriffe), for the problems are
derived propositions, rather than first principles. So the concepts that occur in the
problems are complex, rather than simple. Since the feature responsible for the postu-
lates’ justificatory force is shared by the problems, rather than by the axioms, it cannot
be the simplicity of their concepts.
Lambert indicates that the feature shared by the postulates and the problems, and
responsible for the postulates’ certainty, is their practical character. He follows Wolff

30 Lambert claims that in introducing mathematical method to philosophy, Wolff “actually . . . only broke
the ice there, as he also left various things behind”. Lambert’s point is that the elements “left behind” by
Wolff are essential to geometry’s certainty, and he proceeds to name them: “what are called postulates and
problems in geometry are scarcely or not at all present in Wolff’s metaphysics” (1771, Sect. 11).
31 In Heath’s translation. Problems and theorems differ in the sumperasma, which summarizes what has
been shown, and in the protaseis, the initial statement of the proposition (Mueller 1981, pp. 11–13). Formally,
“a problem is cast as an infinitive expression seeking the construction of a geometric term in a specified
relation to other given terms”, while a theorem “is typically set in the form of a conditional asserting a
property of a specified geometric configuration” (Knorr 1986, p. 348). In Book I, Propositions 1–3, 9–12,
22, 23, 31, 42, and 44–46 are problems.

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in extending the distinction between problems and theorems to the first principles.32
Lambert notes that the postulates are “brought forth in the same form as the problems”
(1915, Sect. 48) and their solutions take the form of “a rule, prescription, order etc.”,
in which “something to find or do is exhibited”. He thus counts them as “practical”
questions. The axioms, in contrast, are for him “theoretical” questions in which “one
asks what a thing is to be, to do, to have, etc.” and “the answer has the form of a
Satz”. The postulates and axioms differ from problems and theorems, respectively, in
that the first principles’ solutions are “admitted as soon as the words are understood”.
So to understand a postulate is to admit a solution which “indicates how one should
proceed” (Sect. 50), but does not consist in a technique or specific instructions.
Lambert’s criticism of Wolff thus suggests that he thinks there is more to the cer-
tainty of Euclid’s first principles than the simplicity of the concepts they contain. This
evidence is not conclusive. For Lambert shares Wolff’s view that combined concepts
originate in willed acts of cognition.33 On this view, the introduction of combined
concepts could only be governed by a practical principle. So we might think that
Lambert, in assimilating the postulates to problems rather than axioms, is only point-
ing out that they permit us to add combined concepts to our repertoire. If so, then their
justificatory force might after all derive solely from the simplicity of the concepts in
which they are couched.
Yet Lambert’s positive account of the postulates’ certainty makes clear that it is
not wholly explained by the simplicity of their concepts.34 Postulates are used to
solve both problems (in which combined concepts are constructed) and theorems (in
which they are shown to have certain determinations). If the postulates’ role is just to
make combined concepts available to us, then its fulfillment should not require one
kind of exercise more than (or to the exclusion of) the other. Yet Lambert claims that
doubt about the generality of combined concepts is answered only by employing the
postulates to solve problems, not to prove theorems. The simple concepts that comprise
the postulates confer their certainty on combined concepts by means of proofs that
show “how one should proceed”, i.e. solutions to problems, rather than proofs of
“what a thing is to be”, which constitute Euclid’s theorems (1915, Sect. 50). The
justificatory force of the postulates thus seems to derive, not solely from the simplicity
of the concepts in which they are couched or their indispensability for the expansion
of our conceptual repertoire, but rather from their power to move us to proceed.

32 On Wolff’s view, the distinction between practical and theoretical consequences automatically extends
to the axioms and postulates. For Wolff treats them as derived rather than first principles. Wolff claims that
axioms and postulates can be proved from definitions that capture the meanings of their component concepts
and appropriate minor premises. Since they are capable of demonstration, they properly belong among the
theorems and problems, and are distinguished only in being derived by means of a single syllogism rather
than a chain of syllogisms. However, Wolff grants that “we usually say of them, that they require no
demonstration, being self-evident; namely, so soon as we understand the definition, whence by means of a
single syllogism they are derived” (1965, VI.2).
33 Wolff writes that when concepts are formed through the combination of simpler concepts, “we cannot
know whether these concepts are possible, or whether we are deceived by empty sounds, as our arbitrary
will can render nothing possible” (1965, I.33, trans. amended).
34 Thanks to members of Stanford’s program in History and Philosophy of Science—Lanier Anderson,
Graciela de Pierris, Michael Friedman, and Allen Wood—for pressing this point.

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Lambert recounts that he was surprised to find, at the start of the Elements, an
exercise (a problem) rather than a theorem. When he first read Euclid (“long after
having read Wolff”),35 he expected Euclid’s proofs to follow the order of Wolff’s
Anfangsgründe der Geometrie, i.e. to

begin with the first theorems in which angles are compared.36 But at once (Euclid)
takes angle, side, and figure for granted, and begins with a problem instead of a
theorem. What is this, I thought, should not the theory precede, before one puts
it into practice? Only Euclid presumably thought much further (1915, Sect. 79).

Lambert concluded that Euclid’s first result was not merely a “tutorial in practical
geometry”, but rather “served to put the entire theory beyond all doubt, and to ensure
that the figures it considers should not be merely imaginary, but rather clearly possible”.
For with this result, Euclid showed “those who doubted the possibility of an equilateral
triangle . . . how they could make such a triangle of (von) any given magnitude”, and
thus “put before (their) eyes the fact that they could refute themselves” (Sect. 79).
Lambert also features this result as a singularly effective refutation of the skeptic in a
précis of Euclid’s method, where he writes that Euclid “at once brings forth an exercise,
in order to show those who would have doubted the universal and unconditioned
possibility of an equilateral triangle how they could make one from (or of) any given
magnitude”.37 The goal of the next section of this paper is to explain how Euclid’s
assignment of the exercise has this effect.

5 The skeptical doubt answered by postulates

To explain how Euclid’s practical principles can be so potent against the skeptic, we
must understand the skeptic’s challenge. The first part of this section compares the
skeptical challenge that Lambert takes the postulates to answer with two traditional
kinds of objections to geometry. The remainder of the section explains how the pos-
tulates answer the challenge, as Lambert understands it. Since Lambert conceives
geometry’s certainty (“obviousness”) as the ability to withstand skeptical doubt, we
come to understand the certainty it has for him by seeing how it turns back doubt.
To explain how Euclid answers the skeptic, Lambert contrasts Euclid’s actual
method with an alternative that he might have taken. Lambert imagines that the
Elements begins with an “already drawn” triangle. The skeptic concedes, in response,
that the drawn figure is a triangle, and thus that triangles are in some sense possible.
But she is not made to concede “the universal and unconditioned possibility of” the

35 “I first read Euclid long after having read Wolff, and not so much in order to familiarize myself with his
propositions, as to more precisely gauge the renown accorded him by Wolff himself in his Vernunftlehre
(theory of reason, or logic) on account of his (Euclid’s) rigorously ordered and connected propositions”
(Sect. 79).
36 The first result proved in Wolff’s (1973) is the theorem that the angles created by the intersection of two
lines are equal to two right angles (Theorem 1, p. 132). In Euclid, this is the 13th proposition of Book I: “If
a straight line set up on a straight line make angles, it will make either two right angles or angles equal to
two right angles”.
37 Letter to Baron Georg von Holland, 11 April 1765, excerpted in Stäckel and Engel 142.

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triangle. Lambert explains that if Euclid had tried to prove the triangle’s possibility
“only in this empirical manner,” then “since for every triangle three lines are required,
as its sides, nothing would be easier than to put before him three lines, of which one
is greater than the other two taken together”. These lines do not meet the condition
under which, as Euclid shows in I.22, a triangle can be constructed from any three
lines. Since a triangle can be drawn (from three given lines) only under this condition,
the existence of this drawn figure would not suffice to prove the “universal”, uncondi-
tioned possibility of triangles. So the skeptic who “denies (Euclid) the possibility of
his figures” could still “cast doubt on the universality” if Euclid “had already drawn
some figures before the eyes, for proof” (1915, Sect. 79). Lambert holds that Euclid
can remove this doubt only by beginning with a problem.
Because the skeptic’s doubt, as Lambert conceives it, cannot be answered by
“already drawn figures”, it must be distinguished from one of the challenges to which
geometry was traditionally subject. This is the denial that there are any objects of which
it is literally true. As formulated by Hume in the Treatise, the objection is that “the
objects of geometry, those surfaces, lines and points, whose proportions and positions
it examines, are mere ideas in the mind; and not only never did, but never can exist in
nature” (I.II.4, 1978, p. 42). A sharper version of the objection, recorded by Aristotle
in the Posterior Analytics, is that the geometers’ conclusions do not hold even of the
objects that are introduced to prove them: that “geometers speak falsely when they
say that a line which is not a foot long is a foot long or that a drawn line which is not
straight is straight”.38 If Lambert’s skeptic doubted the existence (or availability to
the senses) of objects described by geometry, Euclid would need her to concede only
that the drawn object is a triangle. But Lambert does not count this concession as a
victory for Euclid. These considerations suggest, more generally, that what the skeptic
doubts and the postulates confer on geometry is not the existence (or availability to our
cognitive faculties) of its objects. They thus explain why the provision of a (perhaps
appropriately concrete) model does not inoculate a theory against skeptical doubt.
The doubt answered by the postulates seems to correspond more closely to a second
kind of challenge to which geometry was traditionally subject. Hume raises a version
of it even as he responds to a challenge of the first kind. Both Hume and Aristotle are
concerned to defend geometry against the charge of falsity, but Hume (unlike Aristotle)
argues that it can answer the charge only by reining in its ambition. Geometry “takes
the dimensions and proportions of figures justly; but roughly, and with some liberty”.
Its proofs do not “extend so far” as “the utmost precision and exactness”. In particular,
geometry does not prove, of minute portions of extension “existing in nature”, that
they can be further divided (I.II.4, 1978, p. 45). Nor does it prove that “two right lines
cannot have one common segment”. For, though it be “absurd to imagine” this “where
two right lines incline upon each other with a sensible angle”, geometry cannot show
that lines which are justly taken as straight do not “upon their contact become one”
when they “approach at the rate of an inch in twenty leagues” (I.II.4, 1978, p. 51).
Hume’s purported defense of geometry thus amounts to a challenge of a second kind:
that it is true only where its claims are borne out by immediate experience, but not

38 Posterior Analytics I.10, 76b–77a. Translation Barnes (1993, p. 16).

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in regions too small or too vast to be surveyed by us. So in denying the universal or
unconditioned possibility of figures, the skeptic can be taken to claim that geometry’s
conclusions hold only to this extent.
I am not confident, however, that this is the best way to understand the doubt that
Lambert attributes to the skeptic. In Lambert’s scenario, the skeptic concedes that the
already-drawn figure is a triangle and appears to deny that there can be other objects
falling under the concept “triangle”. Lambert does not indicate that the skeptic is con-
cerned only with small or large objects. He suggests, on the contrary, that the skeptic
denies that there can be other triangles even within the region that contains the already-
drawn triangle, which is experientially accessible to both Euclid and the skeptic. For
in his scenario, the skeptic can refute Euclid by presenting, in this region, three lines
that do not satisfy the condition of I.22.39 We may be puzzled as to what, other than
empiricist epistemology or metaphysical doctrine (denying the infinite divisibility of
spatial objects), could motivate the skeptic’s doubt. But geometrical practice, specifi-
cally Euclid’s use of diagrams to illustrate the (inconsistent) assumptions of reductio
proofs, might already ground doubts about the possibility of already-drawn figures.
Lambert’s failure to frame the skeptic’s doubt in a broader philosophical program may
signal his own concern with geometrical practice, and in any case brings into focus
its implications for that practice.
Far more than an annoyance for the geometer, the doubt threatens the basis of all
geometrical proof. In the Elements, the existence of figures of a certain kind is not
derived from existentially quantified principles, nor are results about them derived
from universal generalizations (see Friedman 1992, p. 61; Mueller 1981, p. 14). To
show that a certain figure has a certain property, or can be constructed, Euclid begins
by assuming some simpler configuration. (In I.1, this is a straight line segment.) The
proof proceeds by constructing a more complicated configuration that witnesses the
property in question. In such a proof, the postulates are vital: they are used to show

39 Lambert’s treatment of the “third hypothesis” may provide further evidence that the issue of “universal
or unconditioned possibility” is not primarily one of applicability to small or large regions of space. To show
that on this hypothesis (together with Euclid’s other axioms and postulates) “we would have an absolute
measure (Maass) of the length of every line and the volume (Inhalt) of every planar and solid figure” (1786,
Sect. 79), Lambert argues, specifically, that the magnitude of a figure’s (interior) angles determines (and
is thus a measure of) the length of its sides. It follows, as Lambert notes, that figures cannot be similar
(alike in the configuration of interior angles) yet differ in size. In other words, all figures with a given angle
configuration must be of a particular size.
Now if the “universal or unconditioned” possibility of the concept of a figure with a particular
angle configuration were to be understood as its applicability within arbitrarily small regions of space,
then nothing conceived in accordance with the third hypothesis could have this possibility, which charac-
terizes geometrical concepts. The theory that replaces Euclid’s axiom of parallels with the third hypothesis
would thus be automatically disqualified as possible. Yet Lambert does not seem to draw such sweeping
implications from the impossibility of similar figures differing in size. He lists the prospect of “the similarity
and proportionality of figures ceasing entirely” as merely one of the “inconveniences” that would attend
this theory, on a par with the incompletability of trigonometrical tables (Sect. 80).
One could, however, maintain that in (1771) Lambert takes the absence of “absolute measure” to con-
stitute the universality of spatial concepts. Lambert there gives the principles “Space has no determinate
unit (Einheit)” and “Every part of space can be taken as a unit (Einheit) and enlarged as much as one
pleases” as axiom and postulate (respectively) of geometry (Sect. 79), after taking care to note that axioms
and postulates bring out the universality of, rather than defining, concepts (Sect. 76). Webb argues (2006,
p. 228) that Lambert means the same by Einheit in (1771) as by Maass in (1786).

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that this configuration can be erected on the given figure(s). Alison Laywine makes
this point clearly and forcefully.

[By the third postulate,] we can demand a circle of precisely the distance and cir-
cumference we need. Suppose we are trying to solve the problem of constructing
an equilateral triangle on a given line segment AB. The solution to that prob-
lem depends on constructing two circles—one of centre A, the other of centre
B—having the same distance, namely equal to the length of AB [forthcoming]).

The assumption that circles can be constructed on this segment, in the (experientially
accessible) region that contains it, is the very nerve of the proof.
Lambert indicates that the skeptic can deny the possibility of constructions only as
long as she regards every figure as a fait accompli. Euclid overcomes her doubts about
the possibility of triangles, not by presenting her with a completed triangle, but by
showing her how to make one. Specifically, Euclid confronts “those who doubted the
possibility of an equilateral triangle” with the “fact that they could refute themselves”,
by showing “how they could make such a triangle of (von) any given magnitude”
(1915, Sect. 79). By regarding the production of the triangle as her own action, the
skeptic is made to concede that it can occur not just in this but in every case. As Lambert
writes in his précis of Euclid’s method, because Euclid begins with a problem “it is
for (him) enough if one concedes that there are such figures, even if there should be
only one”.40 Thus the solution to I.1, far from a mere “tutorial in practical geome-
try”, ensures that the figures considered by geometry “should be not merely imagi-
nary, but rather clearly possible”: “The trick of it (die Hauptkunstgriff hiebey) lay in
this, that the possibility of an equilateral triangle manifested (sich erweisst) so to speak
of itself. One cannot better refute one who believes something to be impossible than
if one shows him how he himself could effect it (ins Werk setzen)” (ibid.). Lambert
claims, further, that Euclid “was in this way empowered (in Stand gesetzt) to posit
every line required for the drawing of a figure”, so that once “the possibility of an
equilateral triangle was shown universally, once and for all”, Euclid was in a position
“to show that of every other figure” (ibid.).
These remarks raise several puzzles. How does the adoption of this practical or
agential perspective force the skeptic to acknowledge that the possibility of a triangle

40 Letter to Baron Georg von Holland, 11 April 1765, excerpted in Stäckel and Engel 142. He states still
more clearly in (1771) that Euclid proves the “universal” or “unconditioned” possibility of constructions
by assigning them as problems. The figures presented by Euclid already “represent (their) concepts purely
and completely”, because Euclid exercises “the absolute freedom to leave out of the figure—which is really
only a special or single case of a universal proposition, but serves in the place of an example—all that does
not pertain to this or does not occur in the concept”. (By calling a figure “really only a special or single
case”, Lambert seems to mean that it inevitably has features that are extraneous to its concept or irrelevant
to its role in the proof, although these features are “left out” by Euclid, i.e., not specified in Euclid’s text.
For instance, any triangle we construct must have angles of some particular magnitude, but when Euclid
refers only to a triangle—not to a right or equiangular triangle—his text does not specify the magnitude of
its angles.) Yet these figures still do not “indicate (their concepts’) universal possibility”, so Euclid “took
care to argue (their) possibility exactly, and to this end he used his Postulata, which are put forth in the
form of problems and represent the universal, unconditional, and in-themselves conceivable, or simple,
possibilities, or do-abilities (Thulichkeiten)” (Sect. 12).

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is “universal and unconditional?” And how can the construction of an equilateral

triangle put the entire theory beyond doubt?
We can understand Lambert’s point by considering the feature of geometrical prac-
tice that he highlights. What Euclid shows the skeptic, on this account, is how to make
a triangle “von” any “Grösse” (magnitude). While this German word and its English
equivalent are now understood to denote size, something an object has, in the 18th-
century they were used in reference to mathematical objects themselves. (Each was
used to translate both the Latin quantum and quantitas, which are related as concrete
instance and abstract property.41 ) And the German von is used for source, origin,
or point of departure (for which English once used “of” and now uses “from”). So
Lambert’s point may be that the construction begins with a given object (a “magnitude”
in the sense of quantum), namely a line segment. An obvious question for Lambert is
why the skeptic could not regard the triangle as a product of her own action, yet deny
that it is unconditionally possible, on the grounds that its possibility depends on that
of the segment that is required for its construction. I will explain why, according to
Lambert, the possibility of the configurations assumed by Euclid cannot rationally be
doubted from a practical or agential perspective. I will first show how the adoption of
this perspective is supposed to preclude doubt of the segment’s possibility, then return
to the question of the triangle’s possibility.
The segment differs from the triangle in that its construction is specified by a
postulate rather than as the solution to a problem. Lambert indicates that the procedures
specified by the postulates are not open to the same doubts as the procedures assigned
in problems.
What impresses Lambert is that while “postulates are put forth in exactly the same
form as problems”, a postulate consists solely of the infinitive statement of the proce-
dure to be effected, whereas in problems this infinitive is accompanied by a “solution”
(consisting of a set of instructions and argument to show that their execution has the
specified result). Lambert claims that a postulate does not require argument to “show
that in fact it can be accomplished this way” because its solution is admitted as “pos-
sible and do-able in and of itself (an und für sich als möglich und thunlich)” (1915,
Sect. 51). It is not immediately clear why Lambert thinks the possibility of the proce-
dures specified by postulates—the construction of line segments and circles—is less
conditional than that of the procedures assigned as problems. For the construction of
line segments and circles requires certain objects, which must be assumed as given
in the outset.42 Yet the possibility of these procedures is less open to question in the
sense that the required objects can in every case be produced by prior applications of
the postulates themselves. Besides line segments, the only objects required are points,
and in the Elements these are typically given in terms of the line segments on which
they lie.
Michael Friedman’s invaluable (1992) discussion of Euclid’s treatment of iteration
is especially fruitful here. Friedman explains how Euclid guarantees the existence

41 For helpful discussion, see Sutherland (2004).

42 Specifically, Postulate 1 specifies the drawing of a line from any point to any point; Postulate 2, the
continuation of a given finite segment; and Postulate 3, the drawing of a circle with any point as its center
and any segment as its radius.

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of the objects needed for the truth of his theorems through iteration of constructive
procedures, obviating the need for existential axioms of the sort found in modern
formulations of geometry. To guarantee the existence of the points that lie between the
two endpoints of any given line segment, for instance, Euclid specifies what Friedman
calls a “bisection function” that requires only the operations specified by the postulates
and yields the points by producing segments, intersecting the given segment, on which
they lie.43 Modern formulations, in contrast, assume an axiom of the form ∀a∀b∃c
(R(c, a, b)), stating that for all points a, b on a line, there exists a point c that lies
between a and b. Friedman observes that Euclid in effect gives “what modern logic calls
a Skolem function” for the existentially quantified variable in this axiom: a function
f (x, y) which takes arguments in the range of the universally quantified variables
a, b and yields values bearing the relation R to them (in symbols, R( f (a, b), a, b))
(p. 65).
Friedman’s comparison to functions brings out the crucial point that the objects
produced by applications of Euclid’s procedures can be assumed as given in (can
serve as “arguments” for) subsequent applications of the procedures. Conversely, the
objects assumed as given in any particular application of a procedure can be regarded
as the products of earlier applications of that procedure. Thus, the conditions under
which the procedure is in general possible are satisfied by particular applications of
it. In particular, the existence of points, which is a condition for the construction of
line segments, is guaranteed by the construction of particular segments. So once the
skeptic regards the construction of a segment as an action that she can perform, she
cannot doubt the possibility of the existence of the objects required for it.
In much the same way that the application of the postulates satisfies the conditions
on their own possibility, it satisfies the conditions on the possibility of problems.
In general, the given configurations assumed in Euclid’s problems are preceded by
procedures for constructing them. For problems late in the sequence, the procedures
are given as solutions of earlier problems, but for the first problem, I.1, the given
segment must be regarded as the result of applying Postulate 1 or 2. Similarly, the
constructions required to solve the problems are either specified as the solutions to
earlier problems or (as in the case of I.1) licensed by the postulates. Lambert can be
taken to draw attention to the way in which the figures assumed in the statement of
problems presuppose just the procedures required for the solution of the problems.
The skeptic who persists in doubting the repeatability of these procedures can fairly be
accused of ignoring the presuppositions of her very own skeptical scenario (namely,
that there is a single figure of a certain kind, such as a segment).
The imperative form common to the problems and postulates thus points towards
the answer to a certain kind of skepticism. To be sure, a skeptic will not admit that
a procedure is “universally and unconditionally possible” (in particular, possible

43 The “uniform method” given by Euclid “for actually constructing the point bisecting any given finite
line segment” is, specifically, to construct an equilateral triangle on the segment in accordance with the
solution to I.1, then to join the vertex opposite the segment that is given as base with what Friedman calls
its “mirror image”—the other intersection point of the two circles that have the given segment as radius.
As Friedman observes, Euclid proves in I.10 that the newly produced segment bisects the given segment
(pp. 64–65).

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in arbitrarily small or large regions of space) just because she is commanded to

perform it.
But the imperative formulation forces the skeptic to consider how the configurations
given in the procedure (in this case, the segment to be bisected) can be given in the
first place. Once she regards these configurations as products of her own action, she
faces the question of why she cannot iterate these actions, to fulfill the conditions
on the possibility of figures of other sizes. And in many cases, the question will be
pressing. Suppose she is commanded to divide a segment. She must acknowledge
that the given segment was created by joining two points, making urgent the question
of why the additional segments required for bisection cannot be constructed in the
distance between these points. So proofs such as the solution to I.1 overcome doubt,
Lambert suggests, by showing “how one should proceed” rather than “what a thing
is to be”. The representation (however concrete) of a situation in which a theory is
satisfied confers certainty on the theory only if it is attained by means of such a proof.
This way of reading Lambert makes sense of his view that a certain kind of experi-
ence belongs at geometry’s foundation. As we saw, Lambert criticizes Wolff’s proce-
dure of abstracting concepts from experience. But he endorses Locke’s way of dealing
with concepts, which he calls “anatomy”. In (1771), he explains why “anatomy” is
not subject to the same problems as the “analysis” carried out by Wolff. Lambert takes
Locke to realize (as Wolff had not) that, beginning with our cognition “just as it is”,
abstracted and complex representations must be separated from simple ones.
According to Lambert, this separation is achieved by Locke’s method of “observ-
ing (beobachten) which senses and sensations (Sinnen und Empfindungen) we have
to thank for each kind of concept and which come to be from diverse senses (aus
vermischten Empfindungen)” (Sect. 9). Lambert thus counts as simple the represen-
tations classified by Locke as simple ideas of the inner and outer senses, alone or in
combination.44 As Lambert writes to Kant, he does not scruple “to say that Locke
was on the right track in seeking the simple elements in our cognition”, for “the really
objectively simple concepts must be found by a direct intuition (Anschauen) of them,
that is, one must, in good anatomical fashion, assemble all the concepts and let each
one pass through inspection (Musterung)” (Ak. 10:65–66). (He criticizes Locke only
for neglecting the means by which to extend the conceptual repertoire.45 ) Lambert
claims Euclid also followed this, the only, method for finding simple concepts: “As
Euclid at once seeks out the lines, angles, triangles, etc., he takes up, not the analysis,

44 In (1771), Lambert identifies solidity, existence, duration, extension, power, consciousness, will,
movability, unity, and magnitude as the simple concepts. He lists “extension, duration, existence, movement,
unity, solidity, and so on” as the simple concepts in a letter to Kant (Akademie 10:66). Locke classifies
power, existence, and unity as simple ideas of both sensation and reflection (II.7.1), and thinking and will-
ing as simple ideas of reflection (II.6.2). (According to Locke, reflection “might properly enough be call’d
internal Sense”, even though, “having nothing to do with external Objects”, it is not a sense strictly speaking
(II.i.4).) For Locke, extension, duration, and motion are simple ideas of diverse senses (II.v). While solidity
is a simple idea of only the sense of touch, it has the universality Lambert demands of simple ideas (see the
next paragraph but one in the main text). Because it is received “more constantly from Sensation” than any
other idea, it applies “whether we move, or rest, in what Posture soever we are” (II.iv.1).
45 “Locke remained, with his anatomy of concepts, almost wholly stuck . . . He seems to have missed the
method, or at least the inspiration, to attempt, in respect of the other simple concepts, what the geometers
did in respect of space” (1771, Sect. 10).

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but the anatomy of space, and thereby makes geometry a reality (die Geometrie zu
Stande bringt)”.46
So when Lambert objects to Wolff that “experience and examples do not show at
once how far the possibilities reach”, he does not mean that experience never suffices
for proof of possibility. The experience of observing or inspecting a concept can at
least show, when the concept is simple, that its possibility does not depend on general
principles governing the combination of concepts or on a particular kind of experience
(from which it is abstracted).
More generally, Lambert suggests that the experience of attempting to doubt a
concept can prove its possibility, when the concept is sufficiently basic to cognition. He
may take inspiration from Locke’s view that the simplest of all concepts are “brought
along with every Thought of our Minds” and are thus, in their “Agreement with all
other things, the most universal” concepts we have (1975, II.xvi.1). Lambert seems
to take Locke to mean that certain concepts are employed in the formation of every
thought whatsoever.47 The skeptic’s attempt to doubt them is frustrated by her need
to use them even to formulate her doubt. Lambert also holds, and might have found
in Locke, the stronger view that these concepts apply to every thought whatsoever.
(Leaving aside the special case of geometrical concepts, which are thought in such
close connection with constructive principles, it is not clear why the occurrence of
a concept in thought should satisfy the conditions on its applicability.) From this, it
follows that every instance of thinking, including the skeptic’s attempt at doubting,
proves the possibility of the concepts.
Lambert indicates that geometrical concepts belong to a broader class whose pos-
sibility can be proved through experience of this kind.48 He goes on to develop the
(surprising) suggestion that the possibility of all concepts in this class is both certain
and in a way empirical, because based on “immediate experience, whose possibility
one must also, in doubting, admit” (1918, Notanda 4).

One may with each of these concepts think only back on oneself, and each
time either one sees them come into being in one’s soul, or one finds them in the
consideration of one’s own thoughts, in such a way that when one would not admit
them one must give up the thought, or: that in doubting one must admit them. It
is true that all of these concepts are in this way empirical [Erfahrungsbegriffe].

46 Letter to Baron Georg von Holland, 21 April 1765. In (1787) vol. I, p. 32. Lambert continues, “By
analysis, he would have hit upon neither beginning nor end, as is still the case in metaphysics today”.
Strikingly, later in the same letter Lambert calls the method of beginning with simple concepts “anatomical
or Euclidean”(p. 34).
47 Lambert’s view can be at most inspired by Locke’s. It is not the same as Locke’s, for the concepts that
Lambert lists as basic in this sense—such as identity, diversity, order, essence, and contingency—are not
classified as simple by Locke.
48 In (1918), he claims that the procedure by which Euclid proves the possibility of figures has a “similar
and still more immediate” counterpart, “if we substitute the Sensum internum for the outer senses”, in the
procedure by which “the understanding thinks back on itself and its representations” (Notanda 4). What is
“still more immediate”, in this case, is both experience and proof of concepts’ possibility: “Concepts which
can be derived from the mere consideration of one’s thoughts can be admitted by everyone, because in this
case the experience is immediate. This is a way for very many concepts to come into being, and their proof
is still more immediate than the geometrical” (Notanda 13–15).

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Thus often they are not composed out of others. Yet in this too geometry has no
advantange, and Euclid himself sets the possibility of a straight line among the
postulates. (Sect. 20–21)

Lambert then essays a claim about, which he may intend as a characterization of,
postulates in general: “as often as one would cast doubt on their correctness, the
experience on which it is grounded can every time be renewed over again” (Sect. 21).

6 Conclusion

Our goal has been to explain how Lambert can uphold the certainty of Euclid’s geom-
etry, even as he describes situations in which theories now known as non-Euclidean
geometries would be true. I have argued that these theories do not threaten the cer-
tainty of Euclidean geometry because they are not genuine alternatives to it. They are
not on a par with Euclid’s geometry because they are not possible in the same sense.
A skeptic, even when presented with a surface on which such a geometry holds, can
still rationally doubt whether its concepts apply universally and unconditionally, to
(actual or possible) objects in every region of space. On Lambert’s view, the provision
of “models” (situations in which a theory is realized) cannot answer doubt of this kind
unless it is directed by postulates. The imaginary spherical surface is not constructed
according to postulates. Nor are figures on the surface of an ordinary sphere, for they
satisfy the second hypothesis only through reinterpretation of the terms “plane” and
“line”, not as a result of an iterable procedure. That is why Lambert does not count
either surface as “representation of the subject matter”. I believe his remarks reveal
both his insight into traditional mathematical practice and his distance from contem-
porary conceptions.
Lambert’s account of the role of postulates illuminates traditional attitudes toward
constructive proof techniques. In contemporary philosophy of mathematics, construc-
tivism is usually understood either as a doctrine about the meaning of mathematical
language or as a restriction on legitimate means of mathematical inference (to those
that can be formalized in accord with certain constraints). The latter is more closely
related to a view or tendency found prior to the 20th-century, in both mathematics
and philosophy, in favor of proofs that involve the construction of an object of the
kind at issue.49 Lambert can be taken to supply an explanation or rationalization of
this attitude. Diagrams representing possible mathematical objects are distinguished
from illustrations of reductio hypotheses precisely by their constructive origins. Con-
structive proof thus gives mathematics its distinctive certainty by putting the universal
possibility of its concepts beyond doubt. Postulates become central to mathematics by
making proof of this kind possible.
Lambert appears not to have the modern notion of a model. At least, he does not
regard the surfaces (of the ordinary and “imaginary” spheres) to which he refers as
models in our sense. For a model satisfies all the consequences of—in particular, all
of the universal and existential generalizations implied by—a theory. When presented

49 On the difficulty of formulating a precise notion of “constructive” proof, see Wilder, pp. 313–314.

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with a model of a theory, it is no longer rational to doubt that figures answering to the
theory’s concepts exist, or can be constructed within any region of space. In short, it
is no longer rational to doubt the concepts’ universal and unconditioned possibility.
Yet Lambert thinks that skeptical doubt, of the kind he takes so seriously, is entirely
appropriate in the case of these theories. It is because they contain no principles that
can answer this doubt that they are not possible in the same sense as Euclid’s.
Just as the skeptic he envisages is unwilling to take an “already drawn triangle” as
proof of the triangle’s universal and unconditioned possibility, Lambert is apparently
unwilling to limit the universe of discourse of (with respect to which to interpret)
theories that negate the parallel postulate, to the surfaces he has described. His unwill-
ingness flies in the face of his stated intention to treat geometrical terms like algebraic
symbols, “without looking back to the thing itself”. Yet it is, I think, natural enough
given that the surfaces are conceived with a concreteness that encourages the tendency
to think of them as “special cases” encompassed within an Euclidean framework.50
More importantly, Lambert’s view of simple concepts, as associated with postulates
that instruct us how to give them objects, seems to leave no room for reinterpretation
of the primitives that express these concepts (in their application to spherical surfaces).
Study of Lambert’s views thus sheds light on the challenges surmounted in coming to
see the geometrical primitives as subject to reinterpretation in different applications,
that is, in attaining what can plausibly be taken as the hallmark of the model-theoretic
viewpoint.51,52

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