Clinton Tolley

Dissertation

Title: Kant’s Conception of Logic

Committee: Michael Kremer, Robert Pippin, James Conant, Charles Larmore

{complete Abstract & Table of Contents here [pdf]}

Saying something that is both true and intelligible about Kant’s views on logic requires sensitivity to three sorts of interpretive concerns, corresponding to the expectations of three sorts of potential audiences. Kant-scholars will demand a sensitivity to the internal constraint of consistency with the rest of Kant’s philosophical architectonic. Those working on modern philosophy will demand a sensitivity to the fact that the technical terms of Kant’s logic have had a very specific sense conferred upon them by developments in the late Scholastic and Early Modern periods, a sense which often-times is quite distinct from (or even at odds with) present-day usage. Nevertheless, present-day philosophers of logic will demand that, if they are to be taken seriously, Kant’s views should be able to be framed in such a way that allows for dialogue with the most promising views currently on offer.

In the present work, I aim to be responsible to all three demands, and so engage with all three sorts of readers. The payoff of sensitivity on these several fronts is significant indeed, for I show that many widely-held beliefs about Kant’s views on logic are gravely mistaken and unfounded. I have in mind here primarily the beliefs that: (1) Kant simply inherits and repeats what the tradition has taught about logic since Aristotle, (2) his logical doctrines carry little weight in his philosophical system, and (3) his views have been so thoroughly superceded by more recent work (e.g., by Frege) that they are unable to contribute anything to contemporary debates.

My thesis demonstrates that, to the contrary, Kant’s views on logic: (1*) though essentially indebted to his (especially Rationalist) predecessors, are clearly innovative in relation to them, (2*) are absolutely central to his Critical project (both in its content and in its methodology), and (3*) directly engage foundational discussions in present-day philosophy of logic.

The picture of Kant’s conception of formal (or, as he also calls it, ‘pure general’) logic that emerges from my work is distinguished by the following features: (i) logic has the disciplinary status of a science (and so is neither an art, nor a mere ‘instrument’), (ii) logic’s subject-matter is the capacity for understanding [Verstand] or thinking ‘in general’ (‘as such’ [überhaupt]; and so is not, in the first instance, about either ‘being’ or ‘language’), (iii) logic takes up this capacity according to a method of a priori reflection (not ‘inner’ observation) and analysis (not institution, construction or convention), (iv) logic’s method allows it to disclose the basic modes of thought (conceiving, judging, inferring, constructing a science), and to do so systematically and exhaustively, so that (v) logic’s aim is to display all of the possible forms in which understanding may be achieved, regardless of what specific sort of ‘thing’ it is (e.g., an object of nature, a free act, a poem, a logical or mathematical principle) that is to be understood, (vi) the findings of logic are thoroughly intensional (rather than ontologically determinative), and finally (vii) logic’s results provide the constitutive (not prescriptive-normative) rules or laws that express the sine qua non for thought as such – i.e., those conditions which are absolutely necessary for something to meet, if it is to be counted as a thought or an accomplishment of understanding at all.

Table of Contents

Chapter 0. Introduction: why Kant’s logic now?

Chapter 1. The place of logic in Kant's architectonic

Chapter 2. The formality of logic

Chapter 3. The logical essence of judgment

Chapter 4. Kant's doctrine of concepts

Chapter 5. Conceptual analysis and inferential articulation

Chapter 6. Our relation to logical laws

{complete Abstract & Table of Contents here [pdf]}

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