Kant on the Way to His Own Philosophy of Logic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaping Lu-Adler
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Applied Logic ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
Pure Logic ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Common ◽  
Proper Science ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers how Kant, from the mid-1760s through the mid-1770s, navigated between existing accounts of logic before finding his own voice. It highlights two breakthroughs that would contribute most to his mature theory of logic. The first breakthrough concerns Kant’s division of logic into two essentially different though complementary branches: a logic for the learned understanding and one for the common human understanding (to make it healthy), precursors to “pure logic” and “applied logic” respectively. This distinction not only marks a clear departure from the Leibnizian-Wolffian take on the relation between artificial and natural logics, but also pays homage to the humanist and Lockean practices of emphasizing certain ethical dimensions of logic. The second breakthrough is the emergence of “transcendental logic” from Kant’s efforts to secure metaphysics—particularly the first part thereof, ontology—as a proper science.

Halakhah

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam J. Zohar
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Normative System ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Common ◽  
Rabbinic Law ◽  
The Way

The central ideal of rabbinic Judaism is that of living by the Torah, that is, God’s teachings. These teachings are mediated by a detailed normative system called halakhah, which might be translated as ‘the Way’. The term ‘rabbinic law’ captures the form of halakhic discourse, but not its range. Appropriate sections of halakhah have indeed served as the law of Jewish communities for two millennia. But other sections relate to individual conscience and religious observance and are enforceable only by a ‘heavenly court’. Although grounded in Scripture, halakhah’s frame of reference is the ‘oral Torah’, a tradition of interpretation and argument culminating in the twenty volumes of the Talmud. God’s authority is the foundational norm, but it is only invoked occasionally as superseding human understanding. Indeed, the rabbis disallowed divine interference in their deliberations, asserting, in keeping with Scripture, that Torah is ‘not in heaven’ (Bava Metzia 59b, citing Deuteronomy 30: 12). Given the lack of binding dogma in Judaism, halakhic practice has often been regarded as the common denominator that unites the Jewish community. The enterprise of furnishing ‘reasons of the commandments’ (ta’amei ha-mitzvot), central to many thinkers in Judaism, accordingly reveals a great diversity of orientations. These range, in medieval Judaism, from esoteric mystical doctrines to Maimonides’ rational and historical explanations; and among modern writers, from moral positivism to existentialism.

Logic and the Demands of Kantian “Science”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaping Lu-Adler
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Formal Logic ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Applied Logic ◽  
Formal Assessment ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
General Logic ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Proper Science

This chapter examines Kant’s account of logic in the Critique, analyzing his claim that pure general logic is formal, properly scientific, and complete. It distinguishes three aspects of formality, in virtue of which this logic differs from particular logic, applied logic, and transcendental logic and thereby satisfies one necessary condition of a proper science, namely having a unique subject matter. The chapter then explicates the completeness claim as a philosophical claim about logic qua strict science. Drawing on Kant’s account of what it takes to prove a system of pure concepts of the understanding as complete and his caution against the dialectical illusion of using formal logic as an organon, the chapter argues that, to avoid begging questions, he needs a sort of transcendental critique to establish his logic as complete in content and restrict its use to that of a mere canon for the formal assessment of our cognitions.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

Kant and the Science of Logic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaping Lu-Adler
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Logical Pluralism ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
If Logic ◽  
General Logic ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philosophical Debates

This book is both a history of philosophy of logic told from the Kantian viewpoint and a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of logic from a historical perspective. Kant’s theory represents a turning point in a history of philosophical debates over the following questions: (1) Is logic a science, instrument, standard of assessment, or mixture of these? (2) If logic is a science, what is the subject matter that differentiates it from other sciences, particularly metaphysics? (3) If logic is a necessary instrument to all philosophical inquiries, how is it so entitled? (4) If logic is both a science and an instrument, how are these two roles related? Kant’s answer to these questions centers on three distinctions: general versus particular logic, pure versus applied logic, pure general logic versus transcendental logic. The true meaning and significance of each distinction becomes clear, this book argues, only if we consider two factors. First, Kant was mindful of various historical views on how logic relates to other branches of philosophy (viz. metaphysics and physics) and to the workings of common human understanding. Second, he first coined “transcendental logic” while struggling to secure metaphysics as a proper “science,” and this conceptual innovation would in turn have profound implications for his mature theory of logic. Against this backdrop, the book reassesses the place of Kant’s theory in the history of philosophy of logic and highlights certain issues that are still debated today, such as normativity of logic and the challenges posed by logical pluralism.

Voices of Spectators and Audience Power

Pólemos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Biet
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationship ◽  
The Other ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Dramatic Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

AbstractTheatre and law are not so different. Generally, researchers work on the art of theatre, the rhetoric of the actors, or the dramaturgy built from law cases or from the questions that the law does not completely resolve. Trials, tragedies, even comedies are close: everybody can see the interpenetration of them on stage and in the courts. We know that, and we know that the dramas are made with/from/of law, we know that the art the actors are developing is not so far from the art of the lawyers, and conversely. In this paper, I would like to have a look at the action of the audience, at the session itself and at the way the spectators are here to evaluate and judge not only the dramatic action, not only the art of the actors, not only the text of the author, but also the other spectators, and themselves too. In particular, I will focus on the “common judgment” of the audience and on its judicial, aesthetic and social relationship. The spectators have been undisciplined, noisy, unruled, during such a long period that theatre still retains some prints of this behaviour, even if nowadays, the social and aesthetic rule is to be silent. But uncertainty, inattention, distraction, contradiction, heterogeneity are the notions which characterise the session, and the judgments of the spectators still depend on them. So, what was and what is the voice of the audience? And with what sort of voice do spectators give their judgments?

The Positive State

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Judith N. Shklar
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
The Common ◽  
Positive State ◽  
The Way

In this chapter Shklar identifies the problems that arise with the development of industrial capitalism. She traces the emergence of social obligations to fellow citizens and the new concerns this raised, paying particular attention to the way the English idealist T.H. Green addressed these issues. She discusses the thinking behind the new welfare state and the rising popularity of social norms and obligations, often also expressed in terms of “the common good,” “positive rights,” and “the obligation to be just.”

scholarly journals From romantic jealousy to sympathetic joy: Monogamy, polyamory, and beyond

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Relational Identity ◽  
Romantic Jealousy ◽  
Serial Monogamy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

This paper explores how the extension of contemplative qualities to intimate relationships can transform human sexual/emotional responses and relationship choices. The paper reviews contemporary findings from the field of evolutionary psychology on the twin origins of jealousy and monogamy, argues for the possibility to transform jealousy into sympathetic joy (or compersion), addresses the common objections against polyamory (or nonmonogamy), and challenges the culturally prevalent belief that the only spiritually correct sexual options are either celibacy or (lifelong or serial) monogamy. To conclude, it is suggested that the cultivation of sympathetic joy in intimate bonds can pave the way to overcome the problematic dichotomy between monogamy and polyamory, grounding individuals in a radical openness to the dynamic unfolding of life that eludes any fixed relational identity or structure.

scholarly journals The Definite and Indefinite Articles of Spanish (or Castilian) Language in Context

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-127
Author(s):  
Sonia Montero Gálvez
Keyword(s):  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
The Common ◽  
Communicative Context ◽  
The Way

The present paper addresses the contrast between the definite article (el/la/los/las) and the indefinite article (un/a/os/as) from a cognitive approach that not only poses a single meaning for each kind of article, but also highlights the pragmatic (or contextual) aspects that underlie that meaning and establish the use of one form or another. The article’s meaning is shaped by the way we conceptualize the reference: the definite article implies an inclusive reference characterized by the uniqueness of the referent, while the indefinite article implies an exclusive reference characterized by the lack of uniqueness. The possibility to choose one or other way depends on contextual aspects related to the common knowledge shared by the interlocutors, the communicative context (linguistic and situational) and the space (physical or mental) where the referent is located.

scholarly journals Litteratur og politik

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (104) ◽  
pp. 148-165
Author(s):  
Frederik Tygstrup ◽  
Isak Winkel Holm
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Poetics ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Way

Literature and PoliticsLiterature is political by representing the world. The production of literature is a contribution to a general cultural poetics where images of reality are constructed and circulated. At the same time, the practice of literature is institutionalized in such a way that the form and function of the images of reality it produces are conceived and used in a distinctive way. In this article, we suggest distinguishing between a general cultural poetics and a specific literary poetics by using Ernst Cassirer’s neo-Kantian concept of »symbolic forms«. We argue that according to this view, the political significance of literary representational practices resides in the way they activate a common cultural repertoire of historical symbolic forms while at the same time deviating from the common ways of treating these forms.

The Loyalist Response to the Queen Caroline Agitations

1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fulcher
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Main Line ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Reform Politics ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

It is curious that the unprecedented agitations in support of the rights of Caroline of Brunswick in 1820–21 have been represented as an “affair.” The word seems first to have been used by G. M. Trevelyan and was promptly seized on by Elie Halevy in his 1923 Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle. The labeling of this popular ebullience as an “affair” has consequently framed the development of its now not inconsiderable historiography. The episode was initially explained as a diversion from some main line of historical development, be it whiggish or Marxisant. More recently, historians have rescued the agitations from this condescension by showing how the radicals identified the king and the government's treatment of the queen as oppression and corruption at work. Since the common thread running through both whig and Marxisant accounts had been a concentration on the effects of the agitations on reform and radical politics, those attempting to put the episode back fully into their narratives emphasized the same factors. This time, however, it was to show that the agitations were not a diversion from the main line of reform politics. What follows is a further contribution to the process of giving greater attention to the queen's cause when telling the story of mass politics in this period, but one which concentrates on other neglected contexts and phenomena important for the explanation of this popular explosion. In the light of this, it may be necessary to change the way we refer to this episode.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document