Volume 15, Issue 1

In this paper I discuss Kant’s philosophy of grammar in order to argue that: (a) the formal analysis of language implies that there is a structural correspondence between logical and grammatical form; (b) there is a distinction between the sense in which logic is formal and the sense in which grammar is formal; (c) universal grammar descends from the system of categorial functions that are investigated in the transcendental analytic; (d) transcendental grammar implies that the universal form of human language has its ground in the universal structure of thought; (e) the concept of a grammatical norm is clarified once we combine the theory of universal grammar with how linguistic experience takes place.

In this contribution, we first discuss the aspects of the analytic method conceived by Kant in the Deutlichkeit that differentiate it from the Wolffian method and relate it to the Newtonian method. Compared to the philosophical tradition, the task of analysing concepts appears profoundly changed. Since Kant aims philosophy towards the world, he considers concepts as something given and intends to discern their characteristic marks by observing their usual applications. Although Kant abandons any attempt to define concepts nominally, he still gives great relevance to words to the extent that concepts, according to him, acquire their meaning in the linguistic usage. We will also point out how for Kant the linguistic usage makes the analysis of concepts anything but easy and how a hermeneutic process is necessary for its completion. In distinguishing philosophical signs from mathematical signs, Kant provides the semiotic reasons that underlie his recourse to hermeneutics.

Kant stresses the presence, in all languages, of first-person formulas. In the Anthropology , § 1, he argues (i) that the use of ‘I’ (or any other linguistic form referring to the speaker) makes the human being “a person”, and (ii) that the use of the first-person pronoun enables the child to “think herself”. In the present paper, I claim that, in order to understand those assertions, first-person linguistic formulas should not be construed as mere expressions of an infra-discursive self-awareness; for Kant after 1781, such formulas actually contribute to making self-awareness possible.

What are thoughts, or propositions, exactly? I develop an answer to this question in relation to the Russellian and Fregean views – propositions as facts and propositions as contents –, defending a Kantian alternative: propositions as acts. I move from natural or naïve Russellianism and its difficulties to more sophisticated and promising Fregeanism, which can respond to these difficulties but only at the expense of leaving open serious explanatory gaps of its own. Along the way, I develop Kantianism as incorporating what is promising in Fregeanism while closing the gaps this view left open, and present it more systematically at the end.

The origin of languages was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. This paper reconstructs a distinctively Kantian account according to which the origination, progression, and diversification of languages is at bottom reason’s self-development under certain a priori constraints and external environments. The reconstruction builds on three sets of materials. The first is Herder’s famous prize essay on the origin of languages. The second includes Kant’s explicit remarks about language – especially his notion of “transcendental grammar,” his argument that language cannot be innate, his contrast of “Oriental” symbolic (intuitive) and “Occidental” discursive languages, and his treatment of the latter as a sine qua non of humanity’s cultural and moral progress. The third includes the concepts that we need to make sense of those remarks, such as Kant’s epigenetic theory of biological formation and his account of categories as originally acquired.

This paper explicates the role of language and communication in Kant’s account of objective judgment and objective reference. I take it that the basic units of proper objective reference for Kant are objective judgments, which according to Kant are acts of relating given cognitions to other cognitions in the unity of apperception. The question is, does language play any role in this activity, or is this activity reflected in language somehow? I argue that, unlike early critics such as Herder and Hamann (and many after them) have suggested, Kant does not overall neglect language and communication in his philosophy, but rather can be taken to give an account of how it is possible to use language objectively and communicate objective judgments in the first place. Even though I do not find it a plausible view that according to Kant there is no thinking at all without or prior to language, Kant’s account does not rule out the importance of language for our thinking, judging and communicating. My claim is that Kant’s account of categorical experience as universal and necessary cognition of objects provides a ground for languages and their objective use, that is, for the possibility of objective reference in language.

Among the passages which are suggestive of a philosophy of language in Kant’s writings are his remarks and arguments on appropriate terminology for philosophical concepts. I ask what it is for Kant that makes some words more suitable than others. I reconstruct the arguments from the Inquiry concerning the distinctness of the principles of natural theology and morality (1764) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) that defend that there is no such thing as a proper, real definition for philosophical concepts (only nominal definition and exposition); in addition, philosophical concepts are only represented by terms in abstracto , not in concreto. On these grounds, in the Inquiry , Kant sustains that the reference of a term to a philosophical concept is ultimately sanctioned by the term’s ‘linguistic usage’ ( Redegebrauch ). I argue that this is the basis for Kant’s criterion in the Critique of Pure Reason of employing traditional terminology, words from ordinary language, or even words from extinct languages, to refer to philosophical concepts, and for his rejection of coining new terms – even for distinctly new philosophical thoughts.

This paper explores Kant’s account of propositional content and its implications for the relationship between his notions of knowledge ( Wissen ) and cognition ( Erkenntnis ). While previous commentators commonly read Kant as holding a Fregean theory of propositional content, in this paper I argue that Kant’s theory of propositional content aligns more closely with Peter Hanks’ recent account. According to my reading, Kant holds that individual acts of judging are both ontologically and explanatorily prior to propositions or Kantian judgments ( Urteil ). Furthermore, on my reading, acts of judging for Kant are acts of assertively predicating a property of an object rather than merely acts of neutral predication. This reading challenges the lately popular view that Kant’s notions of knowledge and cognition are not only distinct but also disjunct. I instead suggest that we should regard Kantian knowledge that requires cognitions as its grounds as a species of Kantian cognitions.