Kant’s innovative theory of judgment and cognition in the False Subtlety of Syllogistic Figures
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Mihaela Vatavu
Abstract
Kant’s early work The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures is typically considered a narrow, technical work still embedded in the tradition of Wolffian logic. I argue instead that it needs to be considered in light of Kant’s developing theory of cognition and his corresponding criticism of the Wolffian single faculty theory. Whereas the mature Kant criticizes the rationalists for misrepresenting the nature of sensibility, the urgent task facing him at this stage seems to have been a proper determination of the nature of the understanding. On the Wolffian framework, the latter is defined in a merely nominal manner, in terms of a generic cognitive task: the distinct representation of the possible. On Kant’s view, however, distinctness entails a capacity to relate representations, which only happens in the act of judgment. Thus, the stated aim of the False Subtlety notwithstanding, the work attempts to reorganize the logical operations around the capacity to judge. In turn, by defining the higher faculty of cognition in terms of an act of relating representations, Kant wants to show that this faculty cannot stem from a power of representation that we share with non-rational animals and must instead rest on a different fundamental power, which at the time he alternatively calls “inner sense” or “consciousness”.
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Abhandlungen
- Kant’s innovative theory of judgment and cognition in the False Subtlety of Syllogistic Figures
- Expansion of Self-consciousness in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
- The transition within the transition: the Übergang from the Selbstsetzungslehre to the ether proofs in Kant’s Opus postumum
- Berichte und Diskussionen
- Der „Alleszermalmer“
- Immanuel Kant 1724-2024: Ein europäischer Denker
- Bibliographie
- Kant-Bibliographie 2017
- Buchbesprechungen
- Nicholas F. Stang: Kant’s Modal Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016, 360 Seiten. ISBN 978-0-19-871262-6.
- Anna Wehofsits: Anthropologie und Moral. Affekte, Leidenschaften und Mitgefühl in Kants Ethik. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2016. 162 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-11-045553-3. [Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 127]
- Kenneth R. Westphal: How Hume and Kant Reconstruct Natural Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. XVI u. 252 Seiten. ISBN: 9780198747055
- Jahresinhalt Kant-Studien Jg. 110, 2019
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Abhandlungen
- Kant’s innovative theory of judgment and cognition in the False Subtlety of Syllogistic Figures
- Expansion of Self-consciousness in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
- The transition within the transition: the Übergang from the Selbstsetzungslehre to the ether proofs in Kant’s Opus postumum
- Berichte und Diskussionen
- Der „Alleszermalmer“
- Immanuel Kant 1724-2024: Ein europäischer Denker
- Bibliographie
- Kant-Bibliographie 2017
- Buchbesprechungen
- Nicholas F. Stang: Kant’s Modal Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016, 360 Seiten. ISBN 978-0-19-871262-6.
- Anna Wehofsits: Anthropologie und Moral. Affekte, Leidenschaften und Mitgefühl in Kants Ethik. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2016. 162 Seiten. ISBN 978-3-11-045553-3. [Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 127]
- Kenneth R. Westphal: How Hume and Kant Reconstruct Natural Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. XVI u. 252 Seiten. ISBN: 9780198747055
- Jahresinhalt Kant-Studien Jg. 110, 2019
