Band 101, Heft 3

According to Kant's most important definition an analytic judgement obtains when the predicate of a judgement is already contained intensionally in the subject. It has been objected (most recently by Robert Hanna) that whereas this containment is a sufficient criterion, nevertheless there are analytic judgements that do not have a corresponding conceptual content . In these cases one needs to add an extensional criterion. The chief goal of this essay is to examine this argument critically and to reject it on the grounds that although an analytic judgement can be defined extensionally, this does not achieve anything more than a conventional intensional definition. To this end Kant's argumentation on intension and extension will be reconstructed and this distinction will then be set in relation to the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. This discussion requires especially a clarification of the role of modality.

When examined critically, Kant's views on sex and marriage give us the tools to defend same-sex marriage on moral grounds. The sexual objectification of one's partner can only be overcome when two people take responsibility for one another's overall well-being, and this commitment is enforced through legal coercion. Kant's views on the unnaturalness of homosexuality do not stand up to scrutiny, and he cannot (as he often tries to) restrict the purpose of sex to procreation. Kant himself rules out marriage only when the partners cannot give themselves to one another equally – that is, if there is inequality of exchange. Because same-sex marriage would be between equals and would allow homosexuals to express their desire in a morally appropriate way, it ought to be legalized.

Contrary to the received view, I argue that Kant, in the “Doctrine of Right”, outlines a third, republican alternative to absolutist and voluntarist conceptions of political legitimacy. According to this republican alternative, a state must meet certain institutional requirements before political obligations arise. An important result of this interpretation is not only that there are institutional restraints on a legitimate state's use of coercion, but also that the rights of the state (‘public right’) are not in principle reducible to the rights of individuals (‘private right’). Thus, for Kant, political obligations are intimately linked to the existence of a certain kind of republican institutional framework.

This article defends the view that the logical vocabulary of syllogistic is sufficient for representing the logical form of rules and laws of non-syllogistic (classical or non-classical) predicate logic. This representation requires replacement only of the descriptive vocabulary of syllogistic (i. e. of variables for terms) by non-syllogistic descriptive signs. The validity of rules and laws of modern (classical or non-classical) predicate logic rests on the validity of rules and laws which can without exception be represented in the formal language of syllogistic. Expressions of this language are representations of logical form . Frege's view that relationships between logical subjects and logical predicates can be „reduced“ to relationships between functions and arguments confuses logical and grammatical subjects as well as logical and grammatical predicates.

The thesis that Kant's “Rechtslehre” is entirely independent of his transcendental idealism is simply not correct. In fact: the material contents of the “Rechtslehre” follow analytically from the logical explication of the empirical concept of external freedom, whereas the absolute practical validity (“Verbindlichkeit”) of the imperative and of the imperatives of right is based exclusively on the categorical imperative and therefore ultimately on transcendental idealism.