Immanuel Kant on the philosophy of communicology: The tropic logic of rhetoric and semiotics

Abstract

AbstractThe article consists of a brief biographical account of Immanuel Kant’s life and career, followed by a discussion of his basic philosophy, and a brief discussion of his pivotal point in the history of Rhetoric and Communicology. A major figure in the European Enlightenment period of Philosophy, hisCollected Writingswere first published in 1900 constituting 29 volumes. He wrote three major works that are foundational to the development of Western philosophy and the human sciences. Often just referred to as the “ThreeCritiques” informally, the First, the Second, and the Third. These are respectively:The Critique of Pure Reasonfocused on issues in logic, The Critique of Practical Reasonrelating ethical guidelines, andThe Critique of Judgmentexploring issues of aesthetics. He is most famous for his philosophy of transcendental idealism. This version of idealism argues that in logic statements areanalytic(subject and predicate are the same; no new information) orsynthetic(predicate differs from the subject; new information is constituted). He further argues that statements area priori(before experience) ora posteriori(a result of experience). Models of rhetoric (tropic logic), phenomenological methodology, and the contemporary Perspectives Model of interpersonal communicology are included as the Kantian legacy in the US. Notes provide a guide to edition and philological issues in the Kantian corpus, especially for the hermeneutics ofVorstellung(‘presentation’) versusDarstellung(‘representation’).