Kants Logikvorlesungen als neuer Schlüssel zur Architektonik der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (review)

Abstract

690 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:4 OCTOBER 1996 century, while the concept of the arbitrary sign seems to have triumphed in the Cubist abstraction of recognizable objects into hermetic ciphers. One only hopes that investigations to come will display the clarity and cogency of James Manns's fine study. DAVID MORGAN Valparaiso University Elfriede Conrad. Kants Logikvorlesungen als neuer Schliisselzur Architektonik dec Kritik der r~nen Veraunft. Forschungen und Materialien zur deutschen Aufld~irung. Stuttgart/Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, ~994. PP. 16~. Cloth, DM 68.oo. Conrad's introduction offers a survey of the literature on Kant's logic, a sketch of the structure of the first Cr/t/que and the relation of formal and transcendental logic. A short biography of Georg Friedrich Meier, the author of the textbook used by Kant in his lectures, is added. The first chapter is a careful philological analysis of: (1) Kant's reflections on topics in his textbook (KgS XVI; Conrad gives Meier's text in the footnotes ), (~) the transcripts of the lecture notes made by students (KgS XXIV) and (3) the Jaesche Logic (KgS IX). The philological analysis of the problems connected with the chronology of the transcripts and Kant's reflections and their interrelation is perfect. Against a common opinion in the literature, it is shown that the Jaesche Logic uses Kant's lecture notes frequently. Chapter z is Conrad's presupposition for the proof of her main thesis: Kant did not use the logic of his time, i.e., the different versions of the logic of Christian Wolff, in his architectonic of the first Crit/que. On the contrary he had already introduced in his lectures significant changes in his treatment of the division of formal logic. The philological investigation of the historical development, and the critical investigation of the reliability of the texts and their interdependence is of highest value. They cannot be neglected in future investigations of Kant's formal and transcendental logic. Chapter 3 deals with the distinction of theoretical and practical or applied logic-- /og/ca d0censand/oh/ca u~ns. Though some textbooks of the time "enriched" theoretical logic with material from the practical logic, this division was never challenged. Kant, however, soon had serious doubts about practical logic. Eventually he will completely reject applied logic with its the application of psychological and rhetorical viewpoints. Kant's own division of logic, distinguishing the doctrine of elements and the doctrine of methods, is new and cannot be found in the logic textbooks of his time. Chapter 4 considers Kant's division of formal logic--and then of transcendental logic--into analytic and dialectic, and his rejection of dialectic. The distinction is not known in the literature of Kant's time. "Analytic" occurs only occasionally. Dialectic is treated as the logic of the probable and in some cases as the art of disputation. Logic as a whole is also sometimes characterized as an art of invention, ars inveniendi. Kant uses the Greek word organon for this purpose. Already in Kant's lectures, dialectic means the despicable art of the sophists. He rejects, therefore, dialectic as the art of disputation. The logic of the probable has its place, according to Kant, in the probability calculus and does not belong to logic. His final verdict BOOK REVIEWS 621 can be already found in his lectures: dialectic in formal logic leads to the illusions of sophistry. Logic cannot be used as an organon. It is only a canon, a negative criterion of truth. Conrad's book deals only with the architectonic of the first Cr/t/que and its roots in Kant's conception of formal logic on the highest level of generality. Questions about the substructures of the architectonic are never mentioned. Why is it, for instance, that the copulative judgment, and with it conjunction, present in the logical textbooks of the time, in Meier, and in Kant's reflections, vanishes somewhere in the development leading to the first Cr/t/que and the Jaesche Logic? Was it dropped only because there was no place for it in the construction of a balanced architectonic of the table of judgments? Is this another of the surprising...