Transcendental Logic
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| The transcendental logic within the architecture of the Critique of Pure Reason | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The transcendental logic is part of the Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant . It is to be understood as a theory of thought and therefore not to be confused with the formal logic that formulates a theory of inference. Kant describes the transcendental logic as "a science of understanding and rational knowledge, through which we think objects completely a priori ."
As a theory of thinking, it is placed alongside transcendental aesthetics , the theory of perception , since thinking and perception can only lead to knowledge when they work together. The transcendental logic and transcendental aesthetics thus form the transcendental elementary doctrine , the first main part of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Of logic in general
At the beginning of the transcendental logic, Kant emphasized that knowledge requires both sensuality and understanding as two mutually dependent sources of knowledge.
- "Intuition and concepts thus make up the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition corresponding to them in some way, nor intuition without concepts, can give knowledge." (B 74)
While he had dealt with sensuality as a source of knowledge in the transcendental aesthetic, Kant now dealt with the rules of the use of the mind in the transcendental logic. In order to grasp his subject in more detail, he first distinguished between various conceptual contents of logic. From the general logic he separated the special logic, which as the "propaedeutic of the sciences" deals with the facts of the individual subjects.
- "For one must already know the objects to a fairly high degree if one wants to give the rules of how a science is to come about from them." (B 76-77)
The general logic, however, is an elementary logic. According to Kant, it can be divided into a “pure” and an “applied” logic. In applied logic one deals with concrete empirical facts that are examined according to the basic rules of pure logic.
- [Pure logic] “is really only science, although short and dry, and as the school-appropriate presentation of an elementary teaching of the understanding requires. In this, the logicians must always have two rules in mind.
- 1) As general logic, it abstracts from all the content of intellectual knowledge and the diversity of its objects, and has nothing to do with the mere form of thought.
- 2) As pure logic, it has no empirical principles, so it does not draw anything (as has been persuaded at times) from psychology, which therefore has no influence at all on the canon of the understanding. It is a demonstrative doctrine and everything in it must be completely a priori. ”(B 78)
Transcendental Logic
Pure (formal) logic deals with the rules of thought without regard to thought content. For the knowledge, however, the fundamental question is how this content comes about. Kant therefore wanted to investigate which conditions make thinking possible at all. Basically applied to him
- “That not every knowledge a priori, but only that through which we know that and how certain ideas (views or concepts) are only applied a priori, or are possible, transcendental (i.e. the possibility of knowledge or the use of them a priori ) must be called. "(B 80)
We are looking for conditions under which concepts are formed independently of experience, as well as the content of such pure concepts. Thus, transcendental logic is a science in which the origin, scope and objective validity of pure concepts and principles of the mind are examined.
Analytics and Dialectics
In analytics, statements are broken down and brought to the underlying terms. Analytics contains fundamental principles such as the principle of identity or the principle of contradiction . Logic helps to find truth in so far as it shows which statements are contradictory in themselves. It provides negative (exclusive) criteria of truth. Positive statements about the truth are not possible in logic because a "touchstone" is missing. Only sensual intuition provides this. The attempt to establish the truth of content-related statements purely from arguments is a “logic of appearance”. Kant understood dialectics "as a critique of dialectical appearances." (B 86)
Transcendental Analytics and Dialectics
The transcendental analytics examines the area of thought in which pure understanding and its principles are formed without empirical presuppositions. The object is the condition of the possibility of concepts and judgments a priori.
The transcendental dialectic , on the other hand, deals with the critique of the “hyperphysical use” of understanding and reason. Her subjects are questions about God, freedom and the immortality of the soul. It is thus a critique of classical (special) metaphysics.
literature
- Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
- Rudolf Eisler : Kant Lexicon. Reference work on all of Kant's writings, letters and handwritten legacy. Olms, Hildesheim 1989 (5th reprint of the Berlin 1930 edition), ISBN 3-487-00744-4 .
- Walter Gölz: Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" in plain language. Text-related presentation of the train of thought with explanation and discussion. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-8252-2759-6 (UTB).
- Felix Grayeff : Interpretation and presentation of the theoretical philosophy of Kant. A commentary on the basic parts of the Critique of Pure Reason. With an index by Eberhard Heller. 2nd edition, Meiner Hamburg 1977 (original edition 1951), ISBN 3-7873-0180-1 .
- Otfried Höffe : Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The foundation of modern philosophy. 2nd edition, CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-50919-3 .
- Georg Mohr , Markus Willaschek (ed.): Critique of pure reason. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-05-003277-4 .
- Heinrich Ratke: Systematic hand dictionary to Kant's critique of pure reason. Meiner, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-7873-1048-7 .
- Peter F. Strawson : The Bounds of Sense. An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. London 1966 (German: The Limits of Sense. A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Athenaeum, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-445-07018-0 ).
- Holm Tetens : Kant's “Critique of Pure Reason”. A systematic commentary. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-018434-9 .