Logic as Frame of the World

Abstract

The leading resource in building an interpretation of the boundary between logic and first philosophy in Immanuel Kant is the Critique of Pure Reason. Especially in the introduction to the transcendental logic, Kant provides a clear account of the way in which logic and transcendental logic are different and the same. The purpose of this chapter, however, is to construct an understanding of Kant’s view of logic itself. The most helpful passages in the first Critique are located in (1) the B edition preface, (2) the introduction to the transcendental logic, (3) the first chapter of the Analytic of Concepts, (4) the opening passages of the Analytic of Principles, and (5) the opening passages of the Transcendental Dialectic. We can supplement Kant’s account in the Critique through readings of the Jäsche logic, the various lecture notes of his logic students, and his remarks on logic in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Prolegomena, as well as Kant’s own notes in his personal copy of the Meier logic textbook. All of these texts taken together provide the resources by which to construct a nuanced interpretation of Kant’s view of logic for the sake of interrogating its difference to transcendental logic.