Abstract
The subject and its cognitive faculties play a prominent role in the German philosophy and logic of the eighteenth century, including Wolff and Kant. This is due to the central place they granted to the notion of judgement. Ignoring the details, they considered a judgement to be made when two concepts or representations are united in thought. This aspect, already present in Wolff, comes more to the fore in the philosophy of Kant. Nevertheless, both also adopted a more formal approach to judgements. This chapter shows how both Wolff and Kant seek to combine the epistemological role of the subject with a formal analysis of the notion of judgement. As a result, I defend the claim that the criticism of metaphysics Kant elaborates in his dissertation De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis of 1770 relies on a transformation of this formal analysis to the meta-level of the human faculties.
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Notes
- 1.
Wolff, German Logic, 156, III §1.
- 2.
This must not be read in a relativistic manner. The definition of judgements in terms of human faculties coincides with a high esteem of the capabilities of these faculties. Nevertheless, the focus on these faculties prepares for Kant’s critical assessment of these faculties.
- 3.
Ibid., 156, III, §2.
- 4.
Contrary to Leibniz, Wolff was rather pessimistic about the advantages of a system of signs, let alone a characteristica universalis.
- 5.
References to Kant’s texts employ the volume and page numbers of the Akademie edition. References to reflexions are indicated with an R and can be found in Volume XVI of the Akademie edition. The Jäsche logic (IX:109) and some of Kant’s reflexions (R3111, R2496) seem to contain a distinction between judgements and propositions such that the latter refer to assertoric judgements whereas the former indicates problematic judgements. Yet, it does hardly play a role in his published writings, in which judgement and proposition are used almost interchangeably. Furthermore, the distinction is not so much a distinction between propositions and judgements because ‘proposition’ serves as a designation of a specific kind of judgements, sufficient reason to treat the distinction as it has come down to us: as a marginal note.
- 6.
Wolff, German Logic, 159, III §6; ibid., p. 23, §39.
- 7.
Ibid., 159, III §6.
- 8.
Ibid., 159, III §7.
- 9.
In her valuable study of Kant’s philosophy, Longuenesse correctly claims an ontological difference between categorical and hypothetical judgements (Longuenesse 1998, 99–101). According to Longuenesse, a logical transformation between these judgements is possible independently of this ontological difference. Nevertheless, the ontological difference has priority in that the categorical version of a hypothetical judgement, where the conditions are transferred to the subject, is a fictional categorical judgement. I would like to add that the other side of this coin is that the hypothetical version of a categorical judgement is fictional too from the ontological perspective. For the conditions are the essentialia of the subject. Therefore, the ontological difference is insufficient to argue for a logical distinction between categorical and hypothetical judgements in such a fundamental manner that their transformation is fictitious.
- 10.
Wolff, German Logic, 160, III, §8; Wolff, Der Anfangs-Gründe aller mathematischen Wissenschafften, p. 25, §42.
- 11.
Wolff, German Logic, 160, III §8.
- 12.
Wolff, Der Anfangs-Gründe aller mathematischen Wissenschafften, p. 22, §39.
- 13.
Meier, Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, §297, XVI:642.
- 14.
Meier, Vernunftlehre, p. 490, §330.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 491, §330.
- 16.
Meier, Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, §300, XVI:646.
- 17.
Meier distinguishes between several kinds of conditions and relates them to different levels of demonstration (Meier, Vernunftlehre, p. 491, §331). A sufficient condition, for example, leads to a demonstration of the judgement, but an insufficient condition needs additional grounds to attain full evidence. An example of the latter is the judgement ‘Leibniz is a learned man’ for which the possession of the understanding is not a sufficient condition because Leibniz must also have had the circumstances to attain knowledge.
- 18.
Meier, Vernunftlehre, p. 491, §330.
- 19.
II:294, §3; II:414, §27. Translations of Kant’s dissertation stem from the Cambridge Translation (Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755–1770).
- 20.
Meier, Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, p. 292, §285; Meier, Vernunftlehre, p. 484, §325.
- 21.
II:393, §5. Kant takes a similar stance towards the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements. No matter how much analytical reasoning has taken place between a synthetic premise and a conclusion, the conclusion is synthetic as well (see CPR, B14).
- 22.
The term ‘axiom’ is used in line with the Cambridge translation. The advantage is that it allows a distinction between the meta-level of Kant’s principles and the data consisting of the principles of traditional metaphysics (referred to by ‘axioms’) handled by these principles. The disadvantage is that it contradicts a more general custom to distinguish between mathematical unprovable judgement as axioms and metaphysical unprovable judgements as principles. This distinction becomes especially important in the Critique of Pure Reason (B761).
- 23.
II:411, §24.
- 24.
II:412, §24.
- 25.
For example, when Kant describes the three classes of subreption which I will discuss in the next section.
- 26.
Similar to the Critique of Pure Reason where the term principle does not necessarily refer to something that has the form of a judgement, principles in the dissertation do not necessarily refer to unprovable judgements. It can also refer to a presupposed epistemological structure or source such as the forms of space and time (II:398, §13).
- 27.
II:412, §24.
- 28.
For a historical study of the notion of subreption, see Birken-Bertsch (2006).
- 29.
Birken-Bertsch also claims that Kant treats subreption according to the logic of judgements and discusses all four cases (ibid., 79).
- 30.
II:412.
- 31.
Interestingly, systematic treatment of all cases reveals that the distinctions of the dissertation to some extent foreshadow the possible combinations of the distinctions a priori/a posteriori and analytic/synthetic judgements in the First Critique. From top to bottom, the rows of the table roughly correspond to a posteriori synthetic judgements, a priori analytic judgements and a priori synthetic judgements for the last two cases. Since Kant’s notion of synthetic judgement does not require the predicate or subject to be of a specific kind, the two distinctions of the First Critique cannot account for the differences between the last two cases.
- 32.
Carson (2004), 178.
- 33.
II:395.
- 34.
XXIV:463. Further support can be found in Kant’s notes on the relevant sections of Meier’s textbook on logic (R3079). In these reflections Kant writes, ‘The nature of the predicate. The condition.’ Within the same period that Kant wrote this, he adds ‘subject’ after the word ‘predicate’. Although these reflections are not precise enough to conclude exactly what Kant had in mind, it seems he at least recognised that the predicate can function as a condition.
- 35.
XXIV:463.
- 36.
II:413, §25.
- 37.
In this chapter, Kant ascribes a fundamental lack of evidence to metaphysics because of the analytic nature of the definitions: One will never be sure whether the definition is adequate and complete. Additional criticism of metaphysics is presented in the dissertation where Kant criticises the elements that form the starting point of metaphysics in its process towards analytic definitions, namely, its unprovable judgements (axioms).
- 38.
Several authors attempt to interpret the examples in terms of the antinomies of the First Critique (Guyer 1987, 289; Grier 2001, 62; Zammito 2002, 267). Although this might help, the examples stand on their own, and the (technical) details of subreption seem to be rather different from the antinomies. At least the technical apparatus used by Kant to show that it is a fallacy is quite different: In the inaugural dissertation, it involves the analysis of judgements, whereas Kant uses demonstrations of contradictory theses in the case of the antinomies. The discussions of Carson and Birken-Bertsch are more informative in so far as one is interested in the dissertation as it stands on its own (Carson, ‘Metaphysics, Mathematics and the Distinction Between the Sensible and the Intelligible in Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation’, p. 186; Birken-Bertsch 2006, 82).
- 39.
Kant describes all three kinds in terms of conditions. Since Kant treats predicates as conditions in his general recommendation for metaphysics (§23), I regard this as sufficient reason to describe all three kinds in terms of the logical analysis of judgements into predicates and subjects.
- 40.
II:413. §26. Guyer describes these three species of subreption themselves as ‘subreptic axioms’ (Guyer 1987, 289). In my view, this is quite misleading since Kant does not really present the three kinds of subreption as principles or axioms. Instead, Kant presents it as three manners or forms of subreption that give rise to unjustified metaphysical principles.
- 41.
Kant criticises Crusius as he did in his prize essay attacking the same principle. The dissertation continues a critical approach to metaphysics but offers more sophisticated arguments against the axiom of Crusius.
- 42.
II:414.
- 43.
II:415, §28.
- 44.
II:415, §28.
- 45.
The impossibility of an actual infinite magnitude does not imply the impossibility of the mathematical concept of infinity in general.
- 46.
II:411–417, §24–20.
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Blok, J. (2013). The Role of Wolff’s Analysis of Judgements in Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation. In: van der Schaar, M. (eds) Judgement and the Epistemic Foundation of Logic. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 31. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5137-8_6
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