An essay on Kant's theory of justification, where by “justification” is meant the evaluative concept that specifies conditions under which a propositional attitude is rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence. Kant employs both epistemic and non-epistemic concepts of justification: an epistemic concept of justification sets out conditions under which a propositional attitude is rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence and a candidate (if true and Gettier-immune) for knowledge. A non-epistemic concept of justification, by contrast, sets out (...) conditions under which attitudes are rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence but not candidates for knowledge (even if true). The latter conditions will typically be “pragmatic” or “practical,” and thus license acceptance from a “practical” point of view. For Kant, only broadly-speaking practical reasons can provide adequate motivation for adopting a positive attitude towards a proposition (rather than suspending judgment) in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. -/- . (shrink)

This book explores Kant's views on the concept of God and on the attempt to demonstrate God's existence as a means of understanding Kant's work as a whole and of achieving a proper appreciation of the contents of Kant's moral faith.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION Although many of the details of the development of logic in the Middle Ages remain to be filled in, it is well known that between ...

This entry traces the historical development of the Square of Opposition, a collection of logical relationships traditionally embodied in a square diagram. This body of doctrine provided a foundation for work in logic for over two millenia. For most of this history, logicians assumed that negative particular propositions ("Some S is not P") are vacuously true if their subjects are empty. This validates the logical laws embodied in the diagram, and preserves the doctrine against modern criticisms. Certain additional principles ("contraposition" (...) and "obversion") were sometimes adopted along with the Square, and they genuinely yielded inconsistency. By the nineteenth century an inconsistent set of doctrines was widely adopted. Strawson's 1952 attempt to rehabilitate the Square does not apply to the traditional doctrine; it does salvage the nineteenth century version but at the cost of yielding inferences that lead from truth to falsity when strung together. (shrink)

In diesem Buch wird ein zweihundert Jahre altes Problem gelost: Wie beweist Kant in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft die Vollstandigkeit seiner Urteilstafel? Da diese Tafel, zusammen mit der Kategorientafel (die von ihr abhangt) das Herzstuck von Kants Hauptwerk ausmacht, gilt das Problem von jeher als Kernproblem der Kantinterpretation. Uberraschenderweise kann es durch sorgfaltige immanente Textauslegung gelost werden: Nachweisbar ist, dass das Leitfadenkapitel, also der unmittelbare Kontext der Urteilstafel innerhalb der Kritik, eine dicht geschriebene Argumentationsskizze zu einem strengen Vollstandigkeitsbeweis enthalt, (...) dessen Uberzeugungskraft nichts zu wunschen ubriglasst. Fur die Rekonstruktion dieses Beweises kommt es zunachst auf eine genaue Analyse der Behauptungen an, die Kant mit der Urteilstafel aufstellt. Diese Analyse prasentiert das erste Kapitel. Das zweite bietet dann einen ausfuhrlichen Satz-fur-Satz-Kommentar zu der fur den Vollstandigkeitsbeweis einschlagigen Textpassage und rekonstruiert ihn in allen Details. Das dritte Kapitel schliesslich untersucht den Begriff von 'formaler Logik', den Kant voraussetzt und von dem seine Behauptung abhangt, die in der Urteilstafel vorgenommene Aufzahlung logischer Formen sei vollstandig. Der im Anhang abgedruckte Essay behandelt die bis heute kaum beachtete Auseinandersetzung, die Gottlob Frege in seiner Begriffsschrift von 1879 mit der kantischen Urteilstafel Punkt fur Punkt gefuhrt hat. Freges Kritik an ihr wird im ersten Teil des Anhangs dargestellt und erlautert. Im zweiten Teil wird dann gezeigt, dass diese Kritik in allen Punkten auf grundlegenden Irrtumern und Missverstandnissen beruht. Als besonders schwerwiegender und folgenreicher Irrtum stellt sich Freges Ansicht heraus, die Regeln dessen, was Kant als formale Logik ansah, seien aus dem Axiomensystem der Begriffsschrift ableitbar. (shrink)

The book's aim is to give a working representation of what metaphysics is today. The historical contributions reveal the roots of metaphysical themes and how today's methods are linked to their Aristotelian and Leibnizian past. The volume also touches on the relationships between ontological and linguistic analysis, the questions of realism and ontological commitment, the nature of abstract objects, the existential meaning of particular quantification, the primitiveness of identity, the question of epistemic versus ontological vagueness, the necessity of origin, the (...) nature of natural necessity, the possibility of intermittent existence, the notion of a temporal part and its place in an account of persistence, the question of identity and change across time and possible worlds, and many more. Readership: A toolbox for any researcher in metaphysics and an essential source for any PhD student with ontological interests. (shrink)

Can an epistemic conception of truth and an endorsement of the excluded middle (together with other principles of classical logic abandoned by the intuitionists) cohabit in a plausible philosophical view? In PART I I describe the general problem concerning the relation between the epistemic conception of truth and the principle of excluded middle. In PART II I give a historical overview of different attitudes regarding the problem. In PART III I sketch a possible holistic solution.

An account of Aristotle's syllogistic (including a full square of opposition and allowing for empty nouns) as an integral part of first-order predicate logic is lacking. Some say it is not possible. It is not found in the tradition stemming from ukasiewicz's attempt nor in less formal approaches such as Strawson's. The ukasiewicz tradition leaves Aristotle's syllogistic as an autonomous axiomatized system. In this paper Aristotle's syllogistic is presented within first-order predicate logic with special restricted quantifiers. The theory is not (...) motivated primarily by historical considerations but as an accurate account of categorical sentences along lines suggested by recent work on natural language quantifiers and themes from supposition theory. It provides logical forms which conform to grammatical ones and is intended as a rival to accounts of quantifiers in natural language that appeal to binary quantifiers, for example, Wiggins or to restricted quantifiers, for example, Neale. (shrink)