Sensible synthesis and logical analysis : Kant and Frege on judgment
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- In this dissertation I consider the relationship between Kant and Frege's theories of judgment and argue that they should be understood as two alternative strategies for addressing some of the limitations of traditional term logic. The primary upshot of this comparison is that much of Kant's positive theory of cognition, if it is made a bit more Fregean, can be maintained without accepting his limitation of cognition to objects of experience, while Frege's theory of cognition, if it is situated within the context of a Kantian critical philosophy, can be seen to have philosophical significance that extends well beyond his concern with the foundations of arithmetic. Chapter one develops a reading of Kant's account of singular judgment, or judgments about one and only one object. It establishes that Kant draws a logical distinction between subsuming one concept under another and subordinating an object under a concept by appealing to the schematization of concepts. Instead of being a matter of general logic, however, Kant's account appeals to the resources of his transcendental logic: the pure forms of intuition, the categories, and the "I think" of apperception. Chapter two looks at Kant and Frege's analyses of simple number judgments. I argue that whereas Frege's second-level concept of number provides a way of determining the size of a first-level concept's extension, Kant's concept of number provides a method for constructing sensible instances of a first-order concept in sequence. Thus, while Fregean number judgments can be understood as purely intellectual (as conceptual determinations of concepts), Kantian number judgments are essentially sensible. Chapter three develops a reading of Frege's theory of cognition centered around his Context Principle, or his contention that a judgment about the truth or falsity of a whole thought is the logically primitive act of cognition. The principle conclusions I draw in this chapter are, first, that the Context Principle is a consistent feature of his thought throughout his career, and second, because Frege's more complex conception of logical form allows him to make sense of cognition without any relation to intuition or sensation, objectivity arises through the norms governing reason-based judgments in general for Frege, instead of through the application of a priori concepts to experience, as it does in Kant
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Taylor, Gregory Page |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Friedman, Michael, 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Friedman, Michael, 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Anderson, R. Lanier |
| Thesis advisor | De Pierris, Graciela Teresa |
| Thesis advisor | Hills, David James, 1947- |
| Thesis advisor | Wood, Allen W |
| Degree committee member | Anderson, R. Lanier |
| Degree committee member | De Pierris, Graciela Teresa |
| Degree committee member | Hills, David James, 1947- |
| Degree committee member | Wood, Allen W |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Philosophy. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Gregory Page Taylor |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Philosophy |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Gregory Page Taylor
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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