Introduction to Pragmatism and Psychologism

2017

According to the paradigmatic formula offered by Kant, 1 the philosopher's task consists of demonstrating "how we ought to think" as opposed to "how we do think" -that is, logical rules or norms must be separated from the functioning principles of the human mind or from psychological laws. As it is well-known, in the "Preface" to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, the German philosopher stands against "some moderns" who "have thought to enlarge" logic "interpolating psychological chapters about our different cognitive powers (about imagination, wit) or metaphysical chapters about the origins of cognition or the different kinds of certainty in accordance with the diversity of objects (about idealism, skepticism, etc), or anthropological chapters about our prejudice (about their causes or remedies)." In his view, this does not involve an "improvement" but a "deformation" of logic, so such observations must be set aside when one seeks to deal with the principles of the correct or rational way of thinking, knowing and acting. Kant explains that psychological, metaphysical, anthropological clarifications go beyond the boundaries of logic, which are "determined quite precisely by the fact that logic is the science that exhaustively presents and strictly proves nothing but the formal rules of all thinking (whether this thinking be empirical or a priori, whatever origin or object it may have, and whatever contingent or natural obstacles it may meet with in our minds)." 2

European Journal of Philosophy, 2017

Kant claims that logic concerns how we ought to think. This claim is standardly used to support a normative interpretation of Kant’s logic. Clinton Tolley contends that the standard interpretation is at odds with Kant’s commitments about normativity on the one hand and about logic on the other. I argue that both Tolley and the champions of the standard interpretation have missed three crucial points. First, Kant distinguishes two kinds of formal rules of thinking, which pertain to the structural and veridical features of thoughts respectively. Second, to see whether Kant’s logic is normative, it is just as important to examine what he calls “applied logic” as it is to consider “pure logic”. Third, at least two kinds of logical norms can be extracted from Kant’s logic broadly construed (which includes pure and applied logics as complementary parts): evaluative norms (for the formal assessment of all our thoughts) and imperatival norms (for regulating our epistemic conduct). I explicate these points with a view to surfacing the original philosophical insights underlying Kant’s normative conception of logic.

Oxford University Press, 2018

2014

Kantian Yearbook, 2014

In his pre-critical lectures on rational psychology, Kant employs an argument from the I to the transcendental freedom of the soul. In the (A-edition of the) first Critique, he distances himself from rational psychology, and instead offers four paralogisms of this doctrine, insisting that ‘I think’ no longer licenses any inferences about a soul. Kant also comes alive to the possibility that we could be thinking mechanisms - rational beings, but not agents. These developments rob him of his pre-critical rationalist argument for freedom. In the Groundwork, this is a serious problem; if we are not free, morality will be a phantasm for us. In Groundwork III, Kant attempts to overcome this by offering a new argument for our freedom, involving the standpoint of practical reason. In this paper, I detail these developments and present a practical and phenomenological reading of Kant’s approach in Groundwork III. I also venture a defence of this new argument.

The Development of Modern Logic, 2009

The first impression of a reader who 'crosses the border' between medieval and Renaissance logic may be that of leaving an explored and organized field for a relatively unexplored and much less ordered one. This impression is emphasized by the fact that, while in the medieval period we can assume, despite relevant theoretical differences, some consensus about the nature and purpose of logic, such an assumption cannot be made with reference to the post-medieval and Renaissance period: the many 'logics' co-existing and challenging each other were often characterized by deeply divergent assumptions, articulations and purposes. As far as logic is concerned, we could almost be tempted to use this 'explosion of entropy' as the very marker of the shift between the medieval and the Renaissance period. The development of Humanism, with its criticism of the late medieval logical tradition, is not the only factor contributing to this situation, but surely is a relevant one. Excessive and artificial subtlety, lack of practical utility, barbarous use of Latin: these are the main charges that humanist dialecticians made against Scholastic logic. Such charges do not simply point out formal deficiencies that could be eliminated within a common logical framework, but call for a change of the logical paradigm itself. The effort to address such charges had a deep influence on the evolution of logic, and resulted in a variety of solutions, many of which were based on contaminations between selected but traditional logical theories, on the one hand, and mainly rhetorical or pedagogical doctrines on the other. But the charges themselves were initially made outside the field of logic: one of the very first invectives against Scholastic logic came from Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), hardly to be considered a logician (Petrarca 1933-42, I, 7). The central point at issue is the role of language. The late medieval Scholastic tradition used language as a logical tool for argumentation, and favored the development of what J. Murdoch (1974) aptly called 'analytical languages': highly specialized collections of terms and rules whichonce applied to specific and definite sets of problemsshould help to guarantee the formal precision of reasoning. In this tradition, the use of a simplified and partly artificial Latin could help the construction of sophisticated formal arguments. The humanists, on the contrary, privileged the mastery of classical Latin. For them, languagetogether with a few simple and 'natural' arguments taken from ancient rhetoricwas a tool for an effective and well-organized social and pedagogical communication. Besides the different theoretical standpoints, there is a social and cultural gap between two different intellectual figures. Scholastic-oriented teachers are usually university professors who tend to consider logic, philosophy and theology as specialized fields. For them, knowledge is reached through a self-absorbing (and largely self-sufficient) intellectual activity, whose formal correctness is regulated by logic. Many humanist dialecticians, on the contrary, do not belong to, and do not address themselves to, the academic world: they consider logic a tool to be used whenever language is used with rhetorical or practical purposes, and regard a broad 'classical' culture more important than a specialized and abstract one. * Though we decided on the general structure of this chapter together, § § 1-4 and § 8 are by Gino Roncaglia, while § § 5-7 and § § 9-11 are by Mirella Capozzi.

2024

This thesis is about Kant’s account of reason. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant introduces reason as an infinitely demanding faculty that seeks complete explanations for all observable phenomena. This account of reason is essential to Kant’s discussion in the Transcendental Dialectic and prompts the primary question of this thesis: how does Kant justify such an infinitely demanding faculty? How does he think we come to know that we have reason, so understood? Traditionally, Kant scholars have held that we can grasp our mental faculties either through a priori awareness of their unique activities or through transcendental arguments. Both approaches, however, fail with reason, which presents unique metacritical challenges. We can never be aware of reason’s unique activities, which are infinite and so never complete, and reason cannot be established via transcendental argument because it is not necessary for the possibility of experience. So, how can we know that we have reason? This thesis breaks with tra- dition by arguing that reason gains self-knowledge in empirical psychology, the study of phenomena in inner sense. Reason, according to Kant, seeks to explain all phenomena, including those of inner sense. To explain inner phenomena, reason hypothesises mental faculties and their laws. Our ten- dency to ask why-questions, Kant argues, is best explained by hypothesising a faculty that demands complete explanations – i.e., reason. The thesis has five chapters. The first shows that, for Kant, mental facul- ties are (also) powers of inner sense. The second argues that the normative demands of these faculties are grounded in constitutive principles or laws. The third finds that the constitutive principle of reason requires us to sys- tematise powers of nature, which, as the fourth chapter explains, we do by hypothesising their respective laws. Finally, the fifth chapter suggests that reason hypothesises its own explanation-seeking law.