Saturday, March 9, 2024

The logic of Kant's Critique A70-76 in modern form

Consider Kant's table of the 'forms of the understanding'  obtained by abstracting judgments from their content, expounded in A70-76 (B95-101) and divided into quantity, quality, relation and modality.

Judgments are defined inductively.

Let C1 and C2 be concepts. Then QC1ϵC2, QC1ϵ¯C2 and QC1ϵC2¯ are  judgments where Q{U,P,S}.

Let J1 and J2 be a judgements. Then J1J2 is a judgment.

Let J1,...,Jn be judgements. Then J1...Jn is a judgment.

Let J be a judgement. Then J and J are judgments.

Here C¯ is term-negation. As in the infinite judgment 'the soul is not-mortal'.

But Kant distinguishes between judgment and the content of a judgment, in particular the proposition. Also considering Kant's example,  disjunction seems to be term-based:

Let C1,...,Cn be concepts such that iCi=U (or rather, their extensions satisfy this) and C a concept. Then CϵC1...CϵCn is a judgment. So we can use Frege's 'vertical line', ancestor of our and reformulate the syntax of the logic as follows:

Judgments are defined inductively.

Let C1 and C2 be concepts. Then QC1ϵC2, QC1ϵ¯C2 and QC1ϵC2¯ are are propositions where Q{U,P,S}.

Let P1 and P2 be propositions. Then P1P2 is proposition.

Let C1,...,Cn be concepts such that iCi=U and C a concept. Then CϵC1...CϵCn is a proposition.

Let P be a proposition. Then P, P and P are judgments. 

See also the important remark in B141 where Kant confirms the above presentation. Also B11. Analytic judgments are =I in CIL whilst synthetic judgments are =N, the are 'extensional' in Kant's own terminology !

Can Kant even express his 'analogies of experience' - which surely must be judgments ! - in such a logic ? The original version of the second analogy in A was: for everything that happens there is something which succeeds it, according to a rule. Alles, was geschiet (anhebt zu sein) setzt etwas voraus, worauf es nach einer Regel folgt, x.Hap(x)y.RegSuc(x,y)

According to Bobzien and Shogry Stoic logic could handle this.

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