Second Philosophy
A Naturalistic Method
Maddy, Penelope University of California, Irvine
Print publication date: 2007 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2009
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-927366-9
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273669.003.0016
 

Penelope Maddy
For Kant, logical truth arises from the structure of the discursive intellect (i.e., an intellect that relates to objects indirectly, by means of concepts). Discursive cognition necessarily involves application of the categories, so we know a priori that the world as experienced by the discursive knower will consist of objects-with-properties standing in ground-consequent relations. This means that logical truths count as (roughly) analytic in Kant's famous dichotomy of analytic/synthetic, but the analytic truths involved aren't trivially definitional, but deep, contentful truths uncovered by delicate ‘exposition’ that's subject to error and often incomplete. Furthermore, just as the a priori truths of geometry are true only of the world as experienced by discursive cognizers with our spatiotemporal forms of intuition, likewise the a priori truths of logic are true only of the world as experienced by any discursive cognizer whatsoever. Thus logic is also, in a sense, transcendentally ideal.
Keywords: analytic, a priori, categories, discursive intellect, forms of intuition, logical truth, synthetic, transcendental idealism
doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273669.003.0016
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Part I What is Second Philosophy?
Part II The Second Philosopher at Work
Part III The Second Philosophy of Logic
Part IV Second Philosophy and Mathematics