It is well-known that Immanuel Kant used Meier’s Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason as a textbook in his logic lectures for almost forty years. Kant himself, and most later scholars, regard Meier as a follower of Wolff and Baumgarten; however, when we compare Meier’s Excerpt with Thomasius’ Introduction to the Doctrine of Reason, we find that Meier’s conception of “learned cognition” is derived from Thomasius’ conception of “learnedness.” Kant seems to have developed the pre-critical distinction between “the logic of (...) the common and healthy reason” and “the logic of the learned reason” from Meier’s distinction between “common” and “learned” cognition, which means that Meier’s appropriation of Thomasius also influenced Kant’s conception of logic. Connecting Kant’s views on logic to Thomasius through Meier in this way reveals that Kant’s pre-critical conception of logic was more eclectic than scholars have previously recognized. (shrink)

Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric and Grammar. Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory This article focuses on the aspects that refer to linguistics in the works of Charles S. Peirce. His pragmatic philosophy implemented many other sciences and among them is the traditional trivium of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, which Peirce divided into different kinds of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. While the impact of the work of Peirce (...) on theses sciences is weak, the integration of the sciences in his philosophy is interesting as a step in the history of science and his work is an example for ecclecticism and historism of science in the 19th century and the universalism of science deducted from a philosophy that uses the sign as an unitarian principle. Triple constructions are a very common feature in the writings of Peirce, and the trivium is an example of an academic construction Peirce implemented. (shrink)