Philological background information is presented on the origin and composition of the text generally known as Kant's Logic. The text, which was not in the strict sense of the word written by Kant himself, but rather assembled by another writer whom Kant had authorized to do so on his behalf, is a mixture of materials, not all of which originate directly from Kant, and cannot claim full authenticity.

In seinen letzten Lebensjahren übertrug Immanuel Kant seinem ehemaligen Schüler Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche die Aufgabe, aus seinen Vorlesungsnotizen ein Handbuch der Logik zu machen. In der Folge galt dieses lange Zeit fast als ein authentisches Werk Kants. Dennoch handelte es sich keineswegs um die Edition eines Manuskripts, sondern um die Auswertung und Redaktion ungleichartiger und oft fragmentarischer Quellen. Daher werden die Arbeitsweise Jäsches bei der Herausgabe des Textes, aber auch die historischen Quellen desselben untersucht. Denn in der Logikvorlesung Kants sollte (...) die allgemeine Logik ausgeführt werden, die sich enger an die vorkantische Tradition anlehnt als seine neue transzendentale Logik. (shrink)

This essay is on the concept of global democracy. We discuss the historical development of the concept of democracy and the material bases for the possible emergence of a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth in the future. We confront the problem of contested meanings of democracy, the roots of the modern concept in the European Enlightenment, the problem of Eurocentrism in the formulation of a global philosophy of democracy, the relationship between capitalist globalization and antisystemic movements and the need (...) for globalization from below. (shrink)

A short characterization is given of the contents and origin of the collection of books on logic donated by John Venn to the Cambridge University Library and of its relation to the bibliography in...

A short seventeenth-century text, sometimes cited as one of the first essays in mathematical logic, is introduced, translated and evaluated. Although by no means sharing the depth and magnitude of the investigations by Leibniz being undertaken at the same time, and although in particular not yet applying algebraic symbolism to logical structures, the treatise is of historical interest as an early published attempt to trace out analogies between logical and mathematical form, and may be viewed as a preliminary step toward (...) the formalization of logic. (shrink)