The Priority Principle from Kant to Frege |
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Authors: | Jeremy Heis |
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Institution: | University of California, , Irvine |
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Abstract: | In a famous passage (A68/B93), Kant writes that “the understanding can make no other use of …] concepts than that of judging by means of them.” Kant's thought is often called the thesis of the priority of judgments over concepts. We find a similar sounding priority thesis in Frege: “it is one of the most important differences between my mode of interpretation and the Boolean mode …] that I do not proceed from concepts, but from judgments.” Many interpreters have thought that Frege's priority principle is close to (or at least derivable from) Kant's. I argue that it is not. Nevertheless, there was a gradual historical development that began with Kant's priority thesis and culminated in Frege's new logic. |
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