This chapter considers Hegel's treatment of the further subtopics of traditional logic, concept, judgment and syllogism. It demonstrates how Hegel resolves the logocentric predicament by deriving the subject matter of logic, and its diverse forms, from a more primative foundation that does not already presuppose them. It aso considers the alternative views of Kreines and Stern and the role of empiricism in Hegel's system and of Ancient and modern forms of skepticism.

This chapter shows that early modern metaphysics was far more important for Pufendorf’s moral philosophy than has often been thought. In particular, it is essential to understanding Pufendorf’s theory of moral entities. This theory is often regarded as voluntarist and anti-metaphysical. Opposed to this, it has been argued, was a rationalist belief in objective and eternal moral values that was exemplified by philosophers like Leibniz. However, the main distinction for Pufendorf was not between voluntarism and rationalism, but between moral rules that were specific to a certain society because they were merely conventional, and others that were universal because they were natural, in the sense of being grounded in the physical characteristics of human nature as it had been created by God. The latter, according to Pufendorf, were necessarily true, though their necessity was hypothetical rather than absolute. Pufendorf’s intention was to turn moral philosophy into a science, which would supersede traditional Aristotelian-scholastic views that morality was concerned with the contingent circumstances of actions, and therefore incapable of ‘scientific’, that is syllogistic proof. Pufendorf’s theory of moral entities was central to this project of a moral science, which required him to provide a metaphysical foundation for these entities.

The closing act of the story concerns the drafting of the final judgment. The final task of judicial bureaucrats is to stitch together the fragmentary instructions received from the judges to create coherent and persuasive texts. Like weaving, the drafting process is all but smooth. Every time the warp meets the weft, loose threads come out which must be ironed out. Likewise, every new paragraph added to the text of a judgment reveals logical leaps, internal inconsistencies, and gaps in the reasoning that must be papered over for the decision to wield its prescriptive and symbolic authority. Despite these difficulties, the final decision – the magical artefact that makes the pride of our lot – is somehow churned out on time. Its seamless fabric, now up for scrutiny by journalists, practitioners, and scholars, carefully conceals the infinite series of choices, confrontations, and hesitations that marked every turn of the proceedings.

This chapter studies Locke’s critique of scholastic language, but since this “learned gibberish” is, for Locke, only one form of insignificant speech, the chapter then proceeds to discuss his views about the requirements for significant speech and the remedies proposed in case these requirements are not met. Locke’s answer contains elements that, at first sight, cannot be reconciled with each other so easily: his linguistic thesis according to which words as arbitrary signs are imposed by the mind on its ideas has a mentalistic and even solipsistic ring to it, yet communication is a social activity, governed by rules, customs, and conventions. The chapter therefore ends by looking in more detail at the social dimension of language to see how the social world shapes our apparently private minds. It concludes that for Locke the mind is a social entity, embedded in social and linguistic practices that shape our views of the world and give expression to them. The social world is built on the ideas we receive and construct, and common linguistic usage, for all its imperfections, is essential in framing and conveying these ideas.

This chapter studies Hobbes’s use of common language not only in his attacks on the “insignificant speech” of the scholastics but also in the definitions of his own philosophy. Thomas Hobbes was a careful observer of linguistic usage, appealing often to “what we are used to say.” But he does not accept “common usage” in any simple way. Like so many of his contemporaries, Hobbes was ambivalent about common language. As a move in his polemical invectives against scholastic language, Hobbes chose the side of “the people” who used language in a “natural” and “common” way. But common language also reflected patterns of thinking that Hobbes found deeply disturbing. Since for Hobbes everything hinges on the right understanding of words and well-explained definitions, he often claims to have common language at his side, yet we also find him subtly redefining terms to match his own philosophical views. The chapter explores Hobbes’s balancing act of revising ordinary language while playing down the revising act itself. In the last section the chapter suggests that the revision of common usage is part of Hobbes’s wider tactic to persuade the people that his civil science comes close to what every reasonable person should endorse.

This chapter discusses the radical attack on some tenets of Aristotelian-scholastic philosophy by the sixteenth-century humanist Mario Nizolio. Focusing on his interesting but undervalued work, On the true principles and true way of philosophizing against the pseudo-philosophers (1553, edited by Leibniz in 1670), this chapter shows that his critique involves a radical de-ontologization of the conceptual armory of the scholastics, a turn toward the world of empirical things, a recognition of the central role that the human mind plays in our categorization of the world, and a plea for a clear, transparent language in doing philosophy and communication in general. Rejecting universals as essences as well as Aristotelian categories and transcendentals, Nizolio wanted to defend a horizontal ontology in which concrete things, grouped in classes by a creative act of the human mind, take center stage. Starting with Nizolio’s humanist credo, the chapter then offers an analysis of Nizolio’s criticisms of the traditional five predicables, and his account of the process of abstraction that led to the formation of these universals. After a brief discussion of proof and demonstration, and the relationship between dialectic and rhetoric, the chapter ends by discussing Leibniz’s reaction to Nizolio.

Methodological frameworks for assessing philosphical content pixelated across narrative, law, and poetry are proposed. Examples of the philosophical use of narrative and its interpenetration with poetry and law illustrate the methodological strictures.

This chapter retraces the genealogical development of deduction in the Latin and Arabic medieval traditions and in the early modern period, and finally the emergence of mathematical logic in the nineteenth century. It is shown that dialogical conceptions of logic remained pervasive in the Latin medieval tradition, but that they coexisted with other, non-dialogical conceptualizations, in part because of the influence of Arabic logic. In the modern period, however, mentalistic conceptions of logic and deduction became increasingly prominent. The chapter thus explains why we (i.e. twenty-first-century philosophers) have by and large forgotten the dialogical roots of deduction.

This chapter examines the extent to which matter can be said to have being, the role of the Platonic Forms, and the methods for discovering the metaphysical principles of the universe.

Chapter 2 discusses Kant’s account of the ‘logical use of reason,’ which consists in drawing ‘mediate inferences’ (e.g., syllogisms). It is guided by the ‘Logical Maxim,’ which requires us to search for the conditions of or conditioned cognitions until we arrive at unconditioned cognitions. Its aim is to transform our manifold cognitions about nature (both empirical and a priori) into a complete system of scientific knowledge and thus to achieve the ‘unity of reason.’ The chapter also places Kant’s conception of systematic cognition in the context of the Wolffian school and explains what it means for cognitions to be conditioned or unconditioned. Finally, the Logical Maxim is defended as a plausible expression of our rational striving for systematicity and completeness of knowledge.