Abstract

Throughout his forty-one years of teaching, Kant lectured on logic annually at Königsberg University. This faithfulness to the course was founded on his conviction that logic, taken as the science of the necessary formal laws of all thinking in general, serves as the reflective basis for exploring the use of understanding and reason in the sciences and other disciplines. Hence as their higher education proceeded, students would have the opportunity to consider formally, and not just psychologically or culturally, the more general questions about concepts, laws, and methods of human cognition. Kant’s appreciation of what logic offers to university life was only fortified by his 1770 appointment as professor of logic and metaphysics, with the attendant teaching responsibilities in each field. However widely he ranged in lectures on the metaphysical principles of natural science and morality, he always returned to the home base of logical inquiry.