Abstract

This chapter discusses the relation between Kant’s views on the foundations of syllogistic inference in ‘The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures’, the views of eighteenth-century German authors who wrote on syllogism, and the conception of metaphysics that Kant developed in 1762-1764. Kant’s positions are, on the whole, rather original, even though they are not as independent from the intellectual context as Kant’s later, Critical philosophy. Despite Kant’s polemical tone, his views on syllogism are not primarily motivated by polemical purposes. They are strongly influenced by his views on the method of metaphysics.