Overview

First published in 1752, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason [Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre] was written as a textbook and widely adopted by many 18th-century German instructors, but most notably by Immanuel Kant. For forty years Kant used the Excerpts as the basis of his lectures on logic making extensive notes on his copy of the text. More than a text on formal logic, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason covers epistemology and the elements of thought and language Meier believed made human understanding possible. Working across the two dominant intellectual forces in modern philosophy, the rationalist and the empiricist traditions, Meier's work was also instrumental to the introduction of English philosophy into Germany; he was among the first German philosophers to study John Locke’s philosophy in depth. This complete English translation of Meier’s influential textbook is introduced by Riccardo Pozzo and enhanced by a glossary and a concordance correlating Meier’s arguments to Kant’s logic lectures, the related Reflexionen and the Jäsche Logic of 1800 - the text considered of fundamental importance to Kant's philosophy. For scholars of Kant, Locke and the German Enlightenment, this valuable translation and its accompanying material presents the richest source of information available on Meier and his 18th-century work.

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9781350276598

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Reviews

Bunch has produced an elegant yet highly readable translation of G. F. Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre. This translation, along with the accompanying materials, will serve as an indispensable resource for scholars and students looking to understand Kant's views on logic with an eye to their historical context. Moreover, as the first complete English translation of one of Meier's philosophical works, Bunch's translation should serve to draw deserved scholarly attention to the work of an important but overlooked figure of the German Enlightenment. -- Corey W. Dyck, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Author Information

Georg Friedrich Meier (1718-1777) was a German philosopher, a student of Alexander Baumgarten and a principle architect of the post-Leibnizian rationalism that dominated German-speaking universities through the Eighteenth Century. Aaron Bunch is a translator. He has translated work by Martin Heidegger and Otfried Höffe. Axel Gelfert is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, National University of Singapore. Riccardo Pozzo is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Verona, Italy. He is the foremost living scholar on Georg Friedrich Meier and his books include Meiers Vernunftlehre (2000) and Kant und das Problem einer Einleitung in die Logik (1989).

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