Kants Logikvorlesungen, ihre Quellen und die Entwicklung seiner Geschichtsphilosophie von 1781 bis 1784

Steffen Dietzsch zum Geburtstag im August 2025

Abstract

This study argues that Kant’s logic lectures around 1782 can be seen not only as the ‘seedbed’ (“Keimzelle”) of his critical philosophy but also as the preparatory ground of his philosophy of history. By examining Samuel Grosser’s Pharus intellectus and Christian Wolff’s Philosophia rationalis sive logica as major sources, it shows how allegories of a collective voyage, the extension of teleology into history, and the example of Poland’s “bear child” informed Kant’s reflections on the development of reason. The central claim is that the passage from logica naturalis (natural state of thinking) towards logica artificialis (scientific state of logic) provides the structural schema for Kant’s later conception of historical progress. Logic thus becomes both a completed instance of the unfolding of natural dispositions and the analogue by which Kant conceptualized the hidden regularities of human history.