Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of

Modern Logic*
Marco Sgarbi

In memoriam Giorgio Tonelli

I
In his paper of 1974, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition
of Modern Logic, which was considered the highest point of the 4th Inter-
national Kant Congress, 1 Giorgio Tonelli wrote “the Critique is a work on
methodology,”2 “referring the Critique of Pure Reason to its logical matrix
has in my opinion the most far-reaching consequences on the very intel-
ligibility, and on the historical and philosophical interpretation of this
work. The whole general structure of the Critique, seen in this light,
does not appear any more as a personal, and largely obscure and arbitrary,
creation of its author, but as the meaningful outcome of some basic tra-
ditions in the history of Logic.”3 Tonelli’s intention was to give a detailed
explanation of the matters discussed in his paper in a book, which how-
ever, was never published because of his death.

*
In the present paper I present the results of my research La Kritik der reinen Ver-
nunft nel contesto della tradizione logica aristotelica. Hildesheim 2010. I am grate-
ful to professors Bernd Dçrflinger and Heiner H. Klemme for the realization of
the work and to professor Rudolf Makkreel for discussion on the thesis of the
paper.
1 See Cesa, Claudio: “In Memory of Giorgio Tonelli.” In: Tonelli, Giorgio: Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason within the Tradition of Modern Logic. Hildesheim 1994,
23.
2 Tonelli, Giorgio: “Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason within the Tradition of Mod-
ern Logic”. In: Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses Mainz April 6 – 10,
1974. Berlin-New York 1974, III, 188.
3 Ibid., 189.

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498 Marco Sgarbi

In a previous article of 1964,4 Tonelli showed for the first in the

Kant-Forschung the importance of Aristotelian terminology for the gene-
sis of the Critique of Pure Reason, while in a paper of 1975 on the Con-
ditions in Kçnigbserg and the Making of Kant’s Philosophy, he suggested a
strong impact of Kçnigsbergs’s Aristotelianism on the formation of the
Kantian philosophy.5
In the present paper I want to demonstrate that Tonelli’s suggestions
were correct, and that the Critique of Pure Reason can be properly under-
stood only by contextualizing it within the tradition of Aristotelian logic,
using new, original, and unpublished material, such as Vorlesungsverzeich-
nisse 1703 – 1719, the Einladungsschriften, and the Aristotelian-Scholastic
handbooks that were officially adopted at the Albertina.
In the first part of the paper I show that Kçnigsberg was a stronghold
of Aristotelianism up to the fourth decade of the eighteenth century and
that Kant was taught Aristotelian manuals during his formation at the
Collegium Friedericianum and the Albertina.
In the second part of the paper I examine the Aristotelian doctrines of
the Critique of Pure Reason such as the distinction of matter and form of
knowledge, the division of transcendental logic into analytic and dialec-
tic, the theory of categories and schema, the opposition between
jatû%mhqypom – jatû!k^heiam arguments, and the methodological issues
of the architectonic.
In conclusion I demonstrate the reason why the Aristotelian heritage
became increasingly important beginning from the years 1768 – 1772.

II

Since its foundation in 1544, Kçnigsberg university was characterized by

a strong Aristotelian tradition, in fact the statute of the university in the
chapter doctrinae temporibus et ordine established: “At vero singulis die-
bus, quibus publice docetur, hora VI. mane, quae ad Dialecticam perti-
nent, proponentur. Ut sunt D. Philippi Erotemata, Rudolphi Agricolae

4 Tonelli, Giorgio: “Das Wiederaufleben der deutsch-aristotelischen Terminologie

bei Kant w•hrend der Entstehung der ‘Kritik der reinen Vernunft’”. In: Archiv
fìr Begriffsgeschichte 9, 1964, 233 – 242.
5 Tonelli, Giorgio: “Conditions in Kçnigsberg and the Making of Kant’s Philoso-
phy.” In: Bewusst-sein. Eds. Alexius J. Bucher, Hermann Drìe, Thomas M. See-
bohm. Bonn 1975, 126 – 144.

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 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of Modern Logic 499

de inventione Libri, et Organon Aristotelis.”6 The Philippistic interpreta-

tion of Aristotle dominated up to the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, when the works of Jacopo Zabarella and Giulio Pace became avail-
able. During this century Kçnigsberg became a stronghold of Aristote-
lianism establishing itself as one of the most important schools in Germa-
ny with authors such as Abraham Calov, Christian Dreier, Melchior Zei-
dler, and Andreas Hedio. In particular in the field of logic, Calov wrote
an important book entitled Methodologia, 7 in which he developed meth-
odological issues according to Aristotelian philosophy in opposition to
the new methodology of Francis Bacon and Ren¦ Descartes; Zeidler pre-
pared the most important and exhaustive commentary to Aristotle’s An-
alytics in Zabarella’s wake;8 and Hedio elaborated an entire commentary
to Aristotle’s Organon. 9
The last important exponent of Kçnigsberg’s Aristotelianism was Paul
Rabe. Rabe was first inspector at the Collegium Friedericianum from 1685
to 1703, when he became full professor of logic at the Albertina. He was
author of a Dialectica et analytica, scientiarum biga utilissima, 10 of a Com-
mentarius in librum categoriarum Aristotelis sive Primitiae professionis log-
ico-metaphysicae, 11 of a Cursus philosophicus, 12 and of a Methodologia nova
atque scinetifica, sive tractatus de ordine genuine. 13 His works were partic-
ularly important because they were adopted as official manuals of the

6 Rabe, Paul: Primitiae professionis logico-metaphysicae sive commentarii in librum

categoriarum Aristotelis. Kçnigsberg 1704, 212.
7 Calov, Abraham: Methodologia. In: Id.: Scripta philosophica. Lìbeck 1651.
8 Zeidler, Melchior: Analytica sive de variis sciendi generibus et mediis eo perveniendi
libri III. Kçnigsberg 1676.
9 Hedio, Andreas: Organum Aristoteleum ad vera Aristotelis et ad Graecorum men-
tem ac methodum ex optimis interpretibus vetustioribus ac recentioribus concinna-
tum. Kçnigsberg 1686.
10 Rabe, Paul: Dialectica et analytica. Berlin 1703.
11 Rabe, Paul: Primitiae professionis logico-metaphysicae, sive Commentarious in li-
brum categoriarum Aristotelis. Kçnigsberg 1704.
12 Rabe, Paul: Cursus philosophicus, seu Compendium praecipuarum scientiarum phil-
osophicarum, Dialecticae nempe, Analyticae, Politicae, sub qua comprehenditur Eth-
ica, Physicae atque Metaphysicae, ex evidentioribus rectae rationis principiis deduc-
tum, methodo scientifica adornatum, et brevi atque perspicuo stylo concinnatum,
in gratiam non solum Philosophiae cultorum ex professo, sed et imprimis eorum,
qui tantum ex ea modo haurire desiderant, quantum sibi in superioribus Facultati-
bus usui esse potest in Theologia nempe, Jurisprudentia et Medicina. Kçnigsberg
1703.
13 Rabe, Paul: Methodologia nova atque scientifica, sive tractatus de ordine genuino.
Kçnigsberg 1706.

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500 Marco Sgarbi

Collegium Fridericianum and of the Albertina. In particular, Kant was

taught the Dialectica et analytica and the Cursus philosophicus.
The Dialectica et analytica was known by Kant during his stay at the
Collegium because: 1) it was the official manual of the Collegium; 2) ac-
cording to Gustav Otto Zippel still in 1723 “the Exercitia Oratoria and
Disputatoria were taught Hìbner’s Oratoria and on Rabe’s Dialectica et
analytica”;14 3) a decree of the October, 25th 1735 established that the
minimal requirement for the enrollment at the university was the ac-
quaintance of the elements of syllogistic;15 4) Rabe’s manual was the
only work of the time containing disputatory exercises and dealing
with syllogistic.16 In the meantime it is possible to exclude the teaching
of Wolffian logic because 1) there was not a Wolffian manual in Latin
with disputatory exercises at the time; 2) Wolffian logic dealt scarcely
with syllogistic; 3) the teaching of Wolffian doctrines was discouraged
by Heinrich Lysius’s reform of 1726; 4) when Kant enrolled himself at
the Collegium Georg Friedrich Rogall was the director of the institute
and his hostility toward Wolffianism was manifest; 5) up to 1740
Wolff was in opposition with Pietists and it is at least implausible that
a Wolffian manual was taught in the Pietist school par excellence. Further-
more, Franz Albert Schultz, who was successor of Rogall, despite his con-
flict with the Aristotelian Johann Jakob Quandt, was not interested in
logic and there are no reasons to believe that he changed the official man-
ual of the Collegium. Nor Kant’s teachers of logic, Christian Andreas
Chucholovius, Georg Christian Hein, and Johann Friedrich Heyden-
reich, had the personality to change the manual of logic of a professor,
who was considered unanimously a “scientific authority.”17 In addition
the Dialectica et analytica was also taught at the Albertina by Kant’s pro-
fessor of Greek, Thomas Burckhard, and it was summarized in the Bre-
vissima delineatio scientiarum dialecticae et analyticae ad mentem philosophi

14 Zippel, Gustav Otto: Geschichte des Kçniglichen Friedrichs-Kollegiums zu Kçnigs-

berg Pr. 1698 – 1898. Kçnigsberg 1898, 70.
15 See Arnoldt, Daniel Heinrich: Ausfìhrliche und mit Urkunden versehene Historie
der Kçnigsbergischen Universit•t. Kçnigsberg 1746, III, 314 – 393; Arnoldt, Emil:
“Kants Jugend und die fìnf ersten Jahre seiner Privatdozentur im Umriss darges-
tellt”. In: Altpreußische Monatschrift 18, 1881, 614.
16 Pozzo, Riccardo: “Catalogus praelectionum academiae regiomontanae 1719 –
1804”. In: Studi Kantiani 4, 1991, 176.
17 Horkel, Johann: Der Holzk•mmerer Theodor Gehr und die Anf•nge des Kçnigl.
Friedrichs-Collegiums zu Kçnigsberg nach handschriftlichen Quellen dargestellt. Kç-
nigsberg 1855, 29.

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 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of Modern Logic 501

by Johann David Kypke,18 who was Kant’s professor of logic and meta-
physics and in whose house Kant lived for awhile.19
Also Rabe’s Cursus philosophicus was surely known by Kant. Rabe’s
Cursus was a sort of companion of all Aristotelian philosophy from
logic to ethics. It was recommended for students of theology, law, and
medicine. In addition according to a Rogall’s ordinance in order to
enter in the faculty of theology it was necessary to complete all six courses
of philosophy, which were: 1) dialectic; 2) analytic; 3) ethics; 4) politics;
5) physics; 6) metaphysics. The Cursus was exactly divided into these six
sections, which made it the perfect candidate as philosophical manual of
everyday life for philosophy students. In addition, its popularity was so
great that Hieronymus Goergi made it in 1716 a short companion enti-
tled Philosophia propaedeutica sive philosophiae fundamenta praerequisita,
ad ductum et methodum Cursus Philosophici b. Professoris Raben in tres
tomos iuxta triplicem Philosophiam breviter et perspicue distributa. 20 The
Cursus was commonly taught at the Albertina since the fourth decade
of eighteenth century, especially by Burckhard and Kypke.21
Looking at the professors at the Albertina in the first four decades of
the eighteenth century, they were all Aristotelians or educated in Aristo-
telian philosophy. For example two of the four professors who were very
close to Kant, Kypke and Georg Gottfried Teske, defined themselves as
Aristotelians, while, the other two professors, Karl Gottlieb Marquardt
and Martin Knutzen, were very well educated in Aristotelian doctrines.
Wolffianism, during the period when Kant was student, was never a
dominant movement in Kçnigsberg’s university, in fact, no professor
could declare himself truly a Wolffian scholar and no Wolffians became
full professor in the chair of logic and metaphysics.22

18 See Kypke, Johann David: Brevissima delineatio scientiarum dialecticae et analyti-

cae ad mentem philosophi. Kçnigsberg 1729.
19 See Stark, Werner: “Wo lehrte Kant? Recherchen zu Kants Wohnungen”. In: Kç-
nigsberg. Beitr•ge zu einem besonderen Kapitel der deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18.
Jahrhunderts. Ed. J. Kohnen. Frankfurt 1994, 88.
20 See the preface of Georgi, Hieronymus: Philosophia propaedeutica. Kçnigsberg
1716.
21 Also Johann Christoph Gottsched was educated with the Rabe’s Cursus, see Erd-
mann, Benno: Martin Knutzen und seine Zeit. Leipzig 1876, 18.
22 Pozzo, Riccardo: “Aristotelismus und Eklektik in Kçnigsberg”. In: Die Universi-
t•t Kçnigsberg in der frìhen Neuzeit. Eds. Hanspeter Marti and Manfred Komor-
owski. Kçln-Weimar-Wien 2008, 172 – 185.

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502 Marco Sgarbi

At least up to 1725 with the leadership of Johann Jakob Quandt, Ar-

istotelianism was the dominant philosophical movement in Kçnigsberg.
Between 1715 and 1740, Aristotelian, Eclectic, and Wolffian philoso-
phies fought to extend their hegemony in the faculty of philosophy. Be-
tween 1715 and 1724 in Kçnigsberg Pietists increased their influence
with the help of Wolffians against the Aristotelian conservatism. Howev-
er, Lysius’s reform of 1726 substantially banished Wolffian philosophy
until 1740. During this period, as some Einladungsschriften prove, Aris-
totelianism was conceived as sort of Eclectic philosophy.23
Recapitulating, there are good reasons to believe that Kant during the
year of his formation was extremely influenced by Aristotelian philoso-
phy, especially in the field of logic, which was the area of specialization
of Kçnigsberg’s Aristotelianism.

III

In spite of Kant’s early acknowledgment of Aristotelian doctrines, it is

possible to find the Aristotelian legacy in his works only from the end
of the Sixties and the beginning of the Seventies, a period in which sig-
nificant terminological and doctrinal changes appeared, as the use of the
words “Kategorie”, “Schema”, “Analytic”, and “Dialectic”24 testify.
One of the most important Aristotelian elements to understand the
meaning of Copernican revolution is the distinction between matter
and form of knowledge, which Kant uses for the first time in the Disser-
tatio of 1770 and which occupies a large part of the transcendental aes-
thetic and of the transcendental logic.25 The Kant-Forschung has establish-
ed that this distinction was extremely unusual at the time, in fact neither

23 See Rohde, Johann Jakob: Meditatione philosophica qua Aristotelica sapientissimus

de veritate. Kçnigsberg 1722.
24 See Hinske, Norbert: “Kants neue Terminologie und ihre alten Quellen. Mçg-
lichkeiten und Grenzen der elektronischen Datenverarbeitung im Felde der Be-
griffsgeschichte”. In: Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses Mainz April 6 –
10, 1974. Berlin-New York 1974, I, 68 – 85; Pozzo, Riccardo: “Dall’intellectus
purus alla reine Vernunft. Note sul passaggio dal latino al tedesco prima e dopo
Kant”. In: Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 90, 2001, 231 – 245; Sgarbi,
Marco: “Kant’s Dictionaries Project”. In: Intellectual History Review 18, 2008,
275 – 277; Sgarbi, Marco: “Il risveglio dal sonno dogmatico e la rivoluzione del
1772”. In: Archivio di storia della cultura 25, 2012, 237 – 249.
25 See for instance MSI, AA 02: 392; KrV, A 20 – 21/B 34 – 5; KrV, A 261/B 318.

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 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of Modern Logic 503

Eclectic philosophers nor Wolffians used it26 and usually it is considered a

Kantian invention. However, the distinction is genuinely Aristotelian. It
appears in Zabarella’s Liber de tribus praecognitis in the form of res consid-
erata and modus considerandi rem: “subjectum [the knowable] duas habere
partes; unam, quae materiae locum tenet, et dicitur res considerata; alter-
am, quae loco formae est, et vocatur modus considerandi.”27 Zabarella
also adds that the proper subject of logic is the modus considerandi be-
cause matter can be the common subject of different sciences and it is al-
ways the same, while what differs from every science is the form of
knowledge. Kçnigsberg’s Aristotelians such as Calov and Rabe used fre-
quently this distinction to refer to epistemic knowledge: “objectum
duo continet 1. Rem consideratam seu materiale. 2. Modum consideran-
di seu formale.”28 Kant without doubt took up the distinction from this
Aristotelian tradition.
One aspect that the Kant-Forschung unanimously considers Aristote-
lian is the division of transcendental logic into analytic and dialectic.
Many scholars have suggested various sources such as Joachim Georg
Darjes, Georg Friedrich Meier, and Johann Jakob Brucker,29 but none
of these sources give sufficient reasons to explain Kant’s conception. In
fact, while it was common to consider the analytic as the logic of
truth, it was extremely unusual to characterize dialectic from one side
as the doctrine of probability and from the other side as logic of illu-
sion/appearance. The expression “Logik des Scheins”, which is absent
from any logical treatise of the time, has especially led the scholars to cu-
rious and sometimes improbable explanations. The characterization of di-
alectic as logic of probability and logic of appearance occurs exactly as
Kant understood it in Rabe’s works. In dealing with the various logical
arguments, Rabe distinguishes the dialectic as logica ex probabilibus or

26 See Rumore, Paola: L’ordine delle idee. La genesi del concetto di “rappresentazione”
in Kant attraverso le sue fonti wolffiane (1747 – 1787). Firenze 2007, 191 – 213.
27 Zabarella, Jacopo: Liber de tribus praecognitis. In: Id.: Opera logica. Kçln 1597,
502e.
28 Calov, Abarham: Metaphysica divina. Rostock 1640, 26.
29 On Darjes see Tonelli, Giorgio: “Der historische Ursprung der Kantischen Ter-
mini Analytik und Dialektik”. In: Archiv fìr Begriffsgeschichte 7, 1962, 120 – 139.
On Meier see Hinske, Nobert: Tra illuminismo e critica della ragione. Studi sul
corpus logico kantiano. Pisa 1999, 27 – 31. On Brucker see Capozzi, Mirella: “Di-
alectic, Probability and Verisimilitude in Kant’s Logic”. In: Prospettive della logica
e della filosofia della scienza. Eds. Vincenzo Fano, Gino Tarozzi, and Massimo
Stanzione. Soveria Mannelli 2001, 31 – 44.

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504 Marco Sgarbi

logica probabilium, which has as its aim the truth and has an epistemic
value, from the dialectic as logica ex apparentibus, which has as its aim il-
lusion and does not have an epistemic value.30 Furthermore, another anal-
ogy between Rabe and Kant is that for both the analytic is a mere canon
without any matter of knowledge, it shows the knowledge a priori and it
includes the treatment of the doctrines of categories.31 In addition for
Rabe, the analytic includes the gnostologia, which was in Kçnigsberg’s Ar-
istotelian tradition beginning from Calov the science of the knowable qua
knowable, i. e., an object of knowledge in general.32
Also the doctrine of the categories and of schema was considered by
the Kant-Forschung as Kant’s novelty in the history of logic. Despite its
very well recognized Aristotelian legacy, Kant’s conception of categories
would have been completely different from that of Aristotle, who consid-
ers categories as the genera summa of being: “Kant’s categories (which
were not the genera summa) are not traceable back to the Aristotelian cat-
egories,”33 “Kant conceives categories as “fundamental concepts” (Grund-
begriffe) and opens the way to a new conception of the categories different
from that of Aristotelian-Scholastic one.”34 In opposition to these state-
ments it is possible to demonstrate that in his commentary to Aristotle’s
Categories, Rabe supported a nominalistic interpretation of the categories,
according to which they were “mental constructions, or concepts of a
mental order which did not correspond to an order of things; therefore
they were not genera summa.”35 Rabe, in the wake of Zabarella and
Pace, considered the categories formaliter, i. e., sub ratione praedicationis,
attribuendi et subiiciendi, and not materialiter, i. e., sub ratione entis, ac-
cording to which they were in rerum natura. 36 In addition Rabe charac-
terized categories in two ways exactly as Kant did. If categories are “what
can be said without any connection”, their logical function can be under-
stood only in connection with an object/predicate. This means that a cat-

30 See Rabe, Cursus philosophicus, 37 – 38.

31 Rabe, Primitiae professionis logico-metaphysicae, 43.
32 Rabe, Cursus philosophicus, op. cit., 1207. See also Sgarbi, Marco: “Abraham
Calov and Immanuel Kant. Aristotelian and Scholastic Traces in the Kantian Phi-
losophy”. In: Historia philosophica 8, 2010, 55 – 62.
33 Tonelli, “Das Wiederaufleben der deutsch-aristotelischen Terminologie bei Kant
w•hrend der Entstehung der ‘Kritik der reinen Vernunft’”, 236.
34 Ferrari, Massimo: Categorie e a priori. Bologna 2003, 23 – 24.
35 Tonelli, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason within the Tradition of modern Logic, 165.
36 Rabe, Paul: Primitiae professionis logico-metaphysicae, sive Commentarious in li-
brum categoriarum Aristotelis. Kçnigsberg 1704, 35.

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 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of Modern Logic 505

egory in itself has no determinate meaning, i. e., it is a mere affirmatio

alicujus de aliquo, while in connection with object/predicate the category
is able to fulfill its function. The determining role to signify by means of
categories is played by the schema for both Rabe and Kant. Schema,
which is not “one of the new technical terms that had been introduced
into transcendental logic,”37 represent for Rabe the way to signify the ob-
ject of knowledge, in fact, there are many schemas of categories as the
ways to say the being are.38 In particular the schema for Rabe, as in
Kant, is the logical function according to which it is possible to relate
in concreto the category with its object.39 Only the nominalistic concep-
tion of Kçnigsberg Aristotelianism supported this interpretation of the
categories and it must have exercised some influence on the Kantian doc-
trines.40
Various methodological issues present in the Critique of Pure Reason
are of Aristotelian origin. One of these is the opposition between the ar-
gument jatû%mhqypom and the argument jatû!k^heiam. Usually in the
modern logical tradition the jatû%mhqypom argument characterized the ar-
gumentum ad hominem. However, this is not the primary meaning that
Kant used in his works: “argumentum jatû%mhqypom is valid for all
human beings as rational beings of the world (Weltwesen) in general,
and not as a simple mode of thinking (Denkungsart) accidentally about
this or that human being.”41 The jatû%mhqypom argument is an argumen-
tum ad modulum humanitatis, which does not refer to a particular human
being but to the human being in general in its subjective condition. This
kind of argument establishes “what is for us (human beings in general)
according to the necessary rational principles for our evaluation.”42 In op-
position, the argument jatû!k^heiam refers to an objective, universal, and
necessary knowledge. These two arguments are typical of pure Aristote-
lianism. Zabarella in his commentary to Posterior Analytics wrote that

37 Seung, Thomas K.: Kant’s Transcendental Logic. New Haven-London 1969, 55.
38 See Aristotle: Metaphysica, V 7, 1017 a 22 – 23; Rabe, Primitiae professionis log-
ico-metaphysicae, sive Commentarious in librum categoriarum Aristotelis, 66; KrV,
A 145 – 146/B 185.
39 Rabe, Primitiae professionis logico-metaphysicae, sive Commentarious in librum cat-
egoriarum Aristotelis, op. cit., 67.
40 On the various doctrines of categories in modern philosophy see Tonelli, Gior-
gio: “La tradizione delle categorie aristoteliche nella filosofia moderna sino a
Kant”. In: Studi Urbinati 32, 1958, 121 – 143.
41 FM, AA 20: 306.
42 KU, AA 05: 463.

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506 Marco Sgarbi

the jatû%mhqypom argument is valid for the human nature as the human
beings would constitute a whole, and not something distributed in a var-
ious way in the individuals: “secundum assumpta hamanae naturae” and
“non hominis singularis.”43 Instead, the universally valid argument
jatû!k^heiam was characterized by three particular kinds of objective ne-
cessity: 1) omni (jat± pamt¹r); 2) per se (jatû"ut¹); 3) universale (jah|-
kou).44 Rabe refers to these two particular arguments in his logical works.45
Another important methodological issue of the Critique of Pure Rea-
son is Kant’s conception of architectonic in his Methodology. In spite of
the various attempts of the Kant-Forschung to find Kant’s source in Chris-
tian Wolff, Johann Heinrich Lambert, and Georg Friedrich Meier, none
of these presents a doctrine similar to the Kantian one. Also in this field,
the Aristotelian tradition of the methodologia, and in particular Calov,
seems to have exercised some influence, which was already recognized
by Tonelli: “the only clear precedent to Kant’s use of this term [Architek-
tonik] is in Calov, and possibly other Aristotelians sharing his views. Kant
had probably been informed of this by his Aristotelian teachers at Kçnigs-
berg University.”46 In Calov, methodology dealt with rules that are instru-
mental in directing the order and the hierarchy of the various disci-
plines.47 Calov specifically distinguished the prescriptions of the method
from the prescriptions of the architectonic.48 The prescriptions of method
are an organon because they designate the rule to follow for all disciplines
in any treatment. The prescriptions of architectonic, instead, are hierarch-
ical because they establish the order of the treatment in various disciplines

43 Zabarella, Jacopo: In duos Aristotelis libros posteriores analyticos commentarii. In:

Id.: Opera logica, 1271e.
44 See Zabarella, Jacopo: De propositionibus necessariis libri duo. In: Id.: Opera logi-
ca, 345c.
45 Rabe, Dialectica et analytica, 59 – 63.
46 Tonelli, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason within the Tradition of modern Logic, op.
cit., 255.
47 Calov, Methodologia, 1040 – 41.
48 Ibid., 1040: “distinguas vero hic inter praescriptionem de disciplinis Methodi-
cam et praescriptionem disciplinarum Architectonicam. Illam dico, quae prae-
cepta tradit de methodo servanda, in disciplinis et omni tractatione, quod est or-
ganicum, hanc vero, quae praescribit leges disciplinis, quas ultra, citraque nequit
consistere rectum. Unde quamvis inter alia etiam ordinet disciplinas adductum
primorum principiorum, tamen id facit non organice, sed Monarchice per
modum regiminis. Ista ergo praeceptio debetur scientiarum reginae, qua determi-
nationem, ejusque Consiliario Noologiae seu habitu intelligentiae, qua praecep-
torum ratione.”

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 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Within the Tradition of Modern Logic 507

according to a guideline, which is the same idea of Kant. A second ele-

ment of convergence is the constant contraposition between the system
and the aggregate in Calov’s work, which occurs many times in the Kant-
ian writings.49 For Calov, as for Kant, the aggregate became system only
by means of the architectonical rules.50 A last evidence of the legacy of
Kçnigsberg Aristotelianism in Kant’s methodology is the contraposition
between architectonic and technique, which is absent in the other philos-
ophers of the time. Calov, in many passages of his Methodologia and also
his Horistica, opposed the architectonic to technique, the science which
was founded by the Calvinist Johann Heinrich Alsted in his Technologia.
The technique is the art by which connections among different disci-
plines are structured but without any architectonical guideline. This con-
traposition occurs in Rabe’s Methodologia nova, which could be the Kant-
ian source of the frequent opposition made between technical unity and
architectonical unity in the Architectonic.

IV

In conclusion many Aristotelian elements shape the logical doctrines of

the Critique of Pure Reason, even in very important issues such as the
problem of the categories and schema. Now it is necessary to answer
the question why only from beginning of the Seventies there are evidence
of the Aristotelian heritage, if Kant knew Aristotelian doctrines since
when he was a student. This is a very important and large question to
whose answer I have devoted an entire book, but it can be summarized
in the fact that from the failures of the precritical logical and metaphys-
ical attempts, which were influenced by the contemporary philosophy,
Kant looked for another way of solution of his logical problems and
he found it, perhaps casually, in Kçnigsberg Aristotelian tradition. But
why only in the period between 1768 and 1772 did Kant find this sol-
ution in Aristotelian philosophy?

49 Ibid., 1074: “Aggregatum voco, quod diversa objecta respicit aliquo vinculo inter
se unita. Unita sint necessum est, qualis etiam illa sit unio … Communitas vero
non sufficit nominis citra essentiae rationem, qualis est in aequivocis, quae non
potest conceptum comune gignere citra mentis nostrae hinc inde distractionem:
ideoq[ue] fundare nequeunt unitatem Systematis etiam aggregati.” See KrV, A
833/B 860.
50 Ibid., 1076.

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508 Marco Sgarbi

My argument is that Kant was influenced by Aristotelian philosophy

only in this period because in that epoch he was librarian at
Schloßbibliothek. The Schloßbibliothek since its foundation in 1529 was
one of the most important of the Lutheran Germany, having in the sec-
ond half of the sixteenth century about two-thousand volumes.51 Accord-
ing to the catalogue of the library of the October, 6th 1758, the library
had nine-hundred-sixty-six volumes of philosophy.52 According to the
Auktionskataloge, the Schloßbibliothek bought the private libraries of the
Aristoelians Hedio and Rabe, and of his publisher Heinrich Boye and
of Kant’s mentor Martin Knutzen.53 Hedio’s catalogue, which is unfortu-
nately the only available, gives us a detailed report of the books: there
were one-hundred-seventy-four books on Platonic and Aristotelian phi-
losophy and one-hundred-and-three on other philosophies.54 Further-
more, from the Auktionskataloge it is possible to evince that from 1759
to 1773, i. e., when Kant was librarian, there were not new acquisitions,
but there was a general rearrangement of the library in which he was in-
volved.55 In addition, the first important acquisition of a private library
after 1759 was the one of the Aristotelian Johann Jakob Quandt in
1773,56 which is evidence of the interest in the Aristotelian books. Hav-
ing available such important library collections, Kant could know the Ar-
istotelian doctrine in this crucial period for the genesis of the Critique of
Pure Reason, which can be correctly understood only within the Aristote-
lian tradition.

51 Cfr. Kuhnert, Ernst: Geschichte der Staats- und Universit•ts-Bibliothek zu Kçnigs-

berg. Von ihrer Begrìndung bis zum Jahre 1810. Leipzig 1926; Krollmann, Chris-
tian: “Die Schloßbibliothek in Kçnigsberg”. In: Altpreußische Forschungen 4,
1927, 128 – 149.
52 See Lavrinovic, Kazimir: “Kataloge der Kçnigsberger Bibliotheken aus der Zeit
des Siebenj•hrigen Krieges”. In: Walter, Axel (ed.): Kçnigsberger Buch- und Bib-
liotheksgeschichte. Kçln-Weimar-Wien 2004, 350.
53 See Tondel, Janusz: “Auktionskataloge im alten Kçnigsberg”. In: Walter, Axel
(ed.): Kçnigsberger Buch- und Bibliotheksgeschichte, 400, 402, 404, 413.
54 See Stich, Tobias: “Die Bibliothek Andreas Hedio”. In: Walter, Axel (ed.): Kç-
nigsberger Buch- und Bibliotheksgeschichte, 428.
55 See Tondel, Auktionskataloge im alten Kçnigsberg, 413.
56 Ibid.

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