This book argues that the primary function of human thinking in language is to make judgments, which are logical-normative connections of concepts. Robert Abele points out that this presupposes cognitive conditions that cannot be accounted for by empirical-linguistic analyses of language content or social conditions alone. Judgments rather assume both reason and a unified subject, and this requires recognition of a Kantian-type of transcendental dimension to them. Judgments are related to perception in that both are syntheses, defined as the unity of representations according to a rule/form. Perceptual syntheses are simultaneously pre-linguistic and proto-rational, and the understanding (Kants Verstand) makes these syntheses conceptually and thus self-consciously explicit. Abele concludes with a transcendental critique of postmodernism and what its deflationary view of ontological categoriessuch as the unified and reasoning subjecthas done to political thinking. He presents an alternative that calls for a return to normativity and a recognition of reason, objectivity, and the universality of principles.
- | Author: Robert Abele
- | Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
- | Publication Date: Sep 02, 2022
- | Number of Pages: 354 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Paperback/Philosophy
- | ISBN-10: 3030795594
- | ISBN-13: 9783030795597
