Introduction *

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Immanuel Kant’s treatment of the Antinomies foreshadows important aspects of dialetheism. The significance of the changes that Kant’s new metaepistemological framework involved is best measured against the theories of his predecessors. In the 17th and 18th centuries, conceptions of logic in the Western world seem to have been relatively homogenous as regards scope, place and method. The book offers a contextualisation of Hermann Cohen’s Logik der Erkenntnis that shows him to embrace “methodology” as epitomising the most fundamental logical concerns. The book shows that one whose logicist project serves to illustrate the richness and variety of the programmes in which philosophers would have been involved at the time. It suggests that Bertrand Russell’s early philosophy is also considerably informed by methodology as it was represented, in particular, in the work of Christoph Sigwart.