Georg Friedrich Meier Vernunftlehre

The most interesting legacy of Meier’s philosophy lies quite possibly in the proof that a reasonable entanglement of logic and rhetoric can take place only in the context of an enlarged concept of truth, embracing all its epistemic nuances. One can say that Meier went beyond his teacher A. G. Baumgarten insofar as he laboriously built into a system of artes liberales all theoretical principles and practical rules connected with traditional logic and rhetoric. Nevertheless, it is easy to see where the limits of Meier’s endeavor are, since continuous reference to the canons of the tradition of rhetoric eventually implies that Meier loses sight of the initial intention of elaborating every special art according to a compulsory, embracing legality, and exhausts himself in enumerating concrete instructions for poetizing.