First published in 1752, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre] was written as a textbook and widely adopted by many 18th-century German instructors, but most notably by Immanuel Kant. For forty years Kant used the Excerpts as the basis of his lectures on logic making extensive notes on his copy of the text.

More than a text on formal logic, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason covers epistemology and the elements of thought and language Meier believed made human understanding possible. Working across the two dominant...