COHEN AND THE MARBURG SCHOOL IN CONTEXT HELMUT HOLZHEY, ZRICH

1. Neo-Kantianism in Germany: The Historical Background In 1871 Friedrich Ueberweg observed in his rsum of the present state of philosophy in Germany that while during the past several decades the Hegelian and Herbartian schools had dominated the philosophical scene, recently a return in part to Aristotle and in part to Kant had gained more adherents than the post-Kantian doctrines of German Idealism. He further referred to philosophers who had taken up the teachings of Schopenhauer and Beneke as well as to a number of proponents of materialism (Karl Vogt, Jakob Moleschott, Ludwig Bchner), adding that Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Rudolph Hermann Lotze, Eduard von Hartmann and others had gone new ways.1 By 1870 the Hegelian school was indeed past its peak and neo-Kantianism began to unfold, initially in parallel to positivism and always differentiated from the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Herbart, and the materialists.2 The motivation to return to Kant was considerably increased by Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875) who, in the widely read second edition of his Geschichte des Materialismus (1875) spoke of a young school of Kantians in a narrower and wider sense of the word. Among these he counted Otto Liebmann, Jrgen Bona Meyer, and Hermann Cohen. Lange admitted that Cohens book Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (1871) had inspired him to revise his presentation of the Kantian system.3

Translated from the German by Vilem Mudroch 1 F. Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie der Neuzeit (Berlin, 18723), 329. 2 The expression neo-Kantianism as a label for a philosophical movement appeared around 1875. Cf. H. Holzhey, Neukantianismus, Historisches Wrterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 6 (Basel, 1984), columns 747-754.

HELMUT HOLZHEY

In Germany Kants thought exercised some influence during all of the nineteenth century. It became especially prominent in the ideological debates after the failed revolution of 1848, when, during the post-revolutionary stage of repression, a critical, ideologically neutral position arose that was sceptical towards metaphysics and that instead resorted to epistemology.4 Kant was present outside of Germany as well. However, while the reception of Kant in England, which promoted the critique of empiricism, hardly assumed the form of genuine neo-Kantianism, and while in France (Charles Renouvier) and in Italy (Carlo Cantoni and others) some notable neo-Kantian tendencies did appear, it was only in Germany that a full blown Kantian movement emerged. Around the time of the founding of the German Empire in 1871 a philosophical new beginning based on Kant was made. The philosophical revitalization effected by neoKantianism coincided with the scientific and technological progress of the Wilhelmian era. Later, this movement split up into divergent directions and was partially institutionalized in different schools. The beginning was made by individual, young philosophers, who in 1871 had just turned thirty years of age or were even younger; the most important ones were Otto Liebmann (18401912), Hermann Cohen (1842-1918), Alois Riehl (1844-1924), and Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915). Their publications do not represent a unified position. This was caused mainly by the fact that the young Kantians owed their philosophical training to different traditions. Liebmann and Windelband were students of Kuno Fischer in Jena, whose understanding of Kant was marked by idealistic tendencies. Riehl and Cohen had been schooled in contemporary psychology and were both strongly interested in science. In spite of these differences a common direction can be identified. The authors argued anti-naturalistically and antiF. A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, Vorrede und Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag von Hermann Cohen, 2. Buch: Geschichte des Materialismus seit Kant (Leipzig, 18965), vol. 2, 115. 4 Cf. K. C. Khnke, Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus. Die deutsche Universittsphilosophie zwischen Idealismus und Positivismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), esp. 175ff.
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materialistically, thus declining the all too obvious option of capitalizing on the great general respect for science. In the so-called Kulturkampf between the Prussian government and the Catholic Church they maintained an anti-clerical position, criticising the tutelage of the Church. Faced with the rampant adherence to Schopenhauer they assumed an anti-pessimistic stance. As a consequence they justified and defended the ideal of civil liberty.5 Along with other factors the divergent backgrounds determined the nature of the separation of neo-Kantianism into the different schools. Cohen, who from early on was motivated by an interest in the idealism in science, developed a critical idealism for epistemology and ethics, an approach that eventually furnished the Marburg School with its leading pattern of thought. For this purpose, he especially embraced Friedrich Albert Langes criticism of materialism as it was presented in the latters Geschichte des Materialismus. However, while Lange, when confronted with the need for ethical orientation, advocated a standpoint of ideal, to be arrived at by a process of free conceptual poetic composition,6 Cohen championed, instead of the poetic approach to the ideas of reason, a logical one and thus sought a strictly epistemological foundation of ethics.7 Of some importance for this conception was a reconstruction of Platos ideas as pure foundations (hypotheses) of knowledge. Ideas were conceived as the instruments of knowledge of a particular kind, but not as independently existing entities. This non-metaphysical employment of Platos philosophy was made possible by the distinction between, on the one hand, the being of things, the occurrence of events, and the existence of relations and, on the other hand, the validity of propositions. Hermann Lotze (18171881), who developed this distinction, fundamental for the whole of neo-Kantianism, in 1874, identified the alleged being of Platonic ideas with the validity of truths.8 Wilhelm WindelKhnke, Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus, 321. F.A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, ed. A. Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), 981ff. 7 Kants Begrndung der Ethik, vi. 8 Cohen, Platons Ideenlehre und die Mathematik (1878), Schriften I, 336366. Cf. H. Lotze, Logik. Drei Bcher vom Denken, vom Untersuchen und Erkennen, ed. G. Misch (Leipzig, 1912), 505ff.
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bands writings were influenced directly by Lotze, and it was the latters conception of validity that became the foundation of the understanding of logic and philosophy in Southwest German neo-Kantianism. The decisive impulse for this direction of neoKantianism, however, was provided by Kuno Fischers Fichtean understanding of Kant.9 Although the Marburg and the Southwest schools were separated by virtue of the fact that they had different founders, they did share a common critical idealism that distinguished them from a critical realism as it was propounded for instance by Alois Riehl. This third large scale attempt to re-appropriate Kants critical philosophy in a contemporary form was marked by an appreciation of tradition and of empiricism.10 Not only were the empirical sciences analyzed here in order to identify their rational a priori elements, but the real elements representing the given were acknowledged as well. In general, the early neoKantianism of the 1870s was characterized by a multitude of ties to positivism. Since the 1920s it has been generally accepted that neoKantianism had been composed of only two schools. Riehls realistic interpretation of Kant seems to have led to Oswald Klpes critical realism and thus no longer counted as neo-Kantianism. While the Marburg School, represented by Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and the early Ernst Cassirer, explicitly claimed to be Kants true heir, in spite of integrating, after the turn of the century, the philosophy of Leibniz, the theory of value oriented criticism of the Southwestern School with its main representatives Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask participated in the Hegel-Renaissance;11 its representative organ was the journal Logos (1910-1933). Born as the only son of Friederike (maiden name Salomon) and Gerson Cohen on July 4, 1842 in Coswig (Anhalt), young Hermann was instructed in Hebrew and literature since the age of
K. Fischer, Immanuel Kant. Entwickelungsgeschichte und System der kritischen Philosophie, 2 vols. (Mannheim, 1860). 10 A. Riehl, Der philosophische Kriticismus und seine Bedeutung fr die positive Wissenschaft, vols. 1, 2.1, 2.2, (1876-1887). 11 Cf. H. Levy, Die Hegel-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie mit besonderer Bercksichtigung des Neukantianismus (Charlottenburg, 1927), 58ff.
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three by his father, who was the cantor at the local synagogue and a teacher at the Jewish school in Coswig. In 1853 Hermann went to the high school (Gymnasium) at Dessau and in October 1857 to the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau. He quit the school three years later without graduating, but registered in 1861 at the Philosophical Faculty of the Breslau university. Some weeks after having earned his high school diploma, he switched in the autumn of 1864 to the university in Berlin, where he visited lectures by Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg and August Boeckh and attended courses in mathematics, science, and medicine, namely those by Emil du Bois Reymond. His first articles, among them Die platonische Ideenlehre psychologisch entwickelt, appeared in the Zeitschrift fr Vlkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, a journal edited by H. Steinthal and Moritz Lazarus. Steinthals work on the theory of language had a significant influence on Cohens philosophical development. In 1864/65 Cohen submitted a prize essay in Berlin, which failed to win the prize, but did receive praise from Trendelenburg,12 and which presumably served as basis for a Latin dissertation on the teachings of Greek philosophers on the antinomy of necessity and accident. This was submitted in 1865 in Halle, where it was accepted. Having shared numerous tenets of Herbarts psychology for a number of years, Cohen found his way to Kant with a contribution to the discussion between Kuno Fischer and Adolf Trendelenburg concerning the proper understanding of Kants theory of time and space. In 1871 Cohen published his Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, a work of fundamental importance for neo-Kantianism, both in philological and philosophical regard. In 1873 Cohen obtained his Habilitation in Marburg; in 1876 he became a professor of philosophy there, succeeding his deceased promoter Friedrich Albert Lange. Setting it as his goal to renew Kantian idealism, Cohen published his Kants Begrndung der Ethik (1877, 19102) and his Kants Begndung der sthetik (1889). These works, together with a significantly re-worked and expanded second edition of his Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (1885) and along with his study Das Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode (1883) constituted the foundations for the teachings of the
12

H. Cohen, Briefe, 19.

HELMUT HOLZHEY

Marburg School. The goal of surmounting the methodological dualism of intuition and thought led Cohen to formulate his doctrine of the origin of knowledge in pure thought in his Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (1902, 19142), the first part of his System der Philosophie. In his second major systemic work, the Ethik des reinen Willens (1904, 19072), he presented a doctrine of the ethical person, which, in accordance with Kants Metaphysics of Morals, he subdivided into a doctrine of law and a doctrine of virtue. Here he justified his theory of ethical socialism and claimed that the teachings of religion were accommodated in ethics. In his sthetik des reinen Gefhls (1912) he grounded the validity of artistic work and judgement in pure feeling, understood as a third direction of consciousness, connecting the theoretical and practical production of objects.

2. Hermann Cohen: Life and Writings In 1912 Cohen became a professor emeritus and moved to Berlin. There he taught at the Hochschule fr die Wissenschaft des Judentums. He had published on philosophical-religious issues and had taken position in regard to religious, cultural, and political questions concerning Judaism already while in Marburg. Since his Bekenntnis in der Judenfrage (1880), his contribution to the Berliner Antisemitismusstreit13 that had been originated by Heinrich von Treitschke, and his expert opinion Die Nchstenliebe im Talmud for the Marburg process of 1888, Cohen fought against the rampant antisemitism. Although he represented a liberal Judaism, he nevertheless vehemently insisted on the right to and the duty towards ones own religion. In May of 1914 Cohen visited a number of Jewish communities in Russia. His patriotism, at the outset of the First World War still undiminished, soon turned into bitterness and skepticism owing to the fresh outbreak of anti-Jewish sentiment. Prominent among the numerous works of his last years, some of them dealing with the relationship between the spirit of German culture
13 Cf. W. Boehlich (Hrsg.), Der Berliner Antisemitismusstreit, (Frankfurt am Main, 1965).

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and the spirit of Jewish culture, are his study Der Begriff der Religion im System der Philosophie (1915) and the posthumously published Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (1919). The former leads on the basis of an esteem for the peculiarity of religious consciousness to a new concept of the individual, the latter connects Jewish religiosity with philosophical reason. In June of 1917 he proposed to commence on the fourth part of his system, the Psychology,14 in which the unity of cultural consciousness was to be developed in a definitive form. This proposal, however, was not materialized. Cohen died on April 4, 1918 in Berlin while correcting the proofs of his Religion der Vernunft.

3. Cohens Early Psychological Studies and his First Interpretation of Kant In the 1860s Cohens writings were based on Herbarts psychology. Although he did distinguish between, on the one hand, deductive critique, whose task it was to prove the metaphysical competence of a concept as well as its inner non-contradictoriness, and, on the other hand, psychological analysis, he was chiefly interested in the latter, i.e. in the explanation of the origin of all cultural phenomena in terms of human consciousness. He viewed Platos theory of ideas as the beginning of the true, namely psychological philosophy, and interpreted idea as the living thought-act of seeing,15 in which the essence of things is grasped. Cohen also sought to provide a psychological explanation of the genesis of the Indo-European mythical ideas of God and of the soul (birth and death), i.e. a description of the psychological mechanism, which it was hoped would account for (the in itself already poetic) myth and especially for later poets resort to myth;16 according to Cohens insight the recogni-

Letter to Paul Natorp of June 10, 1917, in: H. Holzhey, Cohen und Natorp, vol. 2: Der Marburger Neukantianismus in Quellen (Basel, 1986), 480. 15 Schriften I, 61. 16 H. Cohen, Die dichterische Phantasie und der Mechanismus des Bewusstseins, Zeitschrift fr Vlkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft 6 (1869), 173-263, reprinted in: Schriften I, 141-228.

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tion that the connection of ideas in the mythical consciousness was inadequate would lead to poetic comparison. Poetry continues to maintain itself under the dominion of the scientific consciousness for two reasons. First, the poet acquires in his childhood mythical apperceptions, which as an adult he cannot fully discard as they render his world more comprehensible than would scientific thought. Secondly, as an individual, the poet is motivated to imitate traditional art and is supported in this endeavour, from an anthropological point of view, by the constancy of the objective spirit. Cohens psychological method was guided by the following theoretical conceptions: the hypothesis of the unity of consciousness; the goal of an analysis of mental processes into their elementary forms; a mechanical theory of association and apperception (following Herbart and Lazarus). In 1869 Cohen participated for the first time in the contemporary attempts to gain a historically adequate and a topically fruitful understanding of Kants philosophy by contributing a statement to the controversy between Adolf Trendelenburg and Kuno Fischer.17 The former claimed to have discovered a gap in Kants proofs of the complete subjectivity of space and time; he claimed that the admittedly purely subjective forms of intuition were also objective, since he thought that they could have arisen from an original activity that was valid both for knowledge and for real things. Cohen addressed Trendelenburgs doubts on the basis of a strict adherence to the certified writings of Kant,18 whose basic ideas he wished to work out and to defend against the most important attacks. The question what Kant taught on space and time was for Cohen not just a historical one, since he deemed that it concerned the intersecting point of all profound contemporary directions of research [] Does the nature of things depend on the conditions of our mind? Or must and can the law of nature prove our thought?19 In order to distinguish between the old and the new the historian of philosophy wishing

17

H. Cohen, Zur Controverse zwischen Trendelenburg und Kuno Fischer, Zeitschrift fr Vlkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft 7 (1871), 249-296, reprinted in: Schriften I, 229-275. 18 Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, iv. 19 Schriften I, 229.

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to present the continuous connection of philosophical problems in all of human culture must begin by considering every thought as the result of a mental process,20 a thought he must then both analyse as to its conditioning by historical facts and evaluate philosophically. Always with a view to dealing with Kant, Cohen met the methodological difficulty of proving the originality of an idea in its historical context by suggesting that the historian turns philosopher and voices his philosophical opinion. Aware that this would somewhat diminish the objective status of the writing of history, Cohen claimed that the loss would be compensated by the fact that topical participation and indeed intervention by the philosopher would complement purely historical research in a beneficial manner. This would be the case especially when philosophical problems, such as those of Kant, were still in motion for the interpreter. Although in regard to discussions in which different participants appealed to Kant or marked their differences from him Cohen favoured fidelity towards the original texts, he linked such faithfulness to the condition that the interpreter views himself as a criticist who holds up his own as well as foreign ideas against the standard of what he himself considers to be Kantian.21 Cohens return to Kants theoretical philosophy was driven by two aims: first, to deprive the contemporary attacks on Kant of their textual basis by resorting to simple quotations,22 secondly, to restore Kantian authority in the interest of the topical approach to philosophy.23 Specifically, Cohen was concerned with a new justification of Kants notion of the a priori. With this goal in mind Cohen provided a commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic in the first edition of his Kants Theorie der Erfahrung. He closely linked his clarification and justification of Kants a priori to the proof of his assertion that Kant discovered a new concept of experience, thus having delivered in the Kritik
20 21

Schriften I, 271. Schriften I, 272-273. 22 Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, iv. The criticism of Kant which Cohen especially dealt with is that by Schopenhauer, Herbart, Trendelenburg, Fischer, Lange, and Ueberweg. He was mainly in agreement, albeit in a critical way, with J. Bona Meyer, Kants Psychologie (Berlin, 1870). 23 Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, vi.

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der reinen Vernunft a critique of experience24 which elucidates the possibility of experience in a transcendental investigation. Cohen took up Kants question, how synthetic judgements a priori are possible, by pointing out that experience is constituted or constructed in an a priori and formal manner by space, time, and the synthetic unity25 and that it is given in mathematics and pure science with the character of necessity and generality.26 In his analysis of the a priori of space Cohen distinguished three stages or degrees in Kants a priori: the latter signifies 1) metaphysical originality, 2) form, 3) the formal condition of the possibility of experience. While the first two stages may still support the misconception that the a priori is identical with the innate, the third degree, the transcendental knowledge of the a priori, compels us to definitely discard the pre-critical disjunction between innate and acquired.27 In regard to the categories Cohen deviated from Kant by attributing a genuinely a priori character only to the category as the synthetic unity in the connection of the manifold, while claiming that the categories of the Kantian table are a priori merely in a secondary manner.28 Based on the conception that the a priority of space, time, and the synthetic unity constitute the formal conditions of experience, Cohen then had to maintain that the concept of experience can be constructed out of these a priori elements.29 Experience provides the criterion for ascertaining that a concept is meaningful. However, although Cohen here adhered to Kant literally, his recourse to experience for the purposes of such a conceptual test concerned not experiences material component (sensation), but its characteristic as the a priori form of sensibility. Cohen thus advocated a transcendental idealism that is critical as far as the method is concerned, but formal as far as the content goes. Its first step is an abstraction from the matter of experience.30 All reality consists of possible experience, i.e. of
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 3. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 104. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 208. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 87ff. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 101. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 104. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 243.

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constructive intuition which places the constructed image into nature and of the self-thought concepts of the understanding.31 Although Cohen in his discussion of Kants principle of actuality32 concedes that sensation, no less than the a priori, is a condition of experience, he further claims that this principle is based on the principle of the Anticipation of Perception,33 by which a step is made to extend the a priori over the sphere of the empirical.34 Referring to Kants statements that the doctrine of sensibility is likewise the doctrine of the noumenon in the negative sense35 and that a noumenon is merely a limiting concept,36 Cohen dealt in the last chapter of his Kants Theorie der Erfahrung with the cosmological antinomy of pure reason and its solution in order to round off his transcendental idealism in regard to the ideas of reason with the following summary: The idea-entities of material idealism will become regulative principles whose unceasing employment is the only task of reason.37

4. Criticism of Kant and the Development of an Independent Logic of Knowledge Cohens above sketched interpretation of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft had a philosophical intent which went beyond Kant and which Cohen worked out in greater detail in the second edition of his Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (1885) and in his Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode (1883). While Kant distinguished between, on the one hand, the question of the possibility of non-empirical principles (synthetic judgements a priori) in mathematics and in science and, on the other hand, the question of the possibility of
Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 253, my emphasis. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 218, B 266: That which is bound up with the material conditions of experience (with sensation) is actual. 33 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 207: In all appearances, the real that is an object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree. 34 Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 214. 35 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 307. 36 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 255, B 310-1. 37 Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 270.
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a scientific metaphysics, Cohen recognized only the question of the foundation of possibility or validity of mathematical science; metaphysics signified for him nothing but the problem of the possibility of scientific experience. But there is a second point of deviation from Kant. On Kants theory experience is composed of the matter of sensible impressions and of the form originating in our own faculty of knowledge;38 Cohen, however, focussed on experience solely as far as its form is concerned. This resulted from his conception that experience is identical with mathematical science and the latter is valid knowledge a priori. To enquire after the conditions of the validity of a priori knowledge under the heading of a transcendental theory of experience meant for Cohen from the beginning bracketing out the sensible-material component out of the concept of experience or including it in a formal determination of experience. Cohen devoted special effort to this idea of rendering experience a priori, or, more precisely, rendering sensation a priori, sensation in the sense of the sensible-material component of experience. Cohens point of departure was Kants Principle of the Anticipations of Perception, according to which in all appearances, the real that is an object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree.39 In order to generate a new concept of actuality Cohen re-structured Kants principle into the principle of intensive magnitude or of anticipations.40 An important motivation was provided by psycho-physics, especially by the newly opened prospect of being able to measure the magnitude of sensations. The mathematical infinitesimal method that was employed for this purpose became for Cohen a paradigm of the active role that thought played in the process of knowledge, in fact, it appeared to him to be the decisive methodological development in recent science. He sought the logical foundation of this method in the principle of intensive magnitude, which, however, merely claims that an intensive magnitude must be attributed to all real objects of perception. Cohen went beyond
38 39 40

Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 1-2. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 207 Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode, 14.

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this in wishing to ground the giving of the real in the attribution of magnitude, i.e. he attempted to situate reality as such in intensive magnitude. While for Kant sensation as the sensible-material component, in spite of its ability to be determined mathematically, remained indispensable if knowledge was to have reference to reality, for Cohen the sensibly given became an element of mathematical and logical thought. The giving of the real, of something in general, is the responsibility of thought, not of sensation. However, it is important to note that Cohen is speaking here of the essential condition of the validity of scientific knowledge, not of the discovery of knowledge. The validity of scientific knowledge is explained by Cohen independently of the empirically given: It is the category (determination of thought) of reality which ensures that consciousness has any reference to an X as a given, i.e. to an intuition. This connection between intuition and the category of reality is completed within the principle of intensive magnitude. The logical-epistemological reason why the object is recognized as real (i.e. with the quality real) lies in the fact that the infinitesimal unit dx, the infinitely small, produces this reality. For example, the point on the tangent, which unites the different motions of a point in one direction, produces a curve in that direction.41 The conception developed by Cohen in the 1880s became one of the leading doctrines of the Marburg School. Natorp admitted as late as 1915 his predilection for Cohens determination of the relation between intuition and thought as it was to be found in the Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode. Natorps remark must be understood with regard to the fact that Cohen ultimately abandoned the dualism of intuition and thought. The infinitesimal method became the emblem of the sovereignty of thought over being. The philosophical justification of the objective validity of knowledge without recourse to intuition, without
Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode, 34. Paul Natorp later made this more precise and in fact corrected it by claiming that it was not actually the point but the law that is the origin; one may think of the law as concentrated in the point. When Cohen spoke of a producing point, then, claimed Natorp, the point should be viewed as the bearer of the law, out of which the extensional determination of magnitude is produced by integration. Cf. Natorp, Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften (Leipzig and Berlin, 1910), 220.
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reference to an X as a given, characterizes the program of Cohens Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (1902). The justification of the validity of scientific knowledge became henceforth the subject matter of a logic requiring no preliminary discourse on intuition. Just as Cohen worked out an epistemological principle, namely the production of the real qua intensive magnitude in his publication of 1883, he similarly assigned a special status to a judgement, namely the judgement of the origin in the first, foundational part of his System der Philosophie. Thought is thought of the origin42 and remains so in all pure knowledge. That means that, borrowing from Platos concept of hypothesis, all thought is conceived of as a foundation. Knowledge derives the basis of its validity solely from thought and not from a given to which thought would have to refer. The pure ground of mathematical and scientific knowledge consists of an open system of judgements (analogous to Kants principles of knowledge), a system of object-producing methods of pure thought. These methods (judgements) are in their unifying functions not founded on the unity of pure self-consciousness, i.e. on what Kant termed transcendental apperception, but on the unity of analysis and synthesis that constitutes the judgement as such. Cohen claimed a homogeneity of the basic methods of pure thought and of scientific knowledge, so that he attributed an a priori character (purity) to scientific knowledge, e.g. to the law of the conservation of energy. However, the element of the factual in experience is maintained insofar as it is recognized that knowledge always includes its own infinite progress. This becomes plain in Cohens treatment of the problem of sensation. Although the given is still founded in thought and not in intuition, and is thus to be produced logically, the claim of sensation is nevertheless assessed in a positive way. Even if sensation itself cannot satisfy this claim of securing factual knowledge, the claim is included in the modal judgement of actuality and is redeemed idealistically. Corresponding to the extension of the problem of origin, a problem that was initially linked to the production of the finite real out of the infinitely small by means of an infinitesimal analysis, to a general logic of origin, the problem of sensation is ex42

Logik, 36.

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panded to include not only the production of the real as special object determination, but, more generally, the critical evaluation of all pure object determinations in their relation to actuality. Although this evaluation is demanded under the heading sensation, for a logic of pure knowledge it can only be realised in pure thought defined as the thought of the origin as it is expressed in the judgement of actuality.43 With this conception of logic Cohen developed an original version of critical idealism. He rejected the attempts on the part of speculative idealism to construct the system of rational knowledge out of a principle or out of a complex of principles, nor did he admit the notion of the self-explication of absolute knowledge. He also refused the intention of analytic theory of science to generate formal criteria for the examination of given scientific propositions. His kind of idealism deviates from metaphysics by virtue of the fact that for him the ultimate foundations of truth and science are conceived as the laying of the foundations, while for metaphysics they represent absolute foundations: as in being so in thought, placed and given in the mind.44 A laying of foundations that is capable of revision and that can be called to account on the one hand, rationally unprovable, fixed foundations about which no discussion is possible, i.e. foundations of an absolute kind on the other hand: that is the distinction which Cohen adduces against a fundamentalistic metaphysics, be it based on a naturalistic or a spiritualistic footing.45 Critical idealism is satisfied with the most stringent, but also provable laying of foundations;46 absolute and ultimate foundations invariably turn out to be illusory. The lay-

43 Logik, 434. Cohens judgement of actuality takes in his system of pure knowledge the place of Kants second postulate of empirical thought, That which is bound up with the material conditions of experience (with sensation) is actual, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 218, B 265. 44 Logik, 303. 45 Cf. G. Edel, Kantianismus oder Platonismus? Hypothesis als Grundbegriff der Philosophie Cohens, Il cannocchiale / rivista di studi filosofici, 1-2 (1991), 5987, especially 73ff. I today fully concur with Edels non-absolutistic interpretation of Cohens theory of origin, unlike in my Cohen und Natorp, vol. 1, 183, 218. 46 Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 100a, 101d.

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ing of the foundations follows the transcendental method,47 in principle in all areas of philosophy, but providing guidance first as epistemology (critique of knowledge, logic of pure knowledge). An examination of the conditions of the possibility or of the validity of knowledge commences, according to this methodological conception, with existing scientific knowledge, characteristically with mathematics and science. Cohens Logik der reinen Erkenntnis is in a way a repetition of Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Just as for Kant positive and negative critiques are entwined48, so Cohens logic owes its contours to critique on the one hand and to a positive thesis on the other. The critique is directed at both materialism and empiricism as well as at religious metaphysics; the positive goal is to prove the idealistic constitution of science. Cohen achieves this proof by de-ontologizing the philosophical concepts of knowledge and of science on the basis of his claim that all determinations of being are the products of pure thought. In his Preface to the Logik der reinen Erkenntnis Cohen declared his personal conviction that the ideology of idealism is buttressed by the spirit of genuine philosophy. Idealism is a key term in his philosophy, especially in regard to its cultural relevancy. At the same time, however, he was greatly concerned to emphasize that his position was critical idealism. When Cohen in his epistemology, as I have shown above, arrived at the notion of the constructive character of thought and when he made the claim that the world of things reposes on the laws of thought,49 he moved dangerously close to a subjective or spiritualistic, in short to a dogmatic idealism that attributes a divine creative power to humans or to the human mind. To avoid this relapse into metaphysics it would seem that Cohen would be compelled to admit that sensible experience makes a constitutive contribution to knowledge. However, as was pointed out earlier, sensibility for Cohen does not delineate sufficiently between a critical and a dogmatic idealism. Only the reference to the fact of science can achieve this. What matters is not the sensibly given as
47 48 49

Cf. H. Holzhey, Cohen und Natorp, vol. 1, 53ff. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B xxiv-xxv. Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode, 125.

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the empiricist or sensationalist holds, but that which is given in science: stars are not given in the sky, but in the reason of astronomy.50 The epistemological analysis is concerned solely with science and with the kind of given that has already been critically appraised within science. The fact of science replaces sensedata. Science is, as Kant maintained in regard to pure mathematics and pure science, actually given,51 and this factuality secures, according to Cohen, the critical character of idealism. Things are neither simply produced out of the laws of thought, nor is the reference to actuality on the part of scientific knowledge owing to data; what is crucial is rather a critical appraisal of the knowledge that has been gained, an appraisal that occurs within science itself. Science, into which sensible experience along with things have already been incorporated, thus provides the critical support for the kind of idealism that attempts to prove that knowledge is the result of constructively producing thought.

5. The Ethical Motive of Critical Idealism Cohens critical epistemology, issuing in a logic of scientific knowledge, is motivated in its idealistic orientation not only by a theoretical, but to a large extent also by an ethical concern. This point is systematically developed in the Ethik des reinen Willens. Just as Cohens epistemology, divested of all ontological claims, refuses to have things given or shown to it and to ground productive thought in the natural human endowment, i.e. in physical-psychological organisation (Friedrich Albert Lange), so an anti-ontological and anti-naturalistic spirit manifests itself in his ethics. In fact, the goal of securing a rationally founded ethics could be the true motive for Cohens radical rejection of the given, under whose mask he suspected that matter continues its hauntingly frightening existence.52 From a formal point of view his ethics is idealistic in the same sense as his epistemology, in that here too concepts are produced by an analysis of a pre-given
50 51 52

Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode, 127. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 20. Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 66.

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scientific fact, specifically of the pure science of jurisprudence, concepts that then serve as the foundations of moral action. However, given this idealistic frame more is at stake than just the possibility of ethical knowledge. Indeed, the idealistic nature of ethics secures, along with the possibility of ethical knowledge, the notion of the autonomy of the acting person. In distinction to the logical laying of foundations of the knowledge of nature, ethics is concerned with the laying of foundations of normative human self-knowledge; Cohen uses here the expression selfconsciousness. Self-imposition of law is succinctly identified as the principle of idealism.53 It is only at this point that the ethical motive of critical idealism becomes fully apparent. Relying on human nature (just as relying in epistemology on given things) would necessarily lead to moral heteronomy, i.e. to a constant idol-worship of nature54 in the form of instincts, of natural behaviour resulting from evolution, of natural needs etc. Against this anthropological naturalism Cohen defends in his ethical idealism the notion of a human being who makes it his task to eternally perfect himself, and not solely or primarily as an individual. Apparently directed against Marxs historical materialism Cohen asserted: It is simply not true that the compulsion of nature and especially of animal nature in man produced those achievements of culture which can only hypocritically be called moral culture, and should rather be labelled economic.55

6. Ethics According to the Transcendental Method In his second Kant-book56 Cohen assumed that the theory of scientific knowledge, if only propelled all the way to heuristics, would conduct to the basic concepts of ethics such as freedom and purpose. In proceeding from epistemology to ethics he provided an interpretation, following which the thing in itself as a limiting concept regulatively determines the totality of the phe-

53 54 55 56

Ethik, 328. Ethik, 329. Ethik, 37. Kants Begrndung der Ethik (1877, 19102).

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nomenal world and thus leads beyond experience and its analysis to the question of determinism, of accident and necessity etc., i.e. to the problem of freedom. Cohen, however, did not succeed in showing that the regulative idea of freedom, which is the limiting concept of the theory of experience, is the foundation of ethical freedom in the sense of ethical autonomy. His Ethik des reinen Willens can then provide the required foundation of ethics in epistemology only by pointing to the methodological connection between epistemology, now developed in a purely logical manner, and ethics. Ethics too should be founded on the transcendental method. Generally speaking, in Cohens mature systematic philosophy the bridge between theoretical and practical reason is no longer built on the basis of the concept of freedom, but on the footing supplied by the teleologically accentuated concept of the ought.57 In the Ethik des reinen Willens, the second part of his philosophical system, Cohen employed a relatively weak conception of system. The logic of knowledge functions merely as the foundation of the whole philosophical system, influences the other parts only as far as the method is concerned, not the substance. Methodologically pre-determining is the proof that scientific knowledge originates in pure thought. This confers on ethics the logical principles, but not the content (will, practical self-consciousness, autonomy, etc.): Logic provides a foundation to ethics only in the sense that it alone can teach ethics in what man-

The path at first taken by Cohen and then seemingly abandoned by him was later invented by Paul Natorp and pursued to its end. For Natorp too the regulative idea of the infinite progress of experience implied a theoretical ought, to which the practical ought must be linked. The totality of the world is never given to knowledge, it is merely problematic. Natorp applied this idea already to the knowledge of the individual object, of the individual fact: The ought is already contained in the problem that the individual object raises for knowledge. Knowledge is subordinated to an immanent ought; a completion in the sense of definitively resolving the problem of knowledge is possible neither in regard to the totality of the world nor in regard to the individual state of things. Natorp worked out this insight of the immanent ought-determination of knowledge into a theory of ideas that as a logic of the ought leads into ethics. Cf. Natorp, Sozialpdagogik. Theorie der Willensbildung auf der Grundlage der Gemeinschaft (Stuttgart, 1899, 19256), 5ff.; Philosophie. Ihr Problem und ihre Probleme (Gttingen, 1911, 19182), 71ff.

57

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ner to search for and to construct laws. The content of these laws must, however, be discovered by ethics alone.58 The systemic primacy of logic should guarantee the rationality of ethics.59 Such a methodological grounding of ethics prevents, on the one hand, a confusion of ethical reflection with personal morality, it is directed, on the other hand, against an ethical agnosticism and irrationalism. The integration into the system is limited by the fact that ethics is independent as far as the content is concerned. This limit is a consequence of the difference between is and ought.60 Cohens claim at the outset of his Ethik des reinen Willens that the subject of ethics is man needs to be elucidated. This concerns in the first place his references to man. For men are individuals, they live in communities, and together they constitute mankind. In what regard is the man the subject of ethics? Not as an individual (or only secondarily so). Cohen did not conceive an individualistic ethics. Concentrating on the individual as the core concept of man implied for him searching for the methodological foundation of ethics in psychology and thus resigning oneself to naturalism. Instead his ethics is concerned with infusing the individual with particularity and with totality.61 Cohen, however, did not write a social ethics based on particularity as it is represented for instance by subcultures. His ethics is primarily interested in the principle of totality. Ethics deals with man in general, with humankind understood as unity and as essence. This humankind always remains an ideal. However, as this ideal is anticipated by the unity of the state, the founding part of Cohens Ethik des reinen Willens consists of a theory of the state under the rule of law (Rechtsstaat). The state, not in its actual reality but as a principle of ethical self-consciousness,62 is conceived of as the proper ethical subject.

58 59 60 61 62

Logik, 607. Ethik, 29. Ethik, 21-2. Ethik, 11. Ethik, 255.

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Cohen himself pointed out that his ethics should be a theory of the concept of man.63 And this concept must be produced, like every fundamental concept, in thought. A peculiar difficulty of the project of constructing an ethics as the theory of the concept of man becomes manifest with the question, whether this concept is descriptive or normative. Cohen clearly opted for the latter, thus placing himself within the framework of Kantian ethics. Human willing is in ethics determined by an ought. Cohens expression pure will makes it plain that the subordination under a normative law takes precedence over subordination under a desire or under instinctive necessity. Not resting content with this expression, Cohen further asserted that the will must be brought to action as to its proper object.64 The pure will is morally worthless. Only when the will leads to action does it realize itself. And while ethical anthropology begins with the pure will, made determinate by an ought or by a law, it is only the action that makes man into a man, since from an ethical point of view a man becomes a man only by virtue of his ability to act.65 The is that is specific to the ought,66 the is of the law-governed will, is secured, just as in the case of theoretical reason, by recourse to a scientific fact. That the is of the ought is no mere creature of the imagination is most clearly proven, among the cultural phenomena, by law or by jurisprudence. Why? History describes the factual relations between the moral ought and power and can for that very reason not supply the original fact to an ethics of pure will. Only in pure jurisprudence, i.e. jurisprudence not as a factual science nor as based on natural law (metaphysics), is a pure form of the ought given, namely in the shape of laws (insofar as they are linked to the concept of action) as a set of normative propositions, e.g. in the rule of law. But can a pure jurisprudence67 guarantee the is of the ought? In view of this sceptical question it must be pointed out that the is of the ought does not refer to empirically given moral action nor to the
Ethik, 3. Ethik, 174. 65 Ethik, 168. 66 Cf. H. Holzhey, Sein und Sollen. Postmetaphysischer Idealismus bei Cohen und Natorp, in: Sinn, Geltung, Wert. Neukantianische Motive in der modernen Kulturphilosophie, ed. Ch. Krijnen and E. W. Orth (Wrzburg, 1998), 139-153.
64 63

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squalid reality of the permanent violations of moral law. The ethical is does not concern the actual situation in which we live, but refers to the is of a state under the rule of law. And the legal constitution is not understood here as a sociologically provable fact. Placing the is of the ought in the constitution means rather that the constitution as the foundation of the state possesses a legitimizing function for rationally justified factual action. However, the structure of Cohens Ethik des reinen Willens with its transition from a theory of law to a theory of virtue suggests that the is of the ought should be looked also in lived morality. Paul Natorp underscored this point in 1912, while drawing a sketch of the transcendental method, by relating ethics to the cultural facts of morality and by describing the latter as practical forms of a social order and of a life worthy of human beings.68 Cohen recognized especially (Jewish) religiousness as a form of lived morality. Concerning religion in general he wrote that although it claims monopoly in regard to morality, it represents only the moral state of nature, whose cultural maturity belongs to ethics.69 His claim that religion resolves itself into ethics70 would on a reading dictated by his transcendental method signify: Religion too, represented for example by passages of the Hebrew Bible, forms a referential fact with which ethical reflection begins in order to produce moral principles and to prove them as such. Cohen for example regarded the prophetic state-

Cohen was thinking of a pure jurisprudence in the sense in which it was conceived of by Rudolf Stammler in his book Die Lehre von dem Richtigen Rechte (1902) and as it would later be developed by Hans Kelsen in his Reine Rechtslehre (1934). However, Cohens conception does differ significantly from the theories of these two authors. 68 P. Natorp, Kant und die Marburger Schule, Kant-Studien 17 (1912), 196-7. 69 Ethik, 586. 70 Cf. H. Cohen, Religion und Sittlichkeit (1907), in: Jdische Schriften III, 151: Religion is absorbed by ethics. [] The absorption means [] a change to another direction of consciousness. In the third edition of his Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag (1914) Cohen replaced the slogan absorption of religion in ethics by the slogan accommodation of religion within ethics, 106; in Der Begriff der Religion, 58, he explains that accommodation signifies enlarging the area of ethics by the content of religion.

67

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ment, He has showed you, O man, what is good,71 as an ethical laying of foundations by interpreting humanity (the general concept for man) as what is good for man.

7. State and Society Joseph Klein advanced the thesis that Cohen as an assimilated Jew transformed the demand of his people for equal civil rights into the constitutionally-legalistic orientation of his ethical idealism,72 briefly: that he sought to found the rights of Jews in his ethics. In my opinion, this interpretation does justice neither to the experiences of the Jew Cohen nor, and especially, to his ethics. Instead of rendering absolute Cohens concentration on constitutional jurisprudence, it appears more compelling also in view of his biography to focus on his conception of ethical socialism, in whose unfolding the Jewish tradition does really play an essential role. Franz Rosenzweig expressed this point in a nearly irresistible way: There is a Jewish content which, in an amazingly parallel fashion, reached [] its globally-historical maturity only under the sun of the nineteenth century within German Jewry: socialism, specifically messianic socialism as a complex result of the precept to love thy neighbour and of the demand for justice [] became effective as a secret impulse in Lassalle, and, as far as a recipient of the graceful gift of inconsistency, even in Marx.73 Aside from this Jewish source, the practised socialism of Friedrich Albert Lange would have served as a motivation for Cohens socialist attitude. Cohen wrote as early as 1877 that the problem of theodicy had been superseded in our century [] by the problem of socialism.74 In regard to the political socialism of his time he distanced himself from historical and dialectical materialism. In spite of his appreciation of the criticism of Lange directed against a rhetorical and hypocritical

Mic. 6:8. J. Klein, Die Grundlegung der Ethik in der Philosophie Hermann Cohens und Paul Natorps eine Kritik des Neukantianismus (Gttingen, 1976), 99, 106, 134. 73 F. Rosenzweig, Einleitung to Cohen, Jdische Schriften I, xxiii. 74 Kants Begrndung der Ethik, 327.
72

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idealism, Cohen diagnosed for the time around the turn of the century dangerous effects of the false slogan: When the social democratic party and its press swear by materialism, then they stand under the threat of the greatest impairment that can threaten a party of the future, namely the threat to lose its own principles and to disappear hopelessly.75 For Cohen, socialism derives its spiritual foundation from Kantian ethics. He based his thesis above all on the affinity between the socialist social criticism and the version of the categorical imperative, which demands that you act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.76 His interpretation of this version of the categorical imperative emphasized that the worker must not be treated as a commodity, not even for the purposes of alleged national wealth.77 Cohen found the ethical foundation of state and society in Kants conception of the systematic union of different rational beings through common laws in a realm of ends.78 This realm is exemplary both for the ideal state and for the ethically reformed society.79 State and society coincide on the basis of this model in a co-operatively constituted state. Cohen contrasted his idea of a state built out of co-operatives not only with the existing situation, but also with the materialistic Marxist interpretation. For this purpose he made a distinction within the concept of society.80 Society signifies first the concrete reality or equally the living material condition for the abstraction of the state under the rule of law; an example of a society in this sense is the economy.81 The relationship between state and society is thus here described in terms of the categories abstract/conEinleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 112. I. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Akademie Ausgabe, vol. 4, 429 (in the translation of Lewis White Beck, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Indianapolis, 1959). 77 Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 113. 78 Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 433. 79 Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 116. 80 Cf. E. Winter, Ethik und Rechtswissenschaft. Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung zur Ethik-Konzeption des Marburger Neukantianismus im Werke Hermann Cohens (Berlin, 1980), 342ff. 81 Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 116-7.
76 75

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crete. In a second, namely an ethical sense, society is understood as an ethical idea of the reform of law and state. That means that society functions as a critical corrective vis--vis a corrupt legal system, in which law is degraded to a domestic of the economy,82 and vis--vis a state of corporations and of the ruling classes.83 In this usage of the concept of society what is at stake is not the difference between the abstract and the concrete, but the normatively-critical function of the ideal as opposed to the factual. As Cohen distinguished between the actually existing state and state in the sense of the ethical model, the question arises whether there is any difference in meaning between the normative idea of state and the normative idea of society.84 This is in fact the case, insofar as Cohen attributed to society a mediating role between the state and the individual. Such mediation occurs both within the empirical concept, where society as economic activity is distinguished from the sphere of the governing power, as well as within its idea as an ethical demand for material justice. Cohen also viewed the relationship between society and individual from a dual perspective: from the point of view of economic reality and from the point of view of the moral idea of society. He was here concerned with the true, i.e. the ethical concept of socialism. In the end it becomes plain that the presumed two meanings of society are merely an expression of the contradiction between the materialistic and the idealistic conception of history: According to the one meaning of society the individual is judged and appraised not so much as a social, but rather as an economic being. According to the other meaning the person in a moral sense as a social being is made into a problem. From the one meaning arises social physics, from the other social ethics.85

Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 118-9. Ethik, 615. 84 Cf. Winter, Ethik und Rechtswissenschaft, 343: the social concept of socialism as a concealed concept of state. 85 Ethik, 313.
83

82

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What is interesting is how Cohen conducted his dispute with historical materialism. He commenced with a sociological analysis of the modern work-based society (Arbeitsgesellschaft). The individual [] in all of his work, which in a merciless expansion fills his whole being, is now ruled and determined from the outside. This dependence of his being expresses itself in the correlation which accompanies his work: it does not suffice that he is a worker; for he cannot himself initiate work; he becomes an employee by virtue of the fact that there is an employer.86 The sociological analysis operates on the basis of moral statistics with the category of causality. Cohen admitted that the causal factor is not only epistemologically relevant, but that insights into causal processes improve the lot of the worker. But he denied that this will help people in a sufficient, humane manner. With the question of the belly one may begin; but to regard man in his struggle for the improvement of his lot merely as a product of economic conditions implies a contradiction. In this context Cohen appraised Marxs socialism and, in a certain way, turned it upside down. For the moral spirit which he tracked down in Marxs materialistic theory of history speaks for an idealistic view of history, a view built on the idea (hypothesis) of freedom. But Cohen was not content to make freedom in the sense of a principle for the consideration of history into a basic notion; freedom must likewise guarantee the future realization of humanity. At this point we come into contact with Cohens messianic conception of history. He knew no end of history: neither in a realm of liberty, nor in modern terms in a new world order of the victorious liberal democratic system of the free market economy. Not the end of the world nor of mankind should the peace mean that the days of the messiah will deliver.87 The philosophical significance of messianism consists rather in directing politics: not to the present nor to the glorious national past, but to the future in the sense of an eternal continuation of the effort to realize morality.88

86 87

Ethik, 310. Ethik, 406.

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8. Philosophy as System and Cohens Theory of Culture As our overview (section 2) of Cohens work suggests his system is composed of three, possibly of four parts. The triadic conception of his system, containing the fields of logic, ethics, and aesthetics, follows Kant, whom Cohen praised for having created a system of philosophy and for having recognized it as the connection of the modes of production of consciousness, each of which begets its own special content.89 Seen from a historical point of view, Kant re-integrated art, which in the eighteenth century had become a self-sufficient product of a specific type of consciousness, into the systematic connection of general consciousness.90 But how could Cohen justify characterizing art as the contents of a specific mode of production of consciousness? The motivation was likely provided by culture, which, however, had to be transposed into the theory of consciousness. For it is imperative that the theory of culture remains distinguished from the theory of consciousness when a systematically-philosophical justification of aesthetics is attempted. I will first deal with the last question, namely how Cohen introduced an autonomous aesthetic consciousness. In view of the possibility of a psychological interpretation, the argumentation based on a theory of consciousness indeed stands in need of a justification. Cohen wished to prevent the category of consciousness91 from being appropriated by empirical psychology by stressing, inter alia, that the difference between the modes of production depends on the directions of consciousness: instead of being determined by some subjective psychological property, consciousness is determined by its reference to a content.92 Cohen likewise arrived at his argument for

Ethik, 410. Eternity signifies for Cohen solely the viewpoint of the restless, endless striving forwards of the pure will [] only the eternal effort (410). Cf. P. Fiorato, Geschichtliche Ewigkeit. Ursprung und Zeitlichkeit in der Philosophie Hermann Cohens (Wrzburg, 1993). 89 Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 94f. 90 Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 93. 91 In his Logik Cohen introduced within the judgement of possibility consciousness as a heuristic category and distinguished it emphatically from a genetic concept of consciousness, 420ff. 92 Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 97.

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the assumption of an autonomous third direction of consciousness by taking into consideration its contents: art is independent vis--vis nature and morality, it is its own world that becomes absorbed neither in nature nor in morality,93 consisting rather of its own creations. Consciousness produces in its third direction the beautiful as a new content. However, this is not so much a new type of object, but is rather based on the objects of nature and of freedom (morality), which henceforth function as matter or as building blocks.94 Cohen thus selected out of the realm of culture a special area, namely art, and he subsequently had to provide a justification of its nomological constitution within aesthetic consciousness. No criterion is offered for espousing art rather than religion or technology, but, referring to Kant, Cohen did insist that with aesthetic consciousness the system of the types of consciousness, the system of philosophy, is completed.95 The new type or direction of consciousness,96 labelled feeling, has its own content insofar as it provides a link between nature and morality, a link which is the sole content of this new direction.97 The situation in Cohens topical sthetik des reinen Gefhls is similar: Aesthetics is to be founded as a systematic discipline of philosophy on the basis of art as a factual component of general culture.98 Cohen also addressed the problem of the aesthetic laying of foundations by taking the object and its production as his point of departure. He explicitly admitted that at first sight it may indeed appear mysterious how next to knowledge and morality another equal and pure mode of production can exist, especially since the work of art, for which this third mode is sought, remains conditioned by those first two modes of production.99 A possible solution consists of seeking the new mode of production in the relation of consciousness to itself rather than in the relation to an object. In answer to the question whether it can be
93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 99. Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 100. Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 101. Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 151. Kants Begrndung der sthetik, 225-6. sthetik I, xi. sthetik I, 84.

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demonstrated that this subjective relation or comportment is the laying of foundations of a new object or of a realm of objects, Cohen offered the thesis that the content of the laying of foundations in regard to art can only be the nomology of the aesthetic consciousness.100 He labelled this consciousness, which does not depart from itself in order to gain an object outside of its own activity as its contents,101 pure feeling. What becomes plain only with the justification of aesthetics as the third part of the system provides a general characterization of Cohens determinations of the philosophical concept of system, insofar as these determinations bring the system into a relationship with culture and its unity. With the expression cultural consciousness Cohen joined two aspects of the problem of system: the level of the theory of culture and the level of the theory of consciousness. According to him the isolated facts of culture (science, morality, art) as such and as participants in a unified culture can be understood only on the basis of the context of their modes of production, a context that is identical with the system of philosophy. This unity was going to be secured in the fourth part of the system, psychology, which, however, was never written. Unlike Natorp,102 Cohen remained convinced of the conceptually constructive nature of psychology. The unity is a methodological one (of the laying of the foundations) so that the differences between the various directions of consciousness of the cultural consciousness can be maintained. Although Cohens specific theory of the subject hardly becomes developed within his conception of psychology, it is nevertheless possible to interpret his rejection of Natorps theory of existential experience as part of his critique of metaphysics. In this critique he hoped that systematic psychology would supersede the antiquated metaphysics of the philosophy of identity.103

100 101 102 103

sthetik I, 89f. sthetik I, 97. Cf. his Allgemeine Psychologie (1912). Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag, 38.

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9. Ethical Taming of Religiosity Historically speaking, Cohens theory of socialism stands in contrast not only to the historical materialism of the Marxist type, but also to the attempt of religion and church to determine the will of the ethical subject. With Kants concept of autonomy ethics had liberated itself from religion and theology and Cohen accordingly resorted to ethical interpretation in order to integrate central religious concepts (e.g. God, eternity, peace) into rational philosophy. Historical piety, felt especially acutely by the Jew because of the presumed religious origin of morality, finds itself limited by the enlightened duty towards the universal interest of mankind, an interest that Cohen never tired of tracking in Biblical passages, especially the prophetic ones. Cohen, at the age of thirty-seven, saw himself compelled to take up this topic against his will; up to that point his relationship with the religion of his forebears tended to be of a rather sentimental nature. However, in 1879 his religious heritage was provoked by the debate following the appearance of an article in the Preussische Jahrbcher by the Berlin historian Heinrich von Treitschke. In his Bekenntnis in der Judenfrage Cohen criticised Treitschkes characterization of Judaism as the national religion of a tribe that was originally foreign to us as well as the contrast the latter had drawn between this depiction and a purer form of Christianity.104 Cohen based his attack against anti-Semitism not so much on the racist motive (which, owing to his understanding of Judaism, he seemed to overlook) as on the religious zeal of Christians against Jews. Against a Biblical exegesis which claimed that the precept love thy neighbour was restricted to Israelite tribesmen Cohen insisted that the precept included strangers and that in fact the love of a stranger provided a creative element in the development of the concept of man as a neighbour.105 Cohen exposed

104 105

Jdische Schriften II, 73f. H. Cohen, Die Nchstenliebe im Talmud. Ein Gutachten, dem Knigl. Landgerichte zu Marburg erstattet (Marburg, 1888), reprinted in Jdische Schriften I, 145-74.

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anti-Semitism as a moral disqualification of Judaism, a disqualification that was based on a partisan reading of religious texts. The struggle against anti-Semitism was part of the philosophical effort, namely of the critical examination of religion by the standards of reason. In general, Cohens ethical interpretation of both testaments was directed against every kind of religious particularism, against the separation into dogmatic denominations marked by their absolute claims, and against the subsequent practical and theoretical intolerance. The Zionism dispute with Martin Buber in 1916 proceeded along similar lines. Cohen attacked the Zionist concept of the Jewish nation, for which there was to be created a legally safeguarded domicile in Palestine. Against this Cohen emphasized the proclamation of the prophet Micah: Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Lord.106 It was precisely in the dispersal that Cohen recognized the reality and, along with it, the historical mission of modern Judaism. The Jewish religion can be maintained only within a universally humane Judaism.107 However, in his desire to be a good German, Cohen was blind to the particularistic nationalist facet of the very spirit of German culture to which he was almost religiously devoted. As late as in the beginning of 1915 he wrote to Natorp: Humanity will not become extinct, but the new in its development will consist of the fact, and on this I insist: that it can achieve true progress only thanks to a profound insight into the essence of the spirit of German culture.108 The disappointment was not long in coming. Religion presents for the proponent of a philosophical system an even greater challenge than does art with its problematic objectivity. For the system seems to be closed. It displays no deficit when religion is not considered as an independent direction of consciousness. In addition, there is no room for the religious consciousness next to the established directions of consciousness and their products. Why then at all inquire after the place of

Mic. 5:7. H. Cohen, Antwort auf das offene Schreiben des Herrn Dr. Martin Buber an Hermann Cohen (1916), in: Werke, vol. 17, 252-255. 108 H. Holzhey, Cohen und Natorp, vol. 2, 440-1.
107

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religion in the system of philosophy? This question arises on the basis of the recognition that religion is a cultural fact. No matter what ones own attitude toward religion is, religion does constitute an important cultural factor. And when philosophy is assigned the task of grounding the unity of culture, then it must take up the challenge that religion poses. The challenge has a dual complexion: Systematic philosophy must account for the cultural factor of religion, but philosophy must also, given its critical concept of culture, place constraints on the religious consciousness, since this consciousness can, and in fact repeatedly does, endanger the unity of culture. Cohen attempted to solve this problem by attributing no independence to religion, only a peculiarity. The negative consequence of this conception is that next to a scientific, moral, and aesthetic consciousness there will be no independent religious consciousness, nor will there be a realm of religious objects within culture comparable to the realms of scientific, moral, and artistic objects.109 However, it is difficult to discern what exactly the positive connotation of peculiarity in regard to the system is. Cohens work on religion of 1915 deals not only with the relation of religion to ethics, but also with its relation to all parts of the system. Religious consciousness possesses peculiarity insofar as it functions as a critical supplement vis--vis logic, ethics, and aesthetics. Religion has a critical significance for epistemology, i.e. for theoretical philosophy, by virtue of the fact that it elevates the monotheistic proposition that God is the only being to the standard of all validity of being, thus rejecting all speculative positing. By raising the problem of the individual, religion helps ethics to alleviate the deficit the latter has in regard to its concept of man, a deficit that only now becomes apparent. In regard to aesthetics religion, in a certain sense, assumes a critical stance for its own sake. For thanks to the comparison between aesthetic and religious consciousness it becomes clear that only aesthetics, but not religion, is based on feeling. Religion does not,

Natorps solution, which attributed to religion an independent basic form of consciousness, but no own realm of objects, renders, on Cohens premisses, aesthetic and religious consciousness indistinguishable, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der Humanitt (Tbingen, 19082), 44.

109

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according to Cohen, repose on the feeling of absolute dependence as Schleiermacher had claimed. A corresponding criticism is directed against Natorps conception of religion. When Natorp took the totality of religious experience as his point of departure and when he identified the peculiarity of religious consciousness as a limitless and formless surging and weaving of the soul that was akin to feeling, Cohen objected that the transcendence of God, the central point of his own concept of religion, was endangered. The posthumous work Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums also offers an ethical interpretation of religion, just as the enlightened attitude is not simply abandoned. However, Cohen was here concerned less with a critical examination of religion, an examination based on a standard of reason, than with a detailed interpretation of the contents of religious belief and of a religious life style within the limits of reason. And just as in the earlier writings Cohen invariably meant by religion implicitly or explicitly the Jewish one, so in the Religion it is the sources of Judaism on the basis of which philosophical reason carries out its work. However, these sources do not simply provide an intelligible fact, rather religion is now presented as an admixture of stories, rituals, specific forms of life, and philosophical thoughts. Moreover, the philosopher Cohen is challenged by the fact that religion is a historically generated entity. In this way, however, the philosophical attempt to establish a concept of religion leads to a dilemma. One may either produce a concept that is genuinely worthy of being labelled a concept, namely a purely philosophical one; for Cohen this would mean producing an ethical concept of religion out of which all irrational and purely historically content is eliminated. Or one may produce a concept with a religious and thus irrational component, but one whose possibility could be questioned. Cohen took up and radicalized Kants insight that human reason is destined to have to raise metaphysical questions without being able to answer them satisfactorily in accordance with the standards of human cognition. He wished to work out a concept of reason which would leave uncontested reasons competence to think generality and necessity, thus overcoming the chasm that divides people because of their God. At the same time this concept of

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reason was not meant to rely on the metaphysical thought of the absolute, but was intended to connect theology to the basic methodological notion of the correlation between man and God. Although religion in Cohens late work does gain a share of reason, and though this does occur by means of a historical concentration on religious Judaism, religion is nevertheless marked by a permanent link to universal ethical reason, which then stands under its auspices. But Cohen at this point also came to appreciate the fact that the systematic and especially the ethical use of human reason fails when faced with the truly difficult problems of human existence. This was in part the result of a historical experience made by Cohen unwillingly and subconsciously during the First World War when he encountered unexpectedly intensifying antisemitic tendencies. If earlier he had known experience only as a concept, then now he was personally affected. And yet, as one affected in this fashion, he continued to work within a conception of the world, a conception which, however, was shaped by the sources of Judaism.

10. The Philosopher It is symptomatic of Cohens systematic thought that the person of the philosopher is characterized neither by wonder or amazement, nor by doubt in which certainty is sought. Rather the philosopher appears in his confession of messianic conviction: I am confident, it is my belief. Does this I have beyond a merely biographical relevance a philosophical significance? Cohen was no existentialist philosopher and there is no sense in providing an explanation along these lines. His philosophical person is rather located in ethical knowledge, i.e. in the knowledge of what one ought to do. What is at stake is not the assurance and the ardent elevation of moral belief, moving the heart so powerfully and stimulating and brightening the mind;110 rather it is the knowledge of the basic ethical concepts and principles, the ability to provide a justification by way of an argumentative discourse. Why then is a personal engagement
110

Ethik, 512.

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still required, especially since this is not to be understood in the sense of a rhetorically affective accompaniment of rational discourse? Cohen connected the deficit that required a personal involvement with the distinction between knowledge and certainty. As long as in answering the ethical question of what ought to be done I must content myself with foundations (hypotheseis) instead of absolute foundations, I will reach only hypothetical certainty, i.e. knowledge, but not absolute knowledge. In order to endure a virtue is required, namely the virtue of truthfulness. Cohen implicitly charged that every attempt at knowledge was endangered by a relapse into fundamentalistic metaphysics. The search for knowledge or truth tends to transpose itself into the search for the possession of truth. Truthfulness is the corrective of this metaphysical need. The philosopher must not only say the truth, i.e. that which appears to him to be true, he must also accept the fact that the search is as far as he will get. To understand this and to be able to endure it a knowledge of the self is needed, a knowledge that can only be achieved in a personal process of learning which eludes a totally rational description, in short: a virtue is required. The subjects of philosophy must possess the virtue of truthfulness.111 At the end of his farewell speech at Marburg Cohen said that virtue is related to universality, but that it is attached to man, to the living man. The melancholy in which his academic career ended suggests how difficult it is to be a genuine philosopher, eternally waiting for the messiah.

111

Ethik, 510.