German Idealism in a Maimonidean Key

Abstract

In his commentary on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Solomon Maimon used an approach that he described as one of independent and eclectic exegesis. Maimon's commentary moves from “obscure ideas” to distinct understanding, which is also characteristic of his proposed revision of transcendental idealism based on the concepts that he tackled in his Hebrew manuscript, Hesheq Shelomo. This chapter examines how Maimon employed the tools and terms of his medieval philosophical perfectionism to revise Kantian idealism. It discusses issues of doctrine, genre, and influence to interpret Maimon's mature post-Kantian philosophy. Maimon agrees that Kant's account of human cognition is a vivid description of the condition in which man appears to find himself, but insists that the condition is not one of knowledge. His notion of the finite human intellect, which strives toward the infinite intellect as a kind of endless task, is compatible with the neo-Kantian version of idealism.