neo-Kantian Philosophy Research Articles

Neokantyści Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert i Ernst Cassirer wobec filozofii renesansu

Neo-Kantianism as a philosophical formation is characterised primarily by its reference to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Nevertheless, to say that the essence of Neo-Kantianism was solely a renewal of Kant's philosophy is insufficient. Also specific to this formation was the adaptation of Kant's thought to the new chalenges of philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A uniquely exciting analogy for Neo-Kantian philosophy is its reference to the thought of the Renaissance period. Just as the Renaissance marked the revival of many ancient philosophical currents (Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism and even Ionian natural philosophy) in the early modern period, Neo-Kantianism represented a kind of Renaissance of Kant’s philosophy. This affinity of thought is suggested by representatives of the two most important Neo-Kantian schools: Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert and Ernst Cassirer. This article focuses on this historical-philosophical parallel by examining the relationship between Neo-Kantianism and Renaissance philosophy. The results show that Neo-Kantianism is not limited to an apologetic repetition of Kant’s philosophy but constitutes a heterodox and critical renewal of it. Such an apologetic approach did not work in modern philosophy, which is dominated by the spirit of criticism. Thus, the Neo-Kantian formation shows deep connections with other periods in the history of philosophy, such as Renaissance philosophy, as a breakthrough period initiating a modern mode of reflection. Understanding the relationship between Neo-Kantianism and other philosophical movements can help us appreciate the richness and complexity of contemporary philosophical thought.

The Concept of Aesthetic Experience Based on the Theory of Sacrum by R. Otto

The article is focused at the demarcation of the concept of aesthetic experience. This operation is carried out through a critical analysis of the theory of the Sacred by R. Otto, set out by him in the book published under the same title. It demonstrates the internal inconsistency of R. Otto’s desire to bring the Sacred as an autonomous experience, not association with aesthetics, on the basis of neo-Kantian philosophy, which gravitates towards the same aesthetics. This contradiction of task and method, placed in a wider context of consideration, allows us to define aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience is the mode of considering any possible experience according to the specific rules of the discipline of aesthetics. In this sense, pure experience is only an illusory perspective from the sensory overload of discourse with pre-conceptual expressions, from the aspect of intensity. The experience itself is completely reduced to a mode of expression, and has no characteristics of its own. Experience is the junction of the pre-conceptual and the conceptual, infinitely segmentable but never grasped, only always reducible to expression, hermeneutic (meaning) and non-hermeneutic (presence). Aesthetic experience, on the other hand, is experience interpreted in the light of the fact that existence is indistinguishable from representation, experience understood in a deontologized sense.

Aesthetic Values in the Myroslav Skoryk’s Creativity

The ideological sources and origins of the issues of values in European culture at the beginning of the 20th century became the basis of this study. It is noted that the challenges regarding the specifics of the existence of value orientations were raised by neo-Kantian philosophers, in particular by Heinrich Rickert. Attention is focused on the priority role of art and music in the formation of artistic values, as well as on their aesthetic, ethical, psychological, pedagogical influence and on the creation of the ground for artistic dialogues in cultural life. The idea of value as a form of affirmation of human nature is substantiated in terms of the fundamental basis necessary for universal human culture. The content and functions, which include general cultural values: truth, beauty, good, as well as aesthetic: catharsis, kalokagathia, aura, based on the achievements of European musical art, are revealed by the author in the context of personal creativity. It is indicated that value relations are always emotional, connected with feelings of direct joyous delight, surprise; values always have a certain sacred mode, act as a shrine. It is emphasized that art in general and musical art in particular are closely related to moral and ethical guidelines, with the understanding that the concept of love in the structure of an aesthetic relationship acts as its concretization. Using the example of one of the earliest works of the composer Myroslav Skoryk (the cantata "Spring" based on a poem by Ivan Franko), it is demonstrated that the artistic material is imbued with a sensitive, joyful and loving perception of the surrounding nature; an open, trusting attitude to the surrounding world, which is generally a characteristic feature of art, especially modern art. The article examines the creative heritage of the Ukrainian artist as a carrier of valuable expression of Ukrainian culture, its intertextual, avant-garde character. It is proved that in the works of M. Skoryk, national values are organically combined with universal values.

В.М. ХВОСТОВ И МОСКОВСКИЙ ИНСТИТУТ СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ ПСИХОЛОГИИ (1917-1922)

The article analyzes the little-studied documents on the history of the Moscow Institute of Social Psychology, founded on the initiative of Veniamin Mikhailovich Khvostov (1868–1920), a professor of Moscow University, a neo-Kantian philosopher, a doctor of Roman law, a sociologist; the paper also discusses his role in the development of sociology, the most important direction in the field of social sciences. The article was written on the basis of the documents that were retained by his collaborators Leonty Alekseevich Byzov (1886–1942) and his wife, Natalia Nikolaevna Fadeeva-Byzova (1892–1985). Currently, the records are kept in the Archives of the European University in St. Petersburg. After having ostentatiously left Moscow University in 1911 (the “Kasso Case”), just like many of his colleagues had done, he taught at Moscow Women’s Higher Courses and at Shanyavsky Moscow People’s University. In May 1917, during the rule of the Provisional Government, V.M.Khvostov managed to create the Moscow Institute of Social Psychology as part of the future Institute of Sociology, the main task of which was to carry out research on social processes and gradually turn sociology into an independent scientific discipline. The Institute existed for five years only (1917–1922), and the last two years – without V.M. Khvostov, who passed away at the beginning of 1920. V.M. Khvostov realized that without sociology, the science of social processes, the sprouts of which had just begun to appear in Russia, not only the social sciences, but the entire scientific community of the early twentieth century would lose out. He hoped that with the coming to power of the Provisional Government, the social life in all its manifestations would become an important phenomenon, including scientific research, free from ideological dogmas. Instead in October 1917, the country plunged into a different reality – the revolution and the victory of the Bolsheviks who gradually destroyed all illusions about the freedom of scientific choice. And nevertheless, the Institute continued to carry out a tremendous amount of research concerning the socio-psychological processes and phenomena in public life. The scope of that work could be perceived through many hours of meetings, questionnaires and survey forms, abstracts and reports, scientific disputes, practical work with the representatives of various social groups. However, gradually, the conditions imposed by the Soviet government turned out to become such a powerful irritant for V.M. Khvostov that the dream of forming sociology as an independent scientific discipline appeared to be unrealizable. And yet, the documents on the activities of the Moscow Institute of Social Psychology are of great historical and scientific value, their study and publication can contribute to the adding of the new pages in the history of Russian and Soviet science at the beginning of the 20th century.

ДИСКУССИИ О СУТИ СОВЕТСКОГО КОЛЛЕКЦИОНИРОВАНИЯ В 1920–1940-Х ГОДАХ

The purpose of the article is to consider the features of the Soviet collecting in the 1920s -1930s. The October Revolution of 1917 led to a radical breakdown of social relations, which was reflected in the field of leisure as well. The article offers a historical reconstruction of the view formed in the 1920s and 1930s on collecting as a form of leisure in Soviet society. The debates about the semantic content of the concept of "Soviet collecting" led to a new understanding of collecting. It was opposed to bourgeois collecting, which was elitist in nature and possessive in its foundation. As a result, the authors conclude that the new image of the Soviet collecting became a combination of four factors: the maximum variety of collectibles (democracy as opposed to elitism); scientific, based on the Neo-Kantian Philosophy; educational, propaganda orientation; a new ethics of solidarity (openness) as opposed to greediness and possessiveness.

Vivos voco. Послевоенная переписка C. И. Гессена и И. И. Лапшина: 1946 год

The letters of S. I. Hessen and I. I. Lapshin, two Russian Neo-Kantian philosophers, were written in the early post-war years. These letters bear witness to the later period in the life and work of their authors, a period of hardship, tragic losses and hopes. Both philosophers were deeply embedded in the intellectual landscape of Russian emigration. They were also known and valued by their peers in the countries that gave them refuge, Poland and Czechoslovakia, where they not only published their works, but also taught young scholars. Hessen, being considerably younger than Lapshin, continued teaching and actively publishing after the war, including outside Poland. Lapshin in Czechoslovakia was less in demand, but continued preparing his works for publication. The reflections of the two authors shed light on the idea content of their later works, which is particularly valuable in reconstructing the conception of the texts which were not completed at the time of their death and have survived only in the shape of plans and rough notes. It is also interesting that in their letters Hessen and especially Lapshin expound the Kantian element of their philosophical views as well as sharing their impressions of the development of philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century.

What can Kantian philosophy do for humanity? From Leonard Nelson to phildialogues

In this essay, I argue that broadly Kantian philosophy – by which I mean philosophy inspired by Kant’s work, but neither dogmatically restricted to Kant’s own texts nor in any way committed to Kant’s own philosophical errors or personal prejudices – is profoundly relevant to the world of today, insofar as it can promoteradical enlightenment. Radical enlightenment, in turn, is daring to think, write, speak, and freely act for ourselves, not only as individuals but also collectively via our social institutions, in order to change the world for the better. This should be sharply contrasted withenlightenment lite, orshallow enlightenment, which restricts critical thinking to narrowly-defined, coercively controlled social and political norms, according to Frederick the Great’s famous dictum: “argue as much as you like about whatever you like, but obey!” In effect, then, enlightenment lite or shallow enlightenment is nothing but “free thinking” inside a barbed-wire playpen. My argument has three parts. First, from the standpoint of Kantian radical enlightenment, I critically analyze the early twentieth-century neo-Kantian philosopher Leonard Nelson’s account of Socratic dialogical method. Second, I formulate a broadly Kantian, radically-enlightened conception of philosophical conversation,phildialogues, that corresponds constructively to my critical analysis of Nelson’s account. And third and finally, I argue that contemporary Kantian philosophers not onlycanbutshouldimplement and practice phildialogues, for the betterment of humanity.

Kant’s anti-naturalism: The foundations of sociability in Max Weber and Sergey Hessen

The principal claims of Max Weber and Sergey (Sergius) Hessen are an extension of Kant’s anti-naturalistic tendency in ethics, in which an individual acquires his own freedom by actualising the autonomy of will as obedience to a duty. The moral justification of freedom leads to an explanation of the development of mankind as a process of interaction between culture and many individuals. The analyses of the principles of sociability showed the crucial role of the neo-Kantian paradigm in the development of Weber and Hessen’s social philosophy. My task is to analyse the socio-philosophical views of Hessen and Weber to show up affinities in determining the particularity of sociability. The foundation of this comparative study is the affinity in the interpretation of mankind’s progress as a socio-cultural process, which includes a specific functionality of each individual as a co-participant in the formation of culture as an ontology of freedom. Neo-Kantian philosophy of culture can be used as a foundation for identifying trends and interactions in the philosophy of Russia Abroad that were not even previously studied. The results of this investigation make it possible to prove that neo-Kantian ideas led to similar solutions in the works of both European philosophers and Russian émigré philosophers.

Methodology of the Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Law: the transition from “due” to “being”

The article shows the influence of Kantian philosophy on jurisprudence. From the position of neo-Kantianism, law and the state are not objective “things in themselves”, but transcendental logical constructions of the cognizing subject. Law is twofold: as a subject of logic and as a social phenomenon included in social relations as their regulator. In the concept of law, rational and irrational elements are distinguished. According to neo-Kantian methodology, the state can be the subject of research both nomothetic (the state is a recurring fact) and idiographic (the state is a unique phenomenon) sciences. It is shown that in the Russian Philosophy of Law of the 19th - early 20th centuries of the neo-Kantian orientation, special attention was paid to the problems of finding a social ideal, the connectedness of the state by law, the theme of a legal state, the basis of which is a self-sufficient person. The ethical and legal basis of the neo-Kantian Philosophy of Law in Russia was Kant’s idea of individual freedom, its autonomy, of the external protection of all members of society by the state with the help of the rule of law and non-interference in the inner world of a person. In the late 19th - early 20th centuries, Kant’s philosophy was extrapolated to the conditions of the historical reality of that period in the form of requirements for the legal provision of individual rights and freedoms in a legal state.

Reality remodeled

Most ethnographers have little use for models and other formal abstractions, yet even a staunch empiricist such as Franz Boas could appreciate the “aesthetic” advantages of idealization and simplification. These advantages have been largely ignored in recent decades, as anthropologists have come to favor ever more intricate and encompassing accounts. The resulting “ethnographic involution,” I suggest, has steadily diminished anthropology as a source of usable, socially shared knowledge. Much the same problem, interestingly, was confronted long ago by Max Weber, who developed the method of “ideal types” precisely as a way to grasp, represent, and investigate the complexity of historical reality. Weber converged in this regard with his contemporary at Halle, the neo-Kantian philosopher Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933). Since the late twentieth century, Vaihinger’s “fictionalism” has attracted renewed interest within philosophy and beyond. Yet his notion of “as-if” reasoning—a via media, I would argue, between particularism and positivism—remains virtually unknown within anthropology.

The Small Contrapuntal Cycle in the Music of Paul Natorp

The article examines the musical legacy of German composer Paul Natorp (1854– 1924), who has obtained his world recognition chiefly as a Neo-Kantian philosopher. Unlike the other philosophers-composers known to history, such as, for instance, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche, the name of Natorp the composer has remained virtually unknown to philosophers, as well as to musicians. Among the thinker’s greatest influences was Plato, whose attitude towards music was shared by Natorp throughout his entire life. Examining music as one of the fundamental laws of the universe, Natorp placed the principle of harmony at the core not only of his life activities, but also of his philosophical studies and pedagogical innovations. The article presents a scholarly analysis of the small contrapuntal cycle in the musical legacy of the philosopher-composer with the example of Paul Natorp’s Three Preludes and Fugues for Piano, which revive the baroque tradition of improvisation. Natorp’s piano compositions correspond to the influences of his era, which demonstrates a constant aspiration towards the attainment of harmony, balance and clarity in the conditions of the dissolving tonal-harmonic connections and free compositional forms. In his compositions, the art of the future is given a special position as a significant unifying and stabilizing component of musical creativity.

Философские аспекты физики в трудах В. Гейзенберга: что такое действительность?

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of “reality” in the philosoph­ical and scientific works of the theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg. It ana­lyzes the Heisenberg’s works on the philosophy of natural science, a significant part of which is devoted to quantum theory and its basic concepts. The author shows that Heisenberg’s thought was formed in parallel with the development of relevant problems among neo-Kantian philosophers (N. Hartmann, B. Nicolescu, etc.) throughout the 20th century. According to the author, many European re­searchers focus their attention on the scientific side of Heisenberg’s work, that is, on the analysis of his physical argumentation. The philosophical aspects of Heisenberg’s works are mostly studied by Russian philosophers of science. The intellectual vector of Heisenberg’s work was the idea of the need for a new philosophical thinking that goes beyond the scope of rational activity and re­quires a reconception of the gnoseological categories used as an instrument for the cognition of the reality. It relies on the phenomenological tradition, as well as on the arguments of J.W. von Goethe that theory cannot “capture” reality; it re­quires a synthesis of “trust in experience” and “intelligent observation” (discre­tion) to understand it. It is also demonstrated in the article the Heisenberg's atti­tude to the formation of the language of science and to the comparative studies of the philosophical systems of such thinkers as Plato, Democritus, Aristotle.

Andrzeja J. Norasa badania nad neokantyzmem

The paper presents the scholarly profile and scientific accomplishments of Andrzej J. Noras, a distinguished philosopher and historian of philosophy. Noras was an indisputable authority in the area of Neo-Kantianism philosophy. He was particularly interested in the issue of the periodisation of history of philosophy, the issues of philosophical systems, the relation between philosophy and psychology, as well as the question of the method of history of philosophy. Outlining Noras’s contribution of to the interpretation of the neo-Kantian philosophy, the paper includes also an overview of his major works, Historia neokantyzmu [History of Neo-Kantianism] and Kłopoty filozofii [Problems of Philosophy].

Denial of coevalness: charges of dogmatism in the nineteenth-century humanities

ABSTRACT Since the seventeenth century, scholars have been accusing each other of ‘dogmatism’. But what exactly did this mean? In exploring this question, this article focuses on philosophy and Biblical scholarship in nineteenth-century Germany. Scholars in both of these fields habitually contrasted Dogmatismus with Kritik, to the point of emplotting the history of their field as a gradual triumph of critical thinking over dogmatic belief. The article shows that charges of dogmatism derived much of their rhetorical force from such progressive narratives. Especially neo-Kantian philosophers and Biblical scholars of liberal Protestant persuasion liked to depict their opponents as clinging to long-superseded modes of thought, thereby implying that these colleagues harked back to a past from which modern Wissenschaft had emancipated itself. This ‘denial of coevalness’, as Johannes Fabian calls it, demonstrates to what extent the vice of dogmatism was imbued with normative visions of how the field or, more broadly, German intellectual life should develop.

A Relational Account of Moral Normativity: The Neo-Kantian Notion of We-Subject

Abstract The aim of the paper is to provide a relational explanation of the sources of moral normativity, within a Neo-Kantian framework. To this purpose, the key notions employed are those of we-society and stance-taking, developed by Neo-Kantian philosopher Heinrich Rickert. Specifically, by resorting to such notions, the paper attempts to overcome two limits ascribed to the theory of moral normativity of Ch. Korsgaard: namely W. Smith’s objection of solipsism and S. Crowell’s problem of non-deliberate action, whereby Ch. Korsgaard’s identification of the source of normativity in reflection would lead her theory to a form of solipsism and to failing to explain actions based on so-called ‘mindless coping’. In tackling these objections, the paper outlines a Rickertian inspired theory, according to which the sources of moral normativity can be explained on the basis of the heterological I-You relationship, which is the foundation of the we-society intended as a set of values, patterns of expectations, tacit consents, and procedural knowledge.

The Nation as Imperative: Cooperative Nationalism and the Idea of the State in Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen

Abstract Imperatives, as Immanuel Kant observed, differ from laws. Laws set limits through coercion, whereas imperatives imagine infinity through freedom. What does it mean for the nation to be an imperative? Starting with the famous 1916 controversy on Zionism between the neo-Kantian philosopher Hermann Cohen and the philosopher of dialogue Martin Buber, this essay explores how Buber developed Cohen’s dialectic of Machtstaat (power-state) and Kulturstaat (culture-state) into a model of cultural cooperation. Unlike Cohen, whose understanding of nation and nationality relied on Herder and Fichte, and who feared that Zionism would always be exclusionary, Buber believed that Zionism could be the inclusive self-realization of the Jewish people. Yet Buber’s Zionism of meta-national cooperation also deeply echoed Cohen’s own understanding of the German State as transcending itself in cooperative federalism. In the end, both believed that human culture offered ways of solidarity and community that the state per se could not provide and which, in fact, functioned as a corrective to the state’s “omnipotence.” For Buber, the pragmatic acceptance of the State of Israel was but the beginning of a meta-political imperative articulated by the prophets, and anticipated a time when the state, as Cohen believed, would be “displaced by messianism.”

Two Kindred Neo-Kantian Philosophies of Science: Pap’sThe A Priori in Physical Theoryand Cassirer’sDeterminism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics

AbstractThe main thesis of this paper is that Pap’sThe Functional A PrioriinPhysical Theoryand Cassirer’sDeterminism and Indeterminism in Modern Physicsmay be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century.

Arvi Grotenfelt and neo-Kantian philosophy of history

The paper discusses Arvi Grotenfelt's (1863 – 1941), professor of philosophy in Helsinki 1905 – 29, reading of Heinrich Rickert's (1863 – 1936) philosophy of history. Rickert was one of the key figures of the so-called south-west German neo-Kantianism. In the center of attention of the south- west neo-Kantians was the topic that Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) himself had omitted: how to philosophically establish the humanities and the social sciences and separate them from the natural sciences? Rickert's philosophy of history was essentially an attempt to ground the historical knowledge in a strictly transcendental philosophy in the Kantian sense. His argumentation relied on his concept of value (Wert). Grotenfelt did not share Rickert's definition of values. According to his view, the fundamental foundation of our judgements of value is beyond scientific reasoning. I will also argue that Grotenfelt's standpoint has a general affinity to Wilhelm Dilthey's (1833 – 1911) philosophy of world view (Weltanschauung).

Научные сказки Курда Лассвица: между литературой, наукой и философией

The article deals with the works of German science fiction writer Kurd Lasswitz (1848–1910). The article provides a brief description of the main themes and directions of the writer’s work. Lasswitz was the creator of the scientific tale genre (das wissenschaftliche Märchen), in which he had set the task of building new relationships between science and literature, nature and man, the animate particle and the cosmic whole. In accordance with the spirit of the fin de siècle era the scientific tale represented a new, post-positivist ideal of knowledge. The key theme of Lasswitz’s fiction was the search for extraterrestrial civilizations.Mars became for Lasswitz a place where the intelligent extraterrestrial beings have realized an ideal society in which ethics and technology are NOT in conflict. Lasswitz was not a neo-Kantian philosopher only, he was also an active popularizer of Kant’s philosophy. He was striving to create a Kantian utopia in literature. For Lasswitz Mars became the realization of this utopia. Also Lasswitz sought to give literary embodiment to the ideas of another philosopher, Gustav Theodor Fechner. Following his philosophy, Lasswitz develops environmental and existential issues of the coexistence of intelligent plants with humans. In Lasswitz’ story for children “The Escaped Flower” (1910), one can trace how in Lasswitz’ science fiction (scientific tale) the themes of the habitability of space (Mars), science and technology of the future interact with the ideas of Kant and Fechner.

«Поворот к онтологии» в неокантианстве (П. Наторп и Э. Ласк)

In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the intellectual situation within neo-Kantianism began to change: there were philosophical projects attempting to overcome the total domination of epistemology in Neo-Kantian doctrines and making place for ontology. Ontological tendencies are typical mainly for P. Natorps’s projects of general logic and E. Lask’s logic of philosophy. I analyze the continuity of Natorp’s early epistemological ideas, developed in the spirit of the Marburg interpretation of Kant’s transcendentalism, and his later ideas, focused on speculative ontological constructions. In particular, I investigate the methodo­logical relationship between the characteristics of knowledge in his early and late philo­sophy: dynamism, creativity, categoriality, unity of the starting point and the goal. The ba­sic structure of Natorps’s project of general logic is reconstructed. Lask’s main texts re­veal the provisions that open the way to an ontological turn. These factors include a cri­tique of the identification of the realm of value and that of the extrasensory in the meta­physics of the past, the postulation of a prereflexive stage of knowledge, interpreting the doctrine of judgment as a doctrine of immanent sense, and treating truth as a con­stitutive-aleteological phenomenon. Both Neo-Kantian philosophers build their systems on an on­tological foundation, making subjectivity dependent on objectivity in cognition, which can be interpreted as a kind of retreat from Kantian criticism. The ontological basis is ex­pressed in the postulation of a universal character of the logical expressed in Natorp’s idea of “poiesis” and Lask’s idea of “panarchy of the Logos”. The analysis of Natorp’s and Lask’s onto-epistemological projects allows us to clarify and reveal the role of Neo-Kantianism in the formation of the new ontologies of the 20th century a.k.a. the “ontologi­cal turn”.