The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century
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Heidegger, Martin (1986). Sein und Zeit, 16th rev. ed. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Heidegger, Martin (1976–). Gesamtausgabe, ed. F.W. von Herrmann. Frankfurt/M: Klostermann.
Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, in Gesamtausgabe 4.
Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein,” in Gesamtausgabe 39.
Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken,” in Gesamtausgabe 52.
Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister,” in Gesamtausgabe 53.
Henrich, Dieter (2004). Grundlegung aus dem Ich. Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte des Idealismus: Tübingen—Jena 1790–1794. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp.
Henrich, Dieter (1992). Der Grund im Bewußtsein. Untersuchungen zu Hölderlins Denken (1794–1795). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Henrich, Dieter (1986). Der Gang des Andenkens. Beobachtungen und Gedanken zu Hölderlins Gedicht. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
Henrich, Dieter (1966). “Hölderlin über Urteil und Sein,” in Hölderlin-Jahrbuch [1966]: 73–96.
Henrich, Dieter & Jamme, Christoph (eds.) (1986). Jakob Zwillings Nachlass. Hegel-Studien. Beiheft 28. Bonn: Bouvier.
Lovejoy, Arthur (1948). “The Meaning of ‘Romantic’ in Early German Romanticism,” in: Essays in the History of Ideas. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 183–206.
Lukács, Georg (1947). Goethe und seine Zeit. Bern: Francke.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1980). Kritische Studienausgabe, eds. G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Rush, Fred (2006). “Irony and Romantic Subjectivity,” in Philosophical Romanticism, ed. N. Kompridis. London: Routledge, pp. 173–95.
Rush, Fred (2003). “Jena Romanticism and Benjamin’s Critical Epistemology”, in Walter Benjamin and Romanticism, ed. B. Hanssen and A. Benjamin. London & New York: Continuum, pp. 123–46.
Rush, Fred (2001). “Kant and Schlegel,” in Akten des 9. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. V. Gerhardt, R.-P. Horstmann and R. Schumacher. Berlin: de Gruyter, III: 618–25.
Szondi, Peter (1967). Hölderlin-Studien. Mit einem Traktat über philologische Erkenntnis. Frankfurt/M: Surkamp.
Wellbery, David (1996). The Specular Moment: Goethe’s Early Lyric and the Beginnings of Romanticism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* * *
1 See Arthur Lovejoy, “The Meaning of ‘Romantic’ in Early German Romanticism,” in Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1948), pp. 183–206 on the many meanings of “romanticism” in the German context; see also Ernst Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 24–31. This overview singles out the Jena romantics and Hölderlin in its treatment. A comprehensive account of the philosophical elements in German romanticism would also have to include the aesthetics of Schleiermacher, the Berlin writers Tieck and Wackenroder, as well as outlier figures such as Jean Paul and Kleist.
2 For Goethe’s poetry as a source for romanticism, see David Wellbery, The Specular Moment: Goethe’s Early Lyric and the Beginnings of Romanticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
3 Henceforth abbreviated to GA.
4 A synopsis of Fichte’s critique is given in section 13.3.
5 See section 13.4, for discussion of the Tübinger Stift and the intellectual forces at work there during Niethammer’s time and shortly thereafter.
6 See Karl Ameriks, Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: Problems in the Appropriation of the Critical Philosophy (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 64–6.
7 The relationship between the Schlegels and Schiller was precarious at best, as was that of the Jena School and Weimar classicism in general, and Schiller and the Schlegels fell out irreparably shortly thereafter. Some of Goethe and Schiller’s Xenien are barely concealed satires of the Schlegels, payment in kind for the unfriendly press Schiller was receiving at their hands.
8 “Novalis” can mean either a freshly ploughed field, or one not yet cultivated. This last meaning seems to be the one intended as a translation of the family name “Hardenberg.”
9 This is not to say of course that the literary and philosophical careers of its principals did not continue. Novalis’ death in 1801 from pulmonary disease robs us of any real indication of the arc of his thought after his Jena days. A. W. Schlegel lectured successfully in Berlin on a range of topics, finally accepting a position in the household of Mde. de Staël in 1804, which he was to occupy until her death in 1817. He moved to Bonn in 1818 and remained there until his death in 1845. Friedrich Schlegel continued his literary criticism, moved to Paris, wrote a play Alarcos that had its première at the royal theater in Weimar, and branched out into art criticism, much of which was circulated in his new journal Europa. His philosophical views underwent significant change, becoming, like Schelling’s, much more conservative. After the years 1804–8 spent in Köln, Schlegel moved to Vienna where he was a cultural apologist for Metternich. He died in 1829.
10 Fichte published a separate text, intended by him as a short introduction for students wanting to attend his lectures called “Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre” (GA I,2: 109–54). This text is often bundled together with the 1794 version of the Wissenschaftslehre for purposes of publication (often together with a “second” introduction Fichte wrote later for his 1797–9 iteration of the system). This shorter text, along with the lectures themselves, forms the basis for Novalis’ analysis of Fichte’s position.
11 Henceforth abbreviated to FS.
12 See Manfred Frank, “Unendliche Annäherung.” Die Anfänge der philosophischen Frühromantik (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1997), pp. 802ff. for an excellent discussion.
13 A term Novalis in all likelihood borrows from Schelling.
14 Henceforth abbreviated to KFSA.
15 See Fred Rush, “Irony and Romantic Subjectivity,” in Philosophical Romanticism, ed. N. Kompridis (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 173–95. For a synopsis of the Kantian components to the view, see Rush, “Kant and Schlegel,” in Akten des 9. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. V. Gerhardt, R.-P. Horstmann & R. Schumacher (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), III: 618–25.
16 Henceforth abbreviated as HW.
17 It is worth noting in this connection that Hegel visited some of Schlegel’s 1800–1 Lectures on Transcendental Philosophy, which also outline in more formal terms a dialectical system based in the identification–distance binary.
18 Walter Benjamin, Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik, in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. R. Tiedemann & H. Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1977ff.), I.1: 7–122; see also Fred Rush, “Jena Romanticism and Benjamin’s Critical Epistemology,” in Walter Benjamin and Romanticism, ed. B. Hanssen & A. Benjamin (London & New York: Continuum, 2003), pp. 123–46.
19 See Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), chs. 2 and 3.
20 Repetenten were advanced students charged with tutoring students for examinations by providing synopses of professors’ lectures (hence, “repeating” them). They enjoyed a kind of semi-autonomy in the presentation of material, however, and Diez forwarded his fairly radical account of the degree to which Kant’s philosophy upset standard accounts of faith by these means. Diez’s critique of religion on Kantian grounds predates the publication of Kant’s own Religionsschrift. For a full accounting of Diez’s influence on the development of German idealism, see Dieter Henrich, Grundlegung aus dem Ich. Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte des Idealismus: Tübingen—Jena 1790–1794 (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 2004), I: §§ iii–viii. A very comprehensive selection of Diez’s philosophical correspondence and manuscripts are collected in Immanuel Carl Diez, Briefwechsel und Kantische Schriften, ed. D. Henrich (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1997).
21 The best short treatment of this essay is still Dieter Henrich, “Hölderlin über Urteil und Sein,” in Hölderlin-Jahrbuch [1966]: 73–96; see also his Der Grund im Bewußtsein. Untersuchungen zu Hölderlins Denken (1794–1795
) (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1992), esp. §§ 15–30.
22 Especially interesting in this regard is the Hyperion-Fragment (StA III: 182–219).
23 See Jakob Zwillings Nachlass, ed. D. Henrich & C. Jamme, in Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 28 [1986] for a consideration of Zwilling’s significance.
24 Some of the sentiment may be political. Hölderlin remained a supporter of what he took to be the ideals of the French Revolution, but intervening events involving the presence of French troops on German land had soured him. Unlike Hegel, Hölderlin thought Napoléon I a thug.
25 “Der Rhein,” which has also received a great deal of philosophical attention, was composed in 1801.
26 Gesamtausgabe, ed. F.W. von Herrmann (Frankfurt/M: Klostermann, 1976ff.) 5: 1–72; see also Sein und Zeit, 16th rev. ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1986), § 44.
27 See Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung I, in Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. Colli, G. & Montinari, M. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967–77), I: 171–2; see also Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung II, in Kritische Studienausgabe, I: 300. Hellingrath founded the first reasonably comprehensive edition of Hölderlin’s work in 1913 and was especially preoccupied with Hölderlin’s translations/adaptations of Pindar into German.
28 See Gesamtausgabe 4: 90 n.
29 See Gesamtausgabe 53: 60f., 74f., 122f. (especially the discussion of “τὸ δɛινόν” and its connection with “das Unheimliche”). Heidegger must have read and been impressed by Friedrich Beißner’s Hölderlins Übersetzungen aus dem Griechischen (Stuttgart: Mohr, 1933). See also “Hölderlin und das Wesen der Dichtung” (1936/7) Gesamtausgabe 4: 33–48, which is dedicated to Hellingrath.
30 See “Andenken,” in Gesamtausgabe, 52: 59ff. and 4: 79–151.
31 See especially Henrich’s Der Gang des Andenkens. Beobachtungen und Gedanken zu Hölderlins Gedicht (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986) and his Der Grund im Bewußtsein. Henrich’s interpretation is aimed expressly at dislodging Heidegger’s approach to the hymns, a project carried out mostly in lengthy footnotes to the text. See Der Gang des Andenkens, pp. 188–9 n.8, 190–1 n.12, 200–4 nn.35–6, 204–5 n.44. Henrich is also critical of Adorno on some fronts, but joins him in disputing Heidegger’s interpretation. See Der Gang des Andenkens, pp. 234–5 n.141.
32 See Der Gang des Andenkens, pp. 12–13.
33 “Parataxis. Zur späten Lyriks Hölderlins,” in Noten zur Literatur III (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1965), pp. 156–209.
34 Cf. the treatment in Benjamin’s “Zwei Gedichte von Friedrich Hölderlin. ‘Dichtermut’ und ‘Blödigkeit’,” in Gesammelte Schriften II.1: 105–26. Lukács’ Goethe und seine Zeit (Bern: Franke, 1947) accentuates even more Hölderlin’s material alienation.
35 Peter Szondi, Hölderlin-Studien. Mit einem Traktat über philologische Erkenntnis (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1967) is an extraordinarily insightful treatment that avoids many of the difficulties discussed in this section.
CHAPTER 14
NEO-KANTIANISM
FREDERICK BEISER
14.1 TOPOGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY
SIMPLY defined, neo-Kantianism, in an historical sense, was the movement in nineteenth-century Germany to rehabilitate Kant’s philosophy. It was the predominant philosophical movement there in the final decades of the nineteenth century, and its influence soon spread far and wide, to Italy, France, England, and the US. The golden age of neo-Kantianism was from 1860 to 1910. During these decades, to be at the cutting edge of philosophy, to have a rigorous training, meant studying Kant. In 1875, Johannes Volkelt, an up-and-coming neo-Kantian, gave witness to this new Zeitgeist: ‘With few negligible exceptions, all philosophers agree in the high estimation of Kant; all attempt to orient themselves around Kant, and all see in his philosophy more or less explicit indications of their own position.’1 Some hard statistical facts confirm this Kantian hegemony.2 From 1862 to 1881 the number of lecture courses on Kant trebled, and there were more lectures on Kant than all modern philosophers combined. Bibliographies show that, after 1860, the number of works on Kant increased geometrically every year. And, by 1870, every major German university had at least one neo-Kantian professor on its philosophy faculty. Because of these facts, Klaus Christian Köhnke, doyen of neo-Kantian scholars, has called these decades ‘the neo-Kantian period of German university philosophy’.3
Customarily, neo-Kantianism is divided into three main schools or groups: the Marburg school, whose chief protagonists were Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), Paul Natorp (1854–1924), and Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945); the Southwestern, Baden, or Heidelberg school, whose major representatives were Wilhelm Windelband (1848–1915), Heinrich Rickert (1863–1936), and Emil Lask (1875–1915); and the neo-Friesian school in Göttingen under the leadership of Leonard Nelson (1882–1927).4 The dominant neo-Kantian universities were Marburg, Göttingen, Strassburg, and Heidelberg; Berlin too eventually became a centre of neo-Kantianism later in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Friedrich Paulsen (1846–1908), Alois Riehl (1844–1924), and Benno Erdmann (1851–1921) held chairs there.5
It is necessary to emphasize that these three schools do not define or exhaust neo-Kantianism. If one read every article and book of every member of all these groups, one would still be far from a full knowledge of the movement. These groups came into being relatively late, between 1880 and 1904, decades after the core of the movement had been formed. All the founding figures of neo-Kantianism preceded them. But even later neo-Kantians fell outside their orbits. Among these ‘outsiders’ were the Berliners Riehl, Paulsen, and Erdmann, but also Johannes Volkelt (1848–1930), Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933), Erich Adickes (1866–1928), Arthur Liebert (1878–1946), Emil Arnoldt (1828–1905), and last, but certainly not least, Hermann Helmholtz (1821–94). We too easily ignore these thinkers, some of whom played a crucial role in the movement, if we think of neo-Kantianism strictly in terms of schools.
The crucial formative decade for neo-Kantianism was the 1860s. Although there had been several neo-Kantian manifestos in earlier decades,6 it was in the 1860s that they grew in number and coalesced into a single force. It was in this decade that some of the most dynamic young philosophers in Germany wrote articles, essays, and even whole books, championing the cause of Kant’s philosophy. We can trace the famous slogan ‘Zurück zu Kant!’ back to the 1860s,7 though historical accuracy tells us that it never occurred in just this form, and that there were several earlier versions of it.
There were five major figures who re-established Kant in the 1860s: Kuno Fischer (1824–1907), Eduard Zeller (1814–1908), Otto Liebmann (1840–1912), Jürgen Bona Meyer (1829–97), and Friedrich Albert Lange (1828–75). All published their chief writings on Kant in the 1860s, so that, despite their different ages, they still belong to the same period. Several themes unite these authors. All saw Kant as a bulwark against materialism; all made criticism the vocation of philosophy; all advanced a psychological interpretation of Kant; and all repudiated the methods of speculative idealism.
The origins of neo-Kantianism go back to the end of the eighteenth century, even before Kant’s death (1804).8 The founding fathers of the movement were Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843), Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), and Friedrich Eduard Beneke (1798–1854). All defined themselves as Kantians, and all called for a return to the spirit of Kant’s teachings. They anticipated, and laid down the foundation for, defining doctrines of later neo-Kantianism: the importance of the Kantian dualisms between essence and existence, understanding and sensibility; the limitation of all knowledge to experience; the leading role of a critical and analytical method in philosophy; and the need for philosophy to follow rather than lead the natural sciences. The crucial role of Fries, Herbart, and Beneke in founding neo-Kantianism, though ignored in recent neo-Kantian scholarship,9 cannot be underestimated, especially in view of the enduring and widespread influence of Fries and Herbart.
There is a popular image of the neo-Kantians as epigoni, as faithful disciples who would have to go without truth for a week if the mail coac
h from Königsberg broke down.10 Nothing could be further from the truth. Though all neo-Kantians were intent, in one way or another, on the rehabilitation of Kant’s philosophy, none were strict disciples of Kant. All were severely critical of Kant, and all used him for their own ends. Often they would appeal to a distinction between the spirit and letter of Kant’s philosophy; but the spirit ‘blew where it listeth’, taking on all shapes and forms depending on the philosopher. There was indeed a period of Kant philology at the turn of the century, in the scholarship of Benno Erdmann, Erich Adickes, and Emil Arnoldt, who were devoted to strict readings and editions of texts. This scholarship, however, was more a by-product of the movement than an integral philosophical component; and, in any case, no one tried to pass off scholarship as a replacement for philosophy.
Another serious misconception about neo-Kantianism is that it was a form of foundationalism whose central goal was to find the grounds for knowledge in the empirical sciences.11 From its very beginnings neo-Kantianism arose out of the rejection of foundationalism, more specifically, the attempt by the idealist tradition of Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel to provide a systematic foundation for all knowledge and the empirical sciences. The neo-Kantians insisted that the positive sciences were autonomous, and that they needed no foundation from philosophy. The main task of the neo-Kantian philosophy was indeed to determine ‘the logic of the sciences’, though this logic was held to be already implicit in the methods of the empirical sciences themselves. The neo-Kantian philosopher laid down no rules of his own; he simply made explicit the rules already implicit in scientific practice.
It should be obvious that in a chapter so short, and in a movement so rich and vast, I cannot begin to summarize the whole of neo-Kantianism. So I will have nothing to say about some of its most important achievements, viz., the philosophy of value of the Southwestern school, the philosophy of science of the Marburg school, the philosophy of culture of Ernst Cassirer. Instead, I will devote myself to one central and defining theme: the neo-Kantian conception of philosophy. And I will try to explain why neo-Kantianism arose and why it disappeared. Throughout, the main problem will be to reconstruct neo-Kantianism from within, making it seem like a rational position within its historical context.