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The Philosophical Origins of Demythologizing

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The Philosophical Origins of Demythologizing CHAPTER TWO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF DEMYTHOLOGIZING: MARBURG NEO-KANTIANISM In the history of modern philosophy, Neo-Kantianism does not occupy a particularly significant role. 1 It most often appears as a transitional movement between nineteenth-century Kantian philos­ ophy and the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger. 2 As an historical phenomenon, Neo-Kantianism is sufficiently vague so that there is no clear agreement concerning the precise meaning of the term. M. Bochenski, for example, uses the term 'Neo-Kantian' to designate at least seven distinct schools of thought, including the materialist Hermann Helmholtz and the Neo-Hegelian Johannes Volkelt. 3 In its more technical, and frequent, usage however, the term is reserved for application to the two schools of Neo-Kantian­ ism in Germany at the turn of the century: the Marburg School and the Baden School. 4 The distinction between these two forms of Neo-Kantian philosophy is fundamental. While the Marburg School takes as its point of departure the exact sciences, more specifically pure mathematics and mathematical physics, the Baden School developed out of a concern with the social and historical siences. 5 1 For brief but helpful introductions to the central tenets of Neo-Kantian philosophy in the history of philosophy, see: a) W. Tudor Jones, Contemporary Thought of Germany (2 Vols.; London: Williams & Northgate Ltd., 1930), II, 30-75; b) John Theodore Merz, A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century (4 Vols.; Edinburgh: William Blanshard & Son, 1914); c) August Messer, Die Philosophie der Gegenwart (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1920), pp. l00 ff. 2 The significance of the writings of Paul Natorp for Husserl and Heidegger has been recognized, but, as yet, has not been systematically explored: J. Klein, "Paul Natorp," RGG3, IV, col. 1322; Fritz Kaufmann, "Cassirer, Neo-Kantianism, and Phenomenology," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. Paul Schillp (Evanston, Ill.: The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949), pp. 801-802. 3 M. Bochenski, Contemporary European Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), pp. 93ff. 4 Richard Falckenberg, A History of Modern Philosophy (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1893), pp. 617ff.; Messer, p. 16. 5 Bochenski, p. 95; Messer, p. 16. "We must understand that the founders of the Marburg School were interested primarily in scientific knowledge, and that they saw in scientific cognition the prototype of all cognition worthy THE PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF DEMYTHOLOGIZING 39 For the purposes of this study, the term 'Neo-Kantianism' shall refer only to the Marburg School. Even here, however, there is some confusion as to the proper use of the term. A. Messer describes the Marburg School as beginning with F. H. Lange and running through Paul Natorp and Hermann Cohen to Ernst Cassirer.1 More frequently, however, Natorp and Cohen are regarded as the founders of the Marburg School, with Cassirer understood as an independent thinker whose epistemology is rooted in the thought of Natorp and Cohen. 2 For our purposes, the use of Marburg N eo-Kantianism is restricted to three figures: Hermann Cohen who taught philosophy at Marburg from 1876-1912; Wilhelm Herrmann who taught theology at Marburg from 1879-1922; Paul Natorp who taught philosophy at Marburg from 1885-1922. Natorp and Cohen are the primary philosophical spokesmen of the movement; Herrmann, as a theologian, appropriates their basic epistemology and philosophy of culture and religion, as this provides the context for his constructive theological work. Considered from a theological perspective, there are significant differences between Herrmann as a Christian theologian, Cohen as a practicing Jew, and Natorp as a self-avowed atheistic humanist.3 of the name. Scientific cognition, moreover, they identified in all essentials with mathematics and mathematical physics. Epistemology, therefore, became for them an analysis of 'the logical foundation of the exact sciences'; and this limitation of the scope of their analysis became decisive for their whole point of view" (William H. Werkmeister, "Cassirer's Advance beyond Neo-Kantianism," The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, ed. Paul Schillp [Evan­ ston, Ill.: The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949], p. 761). 1 A. Messer, p. 102. 2 For a discussion of the points of continuity and difference between Cassirer and Natorp and Cohen, see Werkmeister, pp. 773 ff. Cassirer is consistent with Natorp in his fundamental understanding of reason as objectification. However, "in the course of his many-sided investigations, Cassirer became convinced that the traditional epistemology in its usual limitation to 'scientific' cognition does not provide a basis for the Geistes­ wissenschajten or cultural sciences" (ibid., p. 792). As a result, Cassirer attempted to develop a diversity of forms of cultural objectification in which the determining principle was not simply that of logic or causality. "Cassirer finds that the causal mode of integration is only one of many which are equally possible and equally actual. Objectification is carried on, and the particular is fused into context, by means quite different from that em­ ploying logical concepts and laws of logical relations. Art, mythology, and religion exemplify these other types of integration" (ibid., p. 794). 3 For a study of the relationship between Cohen and Judaism, see Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, Religion of Reason: Hermann Cohen's System of Religious Philosophy (New York: Block Publishing Co., 1936). For a bibliography .
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