CHAPTER 4 Solomon Maimon’s Philosophical Exegesis of Mystical Representations of Time and Temporal Consciousness

Dustin N. Atlas

Abstract

This paper explores Solomon Maimon’s philosophy of time through his engagement with Hassidism and Kabbalah. It begins by discussing the hermeneutic Maimon formu- lated for reading mystical texts, which proceeds by prescinding concepts from represen- tational figures. A brief analysis of Maimon’s definition of both ‘concept’ and ‘representation’ follows. Finally, Maimon’s transcendental notion of time is explicated, as both a schema for concepts and a space of appearance. The movement from the for- mer to the latter is accomplished by a negation of finitude, which I suggest is influenced by his interpretation of Hassidism.

Solomon Maimon is well known—perhaps too well known—for bridging mul- tiple worlds. This bridging is complicated, and it complicates the reception of his work. It is complicated because his own self-image, as presented in his Autobiography, is one of succession: first a Polish Jew, then a German enlight- ener; first a scholar of Talmud and mysticism, then a philosopher. Astute com- mentators have noted that this story is overly simple: philosophy inflects his earliest mystical work, and mystical themes recur throughout his philosophy. This fusion of modern and pre-modern genres—commentary, autobiography, and philosophical system—has impeded his participation in most academic discourses. Scholarship of the 1960s apologetically emphasized his historical importance for the development of German Idealism.1 On this view, Maimon is valuable because he was important for Fichte and company. This is a ques- tionable reason to engage a thinker, and recent work, especially that of Buzaglo and Freudenthal, has insisted that Maimon’s philosophy be taken seriously in

1 Samuel H. Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism: The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1964). Samuel Hugo Bergman, The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967). Rotenstreich is a notable exception.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004290310_005 Solomon Maimon’s Philosophical Exegesis 67 its own right.2 This paper continues this approach, exploring Maimon’s work for its understanding of time and consciousness in mystical discourse. Here his ‘mixed’ character is not an obstacle, but a strength: it is precisely because Maimon bridges two worlds, having studied with both Moses Mendelssohn and the Maggid of Mezritch, that his theory of time is valuable. Maimon gives us an example of a philosophical engagement with mystical texts that does not compete with historical methods, but augments them by discerning ways obscure texts can speak within contemporary discourse. To this end, my paper will explicate the hermeneutic Maimon used to guide his own engagement with mysticism.3 The first section will explicate the structure of his hermeneutic, in the context of his youthful engagement with kabbalistic texts. The second sec- tion will define what Maimon means by ‘concept’ [Begriff ] and ‘representa- tion’ [Vorstellung]. The third and final section will lay out his transcendental notion of time as a schema of difference and actuality, and will suggest that this notion is related to his involvement with Hassidism.

1 A Way of Reading

Maimon’s philosophical hermeneutic is found in his Autobiography and his Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. It might seem illegitimate to employ these sources simultaneously: it is difficult to imagine two books more dissimilar than the recondite Essay and the playful Autobiography. But this distinction is more apparent than real: the Essay is not the direct presentation of a system, but is written as a commentary (on Kant’s first Critique). It includes Maimon’s first person ‘I’ more than is typical for a philosophical work, and verges on the autobiographical.4 Conversely, the Autobiography is replete with commentary

2 Meir Buzaglo, Solomon Maimon: Monism, Skepticism, and Mathematics (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002). Gideon Freudenthal, “A Philosopher between Two Cultures,” in Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic: Critical Assessments, (New York: Springer, 2003). 3 By hermeneutic is meant a set of rules for exegesis, in this case aimed at prescinding the tran- scendental concepts from obscure texts. I use the term ‘prescind’ in Peirce’s sense: an abstrac- tion that separates off presuppositions and treats these as independent objects. Charles S. Peirce, Collected Papers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), cp 1.549. 4 See: Salomon Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2010), 173 vt334. Hereafter ‘vt’ refers to Versuch Uber Die Transzendentalphilosophie (Berlin: Christian Friedrich Voss und Sohn, 1790).