210 the Genesis of Neo-Kantianism

SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA Book Reviews / Buchbesprechungen 61 (1/2016) pp. (207–220) 210 doi: 10.21464/sp31116 of his book is that the movement’s origins are to be found already in the 1790s, in the Frederick Charles Beiser works of Jakob Friedrich Fries, Johann Frie- drich Herbart, and Friedrich Eduard Beneke. They constitute “the lost tradition” which pre- The Genesis of served the “empiricist-psychological” side of Neo-Kantianism Kant’s thought, his dualisms, and things-in- themselves against the excessive speculative idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel who Oxford University Press, tried to rehabilitate the dogmatic rationalist Oxford 2014 metaphysics of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff after Kant’s critical project. Frederick Charles Beiser, professor of phi- The first chapter of the first part (pp. 23–88) losophy at Syracuse University (USA) whose is concerned with the philosophy of Fries field of expertise is the modern German phi- who tried to base philosophy on empirical losophy, is one of the most erudite historians psychology, and epistemology on psychol- of philosophy today. His first book The Fate ogy which could recognize the synthetic a of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant priori but not prove it. His book Reinhold, to Fichte (1987) didn’t only present a fresh Fichte und Schelling (1803) saw the history account of German philosophy at the end of of philosophy after Kant as the “struggle of th the 18 century, but it also introduced a new rationalism to free itself from the limits of method of historical research. His more re- the critique”. In his political philosophy Fries cent works, starting with The German His- was an anti-Semite, but gave the leading role toricist Tradition (2011) until the most recent to public opinion which could correct even Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philoso- the ruler, although he encountered problems phy, 1860–1900 (2016), have focused on the in trying to reconcile his liberal views with th main currents of the 19 century German the social injustice that liberalism created. philosophy. This is also the case with The Like all the thinkers of the lost tradition, Fries Genesis of Neo-Kantianism. Spanning over defended Kant’s dualisms against Schelling more than six hundred pages, this book is a and Hegel whose organic conception of na- major contribution to the history of an im- ture he criticized because he saw it only as portant philosophical movement that would another form of the mechanistic explanation dominate the German philosophy after the of nature. He also criticized Kant’s attempt collapse of speculative idealism in the second to rationalize faith, and he introduced the th th half of the 19 , and the beginning of the 20 concept of Ahndung, a kind of a feeling on century. The book itself is divided into three which religion was based, and through which main parts. The first part (pp. 11–205) is con- humans are aware of things-in-themselves. cerned with the origins of the movement, the Fries’ work Neue Kritik der Vernunft (1807) second (pp. 207–453) with its maturation, and tried to bring a new transcendental deduction the final (pp. 455–571) with a new generation of the categories against the skeptical objec- of neo-Kantians that would be active from tions to Kant’s philosophy, but Beiser agrees the 1870s. Therefore, the focus of this book with Cassirer that Fries had failed in such an is on the history of neo-Kantianism before attempt because of his psychologism. the formation of three famous neo-Kantian The second chapter (pp. 89–141) is dedicat- schools: Marburg, Southwestern (also known ed to Herbart who was, according to Beiser, as Baden or Heidelberg school), and the neo- also a Kantian. Herbart defended Kant in his Frisian school. claim that reason deals with concepts (and Beiser defines neo-Kantianism as “the move- not existences), as well as Kant’s dualism of ment in 19th-century Germany to rehabilitate theoretical and practical reason, against the Kant’s philosophy”. Although heavily in- neo-rationalist metaphysics of Schelling and debted to previous scholarship on this sub- Hegel. Although a Fichtean in his early years ject, mainly Klaus Christian Köhnke’s book (and later a Romantic), Herbart already then Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus criticized Fichte and Schelling for their foun- (1986), Beiser succeeds in providing a fresh dationalism, and for the concept of the ego account of the genesis of neo-Kantianism. that transcends the boundaries of experience He challenges the widespread prejudices that and then relapses into dogmatism and falla- the neo-Kantians were unimportant scholars cies of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff. Beiser locked up in their towers divided from the thinks that Herbart didn’t start to develop his world, or that they were unoriginal thinkers new system in his Swiss years, although it who were just repeating what Kant had al- was then that he broke his relationship with ready said. One of the most innovative theses Fichte, but in his Bremen years. It was in SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA Book Reviews / Buchbesprechungen 61 (1/2016) pp. (207–220) 211 his manuscript Zur Kritik der Ichvorstellung Beiser’s interpretation, for the breakthrough (1800) that Herbart criticized Fichte’s ego, of neo-Kantianism. Political context which claiming that it is self-contradictory because, prepared such a breakthrough was the fail- as Beiser summarizes, “thinking of being and ure of the Revolution of 1848 which meant being” are not the same and therefore “think- a disaster for the Hegelians in Germany but ing of being cannot be the being thought of”. a victory for the neo-Kantians who were de- Around 1802 Herbart adopted a skeptical fenders of liberal ideals. At the same time, standpoint from which he attacked Kantian– authors like Ernst Sigismund Mirbt, Chris- Fichtean idealism and the Romantics, but he tian Hermann Weiße, Carl Fortlage, and Otto never rejected transcendental philosophy. In Friedrich Gruppe called for a return to Kant. his later years he increasingly identified him- However, the crucial “philosophical develop- self with Kant and was alienated from the ments without which neo-Kantianism would prevailing currents of German philosophy. never have taken place”, Beiser argues, were Thus, in his mature metaphysical writings the rise of materialism and the identity crisis he defended the synthetic a priori, unknow- of philosophy due to a collapse of specula- ability of things-in-themselves, and the ne- tive idealism and the rise of the empirical sci- cessity, as well as complementarity, of both ences. Two other significant factors were the empiricism and rationalism for the critical appearance of Trendelenburg and Lotze, and philosophy. However, Herbart recognized the lastly Helmholtz, a formidable and famous problem of formalism or moral motivation in scientist who thought that the natural sciences Kant’s ethics. He held that morality depends confirmed Kant’s philosophy, or at least its on moral taste and cannot be universal or a empirical side. priori. Like Fries, he thought that psychology The second part of Beiser’s book deals with should be the foundation for philosophy and the “coming of age” of those neo-Kantians that criticized Kant’s antiquated Wolffian scholas- flourished during the liberalism of the 1860s, tic empirical psychology. It was because of a “breakthrough decade for neo-Kantianism”. these criticisms, Beiser thinks, that Herbart Beiser considers five major thinkers: Kuno was (wrongly) not considered a Kantian, but Fischer, Eduard Zeller, Otto Liebmann, Jür- concludes that his project failed for similar gen Bona Meyer, and lastly Friedrich Albert reasons as in the case of Fries, for trying to Lange. They have affirmed psychologism of base epistemology on psychology. Helmholtz and the “lost tradition” but wanted Last philosopher who belongs to Beiser’s em- to eliminate the thing-in-itself and the ques- piricist-psychological triumvirate is Beneke tion of value. However, some of them have to whom the third chapter (pp. 142–177) is gradually distanced themselves from such dedicated. Beneke was a victim of Hegelian- views because of Schopenhauer’s growing ism (he couldn’t get a post at the University success during the 1860s, and because they of Berlin because of Hegel in 1822), he was wanted philosophy to be autonomous from murdered under unsolved circumstances, and psychology, whose possibility could be prov- was therefore dubbed “neo-Kantian martyr” en only by transcendental idealism. by Beiser. He was another staunch opponent Fischer is the first author to whom the first of Romantic enthusiasm and neo-rationalist chapter (pp. 221–254) of the second part is speculative idealism, as well as a radical em- dedicated. This may be a surprise to readers piricist and an ally of the best that the new who think of him as a Hegelian, which is con- natural sciences could give. Accordingly, firmed by Beiser who cites him as the exam- Beneke rejected Kant’s division of judge- ple of a paradoxical Hegelian who also tried ments into synthetic and analytic because the to be a Kantian. In his early work Diotima only criteria for the validity of a judgement is (1849), Fischer espoused his Hegelianism or its confirmation in experience. He criticized pantheism for which he was expelled from Kant’s claim that genuine self-knowledge Heidelberg. First traces of his Kantianism are is impossible, but defended the existence of found in his Logik und Metaphysik oder Wis- things-in-themselves against speculative ide- senschaftslehre (1852) where he claims that alists. Beneke tried to base ethics on aesthet- Hegel’s system “must be placed under the ics, and his Grundlegung zur Physik der Sit- control of Kant” because, as Fischer recog- ten (1822) is, according to Beiser, “one of the nized in the late 1850s, only his philosophy most interesting and important works to ap- can solve the problems raised by Hegelianism th pear in the early 19 century”, an attempt to and the empirical sciences.

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