NEO-KANTIANISM

A term employed in the history of philosophy to designate the sustained attempt, by a number of groups and from different points of view, to reconstitute the thought of Immanuel kant as the basis for a philosophy that would meet the problematic and speculative exigencies of the second half of the 19th century. It was primarily a German movement, with centers at a number of German universities; it was not exclusively so, however, for its influence was felt in England, France, Italy, and, with the emigration of Ernst cassirer, one of the last great representatives of the movement, in the U.S. Otto Liebmann (1840–1912), in his work Kant und die Epigonen (Stuttgart 1865), is credited both with the decisive initiation of the current and with the coining of its rubric, "back to Kant," for he concluded the studies of the work of J. G. fichte, F. W. J. schelling, G. W. F. hegel, A. schopenhauer, etc., which comprise the book, with this phrase. The rubric cannot be taken, however, as indicating a single unitary movement, for there existed a great diversity of opinion as to the doctrines of Kant to which return should be made. Moreover, even when some degree of consent was achieved on this point, various interpretations of the favored doctrines were offered. These interpretations were not always wholly self-consistent or consistent with each other; nor, finally, were they authentic interpretations of Kant that realized all the potentialities of his thought. On the whole, the cultural pressure of positivism tended to make the Neo-Kantians place an excessively narrow interpretation on Kant's philosophy.

Historical Background. The historical background of the Neo-Kantian movement is provided by positivism, toward which Neo-Kantianism exhibits an ambivalent attitude.

On the one hand, its central motive is a rejection of the positivist claims; on the other, it exhibits the influence of positivism in many facets of its doctrines and methods. Thus, it repudiates the attitudes of positivism as dogmatic and antiphilosophical; at the same time, it accepts the central thesis of positivism, i.e., that physicomathematical science provides the paradigm of all valid forms of knowledge. In accordance with this view, it conceives the philosophical task as the critical investigation of the conditions that make this kind of knowledge possible and valid. This conception of the task of philosophy constitutes the real point of contact and reference between Neo-Kantianism and Kant; for Kant had conceived philosophy as the critical examination and determination of the a priori principles and structures that render experience of the physical world and action in the moral sphere possible and provide the basis for scientific, ethical, and preferential discourse. At the same time, Neo-Kantianism devotes considerable attention to the tradition of Romanticism, which it criticized and rejected far more forcibly than it did positivism (see romanticism, philosophical). Romanticism had directed sharp criticism against physicomathematical science on the basis of the abstractness intrinsic to it; it had proposed instead a conception of philosophy as concrete knowledge, free from and unlimited by such abstractness. Romanticism had, in its own way, claimed Kant as progenitor; Neo-Kantianism rejected this claim as spurious, pointing out that the essence of Kantian method was scientific rigor, a quality conspicuously lacking among the Romantic philosophers. Its return to Kant was an effort to preserve the positivist ideal of a philosophy as scientifically rigorous as a physico-mathematical discipline and, with this, the Kantian transcendental values. The historical development of the movement is determined by its efforts to realize this ideal in the various areas of speculative interest.

Principal Currents. The principal currents comprising the Neo-Kantian movement, or at least conventionally allied with it, are (1) the realist current, whose principal exponent was A. Riehl; (2) the psychological current, represented by L. Nelson, the follower of the psychologist J. F. Fries; (3) the metaphysical current, a chief representative of which was the same Leibmann who is credited with originating the Neo-Kantian motto;(4) the logical current, called the School of Marburg because its center was at that university, led by H. Cohen and counting as its chief figures P. Natorp and E. Cassirer; (5) the value theory current, called also the School of Baden, including among its adherents such distinguished figures as H. Rickert, W. Windelband, H. Münsterburg, and, by a looser connection, W. Dilthey; and finally, for the sake of completeness, (6) the physiological current, associated with the researches of H. A. von Humboldt and the relativistic current of G. Simmel. The important figure of Bruno bauch was dominant in the movement for many years; though formed in the School of Baden and always devoted chiefly to its theoretical interests, he exercised, through his editorship of the important journal Kantstudien, a guiding influence over all the currents of the movement. From the point of view of theoretical interest, clarity of development, and distinction of achievement, the logical School of Marburg and the value-theory oriented School of Baden are the outstanding elements of the Neo-Kantian movement.

Alois Riehl. The realistic current found its chief exponent in Alois Riehl (1844–1924), whose chief work, Der philosophische Kritizismus (2 v. Leipzig 1876–87), was the basic document of the movement. Riehl strikes a characteristic note of all Neo-Kantians by his resolute rejection of metaphysics as a philosophical science. Philosophy, for him, is a science of experience and what does not fall within experience can find no expression in philosophical discourse. At the same time, he rejects, en bloc, all the idealistic and Romantic interpretations of Kant; these assign an exclusive role to the subject, which, in Hegel's phrase, takes the world onto itself. Riehl returns rather to Kant's original distinction and insists that from the subject can be derived only the form of knowledge; the content of knowledge must come from experience, and ultimately from sense experience. It must be noted that, while returning to this original Kantian distinction, Riehl tends to overlook the many difficulties to which it had given rise and the efforts made, in the idealistic tradition, to meet these difficulties. Riehl is one of those who was forced by the cultural pressure of positivism to impose an excessively narrow interpretation on Kantian thought. For Riehl, the Kant of the Critique of Pure Reason is very nearly the only Kant, and philosophy becomes identical with the theory of knowledge and its adjunct problems. He remains strictly faithful to Kant in that he conceives the theory of knowledge in gnoseological, and never in psychological, terms.

Leonard Nelson. The last-mentioned attitude sets Riehl in contrast with the psychological current, the chief exponent of which was Leonard Nelson (1882–1927). Nelson, professor at Göttingen from 1919 until his death and founder of the Neo-Friesian School, proposed, on the model of Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843), to develop the critical gnoseology of Kant on psychological bases and in accord with a strict psychological method. The author of many studies and editor of the journal of the Neo-Friesian School (Abhandlungen der Friesschen Schule ) for a number of years, Nelson is best known, perhaps, for his contributions to this journal questioning the possibility of the theory of knowledge—in much the same sense as Riehl had proposed to make such a theory the exclusive concern of philosophy. Nelson's criticism is based on the fact that this theory would presume to offer a criterion for determining the validity of knowledge, while the status of such a criterion would be entirely ambiguous. On the one hand, it could not itself be knowledge; nor, on the other hand, could it fall outside the sphere of knowledge, since a criterion, to be used, must be known. His solution was to return to the simpler and immediate elements of consciousness that could become the object of psychological treatment. The entire process of the Kantian critiques was thus recast in psychologically descriptive terms—and not only the processes of knowledge but such ethical principles as the categorical imperative as well. Nelson enjoyed a considerable influence, but this waned rapidly during the period between World War I and World War II.

Otto Liebmann. The metaphysical current of Neo-Kantianism found its chief exponent in Liebmann. The fame of his early work Kant und die Epigonen tends to place in the shade his more positive and constructive work, precisely the work that establishes him as the leading figure of the metaphysical current of Neo-Kantianism. His avowed purpose was to develop the basic problems of Kantianism in such a manner as to achieve a synthesis between the demands of criticism and those of metaphysics. It might also be said that he sought to carry criticism beyond the point where Kant had left it to build a systematic metaphysics that would be faithful to the conditions laid down by the critical philosophy. An idea of what he meant by metaphysics may be gathered by his assertion that, whereas physics deducts facts from laws, the role of metaphysics is to determine the why of all that happens in nature and experience. Metaphysics in this sense is possible only if it is at the same time critical, by which he meant that it proceeds by a hypothetical consideration of the essence of things. Yet his would be a metaphysics relative to the human mind, since the critical attitude demands that, at every point in the construction of that metaphysics, the conditions of human understanding be taken as limits and terms of reference. Liebmann made a like condition for the unity of ethical theory and the critical attitude. There are no absolute values, since values are relative to the valuing subject; yet, with constant reference to that subject, it is still possible to achieve an ethics of transcendental value.

Marburg School. Equally adamant in its opposition to the "psychologization" of Kant and inclined in an antimetaphysical direction was the School of Marburg, perhaps the most distinguished of the Neo-Kantian groups. It was a school in a very true sense, for it had a physical location, identifiable personnel in constant and explicit communication with each other, and a commonly accepted goal and method. Founded by Hermann Cohen (1843–1918), it retained during its entire career the stamp of his personality and the direction he imparted to it. Cohen also attracted men of high caliber both in their formation and scholarship and in their theoretical capacity. The most eminent of these were Paul Natorp (1854–1924) and Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), the lastnamed bringing international prestige to the group by his masterly historical work and his well-researched and carefully articulated speculative efforts. An excellent account of the school and its work is provided by Natorp in his essay "Kant und die Marburger Schule," Kantstudien 17 (1912) 193–221.

The direction given by Cohen and characteristic of the school throughout its career is logical and methodological; its main link with Kant is the Critique of Pure Reason. The chief concern is the determination of the logical-transcendental conditions of science. Among these, it assigns a prominence to the logical structures that condition experience, tending to dissolve intuition into the logical processes and no longer assigning it an autonomous position and function; it thus truncates a goodly portion of the Critique of Pure Reason. The diminishing of the elements of immediacy in experience tends to throw into clearer relief the controlled methodological procedures of science and to reveal science as less and less dependent on the "given" element in experience. The logical processes of thought tend more and more to determine the object completely, though never, in keeping with the notion of the "thing-in-itself," entirely encompassing it.

Though concentrated in the area of science and pure reason, the attention of the Marburg School also embraced the areas of ethics and aesthetics, achieving notable insights in both. It tended to absorb the phenomenon of religion into the ethical area, a tendency already perceptible in Kant, though not explicit in his intention. The ethical field, in turn, was largely socialized by both Cohen and Natorp and, subsequently, by other members and adherents of the school.

Another notable characteristic of the Marburg School was its constant interrelation of theoretical and historical interests. Its theoretical works exhibit a high degree of erudition and historical sense, and its historical works are distinguished by the way in which they are related to, and made to serve, the clarification of theoretical problems of philosophy. Cassirer especially distinguished himself in this way.

Baden School. No less eminent in its personnel and achievements was the School of Baden. This current of Neo-Kantianism numbered among its representatives the historian of philosophy W. Windelband (1848–1912), the theoretician of value H. Rickert (1863–1936), and the incomparable W. dilthey (1833–1911), whose work was predominantly in the theory of history and of culture. In justice to Dilthey, it should be noted that his achievement places him outside the limits of any school and establishes him as an original thinker in his own right.

The general character of the School of Baden may best be indicated by contrasting it with that of the Marburg School. The Baden School was convinced of the necessity of a critical study of culture and values at least as philosophical as that sought for the sciences of nature in the Marburg School. It was convinced, moreover, that the instruments necessary for such a work were present in the critical philosophy of Kant, and especially in the Critique of Judgment. Windelband's reflections on history and his contraposition of history to the natural sciences as equal areas of knowledge and investigation led him to establish a classification of the sciences into nomothetical and idiographic. The natural sciences are defined as nomothetic because they seek to establish the laws of nature; the sciences of culture are called, by contrast, idiographic because they seek the form of cultures. The natural, or nomothetic, sciences generalize particular facts that are considered typical instances of a single species, whereas the idiographic sciences are individualizing, seeking the form of a particular culture or expressive work.

Windelband's student Rickert continued this line of thought, seeking to advance beyond his teacher by establishing the difference between natural and cultural sciences on a more formal basis; this formal basis was the reference of the sciences of culture to value in the sense in which R. H. Lotze (1817–81) had defined that term. The cultural sciences have value as their formal object. On this basis, Rickert undertook the elaboration of a general theory of value.

This tendency was carried to its culmination by Dil-they both in theory and in practice. For Dilthey the "sciences of the spirit" (i.e., of value, culture, and history) are gnoseologically anterior to the sciences of nature; indeed, all science is a product of historical experience and expression. Dilthey developed a psychological basis for the sciences of the spirit that involved a subtle theory of the hermeneutics of the historical document. He applied his theories with great perception in such works as his Leben Schleiermachers (2 v. Berlin 1867–70), which revealed the potential of biography in the history of ideas and offered a new conception of cultural biography.

Influence. The influence of Neo-Kantianism may be seen in every major figure in German thought to the end of the 19th century. In England a "return to Kant" movement is to be found in Robert Adamson (1852–1902), in France in C. B. Renouvier (1815–1903), and in Italy in Francesco Fiorentino (1834–94).

See Also: kantianism; criticism, philosophical.

Bibliography: g. varet, Manuel de bibliographie philosophique, 2 v. (Paris 1956) 1:476–490. i. m. bocheŃski, Contemporary European Philosophy, tr. d. nicholl and k. aschenbrenner (Berkeley 1956). f. c. copleston, History of Philosophy (Westminster, MD 1946–) v.7. h. lÜbbe, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65); suppl., Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil: Dokumente und kommentare, ed. h. s. brechter et al., pt. 1 (1966) 2 7:911–913; Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 4:1421–25. k. vorlÄnder, Kant und sein Einfluss auf das deutsche Denken (2d ed. Bielefeld 1922). a. deneffe, Kant und die katholische Wahrheit (Freiburg 1922).

[a. r. caponigri]