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NEO-KANTIANISM AND GEORG SIMMEL'S INTERPRETATION OF KANT*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2014

EFRAIM PODOKSIK
EFRAIM PODOKSIK*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem E-mail: podoksik@mscc.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

This essay explores the development of Georg Simmel's interpretation of Immanuel Kant's philosophy in the context of neo-Kantianism and its preoccupation with the question of unity in modern diversity. It argues that the neo-Kantian movement can be divided into two periods: in the first, unity was addressed with regard to Kant's epistemology; in the second period, the main issue was the overall coherence of Kantian teaching. Simmel, who belonged to the younger generation of neo-Kantians, absorbed the conclusions of the previous generation that purged Kantian epistemology from its metaphysical foundations related to the noumenal world. Yet he did not share the views of his peers who considered Kant to be the philosopher of cultural plurality. On the contrary, he argued that Kant's system is thoroughly intellectualistic, and that ethics, aesthetics and religion within it are subordinated to logic. At the same time, his own philosophy presupposed cultural plurality akin to that of other neo-Kantians. In other words, Simmel abandoned Kant in order to develop his own version of neo-Kantianism.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 597 - 622
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

This article is part of my research on Georg Simmel's philosophy supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no 220/05) and by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

References

1 My methodological position is outlined in Podoksik, Efraim, “How Is Modern Intellectual History Possible?”, European Political Science, 9/3 (2010), 304–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For the detailed exposition see Efraim Podoksik, “Bildung: A Tradition in Crisis,” unpublished draft.

3 The first part of the dissertation was published as Georg Simmel, Das Wesen der Materie nach Kant's Physischer Monadologie (1881), in Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, 24 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1989–) (hereafter GSG), 1: 9–41. See Köhnke, Klaus Christian, Der junge Simmel: In Theoriebeziehungen und sozialen Bewegungen (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 42–9Google Scholar.

4 Landmann, Michael, “Bausteine zur Biographie,” in Gassen, K. and Landmann, M., eds., Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel (Berlin, 1958), 11–33, at 20 Google Scholar; Köhnke, Der junge Simmel, 51–77.

5 Gassen and Landmann, Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel, 345–9.

6 Simmel, Georg, Kant: Sechzehn Vorlesungen gehalten an der Berliner Universität , in GSG, 9: 7–226 Google Scholar.

7 The second edition appeared in 1905, the third in 1913, and the fourth in 1918.

8 These worries were exaggerated. His contemporaries did perceive Simmel as a neo-Kantian, but they also recognized the peculiar nature of his engagement with Kant. In the eleventh edition (1916) of Friedrich Ueberweg's Outline of the History of Philosophy, its editor Konstantin Oesterreich acknowledged that Simmel represented a separate trend in neo-Kantianism: “the relativistic modification of criticism.” Ueberweg, Friedrich, Grundriß der Geschichte der Philosophie, part 4, Vom Beginn des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts bis auf die Gegenwart, 11th edn (Berlin, 1916), 398–401 Google Scholar. On Simmel's activities with LOGOS see Kramme, Rüdiger, “Brücke und Trost? Zu Georg Simmels Engagement für den ‘Logos’,” Simmel Newsletter, 3/1 (1993), 65 Google Scholar. His Kant-Studien article is “Ueber den Unterschied der Wahrnehmungs- und der Erfahrungsurteile: Ein Deutungsversuch,” in GSG, 5: 235–45.

9 On neo-Kantianism see Köhnke, Klaus Christian, The Rise of Neo-Kantianism: German Academic Philosophy between Idealism and Positivism (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar; Holzhey, Helmut, “Der Neukantianismus,” in Holzhey, Helmut and Röd, W., Die Philosophie des ausgehenden 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, Neukantianismus, Idealismus, Realismus, Phänomenologie (Munich, 2004), 11–129 Google Scholar.

10 For example, in the winter semester 1909–10. See Gassen and Landmann, Buch des Dankes an Georg Simmel, 348.

11 Georg Simmel, “Kant und Goethe,” in GSG, 5: 455–78.

12 Holzhey, Helmut, “Neukantianismus,” in Ritter, J. and Gründer, K., eds., Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Darmstadt, 1984), 747–8Google Scholar.

13 Lange, Friedrich Albert, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutungen in der Gegenwart, 2nd edn, 2 vols. (Iserlohn, 1875)Google Scholar, 2: 49.

14 Cohen, Hermann, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1885), 167 Google Scholar.

15 For example, Lange, Friedrich Albert, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutungen in der Gegenwart, 1st edn (Iserlohn, 1866), 264 Google Scholar.

16 Pascher, Manfred, Einführung in den Neukantianismus: Kontext—Grundpositionen—Praktische Philosophie (Munich, 1997), 55 Google Scholar.

17 See Liebmann, Otto, Kant und die Epigonen: Eine kritische Abhandlung (Stuttgart, 1865)Google Scholar.

18 Windelband, Wilhelm, Präludien: Aufsätze und Reden zur Einführung in die Philosophie, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 1911)Google Scholar, 1: iv.

19 Pascher, Einführung in den Neukantianismus, 56.

20 GSG, 5: 152.

21 Ibid., 153.

22 Ibid., 153–4.

23 See e.g. Simmel, Kant, 86.

24 Ibid., 85.

25 Ibid., 180, original emphasis.

26 Ibid., 182.

27 Cf. Freudenthal, Gideon, “‘Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff’ als Zivilisationstheorie bei Georg Simmel und Ernst Cassirer,” in Bauer, L. and Hamberger, K., eds., Gesellschaft denken: Eine erkenntnistheoretische Standortbestimmung der Sozialwissenschaften (Wien, 2002), 251–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Simmel, Kant, 56, original emphasis.

29 Ibid., 55.

30 Ibid., 51–2.

31 Natorp, Paul, “Kant und die Marburger Schule,” Kant-Studien, 17/2 (1912), 193–221 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Simmel, Kant, 83.

33 Ibid., 94.

34 Ibid., 61.

35 Ibid., 71.

36 Ibid., 69.

37 Ibid., 103.

38 Ibid., 62.

39 Vaihinger, Hans, Die Philosophie des Als Ob: System der theoretischen, praktischen und religiösen Fiktionen der Menschheit auf Grund eines idealistischen Positivismus (Berlin, 1911)Google Scholar. On Kant see 613–733.

40 Simmel, Kant, 25.

41 GSG, 5: 158.

42 Simmel, Kant, 43.

43 Ibid., 44.

44 GSG, 5: 150.

45 See Simmel, Georg, The Problems of the Philosophy of History: An Epistemological Essay, trans. G. Oakes (New York, 1977), 42–51 Google Scholar (Simmel, Kant, 237–48); Simmel, “How Is Society Possible?”, in Kurt H. Wolff, ed., Essays on Sociology, Philosophy and Aesthetics (New York, 1959), 337–56 (GSG, 11: 42–61).

46 Georg Simmel, “Ueber eine Beziehung der Selectionstheorie zur Erkenntnistheorie,” in GSG, 5: 62–74.

47 Ibid., 74.

48 On Simmel's interpretation of Kant's epistemology, especially in relation to that of Cohen, see Adolf, Heinrich, Erkenntnistheorie auf dem Weg zur Metaphysik: Interpretation, Modifikation und Überschreitung des Kantischen Apriorikonzepts bei Georg Simmel (Munich, 2002), 59–94 Google Scholar.

49 Simmel, Kant, 65, original emphasis.

50 Ibid., 39.

51 See Kant, Immanuel, “On the Primacy of Pure Practical Reason and Its Connection with Speculative Reason,” in Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, in Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. Gregor, M. J. (Cambridge, 1996), 236–8Google Scholar.

52 Cohen, Hermann, Kants Begründung der Ethik (Berlin, 1877), 271 Google Scholar.

53 Paulsen, Friedrich, “Was uns Kant sein kann?”, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie, 5/1 (1881), 1–96 Google Scholar.

54 For example, Willey, Thomas E., Back to Kant: The Revival of Kantianism in German Social and Historical Thought, 1860–1914 (Detroit, 1978), 132 Google Scholar.

55 For example, Wilhelm Windelband, “Immanuel Kant: Zur Säkularfeier seiner Philosophie,” in Windelband, Präludien, 112–46.

56 Cohen, Hermann, Ästhetik des reinen Gefühls, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1: 18, original emphasisGoogle Scholar.

57 Cf. Gordin, Jakob, Untersuchungen zur Theorie des unendlichen Urteils (Berlin, 1929), 94–100 Google Scholar, 114, 132–3.

58 For the earlier position see Windelband, “Immanuel Kant: Zur Säkularfeier seiner Philosophie”; Rickert, Heinrich, Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Ein Beitrag zum Problem der philosophischen Transcendenz (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1892), 66–7Google Scholar; for the latter one see Windelband, Wilhelm, “Kulturphilosophie und transzedentaler Idealismus,” Logos, 1/2 (1910–11), 186–96Google Scholar; Rickert, Heinrich, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur (Tübingen, 1924)Google Scholar.

59 Fischer, Kuno, Geschichte der neuen Philosophie, vols. 3–4, 2nd edn (Heidelberg, 1869)Google Scholar.

60 Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur; Windelband, Wilhelm, “Nach hundert Jahren,” Kant-Studien, 9/1 (1904), 5–20 Google Scholar.

61 GSG, 5: 170, 173.

62 See Paulsen, “Was uns Kant sein kann?”

63 GSG, 5: 160.

64 Ibid., 168.

65 Ibid., 172.

66 Ibid., 174–7.

67 GSG, 3: 104.

68 Simmel, “Ueber eine Beziehung der Selectionstheorie zur Erkenntnistheorie.”

69 Simmel, Kant, 15, original emphasis.

70 Ibid., 50.

71 Ibid., 171–2.

72 Ibid., 129.

73 See ibid.

74 Ibid., 130, original emphasis.

75 Ibid., 131.

76 Ibid., 132.

77 Ibid., 172.

78 Ibid., 171.

79 Ibid., 210.

80 Windelband, “Immanuel Kant: Zur Säkularfeier seiner Philosophie,” 118.

81 Windelband, “Nach hundert Jahren,” 9.

82 Simmel, Kant, 77.

83 Compare GSG, 5: 158–9, with Simmel, Kant, 42–4.

84 Simmel, Kant, 50.

85 Simmel, “Ueber eine Beziehung der Selectionstheorie zur Erkenntnistheorie.”

86 Simmel, Kant, 28, original emphasis.

87 GSG, 5: 455–78.

88 GSG, 15: 7–270.

89 In Dilthey's view, it is living experience (Erlebnis) which should be seen as the integrating moment of culture. Simmel may have also borrowed the aforementioned expression “the whole man” from the Introduction to Human Sciences, published several decades earlier (1883), in which Dilthey protested the exaggerated intellectualism of Locke, Hume and Kant, who, he alleged, constructed the knowing subject but forgot to pour blood into his veins. Instead, there is only “the diluted juice of reason as a mere activity of thought.” Dilthey argued that true human sciences should be based on “the whole man.” Dilthey, Wilhelm, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften: Versuch einer Grundlegung für das Studium der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte (Berlin, 1883), xvii.Google Scholar

90 Kant und Goethe, GSG, 10: 119–66.

91 GSG, 10: 127.

92 GSG, 5: 143. The paragraphs on teleology were added in the 1916 edition.

93 Cassirer, Ernst, “Goethe and the Kantian Philosophy,” in Rousseau, Kant, Goethe: Two Essays by Ernst Cassirer, ed. Gutmann, J., Kristeller, P. O. and Randall, J. H. Jr (New York, 1963), 61–98, at 68 Google Scholar.

94 GSG, 5: 134. Cassirer in his Freedom and Form sounds almost identical: Goethe's is unity which precedes the very opposition of the whole and the part, of the universal and the particular ( Cassirer, Ernst, Freiheit und Form: Studien zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1918), 273 Google Scholar). But the fundamental dispositions of Simmel and Cassirer are quite different: already in that work Cassirer is less willing to accept some of the claims that enable Simmel to draw a radical contrast between Goethe and Kant, such as the description of the former thinker as a predominantly synthetic mind vis-à-vis the latter as a predominantly analytical one (383).