Abstract
There are periods in the history of human thought which are characterized by an extraordinary concentration of creativity. Such periods are to be found in antiquity as well as in modern times. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, in the span of one generation between the appearance of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 and the subsequent development of the systems of thought known as the philosophy of identity (Fichte, Schelling and Hegel), there evolved an array of systematic world conceptions which are distinguished by their scope and comprehensiveness. Kant was the first to attempt a revolution in human thought, his own Copernican revolution. Once this revolution got under way, however, it did not stop in the realm of critical thought, but swept on, begetting a variety of metaphysical conceptions far beyond Kant’s original intention.
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References
See below, note 11.
See below, note 14. He adopted the name Maimon out of reverence for Maimonides, as he himself testifies (Lebensgeschichte, II, 3). All his works in German appeared under that name. Some of his Hebrew essays were published under his original name, Solomon ben Joshua. Some of his works in manuscript (see below, note 5) bear the signature Solomon ben Joshua of Nieswicz.
See below, p. 79 f.
While the effect of Maimon’s thought on the history of philosophy was limited to his own period, the story of his life had an impact on the cultural world of his time as well as on succeeding generations. His autobiography, which made him famous in wider circles, was edited several times. At the beginning of this century it was re-edited by Jakob Fromer, who provided it with a useful introduction and some valuable notes, and it appeared under the title “Salomon M aimons Lebensgeschichte. Mit einer Einleitung und mit Anmerkungen neu herausgegeben (Munich, 1911). The original work was translated into several languages. The English translation by J. Clark Murray, then Professor of Philosophy at McGill College, Montreal, entitled Solomon Maimon: An Autobiography with Additions and Notes (London, 1888), is not complete, the philosophiical sections having been omitted. Nor, unfortunately, is it free of mistakes, especially in the translation of some philosophical passages. See, for instance, p. 23, where Maimon’s analysis of the distinction between understanding and imagination is rendered inaccurately. A contemporary of Maimon and one of his closest personal friends, Sabattia Joseph Wolff, published reminiscences of Maimon’s life and work under the title Maimoniana, oder Rhapsodien zur Charakteristik Salomon Maimons, aus seinem Privatleben gesammelt (Berlin, 1813).
It is generally assumed that Maimon was born in 1754 or 1753. But the year 1752 seems more likely. Nowhere does Maimon mention his exact age, nor is there a reference to the exact date of his birth in his writings. Wolff, Maimoniana, p. 10, gives 1754 as the year of Maimon’s birth. Abraham Geiger (Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben, IV, Breslau 1866, p. 199), and Jakob Fromer (Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte, p. 482) tried to prove the approximate correctness of Wolff’s dating. In his Lebensgeschichte, I, 262, Maimon mentions that he was about twenty-five years old on his arrival in Königsberg, and in an unpublished work of his in Hebrew (Cheshek Shlomo), now in the Bodleian Library, Maimon says that it was written “on his arrival” in Posen in the year 1778. The interval between the first stage of Maimon’s Odyssey, Königsberg, and his arrival in Posen was short. However, we can establish 1752 as the year of Maimon’s birth on the following basis. The expression “on his arrival” in Posen is not in the text; it is an addition by Fromer, as can be seen from the original passage quoted by Geiger (op. cit., p. 192). As a matter of fact, Maimon arrived in Posen in the fall of 1777, and the Hebrew work was written in the first year of his two-year stay there. Maimon relates in his Lebensgeschichte that he arrived in Posen before the Jewish High Holidays. This must have been in the year 1777, since Rabbi Zvi Hirsh ben Abraham of Posen, Maimon’s benefactor there, left the city for Fürth in the beginning of 1778 (cf. Geiger, op. cit., p. 198). Maimon must have arrived in Königsberg in early summer of 1777 (and not, as Geiger writes, “in the late summer of 1777”), for he states that he spent the Fast of the Ninth of Ab (August) on the way from Stettin to Berlin, and the journey from Königsberg to Stettin took about five weeks. It seems, therefore, that Maimon was born in the year 1752, and on his arrival in Königsberg in the early summer of 1777 he was about twenty-five years old. This conclusion is corroborated by the following autobiographical statement, which has escaped the attention of Maimon’s biographers. In Maimon’s Geschichte seiner philosophischen Autorschaft in Dialogen. Aus seinen Unterlassenen Papieren, which appeared in Neues Museum der Philosophie und Literatur (1804), Teil I, he writes (p. 136) that he was in his twenty-eigth year when he came to Germany. This refers to his second arrival in Berlin, after spending two years as a private teacher in Posen, since, on his first arrival from Königsberg, he was turned back. He left Posen for Berlin after the Jewish High Holidays, and this was in the year 1779. As he was then in his twenty-eight year, he could not have been born later than 1752; even 1751 cannot be excluded as a possible date of his birth.
See Briefe von und an Kant, ed. Ernst Cassirer, I, 415 f.
Henceforth referred to as Tr.
Henceforth referred to as Philos. Wort.
See above, note 4. Approximately the first half of the second part of this work is a presentation of the philosophy of Maimonides together with Maimon’s explanations and critical remarks. The autobiography contains many philosophical apercus and incisive remarks about various philosophical systems, religion in general and Jewish religious writings in particular. It also comprises a number of character sketches, noteworthy among which is that of Moses Mendelssohn.
This work, henceforth referred to as Str., consists of four essays: (1) “Über die Progressen der Philosophie” (pp. 3-58). This essay appeared previously as a separate publication. It was motivated by a question posed in 1792 by the Prussian Academy of Berlin for a prize essay, “What progress has metaphysics made since Leibniz and Wolff?” (2) “Über die Ästhetik” (pp. 61-176). (3) “Philosophischer Briefwechsel” (pp. 179-244). This contains the correspondence between Maimon and Reinhold, one of the most prominent philosophers of the time and famous as an expositor of Kantian philosophy. This correspondence is of importance for the understanding of the essential differences in Maimon’s and Reinhold’s conception of the Kantian Critique and of their approach to critical philosophy in general. (4) “Über die philosophischen und rhetorischen Figuren” (pp. 247-272).
The th in “Kathegorien” is either a misprint or is due to Maimon’s lack of knowledge of Greek. This work, henceforth referred to as Kat. d. Arist., consists of two parts, the first of which is a translation into German from the Latin version, prepared by Buhle, together with Maimon’s explanations and interpretations (pp. 1-90). The second part is a presentation of Maimon’s theory of logic, central to which is the principle of determinability (pp. 93-257).
Henceforth referred to as Logik. Of Maimon’s major works, only this has been republished in the present century. It was reissued in 1912 by the Kantgesellschaft as a volume in the series Neudrucke seltener philosophischer Werke, the first volume of which was Änesidemus by G. E. Schulze, a contemporary of Maimon. This edition of Maimon’s Versuch einer neuen Logik contains valuable notes and an extensive bibliography by Bernhard Carl Engel.
This work, which will be referred to as Krit. Unt., has two parts, the first of which deals with theoretical philosophy and the second with the problem of ethics. The first section of the theoretical part (pp. 1-165) is presented in the form of a dialogue between Kriton and Philaletes (Philaletes representing Maimon). This is followed by Prolegomena (pp. 166-230) dealing with transcendental aesthetic, logic, and the antinomies. The second part (pp. 231-270), dealing with ethics, is divided into “Prolegomena zu Kritik einer praktischen Vernunft” and “Ethik nach Aristoteles.”
This commentary is limited to the first part of the Guide. It appeared anonimously and has been republished several times. In the introduction to this work Maimon presents a short history of philosophy containing the essence of the various systems of thought leading up to Kant. It concludes with a concise summary of Maimon’s own position, which deviates from Kant in that he does not consider sensibility a separate source of knowledge. The concepts of thought referring to objects of experience should be regarded as actually related to the infinitesimals of sensation, and these infinitesimals are in themselves objects of thought. Maimon considers this doctrine to be in accord with Leibniz’ doctrine of monads. It is noteworthy that at that stage of his development Maimon regarded the synthesis of Kant and Leibniz as the essence of his philosophical position. This work of Maimon will be referred to as Com. to Guide.
Johann Eduard Erdmann, Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (Leipzig, 1848). To Erdmann must go the credit for the resurgence of interest in Maimon. His example was followed by Eduard Zeller in his Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz (1875) and by Kuno Fischer in his Fichtes Leben, Werke und Lehre3 (Heidelberg, 1900). From then on, all histories of philosophy have had sections devoted to Maimon. The most important of these are: (1) Ernst Cassirer, Das Erkenntnisproblem, III (Berlin, 1920); (2) Richard Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel (1921); (3) Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1922); (4) Nicolai Hartmann, Die Philosophie des Deutschen Idealismus, 2nd ed., (Berlin 1960).
The most comprehensive analysis of Maimon’s thought was presented by Friedrich Kuntze in his volume, Die Philosophie Salomon M aimons (Heidelberg, 1912). Other works devoted exclusively to the presentation of Maimon’s thought as a whole, apart from essays and dissertations dealing with particular aspects, are: (1) M. Gueroult, La Philosophie transcendentale de Salomon Maimon (Paris, 1929); (2) Hugo Bergman, Ha-philosofia shel Shlomo Maimon (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1921).
Thus, for instance, Hans Vaihinger, who made much use of Maimon’s conception of fiction for his own doctrine in his Philosophy of As-if, writes of Maimon “as the most penetrating mind among the immediate followers of Kant as Lambert was among the immediate predecessors of Kant.” See Die Philosophie des Als-ob, 4th ed., p. 43. A comparison of Maimon and Lambert was also made by W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 50.
See Philos. Wört., p. 155; Philosophischer Briefwechsel, in Str., and Kuntze, op. cit., p. 511, n. 2.
Shadworth H. Hodgson, Philosophy of Reflection (London, 1878), p. 17.
Ibid.
See Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der neuen Philosophie, Vol. VI, Fichtes Leben, Werke und Lehre, 3rd ed., p. 70.
Cf. Fichte’s Werke, ed. Medicus, I, p. 227; Fichte’s Leben und literarischer Briefwechsel (2nd edition, 1826) II, p. 205; Fichte, The Science of Rights, transi. A. E. Kroeger (1889), p. 22.
Tr., p. 443.
That is the infinitesimals of sensation. See below, Chap. VI.
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© 1964 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague. Netherlands
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Atlas, S. (1964). Introduction. In: From Critical to Speculative Idealism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9106-7_1
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