The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen

The New Interpretation of Kant and the Definition of Critical Idealism

3 The New Interpretation of Kant and the Definition of Critical Idealism 1. FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND EDITION OF KANTS THEORIE DE,'RERFAHRUNG The second edition of Kants Theone der Eifahrung, which was published in 1885, is far more than a mere revision and correction of the 1871 version . It contains the results of additional historical and theoretical investigations , carried out by Cohen in the intervening years. In this way he reached a deeper, more detailed understanding of critical idealism, which was to go beyond Kant, in the direction of an original philosophical system. The second edition of Kants Theorie der Eifahrung cannot be seen as the culmination of Cohen's research, since it is still situated at a provisional stage in the formation of his philosophy. Nevertheless, it does collect his results up to that point, even though they are still subject to interpretation of, and comment on, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Although his efforts to harmonize further investigation of critical idealism with the Critique prevented Cohen from following up all the consequences of his new research, they did result in a more fruitful reading of Kant. In this second edition, Kant's work is subjected to a more exhaustive analysis. The parts Cohen had neglected in the first edition (especially the theories ofideas and ofthe thing-in-itself) are considered here. 37 38 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHYOF HERMANN COHEN He also substantially revised his interpretation ofthe theory ofprinciples (especially the principle of the anticipations of perception), and, as a consequence of this, the whole theory of knowledge, with special attention to the relationship between thought and intuition. The work ends with the chapter on critical idealism that Cohen had not written for the first edition and which he now felt able to write, after carrying out further historical and theoretical investigations, the need for which he had already acknowledged in 1870. The opinion expressed by Franz Staudinger, one of the book's reviewers, seems to me to be particularly well formed: 'The first edition, as would be expected from the title, contains an explanation of Kant's theory of experience. This edition is rather the author's foundation of transcendental idealism, closely linked to Kant's philosophy."l In addition , it should be pointed out, as mentioned above, that the foundation of critical idealism posited by Cohen in the second edition of Kants Theone der Erfahrung cannot as yet be seen as definitive. Therefore, the final chapter, "Das System des kritischen Idealismus," should not be considered conclusive, but rather a starting point, the opening up of a more original philosophical perspective, independent ofthe literal interpretation of Kantian philosophy. My aim, then, in this chapter is to foreground the main novelties in the second edition of Kants Theone der Erfahrung as compared with the first edition2 and connect them to some of the works written between 1871 and 1885. I shall concentrate here on three points: 1) the placing of Kant in a well-established historical tradition of critical idealism, the most important figures being Plato and Leibniz. (In this regard Cohen returned to his previous analyses, in the 1878 work, Platons Ideenlehre und die Mathematik and in that of 1883, Das Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte.); 2) the reinterpretation of the principle ofthe anticipations of perception, and, closely connected to this, of the concepts of 'intensive magnitude' and 'reality,' besides the problem of the thoughtintuition relationship and, consequently, of the wider-ranging problem of the critique of knowledge. (Cohen, in this instance, revived, in general terms, the research already carried out in Das Prinzip der InfinitesimalMethode und seine Geschichte.); 3) the new consideration of the theoretical meaning ofthe thing-in-itselfand ofideas, which Cohen developed starting from the analyses carried out in 1877, in the first edition of Kants Begriindung der Ethik. Finally, I shall attempt to highlight the fundamental aspects of the meaning of philosophy as critical idealism, in the light of the last chapter of the second edition of Kants Theone der Erfahrung. The New Interpretation ofKant 39 2. THE INTERPRETATION OF LEIBNIZ The first novelty the reader encounters in the second edition of Kants Theone der Erfahrung, as compared with the first edition, is a substantial historical introduction, which assigns Kant his place in the history of philosophy, both by showing how his thought differs from the Aristotelian-empiricist tradition,3 and by reconstructing the idealist tradition of...