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Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism in German Idealism
- Journal of the History of Philosophy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 42, Number 1, January 2004
- pp. 67-96
- 10.1353/hph.2004.0010
- Article
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In this paper I explore one issue in the history of German Idealism which has been widely neglected in the existing literature. I argue that Salomon Maimon was the first to suggest that Spinoza's pantheism was a radical religious (or 'acosmistic') view rather than atheism. Following a discussion of the historical context of Maimon's engagement with Spinoza, I point out the main Spinozistic element of Maimon 's philosophy: the view of God as the material cause of the world, or as the subject in which all things inhere. I argue that this doctrine was the basis of Maimon's Law of Determinability.