The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen

Logic

5 Logic 1. FROM THE CRITIQUE OF KNOWLEDGE TO THE LOGIC OF PURE KNOWLEDGE If one approaches the first volume of Cohen's philosophical systeml with the aim offinding the characteristics of critical philosophy in it, the first thing that one cannot fail to notice is that, in this book, Cohen rejects his previous description of transcendental philosophy as a critique of knowledge, substituting it with a new formulation: logic of pure knowledge. This terminological change was the result of confrontation with Kant's work, thus being the first, most obvious result of that "drastic challenge ... to the foremost features" of Kant's system, which Cohen saw more as a further investigation, rather than as a betrayal, of his Kantianism (cf. LRE xi f.).2 Cohen's interpreters have underlined the fact that one cannot speak of a radical rejection of Kant's critical approach,3 though there was a "break"4 with his previous Kantian interpretations . Illustration of this point is my main purpose here. As we have already seen, Cohen had identified two fundamental components of Kant's critical philosophy: the transcendental method and formal idealism.s In Das Prinzip dcr Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte, the second edition of Kants Theone dcrErfahrung, Einleitung mit kritischem Nachtrag zu F.A. Langes Geschichte des Materialismus, and other works written before Logik dcr reinen Erkenntnis, Cohen had already increasingly emphasized the transcendental meaning of critical philosophy to the detriment of formal idealism. The latter meaning is rejected 79 80 THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHYOF HERMANN COHEN once and for all in Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, but the former is further investigated rather than rejected. Cohen's starting point is the identification of experience with science , which can be found in previous works. From the opening pages of Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, he points out that the problem of the philosophy of knowledge is not knowledge in the common, generic meaning of the word, nor in the psychological sense of the cognitive process, but pure knowledge, identified with the principles ofscience: "We are going to start afresh. This means: we find ourselves again on the ground of the principles of the mathematical science of nature. They must again be indicated as pure knowledge and rediscovered in connection with logical reason" (LRE 11). 2. THE CONCEPT OF PURITY Cohen's interpreters have often insisted on the fact that his use of the concept of 'purity' was substantially different from Kant's.6 However, I believe it should be pointed out that, differences notwithstanding, there is continuity linking Cohen with Kant. In this way attention is drawn to the subtle dialectic between critique and investigation, originality and loyalty, which Cohen always saw as characteristic of his relationship with Kant's thought. As Holzhey rightly puts it, the meaning 'origin of is prevalent in Cohen's concept of pure, but this cannot be separated from the meaning 'free from,' as a condition of the other. As regards the latter meaning, then, "the opposite of 'pure' is 'empirical,' which is perfectly in line with Kant."7 Thus, only knowledge whose origin is exclusively in thought is pure; so thought is pure, not only inasmuch as it has "no origin ... beyond itself' (LRE 13), but also inasmuch as it is the origin of knowledge : "Pure thought in itself and only from itself must produce pure knowledge. Therefore, the theory of thought must become the theory of knowledge" (LREI3). The transcendental meaning of the method of purity also emerges in this way. Not only is pure knowledge not to be taken as empty of content , but the term pure content must also be used, in the sense of the content produced solely by thought in pure knowledge: "Nothing could be further from the truth than the layman's suspicion that 'pure' is empty, freed of its content. Impure content, which is not real content, is the sole opposite of 'pure'; and this is only the case in the sense of the extension of 'pure' to impure content, in order to turn it into pure content . This is the inevitable relationship of 'pure' with content. Without this 'pure' becomes senseless" (LRE 5). Logic 81 3. LOGIC AND CRITIQUE Mter clarifying the meaning of purity in Cohen, the reasons for his rejection of the Kantian term critique become clear. Kant had grounded knowledge in the pure principles of thought and sensibility. He had placed pure intuition next to pure...