The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon

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SAMUEL HUGO BERGMAN

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

Translated from the Hebrew by Noah J. Jacobs

JERUSALEM, 1967 AT THE MAGNES PRESS, THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY

Distributed in Great Britain, the British Commonwealth and Europe by the Oxford University Press

PRINTED IN ISRAEL AT GOLDBERG PRESS, JERUSALEM

To Robert Weltsch

*

VII

PREFACE

The first Hebrew edition of this book, which appeared in 1932, was the earliest attempt to present an objective study of Maimon’s philosophy and to acquaint the Hebrew reader with the nature of his contribution to the history of European thought. In the Preface to that edition I observed that our historians constantly reproached Maimon for his wayward life and were fond of pointing out how great a philosopher he might have been had his genius blossomed in a more favorable soil. This apologetic tone, I wrote at that time, is unwarranted for Maimon was a great philosopher and his strong influence on the direction of German metaphysical speculation in the nineteenth century is undisputed. In 1967, more than three decades after the publication of the first Hebrew edition, I had the good fortune to be able to put out a second edition, revised and enlarged, and it is this edition that served as the basis for the present translation. Since the publication of the first Hebrew edition much progress has been made in the study of the various aspects of Maimon’s work. We have seen the publication of a new Hebrew translation of Maimon’s Autobiography by the Bialik Foundation, containing an important Introduction by F. Lachover (1942). The Magnes Press of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published the Hebrew translation of Maimon’s Versuch iiber die Transscendentalphilosophic (1941). Important studies on Maimon’s theory of the imagination, his philosophy of language and aesthetics by Dr. Noah J. Jacobs have appeared in the philosophical quarterly lyyun. In the very year that I revised the Second Edition of this book there appeared a number of works that testify to the renewed interest in Maimon. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities has put out a new edition of Gibeath hamore

*

Maimon’s Hebrew commentary to the first part of

Maimonides’ Guide. In English two important studies that deal with Maimon have recently appeared : the comprehensive book of Professor

Our transcription of the Hebrew title follows that used by Maimon on the Latin title-page of the original edition of this work.

VIII

Samuel Atlas (to which I have devoted a chapter in the Hebrew version of this book) and Professor Nathan Rotenstreich’s book, Experience and its Systematization (1965). Finally, the Olms Press in Hildesheim has undertaken to publish photostat copies of the original editions of all Maimon’s German works, of which two have already appeared — the Lebensgeschichte and the Versuch iiber die Transscendentalphilosophie. When the publishers shall have completed their task, Maimon’s books will no longer be rare items and the historians of philosophy will then be able to appreciate Maimon’s great importance for the understanding of the development of philosophical thought in the post-Kantian period. In one of his letters to Fichte, Maimon wrote that the time has come to bring philosophy from heaven down to earth, and it was in this spirit that I have added several chapters in the Appendix which treat some of the more popular aspects of Maimon’s life and work. In the Appendix to the first Hebrew edition a bibliography of works on Maimon appeared. This Appendix has been rendered superfluous by the recent publication of a comprehensive annotated bibliography on Maimon in Kirjath Sepher compiled by Dr. Noah J. Jacobs. I am grateful to the authorities of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and to the Magnes Press for making the publication of this book possible. Mrs. Rita Sapir is responsible for the correct text and for all the arduous work connected with it. This English edition would not have been possible without the devoted labors of the translator, Dr. Noah J. Jacobs, the Maimon scholar and bibliographer to whom I have already referred.

S. H.B. Jerusalem, May 1967

CONTENTS

Preface.VII Introduction

.........

!

Chapter I.7 the thing-in-itself.

1. The different significations of the term.

Kant’s interpretation.

The “given.”

2. Reinhold’s conception.

3. Is Reinhold’s conception identical with that of Kant? The term “phenomenal” according to Newton and Kant. “Affizieren.” 4. Jacobi’s arguments:

How

do forms obtain their content?

5. Schulze’s criticism : Without the thing-in-itself there is no truth. 6. Maimon refutes Schulze: The thing-in-itself is an inner function within cognition.

7. The object is the representation as it ap-

pears to the infinite understanding. Only the finite understanding has a criterion of a representation outside itself. Maimon as a disciple of Leibniz: The object is complete cognition. The revival of some conceptions of Nicolaus Cusanus. as complementum possibilitatis.

8. Wolff: The thing

9. The thing as an “idea” of

reason solves the contradiction in every representation, being dependent on matter and striving to free itself from it.

10. The ex-

ample of absolute movement. The four meanings attached to this term.

11. Corresponding to these four meanings there are four

conceptions of the relation between subject and object.

12. In-

terpretation of the term “affizieren.” The duality between representation and the thing is removed at two extremes : simple intuition and the infinite understanding. Presentation (Darstellung). Our cognition is always an intermediate cognition. The imagination fills the gap as we strive for complete cognition.

13. Our under-

standing is the Schema of the infinite understanding. The thing-initself is the expression of the finitude of our understanding.

14. The

doctrine of the identity of intellectus, intelligens and intelligibile according to Maimonides, Spinoza and Maimon. Kant’s dualism versus Leibniz’s monism as set forth in Gibeath hamore. Chapter II

..........

time and space.

1. Maimon’s rationalism: Substance and its

concept are identical. Time and space as a pure concept of diversity (diversity characterizes the distinction between the logical and the transcendental object). Time and space as a unity within

38

X

the manifold and as the manifold within unity. Time as the presupposition for the possibility of all judgements, even the judgement “A is A” (the difference between time and space).

2. A priori

objects are determined by relations and not vice versa. The distinction between time and space is an ultimate a priori fact. Time and space as concepts cancel one another.

3. The dialectic of time

and space is based on the circumstance that they are prior to the object on the one hand and are conceived only by means of objects on the other. The finite mind cannot understand the world as a logical creation.

4. The infinity of time and space.

5. Time

and space as intuitions. The imagination creates the Active possibility of distinguishing between things that are

identical as

concepts by means of time and space. The example of a river. 6. The “metonomy” of the imagination. Empty space as a creation of the imagination.

7. Time and space as intuitions are dependent

on one another.

8. Arithmetic is based on the concept, geometry'

on the intuition.

9. Time and space as aids for the completion of

our cognition.

10. The relation of Maimon’s doctrine to that

of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

11. The relation of the doctrine

to Kant: Time and space according to Maimon presuppose the diversity of objects; they are (as concepts) objective and not subjective. Kant’s antinomies explained by means of the distinction between time and space as concepts and as intuitions.

12. The

place of geometric intuition according to Maimon. The affinity between Maimon’s ideas and modern physics and its conception of space. The new geometry as a doctrine of conceptual relations. Chapter III

..........

the doctrine of differentials.

1. The differential as a quali-

tative law. Maimon’s attempt to base geometry on inner qualities. 2. The differential as quality, “an absolute unit.” Similarity to Hermann Cohen. The differential explains the possibility of lawful relations in its transformation of matter to form.

3. The

infinite understanding thinks things when it thinks the rules of their formation. Human intuition is governed by a rule which, however, it does not understand. The differential as a means for removing the duality between the understanding and the sensibility. The Leibnizian

bases.

4. The differential and the problem of Kant’s

Schematism. The central problem of the Critique of Judgement. The differentials as the expression of a consistent rationalism. 5. Leibniz, Maimon, Fichte.

59

XI Chapter

IV.69

the problem of experience.

1. What did Kant intend to prove

and what did he succeed in proving ? He demonstrated synthetic judgements which serve as a hypothetical basis for experience, but he did not prove that experience is possible. of quid juris and quid facti. general.

2. The question

3. Maimon’s criticism of Kant in

4. The solution of the problem quid juris by assuming an

infinite understanding. The example of mathematics. Maimon’s opinion that Kant presupposed the synthetic character of judgements only with respect to the limited understanding.

5. The

basic significance of mathematics: The faculty of cognition creates (“embodies”) matter together with form. This is the path that leads to Hegel.

6. We cannot prove that matter given to us in ex-

perience is imbued with understanding. The “light infantry” of induction. The basic significance of the differentials.

7. The ques-

tion of quid facti. Maimon doubts the fact that nature can be grasped through the understanding. The solution of the problem quid juris does not solve that of quid facti.

8. Hence, the highest

principles are only hypotheses. Additional psychological proof. An analogy derived from ethics. The free will compared to the highest presuppositions of science. A necessary but incomprehensible assumption.

9. The two-horned dilemma: The pure is not real,

and the real is not pure.

10. Locke and Maimon. How to find a

path from the question quid juris to that of quid facti.

11. Mai-

mon’s rational dogmatism and empirical skepticism. The analogy in ethics : The assumption of a free will is necessary, but its actual operation

is

incomprehensible.

12.

The

“total

autonomy of

thought.” Matter and form : In the last analysis matter is matter only with respect to limited thought.

13. The fusion of Hume and

Kant. Maimon’s teaching is deliberately dualistic. transcendental dialectic.

14. Maimon’s

15. Summary: Maimon accepts the anti-

dogmatic part of Kant’s philosophy but rejects the positive part. The problem of quid facti is not solved.

16. Experience as an idea

and the categories as an idea. The infinite understanding as an idea that comprises all. Chapter

V.

..........

the principle of DETERM1NAB1L1TY.

1. What is the criterion of

objectivity in thought? This question is possible only within idealism. The difference between formal logic and transcendental logic : formal logic is not concerned with the material content of objects.

93

XII

The categories and even the form of diversity belong to material logic.

2. Formal logic recognizes only objects A and not-A. The

dependence of formal logic on transcendental logic. Imaginary formal forms, such as the hypothetical judgement, appear to be fictions in the light of transcendental logic.

3. The highest prin-

ciple of formal logic is the law of contradiction. The principle of transcendental logic is the principle of determinability. The meaning of this principle. The determinable (Bestimmbares), determinant (.Bestimmung), the determination (das Bestimmte).

4. Kant’s

criterion of objectivity is made more comprehensive through that of Maimon’s. The unilateral dependence of the predicate on the subject.

5. The same predicate can be related only to one subject.

The same subject at the same time can relate to only one predicate. Proofs put forward by Maimon.

6. The source of this principle

in Aristotle. Changes introduced by Maimon. this principle. and real.

7. Arguments against

8. The division of thought into formal, arbitrary

9. The law of contradiction is not sufficient to effect

a real union of concepts.

10. The law of the excluded middle and

its correction through the principle of determinability. Every division of a subject into genera has two members, is dichotomous. 11. The

principle of determinability as a principle for the subject

and as a principle for the object. Various linguistic forms of the judgement in accordance with the position of the determinable within it.

12. Two kinds of analytical judgements.

13. The

principle of determinability and the doctrine of cognition. Only the propositions of mathematics are objective. The other sciences have no true propositions.

14. A new formulation of the question quid

facti from the standpoint of the principle of determinability. The example of the plate. Every relationship of logical necessity, of cause and effect, makes for a determinate relationship of permanent succession, but not vice versa.

15 .A priori forms do not apply

to the content of phenomena. The content is bound to a form only through psychological association of ideas and not logically. Mathematics is an exception. The comparison between truth and a coin. Chapter THE

VI.116

CATEGORIES

AND

FORMS

OF

THOUGHT.

1. The problem of

the deduction of the categories from the principle of determinability. 2. The difference between Kant and Maimon in the conception of some categories. Maimon does not recognize the category of quantity and the hypothetical judgement.

3. There is no complete cor-

XIII

respondence between the logical forms. Maimon deduces the formal forms from the categories and not vice versa as Kant. tion” and “reflection.”

4. “Abstrac-

5. The passage from formal forms to the

categories by means of the principle of determinability.

6. The

categories of quantity and their deduction from the concept of the logical object.

7. The category of quality.

8. The relation of

the category of limitation to the principle of determinability. The infinite judgement. The example of a judgement in which the formal forms do not express the transcendental difference. The formal meaning of the affirmative and the negative judgement also differs from the transcendental meaning.

9. Causality. For Kant

causality is a condition for experience, and for Maimon it is a condition of perception, i.e. the perception of time. The maximum likeness or “the highest possible similarity.”

10. The continuity

of changes is characteristic of succession and hence of causality. 11. How we distinguish between cause and effect. The example of the movement of one body by another.

12. To distinguish cause

from effect is possible only by the addition of empirical elements. 13. Hence causality is not a category (note on Maimon’s reservations).

14. The present-day importance of Maimon’s view of

causality. Cause and effect are arranged in a symmetrical order and it is impossible to distinguish one from the other by means of a “topological structure.”

15. The doctrine of the simultaneity of

cause and effect in the history of philosophy. Jacobi, Mendelssohn, Kant and others.

16. Maimon’s answer : The succession of change

is identical with the flow of time and with causality. Things do not not change in time; time and change are the same thing.

17. The

categories of modality. A logical form does not correspond to the category of reality. Reality and determinability. Chapter

VII

.

.

.

.

.

the philosophy of mathematics.

.

.

.

.

.138

1. The importance of mathe-

matics in Maimon’s system : It serves as an example of rational science.

2. The doctrine of axioms : They are the definitions of

basic concepts and have no independent truth of their own. The possibility of new mathematical discoveries on the basis of incorrect assumptions.

3. Fictions.

4. The conception of a system

of axioms as an “empty form” of possible sciences. pared to a coin.

5. Truth com-

6. The necessity of axioms is only subjective.

Comparison with Riemann. The axioms are a priori but not pure. We submit to an a priori compulsion, but axioms do not govern the

XIV

thought of all thinking beings. Construction as a source of knowledge.

7. The “method of examples.” Maimon believes in intuition

more than present-day mathematics.

8. Intuition conforms to the

rules of the understanding but does not understand them. The mathematician is like God.

9. Discursive thought and real thought.

The perfect decahedron. Intuition affords greater wisdom than the understanding. The evidence of mathematics could be demonstrated, were it possible to prove that intuition is subject to the laws of the understanding. This proof is not possible.

10. For the in-

finite

analytical.

understanding synthetic judgements

are

principle of determinability applies to mathematical 11.

The

creations.

Degrees of truth.

Chapter

VIII

157

THE HIGHEST SYNTHESES IN MAIMON^S PHILOSOPHY.

1. Synthetic

judgements for Maimon have only subjective validity, but analytical judgements are not merely identical judgements. The understanding is a faculty that creates objects.

2. The opposition between

reell and wirklich is effected through the imagination and through the intuition : The former has its basis in the understanding.

3. By

means of the principle of determinability Maimon overcomes the opposition between analytical and synthetic judgements. Analyticalsynthetic judgements. These lead us to the highest genera.

4. The

principle of determinability makes it possible for us to rise above the alternative opposition between analytical and synthetic judgements. The combining of concepts according to Plato and Leibniz. 5. There is only one highest class-concept and that is the “I” or the “consciousness.” This concept, a pure subject that is not a predicate, is the limit of an infinite series. The highest predicate : The act of being thought (Gedachtwerden).

6. We do not know

how this highest class-concept is specified into particular predicates. The determination is produced by means of relations, i.e. by means of mutual determination. The unilateral dependence of the predicate on the subject becomes a mutual determination of relations by one another. By means of the determination the possible becomes real. One pure concept can be explained only by another in a circular fashion.

7. The example of number. Concepts of

reflexion. The concept is nothing but an aggregate of relations which create it.

8. Concepts that are bearers of a relation are

here created together with the relation and are not prior to it. The problem of synthetic judgements is thus solved.

9. The principle

XV

of determinability explains the specification within one row of determinations but does not clarify the connection between the various rows. various

10. The question of the connection between the

rows

of

determinations.

11.

The

difference

between

negative and positive possibility. The perfect decahedron. The advantages of positive possibility over against the negative. Positive possibility is defined by means of the assumption of basic axioms which constitute the entire system. Their place is taken for us by construction, the expression of our finite understanding. IX

Chapter

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.180

1. The higher and

THE DOCTRINE OF MAN AND ETHICAL THEORY.

the lower faculty of cognition. Is there also a higher faculty of desire?

2. The higher faculty of cognition proves the existence

of a higher faculty of desire. The will that is determined by it is free.

3. The impulse (Trieb) to truth proves the existence of an

impulse to duty. Freedom is not an idea, but a concept that can be realized.

4. Intellectual activities take place outside of time.

5. Maimon’s doctrine of thinking that is beyond time applies to all analytical judgements.

6. The free will.

7. The imperative of

the ethical will: The difference between Kant’s and Maimon’s analyses. tion.

8. Proof of God’s existence from the totality of cogni-

9. “The atheist philosopher belongs to the world of fable.”

10. “The fortunate accident” as interpreted by Kant and Maimon.

11. Proof of God’s existence from the totality of the will.

1 2. Immortality of the soul. The influence of Maimonides and Spinoza.

13. The problem of the connection between the higher world

and the lower world is not solved. Man is an intermediate creature between nature and spirit. The duality in ethical theory is parallel to the duality in the theory of knowledge.

14. The pure will serves

only as a principle of evaluation. The world of truth and the world of illusion. The affinity to Schopenhauer.

15. The lower world

is the sphere of the realization of the higher world. Maimon and Scheler.

16. Only the good will is free. In the causal-temporal

world freedom appears as one faculty among others.

17. The

ethical ideal: The reign of reason. Chapter

X.

maimonides and

.

.

maimon.

.

.

.

•

•

•

.210

Points of similarity between these two

philosophers. Maimonides’ influence on Maimon.

1. The identity

of intellectus, intelligens and intelligibile. We must understand the

finite understanding from the standpoint of the infinite understanding. Maimon compares his philosophy with that of Kant and with that of Leibniz. “A united front” of the philosophers against Kant (in Reinhold’s conception).

2. The infinite understanding as in-

terpreted by Maimonides enables Maimon to solve in principle the problem of quid juris.

3. Cognition is without time.

4. Mai-

mon’s interpretation of the immortality of the soul is in Maimonides’ spirit.

5. The connection between Maimonides’ example:

“The wall does not see” and the principle of determinability. 6. The meaning of “existence” as applied to God and as applied to objects. Chapter

7. The ethical ideal is the perfect wise man. XI.

.

.

spinoza and maimon.

.

.

.

•

•

•

•

.216

1. Maimon’s “transcendental philosophy”

is an attempt to combine the teaching of Spinoza with that of Kant.

2. The Spinozistic elements in this book: Extreme ra-

tionalism.

3. Determination and the doctrine of differentials.

4. The relation of soul and body corresponds to that of form and body. 5. Spinoza and Leibniz in Maimon’s system. soul.” Two biological theories.

6. The “world-

7. The problem in present-day bio-

logy. Maimon on the side of epigenesis.

8. Spinozism denies the

existence of the world (“acosmism”). Chapter

XII.

maimon and

.......... 229 fichte.

1. Kant’s conception of time and space.

According to Maimon and Fichte there is no opposition between the sensibility and the understanding. The creation of reality through the imagination — is this an illusion?

2. Time and space

as external determinations in which inner determinations are refleeted. A single object is not in time and space. Empty space. 3. Antinomies result from the fact that our understanding is sometimes considered as absolute and sometimes as limited. This involves no contradiction, but a change in point of view between the thesis and the antithesis of the antinomies.

4. The identity of

the finite and the infinite understanding is the strongest point of similarity between Maimon and Fichte. Dilthey on the importance of Maimon’s thought in the development of German philosophy. 5. The opposition between sensibility and understanding or between representation and the thing-in-itself becomes a relative opposition. The doctrine of the thing-in-itself according to Maimon and Fichte. 6. Fichte’s contribution to philosophic thought. The identity of

XVII

the infinite and the finite understanding is no longer taken as hypothetical. to itself.

7. The “non-I” is a detour of the “I” on its way

8. The “I” as intellectual intuition and the “I” as idea.

The relation of the infinite “I” to the finite “I” is a relation of the genus to the species in conformity with the principle of determinability.

9. Consciousness uberhaupt is the highest determinable.

Just as space contains all forms from the very outset, so does the consciousness uberhaupt contain all thoughts. Our thought is mere “imitation,” “a second dawning of the light.” Chapter

XIII.248

maimon and hegel.

1. The first generation of philosophers after

Kant. Kantian duality of the intuition and the understanding. The discursive and the intuitive understanding. The “fortunate accident.”

2. Maimon’s treatment of the problem and his influence

on Fichte.

3. Two concepts in Hegel’s philosophy that come from

Maimon : “acosmism” and the “concrete concept.”

4. The prin-

ciple of determinability and the concrete concept. The influence of the principle of determinability on Maimon’s philosophy of language.

5. The principle of determinability and the dialectic.

6. Ethical and philosophical doctrines that Maimon and Hegel held in common. XIV

Chapter

maimon

and

.......... Hermann

cohen.

256

1. Bibliographical introduction.

2. The understanding of the differential as an expression of quality and not quantity. The differential as an idea and a task. Maimon’s doctrine of differentials takes the place of Kant’s “Schematism.” The differential is an absolute unit.

3. Cohen’s doctrine of dif-

ferentials. The identity of the intensive magnitude with the infinite small. Russell’s objection to Cohen. The principle of origin {Ursprung). Gawronsky on Leibniz and Cohen.

4. Cohen’s view of

the infinite judgement differs from Maimon’s view of that concept.

5. The problem of reality according to Maimon and Cohen. . 272

Appendix

.....

. 272

maimon’s logical calculus.

. 277

MAIMON AND THE BEGINNINGS OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY

.

. 286

List of Works Referred to.

. 299

Index

. 307

Abbreviations.

. 326

WAS

MAIMON AN ATHEIST?

INTRODUCTION

This book is devoted to the philosophy of Solomon Maimon and particularly to his theory of knowledge, which possesses sufficient interest to justify independent treatment. Maimon is a curious instance of a philosopher whose unsurpassing philosophical originality was neglected and whose picturesque genius lives on in his Autobiography, one of the most widely read books at the time of its publication and which has not lost its appeal to this day. Through this book Maimon became a kind of literary curiosity and gained more attention as a vagabond than as a philosopher. The miscellaneous fortunes of his short career, therefore, deserve some notice even in a book devoted to purely philosophical speculation. Maimon was born about the year 1754 1 in a small Lithuanian village. His genius was displayed in an active and inquisitive mind while still a child. He was married at the tender age of eleven and became a father at fourteen. He was not exempt from worldly preoccupations and barely eked out a livelihood as a tutor in distant villages. Early in life he felt two streams contending in him for mastery, talmudic orthodoxy and German rationalism. The attractions of European culture soon gained the upper hand and he decided to leave his family and travel to Germany. In his Autobiography he relates how his enthusiasm turned to bitterness as he wandered about in Germany with no end in 1

Concerning the question as to whether Maimon was born in 1753 or 1754, cf. K. Urmovski’s Lecture on Maimon (Polish), p. 30, n. 5 ; Fromer’s edition of Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte, p. 483 ; F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 502. Lachover is of the opinion that the correct date is 1753. In most books the place of birth is given as Nesvij in Lithuania, one of the cities under the rule of Prince Radzivill. Lachover, however, takes this as an error. Maimon was born in Sukoviborg, a small town on the Niemen, in the vicinity of the city of Mirz or Mir, where his grandfather had a chazaka (i.e. a lease or property rights) of a warehouse situated there at the small harbor. Nesvij was the town from which he later departed when he left for Berlin. It is interesting to note that the distinguished American philosopher, Morris R. Cohen, had spent his early years (1887—1890) in Nesvij and devoted an entire chapter (II) to this city in his autobiography, A Dreamer’s Journey. Place and date of publication of all books referred to in the notes appear in the List of Works appended at the end of the book, pp. 299—306.

2

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

view, under a double burden of poverty and inner torment, how he was seized by a singular indolence which led him into contradictions and extravagances and which never ceased to frustrate his intentions. His strength was not in the management of his life but in the critical operations of his mind. After he was refused entrance into Berlin he turned to begging on the road, trained by another professional Jewish beggar. “During our travels,” he writes in his Autobiography (Ch. 22), “I took pains to impart to my companion some concepts of true religion and ethics and he in turn taught me the art of begging and the familiar phrases native to that art, especially the curses to be hurled at those who passed by without contributing.” Maimon spent half a year in this wretched occupation and finally reached Posen where he found a “man of God,” as he calls him, Rabbi Isaac Zvi Hirsch, who through generosity that he could ill afford since he was himself a poor man, restored Maimon to normal life and introduced him into respectable society. This high-minded man is now forgotten but through his sympathy and understanding he saved for the world a lowly beggar who was to assume a commanding position in the history of metaphysical speculation. When Maimon first came to Berlin the beadle of the synagogue, who had found in his possession a commentary on Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, refused him admission to the city. But when he now arrived in Berlin by stage-coach for the second time, he was not forced to wait at the Rosenthaler Gate to be examined by the beadle, and was permitted to live in any quarter of the city he pleased. He was now free to devote himself to his philosophical studies, assumed later the name of Solomon Maimon 2 (his Hebrew writings still bore the name Shlomo

2

We do not know exactly when Maimon adopted this name in veneration of the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. Documents that have recently come to our notice, however, throw new light on this question. The brochure published last year by the Gymnasium Christianeum in Altona in honor of the two distinguished Jewish philosophers who had attended the Gymnasium, S. L. Steinheim (1804—1807), and Salomon Maimon (1783—1785), contains copies of two certificates attesting to Maimon’s academic studies. The first, dated November 1783, refers to Maimon as “ein junger Mann, jiidischer Nation, namens Salomon aus Lithauen,” and the other, dated February 1785, to “Salomon Maimon, aus Littauen gebiirtig,” so that presumably the name Maimon was adopted during the Altona period.

INTRODUCTION

3

ben \ ehoshua) and succeeded in being admitted into Mendelssohn’s private circle. Maimon s years of wandering, however, were not over. Although he had studied the art of mixing drugs for three years, he did not become an apothecary for he had mastered only the theoretical phases of that art. He left for Amsterdam where some of Mendelssohn’s friends helped him to find lodgings and a suitable occupation, but he only succeeded in alienating them by his tactlessness. He became addicted to an intemperate and dissolute life. He was impervious to instruction or to social amenities for he felt his destiny to be within himself and in the fulfillment of his own peculiar powers. The conventions of ordinary life held little attraction for his rude nature, and his propensity to submit all settled convictions to fresh examination did not endear him to his fellowmen. Natures so constructed can hope for little sympathy from the world. He was soon ostracized by the polite society of Amsterdam and pelted with stones as a heretic by the rabble of that city. He became lonely and misanthropic, and one night, after the feast of Haman, he resolved to do away with himself by jumping into a canal. But as he bent over the water, only the upper part of his body obeyed his will, the lower part refusing its services for such an ignoble act. His head, in which he had put his trust, was prepared to betray him, but his despised senses saved him. Later, in Hamburg, he attempted to commit spiritual suicide, to leave the faith of his fathers and become a Christian. In this as well he was unsuccessful, for here the higher part of his nature resisted the promptings of the lower and he remained a Jew. The kind pastor to whom he had confessed told him : “You are too much of a philosopher to be a good Christian.” Maimon now left for Breslau where he received an unexpected visit from his wife whom he had not seen for many years, “a plain woman of rude manners and little education, but with much common sense and indomitable courage.” She brought with her their only son, who was born when Maimon was only fourteen years old. With threats and entreaties she persuaded her husband to grant her a divorce and then returned with her son to Poland. Maimon remained in Breslau for a short time but as his situation became worse he decided to return to

4

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

Berlin for the fourth time. He now entered upon the most productive period in his life. In 1778, while still in Posen, he had already written his Heshek Shlomo in which he attempts to reconcile Biblical teachings with secular science, and nine years later another book, on the principles of physics — Taalumot Hahokhma. These were written in Hebrew and remained in manuscript.3 In Breslau he translated Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden into Hebrew, but this translation has unfortunately been lost.4 In 1789, influenced by his reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he composed his first and most important work, written in German, his Versuch fiber die Transscendentalphilosophie. The book opens with some verses from Lucretius, which serve as a eulogy for Kant, and is dedicated to His Majesty, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. In the Dedication Maimon confesses that he is proud to have been born in a country ruled by a monarch of such exalted virtues and trusts “that the noble Polish people will gain a favorable opinion of the Jews in their midst when they consider that if the Jews have not been useful to the country that tolerated them, it is not because they lacked the talent or good will but because they had not been given a proper outlet for their energies; the Jews, on their part, will strive to deserve the respect of the people among whom they dwell by their probity and enlightenment.” The Polish legate in Berlin, to whom the book was sent to be transmitted to the king, failed to do so and the book never reached its destination. Despite this mishap, however, the book achieved fame as one of the great philosophical works of the last century, while king and legate have long been forgotten. In his Autobiography (Ch. 28) Maimon relates how he began to study Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason which had created such a stir in philosophical circles: The way in which I studied this work was strange indeed. On my first reading I obtained only a vague idea of each chapter and later proceeded to clarify the obscurity in my own mind through independent reflection; in this way I arrived at the author’s intent, which is indeed 3

Cf. Lachover, p. 16, and also my essay, “Solomon Maimon’s Secrets of Wisdom’’

4

Chs. XIII and XIV of the Hebrew translation of Morgenstunden were included in Gibeath hamore ; see below, Ch. X.

(Hebrew), in the Jubilee Volume in Honour of Samuel Krauss.

INTRODUCTION

5

the only method of penetrating to the bottom of any system. Since I had already employed this method successfully in making the systems of Spinoza, Hume and Leibniz my own, it was natural that I should think of creating my own Koalitionssystem; in fact, I conceived such a system and set it down in writing from time to time as it developed in my mind and in the form of comments and explanations to the Critique of Pure Reason, which finally gave rise to my own book on Transscendentalphilosophie wherein I develop each of the aforesaid systems in such a manner that the unifying point common to all clearly emerges. At the suggestion of the famous Berlin physician, Marcus Herz, the friend and disciple of Kant, the manuscript of this work was sent to the renowned philosopher at Konigsberg, accompanied by a letter (April 7, 1789) in which Maimon sets forth the four basic questions treated in his work : (a) the difference between analytical and synthetic judgements, and the reality of the latter; (b) how can a priori concepts be applied to intuitions, that is, the question quid juris; (c) ideas of the understanding (Verstandesideen); (d) the reality of synthetic a priori propositions or the question quid facti. In his answer to Marcus Herz the following month (May 26) Kant writes : What went on in your mind, my dear friend, when you sent me a stack of the most subtle investigations not only for me to read through but to ponder — to me, a man in his sixty-sixth year and occupied with the arduous task of completing his literary plans (partly in writing the last part of the Critique of Judgement which is about to appear, and partly in elaborating a metaphysical system of nature and ethics in conformity with these critical requirements). Besides, I am burdened with many letters that demand special explanation to elucidate certain points in my system — and all this with my failing health. For these well-founded reasons, therefore, I was on the verge of returning the MS straightway ; but a glance at its contents enabled me to appredate its excellencies at once and to recognize that not only have none of my opponents understood me and my essential meaning as well as Maimon, but also that only few possess the subtlety necessary for such profound investigations. 5 This was a fateful letter for Maimon : thereafter he found no further difficulties in having his works published. The MS he had sent to Kant was published in 1790 and a year later his Philosophisches Worterbuch 6 5

It seems that Kant read the second and third chapters of the book as we now have it. We shall later return to Kant’s long and interesting letter.

6

The National Library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem possesses a copy of the Philosophisches Worterbuch which Maimon dedicated to his friend Marcus Herz (among the literary remains of Gregory Itelson).

6

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

and his Hebrew commentary to Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed. This commentary was published anonymously, bearing only the initials of Maimon’s former Hebrew name,7 and was called Gibeath hamore.8 In the Introduction by Isaac Euchel, the publisher of the book, we find the following words : “Behold, God has sent me a man, exceedingly wise and learned, who is thoroughly conversant with the subject-matter of this book, and this gifted man placed before me parts of his commentary, Gibeath hamore. When I examined these more closely, I rejoiced as if I had come upon a treasure and perceived that this man for whom the ancients had left room wherein to distinguish himself was the only one able to interpret the words of Maimonides, of blessed memory, and this was found to be true by my renowned contemporaries as well, as it will also be by the learned of Israel when they shall read his pleasant words.” Finally, a word concerning Maimon’s relation to Maimonides. As is well known, Maimon adopted his name out of veneration for his great teacher. His essay in the Hebrew journal Meassef in 1789 on “A Philosophical Elucidation of Some Words in Maimonides’ Commentary” still bears his Hebrew signature, Shlomo ben Yehoshua. In the Introduction to Part II of his Autobiography he speaks of the high regard in which he held the Rambam : “The honor in which I held this great teacher was such that I regarded him as one who had reached the height of perfection, and his words were to me like those that came from the living God, like words that flow from divine wisdom itself.” We shall later have occasion to note in more detail Maimonides’ influence on Maimon’s philosophy.9 It suffices here to indicate in outline the six points in which this influence is apparent: (a) the doctrine of the identity of intellectus, ens intelligens and ens intelligibile; (b) the philosophy of language; (c) rationalism; (d) the doctrine that ethics is not possible without knowledge; (e) the highest faculty of cognition; (/) the view that the attribute of being cannot be applied to God. 7

In this book Maimon often mentions his Tr. which was published under his name a year before.

8

Lachover (p. 18) is of the opinion that Maimon wrote his commentary to the entire Guide for the Perplexed.

9

Consult also Kuntze’s book on Maimon, pp. 12 ff.

CHAPTER I

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

1. The concept of the thing-in-itself is one of the most obscure in Kant’s philosophy. The development of Kant’s doctrine in the nineteenth century is bound up with the different interpretations given to the thingin-itself by the various philosophers in their attempt to reconcile it with the rest of Kant's system. The interpretation given to this concept in recent times by Hermann Cohen and his disciples, for example, differs completely from that of Kant’s contemporaries. In the first book of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant explains what he means by the thing-in-itself. Time and space are forms of the intuition, and whatever is given to the intuition is imbued with these forms. But these forms do not create the content that appears within them and are thus found to contain heterogeneous contents — a white color, a sweet or sour taste, a thought or feeling, etc. The forms are not “spontaneous” with respect to the content but passively receive whatever content is given them. The notion that the content that appears in the sensible forms is “given” to us is subject to several interpretations. It can be understood in its plain sense, that is, the thing-in-itself is the cause of sensation outside and beyond our consciousness that evokes in us a sensation such as red or sweet. Or it may be understood in a negative sense merely to indicate that the forms of our intuition, time and space, do not create their own content and that our consciousness has need of still another element, one that is beyond the reach of our understanding and about which we can say nothing. The content of our sensibility is the product of two factors: (a) time and space; (b) a second unknowable factor x, the thing-in-itself. This interpretation does not maintain that these two factors exist singly but that the conjunction of the two is necessary in order to make knowledge possible. We shall confine ourselves to an analysis of cognition which will clarify the distinction between these two stems within knowledge. 2. This cautious interpretation of the thing-in-itself failed to satisfy Kant’s early commentators.

Karl Leonhard Reinhold

(1758—1823)

8

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

who, in Windelband’s words, was the first in a long line of brilliant teachers to interpret Kant’s philosophy, compared the relation between forms and the thing-in-itself to that which exists between an impression on wax and the wax itself. The representation that comes to us is, according to Reinhold, the result of the operation of two factors that exist separately, the subject and the object. “To explain our representations we are forced to assume that their content arises from the affection of our sensibility by things and that we imprint upon it forms that originate within us. But the effect of these things is not the same as the things themselves. These may and indeed must be thought, but they in themselves cannot be known.” 1 The fact that the forms of the intuition fail to account for the content that fills them, as stated above (in the negative sense), is interpreted by Reinhold in a positive sense to mean that since a given content does not arise from the forms of perception it arises from the thing-in-itself outside and beyond our consciousness. It is true that we cannot say, according to Reinhold, that the thingin-itself “gives” us matter. He makes a fundamental distinction between gegeben sein and gegeben werden of matter. The former refers to an essential quality of matter and denotes that it does not emanate from form, but we cannot say that matter is given (wird gegeben) by the thingin-itself 2 for we know nothing about the latter and hence cannot attribute to it in a positive sense the power of producing any effect upon us whatsoever. Although Reinhold was cautious in his formulation of the problem, he definitely retains the concept of the existence of thingsin-themselves without reservations and shows no inclination of abandoning it. 3. If we now inquire whether this was the view also held by Kant, we find that his use of the terms “appearance” (Erscheinung) and “affec1

W. Windelband, Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophic in ihrern Zusammenhange mit der allgemeinen Kultur und den besonderen Wissenschaften, Vol. II, p. 202.

2

The basic significance of the distinction between the two views of the “given” made by Reinhold was especially noted by a contemporary of his, J. S. Beck, who observed that although Reinhold “philosophizes like a true dogmatist” in the principle of the thing-in-itself, “he nevertheless approaches by means of his distinction between ‘being given’ and ‘the given’ the true standpoint of transcendental philosophy” (Einzig-moglicher Standpunct, aus iverden muss, p. 74).

welchem

die

critische Philosophie

beurtheilt

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

tion

9

(affizieren) justifies us in accepting this interpretation. Kant speaks

of the thing-in‫־‬itself as “affecting” us, and he distinguishes between the thing-in-itself, which is unknowable, and appearances, the only things we can know. The thing-in-itself affects us and produces appearances and this assures us of its existence, although we cannot know it directly but only through its reflections in appearances. It is true that the term “appearance” (Erscheinung) was used by Kant’s contemporaries, especially by the natural scientists, in the simple sense of a thing given in experience and it did not refer to the appearance of a thing in contradistinction to its existence.3

Kant took the term from Newton’s

physics which is confined to appearances and their relations in order to be able to dispense with the notion of hidden powers and to explain given facts by facts alone and nothing more. The term “appearance” or “phenomenon” refers then to the empirical fact and not to its seeming appearance (Schein), a distinction which Kant himself emphasizes in his use of Erscheinung and Schein. When his contemporaries debated the question as to whether it is possible for man to penetrate to the innermost recesses of nature (a possibility denied by the poet Haller), Kant replied : in the process of analysing “phenomena” we are able to penetrate nature, yet we do not know how far we will proceed in this direction.4 Kant then did not regard phenomena as an illusion interposed between us and reality but rather as pointing the way to the core of reality.

3

E. Cassirer, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophic und Wissenschajt der neueren

4

In the Critique of Pure Reason, B333—334. I shall quote here the whole passage:

Zeit, Vol. II, p. 734. “If by the complaints — that we have no insight whatsoever into the inner [nature] of things — it be meant that we cannot conceive by pure understanding what the things which appear to us may be in themselves, they are entirely illegitimate and unreasonable. For what is demanded is that we should be able to know things, and therefore to intuit them, without senses, and therefore that we should have a faculty of knowledge altogether different from the human, and this not only in degree but as regards intuition likewise in kind — in other words, that we should be not men but beings [Wesen\of whom we are unable to say whether they are even possible, much less how they are constituted. Through observation and analysis of appearances we penetrate to nature’s inner recesses, and no one can say how far this knowledge may in time extend.” 286—287.)

(Quoted from the English translation of N. Kemp Smith, pp.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

10

Nevertheless, Kant distinguished between reality as it is and the phenomena that appear to us in the forms of time and space.‫ ״‬We could imagine a kind of cognition, according to Kant, that would comprehend reality by means of other forms of intuition than those of time and space, or without any sensible forms at all. We can imagine such a cognitive apparatus that would see events and objects not as succeeding one another in time nor as contiguous in space but, as it were, in one broad glance, and would differ from our form of consciousness not in degree but in kind. In this sense it appears that the term “phenomenon,” despite Cassirer’s opinion, is taken by Kant to mean something incomplete or defective over against reality, designed to set limits to our consciousness which is confined to space and time, in contradistinction to a spontaneous consciousness that is not content to receive its material passively by means of an “affective cause” from without. Our understanding is not of this kind since it is dependent on the intuitional form of time and space through which it sees reality. We must therefore acknowledge that there are elements in Kant’s doctrine which to a certain extent justify Reinhold’s conception of consciousness as occupying an intermediate position between subject and object, both of which are outside and beyond it, a faculty that is unknowable and inexplicable unless we assume the existence of the thing-in‫־‬itself. 4. The function and significance of the “thing-in-itself” now became the central theme of discussion in post-Kantian philosophy. The first one to disclose the difficulties of this concept was Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) whose basic ideas were in many respects similar to the philosophical currents of thought prevalent in the period following the First World War. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, neoKantianism was the dominant philosophy, but at the beginning of the twentieth century a number of opposing philosophical schools arose which can be described by the common name of “life-philosophy.” 6 The 5

From this point of view it is worth noting the change that took place in the conception of “phenomenon” in the interval between Kant’s Dissertation and his Critique. Cf. R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 97.

6

For the similarity between Jacobi and Bergson see E. Przywara, “Thomas oder Hegel?”, Logos XV (1926), p. 6.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

11

neo-Kantian schools had attempted to explain the world of the a priori without any relation to reality since they regarded reality only as a problem, as a “question mark” and not as an answer. In contradistinction to this view, “life-philosophy“ now sought a path to reality itself which it desired to grasp directly without a priori forms of the understanding or scientific constructions. The life-philosophers, who were for the most part influenced by Bergson, looked upon the constructions of science as a partition that separated us from reality. Science, they said, removes us from reality instead of drawing us closer to it. The life-philosophers were consumed by a thirst for reality, and it is this quality that is also characteristic of Jacobi’s philosophy. The task of knowledge is, in one of his famous phrases, “to unmask reality.” Jacobi himself was fully aware of the contradictory nature of the concept of the thing-in-itself. The main question he asked was : How do we arrive from a priori forms to the content that is expressed in and through them? If forms are a boundless ocean, how are the waves produced; or, if forms are the vowels, whence come the consonants whose opposition to the smooth speech of vowels makes their expression possible ? How can we arrive from the a priori forms of time, space, causality etc. to the substratum within them? Jacobi compared the a priori forms to a loom that can be operated by a child once the material is given.7 But how is the material obtained and how is the first stitch performed ? The whole problem is how to arrive from form alone to matter. Jacobi chided the disciples of Kant, the “critical” builders of existence, for venturing to share God’s wisdom in creating ex nihilo. “Your imaginative powers have taught you the secret of systematically sucking heaven and earth out of your thumbs, but in your eagerness your fingers have in the process also been sucked out of the world... Where will you get the matter to fill your a priori forms?” 8 Jacobi realized that, on the one hand, Kantian philosophy must acknowledge that matter is given and that forms do not create the content that fills them; on the other hand, it is dependent on an alien content and is unable to create it itself, and 7

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. Ill, p. 117.

8

Ibid., pp. 168, 172, 175.

to this end summons to

12

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

its aid the thing-in-itself to “affect” its forms. To depend on this aid, however, is not permitted to Kantian philosophy since it teaches that our world is a world of phenomena and that the forms of this world apply to appearances alone. One of these forms is causality. Only phenomena, then, can be the cause of phenomena, and between the world of phenomena and the world of things-in-themselves causality cannot function as a connecting link because it is as a form confined to the realm of phenomena and cannot transcend its limits. Hence, the effect of the thing‫־‬in‫־‬itself on sensibility is but an empty word without content. From this Jacobi concluded that without the assumption of the concept of the existence of things-in-themselves one cannot enter into Kant’s system, and with this supposition one cannot remain within it. By adhering to the assumptions of his system Kant is obliged to negate the concept of the thing-in-itself. But, as Windelband remarks, such a negation transforms the world into a dream, and appearances are imprisoned in a charmed circle of time and space, appearances in which nothing appears. In speaking of appearances Kant states that nothing real appears in them and nothing of the real truth. “The soul represents [stellt vor), yet it represents neither itself nor other objects but something that is neither itself nor other objects. Reason, for Kant, comprehends only itself, as an eye that would see only itself or as an ear that would hear only itself.” 9 Kantian philosophy is built upon the receptivity of forms, but the rest of the system contradicts this by negating the concept of the “given” together with that of the thing-in-itself. The development of Kant’s thought negates the assumptions upon which it rests. Jacobi seeks to solve the duality at the heart of the Kantian system by a salto mortale. Knowledge cannot pierce the core of reality and give us truth. Every conclusion reached by the discursive understanding brings us back to the starting-point. Thought is always “conditioned” and dependent upon a reality outside itself. It can only collate and arrange our original forms and assumptions, but it is powerless to create ex nihilo by means of them. Reality must be revealed to us. Thought deals in its deductions only with the possibility of things and not with their reality. It is impossible to add matter to form, the real to the ideal, the 9

W. Windelband, Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, Vol. II, p. 185.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

13

object to the concept. Reality is not an addition post facto. Therefore, this thought deduction cannot give us a foothold in certainty. This can be given to us only by faith and not by thought. We must first make a decision to believe in the validity of reality, a reality that cannot be demonstrated by the concept or the syllogism. We freely decide to believe. It is true that the understanding cannot justify this belief and the light that it kindles in our heart. This doctrine of Jacobi ultimately leads to the postulation of two separate worlds. 5. Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761—1833), also called Aenesidemus after the title of his book published anonymously in 1792, was the second important critic of the Kantian concept of the thing-in-itself. This work was read by Maimon who devoted the second part of his Logik to the refutation of its leading principles. Schulze’s criticism is directed chiefly against the notion that the thing-in-itself “affects” the sensibility, and he points out the contradiction into which the Critique of Pure Reason falls when it seeks the cause of empirical intuitions in the thing-initself and when it takes one of the categories, causality, to explain the relationship between the empirical world and the world that transcends experience. This gives rise to a patent contradiction, for the categories cannot be applied to the world beyond experience. Schulze was of the opinion that Kant’s system could be made consistent not only by rejecting the concept of “affection” but by eliminating completely the contradictory principle of the thing-in-itself from Kant’s critical system. Schulze is himself not a Kantian; he does not dispense with the thingin-itself, but attempts to demonstrate that it is untenable and that there is no place for it in Kant’s system. On the other hand, the Kantian system would lose the basis and criterion of truth if it were to reject the thing-in-itself. Our cognition requires an external thing-in-itself to serve as a criterion of truth and if this should be abrogated, the concept of truth is vitiated.10 6. It was at this critical point in the development of the concept of the thing-in-itself that Maimon continued the work begun by Jacobi and Schulze. The task he faced was how to remove the thing-in-itself from the

10

See Maimon on Schulze, in Vp. 368.

14

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

Kantian system where it had been a burden and still retain the double function it performed within it, namely, as the source for the content of consciousness and as the basis of truth. Maimon’s solution in answer to Schulze was as follows : Granted that the truth and the reality of our cognition are grounded in the circumstance that our representations are related to the thingin-itself, that is, to something that is totally different from themselves; this something, however, although independent of the representations that are related to it is not independent of the faculty of cognition.11 Thus, instead of attributing our representations to a thing-in-itself, as Schulze had done, and assuming the existence of two distinct and separate worlds of thought and reality in itself Maimon placed the two elements of knowledge, understanding and sensibility, within cognition itself. Sensibility is nothing more than incomplete understanding; it supplements the understanding. An example of this is provided by geometry in which geometrical construction completes the limited understanding by means of a priori sensibility. In relying on the sensibility wre do not go beyond the limits of cognition. The “object” is not independent of cognition but determined by it. When I think of man as an animal possessing reason and then imagine him as being endowed with the attribute of reason, this idea is true because the concept of man already includes this notion within itself (analytical judgement), and when I imagine a figure of three sides by means of three angles, this idea is true not because three angles are already included in the concept of three sides but because we cannot construct a figure of three sides without having three angles (synthetic judgement); the objects man, a figure of three sides, however, are not outside of consciousness and independent of it, just as the representations relating to these predicates are not outside and independent of it.12 Something has now been added to the problem not found in Jacobi or Schulze, something that places it in a different light. Maimon agrees with Schulze that it is impossible to dispense with a criterion of truth but does not agree with him that such a criterion is to be found outside cognition. All questions concerning the truth of our representations would be meaningless if we did not assume something independent of

11

Ibid.

12

Ibid.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

15

our representations over against which they could be measured, but Schulze erred, according to Maimon, in believing that such a criterion is to be found outside our cognition. Schulze, says Maimon, is like a man who on being asked on what the globe rested answered that it was on the back of a huge elephant, and when asked on what the elephant rested, answered that it was on a huge tortoise. But on what does the tortoise rest? 13 In order to base the truth of our representations Schulze relies on the thing-in-itself, but this answer is not conclusive. All questions that we ask concerning our representations always come back to the objects themselves. I see a house, for example, and if in answer to the question why I see a house and not a tree, I am told that what I see is the house-in-itself, I naturally ask: “Why do I see a house-in‫־‬itself and not a tree-in‫־‬itself ?” This barren duplication of the world leaves all things as they were. The problem must obviously be approached differently: not to base one layer upon another nor to base appearances on things-in-themselves, as if this passage from the realm of cognition to something beyond cognition would be sufficient as the required basis. The truth must be seen as an inner function within knowledge itself. In the example of the earth we must explain the mutual position of the planets by the inner relations among the planets themselves and not by the elephant and the tortoise. We have to discover within cognition relations from which we could understand what the object is and what is its function with respect to those who view it. We must base the objectivity of knowledge on knowledge itself and not on objects outside of it. There are two ways of viewing the relation between representations and objects. I already think of the representation (possessing reason) while thinking the object (man) (analytical judgement), or I do not think the representation (a figure of three angles) while thinking the 13

This example is already te be found in Locke’s Essay and is often repeated by Maimon. The second edition of V. (published by the Kantgesellschaft in 1912) lists this example of the “Indian” as one of Maimon’s favorite illustrations (p. 443). This example recurs later in the works of Fichte (Vber den Begrijf der Wissenschaftslehre [1794], §2) and also in Jacobi’s essay, “tjber das Unternehmen des Kritizismus ‘Die Vernunft zu Verstande zu bringen’,” p. 115. See also M. Gueroult, Uevolution et la structure de la doctrine fichteenne de la science, Vol. I, p. 159.

16

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

object (a figure of three sides) (synthetic judgement). Here as well it is neither necessary nor possible to base the truth of the synthetic judgement (a figure of three sides has three angles) on the triangle‫־‬in‫־‬itself. The truth emerges from the geometric construction which reveals to the senses three angles when a figure with three sides is constructed. The truth of the proposition is not demonstrated by comparing it with something outside of consciousness but by a construction within cognition. Cognition provides its own criterion of truth and has no need of external guarantees — “the object is not something fictitious that lies beyond the limits of cognition but something that serves within cognition itself as an object of its function” (V.} p. 246). 7. What function does the object perform within the limits of cognition and what is the function of objectivity? Maimon’s answer to this question is that the object is the representation as it would appear to the infinite mind; the criterion of the representation appears to be outside of it only to us because our understanding is limited and (in order to find a basis for the truth of our representations) has need of a criterion based on a thing-in-itself that transcends the limits of consciousness. For the infinite mind the thing represented is identical with the representation (7V., p. 365), since it comprehends the entire thing and the thing is for it completely transparent, illumined by the light of intellectual cognition. Such an infinite understanding needs no criterion of truth outside of representation, and it is only our limited understanding that has need of an external criterion which it finds in the object. For the infinite understanding this distinction between the representation and its object vanishes. The concept of the infinite understanding is here introduced by Maimon not as a metaphysical doctrine but as a methodological notion to clarify the relation between representation and object and the objectivity within it. In this respect Maimon is a disciple of Leibniz 14 who also employs the distinction between the finite and the infinite understanding as a methodological aid to understand the structure of consciousness. In Kant we find, as Schulze had already shown, a complete 14

Cf. S. Atlas, “Solomon Maimon’s Doctrine of Infinite Reason and Its Historical Relations,” Journal of the History of Ideas XIII (1952), pp. 168—187.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

17

separation between the representation and the thing-in-itself (a gulf it is impossible to bridge), the former being a kind of reflection of the affection” that is produced on us by the thing‫־‬in‫־‬itself. The thing-initself affects us but remains unknowable to us. For Maimon the distinction between the two is only one of degree since the thing‫־‬in‫־‬itself is but the completed consciousness of phenomena (Ph. W., p. 176). Objects are not outside of representations, but the limit that our cognition keeps appreaching as our understanding of appearances increases. If the process of cognition would be perfected, we would know the “thing-in-itself.” The object, then, is the limiting concept of consciousness itself towards which it strives but which it never reaches and it is, as Maimon stated using a mathematical example, like the last member of an infinite mathematical series or like a polygon which, when the number of its sides keeps increasing, approaches the circle — “the circle being the thing-in-itself with relation to the polygon” {Ph. W., p. 162). Whether he was aware of it or not, Maimon here uses the example that is already to be found in Nicolaus Cusanus.15 We cannot reach the circle, the thing-in-itself, because our understanding is finite; but even though the limit of consciousness towards which we press keeps receding and always remains beyond us, it is lawfully connected with the phenomena in our concepts and thus “our knowledge of the thing-in-itself increases in proportion to our penetration of phenomena”

{Ph. Wp.

177). Maimon also gives us the

following example : What gold is in itself we do not know; what we know are its qualities, its color, weight, etc. — the composition and synthesis of these known qualities constitute for us the concept “gold” ; this concept differs from the thing-in-itself only in its formal incompleteness, that is, our inadequate knowledge of the objective relations and connections among these various qualities that appear to us, because of our limited understanding, fortuitously grouped together. The complete concept of gold that includes all its qualities as necessary and not accidental is “the gold-initself” (TV., p. 104). This gives rise to the following definition : “The representation of the object or its concept is identical with the thing itself and differs from it only with respect to its completeness” (Tr., p. 210). Hence, Maimon calls

15

Cf. my essay, “On Nicolaus Cusanus” (Hebrew), Iyyun XII (1961), pp. 1—26.

18

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

the thing-in-itself “the completion of possibility” — complementum possibilitatis — “that which pertains to the completion of a thing, although still unknown to us” (Tr., p. 365). In other words, since we do not know the thing in its totality nor the mutual relations of its qualities, these latter appear to us to be put together fortuitously. Our incomplete concept constantly calls for “completion” — and this can only be provided by the thing-in-itself. The relation between concept and the thingin-itself may be compared to the relation between the waning and the full moon. The unillumined dark side always seems to us like the object beyond consciousness; the infinite understanding, however, knows no shadow or darkness and thus makes no distinction between concept and object. The difference between the concept and the thing-in-itself, then, is only subjective. Whereas for Kant, as Reinhold and Schulze understood him, the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself were two completely different entities, for Maimon the object is identical with the appearance, being related as the full moon is to the waning moon.16 8. A closer examination of the history of this term of “being as the complementum possibilitatis” will contribute to a clearer understanding of Maimon’s solution of the problem of the thing-in-itself. In his Ontologia (1730) Wolff defined being as “the completion of possibility — an obviously nominal definition but one which we shall find useful for proper philosophizing” (§174).17 This definition was later quoted by Kant who complains of its obscurity, “for if we do not

16

The expression complementum possibilitatis is taken from Christian Wolff's Ontologia, § 174. Cf. also D. Baumgardt, Das Moglichkeitsproblem der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, der modemen Phdnomenologie und der Gegenstandstheorie, p. 10; Johann E. Erdmann, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, Vol. II, § 290. 4. The exampie of gold is to be found in Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. Ill, § 17) and Leibniz (Nouveaux essais sur Ventendement humain, Bk. Ill, § 29). Cf. the words of the physicist H. Weyl in the Introduction to his book, Raum, Zeit, Materie: “This is the essence of the real thing whose inner content it is impossible for us to find and therefore it is impossible for us to approach this content ad infinitum

except by constantly renewed experience. In this sense the real

thing is a kind of boundary concept.” Cf. also E. Cassirer, Philosophic der symbolischen Formen, Vol. Ill, p. 555. 17

These terms are taken from J. Baumann s book Wolffsche Begriffsbestimmungen (p. 44) which contains the terms used by Christian Wolff that are indispensable for the understanding of Kant’s works.

19

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

know at the outset what can be thought about the possibility of a thing, this explanation will not enable us to know it.” 18 The question formulated by Kant, then, was :

What must be added to possibility to

give it reality, to make it a fact? The answer to this question produced two schools of thought prevalent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries : (a) One school, represented by Leibniz and Wolff, held that the difference between possibility and reality was that between the concept and the thing, that is, the concept contains a certain indeterminacy whereas the thing is determined in all its parts. This being the sole difference we can conclude that everything that is determined in all its parts exists. Erdmann summarizes Wolff’s doctrine concerning reality as the completion of possibility thus : “Only that which is determined in all its parts is real. The determination-in-all-parts serves as a principle of individuation whereby the possible becomes the real.” 19 It follows that the reality of a thing can be deduced through the content of the concept itself. As long as the concept is characterized by indetermination, it is not identical with the real object. (b) The position of the second school, chiefly represented by Kant, had already been anticipated by Hume : the concept of the objects found in reality does not differ in any way from the concept of the object as such; the conception of the reality of an object adds nothing to the simple conception.20 According to Hume and Kant, then, the “completion” that is to be added to the concept of the thing in order to give it reality is not furnished by the predicates but “is latent in the manner of our conceiving.” This idea that the manner of our conceiving reality resides in our attitude to the concept and not in the concept itself was used by Kant in his famous refutation of the ontological proof for the existence of God : “Being‫ ״‬is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely 18

Der einzig mogliche Beiveisgrund zu

einer Demonstration

des Daseins

(Immanuel Kants JFerke [edited by E. Cassirer], Vol. II, p. 80). 19

Johann E. Erdmann, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, Vol. II, p. 201.

20

A Treatise of Human Nature, Part III, Ch. 7.

Gottes

THE

20

PHILOSOPHY

OF

SOLOMON

MAIMON

the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition “God is omnipotent,” contains two concepts, each of which has its object — God and omnipotence. The small word “is” adds no new predicate,but only serves to posit the predicate in its relation to the subject. If, now, we take the subject (God) with all its predicates (among which is omnipotence), and say “God is,” or “There is a God,” we attach no new predicate to the concept of God, but only posit the subject itself with all its predicates, and indeed posit it as being an object that stands in relation to my concept. The content of both must be one and the same; nothing can have been added to the concept, which expresses merely what is possible, by my thinking its object (through the expression “it is”) as given absolutely. Otherwise stated, the real contains no more than the merely possible. A hundred real thalers do not contain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers. For as the latter signify the concept, and the former the object and the positing of the object, should the former contain more than the latter, my concept would not, in that case, express the whole object, and would not therefore be an adequate concept of it. My financial position is, however, affected very differently by a hundred real thalers than it is by the mere concept of them (that is, of their possibility). For the object, as it actually exists, is not analytically contained in my concept, but is added to my concept (which is a determination of my state) synthetically ; and yet the conceived hundred thalers are not themselves in the least increased through thus acquiring existence outside my concept.21 Kant and Hume, then, maintain that the difference between an existing object and a possible object does not consist in the addition of a new predicate but in a change of position with respect to the same concept. Hume speaks of the change in the manner of our conceiving and Kant says that a “positing” was added to the concept, but the concept itself does not change. This method of explaining existential propositions was followed by Franz Brentano who regarded the propositions as a new “intentional relationship” added to the representation ('V orstellung).22 The question now arises : What was Maimon’s explanation of existential propositions in the light of these two schools of thought ? Maimon took an intermediate position. Instead of considering the “existent” object in contradistinction to the concept as something “determined in all its aspects” — omni modo determinatum (Leibniz, Wolff), Maimon 21 22

Critique of Pure Reason, B626—628 (N. Kemp Smith, pp. 504—505). See my book, Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), pp. 184 ff. ; see also my study on Brentano in Revue Internationale de Philosophic 78/4 (1966), pp. 363—364.

THE

THING-IN-ITSELF

21

posited the concept of the “infinite mind” in which all determinations are completed and in which there is no thing undetermined. I do not think the representation or the concept of the thing as different from the thing itself or from that which is commonly thought to pertain to its reality; the thing itself outside the representation, or its reality, is in my opinion the completion of possibility, that is, that which pertains to its possibility, although beyond our knowledge . . . from the standpoint of the infinite mind the thing and the concept are one” (TV., p. 365). In explaining the thing-in-itself as the representation of the object in the infinite mind Maimon approaches Wolff’s position; but when he views all the problems connected with it as a critical philosopher under Kant’s influence, he proceeds from the finite mind and not from the object itself, and existence appears to him from the standpoint of our finite understanding as an idea, that is, a goal that we keep approaching but never reach.23 9. Maimon defines the thing-in-itself as “an idea of the understanding” (Ph. Wp. 162), using the term idea in the Kantian sense of a limiting concept. The understanding uses this idea in its attempt to solve the contradiction inherent in thought itself which, on the one hand, is dependent on matter for its content and, on the other hand, is constantly striving to free itself of all external content. We now arrive at a new stage in the development of the problem. Thought consists of both form and matter. We say, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun in accordance with the law of attraction. In this instance the “law of attraction” constitutes the formal transparent element that is fully apprehended by our consciousness; but the proposition also contains elements such as earth, sun, etc. that can never be completely penetrated by the intellect. We can learn more and more about an object and thus enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, but we cannot pierce its core. Matter keeps receding before the illumination of the intellect, but a stubborn residue always remains that cannot be melted down, and then we have the immediate feeling instead of the conceptual 23

On the problem of Leibniz’s conception of possibility see D. Baumgardt, Das Moglichkeitsproblem der Kritik der reinen Vemunft, der modernen Phanomenologie und der Gegenstandstheorie, pp. 9 ff.

22

THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

SOLOMON

MAIMON

explanation. Instead of the clearly-defined concept we have an intimation given to the intuition and not to the concept, an intuitive “pointing of the finger.” In every concept this duality is found between transparent form and given matter that is impervious to cognition. On the other hand, the intellect needs matter in order to illuminate and subsume it but, on the other hand, matter contradicts thought because thought requires that everything within matter should be thought through, and illumined in its light. Both mind and matter insist on their respective claims and the dispute between them could be settled, as Maimon suggests, only by enlisting them both in an infinite process (Ph. Wp. 162). We cannot reject either of the two, and hence we give to each its due by postulating the progressive completion of our thought. Matter is thus drawn closer and closer to form ad infinitum. This is the solution of the antinomy. This never-ending process of converting solid matter into the impalpable laws of the understanding is, then, the only way in which the thing-in-itself solves the antinomy inherent in the finite mind (Ph. W., p. 162). Since this process is never-ending, matter necessary for our finite thinking remains in actu, but in potentia it vanishes in the endless process as a postulate of thought. The philosopher sees the truth, namely, that the object is not given to consciousness by the thing-in-itself. Maimon illustrates this with an example of the reflection in the mirror: to the one who looks into the mirror the image seems to proceed from something concealed behind the glass and yet every one acquainted with the laws of reflection of light knows that the rays emanate from something in front of the glass; so it seems to us that the matter of our representations comes from the thing-in-itself when in reality it has its source in the self (TV., p. 202). We saw that the material content of our representations is “given” by something outside and beyond them, but the expression “outside and beyond ’ need not mislead us. The content comes from without only in the sense that we are not conscious of its spontaneous creation. The two stems of knowledge, understanding and sensibility, do not exist separately but there is only one fact: the subject that is determined in a certain manner. The object is nothing but the specific determination of the subject at each moment and does not exist outside of it,

THE

THING-IN-ITSELF

23

just as the determination “black” does not exist outside of the color determined by it. “The specific determination of the intuition is called the object of the intuition” (V., p. 16). “The object of cognition is not to be regarded as something independent of the function of cognition, but the function of the faculty of cognition and the object to which it is related determine one another mutually” (F., p. 245). Matter does not come from without. This insight of the philosopher, however, cannot change the psychological reality, namely, that the finite understanding is dependent upon the matter that is “given” it. “For thought in general is the relationship of a form (a rule of the understanding) to the matter (the given which is subsumed under it); without matter we cannot attain to the consciousness of form, and hence matter is a necessary condition for thought; that is, for real thinking a form or a rule of the understanding must necessarily be given matter to which it is related” (.Ph. Wp. 162). The philosopher can thus solve the antinomy of matter and form only by recognizing that the relation of thought to the object outside of it arises within our consciousness, analogous to the laws of reflection in the mirror. The philosopher knows that every advance in knowledge consists in the progressive illumination of that which is dark whereby the intellectual character of matter emerges; the non-ego becomes ego and thus this process restores the non-ego to its original sphere as a creation of the ego. This task of the conquest of the non-ego by the ego is never-ending but we can imagine two points at which the gap between the ego and the non-ego, form and matter, is bridged. The first point is at the beginning where all knowledge is still hidden in the dark recesses of the non-ego, still unillumined by thought. This point at the very beginning of the process Maimon calls “sensation” (Empfindung),24 a condition somewhat like that in which a new-born babe may find itself. The second point is at the end of the process where mind is no longer dependent on matter given it from without, where matter is completely dissolved by the pure light of the mind, and in this process thinker and object become one. At these two poles the duality between subject and object would be 24

Tr., pp. 168, 419.

24

THE PHILOSOPHY

OF

SOLOMON

MAIMON

obliterated or, we might say, the duality of the thing cognized and the thing-in-itself would be cancelled. 10. Maimon describes the difference between the Kantian and the dogmatic points of view, as well as the difference between Kant’s system and his own, as analogous to that between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems.25 What does it mean that in the former the sun revolves around the earth and in the latter the earth around the sun? Both sun and earth keep changing places in relation to one another. It may be said that the difference refers not to the relative but to the absolute motion of the bodies, but then what meaning are we to attach to “absolute motion” in order to express the difference between the two systems? Absolute motion may be interpreted in a number of ways : (a) It may refer to the motion of a body in absolute space, a motion that can only be thought but not perceived by the intuition. Let us assume that only one body exists in absolute empty space; in this case we can think of such a body in motion but would be unable to perceive it, so that this conception of absolute motion cannot express the difference between the two systems. (b) Absolute motion may refer to motion in space filled with objects and not in empty space, that is, motion that occurs in relation to all objects. A boat may be said to be in absolute motion with respect to the banks of the river but not vice versa, because the boat does not move relative to single objects but to all the objects on the bank, while these objects remain stationary in their relation to one another only with respect to the boat. But this explanation does not express the difference between the two astronomical systems, for the Ptolemaic system also asserts that the earth alters its position not only with respect to the sun but also with respect to all the other heavenly bodies; and if, nevertheless, the Ptolemaic system does not assert that the earth has absolute motion but asserts that the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa, then the difference between the two astronomical systems cannot be based on this explanation of absolute motion in respect to which the two systems are in agreement.

25

K. U‫ ״‬pp. 7—15.

THE

THING-IN-ITSELF

25

(c) Absolute motion can also be explained not only as the movement of one body in relation to all other bodies but as the movement of a body in so far as it is determined by a general a priori law and related to its object. Thus, the movement of a stone falling from the top of a tower may be called “absolute” because it is determined in an a priori manner in accordance with the law of gravitation, but the movement of the tower with respect to that of the stone is only relative. This interpretation of absolute motion fails to explain the difference between the two astronomical systems because the law of gravitation applies equally to both the stone and the tower, making it impossible to recognize absolute motion or to distinguish it from relative motion. These three attempts fail to explain the difference between the two astronomical systems by means of the difference between absolute and relative motion. Must we therefore come to the conclusion that there is no difference between them ? Let us look at the fourth attempt. (d) According to the fourth meaning of this concept, absolute motion is not added in thought to the other perceptible relative motions, but of all the perceived motions we take one as primary. Absolute motion here means the original motion of a body determined according to a general law so that the law at the same time determines the object to which it is directly related. Another motion can be equal to this original motion and still not be called absolute if it has merely been derived from the original motion. In this manner the phenomenon as a whole is one from the standpoint of the two moving bodies in their relation to one another, even though this primary motion is determined as absolute and the second as relative. For example, in two mutually attracted masses, mass B (in accordance with the law of attraction) determines A’s change of position and vice versa; the rate of motion of B with respect to A is equal to the motion of A with respect to B. But although the motion is relative and reciprocal and the motion of A to B is equal to that of B to A, we can still distinguish between the primary and the secondary motion. The motion A, insofar as it is determined by the attractive mass of B, is primary and hence absolute, and the motion B although equal to A is secondary and hence relative. Thus, the motion of B, insofar as it is determined by the attractive mass of A is primary and absolute, and

26

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

the motion of A with respect to B that is equal to it is derivative and relative. In this manner the relative motion of every body is equal to the absolute motion in the second body and vice versa. The difference between the two astronomical systems may now be summarized as follows: In both systems the motion of the sun is equal to that of the earth, except that the Ptolemaic system regards the former as primary and the latter as secondary, and the Copernican system vice versa. The difference between the two systems is not that one acknowledges a motion not acknowledged by the other; both systems recognize the same motions but they differ as to which is primary and which secondary, the Ptolemaic system regarding the sun as the primary, absolute phenomenon and the Copernican system, following Newton’s law of attraction, regarding the movement of the planets around the sun as primary and absolute and the movement of the sun with respect to the planets as derivative and relative. 11. Corresponding to these four interpretations of the concept “absolute motion” we have four parallel theories concerning the relation of subject and object. Just as the two astronomical systems agree as to the facts, so do the philosophers agree to the fact that pure a priori cognition is a fact of consciousness but differ as to the ground that gives rise to it. The first interpretation, that of the dogmatic philosophers, places the cause within the object absolutely and within the subject’s faculty of cognition relatively. But since the object in itself cannot be comprehended, this explanation is irrelevant and fails to explain the actual fact of a priori propositions and their application to the object. We must therefore examine the second explanation. Analogous to the second interpretation, which attributes to the boat absolute motion in that it moves with respect to all the objects on the bank, we can also attribute in an absolute way to the faculty of cognition those a priori cognitions which relate to all objects. But this explanation also is unconvincing, for the boat s movement with respect to the objects on the bank does not determine absolute motion nor explain the difference between the two astronomical systems, for both are in agreement as to the fact itself. Similarly, Kant and the pre-critical “dogmatic” philosophers acknowledge the same fact, that is, the validity of the applicable laws (e.g. the

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

27

law of causality) but differ with respect to the cause of the law s validity, which is attributed by Kant to the subject and by the dogmatists to the object. How is it possible to distinguish between these two ? The third view defines absolute motion as being determined by a general law, such as the law that determines the motion of a falling stone. This seems to be the position of Kant when he says that we must attribute lawfulness to the subject because it flows lawfully from the concept of the object as experienced by the subject. Kant does not attribute the forms of consciousness merely to the subject as such, but to the subject insofar as it experiences empirical objects. But Maimon also finds this explanation unsatisfactory, for just as the law applies equally to the falling stone as to the tower and thus makes it impossible to distinguish between absolute and relative motion, so does the law of subjectivity in Kant’s system apply to all empirical objects and it is therefore not possible to explain by this law the difference between the various a priori cognitions. Why is one and not another a priori law valid in a given case ? Kant is constrained in this difficulty to transcend the bounds of experience and seek the unconditioned in the thing-initself. The basic difference between Kant and Maimon emerges when we consider the fourth explanation of absolute motion, namely, that there is no need for adding absolute motion to every relative motion cognizable by us but only to designate one of these motions as primary. This view of the relation of subject and object discards the concept of the thingin-itself that is beyond all phenomena. Our cognitions are not “phenomena” in the sense that something external “appears” in them. We must, according to this view, content ourselves with an immanent lawfulness of the cognitive faculties, an inner lawfulness within consciousness itself that serves as a substitute for the thing-in-itself in the dogmatic as well as in the critical interpretations : this is Maimon’s view.26 The thing-in-itself is not something that exists outside of consciousness but 26

For an explanation of Maimon’s example of absolute motion cf. M. Gueroult, La philosophic transcendentale de Salomon Maimon, pp. 16—22. In the dispute between Gueroult and Kuntze with respect to this example, Gueroult is doubtlessly right. (For Kuntze’s view see his book on Maimon, p. 37.) See also S. Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism, pp. 39. f.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

23

is a function within it, analogous to the fourth interpretation of motion, which is not an absolute motion outside of the relative motions but where one motion among many is designated lawfully as primary and from which the others are derived. The thing-in-itself thus performs a definite function within consciousness in that it provides consciousness with a goal towards which to strive. 12. We now see how Maimon gave a new meaning to the term affizieren, used by Kant to indicate the relation between the thing-initself and the representation. The difference between the thing-in-itself and the representation is, according to Maimon, not one between cause and effect but an immanent, phenomenological difference of two factors of knowledge within consciousness itself. When we speak of the thing-in-itself, “we do not mean a thing whereby consciousness is affected but of something which it contains” [K. Up. 65). It is in this sense of the description of appearance itself that Maimon continues to use the term “affection” :

the thing-in-itself “affects” consciousness which itself re-

mains passive (leidet) means that it cannot function without having matter to illumine and subdue. The conquest of matter by cognition is for Maimon an activity, and the dependence of cognition on still unillumined matter is passivity: “The color red, for example, is given to consciousness; we say ‘is given’ because this faculty cannot produce color by itself and is passive in its relation to it, and this is called matter; affection and being affected is, therefore, only a specific mode of consciousness... When I say that I am conscious of something, I understand by this not something that is outside of consciousness (which would be a contradiction) but only a definite mode of consciousness... The object of consciousness is nothing more than a definite determination of consciousness” (Tr.f p. 13). The relationship subject-object is not that of two facts that exist separately as subject and object but is to be taken as one fact, as consciousness ('Trpp. 29—30). Whether I say “my representation is related to the object” or “my representation is affected by the object,” the fact always remains one, the representation of the thing, despite these dual expressions which are simply being used in their figurative sense (Tr., p. 29). The object of consciousness is not something absolute and independent of consciousness, but something that is a definite function with-

THE

THING-IN-ITSELF

29

in it and which determines its direction (V.} p. 16). All expressions, such as

the relation of the representation to the thing” or “the representation

affected by the thing,” merely describe the inability of the limited consciousness to exhaust the object, to cognize it and transfer it from the sphere of the non-ego to the ego. The object of consciousness, the thing, is the matter still to be illumined. This “intentional” relation, as we now say following Brentano, between subject and object expresses, according to Maimon, the finitude of our cognition, limited in one way or another. Subject and object constitute one fact; we can speak of the effect that an object exerts over us only in the sense that the followers of Copernicus can speak of the “rising” and the “setting” of the sun.27 We now understand more clearly what Maimon means when he says that the first sensation — for example, that of a new-born child — is but an undifferentiated feeling that represents nothing {Kat., p. 173).28 Since we cannot comprehend a consciousness that is not dualistic, we introduce by the illusion of the imagination the intentional dual relation between subject and object even into the most primitive form of consciousness in order to give the illusion of duality (V., p. 320). Maimon does not accept Kant’s definition of intuition as a direct relationship to objects but takes it rather as a state of consciousness in which we have no relationship to any object (K. Up. 65).29 The first indistinct stage of consciousness as well as the last stage, when all things appear in pristine clarity, are ideas or limiting concepts (V., p. 420). The point of departure for the understanding of Maimon’s theory of knowledge is this finitude of our understanding, and the implied contradiction which cannot be removed without removing the finite understanding itself is cognition itself. The infinite understanding in which all matter is converted into form, on the one hand, and dumb sensation still uninformed by thought, on the other, are the two poles of con-

27

For this entire problem of “the given” and the relation of consciousness to “given” see the remarks of Hermann Cohen whose formulations in this matter resemble very closely those of Maimon. (Cf. Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte, § 25, in Schriften zur Philosophic und Zeitgeschichte [edited by A. Gorland and E. Cassirer], Yol. II, p. 21.)

28

Cf. R. Wegener, Die Transscendentalphilosophie Salomon Maimons, p. 20.

29

Cf. F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 310.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

30

sciousness beyond cognition. Our cognition needs matter to oppose it, for it is our never-ending task to imbue experience with meaning {Tr., p. 32). Cognition, then, is a Mitt elding which begins and ends between the two poles, an intermediate knowledge hovering between two inaccessible extremes, between undifferentiated feeling and pure truth. To illustrate the difference between the finite and the infinite understanding Maimon makes a distinction between representation

(Vorstellung)

and

presentation (Darstellung). In representation the limited understanding is dependent on the duality of form and matter, subject and object, and

is

characterized

by its

relation

to

reality

towards

which

it

“intends” but which it can never reach. It desires to swallow up reality, so to speak, and to obliterate the distance that separates it from reality. If it should be successful, reality would be transformed into presentation which contains the sum of all the qualities of the object illumined by the intellect, so that the ego fully possesses them. Representation is only a partial presentation (Teildarstellung); the complete presentation is not related to something outside of it but illumined from out of itself and comprehends all its parts, whereas the representation comprehends only parts of the thing and leaves some parts outside of it, and the noncomprehended part, this unillumined residue appears to it as object. To explain this distinction Maimon uses the Kantian term “synthesis” : we complete only a part of the synthesis in relation to the full synthesis; the full cognition of all parts of the synthesis would not be called representation but the presentation of the object (as an intellectual object). The representation is the incomplete synthesis and the presentation the complete synthesis. But since the complete synthesis would be infinite, it is beyond the power of the limited consciousness which is an intermediate, limited faculty.30 Maimon illustrates this with an example from mathematics (Trp. 350). In arithmetic we count in digits but we change them each time to a higher digit— 10, 100, etc. — and sometimes to a lower one — 0.1, 0.01, etc. These digits are relative and changeable, but the absolute digit is for us an infinite goal, an idea that could never be reached in our intuition because time and space, with

30

Tr., pp. 349 (contains a very clear description) and 350.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

31

which we measure all things, are divisible ad infinitum. Our understanding must thus be content with partial, relative “representations,” and complete “presentation” must remain an unattainable ideal.31 Human understanding, then, can grasp only partial aspects of an object; behind the illumined side there remains a still unillumined background. The whole object is not grasped by the intellect, but our imagination provides us with a kind of sensible sketch {Schema) of the still unknown parts of the object. The imagination is constantly busy filling in the intellectually missing part by relating the parts of the concept already illumined to the unknown part. The imagination thus serves as a prop for our conception and as a supplement to it. Since our understanding is only finite, we are condemned to live in this middle state. The true completion of our partial conception would, if completed, be a perfect conceptual perception, but since we cannot attain it we summon the imagination to our aid to fill in this deficiency in cognition. In this connection Maimon gives us once more an example from mathematics (Tr., p. 228). In the infinite series:

1/3 = 3/10 + 3/100+3/1000 + ...

the same magnitude appears on one side as a definite, fixed value and on the other side as an infinite series.32 Our feeble understanding grasps reality as an infinite series, as an “idea” in the Kantian sense, where the infinite understanding would grasp it at a glance, just as an infinite series is equal to the definite value 1/3 in the above equation. Our intellect has not the power to conclude the series of its perception. This, however, is the task of the imagination — to provide the understanding with a definite Schema of the object in place of the incomplete idea of the infinite progression and thus supplement the non-completed object. Our finite understanding cannot, for example, comprehend the complete concept of “gold” but the imagination creates a substitute of this complete comprehension and gives the “given” gold to our senses, 31

See A. Zubersky's remarks on the concept of Darstellung in his hook, Salomon Maimon und der kritische Idealismus, p. 40 ; cf. also F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 91.

32

Cf. Gibeath hamore for the distinction between “complete representation” and “incomplete representation,” and as an example of this the series of infinite nurabers. See K. Rosenbaum, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons in seinem hebrdischen Kommentar Gibath-hammoreh zum Moreh-nebuchim des Maimonides, p. 45.

32

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

the matter that we see and touch. It is true that this matter is an opaque body for our minds but it is that same completion, complementum possibilitatis, that our minds need because it completes its finitude in a schematic way and spurs it on to continue in its work, the work of comprehension and illumination. Thus the imagination fills the gap between the finite and the infinite mind. 13. Maimon once characterized the finite human mind as “a Schema [pattern] of the idea of the infinite mind” (Tr., p. 365). The object of intuition he characterized as “the Schema of the real object.” These two expressions are parallel to one another. The infinite mind comprehends the real object as it is, that is, as something thought and nothing more, as something identical with the concept, just as the intelligibile is identical with intelligens. In this sense Maimon, as we shall see further on, uses the term “real” {reell). There is no duality here of a perceived object and a non-perceived object, and no intention (;intentio) of a representation to the object. The object of our representations is only a Schema of the “real” object, which is identical with the pure concept and which is fully illumined by the light of the understanding, in the same way that our finite understanding is the Schema of the infinite understanding. In presentation (Darstellung) representation (Vorstellung) would have carried out its intention of reaching the object. The distinction between Vorstellung and Darstellung had already been made by Mendelssohn in his Morgenstunden (Ch. IV, V). In his Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft33 Vaihinger states that Mendelssohn argued that there is no deception with respect to representations : “When I hear and see and touch, there is no doubt that in truth I hear and see touch, just as there is no deception when I experience feelings of pleasure and revulsion or sentiments of hope, fear, sympathy, love, hate, etc. ... There is no room here for deception.

(This is what Brentano later called “the evidence of inner

perception.”) Mendelssohn continues : “The senses can lead us astray only when we deduce objects outside ourselves, that is, when our cognition claims to be not only representation but also presentation. As long as we confine ourselves to lawful cognition and see in it no presentation 33

Vof. II, P. 496.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

33

but only representation, there is no doubt nor uncertainty in it but it has certainty of the highest degree. This is not the case when we assume that our concepts are also the presentation of external objects as, for example, in dreams, etc. Knowledge need not reach the stage of Darstellung to give us certitude, for this is already attained in the V orstellung wherein we have certitude of the highest order...” Mendelssohn then asks : “Is there a criterion by which it is possible to distinguish between Vorstellung and Darstellung, between ‘subjective representation’ and ‘objective presentation’?” 34 The term Darstellung, or exhibitio, is also found in Kant who defines it as follows : We have the Darstellung or the presentation of an object when we exhibit the intuition that corresponds to it, and if this intuition is a priori we call the Darstellung a “construction.” 35 Maimon calls the Vorstellung presentative (darstellend) when the object is not separate from it; thought “presents” the object so that form and matter are created together and spring from the same source (Str., p. 20). If our minds were one with the infinite mind, our thoughts would be “presentative” and could dispense with given matter but, being limited and fragmentary, it lacks the necessary intuition and in its place comes the striving for the object, the “intention” towards it, characteristic of the “discursive” limited intellect in which form and matter are separate and distinct. Thus the thing-in-itself, which appears to be beyond the reach of all concept, is nothing more than the expression of our own limited intellect. 14. In his comprehensive work on Maimon's philosophy Kuntze comments on the influence of Maimonides’ doctrine of the relation between the cognizing subject and the cognized object and observes that “this doctrine is closely connected with one of the central problems in Maimon’s theory of cognition” (p. 21). The reference is to Chapter 68 (Part I) of Maimonides’ Guide which opens with the following words : You are acquainted with the well-known principle of the philosophers that God is the intellectus, the ens intelligens, and the ens intelligibile. 34

Ibid, (in Moses Mendelssohn’s gesammelte Schriften [edited by G. B. Mendelssohn],

35

In Kant’s Critique of Judgement presentation fulfills a central function. The essence

Vol. II, pp. 270, 281).

34

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

These three things are in God one and the same, and do not in any way constitute a plurality. We have also mentioned it in our larger work Mishneh Torah 36 and we have explained there that it is a fundamental principle of our religion, namely, that He is absolutely one, that nothing combines with Him, that is to say, there is no Eternal thing besides Him. This doctrine of the identity of God’s thought with the object of His thought and that of thought thinking thought is already to be found in Aristotle.37 In the second part of his Autobiography, devoted to the exposition of Maimonides’ great work, Maimon discusses this doctrine and ends with the cryptic remark, “The interested reader will readily perceive what these words allude to” (p. 62) — the reference being doubtlessly to the doctrine of pantheism. Maimon does not mention the fact, and probably failed to observe its existence, that Spinoza himself in his doctrine of the identity of the thinking substance and the extended substance relies on Jewish sources : “Substance thinking and substance extended are one and the same substance, which is now comprehended under this attribute and now under that. Thus, also, a mode of extension and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing expressed in two different ways — a truth which some of the Hebrews appear to have seen as if through a cloud, since they say that God, the intellect of God, and the things which are the objects of that intellect are one and the same thing.” 38 Maimon does not specifically mention the connection Detween this doctrine and his own, but there is no doubt that his theory of cognition is a significant link in the long history of this Aristotelian doctrine.39 By

of practical judgement is “in the presentation, that is, insofar as it places the concept over against the corresponding intuition” (Introduction). See also Vber die Fortschritte der Metaphysik, Beilage I, 2. Abschnitt. 36

Hilkhot Yesodot Hatorah I, 7.

37

In Metaphysica XII, 7 and XII, 9. In his book De Anima (III, 5), Aristotle extends his conception also to the finite soul: “Knowledge that becomes action and the conceptual thing are one.” The significance of this passage was called to my attention by Julius Guttmann. Franz Rosenzweig (Der Stern der Erldsung, Vol. I, p. 2) criticizes this Aristotelian doctrine and calls it acosmism or atheism.

38

Ethics, Part II, Prop, vii (quoted from the English translation of W. Hale White and Amelia H. Stirling, 4th ed., p. 52).

39

For the history of this doctrine and Hegel's relation to it see L. Roth, Spinoza,

THE

THING-IN-ITSELF

‫צ‬3

means of this principle which identifies the intelligent with the ens intelligibile Maimon sought to solve the problem of cognition in general and that of the correspondence of the matter of thought and the cognizing subject in particular. The separation between the form of thought and the matter of thought is only the work of the imagination. It is true that matter is not dependent on representation, but it is not independent of the cognitive faculty in general.40 If the matter of thought were independent of thought, it would be impossible to understand the correspondence of the two factors of knowledge. That which is thought is nothing but thought itself — and this is the solution of the problem. We shall have occasion later to note how Maimon attempted to explain the identity of the material of thought with its form by means of the “differentials of the sensibility.” The explanation he gives in his commentary to Chapter 68 of Maimonides’ Guide clarifies Maimon’s interpretation of the thing-in-itself, for the removal of the thing-in-itself signifies nothing more than his return to the standpoint of Aristotle and Maimonides. In his explanation of Maimonides he rests on the assumption that the cognized object is nothing more than the intellectual form: For if I make an analogy between two things a b and I make the proposition “a is like b” or “a differs from b,” then I must conceive a by itself and then b by itself; and this representation takes place in sensuous or imagined time and not in the understanding; but the intellectual conception of the similarity or the difference between a and b takes place outside of time 41 for it is necessary that both be present in my mind at the time I make the judgement. Thus the operation of the understanding will be a representation of the similarity or difference, that is, a form of the understanding which is necessarily present in the mind, although unconsciously, before the judgement is made. These forms of similarity, etc. define the understanding and distinguish it from all others. It follows from this that the intelligibile, that is, the said forms, are the understanding itself; and, similarly, the intelligent, that is, the cause which affects the said forms is the understanding, for the

Descartes and Maimonides, p. 130. For Spinoza’s treatment of this doctrine see Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza, Vol. I, pp. 236 ff. 40

See also above.

41

This doctrine that intellectual activity occurs outside of time plays an important part in Maimon’s system; we shall return to it in Chapter IX.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

36

entire force of its operation is the understanding itself... its operation is independent of time.42 The material of thought, then, is not the thing-in-itself but the “intellectual form.” Maimon goes on to explain the doctrine of the identity of the intellectus, ens intelligens and ens intelligibile in the light of the systems of Kant and Leibniz : In Kant’s opinion knowledge requires two different factors, understanding and sensibility; the sensibility receives the matter for cognition from an unknown source outside itself, and the understanding affects the form of cognition by itself. Knowledge results from the act of relating the form of the understanding to a particular matter. The understanding alone might attain intellectual perception, that is, the representation of the conditions and its consequences of one subject, but it would be impossible for us to attain knowledge, that is, the relation of the aforementioned conditions to an actual subject, and thus the intellectual conception itself would remain unknown to us. Similarly, if the sensibility acted alone, we might possibly attain perception but not knowledge, for this necessarily requires two factors ; and thus the intellect, the intelligence and intelligible would be one from the standpoint of the form of knowledge when, by itself, it would be an object of our cognition.43 In other words, Kant’s system is dualistic since it posits the thing-initself, and the knower is not identical with the object. It follows that if we had only the understanding without matter, we would have only the conditions of the possibility of the object but would be unable to relate these general conditions to the actual object. In Kant’s system we can overcome the dualism between mind and matter and return to the identity of thought and object only if the object of knowledge were a form of knowledge and not given from without. In this belief Maimon follows in the footsteps of Leibniz: According to Leibniz, understanding and perception are not two separate things that are objectively different in a real sense but two things that differ only in a formal sense;44 every material conception can be dissolved into an intellectual conception since the former is only a confused [verworren] form of the latter; hence, the intellectus, ens 42

Gibeath hamore, Ch. 68, p. 103.

43

Ibid., p. 106.

44

Maimon adds in parenthesis the German translation: “ihr Unterschied ist nicht reell, sondern bloss formell

THE THING-IN-ITSELF

37

intelligens and the ens intelligibile are one not only from the standpoint of intellectual form posited by cognition (as in Kant’s system) but also from the standpoint of the relationship of the intellectual form to the object of the understanding or of the sensibility; and thus the difference between the infinite Understanding, praised be he, and our understanding, as I have explained,45 will only be formal, that is, the infinite Understanding, praised be he, produces with the help of the forms of the understanding the objects themselves 46 which are the intelligibilia. This possibility becomes evident in arithmetic where numbers are both intellectual forms and their objects as well.47 The concept of number serves as an explanation of Leibniz’s and Maimon’s thought: the concept of number is a pure, intellectual form without the admixture of matter; mathematical objects have no need for a thing-in-itself; being pure forms of thought, they contain no “given” element. The object that is thought is identical with the thinker. Thinking a number is thinking thought. By interpreting Kant in the light of Leibniz’s monistic doctrine, Maimon succeeded in reviving Maimonides’ doctrine which, in turn, had its source in Aristotle.

45

One of the central ideas in Maimon’s system ; see below, Ch. IV.

46

Cf. TV., p. 63: ‘‫־‬How can we know that the a priori forms correspond to things given a posteriori? ... If your understanding were able to create objects by itself, no question would arise here. ... In Kant’s system where sensibility and understanding are two wholly different sources of our cognition there is no possible solution to this problem; in Leibniz’s system, however, these two stems of knowledge flow from the same cognitive source, differing only in their degrees of cognitive perfection, and thus the solution of the problem is simple.”

47

The parallel passage to this, Tr., p. 190: “The understanding is in my opinion only a faculty to think, i.e., a faculty for creating pure objects by means of making judgements. No real objects are given to it as matter on which the understanding must operate; its objects are only logical and it is only by means of thought that they are converted into real objects. It is an error to think that things (real objects) are prior to the relations among them. The concepts of numbers are only relations and posit no real objects since these relations are themselves objects. The number 2, for example, expresses the relation of 2:1 and at the same time expresses the object of this relationship.”

CHAPTER n

TIME AND SPACE

1. In order to understand Maimon’s conception of time and space we must recall the basic principle of his philosophy as well as that of pre-Kantian rationalism, namely, that a substance is co‫־‬extensive with its concept and is fully expressed by it and there is no quality of the object that would not be expressed through the concept. The difference between two objects in time and space must be understood as a difference in their conceptual structure, for if they did not differ in their concepts they could not be distinguished from one another in time and space. In thus turning to pre-Kantian views, Maimon indicates his opposition to the Kantian belief that intuition contains an element that is beyond the concept but which, nevertheless, determines phenomena. In time and space Kant saw the a priori element of intuition, an element that cannot be expressed by the concept. Two things can differ from one another even though there is no conceptual difference between them, and this difference, which is not grounded in the conceptual essence of the two entities, is determined by the intuition. To show that two forms with identical internal attributes are not identical, Kant gives examples of the relation of a thing to its image in the mirror, the relation between the right and left hand, and the relation between two spherical triangles, the difference between the two forms being based on intuition alone and not on the concept.1 In order to return to the rationalism of Leibniz, Maimon was obliged to remove this irrational factor, the intuition, and to assert that “a priori objects are one with their concepts” (Kat., p. 245). Time and space, then, which for Kant were forms of the intuition, were

for Maimon conceptual relations. What are these conceptual

relations? Maimon’s answer is — diversity. Time and space are nothing more than the intellectual form of diversity. “Two objects are different” and “two objects are in time and space” have the same meaning.2 “If 1

In the Prolegomena, § 13, and even before, in the Dissertation.

2

The difference between space and time will be treated below.

TIME AND SPACE

39

I imagine objects that are only different, then I have only a pure concept of diversity and not its Schema; I have space only as a concept but not as an intuition” (Tr., p. 347). Space as a concept is a form of all transcendental knowledge in general, and this is also true of time.3 Objects differ from one another; time and space are the most general form of this diversity. In one place Maimon remarks that “time as concept is the form of number” (Tr., p. 22), and although he does not elaborate this definition, his meaning is clear : the units of arithmetic are expressions of pure diversity, even as time itself. As we count 141+ 1 ‫־‬, the digits are nothing more than the expression of diversity; one digit differs from another without expressing what the difference is; it is pure difference and nothing more. This formal differentiation must precede the specific, material differentiation: “for the objects must first be thought different iiberhaupt before the difference can be determined in a definite manner” (Ph. W p. 16). Time and space as concepts indicate only diversity and provide the frame that can be filled subsequently with qualitative content; they do not represent the content of the diversity of objects but merely diversity in general. Maimon, then, takes time and space as forms in which it is possible to describe diverse objects in general. What is given as different in the material sense

must

also be thought different in the formal sense

(Tr., p. 133). To render possible the thinking of different objects at the same time it is first necessary to distinguish between them and then to

3

In defining space and time as the form of all transcendental cognition that is related to a definite object as over against formal logic which knows only one object (06‫־‬ jecturn logicum) as we shall see later. The logical object is only one and is not sub■ ject to change, and all we know about it is that it is identical with itself. In contradistinction to this, real cognition that is related to a definite object is characterized by the fact that the singular object a, insofar as it is a, is definite and different from another object 6. This difference leads us from formal logic to the transcendental sphere, the sphere of objects with independent identity. Husserl was apparently unfamiliar with Maimon’s doctrine of the formal object when he made the concept of “objects that are completely undetermined from the standpoint of matter” the basis of “the principle of the pure manifold” (Logische Untersuchungen, Ch. I, § 70).

40

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

unite them. The difference between objects and the possibility of thinking them and then combining them in a unity is the decisive point. This possibility is given us by time and space, for they are the conceptual framework of differentiation included in the unity or of the unity that includes the differentiation within it. In other words, time and space are for Maimon the conditions of thought ilberhaupt. Kant had reduced time and space to human forms of the intuition and indicated that there might be creatures who could dispense with these forms. Maimon, however, in keeping with his rationalist convictions, raises time and space to a higher level and takes them as the conditions of the thinking of empirical entities, the objective ground of empirical knowledge. Evidence for this view is to be found in various passages of Maimon’s work. In Str. (p. 260), e.g., he proceeds from his general point of view that time and space are forms of the diversity of objects. Space is the transcendental form of the perception of the variety of objects indispensable in describing external entities as different. Time is not, as in Kant, the a priori form of the inner intuition in general but only of the differentiation of our representations. Where there is no diversity in the representations of our internal condition, there is also no temporal succession. This gives us the opportunity, Maimon writes, of penetrating more deeply into the nature of these representations. For if time and space are forms of variety, then they are also the condition that makes it possible to compare sensible objects and to judge the relations among them. Further, Maimon bases his argument on two presuppositions: (a) different representations cannot exist simultaneously (at the same point in time) in the same subject; (b) every judgement of the relationship of objects requires a prior representation of each object by itself. If we assume the foregoing, there arises an important question (still not sufficiently considered by philosophers) as to how it is possible to make a judgement concerning the relations of objects among themselves. Take, for example, the proposition : red differs from green. This proposition must necessarily be preceded by the representation of red by itself and green by itself as separate entities. But since these representations preelude each other within consciousness and cannot be thought at the same time, but are still combined within the proposition, it is impossible to explain this judgement. The proposition concerning two different

TIME AND SPACE

41

impressions can only be explained with the help of the idea of temporal succession. This temporal succession is without any relation to the objects described within it and constitutes a unity within multiplicity. A moment in time differs from the one that follows it and is therefore, in an analytical sense, not the same. Nevertheless, it is impossible to think one without the other for they constitute a synthetic unity. The representation of temporal succession is, then, the necessary condition not for the possibility of the objects (even when sensible) themselves but for the possibility of the proposition concerning their difference. Without temporal succession a difference of various perceptions cannot become an object of consciousness. If we had no idea of succession in time, red and green would still remain different objects, but we would be unable to recognize them in this quality. The same relation also exists between the form of diversity and the representation of objective heterogeneity [Auseinandersein] in space — the former (diversity) cannot exist in our consciousness without the latter (heterogeneity) (Str.,

p. 262). Maimon touches on this problem in several places (K.U., p. 181, V., p. 128 and in a letter to Kant on 30 November 1792). In his Versuch einer neuen Logik (pp. 128—130) he writes : “To think is to judge, and to judge is to bring unity into a given manifold; the constituent elements outside of a synthesis are not given to representation at one and the same time but can only be thought in temporal succession; on the other hand, the synthesis of a manifold cannot be thought in temporal succession but as a unity in one given moment of time. Thus, time together with all its

determinations

(simultaneity and temporal succession) is the

condition of all thought uberhaupt... The propositions whereby the concepts of objects are thought, for example a could be b (a could by means of b be determined as the object a-b) presupposes at the very outset the separate representations a and b by themselves, combined by means of this proposition. These could not be thought together at the same moment but only as succeeding one another in time, but the union of the manifold cannot be thought in temporal succession and must be thought at the same time. If I make a judgement: ‘a triangle could have a right angle’ and this determines the concept of a right-angled triangle, then this judgement presupposes the separate ideas of a triangle and a right angle previously conceived at different times (since these representations differ from one another), but the combination of these representations forms an indissoluble union in which the two elements

42

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

must be thought at the same time.4 Similarly, if I make the judgement a b is a (for example, a right-angled triangle is a triangle), I first think of a in its union with b and then think of it outside of this union, and then I compare a with itself in these different situations. Even if I should make a completely identical judgement: a is a, I regard a as something different from itself and then combine it, as it were, with itself in a unity within consciousness. It can thus be seen how the representation of time is the condition for all thought in general. Time and space are the objective [das Objektive] within sensuous cognition; therefore they are the conditions for thinking empirical objects. Without time we would be unable to think at all; with time alone we can bring into a unity of consciousness only our inner feelings for which time is a condition, but this unity would refer only to the various modes of the faculty of cognition when we see them as objects and not to the objects that are thought as real things outside of ourselves. Thus, only these two forms, time and space, make the thought of objects external to ourselves possible.” These words indicate why

Maimon believed that we cannot be

content with one form of the thought of diversity and that we need space as well as time. Space is a form of representation of possible differentiation of external objects. Time is a form of the representation of the possible difference of the internal states of the subject and through this also of the possible difference of external objects to which the subject is related (K. U., pp. 135, 136).5

4

Cf. Gibeath hamore, p. 61: “The syllogism occurs outside of time, i.e. instantly. For example, the judgement ‘white is not black’ contains two feelings, white and black, and one intellectual representation, that is, the representation of the difference between white and black. It is impossible that the two feelings mentioned should occur in the senses or the imagination except successively, that is, at different times; however, their combination in a judgement (white is not black) can only occur instantly, in such a way that through it the successive feelings are combined in one intellectual representation.”

5

Do these definitions involve Maimon in a vicious circle which compels him to define the “outside subject” again as an object in space ? I do not believe that such is the case, for the decisive element in this definition is not the difference between the inner and outer conditions but this: whenever we think an object we have the representation of one object together with its various accidents. Maimon teaches in connection with his doctrine of the possibility of determination that one object at

TIME AND SPACE

43

2. We must assume, then, that differentiation has two aspects — heterogeneity in space and diversity in time. Two objects can be related to each other sometimes discretely in space and sometimes successively in time. The relationship does not depend on the connected objects and their inner qualities. In his book on logic Maimon defines the study of logic as “the science of thinking of objects in general that are not determined by their inner qualities but only by the relationship of their possibility of being thought,” and then goes on to say: Relations presuppose inner qualities among which these relations are found; but relations among objects a priori that are thought only by means of these relations do not presuppose inner qualities whereby objects are determined — they themselves determine the objects. Examples of the first class are the objects of applied mathematics and of the second class objects of pure mathematics. For example, in order that two bodies be thought with respect to magnitude in a ratio of 1 :2, they must be given to us in a definite mode with respect to their qualities since magnitude in general, without any object to which it can be applied, cannot be given; but the numbers 1, 2 and so forth that are the same time can include only one accident. Hence, time is the form in which and only in which it is possible to include many accidents within the same object (see below). “Time presupposes change and this presupposes stability and mutation (substance and accident)” (Tr., p. 349). Over against this, space is the form in which it is possible to include many objects — in the letter to Kant mentioned above Maimon speaks of “different sensible objects” — at one and the same time. Nevertheless, Maimon’s solution is not entirely satisfactory. He gives us a clear criterion for the question as to when we are to understand a definite change as a change in time, that is, when different accidents adhere to the same object. A triangle can have a right angle or an obtuse angle only successively but not simultaneously. But how can we recognize whether the accidents of objects are different at the same time or not? A right-angled triangle d will be different from an obtuseangled triangle dx. Is this relation of difference spatial or temporal? Do d and dr occur at the same time and in different spaces or do they occur successively? Wherein does the relation of differentiation, which is to be understood as temporal, differ from the relation of differentiation which is conceived as spatial? This question can be put in another form: Let us first suppose that we have an isosceles triangle and then an equilateral triangle adjacent to one another in space: and let us suppose once more that the isosceles triangle becomes an equilateral triangle, so that the two triangles are not adjacent to one another in space but successive in time. In what respect do the two instances differ ? The elements of the relation are identical in both cases. Maimon is thus compelled to conclude that since the other elements of the relation are identical in both cases, we have in one case a discreteness in space and in the second case a succession in time. It follows then that the relation does not depend on the elements of the relationship alone but, on the contrary, the relation determines the object (see above).

44

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

thought by themselves (abstracted from their application to definite objects) are objects of pure mathematics, determined a priori by the relationship and have no other inner qualities except those of thought relations alone.6 We must then regard diversity in space and in time as an ultimate a priori fact. Difference in and of itself becomes specified into a difference in space and a difference in time. These two species are of the same class. Discreteness in space and diversity in time, being two species of the same class, are mutually exclusive (as black and white). To posit one in an object is to exclude the other. “Space is the discreteness [Auseinandersein] of objects -— to be in one place is not a determination of space but rather its negation; time is the succession of objects ‫—־‬ simultaneity is not a determination of time but rather its negation. If we are to imagine things in space, that is, outside one another, we must imagine them in one point of time since discreteness is an indivisible unity. If we are to imagine things succeeding one another in time, we must imagine them in the same place, for otherwise we should imagine them at the same moment in time” (Tr., p. 17). The transition from the diversity which constitutes time and space to the things that fill time and space is not, for us, a logical transition. We are unable to proceed from the a priori relationship of diversity and arrive at the sensible objects themselves by means of a logical process alone. This logical process should be an a priori construction by means of definition and a continuous determination from the logical relationship up to the object, but this is too arduous for our limited intellect. There is no logical transition from pure geometric forms or pure numbers to the world, to reality. We are forced to make a leap from the a priori to the a posteriori, a leap that characterizes the abyss between the finite and the infinite intellect of which we spoke in the preceding chapter. In order to establish and maintain a foothold in time and space we must depend on empirical objects, for our intellects are too feeble to comprehend objects as the a priori relations in time and space. 6

Vp. 229, note 1. This non-dependence of the relation on its elements is not mentioned in Kuntze’s book on Maimon; it seems to me that it is of central importance in the understanding of Maimon’s philosophy, including the function of a priori construction.

TIME AND SPACE

45

3. We have already had occasion to note the passages where Maimon demonstrated that the forms of time and space are indispensable for the perception of diversity. Different objects can be recognized as different only through time and space and yet, Maimon insists, temporal succession or spatial discreteness could not, for us, be actualized without objects. Time and space are only the possibilities that must be realized by the objects within them if they are to have meaning : Time and space can only be presented by means of things insofar as they are separate from one another (K. Up. 221). Different objects are therefore the condition for the possibility of time and space. On the other hand, the diversity of things cannot be

thought without temporal or spatial

continuity, for when I posit diversity I am compelled, as we have seen, to assume the heterogeneity of two different objects. Thus, objective diversity is, on the one hand, the condition for temporal and spatial continuity and, on the other hand, the representation of spatio-temporal continuity is the condition for the possibility of making judgements about the heterogeneity of things. The diversity of things and spatio-temporal continuity are thus necessarily mutually related (Str., p. 263). We find this thought, somewhat differently expressed, in Maimon’s last book where he writes : “Time in all its functions is the a priori condition for the possible existence of objects that are presented in it and these, in turn, become the condition for the possible existence of time itself” (K. U., p. 183). We are here presented with the peculiar dialectic of time and space : “It is a magic circle — on the one hand, an orderly sequence must precede entities but, on the other hand, this sequence itself cannot be created without the participation of the entities.” 7 This dialectical difficulty can be solved if we make a distinction between the pure concept of diversity, which is absolutely formal and prior to all the contents that fill it, and the concrete contents themselves which present to us this pure notion a posteriori. This logical circle is not caused by the matter itself but by the manner in which our limited intellect comprehends it by making a sharp distinction between form and matter and taking the latter as an element that is wholly foreign and external to the intellect. From the standpoint of the infinite mind, however, this 7

E. Cassirer, Leibnitz’ System in seinen wissenschajtliclien Grundlagen, p. 253.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

dualism is abolished since in its sight the a priori relations are not dependent on given objects but determine the objects (V., p. 229). “The intellect can dispense with the form of diversity only if the objects themselves have been created by it in accordance with various laws” (Ph. W., p. 16). This can be illustrated by the following example: Our finite intellect is confronted with a magic circle, that is, in order that it might perceive “blue” and “green” as different colors, it must represent them in different places or at different times; but for these colors to fill different places they must already be different with respect to their attributes, since space is for Maimon the Schema of diversity and heterogeneity, and things that are the same cannot occupy different places. The magic circle exists for us as a result of the separation of form and the content that fills it and it shows only the dependence of matter on form and of form on matter. For the infinite mind there would be no such diversity — since the cognizable object is identical with the cognizing subject — and matter is but the aggregate of intellectual forms, the color “green” in our example being but the sum of the conceptual relations in which it is found. The limited human understanding finds itself involved in the following logical magic circle : Since time and space are not conceived as they are but only through their palpable contents, being but a frame for diversity to be filled by diverse objects, heterogeneity must be produced by the content that is to be arranged in time and space. The a priori nature of time and space is only ideal, but points within them can only be distinguished on the basis of real content. Time and space, therefore, do not create diversity, but receive it from the content that fills them. This is the meaning of Leibniz’s principium identitatis indiscernibilium : “two bodies completely alike in all respects cannot be found in nature; things that are only spatially (and temporally) separated nevertheless do not differ only spatially (and temporally).” 8 This principle of the identity of indiscernibles, formulated by Leibniz, was adopted by Maimon. 4. The infinity of time and space may be deduced a priori for it is 8

Cf. Cassirer s description in Leibnitz’ System in seinen ivissenschaftlichcn Grundlagen, p. 252.

TIME AND SPACE

47

based on the possibility of thinking the concept of diversity in infinite ways, and hence also its image. This, then, is an infinity of possible differentiation.9 “The proposition that space is infinitely divisible and extended is an analytical judgement for it flows directly from the concept of space as the condition of the possible diversity of objects that may be found in it since they could be different ad infinitum” (K. U., p. 80). This infinity, however, applies to the possible diversity and not to the empirical. The given differentiation which is cognized by empirical attributes is always finite, as is also empirical space which is determined by it. 5. We are compelled to make an absolute distinction between time and space as concepts and as intuitions. Discreteness in time and space has its ground in the diversity of things, that is, in the imagination which apes the understanding and imagines a and b to be outside one another in time and in space because the understanding thinks them as different. This Verstandesbegriff serves as a guiding principle for the imagination which must never lose sight of it if it is to function lawfully; should it, however, lose sight of this guiding principle of the understanding, it comes upon fictions [.Erdichtungen] which are no longer subject to any Verstandsregel. The concept of differentiation [verschieden sein] is more general than that of discreteness [ausser einander sein] because the latter can only apply to intuitions whereas the former can also apply to concepts, that is, whatever is different must be perceived in time and space, but not vice versa (that is, not all that appears through the imagination in time and space is also different in concept).10 The intrusion of the imagination and of the intuition in time and space created by it poses a new problem. In addition to analytical judgements derived from the concept of time and space (for example, time and space can be extended and divided ad infinitum) we now have judgements derived from the intuition and not from the concept, that is, synthetic judgements. Such a judgement, for example, would be that 9

Ph. W., p. 43; cf. Kant’s definition of “the law of affinity of all concepts” (Gesetz der Affinitdt alter Begriffe), a law that prescribes a continuous transition of every kind and type by means of a gradual increase of diversity (Critique of Pare Reason, B685). Here Kant explains that this law (and similar laws cited by him in this connection) “is not derived from experience,” but is “a transcendental law, a rational principle prior to experience.”

10 Tr., p. 133 ; see also Ph. IF., p. 15.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

space has three dimensions (K. Up. 80). The imagination now has time and space appear in an altogether new guise. As concepts these were only the relations of the diversity of objects, and only objects that differ with respect to the concept could be discrete in space and time. The imagination, however, creates our customary intuition of time and space and makes it appear to us as if objects that are conceptually identical might also be individualized through their position in time and space alone and thereby exhibit differences among themselves. In reality, however, two entities exhibit differences only because they differ with respect to their concepts, as taught by Leibniz and Maimon. This differs from the view later set forth by Schopenhauer according to which space and time themselves serve as a principle of individualization.11 Only with respect to empirical objects can we use the positions they occupy in time and space as a means of distinguishing them. This is, however, a defect from the standpoint of Maimon’s system and not a virtue. “That objects could be identical in concept and yet different as objects is possible only with respect to empirical objects but not with respect to objects a priori which in reality are identical with their concepts” (Kat., p. 245). From this, then, it follows that in intuitive-empirical space and time it is possible to create differences through position alone in time and space, so that Maimon could state that whatever is different must be perceived by the intuition in time and space but not vice versa, that is, not everything that is perceived in time and space differs with respect to its concept (Tr., p. 134). Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles mentioned above does not apply to intuitive time and space, which are themselves the principium individuationis and create a difference where there is prima facie no conceptual difference. “Let us take two rows of objects,” Maimon writes, one consisting of objects which differ in their concepts and another which contains objects that are conceptually alike : abcdefghi kkkkkkkkk The objects of the first row are represented as discrete in time and 11

For details on the principle of individuality see my book, Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), p. 102.

TIME AND

SPACE

49

space and those of the second row as indiscrete, undifferentiated and not outside of one another. We regard only the objects in the first row as discrete in time and space because diversity is the ground of representation in time and space and these, in turn, the condition for the possibility of the sensible description of the diversity among these objects. The objects of the second row, however, do not differ from one another ; if we see them as such, it is because we compare its objects to the discrete objects in the first row. Thus, for example, we imagine a homogeneous river (all its parts being absolutely equal to one another) as existing in space because we relate its parts to the different discrete objects on the shore. We delude ourselves if we believe that the river in itself [an sich] cannot be represented otherwise that in space (V., p. 137). This is one of Maimon’s favorite examples to explain the illusion created by the imagination whereby we are led to believe that the river itself is represented in space without any relation to the various objects along its shore (V., p. 422). Why then, Maimon asks elsewhere, does the uniform and homogeneous river nevertheless appear to us in space ? Because this is the way in which the imagination performs its function (Str., p. 261). If we would perceive no sensible object outside of the river, it would be an object that could be represented only is space; in reality it is not represented in space. But since we see other objects along the shore which, because of their diversity, are represented in space (with respect to th river as well as with respect to one another), the imagination transfers the representation of space from these objects to the river which is with respect to them in the same spatial relation of diversity (Auseinandersein). We thus imagine the river not only as outside the objects on the shore but we also imagine that its equal parts are outside one another (because of the different relations of the parts to the various objects). Similarly, time is not a form of the inner intuition, as Kant has it, but only a form of diversity; where there is no diversity in the representations of our inner state, there is also no time sequence (Str., p. 261). 6. Nevertheless, we are able to indicate the passage of time after having slept several hours, for example, even though we are unable to determine the changes of the representations in our internal condition within us during the time that elapsed. We determine this later with the help of the imagination by noting the position of the hands of the clock, that is,

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

by means of the relation of non-change to change, exactly as in the case of the river. This activity of the imagination which causes us to see space and time even where the understanding fails to see them is called

by

Maimon

metonomy, that is,

“the

transference

of a

quality inherent in one object to another object with which it has some definite relationship” (Ph. Wp. 44). Despite the objective relation of diversity as the source that determines the subjective representation of space (time) as its copy, we nevertheless find as a result of metonomy that this copy prepared for us by the imagination contains more than the original which has its seat in the understanding, “although at times we have no way of recognizing the original other than by means of the copy, just as we recognize a category by means of a definite succession in time.” 12 The copy is then the ideal ground of the original but it is not the real ground of the original, that is, we recognize the concept of time and space by its copy in the intuition, but the copy owes its existence only to the original concept that produced it (the objective diversity of objects). “If the faculty of the imagination imagines a series of objects that are identical from the standpoint of concept (despite their identity) in the succession of time and space, then its use is transcendent (not lawful), that is, it transfers its form from real matter to imagined matter (wherein the understanding reveals no differences at all). It is plain to all that in order to imagine things that are identical in spatio-temporal succession it is necessary to conjoin them with different objects for, without this, representation is impossible” (7V., p. 135). For example, we distinguish two equal events in our life by thinking them in connection with the particular circumstances that characterized them. Just as the imagination creates diversity that seems intuitive in places where conceptually there is none (river), so does it create the illusion of empty space and empty time by covering all areas of experience with the intuitive image. Empty space is the sensible Schema of diversity in general (TV., p. 346), just as empty time (which is described as infinite suecession) is “the Schema of temporal succession perceived as the con12

For example: the category of cause-effect, from a determined temporal instantaneousness.

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51

dition of the diversity of existence in general” (KUp. 184). Time and space as intuition, then, are fictions created by the imagination which pictures as absolute something that exists only in relation to something else (TV., p. 19); and, although time and space do not depend on a definite content, they are functional phenomena that must be filled with some kind of content.13 Hence, the parts of space are numerically equal to the number of material parts that fill it, and this is also true of time. In the sensuous intuition time is determined by the diversity within it which is always limited, and this also causes time to be limited.14 Empirical space exists only to the extent that empirical objects actually exist. Space beyond the world, that is, outside the totality of the objects of experience in infinitum, just as space that is filled with a homogeneous empirical entity (river), is not of itself a real object but only a possible object of experience. The representation of space is absent not only where no empirical objects are to be found but also where empirical objects, though found, exhibit no diversity. The representation of space in such cases is a transcendental (unlawful) fiction of the imagination (Str., p. 265). Empty space and empty time are based on an illusion of the imagination which takes a thing that is not dependent on any special condition for a thing that is not dependent on any condition and believes that time and space, not being dependent on any definite content, can be made independent of all content whatever. It is not necessary that specific bodies a b c should fill space but that some bodies, no matter which, must fill it. This error has created the fiction of absolute motion. Since body a which moves in relation to body b is not dependent on b in that its motion can also be determined with relation to another body, c or d, it is erroneously believed by the proponents of absolute motion that even if we should remove all bodies except a the latter would still move.115 7. We have already noted above that space and time, as concepts, are mutually exclusive but, as intuitions, the opposite is true and that it is impossible to think one without thinking the other since, as in-

13

Cf. E. Cassirer, Leibnitz’ System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen, p. 256.

14 15

V., p. 219 ; K.U., p. 86. Cf. Maimon’s remarks on Pemberton’s Anfangsgriinde der Newtonischen Philosophic,

p. 197.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

tuitions, they are extensive magnitudes in which the representation of the whole is possible only through the representation of the parts. In order to think a definite space, we must assume one definite space as a unit of measure and deduce space by means of a successive synthesis (measuring), that is, with the help of time. Conversely, to think a definite time is possible only with the aid of movements of the hands of a clock or something similar, that is, with the help of space (TV., p. 22). 8. In this connection Maimon observes that the relation of arithmetic to the concept and to the intuition is not the same as it is in geometry.16 The subject of the latter is space as intuition while the subject of pure arithmetic is number whose form is time as concept. Arithmetic, then, deals with concept, that is, the pure intellectual form of diversity, while geometry deals with the intuition of space. This places arithmetic on a higher level than geometry (as Hume believed), since geometry is based on an intuition which for Maimon was not a priori (as it was for Kant) but a creation of the imagination, although this product of the imagination is not altogether devoid of the truth, the truth that pertains, of course, to an image. 9. There are no

a priori intuitions,

according to Maimon. On

the contrary, all differences in the light of a priori speculation necessarily appear as conceptual differences in spite of the fact that our empirical observation detects only intuitional differences. Maimon hence came to the conclusion that time and space serve in a certain sense as aids on the way to knowledge. As long as we determine difference as difference in time and space only and not as difference in concept, we have not attained the proper goal of knowledge. Time and space are for Maimon “the general guides for the completion of our empirical knowledge” (V., p. 132). When we find two empirical objects that we recognize as two only because of their external relations in time and space, although they are known as one with respect to concept, it proves that the concepts are incomplete, for in accordance with the Law of Sufficient Reason an identical concept (in conformity with its inner characteristics) necessarily

16

Tr., pp. 22, 56, 69.

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entails an identical external relation. The identity of the concept would result in the identity of position in time and space, and a change of position indicates a conceptual difference between the objects. This constrains us to seek the missing characteristics in our concept (charactenstics that are nevertheless included in the objects) whereby it might be possible to explain the differences in the external relations of the objects since such differences in time and in space must be based on differences of inner characteristics. We must now search for this internal difference. For example, two drops of water are one in concept (as far as we can ascertain) and yet they exist as different objects resulting from the condition that they are in different places or occur at different times; but it is not clear why they can be found in different external relations in time and space if they are determined with regard to their inner characteristics by the same concept. We must assume that this common concept is incomplete, that is, that is does not contain all the characteristics that determine the two drops but only those common to both and not peculiar to each by which its special place in time and space is determined. This impels us to try to discover those qualities that are peculiar or proper to an object, and in this manner our knowledge becomes more and more perfect. We thus come to understand what the different inner characteristic is that is expressed by the difference of position in time and space. Time and space may then be regarded as useful directives in helping us to complete our knowledge of empirical objects. These we never succeed in knowing completely, but what in them is obscure gradually becomes clearer. 10. All diversity in time and space is a diversity in the concept of an object with respect to time (space). We find the following dictum in Schopenhauer: “If all clocks were to stop or if the sun would stand still and all movement and change cease, this would not impede the flow of time even for a moment and time would continue as before unaccompanied by changes.” 17 This is exactly the opposite conception

17

Parerga und Paralipomena II, 3. It is interesting to note parenthetically that this work of Schopenhauer bears the same motto — vitam impendere vero — that is found at the end of Maimon’s essay, “Versuch einer neuen Darstellung des Moralprinzips und Dedukzion seiner Realitat” and which he also used for his Ph.lP. This

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

to that of Leibniz and Maimon, according to which the flow of time attests to some change that takes place in it. Another example is that of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence which, from Maimon s point of view, is not possible. If there is an eternal recurrence of the world and if no change would indicate the difference between one world and another, one being no different than the other, then there would be no point in speaking of a multiplication of worlds or of the passage of time or of recurrence. Time alone is not sufficient to mark the individual differences that distinguish one world-period from another.18 11. The essential difference between Maimon’s conception of time and space and that of Kant is best illustrated by the latter’s interpretation of pure intuition, which has both a positive and a negative aspect. In its positive aspect it serves to secure the a priori nature of the mathematical sciences; it is the source for the synthetic judgement a priori of mathematics, “a source of knowledge equal to that of thought.” Just as all objective knowledge requires a conjoining of these two stems of knowledge (thought and intuition), every special form of knowledge is conditioned by this conjunction.19 The negative aspect of intuition is that it bases knowledge on the duality of concept-intuition and thus deprives the concept of the possibility of perceiving the truth alone. In this manner the antinomian character of the understanding is demonstrated. The understanding is led into its antinomies and contradictions when it functions without the intuition. With the aid of the understanding alone, metaphysics cannot comprehend things-in-themselves. Maimon’s opposition to Kant’s pure intuition stems from his desire to

restore rationalism in the spirit of Leibniz and to find a new

basis for metaphysics. The problem of the confluence of the two streams of a priori knowledge, which was an intolerable burden in the Kantian system, is solved by restoring their pre-Kantian unity.20 Maimon could thus be said to be (as was said of Lotze) a pre-Kantian after Kant.

phrase, taken from Juvenal, was taken also by Rousseau as his motto (G. Biichmann, Gejliigelte Worte, p. 365). 18

See my book, Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), p. 108.

19

See H. Cohen, Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte.

20

Cf. A. Zubersky, Salomon Maimon und der kritische ldealismus, p. 31.

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Let us examine more closely the points at which Maimon opposed Kant: (a) Time and space were for Kant the intuitive forms of inner and outer representation and nothing more; for Maimon they were the forms of the diversity of objects, the conditions that make the diversity of objects possible.21 (b) Time and space are for Kant purely subjective, with nothing in the objects that correspond to them; for Maimon they are, with respect to what they represent, objective (Jr., p. 180). As concepts they have the same degree of reality as the categories and, like them, are objects. Maimon rejects the Kantian view which attributes to the categories a greater measure of truth, as if the categories were binding on all thinking beings and as if time and space pertained to the human mind alone Jr., p. 23). It is true that time and space, as intuitions, are products of the imagination, but the intuition has a “basis in the object,” that is, all thinking beings perceive the heterogeneity of objects in the same way. True, we can imagine beings that are not bound by our spatio-temporal intuition Jr., p. 182) but this does not affect the truth of the conceptual relations at the bottom of these intuitions which remain binding on all thinking beings Jr., p. 427). (c) The first and second Kantian antinomies22 arise from Kant's failure to distinguish between the two meanings of time and space and in his identifying time and space as concepts with time and space as thought possibilities. Time and space are the relations of the diversity of objects and arise only where there are objects. Where no objects exist, there is no space or time; and these forms can never be more extensive than the objects that fill them.23 There is no space and time beyond the world and thus we cannot say that the world had a beginning within time, but that it was created together with time, for a beginning in time presupposes

21

Str., p. 264; K.U., p. 75; V., p. 138.

22

The antinomies are, as is well known, four classes of judgements that contradict one another. The thesis of the first antinomy is: the world has a beginning in time and limits in space. The thesis of the second antinomy is: every synthetic object consists of simple parts; this is contradicted by the antithesis. On antinomies cf. below the chapter on Maimon and Fichte.

23

V., p. 219; Str., p. 265; Tr., p. 182.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

time prior to the world. Hence, it is impossible that the world should have had a beginning in time. It is different if we regard time and space not as the relations of diverse objects but as the thought conditions for possible diversity. A given series of passing states might be limited, but possible states can always be added to it in thought ad infinitum (K. U., p. 230). But this infinity of the possible fullness of the world still does not give us Kant’s antithesis that the real world has no beginning. Empty space and time are fictions. It is interesting to note that Maimon treats the subject of time and space as intuitions in the Kantian sense in the same chapter in which he discusses the subject of fictions (Str., pp. 260 ff.). It is therefore impossible to deduce from these fictions anything concerning the infinity or the non-infinity of the world. The question of the finite or infinite nature of matter can be answered by looking at the world and not by the Active concept of empty time and space. Our knowledge, however, is too limited to provide us with an answer to this question (V., p. 215). 12. Although Maimon restored to time and space their proper meaning as the relations of objects, he does not completely reject Kant’s pure intuition. Together with the pure concept of time and space and together with the empirical intuition Maimon accepts the a priori intuition of space. Geometry regards the empirically given intuitive space not as it is actually given to us, its finite nature determined by a number of objects that differ from one another, but as it could be given to us. The line drawn by us is always finite, but we think of its possible continuation ad infinitum, so that the drawn line is only the Schema or symbol of the infinite line. The a priori intuition thus becomes the field of geometry. The difference in this connection between Kant and Maimon is that for Kant the infinite intuition is prior to empirical intuition and for Maimon the concept and not the intuition of space is primary. But Maimon does not accept geometric proofs derived from intuition (whose lawfulness Kant acknowledges) since they are based on pure intuition. The imagination which, for Maimon, creates intuition, cannot give us the truth and thus Maimon did not find objective truth in the axioms of geometry. There is “objective truth” in the propositions derived from these axioms, that is, “a correspondence to the principles”

TIME AND SPACE

57

from which they are derived, but these principles themselves cannot claim to possess truth but only objective necessity for they are not dependent on the subject that thinks them [Ph. IV., p. 160). In this respect Maimon anticipated the views of modem geometry, a subject to which we shall return below. The affinity between

Maimon’s thinking and the latest develop-

ments in mathematics and physics goes even further. The Leibniz-Maimon conception of time and space as the relation among objects paved the way for later developments in physics. The Kantian conception of time and space as pure intuition, whose qualities can be determined without reference to the objects that fill them, is contrary to the latest developments in physics as expressed in Einstein’s theory of relativity. If we now say that the geometry of the world is determined by matter and expresses the gravitational field and that it can be explained by the field of forces, then it is fully in the spirit of Maimon’s conception. Maimon took as the condition of space the diversity of the bodies that fill it. This diversity of objects can be translated in physics as the mutual operation of forces, and in this sense this principle can be characterized as similar to that of Leibniz-Maimon since “at present it is impossible to have a geometry of space without a connection to physical relationships.” 24 It is obvious that as geometry thus becomes physics, it reveals itself more clearly as a geometry that disregards physical space and becomes a pure doctrine of multiplicity which investigates — as Maimon puts it — “the possible diversity of objects that can be thought in it.” We have already noted that Maimon distinguished in principle between arithmetic as a science based on concepts and geometry which is based on intuition. In fact, Maimon’s system of sciences here reveals a gap, for if space and time are for him concepts on the one hand and intuitions on the other, then there should be besides the present science of geometry that deals with intuitive space another geometry that deals with conceptual space.25 It is precisely this gap that the modern development

24

H. Reichenbach, Philosophic der Raum-Zeit-Lehre, p. 296.

25

Cf. H. Weyl, Philosophic der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft, p. 50: “Geometry,

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

of mathematics sought to bridge by creating a geometry of pure conceptual relations in which intuition is superfluous. The new development thus arrived at a stage where “mathematical geometry is no longer a science that deals with space, insofar as we understand this to be intuitive space that can be filled with objects, but a pure science of multiplicity. In this science intuition has the same role as it has in arithmetic, and is likewise a discipline that can be reduced to logical concepts. The basic concepts of logic are really what constitute the content of geometric propositions and everything of a spatio-intuitive nature is a superfluous addition.” 26 Maimon could not have known this new development in mathematics, but it was in keeping with the basic principle of his philosophy — to transform all intuition into thought insofar as he thinks “every synthesis of thought to be merely accidentally conjoined not only with a specific mode of the intuition but with intuition in general” (Tr., p. 206). Kant’s well-known complaint against Leibniz was that he “intellectualized phenomena.” 27 Maimon would have answered that Leibniz was right and that there is nothing for us to rely upon but the intellect: Kant maintains that the sensibility and the understanding are two totally different faculties; but I maintain that even if we must think them as two different faculties, the infinite mind thinks them as one, so that the sensibility is for us nothing more than incomplete understanding (Tr., p. 182).

to the extent that it investigates real space, is not mathematics but belongs actually, like mechanics and physics, to applied mathematics.” 26

H. Reichenbach, op.cit., p. 121.

27

Critique of Pure Reason, B327.

CHAPTER III

THE DOCTRINE OF DIFFERENTIALS

1. Maimon’s efforts to free himself from every dependence on the intuition found its most significant expression in his doctrine of differentials, a doctrine designed to reduce sensibility to silence or, at least, to diminish its excessive claims. If time and space, as we have seen, are taken to be the relations of the diversity of things, the question arises : What are these diverse things, what is the content, and how is this content related to the spatio-temporal relations into which they enter ? Are we here confronted once more with the dualism of form and content? Maimon found this view uncongenial to his rationalism for it failed to solve the question of quid juris, namely, by what right does the intellect use these forms over against matter in order to reduce it to form? The understanding “can employ the forms of diversity only when it has produced the objects themselves in accordance with definite rules” (Ph. W., p. 16). We have no choice, then, except to regard the spatio-temporal content as objects created by the understanding in accordance with various rules. If we disregard time and space and reduce the extension of the objects within them to zero, we will be in a position to comprehend the nature of the content of these objects as they are or, which is the same for Maimon, the rules according to which they were produced, since extension in space is always a relation between two objects and cannot adhere to an individual object by itself. We must conceive the content that fills time and space as being without finite extension and yet in such a manner that the resulting point is not a mathematical but a physical point. Only when matter is reduced to “the laws that produced the object” can we have the possibility of understanding how the intellectual forms apply

to sensuous matter. The affinity between the understanding

and matter can be understood only after matter has been converted into the laws of the understanding. These laws Maimon calls differentials. The differentials as such do not reach our consciousness; they are

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limiting concepts or “ideas” of the understanding that are not perceived by the intuition. This does not mean, however, that they are fictions. On the contrary, they are the expression of the laws that rule matter which, now freed of its quantitative aspect, reveals itself as purely qualitative. Our limited minds, bound to intuitions in time and space, fail to grasp this lawfulness in itself and can only grasp intuitive, synthetic, integral entities whose source is in lawfulness. Maimon explains this as follows : If we reduce an extensive magnitude to its differential, we can still think it as existing because of its intensive magnitude within an extensive magnitude relation. For example, if we think of a triangle, one of whose sides moves in the direction of the angle lying opposite to itself, in such a manner that the side constantly remains parallel to itself, and do so until the triangle becomes smaller and smaller ad infinitum (differential), we find that the extensive magnitude of the sides has ceased . . . but the relations of the sides of the triangle always remain the same ... In this way the intensive magnitude (the quality of the quantity) becomes the differential of the extensive, and the extensive the integral of the intensive. Quality abstracted from all extensive quantity can, nevertheless, be thought in a quantitative relation . . . This relation does not exist among the lines insofar as they are measured but insofar as they are determined qualitatively.1 We thus arrive at the pure expression of the quality of the triangle in which all quantitative relations have ceased to exist and only the qualitative peculiarity of the triangle has remained. Just as the mathematical laws in the above example are independent of quantity, so also are the natural laws dependent on quality which in itself is not extensive but constitutes the cornerstone of extended matter. “If we say, for example, that fire melts wax, this judgement does not refer to the fire nor the wax as objects of intuition but rather to their elements (the differentials) thought by the understanding” (Tr., p. 356). In other words, extension in space is accidental to the laws of geometry. Magnitude belongs to the external (extrinseca) but not to the internal (intrinseca) characteristics of geometry. In contradistinction to Descartes who in his analytical geometry reduces all differences of form (inner differences) to differences of magnitude (external differences), Leibniz’s “analysis of position” (analysis situs) is based on the inner characteristics

1

Tr., p. 395 ; see the scheme, there.

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of geometrical figures.‫ ־‬Similarly, Ben David2 3 distinguishes between position and measure, basing geometry on the former and arithmetic on the latter.4 2. Maimon here follows in the footsteps of Leibniz in that he strives to express geometrical qualities without any reference to magnitude. To this end he uses the concept of the infinitely small, not because of its minuteness but because it permits us to dispense with definite magnitudes and to express characteristics in a purely qualitative fashion that could be applied to every magnitude. This is the concept of the infinitely small or the Reale (or “of intuition”) that Maimon introduces in his first book.5 He makes a clear distinction between this concept and that of the infinitely small in its purely symbolical sense as it is used, for example, by mathematicians when they say that the angle between two parallel lines or the cosine of a right angle is infinitely small. Over against this use of the term “infinitely small” Maimon stresses the specific sense in which he uses this concept (the differential of magnitude), whereby he does not mean that magnitude has ceased to exist but only that it is not determined.

In relation to magnitude the differential is deter-

minable but not determined (Tr., p. 351). In his last book Maimon similarly states that the differential is something (quantum) to which a determinable quantity could be ascribed, but we disregard this determinable quantity (K. Up. 209). These are not extensive magnitudes that are produced by means of conjoining equal parts; but they are, nevertheless, intensive magnitudes which cannot be determined in themselves but only by mutual relation. When we consider dx, dy as magnitudes,

2

Cf. my book, Das philosophische Werk Bernhard Bolzanos, p. 184, where I have cited passages from Leibniz and Christian Wolff which testify to this attempt to give prominence to the qualitative elements as over against the quantitative elements of geometry. Kuntze’s words should here be cited: “Euclid’s geometry was built on measure, but the new geometry, known as projective geometry, finally dispensed with measure and number altogether.” (Erkenntnistheorie, in Handbuch der Philo• sophie, edited by A. Baeumler and M. Schroter, Vol. I, p. 54. Here Kuntze also points out a similar attempt made by Spinoza in Letter XII.)

3

On Ben David’s influence on Maimon’s theory cf. F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon

4

H. Cohen, Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte, §80.

5

See especially p. 351.

Maimons, pp. 353 ff.

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we find them equal to zero and still dx can be equal to 2dy. Thus, for example, we can compare the velocity of a motion at one point with the velocity of the same motion at a different point and by means of it determine it as a magnitude. These are the intensive magnitudes {K. U., pp. 209—210). The differential could then be employed as unit and measure, but it is a unit which is no longer composed of parts and is thus not susceptible to measurement. This is called by Maimon an absolute unit (K. Up. 213). Without apparently having known Maimon’s theory, Hermann Cohen revived this idea of the absolute unit without quantity: “It is plain that the unit cannot preserve its original sensible extension... The deeper interpretation of the unit transcends the character of quantity... This interpretation of the unit that overcomes all extension and, despite this, reaches a clear and decisive determination is the qualitative unit.” Cohen calls this unit the real unit or the unit of production as over against the comparative unit.6 This conception of quality that is concealed within quantity — Leibniz speaks of the differential as something outside of extension and even prior to it7 — is also applied by Maimon, with the help of the differential, to physics and metaphysics. The differentials are the qualitative elements of the world. They are not the atoms of which the world is composed; they are not parts of objects, but the ultimate lawful relations of objects. The infinite mind would express all the lawful relations of the object of the world by means of these differentials and their relations. This, however, is not possible for us; but we can think it as possible and, consequently, that it would be possible to reduce the lawfulness of objects of intuition to their ultimate sources. The differentials perform the task of Kant’s thing-in-itself which, as interpreted by Maimon, express the ultimate goal of the epistemological process, the object corresponding to the infinite mind as its cognized object. Maimon also calls the differentials noumena as distinct from phenomena. If we would comprehend an object in its true essence, conceptually and not as a given object as it appears to us, we would have to grasp it as a qualitative 6

Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte, § 44. See below the chapter on Maimon and Hermann Cohen.

7

Cf. H. Cohen, ibid., § § 59, 79.

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differential (Trp. 32). We can thus say that God, as it were, thinks in differentials and we in integrals.8 The differential, which Maimon calls the quality of the quantity, thus solves the problem as to how a lawful relation can be made to apply to intuition. They are, in the last analysis, lawful relations not of the sensible qualities as they appear to us but of ideas of the understanding, of the differentials {Tr., p. 32). Our intuition cannot reveal to us pure laws because objects are given to it as a whole. In thinking a straight line, for example, the intuition thinks it already as drawn, whereas the understanding thinks it as arising according to its laws, that is, according to a differential. Therefore, in the intuition the line precedes the motion of the point within it, but in the concept the movement of the point precedes the concept of the line. This is also true of physical objects. If the understanding seeks to comprehend a law, it does so by means of the relation of the differentials (Tr., pp. 35, 36). Feeling presents us in sensuous language with a problem that only the understanding can solve by means of the differentials. “The intuitions receive their objective reality only by being resolved ultimately into the idea” (Tr., p. 366). 3. The understanding, then, thinks the diversity of objects only by the diversity of the rules of production (which are the differentials). It thinks the objects by thinking their rules of production. This is explained by Maimon as follows : An object requires two things : first, the intuition which is given a priori or a posteriori; secondly, a rule of the understanding whereby the relation of the manifold within intuition is determined. This rule of the understanding is not thought as continuous [fliessen] but is thought instantaneously. The intuition itself, on the other hand (if it is a posteriori) or a definite determinant of the rule within it (if it is a priori) causes the object to be thought as continuous only. For example, the understanding thinks a definite triangle, although not a particular one, by what it considers to be the relation of magnitude of the two sides . . . and thus the position and the magnitude of the third side are determined. This rule is thought by the understanding instantly. But since this rule contains only the general relation of the sides (according to any arbitrarily assumed unit), the magnitude of the sides remains 8

Cf. Kant’s letter to Herz (26 May 1789) which speaks of Maimon. The differential is “the wave of the sea,” “the first knot in weaving,” about which Jacobi asked (below, pp. 65—66).

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undetermined (in accordance with the determined unit). In the construction of this triangle, however, the magnitude can be thought only as determined. We are here confronted by a determinant not included in the rule and one which is of necessity dependent on the intuition. This would be (if we retain the rule or the same ratio) different in different constructions. Hence, it is necessary that the understanding should think this triangle, from the standpoint of all its constructions, not as already in existence but in the process of being created or as fliessend. However, the faculty of the intuition, which functions according to a rule [regelmdssig] but which does not proceed from the understanding of the rule [regelverstandig], cannot conceive the rule or the unity within the manifold but only the manifold itself and is therefore compelled to think its objects not as in the process of creation [entstehend] but as already created (TV., pp. 33—35). The understanding can thus think objects only by determining their basic rule or the manner of their production.9 Maimon expressly identifies the differential with the rule of production. Just as we are able to comprehend a geometric form when we understand the rule of its creation, so also can the infinite understanding (which, unlike ours, is not dependent on given things but thinks them at the point of their origin) resolve the whole world into a system of rules and the relations of these rules. The gap between the general and the specific, which always remains with respect to our empirical knowledge, does not exist for the infinite mind “which does not subject something given a posteriori to a priori rules but creates the object itself in conformity to these rules” (Tr., p. 82). The differential is this rule. The differential is an idea of the understanding and at the same time an element of a particular intuition, “a limiting concept between pure thought and intuition, through which both are lawfully united” (Tr., p. 192). Maimon calls the differential an ens reale in contradistinction to an ens logicum, for the latter is produced only in accordance with the law of identity 10 whereas the former unites within itself identity and difference, and is determined as quality. For the understanding and for the reason, then, there is neither 9

According to Kuntze’s apt phrase the passive receptivity in space and time that characterizes Kant’s theory is replaced by Maimon with development, “operation.” The attempt to understand the highest suppositions of Kant as a conclusion from a process was already characteristic of Reinhold’s system Salomon Maimons, p. 324).

10 See above p. 39, note 3.

(see Die Philosophic

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sensible matter nor intuition since these are only creations of the imagination, but only intellectual ideas (the differentials of all sensible intuition) and intellectual concepts (categories) which hold together the differentials and which reach consciousness through them and in them (Tr., p. 82). The differentials thus appear to be the means of solving one of the central problems of critical philosophy, namely, the right to apply the categories of the understanding to the sensibility. The sensibility has now disappeared from the forum of the understanding and its place is taken by the rules of the understanding. In place of the Kantian duality of the intuition and the understanding, of given matter and spontaneous form, we now have the understanding alone. The problem of the correspondence between these two factors of knowledge, mind and matter, is eliminated and a unity achieved by reasserting the Leibnizian element. 4. The differentials, “the elements of sensibility which are themselves concepts of the understanding while being concepts of the sensibility,” are thus designed to solve the problem that Kant sought to solve in his Critique of Pure Reason by means of the Schema. The problem arose from Kant’s failure to unite the two stems of knowledge, sensibility and understanding. In his later work, the Critique of Judgement, which appeared the same year that saw the publication of Maimon’s Versuch ilber die Transscendentalphilosophie (1790), Kant was obliged to seek refuge in the “as-if” in order to make experience compatible with the a priori understanding. It follows that we must now think of the sensibility “as if” it were created by the understanding. We must regard the empirical world “as if” an Understanding (though not ours) had presented it to our cognitive faculty in order to make experience possible.11 In his Critique of Judgement Kant could not evade this “as-if” as a last resort in eliminating the dualism inherent in his system, and this was tantamount to an admission that the problem was insoluble. Kant was content to call the coincidence of mind and matter “a fortunate accident.” In his letter to Marcus Herz he refers to Leibniz’s doctrine of “pre-established harmony” as a solution: “How one form can cor-

11

Introduction to the Critique of Judgement, IV.

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respond to another and become a possible cognition is impossible for us to fathom... but to answer this question is not at all necessary... However, I am convinced that Leibniz with his doctrine of pre-established harmony had in mind the harmony of two different faculties of the same being in which sense and understanding conjoin to make experience possible, a harmony whose source we can explain as being only in the Author of all things” (26 May 1789). Maimon obviates the difficulty at the very outset by having the sensibility replaced by the understanding, by the differentials. Instead of the Kantian dualism of sensibility and understanding Maimon presents a monistic solution of the epistemological problem. The sensibility is nothing more than the aggregate of the rules of the understanding (the differentials) as it appears to the imagination. If it is true that we can make only judgements of experience (in the Kantian sense)12 and to this end apply the pure concepts of the understanding to phenomena, then my theory can easily explain this possibility, that is, the question of quid juris, for it assumes that the elements of phenomena to which the pure concepts of the understanding are applied are not phenomena (TV., p. 192) . . . The pure concepts of the understanding or the categories are never applied to the intuitions directly but only to their elements, which are the Vernunftideen or the manner of the production of these intuitions, and through them (the elements or the differentials) applied to the intuitions themselves. Just as we deduce the relations of magnitudes, so does the understanding (although darkly) deduce the real relations of these qualities themselves from the real relations of the differentials of various qualities. If we make the judgement “fire melts wax,” this judgement does not refer to fire and wax as objects of intuition but to their elements which the mind thinks as the relation of cause and effect ('Tr., p. 355) ... If, however, we should ask how the understanding recognizes that these elements enter into these relations, I answer that it is because the understanding itself makes them real objects by means of these relations (Tr p. 193) ... I maintain, namely, that the understanding not only has a faculty of thinking general relations among definite objects of the intuition but also has the ability to determine objects by means of relations.13 It is able to relate a priori various relations to one another (Tr., p. 356). The doctrine of the differentials is the expression of a consistent rationalism which constitutes one aspect of Maimon’s philosophy, the other

12

We shall see later that Maimon did not acknowledge this.

13

See the example of number at the end of C11. I.

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67

aspect being his skepticism which we shall have occasion to examine later. The world is the creation of the understanding, and this can be concluded from the fact that the phenomena keep approaching the relations of the understanding ad infinitum (Tr., p. 193). A metaphysics constructed on the basis of a consistent idealism in the manner of Leibniz is therefore possible (in contradistinction to Kant) since our intuitions keep approaching ideas just as in mathematics a series keeps approaching its limit; and these ideas are real objects to the extent that we can in our thinking reduce intuitions to their elements {Tr., p. 196). 5. Maimon places our finite understanding and the corresponding subjective operation of our finite minds over against the objective order as it appears to an unlimited infinite mind, as we must assume in metaphysics.14 Our finite minds are bound to sensibility, and hence we must start from sensibility which “provides us with matter,” proceed from it through time and space to intuition (where matter and the form of the sensibility are conjoined) and then introduce order into this intuition by means of the concepts of the understanding or the categories. The objective order of an unlimited understanding would proceed from the ideas of the understanding (the differentials) as its starting-point. That which here “furnishes the matter” is itself an idea of the understanding, a rule. The infinite understanding produces the given in accordance with the rules, and the elements thus produced are combined by the concept of the understanding. Thus in the objective order the differentials or the qualitative ideas of all possible things take the place of the sensibility and the intuition. They are not something given a posteriori but are the a priori rules themselves. The synthesis of thought and intuition which is a basic problem for Kant is, for Maimon, purely accidental {Tr., p. 206). Such a synthesis is characteristic only for the human mind, whereas the understanding schlechthin is “a faculty for determining a real object by means of thought relations that refer to an object in general [objectum logicum]” {Tr., p. 206). To determine here means to posit, to create, and refers to an operation in which the subject does not “comport itself passively but determines relations among the objects by means of

14

Tt., pp. 81—83, 376.

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the spontaneity of the thinking faculty” (Str., p. 39). In his letter to Marcus Herz on 26 May 1789 Kant correctly interprets Maimon, namely, that Maimon’s theory indicates that the understanding is not only a faculty for thinking but also for intuiting (and for creating existence through the intuition). Thus, if we would define the “transcendental place” of the differentials, we must ask with Jacobi: How do the forms of consciousness reach their substratum; the “a priori loom” works but has no matter for weaving; how can we arrive from the transcendental forms (time and space) and the categories to the matter penetrated by them; how can waves rise in an endless ocean; how does the raw material fit the loom; how do we arrive “from the vowels to the consonants?” This is the problem of the given that Maimon sought to solve with his doctrine of the differentials. Kuntze has justly emphasized 15 that the differentials are designed “to solve the problem of the manifold in the sphere of the immanence of consciousness,” that is, without an illegitimate borrowing from experience. To the question as to whence comes the particularity of the empirical object Kant answers that it proceeds from the affection of the thing-in-itself. We might say that the problem which the differentials were supposed to solve is the same as that which Kant characterized as the intellectual intuition or the intuitive understanding. Our finite minds cannot solve the problem but Maimon showed how the infinite mind can. For our finite minds thought relations cannot determine an object (unless they are exceptional cases, such as numbers) because such relations presuppose inner characteristics (among which these relations exist) and these must be given to the understanding. The infinite mind, however, creates real objects (qualities, differentials) by means of thought relations, that is, by means of identity and diversity and by their continuous change. Maimon, by going back to Leibniz, pointed the way that Fichte dared to take, and in our day Hermann Cohen — matter is nothing but form, the object nothing but intellect, the sensation nothing but rules of the understanding, the differential.

15

In his book on Maimon, pp. 331 ff. and in the essay, “Salomon Maimons theoretische Philosophie und ihr Ort in einem System des Kritizismus,” Logos III (1912), p. 301.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROBLEM OF EXPERIENCE

1. The problems raised by Kant served Maimon as a point of departure in the development of his own theories. Although he differed from Kant in all essential points, Maimon owed him much and his reverence for him was immense. This can be seen from the dedicatory poem to Kant which he placed at the beginning of the first book he wrote in German, his Versuch

ilber die Transscendentalphilosophie — lines

taken from the third book of Lucretius’ On Nature in which the author expresses his admiration for Epicurus : O thou who first uplifted in such dark So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light Upon the profitable ends of man O thee I follow, glory of the G .. ., And set my footsteps squarely planted now Even in the impress and the marks of thine — Less like one eager to dispute the palm, More as one craving out of very love That I may copy thee ! — for how should swallows Contend with swans or what compare could be In a race between young kids with tumbling legs And the strong might of the horse? O father thou, And finder-out of truth, and thou to us Suppliest a father’s precepts; and from out Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul, (Like bees that sip of all in flowery worlds), We feed upon thy golden sayings all — Golden, and ever worthiest endless life.1 In the Introduction to this same book Maimon, with characteristic candor, says of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason : “This great work may be compared to that of Euclid — it cannot be refuted but only interpreted and commented upon.” His dispute with Kant was conducted in this humble spirit. We now turn to the brunt of Maimon’s attack which was directed chiefly against the central point in the Kantian system, namely, the question of quid facti.

1

Quoted from the translation of W. E. Leonard, London 1921, p. 93.

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What did Kant wish to prove and what did he succeed in proving? Kant was intent on saving science from Hume’s skepticism and to prove the validity of the principles of scientific thinking. To this end he used the transcendental method -— he demonstrated the validity of the principles as the conditions of experience and showed that unless such principles were assumed experience was impossible. The proofs given by Kant for the validity of his principles, however, left Maimon unconvinced. True, Kant had succeeded in demonstrating that without transcendental principles experience would not be possible. This was a great achievement, for the philosophers before Kant had failed to see that experience must be based on definite presuppositions. Kant had shown that scientific experience -— in his terminology simply “experience” — was possible only if certain basic principles were first laid down (e.g. the law of causality). Kant, therefore, justly concluded that experience is unable to demonstrate or to deny these principles since they were a priori. This central thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason was accepted by Maimon but he was disturbed by a more fundamental question, namely, on what are these principles themselves based? Is it enough justification that these principles serve as the basis for all scientific experience? If this basis crumbles, the possibility of scientific experience is also bound to disappear. But does this constitute sufficient proof? What must be shown is that scientific experience is possible in general. If Kant had proved that there is such a thing as scientific experience, that the facts of our experience could be arranged in scientific form, he would have been justified in asserting that it is sufficient to show the connection between experience and scientific principles in order to establish the truth of these principles. Kant, however, did not succeed in proving this. All the proofs that he advances to show that there is no experience without assuming some basic principle or other are only an analysis of the concept of “scientific experience,” but he was unsuccessful in demonstrating the validity or the actual use of this concept. He pointed out, for example, that the change that a phenomenon undergoes in experience is objective only if it conforms to the law of causality. Although this is true, the question remains whether the law of causality is true. Can we say that the changes that occur in experience are ob-

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jective changes in this sense? (K. U., p. 153.) This was not demonstrated by Kant. The principles on which “experience” is based will be true if we can prove that there is “experiencethat is, an ordered experience subsumed under valid scientific laws. This fact, namely, that there is scientific experience, was not proved by Kant, so that the entire structure of his thought remains “a castle in the air.” 2 2. This is the conclusion that Maimon reached after examining Kant’s “transcendental deduction.” Although this conclusion is apparently purely negative, it served in reality as the basis for Maimon’s own system, a system that occupies a middle place between Kant’s critical and Hume’s skeptical system. This takes us to the very heart of Maimon’s philosophy. In order to gain a clearer notion of the details of this controversy which revolves principally around the two questions of quid juris and quid facti in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, we shall quote Kant’s own words from the chapter in this work which he calls “The Principles of any Transcendental Deduction” : Jurists, when speaking of rights and claims, distinguish in a legal action the question of right (quid juris) from the question of fact (quid facti); and they demand that both be proved. Proof of the former, which has to state the right or the legal claim, they entitle the deduction. Many empirical concepts are employed without question from anyone. Since experience is always available for the proof of their objective reality, we believe ourselves, even without a deduction, to be justified in appropriating to them a meaning, an ascribed significance. But there are also usurpatory concepts, such as fortune, fate, which, though allowed to circulate by almost universal indulgence, are yet from time to time challenged by the question : quid juris. This demand for a deduction involves us in considerable perplexity, no clear legal title, sufficient to justify their employment, being obtainable either from experience or from reason. Now among the manifold concepts which form the highly complicated web of human knowledge, there are some which are marked out for pure a priori employment, in complete independence of experience; and their right to be so employed always demands a deduction. For since empirical proofs do not suffice to justify this kind of employment, we are faced by the problem how these concepts can relate to objects which they yet do not obtain from any experience. The explanation of the manner in which concepts can thus relate a priori 2

Str., p. 208, note. On this question see the essay of Benzion Rapaport, “The Transcendental Method,” in Nature and Spirit (Hebrew), pp. 72—76.

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to objects I entitle their transcendental deduction; and from it I distinguish empirical deduction, which shows the manner in which a concept is acquired through experience and through reflection upon experience, and which therefore concerns, not its legitimacy, but only its de facto mode of origination (B117—118; N. Kemp Smith, pp. 120—121). Maimon himself refers to these words of Kant and to the distinction between quid juris and quid facti, and observes that the answer to the latter question requires only ordinary judgement, for this is not a matter of proofs but of judging a factual question [K. U., p. 144). Thus, he remarks, surveyors in the field actually employ concepts and principles of pure geometry with no need of proving them.3 3. Maimon’s criticism of Kant’s transcendental deduction is a twofold one corresponding to these two questions under discussion: (a) The criticism of Kant’s solution of the question quid juris : Here it was Kant’s task to prove the possibility of a transition from pure concepts and a priori principles to experience and to show the manner of this transition. Is such a transition at all possible ? In order to solve this difAcuity, Kant (in his chapter on Schematism) uses the pure a priori intuition (of time) to effect the transition from the a priori to the a posteriori. But here, Maimon argues, an irrational factor is introduced which is unwarranted. Kant had apparently not solved the problem which, indeed, could be solved if Kant were emended by Leibniz and vice versa. (b) Even if we were to admit that the quid juris question had been solved, we would still be left with the question of quid facti. And only if we could unravel this knot, would we be able to dispense with the “castles in the air” and And the road to reality. The Humean question is insoluble. Kant’s critical philosophy overcame dogmatism without having vanquished skepticism. This is the general outline of Maimon’s position with respect to this

3

In his book, Die Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft Karl R. Popper points out that in countries where there are juries, the question of quid juris and quid facti are separated, the laymen of the jury being charged with rendering decisions de facto while questions of law, quid juris, are left for the professional judges.

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central problem and we now turn to a closer examination of the details. 4. In coming to Maimon’s criticism of Kant’s conception of the questtion of quid juris, it may be best to consider his own position with respect to this problems as he himself describes it: An object of thought is a concept of an object produced by the understanding according to general rules or conditions. It therefore requires two elements : (a) the matter of thought or something given (intuition ... (b) the form of thought, that is, the general rules or conditions, without which the given could be an object (of intuition) but not an object of thought, for thought means to make judgements, that is, to find the general in the particular or to subsume the particular under the general. Now the concepts can come into existence either with the intuition or prior to it, in which case they are only symbolical and their objective reality remains problematical only. To these the question quid juris applies, that is, can these symbolical concepts also be placed within intuition and thereby acquire objective reality or not? This can be illustrated by several examples. The concept of a straight line has two components : (a) matter or intuition (line, direction) ; (b) form, a rule of the understanding according to which this intuition could be thought (uniformity of direction, quality of straightness). Here the concept is produced together with the intuition, for the drawing of this line is from the very first subject to this law. The reality of the synthetic expression (straight and line), or the symbolic reality, rests on the reality of the synthesis of the concept itself (the closest connection between matter and form). But this occurs only where the intuition as well as the rule are a priori, which is the case in mathematical concepts which can be constructed a priori, that is, presented in a pure intuition. In this case we produce an a priori intuition in accordance with an a priori rule. But if the intuition is a posteriori and I wish to impose a form upon matter and make of it an object of thought, my procedure is clearly not valid since the a posteriori intuition flowed from something outside of me and not a priori from me and I am thus unable to prescribe for it any rule of production [.Entstehungsregel]. There are cases, however, where the synthesis of the symbolic object precedes the synthesis of the intuitive object. For example, the understanding creates the concept of circle by prescribing for it a rule or condition that it be such a figure wherein all lines that could be drawn from a definite point within it (the center) to its limits (the periphery) should be equal. Here we have merely the explanation of a name, that is, we know the meaning of the rule or the condition of the circle . . . but we do not know as yet whether this rule or condition could be realized. If it could not be realized, then this concept which is here expressed in words can have no objective reality —its synthesis could only be found in words but not in the thing itself. We leave the matter as it is then and take the objective reality of the concept simply as problematic in order to see whether we could determine its reality

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factually through an intuition or not. Fortunately for this concept Euclid had actually found a method of presenting it in an a priori intuition (by moving a line around one of its outer points), thus giving the concept circle objective reality. We also find concepts or rules which are the forms of judgements uberhaupt as, for example, the concept of causality, which is the form of the hypothetic judgement in relation to a definite object. Its meaning is as follows : if we posit a definite object a factually [assertorisch], then something else b must be posited apodictically. The question is then quid juris — that is, is the objective use of this concept valid [rechtmassig] or not ? (Tr., p. 48.) Kant believed that he could solve the problem of the possibility of using the a priori forms of thought over against the empirical content by having time serve as the intermediate link. Since time was, on the one hand, a priori like the category itself and, on the other hand, intuition like that given to us, it could in the guise of the Schema make possible the subsuming of a posteriori phenomena under a priori categories. Maimon rejected Kant’s reliance on the intuition and doubted that even an a priori intuition such as time could solve the quid juris problem. In this connection he says : Granted that time and space are a priori intuitions, they are still only intuitions and not a priori concepts; they give us the members of the relationship only in intuitive form and through them the relationship itself, but not the truth or the validity of its employment. The question now arises : How are synthetic judgements in mathematics possible and how do we test their validity [Evidenz] ? . .. The question of quid juris does not arise in analytical judgements, such as judgements of identity or contradiction because these are the rules of the possibility of thinking objects in general without regard to their matter. But the question of quid juris returns in synthetic judgements (whether mathematical or physical), i.e. even where the fact is not in doubt, their possibility cannot be explained. It is possible to extend this to every object with respect to its qualities for since these are not derived from the object analytically according to the judgement of identity but only synthetically, the possibility of the inference [Folge] cannot be explained ('Tr., p. 60). The question of quid juris is identical with Kant’s question : How are synthetic judgements a priori possible? This question is answered by Maimon in the negative. These judgements are not possible and there is no way of arriving from the analytical to the synthetic judgement

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since such a transition would always be confronted by the question of quid juris. To find an answer to this central question posed by Kant we must assume that judgements which are synthetic for our human understanding are really analytical and hence there is no problem of quid juris, just as there is no problem with respect to the principle of identity or contradiction :

“We must assume that this synthetic union (from

our point of view) between subject and object has of necessity an inner reason, so that if we see, for example, the true nature of a straight line, then this synthetic judgement can be derived analytically. As a result of this supposition the certainty of mathematics is saved; but then we would have no synthetic judgements. I cannot help but believe that Herr Kant posited the reality of synthetic judgements only with respect to our limited understanding•, and in this I have no difficulty in agreeing with him” (Tr., p. 61). The question as to whether synthetic judgements a priori are possible might be solved if we could assume that our sensibility and our understanding wrere not absolutely distinct and that our sensibility is only the incomplete expression of the infinite understanding. In that case we could assume that the sensibility is itself thought, although incomplete and obscure, and the objects “given” to it would be converted into pure and transparent conceptual relations. If we could think sensibility in its completeness, that which is given to our senses would flow from the understanding itself. We are limited beings because we cannot grasp sensibility in its original form in the intellect; but even our meager intellectual knowledge would be impossible if our minds were not part of the infinite mind. The manner of thinking the “synthesis” for the finite and the infinite mind is, according to this view, identical from the standpoint of form and different only from the standpoint of matter in that the infinite mind sees all intuitively and its thought is immediately converted into intuitions; the intellect becomes the object and yet remains identical with it. The finite mind operates in this manner only in the realm of mathematics : only this small fraction of its thoughts is at once abstract and intuitive and the remainder of its thoughts remains only symbolical {Tr., p. 100). The important point in this formulation, however, is the

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union in essence of the finite with the infinite mind which differ from one another only in degree.4 “To the infinite mind the assertoric-synthetic propositions are apodictic, and the apodictic-synthetic become analytic” {Tr., p. 93). In the Kantian system this is devoid of sense; the synthetic form of the proposition depends on the proposition itself and not on the manner in which it is comprehended. In Maimon’s system, as in Leibniz’s, these two kinds of propositions flow from the same source within consciousness and differ only with respect to the degree of their cognitive completion. “We assume (at least as an idea) an infinite mind for whom forms are the objects of thought; in other words, a mind that creates out of itself all possible kinds of relations of things. Our minds are like this, but only to a limited degree. This is an exalted idea and (if carried out) could, in my opinion, solve the most difficult problems” {Tr., p. 64). This, then, was Maimon’s solution of the problem of how form can be conjoined with matter and matter with form : “The understanding does not subsume something given a posteriori under its a priori laws but creates the objects in accordance with these laws. This is the only way of solving the quid juris problem” {Tr., p. 82). This is also the only way of understanding the certainty of the axioms in mathematics. The axioms of mathematics, such as Kant’s example of a straight line being the shortest distance between two points, are so convincing that Kant saw no need for finding a basis for them other than that of the intuition. But if these axioms are true, then their truth is incomprehensible and opaque only for us. According to Maimon, synthetic judgements, if true, are really analytical judgements and are synthetic only to our limited understanding. The distinction between judgements of reason and judgements of fact (whose rationality is not apparent to the eye) cannot be absolute. We must thus assume, according to Maimon, that the synthetic union between subject and predicate is based upon an

4

Gibeath liamore, Ch. I, p. 34. For this doctrine in the Leibnizian school see Wolff’s Ontologia, § 502. Cf. also E. Cassirer, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophic und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, Vol. II, p. 525. See above, pp. 36 f.; for the central place occupied by the idea of the infinite understanding in Maimon’s philosophy see S. Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism, Ch. V.

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internal element and is synthetic only for us, so that the proposition that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points would follow analytically from the nature of the straight line, if we could recognize its true nature and were able to define it accordingly. It appears, therefore, that Kant defined the synthetic nature of judgements only with respect to the limited understanding. The interpretation of this doctrine, according to which Kant would define the synthetic character of judgements only in relation to our limited understanding (and would be a Leibnizian who believes in the analytical character of judgements with respect to the infinite understanding) is, of course, not correct. But this attempt to interpret Kant in the light of this doctrine, that is, as a follower of Leibniz, is characteristic of Maimon. This conception of the human understanding as a limited infinite understanding and the conception of “sensibility as incomplete understanding'’ (Tr., p. 183) is highly significant for his theory of knowledge and for his ethical theories and, as we shall see later, exerted a strong influence on Fichte and through him on the development of German philosophy in general. This doctrine is related to the theory of differentials according to which, as we have noted above, the elements of phenomena to which the concepts of the understanding apply are not sensible phenomena. The differentials are designed to put intellectual elements in the place of the blind intuition; the differentials appear to us as given sensible intuition (as Kant said) because of our limited understanding. If our minds were infinite, we could perceive the world in its intellectual elements and understand that the world is nothing more than the cognized object for the thinker (see below, the end of § 6). 5. It is precisely here, however, that the difficulty is to be found — we are not in the position to grasp the intellectual elements of the world nor even to prove that given matter is imbued with thought, as is assumed by

the theory of differentials. If we could prove that

the world is but a cognized object for the intellect, the Darstellung of the understanding, and that therefore the facts given to us have their root in

the understanding, then we could say that synthetic

judgements a priori, whose truth is hidden to our understanding but

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which force themselves upon it through the intuition, are opaque only to our limited intellects. To the infinite mind all these judgements would flow from the subject without any relation to a “given” intuition. This assumption, however, that the world is nothing more than the presentation of the infinite mind cannot be proved by us, and Hume’s skepticism remains since we cannot prove that “matter” is nothing but form. Fortunately, there is one science in which the understanding is not dependent on given matter but creates matter together with form, that is, the science of mathematics. Mathematical concepts are concepts in which pure thought, while thinking the concept, creates at the same time the object thought by it. Maimon illustrates this with the example of numbers, for numbers are only conceptual relations which need no real objects to which they can be applied, the conceptual relations themselves being the objects (Tr., p. 190). This constitutes the deep significance of mathematics. To Sulzer’s argument that we are unable to create ex nihilo Maimon replied : Creatio ex nihilo is not altogether foreign to our concepts. We find this concept within ourselves, for the human spirit can by means of the understanding think a priori objects and give them a priori matter or present them as objects through the faculty of the pure imagination; it is only incapable of giving them a posteriori matter. Thus we have a partial concept of creatio ex nihilo (Ph. Wp. 31). From mathematics, then, we learn what the nature of the world would have to be if we were able to prove that the “given” is given by reason and that there is an answer to the question of quid juris. In the case of mathematical concepts “the faculty of thought produces the matter of thought together with the form” (Tr., p. 2). These concepts, in being thought by us, become real objects by means of a priori construction.5 6. When we are absorbed with mathematics “we are like unto God.” 6 5

The understanding of the mathematician, like that of the

In his book on Maimon, Gueroult shows that this is the way that leads from Maimon to Hegel (p. 79). The understanding, wherein sensibility and intellectual forms flow from one source, is called by Hegel “an organon of truth” (Encyclopadie, § 52). Reason is a Kanon and not an Organon of truth, the criterion, and not the creator of truth. Hegel himself stresses the fact that this idea has a genealogical history up to the Metaphysica of Aristotle.

6

Str., pp. 20, 35, 183.

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infinite mind, “does not subsume the given a posteriori under a priori laws; it produces its own matter in conformity to these laws. And this, I believe, is the only way of finding a satisfactory solution to the question quid juris ’ (TV., p. 82). We must imagine that God's thinking is similar to that of mathematics:

the object is produced together with the

thought; thinking is not only formal-discursive, that is, a thinking outside the “given” object where concept is distinct from intuition. Kant had already observed that concepts without intuition are empty, and that intuitions without concepts are blind. Maimon expresses this same thought as follows : “Form alone does not possess objective reality, and intuition alone does not possess intellectual reality.” 7 This duality of form and matter does not exist in mathematics, for mathematical objects are only the pure expression of conceptual relations. Nevertheless, we are able in mathematics as well to distinguish these two points of view, that of the “cognizing subject” and that of the “cognized object,” for example, between a triangle drawn before us and a triangle as a conceptual expression alone. Mathematics shows us how we can understand thought that creates its matter out of itself, thought that is not a subsequent addition to matter that exists prior to it and without it, as does discursive thought, but is a unity in diversity. Thought and matter are here united from the very outset and not subsequently combined. Only if we conceive given matter as flowing from thought, are we able to find a satisfactory reply to Hume’s question. That which prevents us from a proper understanding of the operations of thought is our own finitude. We do not possess infinite understanding, but we can approach it ad infinitum. If our minds were infinite, we would understand all individual objects as the specifications of general laws, and the question of how categories may be used to subsume matter would not arise for us. Being finite creatures, however, we have no choice but to employ what Maimon calls “the light infantry,” 8 that is, we are obliged to divine by means of induction, analogy and probability the conceptual relations that are presumably at the basis of the reality of things. Hypotheses thus replace axioms and in this manner we can approach 7

Str., p. 35; cf. also V., p. 115.

8

See also above.

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closer and closer to the infinite mind and have our judgements come closer and closer to absolute truth, although we can never reach it completely (Tr., p. 437). The Biblical verse in Genesis, XXVIII: 13, “And, behold, the Lord stood above it [Jacob’s ladder]” is interpreted by Maimon to mean “that the finite understanding will eventually comprehend the infinite understanding by overcoming its own limitations.” 9 We are now better able to understand the essential significance of Maimon’s conception of time and space as categories of diversity as well as his theory of differentials. His conception of time and space was designed to enable us to dispense with them as intuitions, as non-rational elements “given a priori,” and to understand them as pure concepts. The purpose of Maimon’s theory of differentials was to show how it was possible to introduce rational elements instead of empirical qualities (color, sounds, etc.) to which the question of quid juris applies. Judgements of experience do not apply to a priori entities but to “their limits which are determined by our reason as objects with respect to their corresponding intuitions; and this renders the question of quid juris superfluous {Tr., p. 187);... the differential that Maimon calls the ‘idea of the understanding,’ is the limiting concept between pure thought and the intuition, both of which are lawfully united by it” {Tr., p. 192). 7. To sum up: the question of quid juris is in the last analysis capable of being solved — although Kant’s attempt was unsuccessful — and it is possible that there is a rational world at the basis of our experiences. Such a rational world, the world of science, is possible; but is it also real and can its reality be demonstrated? This is the decisive question of quid facti, and it is here that Maimon parts company with Kant. The difference between them is stated by Maimon as follows : Herr Kant assumes as a fact beyond doubt that there are judgements of experience (which express necessity) and then he proves their objective validity by showing that without them experience would be impossible; experience is possible since it has reality in accordance with his assumption and therefore these concepts possess objective reality. However, I doubt this fact itself, that is, the fact that there are empirical judgements and for this reason I am unable to prove their objective validity in this manner, but only the possibility of their objective validity {Tr., p. 186). 9

Gibeath hamore, p. 29.

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In another place Maimon formulates this same thought as follows : Kant posits at the very outset experience with respect to objects (i.e. the use of synthetic judgements which express necessity and universal validity) and demonstrates the reality of pure concepts and judgements in that they are the conditions of experience. Their reality is then hypothetical; so that if with Hume I deny the fact that we have judgements of experience which express necessity and universal validity and explain these as the operation of association of concepts, then I cannot concede that there is a science of nature, strictly speaking. Our knowledge of nature is without certainty, and consists only of hypotheses and assumptions (Str., pp. 203—204). For example, Kant thought that he had demonstrated the law and the concept of causality by showing that without the assumption of such a law science could not be possible; but this concept has no reality. To deduce a necessary sequence from an ever-recurring sequence is not based on an intellectual judgement but only on the vagaries of the imagination alone (Ph. Wp. 167). Kuntze observes that the problem of quid facti played a significant role in Maimon’s personal development, while the problem of quid juris grew less important as time went on in the development of his philosophical speculations.10 In his first book, the Versuch ilber die Transscendentalphilosophie, Maimon assumed that there was a possibility (even though problematical) that the categories might apply to the objects of experience, that is, the possibility of a transition from transcendental principles to experience. In his later writings a negative opinion with respect to the possibility of such a transition becomes more prominent and what he formerly regarded as a transition now appears to him as a psychological illusion, in the manner of Hume. For this reason, Kuntze assumes, Maimon’s theory of differentials in his later books loses its former importance since he no longer believes in the possibility of such a transition. The question of quid facti now assumes prime importance for Maimon and his inability to answer it began to darken his mind with skepticism. 8. In the form of a dialogue with Kant, Maimon writes in his Kritische Untersuchungen:

10

“All your hypotheses and proofs have only

Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 71.

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served to define more accurately the attributes of the concept of objective, empirical knowledge and to show how this differs from subjective, empirical knowledge. The question is, however, whether the concepts you define have objective reality, that is, whether they can be used — and it is this question that is not even touched by you-’ (p. 153). In this connection Maimon gives us one of his favorite examples : the concept of a perfect polyhedron of ten sides, a decahedron, a figure that has a definite meaning and yet no objective meaning since it is impossible to construct it. It is therefore not enough to show that “experience” or science is conditioned by transcendental principles but it is necessary to show that such principles actually exist. Although Maimon’s critical observation goes to the heart of Kant’s system, it does not diminish the value of the transcendental deduction. Kant set forth the highest principles of experience and Maimon, despite his critical attitude to Kant, acknowledged its fundamental importance, for it raised for the first time the question of the conditions of experience and the possibility of making the highest principles of experience relevant to a given fact. But Kant did not succeed in solving the question of quid facti and thus failed to give a satisfactory answer to Hume’s skepticism; but he did solve the problem of quid juris by his successful analysis of the concept of experience in his transcendental deduction.11 At the outset of his system he posited the possibility of experience (not experience itself),12 but we do not know whether the principles of the possibility of scientific experience are filled with what we call “experience”; however, as a result of Kant’s work we can at least recognize these principles and know that they could be filled. The question of quid facti, however, remains. At first it was not understood that it was possible to employ the highest principles of scientific experience with respect to the facts of our experience. There was a wide gulf between consciousness and object, form and matter, the a

11

It is of interest to note the parallelism between this evaluation of Kant by Maimon and that of Heidegger in our time: “The positive result of the Critique of Pure Reason is not to be found in its theory of knowledge but in the fact that Kant was successful in explaining the concept of nature in general’’ (Sein und Zeit, p. 10).

12

V., p. 397.

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priori and the a posteriori. It could not be understood that the given fact can be subsumed under the concepts of our intellect since the two stems of knowledge, form and matter, appear at least to emanate from two different sources. The transition from the fact to the general principles upon which it is based is here missing. When one concept is subdued under another and is to be regarded as one of its particular cases, then there must be something identical common to both. Thus, the concept man can be subsumed under that of animal if we think of man as a reasonable animal, that is, if animality is considered to be a quality common to both man and animal; or the particular fall of a stone can be subsumed under the law of gravitation insofar as the general rule that is thought in the latter is met with again as an individual case having a specific form in the former. The transition from the a priori to the a posteriori, however, is completely different since the pure form has nothing in common with the manifold of matter (that is subsumed under the law) but, on the contrary, are absolutely opposed to one another. The manifold is not an individual instance of the form. By means of the specification of forms we can never reach matter; it requires a leap into another sphere altogether to arrive from form to matter, from the a priori to the a posteriori.13 Nor did transcendental philosophy find such a passage : “To find the passage from the sensible world to the intellectual world —- notwithstanding what statesmen may say — is more important than to find a passage to the East Indies” (Tr., p. 339). From his study of transcendental philosophy Maimon came to the conclusion that critical philosophy is systematic and consistent within itself to the highest degree but is unconnected with anything real; its transcendental concepts and principles, categories and ideas, etc. have no reality (Str., p. 51). 9. Maimon sums up his criticism of Kant in this matter of the two questions quid juris and quid facti in the phrase “on the two horns of a dilemma,” which he defined in his Logik thus : “Either the fact itself (that we use pure logical forms with respect to empirical objects) is untrue and the examples given here rest on the illusion of the imagination or there is no employment for the categories; or it is true and we cannot know the basis for this and the categories remain even after their

13

R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 80.

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rigorous deduction and schematism empty forms unable to determine any object whatever. The first question is expressed by quid facti and the second by quid juris. Strictly speaking, we have no thought objects of experience and no judgements relative to them. I therefore deny (or, at least, doubt) their transcendental use and also their empirical use in the categories” (p. 192). In his last book Maimon returns to this dilemma: “If we posit only relative and not absolute universality, we have no experience and no necessary connections of the perceptions. But if we posit absolute universality, we can have judgements that refer to the possibility of experience but not judgements of experience. In either case it is impossible to use the concept of experience. The imaginary use of this concept is based on the law of the association of ideas, and this law has no absolute necessity. That is, since necessity (as we conceive it) is permanent, we connect the ‘necessary’ with the ‘permanent’ representations in such a manner that the representation gives rise to necessity, and the concepts of cause and effect thus interchange their functions” (K. U., p. 150). Maimon defines this dilemma in simple language at the end of his Autobiography : “Our consciousness contains something pure and something gross, but in our experience the pure is not gross and the gross not pure. The pure (the formal) is the idea which man approaches closer and closer by means of the use of matter (the ‘light infantry’ of induetion) but never reaches.” 10. Maimon illustrates this view with an example: “Philosophy has not yet learned to construct a bridge that would make possible the transition from the transcendental to the particular. As long as philosophy remains within the limits of the transcendental it can only entrench itself solely for purposes of defence but not for offence since it is not permitted to leave its transcendental frontiers and employ the a priori forms to determine definite, particular objects. If it leaves its fortified citadel, it can sally forth and, with the aid of its light infantry (as, e.g., induction, analogy, probability), make inroads here and there in the realm of truth, but definite conquests will not fall to its lot” (Str., p. 16). In other words, since the highest presuppositions of science have no

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basis in fact, we must be content with the answer to the questions suggested by them which more or less approximate the truth without, however, reaching the absolute truth. This skeptical argument advanced by Maimon is not new. That there is no transition from the a priori to the a posteriori was noted by many philosophers before Kant. It suffices to mention Locke who is confronted by a dilemma similar to Maimon’s dilemma of two horns. Locke sees no possibility of transition from concepts to reality: I doubt not but it will be easily granted that the knowledge we have of mathematical truths, is not only certain but real knowledge, and not the bare empty vision of vain, insignificant chimeras of the brain; and yet if we will consider, we shall find that it is only of our own ideas. The mathematician considers the truth and properties belonging to a rectangle or circle only as they are in idea in his own mind. For it is possible he never found either of them existing mathematically, that is, exactly true, in his life. But yet the knowledge he has of any truths or properties belonging to the circle, or any other mathematical figure are nevertheless true and certain even of real things existing; because real things are no farther concerned, nor intended to be meant by any such propositions, than as things really agree to those archetypes in his mind.14 Precisely this limitation, this distance from experience, assures us that this a priori science is exact and certain; this science, however, applies to real objects only to the extent that reality corresponds to the concept. The a priori sciences must be completely separate from the empirical sciences which do not possess their certitude. This argument of Locke is developed by Maimon and used by him more comprehensively and effectively in his controversy with Kant. Kant, unlike Locke, was not content to have only mathematics as an a priori science; he also wished to save the a priori character of “pure” natural science, especially physics. He thought he could establish the certitude of the empirical sciences by disclosing their transcendental presuppositions. This, however, gives rise to the question : Can the transcendental deduction serve as a basis for science? It determines the a priori principles on which a posteriori science is based, but the question is whether this determination confers upon them validity and certitude. Kant defined the 14

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV, Ch. 4, § 6.

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problem of the a priori and the a posteriori in a novel way by effecting a systematic synthesis between judgements concerning reality and judgements concerning pure forms, thus enabling him to combine nature or physics with mathematics. Nature is nothing more than the nature of the natural sciences which are based on mathematics. Hence, nature submits to the law of mathematics, for there is no nature outside or beyond mathematics and physics. To this Maimon could not agree. Kant, as one modern critic put it, offers us our own thirst to drink. He reveals the presuppositions of physics, but he does not thereby demonstrate them. He solves the question of quid juris but leaves the question of quid facti unanswered. Is it possible to identify nature with that found in the natural sciences? How can we justify the transition from jus to factum, from the transcendental a priori to the reality of facts? 11. The highest principles of science are for us, then, merely hypotheses. We posit them in science as hypotheses and not as absolute synthetic a priori truth, as did Kant. Maimon also draws on a psychological proof to confirm this view, pointing out that we acquire these highest principles only in the course of time and after a long period of development whereas “an absolute intellectual principle does not develop gradually and is not dependent on habit or training as are the principles of science. Savages who did not know the use of fire when they first saw it and the consequent hot stone, certainly did not straightway form the judgement that fire is the cause of heat. We have here, then, only a subjective necessity in accordance with the empirical law of habit, and not an a priori objective necessity, as Kant thought.” 15 We can now summarize the two aspects of Maimon’s philosophy, his “rational dogmatism and his empirical skepticism” (7Y., p. 436). We must assume hypothetically, for the sake of making science possible, that the forms as well as the objects of our knowledge are within us a priori and that this faculty of thought consists not only in knowing given objects by means of forms that come from us but also in the ability to produce the objects themselves through these forms.16 Sensible objects are nothing but confused (verworrene) images of these rational objects. V.,

pp. 302, 328, 419; Str., p. 52;

Ph.W.,

15

7Y‫ ״‬p. 74;

p. 66.

16

See what lias been said above on mathematics, p. 79.

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All this, however, is nothing but a hypothetic assumption. We cannot understand how reason produces these objects, although we know that only by assuming that they flow from reason can we understand how it is possible to grasp them by means of reason. We cannot understand this, and in one place, using an analogy from ethics (Ph. Wp. 76), Maimon observes that ethical theory requires us to understand human activity as having its source in man’s free will and this alone makes man responsible for his actions. But even in ethics we are unable to understand how free will can give rise to actions, how reason can be practical.17 12. As we have already noted in the first chapter, Maimon treats the problem of the general antinomy of thought. This antinomy is derived from the fact that matter must be presented to thought. As long as we insist on thinking of matter as given, we fail to understand how it is employed by thought. On the other hand, if we abolish matter used by thought, we abolish thought itself since thought is nothing more than the thought of objects and is dependent upon them. This antinomy is solved by Maimon by his assumption of an infinite process. Reason demands that we should not think the given in an object as something immutable by nature but rather as the result of the limitations of our thinking. Reason then urges us to proceed ad infinitum and thus increase that which is thought to infinity and diminish the given to the limit of the infinitely small; there is no question here as what limit we can reach but only from what point of view we must consider the object in order to be able to make a proper judgement concerning it. This point of view is nothing else than the idea of the faculty of thought fully perfected, to approach which is the endless task of man.18 This solution of the antinomy by Maimon is based in the last analysis on the fact that there is no matter but only an incomplete form of thought. Matter and form are relative concepts (an idea, as Cassirer has shown, that is also found in Kant 19) and this relativity is characteristic of the limitation of our finite minds. In the sight of the infinite understanding, which is 17

See below, Ch. IX.

18

Ph.W., p. 169; K.U., p. 261.

19

E. Cassirer, Philosophic der symbolischen Formen, Vol. Ill, p. 13.

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an actus purus, nothing is given and the intellect is one with the object it cognizes; only finite thought has need of the concept in order to subdue matter, and this is a never-ending process since matter is given to the finite mind which cannot exist without it. Emil Lask well stated the essence of Maimon’s philosophy as follows : “The whole of Maimon’s philosophical speculation can be understood as the exclusive preoccupation on his part with the sole thought of irrationalism. His skepticism is not directed against the general validity of the a priori — in this he was a rational dogmatist — but against our ability to understand the transition from the rational to the empirical/’ 20 To the extent that Maimon believed that in the last analysis matter has its source in form and that matter is “given” only to the finite mind of man he is a rational dogmatist for whom objects are produced by reason. But he is also an empirical skeptic, for he takes the rational principle that matter flows from form and is imbued with form to be but an hypothesis. Kant’s system, which descends directly from the highest principles to the empirical facts, remains a “castle in the air.” Because of our limited understanding we can only assume hypothetically that the world is a product of reason as an idea that is regulative for scientific work, but this cannot be proved. The possibility of this hypothesis is sufficient to solve the question of quid juris, to show how it is possible for matter to be imbued with form and for the world to be completely absorbed in thought. But Kant only demonstrated the possibility and not the fact. The highest axioms were shown to be possible hypotheses but were not demonstrated as a truth. It is not, then, within our power to transform this hypothesis of the natural scientists into absolute, demonstrable truth. The human intellect is too feeble to prove that our experience is scientific “experience,” in the exact sense in which Kant uses this term, so that we can bridge the gulf that separates the transcendental law from empirical fact or understand how the individual is a specification of the law.21 We must con-

20

E. Lask, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. I, p. 49. The chapter “Fichtes Idealismus und

21

See the definition of experience in Kant’s sense in E. Lask, op. cit., p. 51:

die Geschichte” contains admirable formulations of Maimon’s doctrine. “einsehbarer Vbergang vom transzendental Allgemeinen zur empirischen Einzelheit.”

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tent ourselves with the statement that “experience, in the strict sense, is not a concept that is given in intuition but only an idea we keep approaching but never reach” (K. JJ., p. 154). 13. With respect to cognition there are only two possibilities: either the world is a confused maze not susceptible to knowledge, or it can be fathomed by the human mind, in which case it is the product of consciousness. For just as with the aid of light we see nothing but light itself, so do we cognize in objects only that which consciousness itself creates out of its own resources (aus seinem eigenen Fond).22 The human mind cannot decide between these two extreme positions. On the one hand, we are unable to prove the truth of the idealistic system which seeks

“to deduce everything from out of itself, from its own con-

sciousness, even though it may lack the resources to do so”;23 on the other hand, there is not enough evidence to support the skeptical point of view. We have no choice but to adopt a system that will do justice, no more and no less, to each part.24 This system would combine the views of Kant and Hume.25 If we would succeed in finding an answer to the question quid facti and prove the rationality of the given world, we would have a fusion of Kant’s system with Spinoza’s deductive system — a fusion which, Maimon acknowledges, had been his original intention; 26 but since he had been unable to make this “salto mortale,” he contented himself with the fusion of the Kantian and the Humean systems.27 Maimon’s theory of knowledge is, then, avowedly dualistic. He did not succeed in refuting Hume and demonstrate that the world has its origin in spirit and can be subdued by the spirit. The hypothesis that the world arises from spirit, that is, that the finite understanding differs from the infinite understanding only in respect to the degree of 22

See Maimon’s essay, “Die philosophische Sprachverwirrung,” Philosophisches Journal

23

See the Introduction to Dr. Pembertons Anfangsgriinde der Newtonischen Philoso-

VII/3 (1797), p. 236. phie, p. XIV, and the article, “Obereits Widerruf fur Kant,” in Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde IX/2 (1792), p. 125. 24

“Suum cuique, aber auch nicht mehr als das Suwm.”

25

Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde X/2 (1792), p. 143.

26

Ibid.

27

Ibid.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

clearness and that the sensibility is nothing more than incomplete understanding (Tr., p. 183), that given matter flows from the infinite mind, is a possible hypothesis and nothing more. We can elevate the relative universality of this hypothesis to a point where its results would be almost identical with absolute, universal results and where the subjective necessity of the hypothesis would almost be an objective necessity (K. U., p. 55). This hypothesis of the essential identity of the finite and the infinite mind is expressed, as we have seen, in the doctrine of differentials whereby Maimon attempted to relate “the logical forms to the sensible with respect to their elements” 28 and thus efface the absolute boundary that Kant drew between intellect and intuition, a boundary that divides our minds (which are dependent on given matter) from the infinite mind. This view of matter that is given to the mind (or, we might say, this view of the world) nevertheless remains a hypothesis, and Hume’s skepticism goes unchallenged. We shall have occasion to note in a later chapter how Fichte overcame Maimon’s caution and how on the basis of “dogmatic rationalism” succeeded in producing his own idealistic system, a synthesis of the systems of Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant. 14. Maimon’s “transcendental dialectic” (the name he gave to his realization of the existence of the problem of experience) went further than that of Kant. “Our dialectic shows that experience (in Kant’s strict sense) is a concept that cannot possibly be presented and that its imaginary presentation (e.g. in the proposition: ‘fire heats the stone’) rests on a psychological error which deduces from a recurrent perception eternality and from this universality; we have here an unwarranted reversal of judgement (the necessary is eternal and the eternal is permanent, but not vice versa) which rests on nothing more than the association of the representations fire and stone.” 29 Kant did not succeed in refuting Hume. We are not justified in deducing from the recurrent connection between two representations a universal and necessary connection between cause and effect. Just as it is impossible to refute Hume’s skepticism with respect to the concept of causality, so it is impossible to refute his skepticism in general. Kant’s system is a logical 28

See Gibeath hamore, p. 18.

29

Philosophisches Journal VII/3 (1797), p. 257.

THE PROBLEM

OF

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91

system based on principles that were not proved. Just as we cannot prove that the union of fire and heat rests on the law of causality and not merely on the association of ideas, so we cannot prove that any given fact embodies the highest presuppositions on which science is based. 15. Maimon s dogmatic rationalism, then, is only an hypothesis. If we could prove this hypothesis, namely, that the world is rational, we would understand that thought creates the matter it subsumes, and this would solve the question quid facti together with that of quid juris. Maimon points out that Kant’s philosophy was able to overcome dogmatic philosophy by showing that the world, if it is an objective world at all, can be based only on transcendental principles; but Kant was unable to overcome skeptical philosophy since he failed to solve the question quid facti, that is, the question whether the world was cognizable at all (‫׳‬Strp. 191). “Hence,” he writes, “I accept the negative, the antidogmatic part of critical philosophy, but reject the positive part, the assumption that it is possible to use synthetic judgements a priori30 Maimon acknowledges the concept of cognition and its transcendental presuppositions, as demonstrated by Kant, but he doubts their real use with respect to the sensibility. “If I were asked,” Maimon writes,31 “whence I derive this objective concept of knowledge, I would answer from mathematics.” In mathematics we observe pure, intellectual construction wherein nothing is given and where the problem of quid facti vanishes. But sensible facts do not flow from intellectual forms as mathematical, deductive judgements flow from axiomatic hypotheses. Mathematics demonstrates that the quid juris problem is solved, and we can imagine other sciences constructed hypothetically in the manner of mathematics. But the gap between the given fact and the a priori principle is still not bridged nor the quid facti problem solved, and Maimon keeps drawing further away from Kant and closer to Hume’s skepticism. 16. As we have seen above, Maimon’s attitude to the question quid facti is also reflected in his view of experience (scientific experience in the strict Kantian sense) as an idea we keep approaching but never 30

V., LIII. This passage is not found in the second edition of Maimon’s Logik pubfished by the Kantgesellschaft.

31

See also below, Ch. V, § 13.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

reach. This idea also applies to the categories which create this scientific experience. These categories do not apprehend objects directly as they appear to us but as ideal limits (differentials) of these objects and only through these apprehend experience {Tr., p. 186). The “fight infantry” of probability, the association of ideas, etc., impart to our investigations subjective necessity and this can be made to approximate objective necessity only by means of a never-ending process of induction.32 If this induction could be carried through to the end, to the “last member of the series” — if, in a word, the human mind could slough off its finitude, we could ascertain the truth of “rational dogmatism” and behold the logical structure of reality as seen (created and seen) by the infinite mind. The idea of an infinite mind, the only idea in Maimon’s system, combines the three Kantian ideas (soul, world, God).33 Through this idea the intuition acquires objective reality in that temporary knowledge based on intuitive experience keeps approaching the idea of the infinite mind, the idea of the logical structure of the rational world. This idea of the infinite mind would thus solve the problem of experience but it remains an idea and is not reality ■— and the vexing problem quid facti remains unsolved.

32 33

Tr., p. 328; Ph.W., pp. 168, 174. Tr., p. 366. “Idea,” in the Kantian sense: a concept of reason that is necessary but which has no corresponding object in the sensible world; these concepts of reason transcend the limits of experience and understanding but, despite this, regulate the operations of the understanding (Critique of Pure Reason, B383, 649).

CHAPTER V

THE PRINCIPLE OF DETERMINABILITY

1• We have seen that Maimon as a “dogmatic rationalist” considers an object to be nothing but an intellectual object. There are no objects that exist by themselves outside of consciousness; objectivity is determined by consciousness and within it. Only under this condition can we attribute forms of the understanding to objects and refute Hume’s skepticism. It follows from this that the task of logic is to ascertain the conditions under which thought would acquire objective validity and would posit (.setzen)

objects; the logic that undertakes this task is called tran-

scendental. In contradistinction to formal logic, which ignores the objective content of consciousness, this logic determines the a priori rules for the thinking of substance, the science “whereby we think objects a priori iiberhaupt.1 ‫״‬

Formal or general logic has in view only logical

forms without inquiring whether the formal-logical propositions are existentially valid or not. This logical investigation of the forms of combination is not sufficient for “although knowledge may be completely in conformity with a logical form, that is, free of all inner contradiction, it could still be in contradiction with the object.” 1 2 This investigation is the task of transcendental logic which, in contradistinction to “formal logic,” should be called “the logic of content.” The concept of transcendental logic has a place only within an idealistic system in which the object is but a thought of the cognizing subject. In the realistic system, which asserts the existence of things-in-themselves, matter is given to thought as real and as existent prior to it. The objectivity of thought is here not determined by thought itself but by real and objective elements external to it, by things. In idealism, on the other hand, the objectivity of things is derived from thought itself which is the criterion of objectivity. There is, therefore, room here

1

See the chapter “Idea of a Transcendental Logic,” in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

2

Ibid., B84. On the distinction between the two kinds of logic see my book, Introduc-

(B81). tion to Logic (Hebrew), pp. 20 ff.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF

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for transcendental logic whose task is to discover and to determine this criterion. Maimon often points out the basic distinction between these two kinds of logical systems and distinguishes between formal logic, transcendental logic and natural science. Formal logic deals with the undetermined object, with the mere logical object that is not determined by any conditions whatever; transcendental logic deals with a priori real entities; natural science with real things a posteriori. The “logical predicate,” that is, the object of formal logic, requires only the formal condition that it be free of contradiction; besides this formal condition we do not determine any thing with respect to this logical object. Over against this, the object of transcendental logic is real and therefore subject to the conditions of real objects as such insofar as these are determined a priori. “From the union of these two conditions (the formal and the objective conditions) flow concepts and principles that require deduction and proof —- and this is the task of the transcendental logic” (K. U., p. 143). Formal logic completely ignores the objective content and is only interested in the formal conditions; transcendental logic ignores, indeed, the empirical details a posteriori of any particular content, but considers the real content and seeks a priori the conditions for the possibility of this reality. The difference between these two logical systems corresponds to the difference between formal truth and objective truth (Tr., p. 150), a difference we have noted above.3 We can imagine a system of mathematics constructed on false principles and nevertheless true from a formal point of view, that is, it would not violate the principle of contradiction. This formal truth applies to everything and hence has no definite relation to any particular thing, whereas the

truth of the

categories or that of the form of diversity is a metaphysical truth since it applies to specific things and not to all things in general. Even the form of diversity does not apply to all things since it does not pertain to the “logical object” as defined above, being only one object without another that differs from it.4 Formal logic does not define its objects which it 3

Ch. II, § 12.

4

“The logical subject cannot be differentiated from the logical subject” (Maimon, in The Collector [Meassef\, 1789, p. 134).

THE PRINCIPLE OF DETERMINABILITY

95

regards only as the bearers of the logical form under consideration. Since it is unable to define its objects from the standpoint of their content, the logical object is one only. Formal logic by means of pure logic can create besides the logical object a also the object non-a, but it cannot create besides a some b that is different from a‫׳‬, for in what respect can this b differ from a when all we know is that these two are objects of logical laws? Formal logic recognizes only one kind of diversity, that is, the logical antithesis — a — not-a — and has no place for any other distinctions since it has no interest in the content of objects. Identity is only a formal-logical relation, for the logical object is identical with itself. Transcendental logic, however, has a place for diversity since it takes into account the real content of the object. 2. In formal logic we find a special relation of mutual determination between the predicate and the copula. In a judgement where the subject is a and the predicate not-a the copula will be “is not” (a is not not-a). The copula “is” or “is not” indicates in formal logic only a logical connection, a possible relationship in accordance with the law of contradiction, whereas in transcendental logic the copula indicates the possible reality or non-reality of the object. The judgement “a is b” indicates in formal logic the possible connection between a and b from the standpoint of the law of contradiction; the same judgement in transcendental logic indicates not only the absence of contradiction but also that the two objects a and b can be combined in a unity of consciousness for the determination of a real object. But even here there is a difference in the two logical systems with respect to the judgement since formal logic does not recognize the diversity of objects, so that b, if it is not identical with a, could only be “not-a.” A closer examination of our formulation reveals that there is no place at all in formal logic for the judgement “a is b” : if b is identical with a, the judgement “a is b” is senseless; if b is not identical with a, it can only be — from the standpoint of formal logic — identical with “not-a” and in this case the above judgement (a is not-a) is not true. To obviate this difficulty formal logic would have to assume at the very outset that there are two objects (a, b) which differ but which are not opposed to one another, an assumption which formal logic is unable to prove with the means

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

96

at its disposal and hence forced to borrow concepts from transcendental logic. The two systems of logic are thus mutually related — transcendental logic depends naturally on formal logic in that it posits the law of contradiction derived from the latter; and formal logic depends on transcendental logic (the ens logicum on the ens reale) in that it posits a real diversity of objects without being able to justify this assumption with the means at its disposal. “The formal-logical affirmation and negation posit the transcendental concepts of being and non-being at the very outset.” 5 Kuntze points out that this doctrine of Maimon comes from Leibniz and that it had considerable influence on Fichte’s philosophy.6 The superiority of transcendental logic can be seen in the circumstance that formal logic is not only compelled to adopt concepts from transcendental logic which it is unable to produce by itself but it also seems that certain logical forms are devoid of reality when compared to transcendental logic. In several places 7 Maimon cites the example of the hypothetical judgement which has a special place in formal logic. If we examine the manner in which we arrive at this form, we will note that only the law of causality gives rise to this form; and if transcendental logic should be successful in proving the non-validity of this principle, it will also eliminate the form of the hypothetical judgement — as we shall see later when we consider the categories. 3. The highest principle of formal logic is, as has been noted above, the law of contradiction. What, then, is the highest principle of transcendental logic? In Leibniz’s system it is the law of sufficient reason, in Kant’s system the transcendental unity of apperception, and in Maimon’s system the “principle of determinability” (Grundsatz der Bestimmbarkeit). This is the “highest principle of all real thought” (K. U., p. 146), “the highest principle of all synthetic knowledge that determines objects” (K. Up. 200). Kuntze calls this principle “the pivotal point in

5

V., XXI; cf. also V., p. 13 and K.U., pp. 22, 29, 40, 137, 176, 196 as well as the critical remarks of Hans Lipps, Untersuchungen zur Phdnomenologie der Erkenntnis, Vol. II, p. 86, note.

6

Die Philosophie Salomon Maimons, pp. 385—390.

7

TV., pp. 39, 183, 337 and Ph.W., p. 165.

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97

Maim on s entire system.” Maimon himself defines this principle as follows: In a synthetic union where one member can be thought without reference to the second member, either by itself or in another synthesis, but where the second member can be thought only in relation to the first, then the first member is the subject and the second the predicate of this synthesis (TV., p. 84). We can, for example, think an angle without determining whether it is a right angle or an acute angle, but we cannot think these qualities without reference to the angle, so that here the concept “angle” is the subject and the concept “right” or “acute” the predicate. The concept that is created by the synthesis — right angle or acute angle — is an “absolute” concept. Such a synthesis Maimon calls a real synthesis because it creates a new concept from which conclusions are derived that could not have been derived from either one of the members of the synthesis alone. Over against this synthesis, on the other hand, there is a synthesis in which concepts are combined in such a way that each needs the other mutually; either could serve as subject or predicate, e.g. the concepts “cause” and “effeet,” where one could not be thought without the other. Here the mutual relationship between the two concepts makes this a relative and not an absolute concept. Concepts of the first kind, in which the subject could be thought without the predicate but the predicate not without the subject, consist of a determinable (Bestimmbares) or subject and a determinant (Bestimmung) or predicate, the union of the two producing the determination (das Bestimmte). The principle of determinability expresses the peculiar position of the subject and predicate in a synthesis such as this. 4. Maimon argued that Kant had failed to appreciate the special problem of the possibility of the synthetic union of two concepts (K. U., p. 115). Kant had pointed out the central position that the synthesis occupies in objective-transcendental logic, indicating that the identity of self-consciousness is the condition for combining two concepts and that the possibility for a judgement such as “a is b” depends on the fact that one who thinks a must also be the one who thinks b. Kant also pointed out that the identity of the independent consciousness of the thinker is possible only because different thoughts, a and b, can be combined in

98

THE PHILOSOPHY OF

SOLOMON MAIMON

self-consciousness or, in his own words,8 the analytic unity of consciousness presupposes the synthetic unity. Thus Kant revealed the subjective condition (of the thinker) as well as the objective condition (of what is thought) but he failed to see that the unity or the synthesis itself of what is thought depends on certain conditions and must be determined by itself under a priori conditions which, for Maimon, resided in the principle of determinability. The synthesis “a is b” is possible because the predicate is dependent on the subject and cannot be thought without it. It follows, then, that if I think b, I must also think a since b can only be thought in combination with a; without such a combination thinking itself would be impossible. Kant revealed the synthetic unity and made it the highest principle of his system, but he did not define the reason for this synthetic a priori unity. This deficiency was supplied by Maimon’s principle of determinability. Thus, we find here a one-sided dependence of the predicate on the subject but not vice versa, a circumstance, as Maimon points out, that is reflected in the structure of language. It is, for example, possible to say “a square table” but not “a tabled square,” “a black fine,” but not “a lined black,” the reason being that the predicate cannot be thought by itself but only as part of the synthesis and is itself not the object (TV., p. 377). We find a definition of this principle in Gibeath hamore : Every intellectual representation consists of a synthesis of subject and predicate; the subject is that which is given to sensibility (i.e. to perception) and the predicate is the limitation of the subject which is in the mind; for example, the representation a triangle has a subject and predicate, the former being space and the latter the limitation of space by means of three lines. It is necessary that the subject be a complete representation and the predicate a special determination of it, for if both were equal (in extension), they could not be combined into an intellectual synthesis just as we could not conceive, for example, a sweet line since line and sweet have an equal extension; we can, however, conceive of a straight line since line is more comprehensive than straight and also of a crooked line for a line need not always be straight; but straight can refer only to a line; so that it is possible for us to represent a line that is not straight but it is impossible to represent straight without line. Hence, if we wish to represent a straight line we must 8

See the Critique of Pure Reason, §16; also my book, The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Hebrew), p. 59.

THE PRINCIPLE OF DETERM INABILITY

99

represent it as predicate of line and that is the ground of the synthesis straight line, which is not so in the case of sweet line.9 5. The principle of determinability is not limited to the determination of the subject and predicate themselves but it also determines: (a) that the same predicate can refer directly only to one subject (for example, only color can be white — and not snow); (b) that the same subject can have only one predicate at the same time. Maimon proves these two conclusions, the main point of the proof being that a true synthesis of concepts must give rise to conclusions that cannot be drawn as long as the two members of the synthesis are separate from one another (Tr., pp. 88 ff.). The conclusions that are drawn from the concept “straight line” are not derived from the concept “line” alone, nor from the concept “straight” alone — and this serves as a criterion of a true synthesis. Let us assume two subjects, a and b, with one predicate c in common. This gives rise to two different syntheses — a-c, b-c — a difference expressed in the fact that different logical conclusions are derived from each of these syntheses. How can we account for the ground of differences in the conclusions that flow from the two syntheses a-c, b-c? This cannot be found in c which is common to both, for a common element cannot produce difference, and neither in a nor in b. It is true that a and b are different from one another and that each can give rise to different conclusions, but we are not interested in the conclusions of a nor of b but in those of the two syntheses and in their difference. If this difference of the conclusions of a-c and b-c resulted from the difference of a and b alone, the synthesis would be superfluous for it would have no conclusions of its own and, in Maimon’s words, the synthesis would be devoid of reality in contradiction to the supposition from which we started. The determinant by which we determine the determinable — for example, the determinant “right angle” in the determinable “triangle” — is not something external and mechanically attached to the determinable, but something that creates a synthesis, a new organic unity, so that we may speak of a determining process, in the strict sense of the term, only when the union of the determinable and the determinant

9

Gibeath hamore, Ch. 56, p. 82.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

leads to new conclusions that could previously not have been derived from either (Tr., p. 391). Only thus can we have a “real” synthesis, and if no special conclusions flow from the syntheses a-c, b-c, then they do not deserve to be called “real.” It is therefore incomprehensible how two subjects can be attached to one common predicate. But it is also impossible to assume that two different syntheses, a-c and b-c, should be identical in their conclusions. If one should in refutation cite the example that two syntheses “white ball” and “white cube” have one conclusion, that is, that the two bodies are of the same color, it could be pointed out that this result does not flow from the synthesis but from “white” alone, namely, from one element that is common to the two syntheses. The syntheses themselves as such, if they are real syntheses and differ from one another, must give rise to different results. A third reason given by Maimon to prove that the same predicate can refer to only one subject is that if the same predicate c were combined once with a and once with b, then the subject determines the difference in this predicate. The determinant c, being in different syntheses, is determined by itself now by a and now by b. The determinant becomes the determinable, which is impossible and contradicts the specific positions that these two occupy within the synthetic union. The determinant determines the determinable and is not determined by it since it cannot be thought without it. These are the three reasons given by Maimon in his first book to prove that two subjects may not have one predicate in common (Tr., pp. 88— 93). In a later work 10 we find an additional reason : Let us assume two concepts a, b that are not dependent on one another and have a predicate x in common. The predicate (determinant) cannot be thought without the subject (determinable);11 if x is predicate to a and to b, then in our thoughts we would have to think both a and b together with x, but since we have at the ouset posited that a is independent of b and vice versa, a mutual dependence of the two concepts could here be attained in a roundabout way. The true determinant, then, is related only to its proper subject and is peculiar to it and cannot be thought without it. The accidental 10

Kat., p. 10.

11

See above, §3.

THE PRINCIPLE OF DETERM INABILITY

101

determination, for example, “a white animal” is not peculiar to this subject and to ascribe this accidental determination to a definite subject is without real ground and hence without reality, and we cannot derive from this synthesis any conclusions that could not be derived from the determinant and the determinable separately. On the other hand, in the example “a white color” or “a reasoning animal” the determinant is peculiar to the subject which is determined by it and it cannot be thought alone (Kat., p. 20). 6. This principle formulated by Maimon is, in fact, none other than that of Aristotle 12 who in his doctrine of the categories (which Maimon translated or rather rendered freely into German) and elsewhere 13 shows that the specification of the genus in species is peculiar to each genus, differentia specified, different genera having different individual species. Aristotle gives the example of “animal” and “science”; the differences peculiar to an animal are that it walks, has legs, wings, etc., species not found in the genus “science”; and if you find the same species in two genera (“the table is white” and “man is white”), it indicates that the species is here not used in the exact sense, white being a kind of color and not a kind of table or a kind of man. Only through the exact classification of genera and assigning the name “species” only to those peculiar to this genus and to none external to it, can we arrive at an exact logical and systematic classification of the concepts. This doctrine was adopted by Maimon 14 but he added to it that the same subject a may not at the same time have different independent predicates b and c, but only one predicate. If a could at the same time be combined with b and c, both being determinants of a and independent of each other, then we could think a-b separately and a-c separately. A synthesis such as “an animal walking on two legs and possessing reason” is inadmissible for Maimon; if it is to be logical, it must be 12

13 14

This doctrine is also to be found in recent times. See for example, A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, Vol. I, p. 250, or W. Schuppe, Grundriss der Erkenntnistheorie und Logik, p. 90. Analytica Posteriora II, 13 ; Topica VI, 6. Cf. my book. Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), Ch. II, §19: the concept of genus in the exact Aristotelian sense, Maimon’s law of determinability, pp. 137—141.

102

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

expressed by means of one predicate and, if necessary, by a predicate of a predicate, but not by two predicates directly attached to one subject. But then it would be impossible to understand the necessity of the threefold synthesis a-b-c since, according to the principle of determinability, every synthesis is based on a one-sided relationship of the predicate to the subject, so that the former could not be thought without the latter. But here, where it is possible to think a-b alone and a-c alone, on what is the necessity of the synthesis based that unites the three elements of the synthesis ? 15 “One genus cannot be determined by two species at the same time unless one species is a genus with respect to the second species.” 16 The genus “form” may be, for example, at the same time determined as a “triangle” and as a “right angle” but this is so only because “triangle” is related to the determinant “right angle” as genus is to the species that determines it, for a right angle is nothing but a particular species of a triangle. The form of every specification would then be a simple sequence of one series a, b, c, d, e and not a sequence of two series a ., p. 443). Is such a human reason that is possible only on the assumption of an infinite reason real? We are faced with the following dilemma: either given matter corresponds to cognition, that is, Kant’s “fortunate accident” holds sway and then the only explanation is that matter itself has its source in the infinite understanding, and the “given” is something posited by the understanding (but which is not recognized as such); or, there is no correspondence at all between cognition and the object, the world is irrational and our attempt to understand it doomed to failure, in which case there is no need to explain the Denkbarkeit of the world by assuming that it has its source in the infinite understanding. Maimon rejects this last alternative with the words:

“the highest

faculty of cognition is real” (K. U., p. 277) without giving any proof. This, we might say, is the “moment of faith” 35 or the loophole in his proof: his belief in the existence of the highest cognitive faculty and in its ability to absorb within itself all of “our lower cognitive faculty,” that is, all that is given a posteriori. If we adopt Maimon’s point of view that it is possible to know the world since it has its source in the understanding, then it is impossible, it seems to me, to reject his proof

34

“Not as if, in this way, such an Understanding must be assumed as actual (for it is only our reflective Judgement to which this Idea serves as a principle — for reflecting, not for determining); but this faculty thus gives a law only to itself and not to nature” (ibid.).

35

Felix Weltsch coined the phrase “a decision of faith” in his book, Gnade und Freiheit; cf. my book, Thinkers and Believers (Hebrew), p. 203.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

198

of God’s existence : the world corresponds to the understanding, which signifies that it was created by the understanding. 11. Just as the highest cognitive faculty provides the ground for the proof of God’s existence, so is it possible to prove God’s existence by the fact of the moral law. The ethical nature of our will becomes evident, as we have seen above,36 by the fact that another rational, ethical being wills the same thing as we have willed. But if the other rational being is also finite, he is confronted with the same problem and would in turn make his decision by seeking agreement with another being who wills the same thing since, being finite, he cannot arrive at an ultimate decision. This cannot be permitted to go on endlessly and we must finally come to a will that is universal not by comparison to another will but in itself. The correspondence between the will of one rational being and the will of any other rational being, which constitutes the basis of ethics, presupposes then “a will of a rational being in itself.” 37 Just as the reality of our highest cognitive faculty is identical with the reality of the infinite understanding which is only partially reflected in our finite cognition (only part of the eternal, infinite understanding reaching our consciousness), so also are we in the ethical realm united with the absolute will, which exists by itself and is independent of natural laws, that is, it is determined only by cognition. “Only by means of the representation of God’s existence and our union with Him is an objective cognition of universal validity, as well as ethics, made possible” (K. U., p. 247). 12. These two proofs of God’s existence lead Maimon to his doctrine of immortality (K. JJp. 247). Immortality of the soul is the continuity of our higher faculty of cognition. Our lower cognitive faculty which knows only given substances and is dependent upon them may cease. It is true that in our present state our higher cognitive faculty is also dependent on this lower sensuous cognitive faculty since what we know about any thought we know only through the senses which transmit matter to us or through the presentation of the pure forms of the understanding in matter. Hence, this consciousness which is bound to the lower cognitive faculty can cease to exist since it is dependent upon ob36

§7.

37

F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 457.

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199

jects. The higher cognitive faculty, however, cannot be destroyed. But how can it exist without objects? Maimon answered this by saying that with respect to the limited subject the knowledge of objects proceeds from one source and a priori knowledge from another and therefore the consciousness of objects decreases as the independent consciousness of the subject increases.38 It is different with the infinite subject for here the knowledge of objects proceeds from its essence and thus the infinite consciousness is known to itself instantaneously as the subject of all the cognized objects; this consciousness is inseparable from the consciousness of the objects itself. In extending and completing cognition we are forced to draw closer and closer to this idea of the infinite consciousness : this is our path to immortality. It is not the sensuous human personality that is immortal, and “he who requires proof of the permanent nature of this sensuous consciousness seeks in vain” (K. U., p. 248). Within the sensuous personality of ever)‫ ׳‬man, however, there fives a higher ego that is immortal. “The wise man and the man of virtue enjoy already in the fife of this world immortality and union with God” (K. U., p. 277). Kuntze points out39 that this doctrine of Maimon is directly related to the doctrine set forth in Spinoza’s Ethics, namely: “For the part of the mind which is eternal is the intellect, through which alone we are said to act, but that part which, as we have shown, perishes, is the imagination itself, through which alone we are said to suffer.” 40 It seems to me, however, that the first source of Maimon’s doctrine would be the teaching of Maimonides concerning “the acquired intellect” that man gains throughout his fife on earth by the acquisition of truths and intellectual ideas. This acquired intellect is reserved for man alone; it is separate from the body and influences it.41 In his 70th chapter Maimonides explains that “the souls that remain after death are not the soul that comes into being in man at the time he is generated. For that

38

See above, Ch. VIII, § 5.

39 40

Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 490. Part V, Prop, xl (W. Hale White—A. H. Stirling, p. 280). See also Part V, Prop,

41

xxii f. Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 74.

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which comes into being at the time a man is generated is merely a faculty consisting in preparedness, whereas the thing that after death is separate from matter is the thing that has become actual and not the soul that also comes into being; the latter is identical with the spirit that comes into being.” In connection with this passage Maimon observes: “The soul that comes into being in man when he is generated is only a preparation of the material alone for the reception of a form of the understanding, and that which remains after death is the tinderstanding that is active in the life of man, which adheres to the active intellect and remains after death; and the spirit that comes into being is the preparation of matter for the reception of the form of sensibility alone and this does

not remain after

death, for with the loss of

the receptacle, sensibility itself disappears.” In another passage Maimonides says : “True human perfection is the possession of such virtues that lead man to the acquisition of intellectual virtues — I refer to the conception of intelligibles which teach true opinions concerning divine things and this is the ultimate end and this is what gives the individual true perfection, a perfection belonging to him alone, and through it he merits enduring existence.” 42 13. Our point of departure was the duality that is characteristic of Maimon’s philosophy, namely, that man as such lives in two worlds. We have already noted in previous chapters that the higher cognitive faculty always remains as an hypothesis or as an idea whose possibility, but not reality, we can prove. The question quid facti remains unsolved, and Hume’s skepticism retains its place at the side of rational dogmatism. This is also true with respect to the pure will or the highest faculty of desire — it is a principle, a criterion, an idea whose reality cannot be proved. We can understand the facts also in another way. We cannot prove, as Kant had already seen, that a given act flows from the pure will. To do so we would have to examine all possible motives and prove that no “lower” motive (that is, a motive that operates in accordance with natural laws) is responsible for this act. The scope of such an examination would necessarily be infinite and beyond the powers

42

Part III, Ch. 54.

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of the limited faculty of cognition. This may be compared to the attempts to prove the occurrence of miracles in nature, phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of nature. It is impossible to prove that a given fact is a miracle since all the possible laws of nature cannot be examined. It is impossible to prove that a fact is not the result of natural forces.43 We have already indicated in previous chapters that Maimon believed that there was no solution to the question quid facti; and therefore the solution to the question quid juris which posits an infinite understanding does not help us overcome Hume’s skepticism. Maimon shows that by means of the idea of the infinite understanding and his doctrine of differentials there is a possibility of solving the question quid juris and to assume that the world is rational. This possibility, however, does not help us to refute the arguments of the skeptic since the question quid facti remains unsolved. The theoretical solution to the problem remains “a castle in the air,” and the gap between theory and practice is still as wide as ever. This duality is also to be found here in the sphere of ethics. The question as to whether man acts in accordance with the laws of freedom remains unanswered. Insofar as he is part of nature, of course, he acts according to natural laws, but we shall never know whether he also acts according to the laws of freedom. No matter how noble and exalted man’s aims may be, they always remain rooted in material nature and are not pure embodiments of an ethical law. We may assume the causality of reason problematically in order to erect a theoretical system of ethics but we cannot prove it to be a fact (Strp. 227). We are here met with the same problem as before, namely, that it is possible to find a positive answer to the question quid facti and show that man can liberate himself from the rule of natural impulses operating blindly in accordance with the law of causality. In this connection Maimon says : “I believe that Kant’s ethical system is a hypothetical science, but for the reasons mentioned above I cannot admit that it is of any practical use in influencing man’s actions” {Str., p. 229). Maimon’s formulation is too

43

Cf. F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, p. 417.

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severe for he does not deny the instructive and regulative value of Kant’s system of ethics but only the possibility of proving that any given act conforms in reality to the theoretical requirement. But this was also acknowledged by Kant himself. In a letter to Reinhold, the representative of Kantian philosophy at that time, Maimon writes: “I am convinced no less than you are that the ethical law resides in reason, that an altruistic impulse is possible and I ascribe a definite action of mine to the ethical law. But I know more than you desire to know, namely, that this attribution of an action of mine to an altruistic impulse is but the effect of an illusion and I am not willing to vaunt an altruistic impulse at the cost of truth” (Strp. 241). The skeptic then relies on the possibility of illusion with respect to the “ethical fact” which the dogmatist posits as the basis of ethics. We can never prove that a given act does not spring from sensuous-material motives. The question quid facti remains unsolved also in the sphere of ethics; in Kant’s terminology we may say: it is possible to think ethical acts but impossible to cognize them. Maimon expresses his dualistic attitude as follows : I freely admit that to erect a system of ethics as an a priori science that expresses necessity and universal validity it is impossible to assume as its basis any one principle (except the lawfulness of the free will in the Kantian sense); on the other hand, however, we must acknowledge that since ethics is a practical science we must first prove that this principle is practical and that it influences human behavior, and it is difficult to imagine that such a proof could be successfully demonstrated {Ph.W., p. 72). Maimon’s conclusion in the sphere of ethics is a dualistic one, completely corresponding to the duality expressed by the questions quid juris and quid facti which emerged as the conclusion of his reflections in the sphere of cognition. This skeptical attitude of Maimon in the realm of ethics exerted a strong influence on Fichte, as has been pointed out by the French scholar, Martial Gueroult.44 14. The pure will, then, serves in ethics as a principle of evaluation but not as an object to deal with. Such an object has a dual aspect:

44

!devolution et la structure de la doctrine jichteenne de la science, VoL I, p. 121.

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reason affected by sensibility (K. Up. 300). How does this duality influence ethical theory according to which man is bound to given sensuous substances, lives in time and has his being within the circle of causality? The problem concerning the relation between these two worlds cannot be solved. It is obvious that the two worlds are not real in the same way. The ‘'higher” world is real from the standpoint of rationalism and the sensible world is only a reflex. The intellectual world is reflected, as it were, in the sensible world (K. Up. 258). All our cognition, however extensive, is but a Schema of the higher faculty of cognition, and the sensible world but an archetype of the intellectual (K. Up. 263). Maimon is in perfect agreement with Parmenides’ dualistic doctrine of a real world and an imaginary world, and he stresses the fact that the Greek philosopher taught the same doctrine as did Leibniz, namely, that all sensibility is imaginary and whatever is based upon it a lie.45 We have, then, a world of being (a real world) and an imaginary world (actual world as given to us). Maimon confesses that he is unable to answer the question as to how we can at the same time be both finite and infinite and live in two worlds, how a higher, non-temporal faculty can appear in a temporal world as a cause: True, the higher faculty of desire, just as the higher cognitive faculty, is given as a fact of consciousness, but as a cause that operates in nature itself it is one of the greatest mysteries. The highest cognitive faculty requires universal validity for cognizing, although it itself can only be presented as an individual form : for example, the essence and qualities of the triangle which are thought by us as things possessing universal validity for every thinking subject. The subject must make an abstraction of all real individual thought. It must look upon itself as the bearer of necessity in general and yet it must at the same time determine real cognition. But it cannot do this as the subject of cognition in general (for a general concept cannot effect anything) but only as a real subject of cognition given empirically (K.U., p. 237). This then is the inescapable duality that Maimon is unable to explain : the general cognitive faculty must become a real, existent, individual faculty in order to be able to function in the actual existent world and at the same time retain its universality. The same is true with the general 45

Str., p. 33; Bacons von Verulam Neues Organon, pp. 188—193.

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faculty of desire. How does this general faculty become functional in the actual existent world, and if it is an individual will, how is its volition able to acquire universal validity ? Man as a thinker and as an ethical agent is thus only a product of nature but at the same time appears as if he is above it. This incomprehensible fact gives man a sense of his worth. He is an intermediate being between nature and spirit, “sensuous matter hewn out of the quarry of the spirit” (Wust) or as Maimon says: “Man looks upon himself as an object of nature and subject to its laws but he is, nevertheless, higher than nature in his cognition and ethical behavior and imposes his laws upon it” (K. Up. 243). We are somewhat surprised to come upon a doctrine set forth by Maimon that is generally attributed to Schopenhauer, namely, that the individualization of man is nothing but an illusion of the sensible world; in the last analysis we are all one. In this connection Maimon writes : “I believe that there are human beings who exist in themselves only from the standpoint of faculties of the soul called lower but not from the standpoint of the higher. To the degree that we subject the former to the latter the affinity among men increases; the harmony among individuals is

therefore

pre-determined by

the

community of

the

species.” 46 15. The relation between the higher and the lower world was conceived by Maimon as follows: the lower world is the sphere in which the higher world manifests itself; the higher world of truth, beauty and virtue is always ready to express itself in this world but is impeded by the obstacles of the sensible world. In the second decade of this century Scheler described the function of matter with respect to spirit as “the opening and closing of a dam.” 47 This is also the view of Maimon who here follows in the footsteps of Maimonides.4s But while Scheler taught

46

“Antwort auf das Schreiben des Herrn Obereit an Herrn S. Maimon,” Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde IX/3 (1792), p. 101.

47

In his study “Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens,” included in Versuche zu

48

“Hence the action of the separate intellect is always designated as an overflow,

einer Soziologie des Wissens (edited by Scheler), p. 28. being likened to a source of water that overflows in all directions and does not have one particular direction from which it draws while giving bounty to others. For it

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that the feeble spirit can only set certain goals for life’s forces but is by itself unable to attain them without the cooperation of our natural impulses, Maimon believed that the effect of natural forces is merely negative by itself over against the forces of the spirit, serving only as an obstacle for the manifestations of the latter. But these manifestations arise “instantaneously, as if from nothing” once the obstacles are removed, and the spirit is omnipotent once the partitions set up by this world to impede its manifestation disappear.49 The spiritual world does not require the help of natural impulses as Scheler thought. A logical judgement, for example, like every truth, is a manifestation of the higher world of truth and all that is necessary to recognize the truth of this logical judgement is the removal of the accidental connections among our representations, that is, the removal of the obstacle. “As soon as the representations of the objects to be compared are made present to the faculty of cognition in a manner required for this purpose and their purely subjective, accidental connections removed, the judgement concerning their relations appears straightway of itself. Just as little does the feeling of beauty and virtue need to be acquired through any operation; but as soon as the obstacles (subjective feelings without universal validity that arise by accident as a result of habit and training) that oppose this feeling are removed, this objective and universally valid feeling expresses itself of its own accord.” 50 springs forth from all directions and afar” (Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, Ch. 12, quoted from the translation of S. Pines). 49

See the Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, Ch. 9: “Matter is a strong veil preventing the apprehension of that which is separate from matter as it truly is”; and Part III, Ch. 51: “One must beseech God that He remove the obstructions that separate us from Him, even though most of them come from us, as we have explained in certain chapters of this Treatise. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God... God, may He be exalted, says: And I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come upon them: so that they will say in that day: Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? It is clear that we are the cause of this hiding of the face, and we are the agents who produce this separation.” Maimon quotes these words in his Lebensgeschichte, Part II, Ch. 7.

50

K.U., p. 258; Leibniz states: “Thus God alone is the primary unity or original simple substance, of which all created or derivative Monads are products and have their birth, so to speak, through continual fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the created being, of whose essence it

206

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

16. The revelation of the higher world in the lower takes place then, from the standpoint of the former, automatically as it were, that is, freely. Freedom exists only with respect to good actions for only these belong to the higher world and are not a part of the temporal world of illusion. “I hold with the Stoics who say that only the virtuous man as such is free and that freedom exists only with respect to good and not bad actions, for good actions are determined by the higher faculties of cognition and desire (which, as we have seen, are not dependent on the laws of nature but operate according to laws of their own) whereas bad actions, as phenomena of the sensible world, are subject to the laws of nature and cannot therefore be free” (K. Up. 273). In his ethical theory Maimon presents the infinite understanding as an idea which is to be conceived only as problematical.51 The dualistic character of Maimon’s doctrine which distinguishes between a real world and an imaginary world, rationalistic on the one hand and skeptical on the other; this dualism expresses itself in the fact that the possibility of the infinite understanding and the world posited by it intellectually can be proved but that it is impossible to prove their reality. Although Maimon acknowledges the possibility of a rational world, the categories of the mind still exist in which, as it were, the rational laws of this world’s constitution express themselves, if regarded from a finite point of view only as forms whose success is doubtful.52 Maimon could thus is to have limits” (Monadology, §47; quoted from the translation of R. Latta, pp. 243—244). 51

See above.

52

This double view of Maimon is also reflected in the arrangement of the parts of his last book, Kritische Untersuchungen iiber der menschlichen Geist. After he had published in this book the Prolegomena to the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena to the Critique of Practical Reason wherein he developed a philosophy from the standpoint of the higher faculty of cognition and the higher faculty of desire, he added a resume of Aristotle’s Ethics, and in this connection he noted in his dedication to Count Kalkreuth: “Aristotle’s Ethics is related to my Prolegomena [above] in that in my opinion the use of Kant’s Ethics is problematical and will remain so. It is true that Aristotle’s Ethics is not based on one principle (like Kant’s Ethics) but it is precisely because of this that it is better suited for practical use than that of Kant.” Actually, Maimon teaches in this section of the book (pp. 278—352) not only Aristotle’s doctrine but also his own and teaches it in such a manner that his views are directly opposed to those he had advanced previously in the two Prolegomena.

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say that the use of the categories with respect to empirical objects is possible only through infinite progression (K. U., p. 221) and that the categories from this point of view are “transcendental fictions of the faculty of the imagination’‫( ״‬Ph. Wp. 20). The same can be said of freedom if it is regarded from the standpoint of the lower world. The causality of reason in this world can only be taken as problematical and it is impossible to prove it as a fact. This contradiction or these two phases of Maimon’s doctrine, his dogmatic rationalism and his skepticism, is expressed in his dispute with Kant (K. Up. 275) where he maintains that freedom is not a problematical idea but a concept capable of being presented but, in another passage,53 he asserts (in the name of Aristotle, as it were, whom he here elucidates in Kantian terminology):

“The

concept of absolute freedom cannot be presented in the empirical world since experience offers us only the determination of the will by means of theoretical reason according to natural laws but does not give us the determination of the will by means of the so-called pure practical reason. It is therefore impossible to give an affirmative answer to the question (as to whether absolute freedom exists) that concerns not only the concept but the fact. We must then regard absolute freedom only as an idea to which we can approach closer and closer by the more perfect use of theoretical reason but never reach. This is the path that Aristotle took” [K. Up. 289). The question as to whether man is able to act in accordance with the laws of freedom, whether an ethical principle can really become an active cause in this world, remains unanswered. Just as there is no answer to Hume’s skepticism in the sphere of the theory of cognition, so also is there no answer to the question as to whether there exists in this world freedom that is realized in truth. It is obvious that there is a comparative or relative freedom. According to the Stoic ideal we can by constant effort gradually overcome our destiny.54 Hence, however much Maimon agrees with Kantian ethics, he regards it only as “a hypothetical science,” 55 since we cannot conceive how the higher world acts upon the lower. 53 54

K. U., p. 289. Cf. in the theory of knowledge Maimon’s metaphor, ‘‘light infantry.”

55

Maimon says the same of Kant’s theory of knowledge.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MA1MON

Freedom is realized in this causal world by dint of its struggle with other forces, the highest force here being “the impulse to realize the forms or the a priori laws in given objects. But within this impulse there is something real, a force, and hence not free” (K. Up. 274). Strictly speaking, this force is, as opposed to the absolute freedom that reigns in the higher world, free in a relative sense since man can add to the play of forces his own force, one that “is maintained by practice and is capable of reaching various levels.” 56 Absolute freedom, however, is indivisible and constitutes a unity without gradations. In this world freedom is acquired by practice and becomes a kind of a skill. “Virtue means the acquired freedom of the will, and it is this that constitutes the highest perfection of man.” As long as we regard the problem of the highest faculties of cognition and of desire from the standpoint of the higher world and look down, as it were, from above, then beauty, truth and good will take the form of an “is” and not of an “ought,” the highest values that are always ready to reveal themselves in this world of “actuality.” It is different, however, when we look above from below, for now the freedom of the good will ceases to exist but must be acquired, and the “is” becomes a task, an infinite goal. 17. The ethical ideal thus springs automatically from the duality of the two worlds, the ideal of realizing in the lower world that which is real in the higher world, the rule of reason. The ethical ideal is the perfect wise man.57 Maimon’s long essay on the principle of ethics 58 ends with the words: “The highest rule of ethics and its object, the highest good, is contained in the three words: vitam impendere vero, to stake one’s life on the truth.” This was not only a theoretical doctrine for Maimon; it constituted the very essence of his being throughout his turbulent career. “My love for philosophy was always pure, and my aim was only to possess it and

56

“Briefe an Herrn PeinaKronos, 1801, p. 34.

57

Ph.W., p. 152; cf. the Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, Ch. 8 : “A man ... should take as his end that which is the end of man qua man: namely, solely the mental representation of the intelligibles ...”

58

“Versuch einer neuen Darstellung des Moralprinzips und Dedukzion seiner Realitat.”

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209

nothing more,” he justly observed (V., p. 259). It is moving to read the eloquent account of his love of wisdom that suddenly appears in the midst of a logical disquisition on the difference between perception, representation and thought: In vain will one look for the dignity of man and his superiority to mere animals, unless he finds it where Aristotle sought and found it, namely, in the faculty of thought. Is it not surprising, then, when a thinker, in accordance with his determination as a human being, relinquishes important human affairs to the theologian, to the so-called statesman, etc., and seeks to assert only his dignity as a thinking animal? What are we to think of those men of the world, even scholars, who despise the speculative sciences only because they have no direct utility in ordinary life ? What would a Newton, a Leibniz say were they to hear that their magnificent invention (differential calculus) was highly regarded not as a divine spark, as a patent of nobility that attests to the lofty origin of the human spirit in pure intelligence, but only because of its utility in enabling us (in artillery) to calculate how the greatest number of people can be killed in the shortest possible time ? Who can call the exercise of the soul’s faculties for their own sake useless, even though they are put to no definite use? And who would attempt to reason away the happiness derived from such an exercise? Surely, only he who has never tasted it... I have digressed; but these words needed to be said (Vp. 226).59

59

Cf. D. Baumgardt, “The Ethics of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800),” Journal of the History of Phlosophy 1/2 (1963), pp. 199—210.

CHAPTER X

MAIMONIDES AND MAIMON

We have already noted in the Introduction the deep influence exerted by Maimonides on Maimon. External evidence of this influence is apparent in the fact that Shlomo ben Yehoshua of Lithuania (as Maimon signed his first Hebrew article)1 adopted the name of the great Jewish philosopher and devoted a part of his Autobiography to an exposition of his philosophy to indicate that the “Rambam’s” teachings had become a part of his life. This exposition, which appears at the beginning of the second volume of the Autobiography, is the first detailed description of Maimonides’ philosophical system in the German language. We shall now attempt to explain systematically some of Maimon’s doctrines that reveal the influence of Maimonides. 1. Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed was the first philosophical book that Maimon read. In this book he found the Aristotelian doctrine that in the sight of God the object of cognition is the same as the knower, that God thinks only Himself. The intellectus, ens intelligens and the ens intelligibile are one —- a doctrine which, as we have seen, became the corner-stone of Maimon’s theory of cognition. Important consequences respecting Maimon’s understanding of Kant flow from this principle of identity. It obliged him to reject Reinhold’s attempt to make the thingin-itself in a positive sense an essential part of Kant’s system. The Kantian system can be understood from within only if we succeed in penetrating to the heart of the system and recognize that the thing-initself serves as the criterion of truth. If we wish to know whether any one of our representations is true or not, we may not (nor can we) compare it with the “outside” world, for we have no direct contact with this world, but with the productions of the understanding itself. The knowing subject to be true must correspond to the cognized object which is within. This may be illustrated by mathematics where the cognized object is created by us and is not given from without. In this discipline, therefore, we are like God. 1

In The Collector (Meassef), 1789.

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211

But mathematics is only part of our cognition; and our understanding is not the infinite understanding but one that is bound by objects “given” to it. This does not mean that these objects actually exist outside of our understanding but only that the latter is limited. The assumption of the thing-in-itself is only another way of expressing the finitude of our understanding which receives matter “given” to it from without but does not create it. Instead of explaining the finitude of the human understanding by means of the thing-in-itself which, as it were, affects the understanding and sets a boundary to it that is altogether incomprehensible to us, Kant should have tried to explain the limited, finite understanding by means of the unlimited, infinite understanding, that is, an understanding that is not dependent on matter given from without but one which creates matter from within itself according to its forms. It may be urged against this infinite understanding that we know nothing about it. This, however, is only half true, for we can extend the boundaries of our understanding and approach closer and closer to the infinite understanding. The finite must be understood in the light of the infinite. The infinite understanding is not foreign to the limited, human understanding in the sense that the thing-in-itself is foreign to it. Over against this divine understanding the dualism between matter and intellectual forms (whose mutual correspondence in the Kantian system is so difficult to understand) disappears. This is the point of departure from which Maimon attempts to explain human understanding -— the mind of man is a Schema of the infinite mind and is essentially similar to it, although limited. This doctrine of Maimon, then, contains two elements: (a) in real thinking the knowing subject is identical with the cognized object; (b) the human understanding is the Schema of the divine understanding. These two doctrines that Maimon found in the Guide for the Perplexed came down to the Middle Ages from Aristotle. In his commentary to the Guide 2 Maimon compares this Maimonidean doctrine with Kant’s doctrine of the dualism of understanding and sensibility as well as with Leibniz’s doctrine according to which the difference between the un-

2

Gibeath hamore, Ch. 68, p. 106.

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derstanding and the sensibility is merely a formal one, ‘‘the sensuous representation being the confused intellectual representation.” As a result of this comparison Maimon comes to the conclusion that Leibniz's system is in this respect superior to that of Kant. According to Leibniz the sensuous representation is that part of the intellectual concept that has not yet been sufficiently clarified, and hence there is no distinct division here between the knower and the cognized object — the understanding is able to penetrate the object. In this doctrine Leibniz (in contradistinction to Kant) appears to be the ethical heir of Aristotle and Maimonides. This conception of Leibniz’s philosophy can also be found in Maimon’s first book (Tr., p. 63) where he asks : How is it possible to understand the fact that intellectual forms correspond to given things a posteriori! How can the understanding leave its precincts and subsume self-subsistent things that are independent of it? Maimon answers this by saying: “If our understanding were able to create objects from out of itself according to rules or conditions which the understanding itself determines without being dependent on anything that might be given to it from another source, there would be no room for this question.” In other words, to solve this basic difficulty in the theory of cognition we must understand the relation between subject and object from the standpoint of Maimonides, that is, the identity of the ens intelligent with the ens intelligibile. In this sense Maimon identifies the world with the ens intelligibile, God with the active ens intelligens, and the human soul with the potential intellectus. Maimon adds that this three-fold unity is from the standpoint of the limited understanding not “real”; the sensuous world is given to the finite mind as something foreign and external. This conception, however, does not emanate from our absolute faculty of cognition but only from its limitation and therefore it is not true. The unity is the right point of view. “This is the point,” Maimon continues, “in which the materialists, the idealists, the disciples of Leibniz and Spinoza, and even the theists and atheists would be able to unite.” In such a common front there is no place for the Kantian system as understood by Reinhold, who interpreted the thing-in-itself as something positive outside of us. In contradistinction to Reinhold Maimon

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understood Kant as follows : “I have already explained my view in this matter, that I regard the representation or the concept of the thing to be identical with the thing itself. These differ from one another only from the standpoint of the perfection of the object with respect to the representation ’ (Trp. 210). And at the end of the book where Maimon sums up his system in contrast to that of Kant he returns to this point —which may be called the Maimonidean element in his system — that it is possible to understand the cognitive process of the human intellect only by assuming an infinite reason, a reason that we keep approaching ad infinitum : “They go from strength to strength, everyone of them in Zion appeareth before God.” This verse from Psalms (lxxxiv

: 7) with which Maimon closes his first German book, is clearly

meant to indicate that God is the unity of the intellectus, ens intelligens and the ens intelligibile. Our intellect is on the road towards this unity; we live in the light of this separation of mind and object. But we gradually narrow the gulf that divides the two and gradually conquer the object and in the process of understanding we acquire more and more a portion of the infinite, divine understanding. The historical influence of this thought in the history of German philosophy has not been exaggerated, as will appear from our discussion of Maimon’s influence on Fichte and Hegel in the following chapters. 2. In Maimon’s system itself this thought that the human intellect is but the Schema, of the infinite intellect becomes the key for the solution of the question quid juris. The hypothesis of an infinite mind helps Maimon in solving the difficulty inherent in the synthetic judgements a priori by assuming that in the eyes of God synthetic judgements are analytical.3 3. In his book, From Critical to Speculative Idealism Professor Atlas has shown that the doctrine of the non-temporality of cognition came to Maimon from Maimonides.4 4. We have already described 5 Maimon’s doctrine of the immortality of the soul and traced its origin to Maimonides’ doctrine of the “acquired understanding,” citing in support the relevant passages in the Guide for

3

See above.

4

See above, Ch. IX, § 5

5 Above, Ch. IX, § 12.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

the Perplexed. The words of Professor Atlas deserve to be quoted in this connection : Maimonides conceives of the idea of immortality as a task, an ideal for man to attain by activating his reason. On the whole, Maimon follows Maimonides in his conception of the idea of immortality. It is possible for man to approach endlessly the ideal of immortality by costantly perfecting his mind and by extending his intellectual comprehension of reality, thereby transforming the individual subjective consciousness into a part of the general objective consciousness. Man’s approach to the idea of immortality stands in inverse ratio to his subjective, individual, and empirical self-consciousness, and in direct ratio to his share in the objective, super-individual and super-empirical consciousness.6 7 5. It could also be demonstrated,

according to Professor Atlas,‘

that the highest principle of Maimon’s logic, the

principle of

de-

terminability, is also derived to a certain extent from Maimonides’ doctrine of attributes

(the negation

of privation,

etc.)8 — “some-

times an object is deprived of a quality that is ordinarily not found in it, as when we say of a wall that ‘it does not see.’ ” In commenting on this passage in

Gibeath hamore

Maimon says that this means

that the negations mentioned are not only a negation of the existence of the attributes in actuality but they are also a negation of their possibility. Professor Atlas also quotes the explanation of this passage given by Moses ben Joshua Narbonne, a philosopher of the fourteenth century who wrote a commentary to Maimones’ Guide, namely: “You know from logic that there are two kinds of negatives. One is a particular negation, such as ‘Balaam does not see,’ and this is a true negation; the other is an absolute negation, i.e., a negation of a predicate with reference to a subject, the nature of which is not susceptible to such a predicate, as in the proposition, the wall does not see.” Using Maimon’s language we can express the difference between these two propositions as follows : the proposition “the wall does not see” means that between the subject and object of this proposition there is no relation of determinability, that is, we have here an infinite judgement;9 whereas the proposition “Bal6

From Critical to Speculative Idealism, p. 131.

7

Ibid., pp. 160 ff.

8

Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 58.

9

See above, Ch. VI, § 8.

MAIMON1DES AND MAI MON

215

aam does not see” is a simple negation. Although we cannot say, therefore, that the philosophers prior to Maimon had already anticipated Maimon’s principle of determinability, it is at any rate true that Maimonides, and especially Moses ben Joshua Narbonne, had set forth the basic distinctions that led Maimon to formulate his principle. 6. Maimon took from Maimonides the doctrine described above,10 namely, that we cannot say of God that He “exists” in the same sense that we say of objects that they “exist.” In the last analysis there is no relation of determinability between God and existence. It is worth recalling in this connection the words of the Hebrew thinker A. D. Gordon who, in speaking of the existence of God,11 said, doubtlessly under the influence of Maimonides, that we may not say of God that He exists in the same sense in which things exist. But, he goes on to say, language recognizes no existence other than that of things and has no expression for other existences. “Some link, some concept is missing here for which there is no corresponding expression in language, a concept that should be created.” To this end Gordon constructed a verb from the Hebrew word mah (what), that is, mohe (whatness) whose meaning is to be in a manner inconceivable to us ‫ —־‬to be used in describing God’s existence. 7. In his Philosophical Dictionary (p. 152) Maimon says : “The ethical ideal is the perfect wise man” -— and this doctrine as well has its source in Maimonides.12

10

Ch. IX, § 8.

11

In his essay, “Man and Nature” (Hebrew).

12

In his book on Maimon Kuntze lists a number of doctrines which in his opinion Maimon derived from Maimonides.

CHAPTER XI

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

1. “I read Spinoza; the profound thought of this philosopher and his love of the truth pleased me immensely, and since I had already come upon his system while still in Poland, having been led to it by cabbalistic writings, I began to reflect upon it once more and was so convinced of its truth that all of Mendelssohn’s efforts to keep me from it proved fruitless.” Thus Maimon writes in his Autobiography,1 and in Gibeath hamore he states that Spinoza “agrees with the cabbalists in the matter of the doctrine of contraction (tsimtsum).” 2 Spinoza’s influence on Maimon is of particular significance both with respect to the formation of his system as well as from the standpoint of Maimon’s influence on German classical philosophy. In this connection it is of interest to quote the words of Spranger: “The decade 1780—1790 was of great importance in the history of the German spirit for during that period those two mighty, opposing systems of thought appeared on the scene — the philosophy of Kant and Spinozism. We must regard these two systems as existing side by side and as antagonistic to one another. Only if we recognize the conclusions of both as a combined unity, can we appreciate the fact that the structure of German speculative idealism from Fichte to Hegel is a mixture of the systems of Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant — and Maimon was the first to create a system composed of these three elements.” 3 I was a disciple of all philosophical systems, one after the other; I was a peripatetic (a follower of Aristotle), a Spinozist, a Leibnizian, a Kantian and finally a skeptic, and always ardently embraced that system which I considered at the time to be the only true one. I finally observed that all these different systems contained some truth and in certain respects were equally useful.. . The difference among the philosophical systems depends on their basic concepts of the objects of nature, their

1

Ch. 22, p. 165.

2

Ch. 74, p. 161.

3

E. Spranger, “Der Kampf gegen den Idealismus,” Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der

Wissenschajten, philosophish-historische Klasse,

1931, p. 442.

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

217

characteristics and modifications, which, unlike the concepts of mathematics, cannot be defined in the same way by all people and presented a priori.‘1 Maimon s first book, Versuch iiber die Transscendentalphilosophie, was a combination of the systems of Spinoza, Hume, Leibniz and Kant, which he called a Koalitionssystem. ‘‘Each of the aforementioned systems is here developed in such a manner that the common point that unites them all clearly emerges. Hence, this book will prove difficult for one who, because of his rigid thinking, is familiar with only one of these systems without having taken all the others into consideration.” What is the Spinozistic element in Maimon’s first (and most important) book? 4 5 We cannot fail to note the broad hint given by Maimon in answer to this question : The important problem of quid juris, with whose solution the Critique of Pure Reason is concerned, is here treated in a much wider sense than that given it by Herr Kant, thus leaving room for the full force of Humean skepticism. On the other hand, however, the complete solution of this problem necessarily leads to Spinozistic or Leibnizian dogmatism.6 In order to understand the Spinozistic element in Maimon’s system we must bear in mind the significance of the quid juris problem. Why does the complete analysis of this question lead to Spinoza? (Or to Leibniz — the difference between these two systems, which will be touched upon later, is not important at this point.) What is the meaning of this complete analysis? From what has been said in the foregoing chapters it is clear that the analysis of the quid juris problem would enable the philosopher to comprehend the logical structure of the world, how and why the infinite mind thought (created) this world. In other words, we understand all things as “modes” of the divine thought, as the cognized objects of the divine understanding — which is the philosophy

4

Lebensgeschichte, Part II, p. 270.

5

Biographical details are not discussed in this book; for Spinoza’s and Maimon’s relationship to Judaism, cf. F. Mieses, Sources of Modern Philosophy (Hebrew), pp. 100 ff.

6

Lebensgeschichte, Part II, p. 254.

218

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

of Spinoza. The goal of understanding, the logical structure of the world, is never reached; the dualism between the finite mind on the one hand and the “given” facts on the other still remains, and room is made for “the full force” of Humean skepticism. This skepticism, as we have seen above,7 leads to a “two-horned dilemma” : pure concepts do not reach reality. “In this book \Versuch ilber die Transscendentalphilosophie] I am on the side of skeptical philosophy whose conelusion is : our cognition is part pure and part real but, to our misfortune, the pure is not real and the real is not pure. The pure (the formal) is the idea which as a result of real use man keeps approaching more and more (by means of induction) but which he can never attain.” 8 But if we overcome this dualism between pure form and reality and understand reality in its rational necessity and reason as a creative faculty of reality, we solve the problem of quid juris and arrive!at the rationalism of Spinoza or Leibniz. Maimon acknowledges the possibility of this solution of the problem of the world. He is a “dogmatic rationalist” and in this sense a disciple of Spinoza-Leibniz. But he does not acknowledge, as we have seen above,9 that this possibility has been proved and he therefore also admits the second possibility, namely, that the world is not a rational structure. He thus remains a skeptic. Spinoza’s world is a rational structure. “The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” 10 To the extent that Maimon believes in an infinite understanding that created (thought) the world and in the identity of our limited understanding with this infinite understanding he is a disciple of Spinoza. “In the sight of the infinite understanding,” Maimon writes, “the thing and its representation is one and the same” (TV., p. 365). He goes on to say that “some readers will certainly see in this the teaching of Spinoza.” Maimoil’s interpretation of the thing-in-itself, according to which the real object is but the “completion of the possibility” 11 of the object in rep-

7

Ch. IV, § 2.

8

Lebensgeschichte, Part II, p. 272.

9

Ch. IV, § 7.

10

Ethics, Part II, Prop, vii (W. Hale White—A. H. Stirling, p. 52).

11

See above, Ch. I, § § 8, 12.

SPINOZA AND MAIMON

219

resentation, that is, ‘"whatever belongs to the possibility of the representation although we do not understand it” — this interpretation is the expression of Maimon’s extreme rationalism, namely, that the world is a world that is thought, that is knowledge, and that we are born into this knowledge. We have seen 12 that Maimon makes a distinction between the “actual” and the “real,” saying that the former is a product of the faculty of the imagination and that the latter has its source in the understanding. If our understanding were infinite, we would see the world as true being, that is, we would comprehend the real world as a pure expression of thought. All this is an extreme form of rationalism such as is to be found in Spinoza. 3. This rationalism is expressed in Maimon’s first book, particularly in his principle of determinability and in his doctrine of differentials. By means of the principle of determinability Maimon attempts to penetrate the rational structure of the world by showing the logical relationship between predicate and subject and the lawfulness inherent in the process of specification from the general to the particular. “We assume, at least as an idea, an infinite understanding for whom the forms themselves are also the objects of thought, an understanding that produces from out of itself all the possible modes of the relation between things (ideas); our understanding is that same understanding, but only to a limited degree. This is a lofty idea” (TV., p. 64). In mathematics wherein “we are like God” our understanding reveals to us how we reach reality by means of the principle of determinability through a specification that begins with the highest axioms and proceeds down to the individual forms of geometry or the particular numbers of arithmetic, at which point the specification carried out in accordance with the law of determinability ceases since it has arrived at “the determined from all points of view,” at the “real.” Mathematics is

the pattern — in Maimon’s language the

Schema — of the rational structure of the world, just as the limited human understanding is the Schema of the infinite understanding.13 “God creates the objects of nature in the same manner that we create the objects of mathematics, that is, by real thought or construction” (Str., 12

Above, Ch. I, § 12.

13

See above, Ch. I, § 12.

220

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

p. 36). What we call matter is nothing more than our limitation. “God's infinite understanding is related to all possible things or, we might say, to all the worlds that are real to Him at a glance. For us the real world is only an aggregate of all possible things; within this aggregate we think as real only that which matter, that is, our limitation permits and in this sense we may say that matter is opposed to God’s infinite understanding since it does not realize for us every possibility” (Str., p. 36). These words read as if they were taken out of Spinoza’s Ethics. The affinity of Maimon’s principle of determinability to Spinoza’s doctrine and the parallelism between the relationship of the determinable and the determinant in his system and that of the relationship between substance and accident in Spinoza’s system has already been commented upon.14 The second doctrine that attests to Spinoza’s influence on Maimon is that of the differentials. Maimon’s purpose in introducing this doctrine into his system was, as we have already noted,15 to enable him to overcome the absolute opposition of the “given” and “thought” which constitutes Kant’s dualism, and to this end he interprets the “given” as if it were given only as far as we are concerned, but from the standpoint of the infinite understanding this “given” is “thought.” The differential is a boundary concept between pure thought and intuition and connects the two (Tr., p. 192). The absolute dualism between thought and intuition must disappear if the cognitive process is to be understood. “For how can we explain that the understanding is able to determine with apodictic certainty that it is necessary that a concept of relation thought by it (the necessary connection between two predicates) should be found in a given object? The understanding can determine with respect to the object only that which it itself puts into it (whereby it creates the object according to a rule determined by it) but it cannot determine with certainty that which enters the object from another source” (Tr., p. 60). The differentials enable us to understand how the object is created by the intellect, the conversion of synthetic to analytical judgements, how the world flows from the highest hypotheses as in the case of mathematical structure, just as in Spinoza’s doctrine which as14

See R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 360.

15

Above, Ch. III.

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

221

serts that “in God there necessarily exists the idea of His essence, and of all things which necessarily follow from His essence.” 16 4. In the passage quoted above {Tr., p. 62) Maimon takes an additional step of connecting the question quid juris with that of the relation between body and soul. He reduces the problem to the question : How can we understand that a priori forms will coincide with given things a posteriori? The soul is nothing but an aggregate of forms, that is, “representations of the general modes of our activities that are found in us a priori and matter is nothing but the representations of definite objects given to us a posteriori.” It follows then that the question of the relation of body and soul is identical with that of the relation between the a priori and the a posteriori — Maimon’s basic question. “In this surprisingly bold move,” writes Cassirer, “Maimon here connects the theoretical problem of the relation of the matter of knowledge to its form with the metaphysical problem of the congruence of body and soul, in which he saw the general question of the relation of consciousness to the object.” 17 The same answer is given to both the critical and the metaphysical problem, namely, that the opposition between form and matter or between soul and body is not an absolute but only a relative one and vanishes in the sight of the infinite understanding. Here also Maimon replies in his characteristic manner that according to Kant, who teaches that the two sources of our knowledge are radically different from one another, this question is not capable of solution; but according to the Leibniz-Wolffian system the two stems of knowledge flow from one source and the difference emerges only from the standpoint of the completion of cognition, so that the question can easily be solved {Tr., p. 64). 5. This monistic rationalism whereby Maimon attempts to overcome the dualism inherent in the Kantian system is not precisely Spinozistic. Maimon insists that from this point of view there is no difference between Spinoza’s system and that of Leibniz (Str., p. 36). The difference between these two rationalists is to be found in another place, namely, 16

Ethics, Part II, Prop, iii (W. Hale White—A. H. Stirling, p. 49).

17

Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophic und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, Vol. Ill, p. 128.

222

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

with respect to the question as to whether we are to assume the independent existence of the limited understanding or whether we must say with Spinoza that the limited understanding has no independent existence and is only a mode of the infinite understanding. Maimon sets forth the arguments that Mendelssohn advances against Spinoza.18 Mendelssohn agrees with Leibniz that there are also substances outside of God and that the substances created by God are dependent on the infinite and are not thought without it, but are not themselves united with the infinite as one. We live as the effects of God but not within Him. Maimon defends Spinoza’s position, namely, that the real is one in all creatures and, therefore, there is only one Substance.19 Maimon suddenly breaks off his exposition of these two opposing systems 20 after having defended Spinoza’s view : “I do not wish to prolong this subject, for it has already been shown in the Critique of Pure Reason that neither side is right, and with this the dispute is concluded.” In other words, it is as if Maimon suddenly recalled that he was not only a “rational dogmatist” but also a skeptic and that the question quid facti had not been answered nor the rationality of the world demonstrated, so that it was not worth while to enter into the details of the dispute between the two rationalistic systems. Maimon’s affinity to Spinoza is clearly evident, however, in his article on Weltseele in his Philosophisches Worterbuch (pp. 179 ff.) which repeats almost word for word his treatment of this subject in a letter he had written to Kant.21 6. In this article Maimon defends the view that “there is one (and only one) force that is within matter and that affects it — an entelechy, as it is called by Aristotle. The forces only seem to vary but in truth they all go back to one force:” 22 one force whose activity varies according to the different modes of matter upon which it acts. This force is the

18

In Gibeath hamore (p. 161) and Str. (pp. 37 ff.).

19

In one of his essays Maimon describes his attempt to fuse Kant and Spinoza as “an unsuccessful salto monale” (“Obereits Widerruf fur Kant,” Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde IX/2 [1792], p. 143).

20

This comprehensive section of Gibeath hamore also includes an abbreviated transla-

21

tion of chapters XIII and XIV of Mendelssohn's Morgenstunden. On 15 May 1790.

22

Gibeath hamore, Ch. 73, p. 139.

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

223

cause of the various modes of the composition of inorganic bodies, the cause of organization within organic bodies, of life in plants and animals, of understanding and reason in man; in short, this force gives rise to the different kinds of forms and these forms prepare matter to receive a higher form above a lower form. This force is one,23 and in this Maimon differs from Leibniz who assumes an infinite number of bodies each having its own form. Mendelssohn defends Leibniz’s pluralism over against Spinoza’s monism by distinguishing between a substance that is independent (selbststdndig) and substances “that exist for themselves” (fur sich bestehen) but, despite this, they do not “exist for themselves” since they depend on God and still exist independently outside of God.4‫־‬

They “exist for themselves” because they are not dependent on

any other substance. The distinction that Mendelssohn makes is, in other words, that made by Descartes between primary and secondary substances. Spinoza argued that whatever does not exist “for itself” is nothing but a mode of God’s existence and has no separate existence; on the other hand, Mendelssohn argues in his Morgenstunden that there may be substances that exist for themselves even though they are dependent on God. In this way Mendelssohn attempted to save the relative independence of created things. Maimon describes this dispute in Gibeath hamore 25 but refrains from giving his explicit view, although it is plain that he takes the side of Spinoza over against Mendelssohn. For Maimon there is only one force, the Weltseele that gives rise to all forms: “All souls came forth from one source and they are the various influences of one substance, namely, the active understanding; and the cause of the difference is a difference in the matter that is the substratum of the souls, and after the separation of the souls from matter all souls will of necessity be one in number.” 7. Maimon connects his doctrine of the Weltseele with the classical biological problem of preformation and epigenesis. Since this problem has been subject of discussion in biology to this day, we shall quote

23

See in the Appendix, “Maimon and the Beginnings of Scientific Parapsychology.”

24

Morgenstunden, Ch. XIII.

25

Ch. 74, p. 161.

224

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

Professor Leibovitz’s resume of its present-day status : (a) The predilection of this period (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) to explain all natural processes by mechanical models led thinkers to deny that forms could be created by themselves in a natural way. The belief thus arose that also the form of the organism that is developed is not created in a foetal process but is only unfolded within it: it existed at the very outset in the embryo from which the organism emerged; that is, the embryo is nothing but the organism itself in miniature. This is the theory of preformation that explains the formation of the embryo and heredity by the supposition that the complete organism produces out of itself a miniature copy of its own form, some holding it to be in the female ovary and others in the male sperm. This form in the embryo is enclosed and contracted, enfolded within itself, and its appearance during the development of the embryo is nothing more than its unfolding and expansion or, in other words, the development (in its literal sense) of that which is enclosed. It may be compared to a rolled-up scroll which appears as one solid piece but when unrolled appears as a scroll.26 The preformation theory apparently explains heredity as well as development. The similarity of the offspring to the parents is logically something that is to be expected, and the composition of the embryonic form is explained by categories of a mechanical process without any relation to the concept of creation. But this theory is unsuccessful in its attempt to explain the basic fact of life, the continuous chain of the generations — for this same organism which “developed” from its embryo can also produce an embryo that will develop into an organism and so on interminably. In order to dispense with the supposition of the repetitive creative processes in every generation the preformation theory had to resort to the absurd explanation that every embryo contains in actu all the future generations enfolded one within the other. (b) Since the time of Caspar F. Wolff (1733—1794) the theory of preformation was displaced by that of epigenesis. This overcame the 26

Hegel calls the doctrine of preformation “Einschachtelungshypothese.” “Its defect consists in the fact that that which is found only ideally is regarded as already existing” (Encyclopadie, § 161, Zusatz).

225

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

difficulty in explaining the chain of the generations by regarding the embryo as prime matter from which the various parts of the body were created together with their specific forms. This may be compared to a sculptor who chisels the form into the stone or to the painter who paints the form on the canvas; neither sculptor nor painter develop something that was inherent in the stone or canvas but created something new. But this explanation of the embryo as raw matter is refuted by the definite, predetermined direction of the transformations of the embryo up to the stage when it becomes a complete organism that reproduces on a large scale the form of its parents. The development of microscopies and the consequent progress in the fields of embryology, histology and cytology in the nineteenth century decided the question of preformation versus epigenesis. It was shown that the embryo had no active similarity to the organism from which it came or to the organism that sprang from it: each embryo is unicellular and cannot reflect the differentiation of the tissues and the organs of the complete organism. These tissues and organs are created one after the other in a definite order by means of different transformations in the form, structure, place and function until it reaches the final stage. It is clear that this process is not an “evolution” in the classical sense of this term, but it could be called epigenesis were it not for the peculiar direction of this development and the fact of heredity which obliges us to assume preformation in potentia of the organism in its embryo. From the standpoint of the problem of heredity this contradiction was removed by modern genetics which recognized that the embryo stored the qualities and biological traits that appear in the organism. This is the view of modern biology.27 Let us now see how Maimon sets forth his monistic view as opposed to Leibniz’s pluralism by contrasting these two systems with respect to

the explanation

of life, the system of epigenesis which he accepted and that of preformation which he rejected.28

Epigenesis holds that the organiza-

tion of a creature is developed from the same force of the entelechy

27

Y. Leibovitz, Hebrew Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV, cols. 707—708.

28

See Gibeath hamore, Ch. 72, and the article on Weltseele in Ph.W., pp. 17 ff.

226

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

whenever matter reaches a degree of development where it is prepared to receive the form of the organization. There is thus awakened in the amorphous mass the impulse to receive a definite organic form, to preserve it throughout its life and to perfect it when necessary. ”But when the matter to be born is properly prepared, an active creative force will arise in it that is peculiar to it and that will sustain it throughout the period of its existence and complete any defect that it may receive from without. This force may be called a creative force and is what the philosophers call the active intellect.” 29 Leibniz’s view of general pluralism maintains the doctrine that all living embryos were created at the very beginning. In refutation of this doctrine Maimon bases himself on the proofs put forth by the biologists of his day, particularly Blumenbach, and defends the doctrine of epigenesis also with philosophical arguments : the form is the cause of all activity; there is one general form that exists outside of all matter, a “world-soul” that imposes an individual form on all individual bodies. Leibniz taught that there are many forms independent of one another, each being an independent substance. The argument advanced against this multiplicity of forms was : there is no substance without a constant activity; the substance cannot cease its activity during the period of its existence, so that how can we explain the cessation of the soul’s activity during sleep, for example, without denying its substantive character? Leibniz solved this difficulty by his assumption of sub-conscious representations. Our soul continues its activity also during the time we sleep but its representations are faint and hence sub-conscious. As an example of such sub-conscious representations Leibniz cites our acquired dispositions, the stores of recollections found in our soul without our knowing them consciously; for example, the miller grows accustomed to the noise of the mill until he no longer “hears” it, that is, he does not consciously hear distinct sounds but these nevertheless remain in his soul as “obscure” perceptions. To these sub-conscious perceptions Leibniz attributes an importance that atoms have in nature. Maimon believes that all these presuppositions of sub-conscious per-

29

Gibeath hamore, Ch. 72, p. 121.

SPINOZA AND MAI MON

227

ceptions are superfluous and not susceptible to demonstration. It is enough to posit one “world-soul,

one force that operates unceasingly,

as is proper to substance, only that the extent of its activity depends on the quality of the organ on and through which it functions, ceasing and renewing its operations, somewhat like a flowing fountain.30 Maimon’s view is similar to that of Maimonides who holds that the activity and influence of a simple substance that differs from matter is like “a waterspring, which sends forth water in all directions and has no peculiar side for receiving or spending its contents; it springs forth on all sides and continually waters both neighbouring and distant places.” 31 Maimon believes that this single “world-soul” also explains teleology in nature better than Leibniz's pre-established harmony. Everything in nature is both means and end at the same time; all parts of nature correspond to one another, and this mutual correspondence of the laws of nature and the ends of nature is more satisfactorily explained by one single force that unites the end of nature and its law in their activities. This one “world-soul” is also the cause of the world and also its end -—the causa formalis and the causa finalis. “This is the ideal of the most complete union between the legislator and the executive power” (Ph. W p. 194) — as in the functioning of a perfect government. Having in mind Kant’s well-known example of the relation between intuition and concept, Maimon says: “The legislative power that determines, as it were, the ends of nature without executive power is empty (cannot operate), and executive without legislative power is blind (is an accident or a destiny of fate).” The “world-soul” unites both. We must attribute to nature, on the analogy of human nature, these three principles: reason, understanding, the productive imagination -— reason determines the end of nature, the understanding determines the rules whereby it is possible to execute the end in objects, and the productive imagination creates the objects themselves in conformity with these rules. These three powers correspond perfectly to one another for they are all one power. Thus Maimon explains teleology in nature 30

See above, Ch. IX, § 14.

31

Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, Ch. 12. This passage is quoted by Maimon in his Lebensgeschichte, Part II, Ch. 5

228

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

by means of one “world-soul.” The individual souls of men and animals are not — as Leibniz thought — true substances but only imaginary substances whose substantiality and individuality (the unity of consciousness in the manifold of its representations) “are only formal and not real.” With the disappearance of this substantiality the necessity of positing Leibniz’s sub-conscious representations also disappear. The affinity of the doctrine of a “world-soul” to Spinoza is clear except that Maimon attempts, in the spirit of his day,32 to make a distinction between his doctrine and that of Spinoza (Ph. Wp. 181). The “world-soul” is not God; it is not demonstrated a priori but only a posteriori and hence “this idea is far from that of Spinoza’s doctrine.” There is no doubt, however, that Spinoza exerted a considerable influence on Maimon’s doctrine of the “world-soul.” 33 8. We must also bear in mind the fact that Maimon was the first to call Spinoza’s system “a system that denies the existence of the world” (“an acosmic system”). In his Autobiography 34 Maimon makes a distinction between Spinoza’s system and atheism. For Spinoza only unity‫׳‬ is real and multiplicity imaginary whereas for atheism the reverse is true, multiplicity is real and unity is only accidental. Spinoza’s system is therefore the very opposite of the system that denies the existence of God; it denies the existence of the world “and hence it is proper that it be called

an acosmic system (one that denies the world).” This

description of Spinoza’s system as an acosmic system is later to be found in Hegel to whom it is generally attributed in histories of philosophy.35 32

In the introduction to his explanation of Spinozism Maimon says of Spinoza: “There arose a certain Spaniard (!), Baruch Spinoza, who shook the world with his speculations which were too profound and too strange for the understanding of the masses” (Gibeath hamore, Ch. 74, p. 160).

33

The affinity of Maimon’s teaching to that of Spinoza has already been commented upon by Kant himself in his letter to Herz on 26 May 1789: Maimon’s conception is identical with that of Spinoza and it can be used admirably to refute the doctrines of the disciples of Leibniz, using the very principles they adopt. (Cf F. Kuntze, “Salomon Maimons theoretische Philosophic und ihr Ort in einem System des Kritizismus,” Logos III [1912], p. 301.)

34

Ch. I, p. 152.

35

Maimon may have been influenced in this argument by Mendelssohn who in his Morgenstunden (Ch. XVII) advances this argument against Spinoza. He did not coin the phrase “acosmism,” but called Spinoza’s God “ein unendlicher Egoist” because He did not leave room in the world outside Himself.

CHAPTER XII

MAIMON AND FICHTE

1. The relation of Maimon to Fichte has been pointed out repeatedly in a number of studies.1 The significant place that Maimon’s thinking occupies in the history of German philosophy was acknowledged by Fichte who speaks of his “boundless respect for Maimon’s talent.” 2 This acknowledgement of

Maimon’s contribution to speculative thought,

forgotten by later writers, is now becoming clearer and clearer. It was Maimon who initiated the movement from Kant to Leibniz, a movement distinguished by such names as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel; and it was he who expressed the basic thoughts that characterized the synthesis Kant-Leibniz. The following observations are designed to supplement the critical studies of Maimon made by the scholars mentioned above with some details hitherto overlooked or inadequately emphasized. Maimon’s strong influence on Fichte is to be seen most clearly in their respective treatment of time and space. They both took a significant step beyond Kant and interpreted the peculiar position that the Transcendental Aesthetic occupies in Kant’s system more freely. Kant believed that he had discovered in intuition a principle that lies beyond the concept but which is nevertheless constitutive for phenomena. That was the point at which dualism and subjectivism (in the bad sense of the world) were able to penetrate Kant’s system and drive it to the verge of illusionism and metaphysical skepticism. Space does not represent any property of things in themselves, nor does it represent them in their relation to one another. That is to say, space 1

Emil Lask has repeatedly shown Maimon’s influence on Fichte; see “Maimon” in the Index of his Gesammelte Schriften and especially Vol. I, p. 120. Kuntze devotes a chapter to this subject in his book on Maimon (pp. 343 ff.). Also Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I. Gueroult, La philosophic transcendentale de Salomon Maimon, pp. 71 f., 141 f. and Uevolution et la structure de la doctrine fichteenne de la science, Vol. I, pp. 110 ff., treats of the relationship between Maimon and Fichte.

2

For the relation between Fichte and Maimon see also S. Atlas, From Critical to Speculative Idealism, pp. 316—324. Two personal letters of Maimon to Fichte may be found in Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Leben und literarischer Briefivechsel (edited by Immanuel H. Fichte), Vol. II.

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does not represent any determination that attaches to the objects themselves, and which remains even when abstraction has been made of all the subjective conditions of intuition. . .. Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense. It is the subjective condition of sensibility... It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things etc. If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever.3 This is the point at which Maimon opposes Kant or, we may say, the point at which he improves on him through Leibniz. Time and space are phenomena, to be sure, but they have a fundamentum in re. Kant asserts that the sensibility and the understanding are two completely different faculties; I, on the other hand, maintain that although they must be represented in us as two distinct faculties, they must be thought as one and the same force by an infinite thinking Being and that sensibility is in us but incomplete understanding (Tr., p. 182). Space and time have a fundamentum in re, that is, they are by their very nature conceptual relations which, however, are mediated to us as definite intuitive images by the imagination. I speak here as a Leibnizian 4 who regards time and space as general, undetermined reflexion-concepts [Reflexionsbegriffe] which must have an objective ground . . . Discreteness in time and space has its ground in the difference of things, that is, the imagination, which apes the understanding, represents things a and b discretely in time and space because the understanding thinks them as being different. This concept of the understanding, then, is the guiding principle [Richtschnur] of the imagination {Tr., p. 133). This is essentially the same explanation of time and space given by Fichte who in this reveals himself, to use Erdmann’s phrase, as “an apt pupil of Maimon.” Time and space are not given but have to be deduced a priori. Fichte, as Reinhold and Maimon before him, elaborated that part of the idealistic system which precedes the Transcendental Aesthetic and its distinction between time and space on the one hand and the understanding on the other. Kant took the duality of

3

Critique of Pure Reason, § 3, B46 (N. Kemp Smith, p. 71).

4

For his reliance on Leibniz see R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 350.

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231

space and time as well as the duality of the understanding and its forms as an ultimate fact that need not and indeed cannot be derived from other presuppositions, whereas Maimon and Fichte tried to deduce it from higher hypotheses, seeking the source of this duality in the unity of the understanding. “We set the reader down at exactly the same point where Kant will take him up” are the concluding words of Fichte’s Grundriss des Eigentiimlichen der

Wissenschaftslehre. However, the

point from which Fichte starts his derivation differs from Maimon’s. If we wish to understand the central point at which Fichte was influenced by Maimon as well as the point in which he departed from him, we must examine the function performed by the faculty of the imagination in their respective systems. We have already had occasion to note the function of this faculty in Maimon’s system in connection with his interpretation of time and space, namely, that which the faculty of the imagination describes to us as time and space is in reality the diversity of objects. Thus, time and space contain both an element of truth and an element of illusion. Approximation in time and space, for example, really means a minimum of diversity. Maimon therefore says: “Space (as well as time) considered as an intuition is then an ens imaginarium (an imaginary being) for it is created by the imaginative faculty which imagines as absolute that which exists only in relation to something else” (Tr., p. 19). Here we have an element of illusion that may be ascribed to the imaginative faculty. On the other hand, however, Maimon repeatedly says that the faculty of the imagination is “at the service of the understanding” (Tr., p. 19). Infinite time and space and empty time and space are the illusionary and deceptive products of the faculty of the imagination. Maimon states that the faculty of the imagination operates in accordance with the laws of the understanding, although it does not understand these laws.5 The discipline of mathematics, in which we are “like God,” is possible only because of the faculty of the imagination. “Only on the assumption that the effects of the sensibility, imagination, etc., are the effects of the understanding and reason, albeit with diminished perfection, can the evidence of mathematics be demonstrated; otherwise it is impossible to explain it” (Tr., p. 348). 5

See above, Ch. VII, § 8.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

In short, the sensible world into which we are born is, according to Maimon, the product of the imaginative faculty and therefore contains an element of illusion; but since this faculty functions in accordance with the rules of the understanding, it is capable of revealing the truth. This assumption of Maimon, namely, that the world into which we are bom is the product of the faculty of the imagination, became the cornerstone of Fichte’s philosophy, except that where Maimon stresses the element of illusion in the faculty of the imagination Fichte stresses the element of truth in the operation of this faculty. Fichte solves all the basic problems of the theory of knowledge — whether it be Hume’s radical skepticism or the question of the incomprehensible correspondence of form and matter, of the thing-in-itself and of cognition — by the assumption of an initial position whose source is in the supra-individual ego which through the workings of the faculty of the imagination creates the limited ego and the limited non-ego, the subject and the object together. We can thus say that the basis of Fichte’s philosophy, the productive faculty of the imagination, has its roots in Maimon’s philosophy. But whereas Maimon emphasizes the aspect of illusion in this faculty, Fichte stresses the productive character and the element of truth within it; but for both him and Maimon this faculty has created the world of time and space. Maimon speaks of the faculty of the imagination as “aping the understanding,” whereas Fichte insists that “all reality is created by the power of the imagination alone,” and in strong terms opposes Maimon’s attempt to diminish the value of the imaginative faculty and insists on its central function : Accordingly, it is here taught that all reality ... is produced only by the faculty of the imagination. One of the greatest thinkers of our age [Maimon!] who, as far as I can make out, teaches the same doctrine, calls this an illusion brought about by the faculty of the imagination. But every illusion presupposes truth set over against it; every illusion can be avoided. But when it is demonstrated, as this present system intends, that on this activity of the imagination depends the possibility of our consciousness, our life, our being for us [Sein fiir uns], that is, our being as ego, then the same cannot be removed without abstracting from the ego, which is a contradiction since that which absracts cannot possibly abstract from itself; therefore, the faculty of the imagination does not delude us but gives us the truth and the only possible truth.

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To suppose that it deludes us is to lay the ground for a skepticism that teaches us to doubt our own being.6 7 2. Fichte returns to these problems in his Grundriss/ — now mentioning Maimon by name and not as above as only “one of the greatest thinkers of our generation” — stating that precisely because the object is a product of the imaginative faculty we can comprehend that the laws of time and space apply to it just as the categories apply to it. From this it is clear — a point also emphasized by Maimon (TV., p. 23) — that time and space have the same degree of reality as the categories and that the two are not separated, as in Kant’s system, by an unbridgeable gulf. Time and space are conceptual relations originating within us and projected by the faculty of the imagination. This interpretation removes the dichotomy and mutual incompatibility between the two factors of knowledge, sensibility and understanding, that characterizes Kant’s system.8 Both Maimon and Fichte stress the fact that there is an element of truth in that which appears to us in time and space and that these are not merely subjective intuitions as Kant thought. The difference here between Maimon and Fichte is that according to Maimon there is no necessity that this truth should take the particular form given to it by our imagination,9 whereas Fichte believed that the operation of the faculty of the imagination is a necessary one. The doctrine of time and space in both philosophers reveals further similarities and differences. Both stress the fact that the spatio-temporal determinations are only relative with regard to the objects among themselves. A single object is neither in time nor in space. Fichte therefore states : “Every moment must be attached to another... there is no first moment in consciousness at all, but only a second.” 10 Similarly, Maimon

6

Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschajdehre, § 4 (in Fichtes Werke [edited by F. Medicus], Vol. I, p. 420).

7

Grundriss des Eigentiimlichen der Wissenschaftslehre in Riicksicht auf das theoretische Vermogen, §3 (ed. cit., Vol. I, pp. 579—580).

8

See E. Lask, Gesammelte Schriften (edited by E. Herrigel), Vol. I, p. 185.

9

See above, Ch. II, § 5.

10 Grundriss des Eigentiimlichen der JFissenschaftslehre in Riicksicht auf das theoretische Vermogen, § 4 {ed. cit., p. 602).

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

writes : “We cannot say that the world has a beginning in time, but with time” (K. U., p. 230). What deceives us here is the faculty of the imagination which creates time and space as intuitions by representing as absolute that which exists only as a relation to something elsed1 This function of the imagination also plays a part in empty space. Since space is a conceptual relation among real things, there are always only so many parts of space as there are different parts of matter that occupy it. “The imagination, however, in accordance with its function, seeks to fill the empty areas in space.” How is this accomplished? To illustrate this Maimon uses from time to time the example of a river to represent the effect of the imagination which conceives time and space as a flowing continuum that extends into infinity.12 Thus we read in Fichte : “The imagination separates space from the thing which actually fills it and thus projects an empty space, but it does this only experimentally and in passing and only in order to fill it again with any substance whatsoever.” 13 As stated above, the starting-point of Fichte’s derivation is altogether different from that of Maimon’s. This is particularly evident from the fact that for Maimon the difference between time and space remains underived,14 whereas Fichte undertakes a special derivation for time apart from space.15 3. There is, on the other hand, agreement between Maimon and Fichte in the interpretation of the Kantian antinomies.16 Maimon explains the antinomies by the fact “that our understanding can and must be viewed from two opposing points of view : (a) as absolute, unlimited by sensibility and its laws; (b) as our finite understanding with its limitation. Therefore, it can and must think its objects according to mutually opposed laws” (TV., p. 227). Fichte explains the ground of the anti11

Tt., P. 19.

12

V., pp. 219—220.

13

Op. cit., § 4, p. 592.

14

See above, Ch. II, § 1.

15

Op. cit., § 4, pp. 596 ff.

16

For the antinomies, cf. my book, The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Hebrew), pp. 81—91. Johann E. Erdmann points out that the doctrine of differentials was the source of Fichte’s principle of sensation (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, Vol. II, p. 433).

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nomies as the opposition between the infinite ego (the finite non-ego) and the infinite non-ego (the finite ego): “If the ego is finite then the nonego is infinite and vice versa; one of the two, however, is always infinite.” 17 Kant places the thesis (which demonstrates finitude) over against the antithesis (which demonstrates infinity) and takes the two as equally valid; whereas, according to Maimon, we must understand the thesis (the finitude of the world, etc.) as an expression of the finite mind, and the antithesis (infinity) as an expression of the infinite understanding. That which appears in the finite understanding as only an idea that has no corresponding object — infinity — is for the infinite understanding, that is, in the eyes of truth, a real object. Kant proves the thesis (finitude of the world) by showing that an infinite series cannot be completed. Hence, it is impossible to assume that time and space are infinite or that matter is divisible into parts ad infinitum, etc. In contradistinction to this Maimon argues that such a view is characteristic only of the finite mind. The boundary between the finite and the infinite understanding is not absolute. The finite understanding itself is the infinite understanding as Maimon, following Leibniz,18 repeatedly asserts. This applies also here. That which appears to the finite understanding from a certain point of view as an idea that can be reached only by infinite progression, that is, something beyond our attainment, appears from another point of view definite, complete. “We are at times in a position to substitute objects for ideas (infinite) and vice versa, to break up objects into ideas, as in the case of the infinite converging series. We can calculate their value with the greatest precision and convert certain numbers into infinite series.” 19 With respect to the problem of antinomies it follows then that when Kant denies the infinity of the world in space because the synthesis of an infinite quantum by a constant addition of units is impossible, nothing is thereby proved. For that which, from one point of view, requires an infinite synthesis in order to be measured can, from another point of view, be comprehended

17

Op.cit., § 4, p. 438.

18

See above, Ch. IV, § 4.

19

Tr., p. 228. Also an infinite number such as 1/g can be expressed by means of an infinite series.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

at once, as is demonstrated by the example of the converging series. Thus the world, which is infinite in space, can be comprehended by some law without the necessity of augmenting it by repeated additions of units. The antinomies, therefore, represent the conflict between the infinite and the finite understanding. This formulation of the problem as it appears in Maimon’s first book was later changed.20 The antinomies are now explained not as a contradiction of reason (or rather the understanding) with itself but that of reason with the imagination, so that the solution of all four antinomies is the same since in all of them the one thesis (finitude) belongs to the understanding while the antithesis belongs to the imagination. Finitude is the presupposition of the understanding; on

the other hand, the extension of finitude into

infinity is the function of the imagination. In the case of a world limited in space it would then be for the imagination to inquire as to what point of the limitless empty space this finite world is to be found. But the imagination gives us something that can be thought but not cognized..21 The extension performed by the imagination cannot be constructed; it is only thought as a concept but not intuited (K. U., p. 223). Thus, for example, the antithesis of the second antinomy points out that no composite thing in the world consists of simple parts since each part can be sub-divided further. The last unit would be a omni dabili minus which we could only arrive at conceptually but not intuitively. Here the imagination continues, as it were, into a vacuum without any support in the intuition or power of construction. The absence of intuition and construction does not constitute a real objection to the antithesis. The antithesis may be true even though it is constructed on the imagination alone. Thesis and antithesis do not contradict one another, but simply refer to different objects — the thesis refers to intuitive things that lend themselves to construction, the antithesis to non-intuitive things created by the imagination by means of pure concepts. The thesis is right from the standpoint of constructive 20

In Philosophisches Worterbuch, Versuch einer neuen Logik, and Kritische Unter-

21

K.U., p. 230.

suchungen ilber den menschlichen Geist.

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intuition when it speaks of division that leads ultimately to indivisible units, for intuitively there is no part that is smaller than the one given. But the antithesis is also right when it asserts that there is no ultimate unit and that we can keep dividing every unit. But this division is not intuitive-constructive but conceptual-imaginative. We no longer speak of a unit that would be smaller than any intuitively given part but of a omni dabili minus. Similarly, the thesis of the first antinomy has it that the world that can be known, the intuitive world that lends itself to construction, is finite; whereas the antithesis has it that the world that is thought, the world that is created by the imagination but not intuitively constructable, is infinite. There is, then, no contradiction between thesis and antithesis. “It is not necessary then to play this game of antinomies seriously, to tie knots and unravel them” (K. U., p. 230). The different solutions of the antinomies found in Maimoms first book and in his later works can be reduced merely to a difference in formulation. The contradiction revealed in the antinomies is, according to Maimon, the conflict between the finite understanding, which cannot dispense with the sensible-intuitive basis (thesis), and the free imagination or, as Fichte expresses it more accurately, the imagination that has no need of sensible-intuitive construction (antithesis). The opposition of thesis and antithesis is not an opposition of contradictory judgements but represents two opposite points of view : an infinite world is thinkable but only a finite world is knowable. This is not a contradiction. Nevertheless, the question itself as to whether the world is finite or infinite must, according to Maimon, remain undecided.22 The doctrine of the antinomies reveals the most important point in Maimon’s philosophy, namely, the essential identity of the finite with the infinite understanding. In his letter to Marcus Herz, which treats of Maimon, Kant expressed the hope that precisely the antinomies will convince Maimon “that the human understanding is not to be taken as being essentially one with the divine understanding and that it differs from it in degree only, that is, is more limited, for it is impossible to ascribe to the human understanding, as we do to the divine under-

22

V., p. 215.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

standing, an intuitive faculty but only a faculty to think and this faculty is altogether different since it requires intuitions or, more accurately, matter in order to produce knowledge.” 23 In other words, the antinomies were for Kant proof of the duality at the heart of his system. Here it appears as the duality of the divine understanding which is the “intuitive mind” wherein the intelligens is identical with the intelligibile and for which the world is only its thought, and the human understanding, which is “discursive,” is dependent on matter given to it from without. When the human understanding ventures to elevate itself above the given, it becomes involved in contradictions, in antinomies. Kant had hoped that the antinomies would convince Maimon that it is unwarranted to regard (with Leibniz) the human understanding as but a limited divine understanding. Kant’s hope was not fulfilled; on the contrary, Maimon solved the antinomies by accepting Kant’s distinction between the two kinds of understanding, the intuitive and the thinking understanding, but made no absolute separation between them. In mathematics the human understanding is like God; 24 it is intuitively constructive and creates concepts freely. It is true that this duality of the one understanding appears in the antinomies, but it does not lead to a contradiction. 4. The doctrine of the unity of the finite and the infinite understanding is no doubt the point where Fichte’s philosophy reveals its deepest affinity with Maimon. The essential identification of the infinite with the finite understanding makes it possible to reduce the tension between receptivity and spontaneity as found in Kant. The sensibility and the understanding are no longer absolutely opposed to one another, as we find them in Kant, but relative, as in Leibniz’s system. The intuition is already understanding — as pointed out particularly by Dilthey in his famous essay: Salomon Maimon deserves to be accorded the great distinction of having introduced, in justification of the Kantian interpretation, the following principle that was later adopted by Fichte. The reason that sensation arises in us as given is that it is not produced in us as a completely con23

On 26 May 1789.

24

See above, Ch. IV, § 6.

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scious process. Thus the “given” is only that whose cause and origin are unknown to us. The given for the conscious activities of the faculty of cognition comes as it were from without; they simply find it as having arisen outside of them, as something that cannot be resolved in them. Thus, not only is the color yellow given to us in sensation but time and space are given to us in the intuition. That space is given, however, is a priori for it is the condition of every body whereas that the color yellow is given is a posteriori. This principle, as well as many others not quite so important, were apparently taken by Maimon from Leibniz. It can be shown on the basis of documents that the introduction of the principle of the unconscious activities of the intelligence into modern philosophy, after having been first taken up by Fichte and Schelling and later by the philosophy of the unconscious,25 goes back to Maimon as the intermediary between Leibniz and modern philosophy. This fruitful doctrine leads Maimon to the following conclusion : “All the functions of consciouness are related to each other and mutually determine each other, but no function is dependent on a fictitious something from without.” The given is the ground of the conscious activities as a whole of the function of the understanding; it is outside of the faculty of cognition as it were but not outside of the intelligence. A thing-in-itself outside of consciousness wrould be a non-entity, nonsense, no-thing.2e

5. Thus, the Kantian opposition of representation and the thing-initself is made relative by Maimon just as the opposition between the sensibility and the understanding. The problems of the unity of the two stems of knowledge in Kant’s system is here solved at the very outset. “Already in the sensibility the pure ego is productively active and even in theoretical reason this pure ego is limited and posits itself as determined by the non-ego.” 27 The starting-point of the system is not the dualism of cognition and the thing-in-itself which are absolutely separate and distinct, as in the Kantian system, but the limited pure ego, the finite I. In the highest synthesis reached by Fichte in the Grundlage this stumbling-block (Anstoss) remained as the expression of this finitude : “The ego,” Fichte says, “is hence dependent by its very essence”; on the other hand, however, the starting-point of the synthesis is already permeated by the ego (ich-durchdrungen). The starting-point is not the I by itself nor the non-I by itself, as with Kant, but the “non-I per25

Refers apparently to Schopenhauer and E. Hartmann.

26

“Die Rostocker Kanthandschriften,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. IV, p. 319.

27

R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 489.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

meated by the I‫ ״‬or the “I limited by the non-I” (§ 5). This thought is expressed by Maimon when he explains sensibility as a mode of representation in which we are not conscious of any spontaneity. But the sensibility is nevertheless determined by the faculty of cognition. Against Reinhold, who argued that all investigations of the truth of our cognition are designed to reveal the connection of our representations with something that exists independent of our representations, Maimon writes: The truth and reality of our cognition consists in the fact that our representations are related to and are part of a definite something that differs from it; yet this something itself is not outside of our faculty of cognition. Although it is different from the representations, it is nevertheless determined by the faculty of cognition just as the representations related to it are determined. This something is independent of the representations related to it but not independent of the faculty of cognition iiberhaupt. The object is not something that is determined by the object itself.28 Only by this inclusion of the thing-in‫־‬itself within the cognitive faculty was Kantian dualism overcome and the basic idea of transcendental idealism restored, thus opening the way for Fichte. Maimon’s view that the understanding does not subject something given a posteriori to its a priori laws but creates something in conformity to these laws (Tr., p. 82) is cited by Kroner 29 as the forerunner of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, adding that there is no better way of understanding this work than by first studying Maimon’s transcendental philosophy. The thing-in-itself is given a place within the faculty of cognition where it performs a definite function (V‫־‬., p. 246). It is the expression for the degree of perfection of cognition attained. The finite understanding is related to the infinite understanding as the representation is related to the thing-in-itself. The thing-in-itself is nothing more than the completion of the representation — “that is, that which belongs to the possibility of the thing, although we do not understand it” (Tr., p. 365). Similarly, the infinite understanding is but the completion of the finite understanding. The transition of the thing-in-itself, as it were, to the representation 28

V., pp. 368 ft.

29

Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol. I, p. 353.

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is not a transition of genus to genus — //erd/3aaic ek aXXo yevoz — but a gradual transition, for the representation is only the Schema of the thing just as our understanding is only the Schema of the infinite understanding {Tr., p. 365). The reality of the representation merely rests upon the negation or limitation of this understanding (i.e. of the totality which is in its completeness the thing-in-itself).30 That a representation is “affected” by the thing-in-itself has only the purely negative meaning of limitation. In this sense the representation is affected by the “thing” just as the finite understanding is affected by the infinite understanding. The transcendental deduction is based on this identity of the infinite and the finite understanding, of the representation and the thing. This became the central thought of Fichte’s philosophical theory. The activity of the ego (the infinite understanding) and the passivity of the ego (the finite understanding) are essentially the same, passivity or affection being only a diminished quantity of activity.31 The complete and comprehensive thought is the so-called “thingin-itself.” Maimon justly states that “many readers will here detect traces of Spinoza’s doctrine {Tr., p. 365) -— the Kantian finite understanding being, in Spinoza’s language, a “mode” of the infinite understanding. 6. In spite of this influence that Maimon had on Fichte, we must still consider the bold step that Fichte dared to take. Maimon had presented the identity of the finite with the infinite understanding as only a possibility, thus leaving skepticism open as a possible alternative. Fichte, however, denies in principle the possibility of the separation of the finite and the infinite, thus achieving a consistent idealism. Fichte is convinced that “we are born into knowledge,” that our conscious knowledge is but a repetition of an unconscious activity through which the world “came into being.” The question, therefore, whether we have the right to apply forms of thought to reality does not exist for him at all. “This right cannot be derived from any other; we are simply entitled to it without question. On the contrary, all other possible rights must be derived from it, and even Maimon’s skepticism presupposes it 30 31

See above, Ch. I. Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslelire, § 4D (Synthesis durch Wechselbestimmung der in dem zweiten der entgegengesetzen Satze enthaltenen Gegensatze).

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unknowingly in that it recognizes the propriety of general logic.” ‫׳״‬ Maimon, however, leaves room for possible skepticism in that he assumes that we are not born into knowledge but into the imagination, so that the forms of our thought are only subjective. “Skepticism explains certain representations which critical philosophy takes to be in the nature of Vernunftideen, ideas grounded in reason, as based solely on the nature of the imagination.” 33 “It can well be a dream... in which case its use (the use of the concept of the understanding) has no objective reality at all” (Tr., p. 372). The word “dream” does not frighten Fichte. The imagination is not divorced from reason. Indeed, the world is a dream, but for that very reason it is meaningless to contrast it with any “reality” or play off against the imagination some kind of reason that might employ other forms than those used by us. The faculty of the imagination is the primal creative force in the world and in man. The creative power of the imagination and cognition are then, for Fichte, identical in essence. Cognition is nothing more than the unconscious re-construction of the activity of the productive faculty of the imagination. 7. From this we can see clearly the path that Fichte took when he has the ego posit the non-ego in order that the latter may be comprehended as posited by the ego. The non-ego, then, is only a detour that the ego takes in order to arrive at itself whereby it liberates itself from the objects posited by it. This path, which Fichte calls the path from the Ansich to the Fiirsich, was pointed out by Maimon. I affirm with the idealists that my ego is indeed only an idea (insofar as it is thought as undetermined by anything); but it is at the same time a real object since by its very nature it cannot be determined by anything outside itself. I add to this, that although in itself the ego cannot be determined as an object, it is still possible to think it in its modes or modifications as a determined object by approaching it ad infinitum. This continuous “approaching” is made possible by the constant separation and generalization of concepts and judgements, whereby they remove themselves from matter and keep approaching form, although its complete attainment is not only a mere idea but is even self- contra-

32

Op.cit., § 4.

33

Fichte would certainly not have said “solely !”

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dictory for it is both an object and not an object at the same time (TV., p. 164). The more I think or make judgements the more generalized do the predicates of the subject become, and the more general these become the less do they represent the object and the more the subject of my thought. For example, I make the judgement: I am a man, man is an animal, an animal is an organized body, an organized body is a thing. In this series of combined judgements the representation of the ego as an object is constantly diminished and as a subject constantly increased, for the ego is the ultimate subject. Consequently, the more general the predicates become, the closer do they approach this ultimate subject until I arrive at the limit between subject and object (the possibility of thinking an object iiberhaupt) ... I continue in this way, that is, I keep approaching by means of thought to a closer determination of the subject until I finally arrive at the ego which is itself a determinable and determinant at once. It is true that this “final stage” is never reached. But, nevertheless, I approach the true ego as something which is, from the standpoint of my consciousness, a mere idea, but which is in itself a real object, precisely because it is possible to keep approaching it by means of a definite series and from this it follows that an infinite understanding must necessarily think it.34 Similarly, Maimon states : “The more that the self-consciousness of the subject increases the more does the consciousness of the object decrease and vice versa” (K. U., p. 249). This should be compared to the following passage in Fichte’s Grundlage : The ego is now determined as that which remains after everything has been removed from the object by the absolute faculty of abstraction. Every quality or complement I can dispense with without impairing or distorting the ego [and in Fichte’s words : all I can abstract from it] is not my ego and I posit it over against my ego in that I look at it only as something that I can dispense with in thought. The more that a definite individual abstracts from himself in thought [sich wegdenken harm], the more does his empirical consciousness approach its pure state —from the infant when it first leaves the cradle and thus learns to distinguish it from himself to the popular philosopher who still assumes material images of ideas and asks where the soul has its seat and then to the transcendental philosopher who at least thinks of the rule to think the pure ego and demonstrates it.35 Here Fichte distinguishes the three levels in the progression up to pure cognition, the infant, the popular philosopher and the transcendental

34 35

TV., pp. 193—194. Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschajtslehre, § 4 (ed. cit., Vol. I, p. 437).

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philosopher. In this we find the origin of Fichte’s concept of “the ego as idea.” 36 8. In his Grundlage (§ 5) Fichte makes a clear distinction between the ego as intellectual intuition, which is the starting-point of the Wissenschaftslehre, and the ego as idea, with which the work concludes. This distinction goes back to Maimon as can be deduced from the passage cited above. The ego is a “true object” for the infinite understanding, but it is only an idea with respect to my limited consciousness. The relation of the pure infinite ego to the finite ego is clearly described by Maimon — in the spirit of Fichte — with his example of the mirror. The representations of objects of the intuition in time and space are, as it were, images produced in the mirror (the empirical ego) by the transcendental subject of all representations (the pure ego); however, the images appear to come from something behind the mirror (from objects different from ourselves). The empirical element (matter) of intuition is actually given (as rays of light) by something outside of us, that is, by something that is different from ourselves; the expression “outside of us,” however, need not deceive us as if something stood in a spatial relation to us, since space itself is only a form within us, but as something whose representation is not fully known to us and of which we are aware (from the standpoint of our consciousness) passively and not actively.37 The relation of the infinite ego to the finite ego (symbolized by the mirror) can only be understood, in Maimon’s sense, as the relation of genus to species. The transition of the infinite to the finite ego is a logical act in the sense of the principle of determinability, a specification of genus into species. Consciousness in general is the highest class concept, the undetermined which is at the base of every determined consciousness of a definite object (Str., p. 209). Consciousness is related to the various objects as space is related to the various geometric forms. The relation of the object to consciousness is that of species to genus. “The object of these functions (the function of cognition) is not to be regarded as something absolute, independent of these functions; every function of cognition and the object to which it is related determine one

36

Cf. F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Salomon Maimons, pp. 334 ff., and M. Gueroult, La philosophic transcendentale de Salomon Maimon, pp. 70 ff.

37

TV., pp. 202—203.

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another mutually” (Vp. 245). The highest class concept, then, is not sensation, representation or concept (as Hume, Reinhold and Descartes thought)38 but consciousness in general. Maimon taught that since the concept of consciousness uberhaupt is the highest class concept, and since every definition requires the class concept and the specification in the species (“Unterschied der Art” = differentia specified), it is impossible to explain “consciousness uberhaupt” since it is the highest class concept. This thought is to be compared to the parallel passage in Fichte’s Grundlage : Everything that is contradictory within a definite concept that expresses the ground of their distinction is combined within a higher concept (more general and comprehensive) which is called genus concept, that is, we assume a synthesis in which the contradictions are comprehended. The fewer mediating concepts employed in deriving a definite concept from the highest concept, the higher will this concept be. This is not the case with the absolute given, with the pure ego. All judgements whose logical subject is the absolute, undetermined ego cannot be determined by a higher genus since the absolute ego cannot be determined by any genus higher than it. These judgements are absolute and determined by themselves. This constitutes the essence of critical philosophy, namely that it posits an absolute ego as absolutely unconditioned and determined by nothing higher than itself.39 And he continues: Every philosophy that recognizes the concept “thing,” ens, as higher than the concept ego is dogmatic. In the critical system the concept thing is within the ego but in the dogmatic system the ego is within the thing; the critical system is immanent, the dogmatic system is transcendent.40 9. Consciousness in general, then, is the highest determinable, and all representations, or objects, are nothing more than the determinants of this determinable. Maimon compares the relation of this highest determinable to individual determinants with the relation of space to

38

This passage is thus interpreted by Gueroult in his book on Maimon, p. 74 ; he points out the interesting parallel passage in Fichte’s Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, §1 (ed. cit., Vol. I, p. 294) — the polemic against Descartes and Reinhold.

39

Fichte, op.cit., §3, p. 312.

40

Ibid., p. 314.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

individual forms.41 Objects are the determinants of consciousness as forms are the determinants of space. This doctrine of Maimon passed unaltered into Fichte’s system and is one of the doctrines to which he always recurs. The world is a mode or modification of consciousness, and the comparison of consciousness in general with space, of the individual representation with individual spatial form, runs through all of Fichte’s works. For Fichte this is far more than a mere comparison. Space for him is consciousness contemplating itself, the inner activity of the spirit as it appears to itself, “the purest image of my knowledge.” 42 Space is to Fichte “the image of imagining” (Bild des Bildens)43 “the seeing of sight” (Sehen des Sehens), “the fixed glance of the intelligence as it beholds itself.” 44 Individual thought, however, is like a drawn line, a line that would collapse if it had not at its base the support and inner stability of space, that is, of consciousness. However, the relation of consciousness to the individual act of thought or the relation of space to the individual figure is a twofold one. On the one hand, the figure is a determinant of space, a determinant in relation to a determinable or of a species to a genus, that is, a synthetic relation, such as the relation of “color” and “green.” The individual figure is something new with respect to space; drawing a line is “apparently synthetic.” 45 On the other hand, consciousness contains within itself potentially all the individual representations, just as space contains all the individual figures. For the infinite consciousness, then, there are no syntheses and nothing new. All synthetic judgements appear to it analytical, although we cannot understand how this is accomplished.46 The individual free construction in

41

Kat., p. 141 ; “fiber den plan des Magazins zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde. Auszug aus einem Briefe an den Herausgeber,” in Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde VIII/3 (1792), p. 5.

42

See especially the second book of Die Bestimmung des Menschen (ed. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 295 ff.).

43

A pun in German on the word Bild: approximately, “a picture of creation.”

44 45

Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre von 1801, § 33 (ed. cit., Vol. IV, pp. 93—95). Ibid.

46

Schelling, who was influenced by Maimon, hesitated between the conception of divine thought as a pure analytic judgement (Leibniz) and a synthetic analytic judgement in which the analytic unity proceeds from the synthetic. For Maimon's influence on Schelling cf'. R. Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, Vol., I, p. 554, note 1.

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space thus appears to be mere “imitation” of the original intuition which already contains the figures as a cognizing which posits itself at the outset as a second dawning of the light. According to this view, all thoughts have already been produced in consciousness. Consciousness in general is not only a genus but a genus that contains the species and produces them from out of itself. This is the path that leads from Maimon via Fichte to Hegel’s “concrete concept.”

CHAPTER XIII

MAIMON AND HEGEL

1. The historical source of Hegel’s doctrines and the ideas that have influenced them have in recent years been investigated by a number of scholars who have been able to shed much light on the hitherto neglected contribution made by the first generation of post-Kantian philosophers. Dilthey, who was the author of The Story of Hegel’s Youth, was the first scholar to point out — many years before the appearance of the first Hebrew edition of this book — the strong influence that Maimon had exerted on the development of idealistic philosophy from Fichte to Hegel.1 This idealistic philosophy took various forms, but the tendency that they all had in common can perhaps best be described as : the return to Leibniz by way of Kant. And in this return Maimon was the forerunner. The finite consciousness in which the understanding is absolutely divorced from sensibility is for Kant the ultimate source. Our understanding is “discursive,” that is, it is dependent on matter that is given to it. This gives rise to the question: Whence comes the agreement between the understanding and the matter that is given to it? How does matter given by the senses find its proper place in the coils of the understanding with which it has no affinity? This question remains unanswered. However, on a number of occasions -— in his letter to Marcus Herz on Maimon’s system and especially in his Critique of Judgement2 — Kant revives the question as to whether the two “streams” of human knowledge, the understanding and the sensibility, spring from “one root”; however, he is not successful in finding the answer. The understanding and the sensible intuitions are separate and distinct. The understanding is in itself not a creative intuitive faculty: 3 “the understanding can

1

Die Rostocker Kanthandschriften, published in 1889 in the Archiv fur Geschichte

2

See the introductory chapters of the present author and N. Rotenstreich in their

3

Critique of Pure Reason, B153.

der Philosophic. Hebrew translation of this work.

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intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing.” 4 The manifold impressions in the intuition are given “prior to the synthesis of the understanding and independent of it.” 5 6 Kant himself had created the concept of intellectus archetypus, that is, an understanding which through its self-consciouness could supply to itself the manifold of intuition —- an understanding, that is to say, through whose representation the objects of the representation should at the same time exist — would not require, for the unity of consciousness, a special act of synthesis of the manifold. For the human understanding, however, which thinks only, and does not intuit, that act is necessary.® In other words, Kant himself created the concept of the “intuiting intellect,” God or “intellectual intuition,” in which there is no duality of matter or form and in which the object is in no need of a special synthesis of the understanding in order to unify matter that is conveyed to it from another source, but wherein one operation of intuition and thought is carried out in unison and in one stroke. With respect to such an intuiting intellect the question of the possibility of the correspondence of the two streams of knowledge is rendered superfluous. This concept, however, remains for Kant a limiting concept, an unattainable idea, devoid of reality and adduced only for the purpose of illuminating the dual nature of our cognition.7 The question of the congruence of these two conjoining streams of knowledge is answered by Kant with the phrase “fortunate accident” or “a boon of nature,” 8 which accommodates the given world to the needs of the intellect. This obviously does not provide an answer to the question. Kant’s philosophy, says Hegel, terminates in a dualism, in an irreconcilable contradiction. 2. Maimon’s contribution to the development of philosophical thought was, as we have seen, that he found an answer to the question posed by Kant’s uncompromising dualism of subject and object. Sensibility is, according to Maimon, the understanding in an imperfectly developed

4

Ibid., B75 (N. Kemp Smith, p. 93).

5

Ibid., B145.

6

Ibid., B139 (N. Kemp Smith, p. 157).

7

Cf. my book, The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Hebrew), p. 175.

8

Cf., there, pp. 154, 173, 187.

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stage and the two differ from one another only in degree, the ground of their separation being the limitations of man and his finite intellect. In essence, however, this limited intellect is the same as the infinite intellect, although dim and confused, somewhat like Leibniz’s finite monad which contains within itself the potencies of the central infinite monad, God. The way has now been cleared for German philosophy to rise above the Kantian dualism of sense and understanding and to carry forward its speculations from the standpoint of the infinite mind. This development is summed up in Hegel’s phrase: “The individual is the World Spirit in its imperfect state.” The world is the self-evolving of this Spirit towards an ever fuller and more inclusive perfection until at the end “thought comprehends itself as All in All.” The way back from Kant to Leibniz, then, was pointed out by Maimon. As Dilthey showed in his Rostocker Kanthandschriften, it can be proved on the basis of good authority that Maimon’s teachings served as a middle link to re-introduce Leibniz’s basic thoughts into German philosophy. And from this synthesis of Kant and Leibniz there arose the idealistic systems in the period from Fichte to Hegel. In the light of this statement the question of Maimon’s influence on Hegel, whether direct or indirect, is a matter of secondary importance. It should nevertheless be mentioned that Kuntze accuses Hegel of ingratitude to Maimon. Kuntze writes that in the period between Kant on the one hand, and Fichte, Schelling and himself, on the other, Hegel professed to see nothing but a philosophical wasteland — clearly an ungrateful remark which has not been corrected to his day [1912]. 3. Two important concepts and two terms found in Hegel’s philosophy are also to be found in Maimon’s writings, from which source Hegel took them. In his lectures on the history of philosophy Hegel defends Spinoza against the charge of having denied God’s existence “The truth is that Spinoza was not an atheist as his accusers claim but the very opposite : he had too much of God.” It was not the existence of God that he denied, but the existence of the world. “Spinoza said that what is called the world has no existence at all; real existence cannot be attributed to the world, but all this he cast into an abyss of one identity.” 9 9

Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Philosophic, in Hegel’s Werke, vol. XV (edited

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Spinoza should therefore not be accused of atheism, but rather of acosmism. This criticism of Spinoza’s doctrine and the expression “acosmism,” which is universally attributed to Hegel, has its source in Maimon.10 Another extremely important term in Hegel’s system which has its source in Maimon’s philosophy is, as Kroner has shown, that of the “concrete concept” whereby Hegel overcame the Kantian dualism of sense-understanding. In place of the empty, abstract intellectual concept he puts the “concrete concept” which contains within itself a multitude of particulars which it “differentiates” from out of itself. This same thought had been developed by Maimon and it anticipates that of Hegel by a considerable period. In his Logik Maimon uses the expression “concrete concept” in this same sense : a concept is concrete insofar as it points to its specific differentiation and contains this differentiation within itself. Thus, Maimon calls “animal” a concrete concept in that it already contains within itself the differentia “man” (man being a kind of animal), and the concept “color” since it contains in itself the differentia “white,” “black,” etc. If I think a general concept as something which can be differentiated in a determined direction and in this direction only, it then becomes a concrete concept. 4. We have seen before that the determinant depends on the determinable to which it is specifically attached and to no other. “White” is related to “color” and to no other concept. Its differentiation is thus specific. Upon this principle of determinability Maimon erects his idea of a philosophical language, following in the footsteps of Bishop Wilkins and Leibniz. A philosophical language must be constructed in such a way that every linguistic concept would have its correlative logical structure.* 11 This “philosophical dictionary” would consist of signs indicating the general classes, and every species within the class would be denoted by an additional sign as its special indicator. Concepts like

by Carl L. Michelet), p. 361; see also Encyclopadie, ed. cit., Vol. VI (edited by L. von Henning), § 151. 10 See above, Ch. XI, § 8. 11 Like the symbols used in chemistry today; cf. my book, Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), Ch. I.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

“white” and “black” would thus be denoted by a sign of the class “color” common to both in accordance with the principle of determinability. It could then be seen at a glance that the judgement “the animal is white” is not constructed in a logical manner since “animal” is not “determined” with respect to “white.” 12 Just as the determinant [white) is attached to the determinable [color), on which it is dependent, so also is the determinable related to its possible

determinant.

It

is true that the determinable is not de-

pendent on the determinant — for it is possible to think “color” without thinking “white” — yet the former is specifically related to the latter as a possibility. The complete concept of the determinable requires that it receive such and such determinants and no others. The example given by Maimon [V., p. 189) is that of a “triangle” and a “rightangled triangle” where it is possible to think the former without the latter; yet, the complete concept of a triangle must include the possibility of being determined as a “right-angled triangle.” 13 In this manner the differentia specified can enter the concept of the genus in accordance with the principle of determinability, even though this relation of genus to species is not similar to that of species to genus. The relation of the latter is explicit while that of the former is only potential. From this Maimon concludes that “all possible objects of real thought that are founded on one another are founded mutually.” 14 At any rate, in this notion developed by Maimon, namely, that the highest concept contains the specific concept as “concrete concept,” we find Hegel’s notion, (ikonkreter Begriff.” These two theories have more than similar terminology in common. Both rest on the same basic principle, namely, that thought gives rise to everything from within itself;

12

Maimon’s reflections on a philosophical language are to be found in Versuch iiber die Transscendentalphilosophie as a special Appendix on “Symbolic Knowledge and a Philosophical Language” (pp. 263—332) and in his essay “fiber den Gebrauch der Philosophic zur Erweiterung der Erkenntnis.” Cf. F. Kuntze, Die Philosophic Satomon Maimons, pp. 266—268, and for Maimonides’ influence on Maimon’s philosophy of language, ibid., pp. 22, 382.

13

Bolzano opposed this doctrine of Maimon’s. Cf. Wissenschaftslehre, Vol. II., p. 365.

14

For Maimon’s logical calculus cf. my book, Introduction to Logic (Hebrew), pp. 325—330.

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in the last analysis there is only a deductive science. In his discussion of philosophic language in his first work Maimon takes Bishop Wilkins to task for having recommended the use of an artificial logical language for denoting empirical concepts. “A posteriori concepts cannot submit to a classification that is general and necessary” (Tr., p. 336). To rely on experience, as does induction, is “vulgar” and unlawful. The concept must create all its specifica out of itself. The world process is a logical process. “Nature is nothing but a syllogism” (Hegel). This thought, which owes its origin to Spinoza, runs like a red thread through the systems of both Maimon and Hegel. The understanding is not only a formal unity designed to simplify and classify the Empirie (Hegel: it is not only a “canon” of truth). We could never fit the given into a system with the help of the understanding if the given itself did not stem from the understanding. Reason is an “organon” that creates worlds, for it is not determined from without by an alien content but, on the contrary, it determines itself and hence remains “with itself also in its content.” 15 How can we picture to ourselves such an understanding that creates its content from out of itself? To illustrate this Maimon takes, as we have seen, the example of mathematics : “God does not think as we do discursively (abstract); his thoughts are representations or embodiments. If it be objected that we have no conception of this manner of thinking, I answer : we have such a conception in that we ourselves indulge in this kind of thinking. All our mathematical concepts are thought out and at the same time embodied by us into real objects with the aid of construction. In this we are like God” (Str., p. 20). These words of Maimon lead directly to Hegel. What Maimon, however, expressed cautiously with respect to mathematics alone was converted by Hegel into a world-principle. 5. The manner in which matter is derived from form and the differentiation from the general concept is viewed differently by both philosophers. In Maimon’s view the “judgement of determinability” explains the differentiation and unites the developmental process of the concepts. In his Logic Hegel raises the objection that the judgement

15

Hegel: In ihrem Inhalt bei sich selbst ist.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

is not an adequate form for the expression of speculative truth since it unites subject and object without considering whether the predicate could be conjoined with other subjects. Hence, the judgement fails to reveal the necessity for the union of a particular subject with a given predicate and no other. We know that this problem was first formulated by Maimon and he answers it throughout his works by asserting that not every predicate can be yoked with every subject — “red,” for example, can only relate to “color.” This process of conjoining concepts which is peculiar to science and hence to the world, is combined in such a way that certain predicates can, in accordance with the principle of determinability, adhere to only one determined subject and no more (red... color). But — and here Maimon’s principle is open to a grave objection -— it is not possible to assert the contrary. We can unite the concept “red” only with “color” but color can be red, yellow or blue, and hence the process of evolving concepts as they develop from one another is not unambiguous. From this point of view Hegel’s system is in a formal way superior to Maimon’s. The dialectical process in which one concept gives birth to another is unequivocal and by returning in circular fashion to its source demonstrates, in Hegel’s view, the unambiguity and hence also the necessity of the system. 6. The doctrine shared by both philosophers that “the particular is the world-spirit in its incomplete state” makes for a similar conception of man. “The unity of divine and human nature” is in Hegel’s system the essence of religion (Christianity). Maimon teaches that man is “the infinite intellect, but in limited form.” He admits that he cannot answer the question as to how we can at the same time be finite and infinite creatures, that is, how we can belong to two worlds at once. It is, however, clear to him that finitude is, insofar as we can comprehend it, nothing but restricted infinitude; the sensible world can be understood only as “the Schema of the infinite world.” 16 Insofar as we can comprehend it! Here lies the essential difference between the two systems of thought. Maimon is cautious and confines himself to the example of mathematics wherein we see clearly how intuitive matter flows from

16

See above, Ch. I, § 13.

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form. This makes it possible for us to conceive how an Infinite Mind created the world through thinking it alone. But Maimon does not go so far as to say that we can identify ourselves with this Infinite Mind and that we are actually able to philosophize from the standpoint of the infinite. It is precisely this, however, that constitutes the basis of Hegel’s philosophy. Maimon did not venture to make this bold move since the identity of the finite with the infinite understanding was for him merely one possibility among others to solve the problem of cognition, so that the problem is not susceptible to solution at all and we must forego all hope of explaining it, leaving Hume to have the last word. This accounts for the double aspect of Maimon’s philosophy, the conscious and deliberate vacillation between idealism and skepticism, between Leibniz and Hume. It goes without saying that Maimon cannot be compared to Hegel with respect to the comprehensiveness of his system or to the stupendous range of his learning which covers all aspects of being and science. The fact remains, however, that Maimon conceived the basic thought of German idealism before Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. He did not construct a system comparable to the comprehensive systems constructed by these thinkers and contented himself with a “perhaps,” half skeptical and half promising — a binocular view which stems from one of the most sympathetic traits of this Jewish thinker, namely, his intellectual rectitude.

CHAPTER XIV

MAI MON AND HERMANN COHEN

1. In his essay, “The Inner Relations of Kantian Philosophy to Judaism” (1910), Hermann Cohen writes: “The profound and brilliant works of Solomon Maimon, which are based on a thorough knowledge of mathematics, are well known. Fichte, who was able to detect philosophical talent, recognized its presence in Maimon's writings. Research in this field must take an altogether different form than the one that prevails today before Maimon’s valuable contribution is properly recognized.” 1 Cohen himself had hardly mentioned Maimon’s name in his earlier writings, but here and there scholars have pointed out the relationship between these two great Jewish philosophers. In his Commentary to the Critique of Pure Reason 2 Vaihinger writes that Cohen’s style, which he calls “diffuse” (gespreizt), is reminiscent of Maimon’s style -— an observation that is surprisingly wide of the mark for no two styles offer a greater contrast than Maimon’s poor, “highly defective” style (as he himself characterizes it) and Cohen’s erudite style, rich in literary and historical

allusions. A

deeper insight into the relation

of these two Jewish philosophers is to be found in Przywara3 v.'ho traces the affinity between their two systems to a common source in Maimonides. He speaks of Maimon as “the new Kantian Maimonides and hence the real father of Cohen’s neo-Kantianism, the system of pure method.” 4 Kuntze, the author of a comprehensive work on Maimon, devotes an entire chapter of his Kritische Lehre von der Objektivital (1906) 5 to an elucidation of Cohen’s obscure book Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte (1883). In one place he points out the doctrine wherein Cohen’s philosophy bears the closest resemblance to that of Maimon : “Cohen renewed Maimon’s doctrine 1 2

Hermann Cohens Jiidische Schriften (edited by B. Strauss), Vol. I, pp. 302—303. Vol. I, p. 21.

3

“Thomas oder Hegel?” Logos XV (1926), p. 6.

4

“... kantisch erneuerter Maimuni, der eigentliche Vater des Cohensclien Neukantianismus der ‘reinen Methode’ ” (ibid.).

5

Pp. 247—263.

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257

of the differentials of sensation without having known Maimon closely.” 6 It is true that Cohen took exception to this observation and claimed that Kuntze had exaggerated his relation to Maimon.7 An unprejudiced view will, I believe, find Kuntze7s observation justified. 2. In one of the earlier chapters of this book we attempted to explain Maimon’s concept of differentials and the place it occupies in his system. This concept is of paramount importance for the understanding of Maimoms philosophy for it serves as an indispensable means in the construction of his immanent system. The moment we dispense with an explanation of the processes of our consciousness by means of the thingsin‫־‬themselves and seek to understand the world as a product of the spirit — this being the element of immanence, the basic element common to Maimon and Cohen — we are obliged to explain in principle, at least, the objective truth that lies hidden, as it were, at the bottom of sensibility. Our senses give us a content extended in time and space. If we wish to ascertain that this content, just as a physical phenomenon given to our senses, is a product of the understanding and created by it, Maimon says, we are obliged to liberate ourselves from time and space and turn to pure physical quality. Time and space lead us astray. Quantity obscures quality. We must turn our minds away from time and space and examine the phenomenon, as it were, from its zero-point in time and space or the point of its initial formation, so to speak. The object examined from this point of view presents itself to us in its pure quality, which is a kind of an intellectual rule or, as it were, an intellectual law of nature; that is, it is the same intellectual rule according to which sensible quality is created in its extension. Only if we place the content that fills time and space at this zero-point, will we perceive the phenomenon “given” as something opaque that is foreign to our understanding, as intellectualized matter that is transparent to the mind. We will then comprehend the rules of the understanding that are embodied and realized in the phenomena given us. These rules are 6

“Salomon Maimons theoretische Philosophic und ihr Ort in einem System des Kii-

7

Kants Theorie dev Erfahrung, 3rd edition, p. 540, n. 1.

tizismus,” Logos III (1912), p. 301.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

called by Maimon “differentials.” 8 It is true that man cannot cognize these differentials and that they remain for him only “ideas” (in the Kantian sense). What we are given is only extensive quality in time and space. Despite this, however, the differentials are not fictions but the intellectual, lawful expression that also pervades matter. It is precisely these pure qualities that have liberated themselves from extension in time and space that are the expressions of lawfulness, although this lawfulness cannot be perceived by our finite minds which need extended sensibility and that which it “gives” us. The infinitely small, the “differential,” here serves as the expression of the lawfulness of the content, not because the differential is infinitely small but because we turn away our consciousness completely from all quantity and determine the characteristics of matter and its laws only in a qualitative form, so that this quality will be valid for every magnitude as we proceed from the differential to the real magnitude. Here as well we find the influence of Leibniz who defined the differential as “something outside of extension and even prior to extension” — est aliquid praeter extensionem, immo extensione prius.0 The concept “differential” in Maimon’s system serves to explain how lawful, intellectual relations prevail in given contents. The difference between contents is explained — clearly, only from an ideal standpoint — by the difference among the formative elements, the roots or seeds (so to speak) of the contents; and these formative elements or differentials are purely intellectual. Not an iota of “given” sensation that is foreign to the understanding remains. Maimon could thus say: the understanding is not subject to anything given a posteriori to a priori rules for how else can we explain the possibility of the congruence of factors so alien to one another other than by assuming that the understanding creates the content in accordance with its a priori rules. The differential then is a boundary concept between pure thought and intuition, a mediating concept through which “both are lawfully conjoined.” In this way Maimon uses the differential as the means of solving the central problem of his philosophy, namely, how to explain the 8

See above, Ch. III.

9

See above, Ch. Ill, § 2.

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intellectual character of the content that is given to us and, particularly, how to justify the application of intellectual forms to impose order on the given sensible content. Sensibility vanishes before the understanding, and in its stead come the rules of the understanding or the differentials. This, however, is only a solution in principle. The sensibility remains in force for the finite, human intellect; it disappears in principle only, as Maimon puts it, “with respect to the infinite understanding.” In order to understand the significance of Maimon’s problem for the science of today,

we may mention

the physicist Arthur Eddington, who

sought to prove that what we call “the laws of nature” are, in truth, the laws of thought and that a powerful enough understanding would be able to deduce all laws not through passive observation but out of the necessary conditions of thought. These words of a modern scientist show that Maimon’s problem has not lost its urgency and is still the subject of discussion in scientific circles. In his interpretation of the problem Maimon was influenced by Leibniz, but the original influence can be traced to Maimonides’ doctrine of the identity of the ens intelligens with the ens intelligibile. We have said that the differential seeks to express the qualitative lawfulness when we free quality from its extension in time and space. We can take a further step and determine that these qualities which have sloughed off all quantity are related among themselves in a quantitative relationship. In this manner Maimon explains how qualitative laws also have among themselves quantitative relations, which he illustrates as follows : Think of a triangle, one side of which moves with respect to the angle opposite it in such a manner that it always remains parallel to itself until the triangle becomes infinitely small (differential). The extensive magnitude of the sides then ceases completely and is reduced to its differential. The relation of the sides, however, always remains the same, for it is not a relationship of one number to another but of one unit to another (TV., p. 395). Maimon then illustrates this example by an accompanying figure of a right-angled triangle ABC in which the sides AB, AC are equal; here the relation between the base and one of the two equal sides remains

V 2:

1, no matter how large or how infinitely small the triangle might

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

be, that is, this relation is not one between lines insofar as they are extended but only a quantitative relation among the qualities represented in this triangle. The transition to the infinitely small, to the differential, means the transition from the extensive extended to the intensive inner magnitude. In other words, by means of this transition to the differential we learn how to ignore extension and retain lawfulness even after extension has been removed.10 Maimon wishes to show that sensuous extension is only an external addition that is insignificant with respect to quality. For our imagination, however, this extension is an important prop, but nothing more. Our faculty of the imagination has created from the purely intellectual differentials of sensation determined finite objects in the intuition extended in time and space; at the same time the understanding is compelled, as it were, to retrace the path taken by the imagination and return to the intellectual relations that lie at the basis of the intuition.11 Maimon transfers this conception from mathematics to physical laws, for these are, in reality, also related to pure intellectual elements. Just as we deduce in higher mathematics the relations of various magnitudes from the differentials of these magnitudes themselves, so does the understanding deduce (albeit gropingly) from the real relations of the differentials of various magnitudes the real relations of these qualities themselves. If then we frame the judgement “fire melts wax,” this judgement does not apply to fire and wax as objects of intuition but to their elements that the understanding thinks as a relation of cause and effect (TV., p. 356). These elements are neither spatial nor temporal but only intellectual relations, pure form. They are the qualitative elements of the world. An explanation is thus found for the possibility of using the intellectual forms with respect to the content “given” to us, namely, by regarding this content as having been created by the understanding. As we have said, the differential is beyond our reach and remains for

10

For similar attemps to liberate quality from quantity in Leibniz and the philosopher and mathematician Bolzano cf. my book Das philosophische Werk Bernhard, Bolzanos, §§ 93, 94.

11

For Maimon's and Fichte’s view of the imagination see above.

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us only an unattainable idea. It is in this sense that Maimon calls the differential a noumenon; and it is only the objects that it produces which constitute phenomena for us. We can then say that Maimon was not successful in removing the Kantian distinction between the understanding and the thing-in‫־‬itself and it still remains in his system. There is, however, a significant difference between these two kinds of dualism. Kant’s thing-in-itself is an irrational factor of our world completely outside and beyond the reach of reason, whereas Maimon’s differential is a purely intellectual element which, precisely because of its complete rationality, remains for us an unattainable idea since our limited understanding requires the support of the imagination. This significant difference has consequences also for practical science. The understanding cannot resign itself to accept a given limit beyond which it may not go, but is obliged constantly to extend the boundaries of its sphere. Kant, as is well known, believed that the difference between similar and equal but incongruent things, such as the difference between the right and left hand (or glove) or snails wound in opposite directions, can only be explained directly by intuition and not by concept, and we must be content with what is revealed to us by the intuition. The understanding, according to Kant, must here capitulate to a non-intellectual factor, the intuition. Maimon, however, would insist that in the above example we must continue to search in our understanding for the explanation of the intuitional content of difference since the intuition is for us not the final authority that promulgates its own laws. In this manner modern mathematics (topology) attempted to explain difference by means of its concepts which, for Kant, were forever inexplicable. Maimon formulates the problem as follows: “From the standpoint of the understanding and reason there is no sensibility, no intuition that belongs to the senses and to the faculty of the imagination; but there exist only ideas and concepts which always accompany the sensibility and the intuition... The understanding then does not subject something given a posteriori to its a priori laws, but rather creates this something in accordance with these laws” (TV., p. 82). The doctrine of the differentials performs for Maimon the same function that the chapter on Schematism performs for Kant. This chapter was intended by Kant to explain the

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIM ON

transition of form to content, whereas for Maimon this transition from intellectual form to given content need not be explained, since the content itself is not foreign (denkfremd) to the intellectual form; the differential is but a web of intellectual forms (ein Relationsgefiige von Verstandsformen), an expression of pure lawfulness. As we have seen above,12 Maimon compares the differential to the absolute unit of pure arithmetic. The units that we use in applied arithmetic, that is, in measuring time and space, are temporary and relative, that is, they may also be divided. The absolute unit of pure mathematics, however, is characterized by the fact that it is not divisible. Similarly, the differential as a pure, genuine unit precedes the quantitative relations in which it enters, just as the unit of pure arithmetic logically precedes as a conceptual form the very extension for whose measurement it is used. Five points are conspicuous in this doctrine as it is expounded by Maimon : (a) the dualism of the sensibility and the understanding is overcome by a consistent rationalism; the object is through and through intellectual law; (b) the differential is a qualitative element of the world; (c) hence, the differential is the intensive quality at the bottom of the extensive quantity of the intuition; (d) the differential is an absolute unit; (e) from the standpoint of our finite understanding the differential is only an idea since we are unable to liberate ourselves from our dependence on the faculty of the imagination and the sensibility. 3. Cohen’s doctrine of the differential was set forth in one of his early books, in his Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode (1883), and in his later work, the Logik der reinen Erkenntnis. In the historical introduction to this first work (which was described by Bertrand Russell as “remarkable”) Maimon’s name is not mentioned, and it is therefore to be assumed that he was unknown to Cohen in 1883. The similarity between the two, however, is striking and can hardly be explained by the fact that they both had several sources in common, for example, Leibniz and Lazarus Ben David. The strong resemblance between these two thinkers can best be explained by their common point of departure in Kant’s philosophy and by their common goal, namely, the intellectual 12

Ch. Ill, § 2.

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conception of the world and the idealistic urge to reduce all sensible data to thought determinations. Only in one important point does Cohen refer directly to a tradition of the Kantian period that was also shared by Maimon — the identity of the intensive, qualitative with the infinitely small, an identity which was, as Cohen observes, generally assumed in Kant’s day. The term “intensive magnitude” (inner magnitude) is also used in this sense by Maimon who remarks that the extensive magnitude is, as it were, the Schema of the inner magnitude.13

In Maimon’s language Schema

denotes an image or a sensuous pattern, a kind of reflection of a lower degree. Just as Leibniz used the Biblical expression simulacrum divinitatis to describe man, so Maimon calls the human understanding the Schema of the infinite understanding.14 In this sense Maimon says : The extensive magnitude is, as it were, the Schema of the inner magnitude, for it is impossible to perceive this latter magnitude and its relations directly an sicli except by means of the former, the extensive magnitude; thus, for example, the various degrees of heat and cold can be perceived only by the rise and fall of the thermometer, etc. The inner magnitude is the differential of the extensive magnitude; and the latter is, in turn, the integral of the former (Tr., p. 122). In this matter of the identity of the differential with the intensive magnitude Maimon and Cohen are in complete agreement. We must now consider the arguments advanced by Bertrand Russell against Cohen and, by the same token, against Maimon (whom he did not know) which, if true, would take the ground from under these two philosophers with respect to their explanation of the differential.15 Russell maintains that Cohen had misunderstood the mathematical symbols dy

of the differential dx, dy. Only the differential symbol -dx has meaning, whereas dx and dy by themselves are only typographical parts of a symbol constituted by them, and the differentials in themselves are devoid of all meaning whatsoever. This objection, however, is justified only from the standpoint of the mathematician. It does not deny the

13

Tr., pp. 394—395; H. Cohen, ibid., § 18.

14

See above, Ch. I, § 13.

15

In his Principles of Mathematics, pp. 338 ff.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

meaningful positing of the philosophical problem, for this problem exists in its own right and not for the sake of mathematics. It is unfortunate that Maimon and Cohen appropriated the term “differential” and the symbol dx, thus provoking the mathematicians to a criticism that is based upon a mutual misunderstanding. It would have been possible for both sides to dispense with this term and symbol although the root of positing the problem is the same for both. In speaking of the differential Maimon says: I am not unaware of the argument that could be raised against the introduction of mathematical concepts of infinity into philosophy, especially since these concepts are extremely difficult even in mathematics itself. It could therefore be urged that I am attempting to explain something that is obscure by means of something that is even more obscure. But I venture to assert that as a matter of fact these concepts originally belonged to philosophy whence they were transferred to mathematics, and that the great Leibniz came upon his discovery of differential calculus by way of his system of monadology (Tr., p. 27). We have seen above that Maimon explained the meaning of the differential by showing that it is possible to detect qualities embodied in quantities independent of this quantity. It may well be that from the standpoint of mathematics the symbol dx is devoid of all meaning, yet it may be significant to ask whether a quality is bound to a quantity as such or whether we can adhere to the law of quality and thereby abstract from the quantity. Both Maimon and Cohen characterized this problem by means of the differential.16 The abstraction of quantity is not tantamount to its negation. Zeno asked whether a flying arrow rested or moved at any one point in its path. The question, thus formulated, is misleading. The real question is whether there is a method for determining the qualitative progress of the flight as such without relation to extension. In asking this question we regard our faculty of the imagination as functioning in such a manner that it thinks the movement, the differential, as concentrated in one point. “But not the point which is con-

16

A. H. Fiaenkel, in bis book An Introduction to Muthcmcitics (Hebrew), also mentions Hermann Cohen’s view of the differential and criticizes it from the standpoint of mathematics. He does not mention Maimon.

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sidered as the zero-point of extension is the point of origin... rather the origin is the law. We are able to think the law intensively concentrated in a point or extensively in a line. The law itself in reality adheres as little to the point as to the line but determines both equally; it rises above the two, above the point and the line, and is thus able to facilitate the passage between the line to the point (and vice versa). What actually happens here is that the concept of the point (and no less the concept of the line) undergoes a change of meaning — from now on the point is no longer regarded as the zero of extension and the line is no longer regarded only as a finite extension; both are considered as the bearers of a law.‫ ״‬These words of Paul Natorp 17 in explanation of Cohen’s doctrine correspond exactly to Maimon’s view. The affinity between Cohen and Maimon goes still further. Maimon’s doctrine of the relation between the inner magnitude and the extensive magnitude has a marked resemblance to Cohen’s doctrine of origin (Ursprung).18 Maimon writes that the relation between the concept triangle and a right-angled, an acute and an obtuse triangle is similar to the relation of the inner magnitude to the extensive magnitude ('Tr., p. 122). The concept triangle is a unity that contains the manifold enclosed within it, “a manifold that is enclosed potentially and which is revealed only from without (in the various specific forms of the triangle), that is, it is thought in comparison with the possible determinations that could be added to it.” In this manner every true genus contains its species concealed as it were within itself. The inner magnitude or differential is, according to this explanation of Maimon, a unity that can be developed into multiplicity by means of projection outwards. The unity

contains the manifold within itself as its “origin” (Ur-

sprung). The manifold reveals itself only in the process of its external development (just as the concept triangle is developed through the different kinds of triangles). It is precisely in this sense that Cohen understands the symbol whereby Newton designated the differential or, as he called it, fluxion j : “Newton makes use of the zero 17

In Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften, p. 220.

18

For the concept of Ursprung see my essay, “The Doctrine of Origin in the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen,” in my book, Thinkers and Believers (Hebrew).

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

in order to designate the beginning of x as Ur sprung and at the same time to make it credible. This then is the judgement of origin [das Urteil des Ursprungs].” 19 Cohen wishes to say that the zero of the intensive magnitude is not an absolute zero but a relative zero that discards external extension but which conceals within it its law and preserves it in the disappearance of extension (just as in Maimon’s example the concept of triangle contains within itself the manifold of possible triangles).20 In Cohen’s writings we also find Maimon’s doctrine that the differential is an absolute unity “which precludes all possibility of division, enumeration and measurement and which can be thought only as a unit 21... The unity may not retain the sensuous extension of the intuition with which it began its infancy.” 22 Cohen maintains that in number as it is realized in the intuition there still resides something “Active and subjective, since unity in the intuition is only a comparative unity.” 23 D. Gawronsky in his doctoral dissertation on The Judgement of Reality and its Mathematical Presuppositions,24 written under Cohen at Marburg, develops Cohen’s teaching completely in Maimon’s spirit (likewise without having known Maimon). Gawronsky takes issue with those mathematicians who attribute meaning only to the differential quotients but not to the differential. This he takes to be an error, for he considers the differential to have a peculiar meaning of its own that differs from that of the differential quotients, namely, the differential expresses the law, each differential its own law. In Maimon’s example of the triangle cited above we have seen how in a triangle that keeps approaching zero quantitatively, the ratio of the sides remains unchanged — a thought that is accurately expressed by Leibniz’s dictum quoted by Gawronsky: “evanescentia quidem in nihilum, retinentia tamen characterem eius, quod evanescit” (while being reduced to zero, they retain the character of that which is becoming zero). In this dictum Gawronsky 19

Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, p. 124.

20

For the “concrete concept” in Maimon and Hegel see above, Ch. IV and XII.

21

Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode, § 104.

22

Ibid., § 44.

23

Ibid., § 77.

24

D. Gawronsky, Das Urteil der Realitat und seine mathematischen Voraussetzungen.

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267

sees a confirmation of his view,‫־‬J namely, that “in the infinitely small is reflected the peculiar nature of the creative law.” For example, if we wish to understand the law of a given curve, we must think every point “in which direction operates, in which there is a Richtungspotenz,” 26 and this is expressed by means of the differential. The differential quotient

on the other hand is only the mathematical means

of the law. In the differential, Gawronsky states, the law is embodied in its peculiarity, even though the differential is unable to express the law without the aid of the differential quotient. When we are given a finite magnitude and we wish to reconstruct the law that created the magnitude, “we must descend to the depths where this law lies hidden, we must return to the infinitely small.” 27 In all these words of Gawronsky, written under the influence of Cohen’s logic, we feel Maimon’s pervasive spirit. The fact that Gawronsky does not mention Maimon’s name and apparently did not know him is further proof of the affinity between Maimon and Cohen. 4. We find in Cohen’s doctrine an intellectual principle that mediates between the qualitative law, characterized by the differential, and the extensive magnitude that arises from this law, a means that was not at Maimon’s disposal, namely, the infinite judgement. I have treated this doctrine of Cohen in detail in another place 28 and shall here confine myself only to those aspects that are pertinent to our problem under discussion. In the “Table of Judgements” in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant mentions as one of the various forms of judgement “the infinite judgement” : S is not-P, a judgement that is variously interpreted by different logicians. Maimon interprets it29 in connection with the basic law of his logic, namely, the “principle of determinability” as follows: the judgement “S is not-P” means that there is no possible relation of mutual 25

Ibid., p. 97.

26

Ibid., p. 87.

27

Ibid., p. 30.

28

“The Doctrine of Origin in the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen,” in Thinkers and

29

See above.

Believers (Hebrew).

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

determination between the two concepts S and P since P cannot serve as a possible predicate of S, such as: “the line is not-sweet, ’ “the taste is not-straight” — two judgements that mean that sweetness cannot be a predicate of line just as straight cannot be a quality of taste. The infinite judgement receives an altogether different interpretation, however, at the hands of Cohen who treats it in relation to his principle of Ursprung. He gives us as an example of an infinite judgement: “the point is not-extended,” wherein the subject “point” is in no way separate from the predicate but, on the contrary, the point, being the absence of extension, serves as the origin of extension. The positive attribute of extension springs from its absence, from the point. It is true that the point itself is not extended, but extension is created from it. In this manner the negation in the infinite judgement becomes, as absence, the means (or we might say the springboard) of something positive that is not found in the negative judgement itself. The difference between the negative judgement on the one hand and the infinite judgement on the other corresponds to the difference in the way Greek physics and modern physics regard the relationship between rest and motion. To the Greeks rest was merely the negation of motion whereas for modern physics rest is not the negation of motion but the zero-point of motion, so that it is possible to think of rest also as a kind of motion and to subsume both under one law. Rest is the “beginning” of motion. Zeno, confronted with this problem of rest and motion, was unable to solve it. The flying arrow, in his view, “rested” at an indivisible moment, which prompted him to ask: How is it possible to conceive the transition between rest and motion? The problem remained insoluble until Galileo came and succeeded in overcoming this transition by understanding rest to be the absence of motion that conceals motion within itself. The judgement “the arrow is not flying at one instant” was for Zeno a negative judgement whereas it was for Galileo an infinite judgement that determined a continuous transition from motion to non-motion and vice versa. An infinite judgement in this sense permits Cohen to make a transition in the form of a “beginning” from the negation of extension to its creation and to see in the zero (the negation of x) the root, the Ursprung

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269

of the x. In negating extension by means of the infinite judgement we do not arrive at a mere zero, but “the improperly so-called zero becomes the means [Operationsmittel] to create each time from out of itself something hidden within it as its beginning and in this manner to determine and to define it.” 30 According to Cohen, the zero of the beginning is a relative one and “only designates the springboard, and on the basis of continuity we make the leap into reality.” 5. The problem of reality in Maimon and Cohen : Cohen speaks of two elements in the concept of the differential.31 One is the intensive magnitude we have just discussed, and the second is the significance of the differential for the category of reality. In an idealistic system, such as Cohen’s system, physical reality is only lawfulness and this lawfulness is symbolized by the differential. Naive realism, Cohen says, regards sensibility, the sensuous given, as the guarantee of objective truth. In this Cohen sees “an empiricist prejudice” which bases reality on a direct belief in the reality of sensibility.32 Against this “empiricist prejudice” Cohen demands that we turn our back on the “given” sensibility. We must deduce the sensibility; we must deduce the finite from the differential and not receive it as an absolute given. But this sensible-finite always “insinuates” itself and makes itself conspicuous as an original factor. Pure thought thus requires that the sensible-finite be “restrained” and repressed. It is true that the differential exists for the sake of extension, the dx for the sake of the x, but in order that x be produced in a legitimate manner we must first remove ourselves from it. Reality is not to be found in the raw material of sensuous feeling nor in the pure state of sensuous intuition but must be created as a special presupposition of thought. The basic forms of our thinking consciousness are at the same time the substances with which we put together the so-called things and which we verify as the objects of scientific experience.33 Thus, for Cohen as well as for Maimon, the differential is the thinking

30

H. Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, p. 82.

31

Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode and seine Geschichte, § 79.

32

Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, p. 139.

33

Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode und seine Geschichte, § 88.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIM ON

means for the creation of the object, although their respective points of departure differ. Maimon understands “the differential of sensibility” as a metaphysical reality whereas Cohen proceeds from the practice of the mathematical sciences. This explains the similarity as well as the difference in their points of view. In Maimon’s view sensibility adheres to man, the finite human being, but the differential gives him the possibility of overcoming sensibility, at least in principle, by means of this pure thinking presupposition. Cohen also regards the differential as an instrument of thought that clarifies the relation between intuition and thought, “severs the knot of intuition and brings the relationship between sensibility and thought to an exacter determination, and orders in a more definite and transparent manner the correlation

between the

two.” 34 This difference between Maimon and Cohen in their respective points of departure also finds expression in the problem concerning the actual application of the differential for the creation of reality in science. The “differential” is for Maimon only the symbol of the metaphysical idea of the infinite understanding which it is impossible for us to attain. He merely wishes to explain the possibility of metaphysics uberhaupt and the solution of the question quid juris by showing how an understanding more comprehensive than ours could reduce intuition to its elements. Cohen, on the other hand, proceeds from the standpoint of physics and its method in differential calculus in order to overcome intuition and replace it by a pure conceptual law. This also accounts for the difference between the two philosophers with respect to the differentials of a higher order. Maimon shows no interest in these at all and does not develop a cognitive distinction between the various degrees of differentials, whereas Cohen reserves for them a special place and application : each differential expresses a law and different laws are expressed by different differentials. But we cannot rest content with this difference and regard it as the ultimate given that cannot be deduced. On the contrary, we are bound to deduce the manifold of laws as well, and transfer it to a more comprehensive unity.

34

Ibid., §§ 32, 33, 86.

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271

The task of the differentials of a higher order, according to Cohen, is to enable us to reveal within the manifold of the laws themselves a continuous transition from law to law and to disclose the continuity within this manifold as well. Just as any law whatever and its expression, the differential of the lower degree, introduces order and lawfulness into a definite area of phenomena, similarly the higher differential introduces order into the manifold of the laws themselves. The law that we first determined becomes a variable with respect to the higher law just as the sensible phenomenon observed by the physicist becomes a variable with respect to the law that he determined.35 To this process there is no end; there is no absolute end to the process of science, and from time to time the relative unity determined by science becomes an object of new questions that demand new solutions. There is no end to the series of differentials just as there is no end to the process of science. Both Cohen and Maimon regarded the scientific process as endless. But even here there is a significant difference between the two. Maimon looked upon this infinity as a defect that stems from our limited understanding. The idea of the differential and of the infinite understanding nevertheless shows that there exists, at least in principle, the possibility of being liberated from endless striving and reaching the goal of science through an understanding of the complete unity of the ens intelligens and the ens intelligibile, of thought and its object. But for Cohen — the professor in his Marburg period and not the author of The Religion of Reason — the gulf between science and its goal is inherent in the nature of knowledge uberhaupt. New problems keep arising and new solutions are found and these in turn give rise to other problems. We have here not a defect of human consciousness and of human cognition but rather the nature of knowledge uberhaupt which, according to Cohen, is at its base and root an endless process.

35

Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, p. 140.

APPENDIX I

WAS MAIMON AN ATHEIST?

At the beginning of his biography of Michael Sachs (p. 2), which appeared in Hebrew (Berlin 1900), Simon Bernfeld writes : “Eight years before Rabbi Yehiel Michael Sachs was born in the city of Glogau the body of the philosopher Shlomo Maimon was brought there for burial and put in a grave covered with scorn and shame. Furthermore, the members of the Hevra Kadisha abused the body of this great man before interring it. This was reported to me personally by Dr. Brann of Breslau who had read it in a letter written at that time. The details of this incident are very ugly.” In the edition of Maimon’s Autobiography published by Fromer in 1911 the author relates (p. 486) that he had turned to the Rabbi of Glogau for information concerning the condition of Maimon’s grave and on May 9, 1911 received the reply : “We here know nothing of Maimon’s grave in the old cemetery.” What truth is there in the accusation that Maimon, one of the greatest philosophers produced by the Jewish people, was an atheist -— an accusation that led the religious community of Glogau in Silesia to refuse him a Jewish burial? To answer this question we must consult Maimon’s works and let them speak for themselves.

A At the outset of his short but intensive career as a philosophical writer (eleven years)

Maimon published his second work in German, the

Philosophisches Worterbuch (1791) which bore the subtitle : “A clarification of the most important philosophical subjects in alphabetical order.” It was beyond his strength and powers of perseverance to treat these subjects systematically or to erect an architectonic philosophical structure, as Spinoza had done, and he found this alphabetical arrangement most suitable for his purpose. Under the heading of Abgotterei (idolatry) in this Dictionary he writes : “God is the ideal of the concept of the most perfect Being. This concept is created by our combining all conceiv-

WAS MAIM ON AN ATHEIST ?

273

able perfections and raising them to infinity. This idea is the highest paragon that man, in accordance with his mission, can place before him to imitate in his striving for perfection and which he can keep approaching forever although never able to reach it completely. To set up any other limited paragon to imitate is idolatry.” In the article Atheist (pp. 25—27) Maimon goes further and tries to show that a philosopher cannot possibly be an atheist and that this subject belongs more properly in a book of fables rather than in a Philosophical Dictionary. Among philosophers there can be atheists only in the sense that they are opposed to a limited conception of God, such as a God that is only related to a particular nation. Such a concept of God, however, is impossible since it is self-contradictory. The concept of a true God, an infinitely perfect Being, is at least not impossible since it is free of contradiction, and hence no one can deny this concept as such. The concept of a true God is possible, at least in the negative sense, since it does not contradict itself. It is true, Maimon continues, that this does not prove the existence of God and from this point of view the concept remains problematical. But even if we cannot prove the objective reality of this concept, we are obliged to recognize its subjective reality as an idea of reason having universal validity and necessary for all the “operations” of reason : “an ideal of infinite perfection which we, by virtue of the nature of reason itself, must forever keep approaching” (P. 27).

B Maimon’s views as set forth in this Dictionary of the year 1791 can be summarized as follows : The concept of God is free of contradiction. It is a necessary ideal that reason must posit in order to perform its “operations.” But with respect to the existence of God Maimon remains an agnostic. He himself, of course, does not use this word for it was coined only in the middle of the last century, but he compares himself to the mathematician who creates a concept that is free of contradiction but whose reality, the possibility of a corresponding object, remains problematical as long as he does not know how it is constructed and presented in the intuition. The reality of mathematical objects is

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAI MON

demonstrated only in their construction. Thus, as Maimon often points out, the mathematicians knew the definition of a circle but were unable to prove its reality until Euclid came and showed them how a circle is constructed. Only then was the question of the reality of the circle resolved positively.

C But can the highest Being, God, be compared to a circle that is constructed? If not, how can we possibly speak of the “reality” of God and require proofs to demonstrate his existence? It is at this point that Maimonides’ influence on Maimon becomes evident. In his Guide Maimonides raises the question as to whether it is permissible or even possible to speak of God’s existence in the same sense that we speak of the existence of created things and his answer is that the existence of things is accidental and something that is added to the essence of existence whereas accidents cannot be ascribed to God; that existence applied to Him and applied to things are homonyms and have only the word in common and that the world does not exist in the same sense that God “exists” and God does not exist in the same sense that the world “exists.” 1 This Maimonidean doctrine was adopted by Maimon. In his essay “Die philosophische Sprachverwirrung” (1797) he states that according to the true concept of God we cannot say that there is nor that there is not a God. The expression “there is a God” says too much, and the other expression “there is no God” says too little. Both expressions are equally false. God is an idea, and of an idea we cannot say “there is an idea” (it must be possible to present what “there is” in an intuition, and an idea by its very nature cannot be thus presented) as little as we can say “there is not an idea,” as if it contradicted another concept that could be represented in reality, somewhat as if we were to say today that “there is no king in Israel” since the concept “a president of the republic” contradicts the concept “king.” The idea is above the opposition between “there is” and “there is not”; or, in Maimon’s language, a relationship

1

Part I, Chs. 57., 35, 52.

WAS MAIMON AN ATHEIST ?

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of mutual deter minability is lacking between the concept “God” and the concept “there is,” a relationship which alone permits us to ask the question of “yes or no.” Maimon thus arrives at the conclusion that the question of the existence of God is a futile question when by “existence” we understand that of objects known to us, the only kind of existence we know. This is also the sense in which it was understood by the great German philosopher, Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus, at the beginning of the modern age when he wTote in his book On the Pursuit of Wisdom : “The best answer to the question whether there is a God is that He neither is nor is not.”

D Yet Maimon may have felt that such an answer could be interpreted as being evasive. In his last book, Kritische Untersuchungen (1797), he returns to this question in several passages (pp. 245 ff., 277), the question “whether or not reality could be ascribed to ideas that are so important for mankind, namely, God and immortality.” His argument here is based on man’s double nature. Man is at the same time a creature of both feeling and spirit. As a creature of feeling he is bound to time; all his representations must necessarily be presented in time even though we know that time applies only to human beings and is not universally valid. But man is at the same time a spiritual being w'ho is aware of his limitation. This limitation is evident in the conflict between a “higher” faculty of cognition and a “lower” faculty of cognition that is bound to time. This conflict can perhaps be expressed by saying that we do not know whether these two cognitive faculties are compatible, that is, we cannot say whether the sensible matter that comes to us through the senses in the form of time (that is, the world) is rational in the sense that it is amenable to the human intellect and its categories. This fundamental problem of our existence w7as expressed by Hume in the popular from : How can we be certain that the laws of nature will also be valid tomorrow, that the sun will also rise tomorrow in the east and set in the west? “Common sense” regards this question as an idle whim of the philos-

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOLOMON MAIMON

ophers and takes it for granted that the laws of nature are valid at all times and in all places. The argument advanced by “common sense” is answered by Maimon as follows : Your thesis that our cognitive faculty applies to all possible objects (that is, that the world is rational) and that you can reach infinity by the power of your cognition — this thesis is tenable only if we presuppose the idea of an infinite Understanding that determines not only the forms of our cognition (as our understanding does with its categories) but at the same time also the matter that is cognized by these forms; only by presupposing the existence of an infinite Understanding are we able to comprehend the mutual compatibility between form and matter in the cognitive process; only on this assumption can the human mind comprehend the rationality of the world and put to rout Hume’s skeptical arguments. From this Maimon draws the following conclusion : “That which is thought as the necessary condition of all objective and universally valid knowledge is itself objective and universally valid; thus the reflection on our own cognition leads to the proof of the existence of such a Being” (.K.U., p. 247). This is not the kind of proof for the existence of God in the ordinary sense, such as that adduced by Mendelssohn in the spirit of Leibniz and refuted by Kant (a refutation with which Maimon agreed); Maimon’s proof is a conditional one : if the world is rational, if there is no contradiction between man’s pure higher cognitive faculty and his lower faculty which is bound to time, then the absence of contradiction, this harmony, is comprehensible only on the assumption of the existence of a higher understanding, God. The other possibility that the world is not rational and not governed by rational laws was taken very seriously by Maimon not only in his philosophical speculations but also in his life which was tom by doubts. Nevertheless, can we call him an “atheist” who terminated his last book, Kritische Untersuchungen, with the words inspired by his revered master, Maimonides : “The wise and virtuous man, insofar as he is such, enjoys already in this life immortality and union with God!”

n MAIMON’S LOGICAL CALCULUS

1. Maimon s name has found a place in the field of symbolic logic because of his application of the principle of determinability in constructing his logical calculus. We have seen above that the main function of the principle of determinability consists in its limiting the number of predicates that a definite subject can possibly have. Whereas traditional formal logic fails to consider the content of the concepts related in one judgement as subject and object, the principle of determinability states that the range of a definite subject is limited to some predicates determined by the content of the subject. We may relate the concepts space and square but we cannot relate the concepts virtue and square. From this Maimon elaborates a clear symbolism that indicates the combination of concepts similar to the symbolism used in chemistry, and on this basis is able to set forth a new theory of syllogisms which takes into account the dependence of concepts with respect to the content and dispenses with the extreme formalization of formal logic which completely neglects the content of the concepts appearing in judgements and syllogisms. 2. A general concept (“color”) is determinable in more than one way (“red,” “green”...). It should therefore be expressed by two combined symbols : one symbol for the (given) determinable and the second for the undetermined determination. It can be characterized by ax, a being (as in algebra) the given determinable and x any possible determination. In a universal proposition the subject will be the determined and the predicate the determinable. It can therefore be expressed by “ax is