The genesis of Neo-Kantianism, 1796-1880 / Frederick C. Beiser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Beiser, Frederick C., 1949- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Neo-Kantianism.

Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.

Kant, Immanuel.

Philosophy--History--19th century.

Philosophy.

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 610 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

Frederick C. Beiser tells the story of the emergence of neo-Kantianism from the late 1790s until the 1880s. He focuses on neo-Kantianism before official or familiar neo-Kantianism, i.e., before the formation of the various schools of neo-Kantianism in the 1880s and 1890s (which included the Marburg school, the Southwestern school, and the Göttingen school). Beiser argues that the source of neo-Kantianism lies in three crucial but neglected figures: Jakob Friedrich Fries, Johann Friedrich Herbart, and Friedrich Eduard Beneke, who together form what he calls 'the lost tradition'. They are the first neo-Kantians because they defended Kant's limits on knowledge against the excesses of speculative idealism, because they upheld Kant's dualisms against their many critics, and because they adhered to Kant's transcendental idealism. Much of this book is devoted to an explanation for the rise of neo-Kantianism. Beiser contends that it became a greater force in the decades from 1840 to 1860 in response to three major developments in German culture: the collapse of speculative idealism; the materialism controversy; and the identity crisis of philosophy. As he goes on to argue, after the 1860s neo-Kantianism became a major philosophical force because of its response to two later cultural developments: the rise of pessimism and Darwinism.

Contents:

1 Chronology and Topography 1

2 The Rise of Neo-Kantianism 4

3 Removing Preconceptions and Prejudices 8

Part I Introduction: The Lost Tradition n

1 Unearthing the Lost Tradition 11

2 Two Conflicting Kantian Traditions 13

3 Neo-Kantianism and the Lost Tradition 16

4 Origins and Context 18

1 Jakob Friedrich Fries and the Birth of Psychologism 23

1 Place in History 23

2 Discovery of Kant 26

3 Justifying Psychology 30

4 Early Psychological Programme 34

5 Encounters in Jena 38

6 Forayinto Medicine 41

7 Critique of Reinhoid, Fichte and Schelling 46

8 Early Political Philosophy 54

9 Philosophy of Religion 63

10 New Critique of Reason 72

11 Psychologism? 79

12 Wrestling the Thing-in-Itself 84

2 Johann Friedrich Herbart, Neo-Kantian Metaphysician 89

1 Herbart as Kantian 89

2 A Troubled Fichtean 94

3 Swiss Years 99

4 Years of Work and Sorrow 104

5 Young Academic 109

6 Main Points of Metaphysics 114

7 The Idea of Philosophy 122

8 Aesthetic Foundation of Ethics 125

9 Professor in Konigsberg 130

10 Psychology 134

3 Friedrich Eduard Beneke, Neo-Kantian Martyr 142

1 The Last Anthropologist 142

2 A Tragic Life 145

3 Epistemologlcal Foundations 150

4 The Psychological Programme 153

5 A Trying Encounter 160

6 The Physics of Morals 163

7 Cracks in the Foundation 168

8 Setting Accounts with Kant 172

4 The Interim Years, 1840-1860 178

1 Years of Transition 178

2 The Materialism Controversy 182

3 The Identity Crisis 188

4 Late Idealism and Neo-Kantianism 192

5 Helmholtz's Programme: Introduced and Adopted 196

6 Helmholtz's Programme: Reaffirmed and Abandoned 201

Part II Introduction: The Coming of Age 207

1 The Resurrection of Immanuel Kant 207

2 Common Themes 209

3 The Fischer-Trendelenburg Dispute 212

4 The Great Pretender 215

5 Kuno Fischer, Hegelian Neo-Kantian 221

1 A Mysterious Figure 221

2 The Young Hegelian 223

3 Banishment 228

4 A Hegelian Kantian or a Kantian Hegelian 232

5 Birth of a Neo-Kantian 237

6 Interpretation of Kant 240

7 The Loyal Hegelian 247

8 A Hegelian Kantian 251

6 Eduard Zeller, Seo Kantian Classicist 255

1 Zeller and Fischer 255

2 Early Tubingen Years 257

3 Historical Criticism 261

4 From Hegel to Kant 265

5 Running the Cauntlet, Tübingen to Heidelberg 267

6 Return to Kant 270

7 Unfinished Business 275

8 A Neo-Classical Ethics 278

7 Rehabilitating Otto Liebmann 283

1 Rise and Fall of a Reputation 283

2 Kuril und die Eplgonen 286

3 Perils of the Transcendent 293

4 Rediscovering the Transcendent 299

5 War and Peace 302

6 Natural Science and Transcendental Philosophy 306

7 Against Materialism 311

8 Critique of Positivism 315

9 The Spirit of Transcendental Philosophy 318

10 A Critical Metaphysics 321

8 Jürgen Bona Meyer, Neo-Kantian Sceptic 328

1 Life and Career 328

2 Criticism and Metaphysics 331

3 Critical Idealism? 334

4 In Defence of Psychologism 336

5 Questions of the limes 342

6 Renewing Philosophy of Religion 349

7 First Foray into History 352

9 Friedrich Albert Lange, Poet and Materialist Manqué 356

1 1-ange's Legacy 356

2 Early Years and Wild Philosophy 359

3 Origins and Aims of a Classic 363

4 A Secret Materialist 369

5 A Kantian Critique of Materialism 375

6 Lange and the Thing-in-Itself 379

7 Interpretation of Kant 381

8 I he Limits of Monism 386

9 The New Religion 389

10 Philosophy as Poetry 393

10 The Rattle again v. Pessimism 398

1 Sources of Pessimism 398

2 The Polemic against Pessimism 402

3 Neo-Kantianism as Neo-Fichteanism 407

4 Critique of Quietism 412

5 University Philosophy 415

11 Encounter with Darwinism 422

1 The Rise of Darwinism in Germany 422

2 Lange, the Naturalist 427

3 Meyer, the Sceptic 434

4 Liebmann, the Matchmaker 441

5 All Mysteries Solved! 445

6 Restoring Mysteries 449

Part III Introduction: The New Establishment 455

1 The Decade of Consolidation 455

2 A Fragile Alliance 457

3 From Psychology to Epistemology 460

12 The Young Hermann Cohen 465

1 An Important Little Book 465

2 The Young Volkpsychologist 468

3 A Kantian Interpretation of Plato 471

4 The Nascent Transcendental Philosopher 474

5 Cohen and the Materialism Controversy 475

6 Cohen and the Fischer-Trendelenburg Dispute 478

7 Kant's Theory of Experience 482

8 The Metaphysics of the Transcendental 489

13 Wilhelm Windelband and Normativity 492

1 Windelband and Neo-Kantianism 492

2 A Science of Norms 495

3 The Rehabilitation of Philosophy 498

4 The Normative and the Natural 502

5 Philosophical Method 506

6 The Problem of Freedom 511

7 Early Epistemology 516

8 A Normative Logic 520

9 Centrifugal Forces 522

10 The Politics of Normativity 525

14 The Realism of Alois Riehl 531

1 A Realist from the Tirol 531

2 Early Realist Tendencies 535

3 An Early Discourse on Method 541

4 Arrival of a Neo-Kantian 548

5 Aims and Varieties of Realism 551

6 Analysis of Sensation 555

7 A Realist Theory of Space and Time 559

8 Retreat from Realism 561

9 How to Keep Things-in-Themselves 563

10 Redefining Philosophy 567.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 573-604) and index.

ISBN:

9780198722205

0198722206

OCLC:

880557587