In late modern Continental philosophy, Neo-Kantianism
(German: Neukantianismus) was a revival of
the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
More specifically, it was influenced by Arthur
Schopenhauer's critique of the Kantian philosophy
in his work The World as Will and Representation
(1818), as well as by other post-Kantian philosophers
such as Jakob Friedrich Fries and Johann Friedrich
Herbart.
== Origins ==
The "back to Kant" movement began in the 1860s,
as a reaction to the German materialist controversy
in the 1850s.In addition to the work of Hermann
von Helmholtz and Eduard Zeller, early fruits
of the movement were Kuno Fischer's works
on Kant and Friedrich Albert Lange's History
of Materialism (Geschichte des Materialismus,
1873–75), the latter of which argued that
transcendental idealism superseded the historic
struggle between material idealism and mechanistic
materialism.
Fischer was earlier involved in a dispute
with the Aristotelian idealist Friedrich Adolf
Trendelenburg concerning the interpretation
of the results of the Transcendental Aesthetic,
a dispute that prompted Hermann Cohen's 1871
seminal work Kants Theorie der Erfahrung,
a book often regarded as the foundation of
20th-century Neo-Kantianism.
It is in reference to the Fischer–Trendelenburg
debate and Cohen's work that Hans Vaihinger
started his massive commentary on the Critique
of Pure Reason.
== Varieties ==
Hermann Cohen became the leader of the Marburg
School (centered in the town of the same name),
the other prominent representatives of which
were Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer.
Another important group, the Southwest (German)
School (also known as the Heidelberg School
or Baden School, centered in Heidelberg, Baden
in Southwest Germany) included Wilhelm Windelband,
Heinrich Rickert and Ernst Troeltsch.
The Marburg School emphasized epistemology
and philosophical logic, whereas the Southwest
school emphasized issues of culture and value.
A third group, mainly represented by Leonard
Nelson, established the Neo-Friesian School
(named after post-Kantian philosopher Jakob
Friedrich Fries).
The Neo-Kantian schools tended to emphasize
scientific readings of Kant, often downplaying
the role of intuition in favour of concepts.
However, the ethical aspects of Neo-Kantian
thought often drew them within the orbit of
socialism, and they had an important influence
on Austromarxism and the revisionism of Eduard
Bernstein.
Lange and Cohen in particular were keen on
this connection between Kantian thought and
socialism.
Another important aspect of the Neo-Kantian
movement was its attempt to promote a revised
notion of Judaism, particularly in Cohen's
seminal work, one of the few works of the
movement available in English translation.
The Neo-Kantian school was of importance in
devising a division of philosophy that has
had durable influence well beyond Germany.
It made early use of terms such as epistemology
and upheld its prominence over ontology.
Natorp had a decisive influence on the history
of phenomenology and is often credited with
leading Edmund Husserl to adopt the vocabulary
of transcendental idealism.
Emil Lask was influenced by Edmund Husserl's
work, and himself exerted a remarkable influence
on the young Martin Heidegger.
The debate between Cassirer and Heidegger
over the interpretation of Kant led the latter
to formulate reasons for viewing Kant as a
forerunner of phenomenology; this view was
disputed in important respects by Eugen Fink.
An abiding achievement of the Neo-Kantians
was the founding of the journal Kant-Studien,
which still survives today.
By 1933 (after the rise of Nazism), the various
Neo-Kantian circles in Germany had dispersed.
== Notable Neo-Kantian philosophers ==
Related thinkersRobert Adamson (1852–1902)
Henri Poincaré (1854–1912)
Georg Simmel (1858–1918)
Max Weber (1864–1920)
José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955)
György Lukács (1885–1971)
Hermann Weyl (1885–1955)
== Contemporary Neo-Kantianism ==
In the analytic tradition, the revival of
interest in the work of Kant that has been
underway since Peter Strawson's work The Bounds
of Sense (1966) can also be viewed as effectively
Neo-Kantian, not least due to its continuing
emphasis on epistemology at the expense of
ontology.
In the 1980s, interest in Neo-Kantianism has
revived in the wake of the work of Gillian
Rose, who is a critic of this movement's influence
on modern philosophy, and because of its influence
on the work of Max Weber.
The Kantian concern for the limits of perception
strongly influenced the antipositivist sociological
movement in late 19th-century Germany, particularly
in the work of Georg Simmel (Simmel's question
'What is society?' is a direct allusion to
Kant's own: 'What is nature'?).
The current work of Michael Friedman is explicitly
Neo-Kantian.
Continental philosophers drawing on the Kantian
understandings of the transcendental include
Jean-François Lyotard and Jean-Luc Nancy.
== See also ==
German idealism
North American Kant Society
== Notes
