the development of the movement referred to today as German Idealism.
Immanuel Kant recognized Maimon as the critic who perhaps best
understood his Critique of Pure Reason, and Fichte praises Maimon,
wondering if later generations will look down on his own generation
for having dismissed Maimon. Although Maimon is important in the
development of post-Kantian German philosophy, he was largely ignored
during his day and despite some attention by later German
philosophers, he has remained largely unknown. This is more than
likely due to the fact that his works are quite complex and lacking in
systematicity, as well as due to the fact that German was not his
first tongue and to the fact that he had a somewhat difficult
personality. Today, he is beginning to receive some of the attention
that his writings deserve.
1. Maimon's Life and Works
Although there are some disputes about the year of Maimon's birth, the
accepted view is that he was born in 1753 near Sukoviborg (near Mir),
Lithuania, in what is today Belarus. Solomon Maimon was not his given
name at birth; rather, he was known as Shlomo ben Joshua. At around
eleven years of age, he married and by the time he was fourteen, he
was already a father. Beginning early in his life, he received
training in Talmudic studies and became familiar with the Kabbalah as
well as Hasidic texts and he came to revere Maimonides' Guide to the
Perplexed, a text that had great influence on him. In fact, when he
changed his name in order to follow western European conventions, he
adopted the surname of "Maimon" of out reverence for the great
medieval Jewish philosopher. Feeling the need in his mid-twenties to
study more science and philosophy, Maimon left his family behind and
went West. He stopped briefly in Berlin but was not allowed to enter
the city. For almost two years after his explusion from Berlin, Maimon
lived as a beggar before settling in Posen and receiving a job as a
tutor. He later left for Berlin again and was allowed into the city
this time. He became friends with Moses Mendelssohn and other Jewish
intellectuals, who, despite Maimon's bad German and his lack of social
graces, tolerated him because they recognized that he possessed a very
sharp intellect. Maimon traveled again, staying for a short time in
Amsterdam. Finding the Jewish community there to be too bourgeois for
him in its tastes and interests, he returned to Germany. Maimon
settled in Hamburg where he entered a high school (most likely between
1783-85) and pursued studies to improve his knowledge of math,
science, and the German language. Matriculation records from a German
high school (a "Gymnasium") list a Solomon Maimon among its pupils, so
it is likely that Maimon began referring to himself with this name and
not "Shlomo ben Joshua" during this stay in Germany
It was after this period that Maimon began his philosophical writings.
He moved from Hamburg to Breslau (Wroclaw) and took up a position as a
tutor with a family. He wrote several textbooks in Hebrew, one on math
and one concerned with Newton's physics. He also translated Moses
Mendelssohn's Morgenstunden into Hebrew. At the end of the decade,
Maimon traveled to Berlin yet again. It was at this point that he
began his study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant's friend,
Marcus Herz, who was also a friend of Maimon's, sent Kant Maimon's
draft of a commentary on the first Critique. Kant had no intention of
reading through the commentary because he found himself too busy with
other work. Yet, he later commented to Herz that a brief look through
Maimon's manuscript showed him that Maimon had understood the first
Critique better than all of Kant's other critics. With Kant's
"accolade" in hand, Maimon attained a legitimacy that opened several
doors and publishing avenues for him. Maimon revised the manuscript
and published it in 1790 as Versuch über die
Transcendentalphilosophie, mit einem Anhang über die symbolische
Erkenntnis und Anmerkungen [Essay on Transcendental Philosophy with an
Appendix on Symbolic Knowledge, and Notes]. (Hereafter, this text will
be cited as the "Versuch")]. On the whole, the work is a set of
criticisms of Kant's first Critique but it also interspersed with
criticisms of or elaborations on Maimon's own commentary on Kant..
Between 1791 and 1800, Maimon went on to write nine other books and
numerous articles published in some of the more prominent
German-language journals of the day. Maimon lived in poverty for most
of the early part of the 1790's. For the last five years of his life,
he was supported by Adolf von Kalkreuth, a noble with considerable
interest in philosophy. Maimon lived on von Kalkreuth's estate near
Glogow, in what is today southwestern Poland. Maimon died on 22
November 1800. Supposedly, the Jewish citizens of Glogow disapproved
of Maimon for not being a pious Jew and he was not allowed to be
buried within the Jewish cemetery.
Maimon claims that there were several phases to his philosophical
development. The first – and perhaps most important stage – was
Maimon's early encounter with Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed. It
is because of Maimonides that Maimon falls under the spell of
rationalistic schools of thought. Not only does Maimon obtain from
Maimonides the idea that philosophy – and furthermore, human existence
– should be about the attainment of truth, but he also takes from
Maimonides the belief that religion and its doctrines must be
consistent with philosophy. As will become evident from what is
written below, many of the doctrines to which Maimon professes can be
traced back to Maimonides. Secondly, in his early visits to Berlin,
Maimon comes into contact with other, more recent thinkers also in the
rationalistic tradition: the Leibnizian-inspired philosopher Christian
Wolff, Leibniz, and Spinoza. At that time in Germany, Spinoza was seen
as a very dangerous figure because the accepted view of his philosophy
was that it necessarily led to atheism. Maimon disagreed and had a
significant respect for Spinoza. Finally, Maimon came upon Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason in early 1787 and was awed by it. It was
probably at this time that Maimon came into contact with English
empiricism, and Hume in particular. As will be discussed below, a very
important strand of Maimon's thought is occupied with Humean
skepticism. However, scholars differ as to whether or not skepticism
ends up being Maimon's settled view.
It is difficult to summarize Maimon's views given that none of his
works is systematic and that his views evolved somewhat over the 10
year period in which he was publishing his writings. In fact, it is
this lack of systematicity – as well as Maimon's German, which at
times is extremely unclear – that has contributed to Maimon's lack of
recognition. Often his texts read like conglomerations of
stream-of-consciousness thoughts, albeit very perceptive ones. He
does, however, give a clue about his philosophy as a whole when he
describes his thought as a "coalition system" [Koalitionssystem] in
which he attempts to incorporate the main ideas of previous schools of
thought or important thinkers. The extent to which these ideas
actually can be made to fit into a coherent system is open for debate.
Likewise, there is question among the scholars as to which school of
thought Maimon ultimately sides. The question is not easily resolved.
Maimon's work was only rediscovered in the mid-1800's and it just
beginning to receive the attention that it deserves. Until recently,
he has achieved more notoriety because of his Autobiography,
originally published in 1792-93, the first part of which is currently
available in English. The book is noteworthy because, in addition to
documenting Maimon's travels and tribulations, it provides one of the
very earliest depictions of life in an Eastern European Jewish
community, a "stetl." Despite the historical and "sociological"
significance of this Autobiography, he should be seen first and
foremost as a philosopher. Kant recognized Maimon's talents and saw
that Maimon was one of the few who seemed to understand the project of
the first Critique. Due to the similarity of themes on which Maimon
wrote in his Versuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie and themes
that Kant addresses in the Critique of Judgment (1790), it is possible
that Maimon's thought had some influence on doctrines that Kant brings
forth in this Critique. Fichte mentions Maimon by name in many places
in his early work and there is no doubt that some of his doctrines are
responses to Maimon's view. In fact, Maimon is one of the first
philosophers of that era to take the history of philosophy seriously
and to attempt to show how his views are, in a certain respect, the
culmination of developments within the evolution of philosophical
thought. In order to understand the development of German Idealism,
one must understand where Maimon fits into the movement. Maimon,
however, merits attention for being more than just an important, yet
underappreciated figure in the development of German Idealism. In
particular, his worries about the gap between the quid juris and the
quid facti need to be applied to all of the philosophies in the
movement. It is not clear if any of the major figures of German
Idealism – Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel – ultimately can or do give
adequate responses to the problem of the quid juris. More importantly,
these worries can be extended to any type of systematic philosophy or
rationalistic system of thought. Maimon calls our attention to the
fact that it is not enough if a system, a philosophical or scientific
system for example, is internally coherent. Internal coherence only
gives an answer to the question of the quid juris. What still needs to
be shown is not simply how it is possible for such a system to map
onto our empirical world, but that the given system does, in fact, map
onto the world. Another way of looking at the issue is that Maimon is
concerned with the status of science, in the broadest connotation of
"science." It is not enough for science to provide us with a good
story or a coherent story about how the world is. Instead, science
must give the correct story about how the world is and one that can
completely justify its claims. The problem is – and here we return to
the gap between the quid juris and the quid facti – science is still
only giving us a good or seemingly accurate story.
2. The Problem of the Quid Juris
Unfortunately, even given the stir that Kant's first Critique caused
when it was first published in 1781 and then again revised in 1787,
philosophers and critics more often than not either misinterpreted
Kant or simply did not understand his views. In the Versuch über die
Transcendentalphilosophie, Maimon was able to put his finger on the
heart of the problem of the whole of the Transcendental Analytic
division of the first Critique. Maimon focused on the notorious
"Transcendental Deduction of the Categories" section, in which Kant
attempts to justify how intellect and sensation can be combined into
cognition. This is the question of the "quid juris,"as Kant calls it.
In short, what is at issue is not an actual demonstration that the
intellect and sensation actually do combine to form a cognition – this
is an issue of fact or the quid factis, as Kant labels it – but a
demonstration of how it is possible for them to come together in a
cognition. Maimon, unlike other Kant critics of the day and even many
Kant supporters, astutely recognizes how central this issue is to
Kant's whole critical project. He understands that Kant is not trying
to show that intellect and sensation actually do come together but
rather that Kant wants to provide a justification for how it is
possible that sensation and intellect can come together. As a result,
Maimon makes this issue of the quid juris – and the related issue of
the quid facti – a centerpiece of many of his own writings throughout
his career. He actually sees the issue in terms of the broader problem
of mind and body interaction. Thus, for Maimon the issue actually
becomes how we are to be justified in thinking that mind – something
supposedly non-physical and non-spatial – can interact with body,
something physical and spatial. Kant tried to occupy a middle ground
between the rationalist and empiricist schools and, thus, ends up
maintaining that the form of cognition was a priori and came from the
understanding, whereas the content of cognition was a posteriori,
coming from sensation (or "intuition," in Kant's language) and, thus,
the physical side. Maimon, like many contemporary Kant critics, holds
that the section of the Transcendental Analytic referred to as the
"Schemata," is that section of the first Critique in which Kant tries
to give his answer to the quid juris. Simply put, on this reading of
the first Critique, it is in the very nature of time, as a schema of
concepts, that the link between the a priori concepts of the
understanding and the a posteriori given content from intuition is
supposedly found.
Maimon disagrees. He maintains that if mind and body, or intellect and
intuition, are two radically different sources of knowledge as Kant
wants to maintain, then ultimately they can never to come together
because they are so radically different by definition. In other words,
if intellect and intuition are so different, as Kant wants to hold,
then Kant already make it impossible for these two stems of knowledge
to be unified. In contrast, Maimon's claims that the only way in which
intellect and intuition can be united is if they are of similar
origin. Thus, he holds that the only solution to the quid juris is to
assume that intellect and intuition must be alike. He does not follow
along empiricist lines where concepts are but abstractions from
sensations. Rather, he turns to the Leibniz-Wolff school for his
solution to the problem. Maimon claims that, ultimately, sensation –
or intuition, as Kant terms it – has its root in the understanding.
For Leibniz and Wolff, sensation or intuition simply amounts to a
confused form of conceptual knowledge; Maimon concurs.
3. The Thing-In-Itself and the Doctrine of Differentials
In Kant's system, the form of our knowledge is a priori and arises out
of the nature of the understanding and the forms of intuition that we
– as humans – possess are also a priori.. The content of our
knowledge, at least of our empirical knowledge, comes from outside of
us. Or, to be more precise, this material of our knowledge is the
result of our intuitive faculty being affected by something outside of
it. This "something" is none other than Kant's notion of the
thing-in-itself, an infamous tenet of Kant's system. The problem is
that Kant must rely on this idea of a thing-in-itself in order to
account for what gives rise to our empirical knowledge. Unfortunately,
we cannot know – in Kant's formal definition of what it is "to know" –
the thing-in-itself because knowledge for Kant always entails a
combination of concepts and matter or content. In Kant's system, we
are forbidden from employing or extending categories beyond that of
which we have intuition; this, in Kant's system, would involve an
illegitimate use of the categories. Hence, the thing-in-itself becomes
problematic because, in Kant's system, one is left in the situation
that one can only speculate about, but not know, things-in-themselves.
Furthermore, Kant must posit things-in-themselves because their
existence ultimately plays the role of a criterion of truth in his
system. The world of our sense experience, as opposed to, say, a world
of our dreams, is real for Kant because the content of our sense
experience ultimately refers back to something real: The
thing-in-itself. This is what allows Kant to claim that "experience"
has some foundation and is not just an illusion or chimera.
There are, however, two problems. First, knowledge – in Kant's sense
of the term – requires things-in-themselves but the very positing of
things-in-themselves appears to be a contradiction because this seems
to involve the extension of concepts to realms into which they are
allowed to be extended. That is, in order to cognize
things-in-themselves we must use concepts and discursive or
conceptually-based knowledge. But things-in-themselves, by their very
nature, are supposed to stand outside of conceptual knowledge. Second,
and more seriously, the doctrine of things-in-themselves does not help
to resolve the matter of the quid juris. That issue, as it will be
remembered, concerns our justification for assuming that elements of
cognition that arise out of the intellect can possibly be combined
together with elements of cognition that arise empirically from the
senses, or intuition, to use Kantian terminology. But if
things-in-themselves stand beyond our ability to cognize them, then we
cannot know if concepts and intuitions have come together in a way
that truly reflects how things are.
Maimon criticizes Kant because he holds that Kant still has not
adequately shown that we are justified in believing in the
applicability of a priori concepts that have their seat in the
understanding to elements that arise a posteriori from the senses.
Kant, according to Maimon, simply assumes that we are affected "from
without" by things-in-themselves, and, in so doing, assumes the
connection between a priori form and a posteriori content
Maimon's solution is 1) to have a criterion of truth that comes from
within cognition itself, and 2) to show how it is possible no longer
to have the potentially unbridgeable gap between understanding and
sensation. As concerns the first point, Maimon simply believes that he
is being true to the spirit of critical philosophy insofar as he draws
the criterion of truth from within consciousness. As concerns the
second point, Maimon looks back to the rationalist school, and to
Leibnizian philosophy in particular. If sensation ultimately has its
root in the understanding, as it does for Leibniz, then there no
longer is an issue of how two seemingly different elements of
cognition can be combined together.
As his model, Maimon looks to mathematics insofar as the content of
mathematics is not given to it empirically, or so holds Maimon. In
differential calculus in particular, he finds a way in which content
can be generated out of form. In short, Maimon thinks that all
differences in quantity can be reduced to some sort of quantitative
relation. Hence, in Maimon's philosophy, differentials play the same
role that things-in-themselves play for Kant. Differentials are not
some type of a basic ontological entity such as atoms or monads.
Instead, differentials are the rules concerning the lawful
relationship of objects. Differentials give us the rule for producing
an object. Take, for example, a triangle whose sides have the lengths
3 cm, 4 cm, and 5 cm, respectively. The relationship between the sides
and the angles in that triangle will be the same as the relationship
in a triangle whose sides have the lengths 3 rods, 4 rods, and 5 rods,
respectively. The relationship between the sides and angles of these
two triangles will be the same, too, as that in a triangle whose sides
measure 9 inches, 12 inches, and 15 inches, respectively. The
differential would be the rule for producing a triangle with the
relations of sides and angles exhibited by any of the aforementioned
triangles. Maimon holds that all the content of our knowledge would
have to be able to be derived from a differential as are the lengths
of the sides of the triangle mentioned above. Accordingly, all qualia,
all the content of what we know, would be able to be understood in
terms of differentials. Hence, for example, the redness of an apple
would not be "given" from without; rather, it would be a rule for
producing what which we experience empirically as the red color of the
apple.
4. The Thing-In-Itself and the Infinite Understanding
In order to resolve the problem created by Kant's doctrine of the
thing-in-itself and in order to show just how the doctrine of
differentials in Maimon's philosophy can stand as a solution to the
problem of the quid juris, it is necessary to understand Maimon's
notion of the infinite understanding.
As was hinted as earlier, Maimon does not have a criterion of truth
that stands outside of consciousness. According to the commentator
Hugo Bergmann, Maimon uses a doctrine that he finds in the Lebnizian
philosopher Christian Wolff's 1730 text entitled Ontologia. According
to Bergmann, in that work, Wolff defines being as the completion of
all possibility, that is, an object is fully actual when it is
determined in all of its parts. Maimon uses this idea as the basis for
his view of what the thing-in-itself must be. The object itself is no
longer something outside of or beyond our cognition. The object is
simply the sum of all predicates that can be attributed to it. In
order to clarify this notion, Maimon employs a distinction between
"presentation" (Darstellung) and "representation" (Vorstellung) that
most likely comes from Mendelssohn. When the object is cognized as
fully determined, it is known as it truly is, and is, thus, a
"presentation." When the object, however, is only partially cognized,
it is not known in all of its determinations, and is, thus, a
"representation."
It is at this juncture that Maimon mentions the infinite mind. The
object itself, as it actually is, that is, as presented, is the object
insofar as it would be cognized by an infinite mind. The infinite mind
does or would cognize objects in terms of differentials, that is, in
terms of presentations. The infinite mind would not see objects as we
humans see them, as given in space and time as well as insofar as they
seem to be given from something outside of us. The infinite mind sees
everything in terms of rational form, as quantified relations.
Several commentators mention the likely influence of Maimonides, as
well as Spinoza, on Maimon's doctrine of the infinite mind. In Book
One, Chapter 68 of Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides –
who, in turn looks back to Aristotle – calls God the intellectus, the
ens intelligens, and the ens intelligible at one and the same time.
God is the intellect, the thinking, and the thing that is being
thought. In short, for Maimon, the thing-in-itself no longer is
something that it outside of consciousness or in some other realm as
that to which cognition must conform. Instead, the thing-in-itself
would be the object as it would be cognized by an infinite mind, one
that no longer needs to cognition as having two parts; matter, which
is given to the understanding, and content, which is generated in and
by the understanding. Maimon, in holding this view, sticks to the
spirit of Kantian philosophy, as opposed to the letter insofar as he
provides for a criterion of truth from within consciousness itself,
one that need not refer to something beyond it, namely Kant's infamous
thing-in-itself.
There is some debate within Maimon scholarship as to whether the
concept of the infinite mind is a "constitutive idea" or a "regulative
idea" (in Kant's sense of the terms). Cases can be made, especially
when considering Maimon's first book, the Versuch über die
Transcendentalphilosophie on both sides of the issue. Some passages
seem to point toward the infinite mind as something actual, whereas
others point to it as a regulative idea, that is, a goal toward which
we continually progress but that we can never fully attain. However,
it seems that as Maimon's view develops during the 1790's that his
view gravitates more toward the notion of the infinite mind as a
regulative idea. That is, it is an ideal toward which we continually
progress but which we can never fully attain.
5. Intuition
For Kant, there are elements of cognition that are not reducible to
one another: concepts and intuitions. Because Maimon ultimately tries
to reduce matter or content to something rational – namely
differentials – the question arises as to what status intuition has in
his philosophy. His position has many similarities to Leibniz' view of
senation. For Maimon, space and time, ultimately are concepts that
deal pertaining to diversity.
Yet, in order to make sense of Maimon's view of intuition, one must
first understand his view on the role of the imagination
(Einbildungskraft). Human beings, in Maimon's view, possess finite
faculties of cognition, unlike an infinite mind that would have an
infinite faculty of cognition. The infinite mind would not see objects
in terms of a matter or content that was given to it and which has
been taken up, synthesized and, hence, given a form according to
concepts generated by the understanding. Instead, the infinite
understanding would cognize all objects in terms of concepts and
differentials, that is, in a wholly rational or quantitative manner.
Unfortunately, we humans do not cognize, say, the color red or the
flavor of an apple or the sound of middle C played on the piano in
terms of differentials. Aspects of these, their conceptual qualities,
may be described according to categories or there may be rational
aspects of the experience of them. Yet, according to Maimon, we still
cognize the world in terms of form – which is rational and generated
by us – and content – irrational and given to us from somewhere else
or by something else.
Because we do not see the world as an infinite understanding would see
the world, that is, as wholly rationally and quantitatively, we must
have recourse to something else to aid the understanding. This role,
for Maimon, belongs to the imagination . The imagination literally
fills in where the understanding stops. Thus, for example, when we do
not perceive the difference between two objects wholly in conceptual
terms, the imagination fills in by generating intuitions. So, when we
do not see two objects as conceptually different, their difference is
manifested by the imagination in terms of temporal and spatial
differences. Maimon has Leibniz' notion of the identity of
indiscernibles in mind here. (If two objects are identical, then the
must be indiscernible). For Leibniz, if two objects are different,
then there must be a conceptual basis for their difference. This
conceptual difference plays out as a difference in intuition when the
mind that cognizes this difference cannot understand it conceptually.
For Kant, space and time are a priori forms of intuition. Furthermore,
Kant views them as pure forms of intuition. It is possible, on Kant's
view, to think of space and time devoid of all objects or prior to any
objects that fill them out. Conversely, Maimon's conception is much
closer to that of Leibniz, where space and time as intuitions
represent the relations between two or more objects. A space and time
devoid of objects is impossible on his view. Furthermore, space and
time as concepts, upon which the intuitions rest, are simply notions
of diversity. For Maimon, the infinite mind does not or would not
cognize objects either spatially or temporally; the infinite mind's
cognition would stand outside of all space and time.
6. Skepticism and the Quid Facti
Although Maimon formulates a possible solution to the quid juris,
there remains, on his view, an important issue that must be addressed.
Here, again, we return to the issue of the quid juris and its related
problem of the quid facti. In the infamous "Transcendental Deduction"
section of Kant's first Critique, Kant attempts to show how it is
possible for a priori concepts – ones that have their origin in the
understanding – to be able to be united with intuition whose content
arises empirically. On Maimon's interpretation of Kant, Kant's
"solution" to the problem of the quid juris, which has recourse to the
origin and nature of time, fails. According to this interpretation,
one which is not unique to Maimon, because time is a priori and pure,
as a form of intuition, and because time underlies all intuitions, be
they spatial or temporal, time serves as the bridge between a priori
concepts and intuitions, pure or a posteriori. It must be remembered
that from the outset of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claims that
he is attempting to prove how synthetic a priori statements are
possible, not that synthetic a priori statements exist (he simply
assumes this latter point). In other words, he is trying to show how
it can be possible that experience of the world, and in particular
scientific accounts of that experience, can have an a priori, and,
thus, objective ground. Thus, simply put, by looking to mathematics he
assumes that scientific experience, that is synthetic a priori
statements, in fact, do exist. His task, in the first Critique, is to
give an account of how it is possible for this experience to be
objective or, which is the same, to show how there can be synthetic a
priori statements.
Unfortunately, Maimon holds that the quid facti – that there exist
synthetic a priori statements — remains unanswered and that this, in
fact, is really a more serious problem. In other words, Maimon claims
that it is not enough merely to show how it is possible that concepts
of the understanding can come to be connected with so-called
intuitions, that is, something seemingly given from without. Maimon
holds that it still remains to be shown that concepts of the
understanding actually are connected with intuitions. In short, Maimon
questions Kant's basic assumption that scientific experience exists,
that is, that there actually are synthetic a priori statements. Hume,
could be correct, in Maimon's view. That is, we seem to see regularity
in the world and the world seems to operate according to laws (of
physics, biology, chemistry, etc.). However, this does not guarantee
that the regularity that we think we see in the world or the
conformity of events to laws actually has its basis in the laws
themselves (or in the understanding). Hume could be correct that cause
and effect are simply the mind's habit of associating together objects
or classes of objects and this would not make our experience of the
world any different. In the end, the problem of the quid facti still
remains. While it may be the case that there is regularity in our
experience of the world, the does not guarantee as a fact that the
understanding lies as the basis of this regularity, that is, that this
regularity and law-like behavior is objectively valid.
Hence, the highest principles of philosophy and science are still, in
Maimon's strict view, hypotheses. Mathematics is the only discipline
in which both the form and matter of the knowledge involved in the
discipline can be shown to be created according to objectively valid
laws by the understanding. Science and philosophy can and do give us
systems that are internally coherent, but this does not guarantee that
such systems actually map onto the world. The systems that science and
philosophy have given us, perhaps, give good stories as to how the
seemingly regularity of the world has arisen. However, this does not
guarantee that the universe is regular and it also does not guarantee
that any law (especially laws generated by the understanding)
necessitate the world coming to pass as it does. Again, Hume could be
correct and the order that we think that we see in the world could be
the consequence of a habit of the mind.
As a result, scholars are divided on how to understand Maimon's
philosophy on the whole. Some critics claim that as his thought and
writing unfolded in the 1790's, the problem of the quid juris faded
and the problem of the quid facti came more and more into the
spotlight. Such critics tend to understand Maimon's philosophy
ultimately as a skepticism (Kuntze, Erdmann). One critic (Atlas)
thinks that Maimon simply leaves us between the two horns of a
dilemma, extreme rationalism and skepticism. Finally, some critics
(Cassirer, Beiser) think that Maimon may have found a solution to the
two horns of the dilemma or a so-called "middle path." On this
interpretation, Maimon admits that the quid facti is as of yet
resolved. However, at least on Beiser's interpretation, Maimon's
rationalistic model (with the theory of the infinite mind and
differentials) as an ideal to which, step by step, we get closer. We
can never reach this goal, as only an infinite intellect could do so.
However, it is a goal toward which we should and do progress.
7. Transcendental Logic
As does Kant, Maimon holds that transcendental logic is in fact more
basic than formal logic. The problem, on Maimon's view, is that people
traditionally hold logic to be a discipline that is independent from
metaphysics. Maimon shows, however, that formal logic must, in fact,
assume certain facts about reality, and, in particular, about objects.
Hence, transcendental logic is prior to formal logic.
The standard view of formal logic is that it only deals with the form
of judgments and abstracts from any content whatsoever. For example,
the standard view is taken as holding that when one makes the claim
that "If X implies Y and if Y implies Z, then X implies Z," such a
statement is true regardless of what is substituted in for "X," "Y,"
and "Z," respectively. Furthermore, the standard view would be that
the truth of this argument is solely a function of the form of the
argument. According to Maimon, however, the problem with formal logic
is by abstracting wholly from objects, it can only deal with one sort
of diversity: negation. That is, in strict terms, if X is different
from Y, then formal logic can only understand Y in terms of not-X. If
"red" is symbolized by "X," then formally, without any other
assumptions, "blue" can only be symbolized as "not-X." Similarly,
"yellow" can only be symbolized as "not-X," too. Be we know that
yellow is not the same as blue.
Here is where, according to Maimon, transcendental logic underlies
formal logic. Transcendental logic is a logic of content, whereas
formal logic supposedly deals only with form. On Maimon's view, in
order for formal logic to be able to represent a diversity of objects
– that is, in order that "blue" and "yellow" be not both symbolized by
"not-X" and in order for them to be symbolized as, say, "Y," and "Z,"
respectively – then an actual diversity of objects must be assumed.
This requires that the content of "X," "Y," and "Z" must be different,
otherwise, the diversity of anything other than X could only be
represented by "not-X." Hence, Maimon claims that transcendental logic
underlies formal logic and that formal logic must acknowledge that
content does play a role for it.
8. The Principle of Determinability
Maimon shows himself to be a Kantian in spirit, as opposed to in
letter, in the manner in which addresses the issue of logic and its
relation to a system of philosophy and science. Maimon accepts Kant's
suggestion in the first Critique that a true science is one that could
be derived from, and, hence, focused around one primary principle. In
this respect, Maimon follows along the same lines as Reinhold and
Reinhold's "principle of consciousness," for it is Reinhold in
particular who claims that the Kantian philosophy needs to be
systematized so that Kant's claims can all ultimately be deduced from
one main principle.
This principle, which Maimon labels the "principle of determinability"
(Satz des Bestimmbarkeit), is related to his notion of transcendental
logic, discussed above. What this principle, in theory, is supposed to
achieve, is to provide a way for determining when thought is "really"
true versus when it is only "formally" true. As an example, consider
the statement: "all unicorns are one-horned." Most would accept this
statement as true on the basis that if one understands the concept
"unicorn" and the concept "one-horned," then one immediately sees that
the statement must be true. The obvious problem is there are no
unicorns. Hence, such a claim is only formally true and does not
necessarily describe any feature of our world. If unicorns do indeed
exist, then they must be one-horned. Yet, there are strong reasons for
denying the existence of unicorns.
For Maimon, the principle of determinability holds that there is a
determinable (Bestimmbare) that becomes determined by a determination
(Bestimmung). The relationship between these two is one-sided. The
determinable can be thought without the determination, whereas the
determination can only apply to that particular determinable. Another
way to view this is as the relationship between a subject and a true
predicate. On Maimon's account, the relation of determinability exists
when this one-sided relationship holds. If the two can be thought
apart from one-another, then the relationship of determinability does
not exist and the judgment is not real; it is arbitrary. Thus, one
cannot say with accuracy that "the table is sick." Tables do not
become sick and this is shown by the fact that "table" can be thought
apart from "sick" just as much as "sick" can be thought apart from
table. Accordingly, we do not speak – or think – correctly when we say
that "the sick person is pale." Both "sick person" and "pale" can be
thought apart from each other and, hence, no relationship of
determinability exists. To speak and to think properly, one needs to
say that "the sick person's color is pale." Here, a relation of
determinability exists because while one can think of "sick person"
and never call to mind the concept of "paleness," it is impossible to
think of "paleness" without bringing in the concept of color. That is,
"pale" is not a true determination of "sick person," but rather "pale"
is a determination of "color." Likewise, "color" is a determination of
"plane," etc..
It must be remembered that Maimon holds that a subject or a
determinable may only have one predicate or determination at any given
time. As a result, true knowledge of an object would amount to a given
chain of determinations going from the most particular determination
up to the most general. In this respect, Maimon shows the influence of
Leibniz on his philosophy because Maimon's position amounts to the
idea that the principle of sufficient reason now also becomes a
standard or criterion for cognition. Every predicate or determination
must be correctly lined to its proper subject or determinable and in
doing so, one, literally, provides a sufficient reason as to why that
particular determination and not some other must chosen. Thus, in a
true science, we could move from the absolute particular or predicate
all the way up to the most general statement or proposition. In such a
fashion, the principle of determinability serves as a criterion for
knowledge and in this respect Maimon again reflects the influence of
rationalism on his thought.
9. Ethics and Legal Theory
The questions of the quid juris and the quid facti arise in Maimon's
writings on moral theory, too, and these are addressed in a series of
journal articles and book chapters that appear between 1794 and 1800.
In his article, "Versuch einer neuen Darstellung des Moralprinzips und
Dedukzion seiner Realität" ["Attempt at a New Presentation of the
Moral Principle and a Deduction of its Reality"] Maimon claims not to
be offering a new moral principle from that of Kant, but rather a more
cogent deduction of the moral principle. His main criticism of Kant's
deduction of the moral law in the Critique of Practical Reason
concerns Kant's use of the so-called "fact of reason" as a new
starting point from which to begin moral philosophy. Although there
are many different interpretations of what exactly this "fact of
reason" is or entails, Maimon understands it to be the claim that all
people feel themselves to be under moral constraint, which are the
constraints of duty. Maimon agrees that people feel themselves to be
under such moral constraint, but he denies that this moral constraint
is necessarily the same thing as duty. In other words, he holds that
although people may feel a compulsion [Zwang] to behave in a certain
way, compulsion and duty [Pflicht] are, in fact, very different
concepts.
So, Maimon sets out to provide a new foundation for duty. His strategy
is to find something more basic than duty, yet out of which duty can
be derived. He claims to have found this more basic "fact" in what he
sees to be the drive in all humans for the cognition of truth. This
"fact" is proven or guaranteed by the actual human condition (on
Maimon's view) that all humans strive after truth and Maimon assumes
that this is undeniable. Furthermore, on his view, the essence of
truth is universality or universal validity [Allgemeingültikeit]. On
this conception, what makes something true is that fact that all
rational beings, and especially an infinite being, could agree to the
validity of the claim whose veracity is in question. In turn, the
drive toward truth is based on an even more fundamental drive that all
humans have: the so-called "drive toward making all representations
universally valid" [Trieb zur Allgemeingültigmachung der
Vorstellungen.].
Maimon, though, still needs to make an explicit connection between
ethics and cognition. He achieves this insofar as he views reason as
strictly instrumental in nature. In fact, reason and will are not
separate faculties for Maimon. Reason can only tell us if action X is
the best way to arrive at point B from point A, that is, if all people
could, in theory, choose action X as the only means or the best means
for arriving at Point B, as well as if arriving at point B as a goal
is something that does not interfere with the goals of others. The
good action, for Maimon, ends up being the universally valid action,
the one to which all people, in theory, could assent.
Because willing now has a relation to truth, Maimon offers a slightly
different formulation of that moral law than does Kant. His
reformulated moral principle is: "Act so that your will can be thought
of as the will of every rational being." As it turns out, there are
several differences of Maimon's view from that of Kant. First, Kant's
Categorical Imperative focuses on the principle underlying willing –
the maxim – whereas Maimon's moral principle focuses on the act of
willing itself. Second, Maimon literally means that an action would be
wrong if every last rational being were not, at least in theory and
when being rational, able to agree to it. For example, even if society
as a whole wanted a convicted murderer to be put to death, it would be
immoral to put the murdered to death, if this convicted murderer did
not assent to such a punishment. Finally, Maimon holds that one cannot
have duties toward oneself. That is, if one were the last remaining
person on earth, then issues such as gluttony or suicide would no
longer fall within the realm of morality because they would affect no
other person but oneself.. For Maimon, morality becomes an issue only
because of one's relationship to other willing beings.
Parallel to the situation with his epistemology that was mentioned
earlier, Maimon has, with this reformulation of the moral principle,
given an answer to the question of the quid juris. That is, he has
shown how it is possible to ground the moral law. In other words, he
thinks that he has proven how the moral law possibly can affect us.
However, the issue of the quid facti still remains because Maimon
needs to show how, in fact, the moral law actually determines a person
to behave in a certain manner. In this regard, Maimon goes in a
different direction than Kant.
In his moral philosophy, Kant does not want to allow material
principles to determine the will because he worries that any reliance
on material principles amounts to a return to subjectivism. Material
principles are simply principles arising from the content, as opposed
to the form, of a person's basis or reason for acting. To give an
example, if one behaved in a certain manner because one desired
happiness as one's goal or because one wanted physical pleasure, then,
on Kant's view, material principles – happiness or pleasure – would be
the determining ground of the will. Kant worries that all content
turns out to be subjective and, thus, if any content becomes the
"motive" for why a person acts, then that person acts on subjective
grounds. In particular, Kant is worried about feelings (love, hate,
envy) or abstract concepts (happiness, power) or states of mind
(bliss, joy) as determininations of the will because all of these are
"material," and, hence, subjective. In other words, Kant holds that
his version of the moral principle is universally valid specifically
because its universality is derived from the form of the principle and
not from the content of the situation in which one finds oneself. The
only purely moral determining ground for the will, on Kant's view,
must be respect for the moral law. Anything else, such as love,
compassion, etc, however, selfless it may seem to be, always ends up
being subjective. Furthermore, Kant holds that we can only know after
the fact that the moral law has determined one's will and this is
because it causes us pain or hurt, insofar as we did not behave in the
manner in which we had originally desired to behave. Actually, he
links "respect" for the moral law to the displeasure one feels in
behaving against the way in which one wanted to behave.
Maimon finds Kant's position unconvincing because he believes that the
form of an action cannot ultimately serve as the motive for action. In
short, on his view, the understanding or reason can never choose the
ultimate goal for which we act. For Maimon, happiness or pleasure is,
in the end, the reason for which we act. Fortunately, Maimon believes
that there is one type of pleasure that is not subjective and which
can serve as the basis for moral motivation. Loosely following
Spinoza, Maimon believes that every increase in a being's power is
accompanied by a feeling of pleasure [Vergnügen]. True cognition, on
his view, involves the ultimate increase in our power. Thus, every
time a person performs a moral action, an action that is universally
valid, the action is accompanied by a great pleasure. Hence, Maimon
believes that the pleasure involved in moral action can serve as
motivation to be moral and one that is not subjective at all.
As Maimon's philosophy matures over his short writing career, he seems
to move away from the view given above (somewhat paralleling what some
commentators see happening in his epistemological views, too). By the
time of the essay, the "Moral Skeptic" [Der moralische Skeptiker] of
1800, Maimon gives naturalistic account of ethics, seeing it basically
in terms of legality, that is, as a way to protect peace and harmony
between people in society. It seems as if in the domain of ethics that
the issue of the quid facti still bothered Maimon and that he had to
revise his account of why it is and how it is that people behave
morally.
Related to, although different from his ethical theory, Maimon's 1795
essay entitled, "Über die ersten Gründe des Naturrechts" ["On the
First Grounds of Natural Law"] contains the clearest statement of
Maimon's legal theory. (Fichte goes out of his way to mention this
essay in the introduction to his Foundations of Natural Right,
published one year later). Maimon's view is that legality and law aids
in with the application and practice of morality. Often times,
according to Maimon, there are situations in which no decision can be
reached based solely on morality. It is in these cases that legality
must be brought in to resolve the problem. For example, two people
happen to come upon money on the sidewalk. A goodwill attempt to find
the one who lost the money fails. Which of the two people can claim
the money? In this case, morality cannot decide. Both people are
morally justified in taking possession of the money as there is
nothing immoral about one or the other pocketing the money. However,
it is not possible for both to have the money. Law is supposed to aid
such cases by setting down rules on how to resolves such situations.
10. Maimon's Influence
Although Maimon's career as a professional philosopher was short, his
influence on what is now called "German Idealism" was significant. His
acumen was recognized by important figures of the day such as Moses
Mendelssohn, Kant, Kant's student Marcus Herz, Reinhold, and Fichte.
Fichte, in particular, recognized the importance of Maimon's
philosophy and he had written that his "respect for Maimon knows no
bounds" and that later generations would look down on his own times
for not giving Maimon his due. Maimon's notion of logic and of
intuition affected Fichte's philosophy. Fichte's attempt to secure the
critical philosophy from skepticism was as much, if not more, of an
answer to Maimon as it was to Aenesidemus-Schulze, a famous skeptic of
the day. Fichte's conception of the faculty of imagination is a
development on Maimon's view of this faculty. Maimon, as was shown
above, revives rationalist doctrines found in Spinoza and Leibniz –
the notion of an infinite mind, the idea of a complete concept, views
about space and time, etc. – and many of these found their way back
into Fichte's own philosophy. In turn, subsequent idealist thinkers
attempt to refine and ameliorate Fichte's position. In many respects,
the more important link in the development of German Idealism between
Kant and Fichte was Maimon and not Reinhold or J. S. Beck, as the
traditional view holds.
11. References and Further Reading
a. Original Editions of Maimon's Book-Length Works (Chronological Order)
Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie , Berlin: Christian Voß and
Sohn, 1790.
Gibeath Hamore, Berlin, 1791.
Philosophisches Wörterbuch, order Beleuchtung dre wichtigsten
Gegenstände der Philosophie, in alphabetischer Ordnung, Berlin, Johann
Friedrich Unger, 1791.
Salomon Maimons Lebensgeschichte, von ihm selbst geschriebenen
herausgegeben von K.P. Moritz, Berlin, Friedrich Vieweg, 1792-93.
Bacons von Verulams neues Organon . Aus dem Lateinischen übersetzt von
Geog Wilhelm Bartholdy. Mit Anmerkungen von Salomon Maimon, Berlin,
Gottfried Carl Nauck, 1793.
Über die Progressen der Philosophie. Veranlaßt duch die Preisfrage der
köngl. Akademie zu Berlin für das Jahr 1792: Was hat die Metaphysik
seit Leibniz und Wolf für Progressen gemacht? Berlin, Wilhelm Vieweg,
1793.
Salomon Maimons Streiferein im Gebiet der Philosophie, Berlin, Wilhelm
Vieweg, 1793.
Die Kategorien des Aristoteles, Berlin, Ernst Felisch, 1794.
Anfangsgründe der Newtonischen Philosophie von Dr. Pemberton, Berlin,
Friedrich Mauer, 1793.
Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens. Nebst angeh?nten
Briefen des Philateles annesidemus, Berlin, Ernst Felisch, 1794.
Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Geist oder das höhere
Erkenntniß und Willensvermögen, Leipzig, Gerhard Fleischer, 1797.
b. Reprints and Translations of Maimon's Writings (Books & Articles)
Gesammelte Werke, ed. Valerio Verra, Hildesheim, Olms Verlag, 1965-76.
(7 volumes)
The Autobiography of Solomon Maimon, trans. J. Clark Murray,
Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 2001.
Commentaires de Ma?monide, ed. Maurice-Ruben Hayoun, Paris, ?ditions
du Cerf, 1999.
Essai sur la philosophie transcendantale, trans. Jean-Baptiste
Scherrer, Paris, 1989.
"Letter of Philateles to Aenesidemus" trans. George di Giovanni, in
Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian
Idealism, trans. and ed. George di Giovanni, Indianapolis, Hackett
Publishing, 2001.
Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie, ed. Florian Ehrensperger,
Hamburg, Germany: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2004.
c. Book-Length Studies of Maimon
Atlas, Samuel, From Critical to Speculative Idealism: The Philosophy
of Solomon Maimon, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1964.
Bergmann, Samuel Hugo, The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon, trans. Noah
H. Jacobs, Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1967.
Bransen, Jan, The Antinomy of Thought: Maimonian Skepticism and the
Relation between Thoughts and Objects, Dordrecht, Kluwer Publishing,
1991.
Buzaglo, Meir, Solomon Maimon: Monism, Skepticism and Mathematics,
Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002.
Engstler, Achim, Untersuchungen zum Idealismus Salomon Maimons,
Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, Fromann Holzboog, 1990.
Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic, ed. Gideon
Freudenthal, Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003
Gu?roult, Martial, La philosophie transcendantale de Salomon Maimon,
Paris, Soci?t? d'?diton, 1930.
Kuntze, Friedrich, Die Philosophie Salomon Maimons, Heidelberg, Carl
Winter, 1912.
Moiso, Francesco, La filosofia di Salomone Maimon, Milan, 1972.
Zac, Sylvain, Salomon Maimon – Critique de Kant, Paris, ?ditions du Cerf, 1988.
d. Journal Articles and Book Chapters in English on Maimon
Baumgardt, David, "The Ethics of Salomon Maimon," Journal of the
History of Philosophy, 1, 1963, 199-210.
Beiser, Frederick, "Solomon Maimon, " in The Fate of Reason – German
Philosophy from Kant to Fichte, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University
Press, 1987, 285-323.
Franks, Paul, "All or Nothing: Systematicity and Nihilism in Jacobi,
Reinhold, and Maimon, " in The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism,
ed. Karl Ameriks, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, 95-116.
Lachterman, David, "Mathematical Construction, Symbolic Cognition, and
the Infinite Intellect: Reflections on Maimon and Maimonides, "
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 30 1992, 497-522.
Thielke, Peter, "Getting Maimon's Goad: Discursivity, Skepticism, and
Fichte's Idealism ," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 39, 2001,
101-34.
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