This paper (written for the ‘300 Year's of Leibniz's Monadology' conference) explores systematic parallels between the criticisms of Kantian cognitive dualism provided by Salomon Maimon within his 'Essay on Transcendental Philosophy' of 1790 and F.W.J. Schelling within his 'General Overview of the Most Recent Philosophical Literature' of 1797. It discusses how both Maimon and Schelling suggest that the difficulties with Kant's cognitive dualism are so severe that they can only be resolved by recourse to a Leibnizian position, in which sensibility and understanding, and matter and form, arise from one and the same cognitive source. It thus shows how Maimon and Schelling – within 1790 and 1797, respectively – sketch systems of transcendental philosophy explicitly modelled on the Leibnizian philosophy, which both of them interpret as claiming that God is immanently contained within the human soul.
In 1790 the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences announced a prize essay contest with the question, What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? Fragments of Immanuel Kant's unfinished response remain. Therein Kant interprets Leibniz as a recent exponent of that theoretico-dogmatic metaphysics which constitutes one pole of the antinomical conflict in which reason reaches a ‘sceptical standstill’ but which his own ‘criticism’ has resolved (see AA vol. 20, 277–292).1 Indeed, Kant described the thesis of the ‘Second Antinomy’ as ‘the dialectical principle of monadology’ (A442/B470). Accordingly he sees Leibnizianism as an illusory metaphysics thoroughly undermined by the Critique of Pure Reason and replaced by his own true metaphysics. This interpretation proved influential, yet was not shared by many of Kant's heirs and successors.
In 1797 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's ‘General Overview of the Most Recent Philosophical Literature’2 considered the Academy's question and criticized the response of one of the joint winners, the Leibnizian, Johann Christoph Schwab. Given his reputation as an Idealist successor of Kant with Spinozistic proclivities, it might surprise us to discover that Schelling criticizes Schwab for failing to laud Leibniz's continuing relevance. ‘The Leibnizian philosophy’ Schelling writes ‘has, perhaps more than any other, its spirit and its letter [ihren Geist und ihren Buchstaben]’ and has ‘suffered’ from both its detractors and supporters focusing upon the latter to the detriment of the former (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 96–97). A focus upon its ‘spirit’ reveals that ‘in regard to the fertility of its ideas’ the Leibnizian system is ‘the only one of its kind that is capable of a truly infinite development’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 99). Schelling justifies this judgement with reference to Leibniz's claim to have found a ‘“perspectival middle-point” from where regularity and agreement can be seen within the chaos of multifarious opinions’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 98).3 He thus credits Leibniz with a view that he himself endorses, namely that we should have before our eyes the ‘idea’ of one true philosophical system – an archetype to which all products of genuine ‘philosophical talent’ approximate (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 97–98). Accordingly, if one possesses ‘philosophical talent’ and thus focuses upon the ‘spirit’ of a genuine philosophical system, one will see it as a member of that one universal system in which all products of philosophical talent are organically united. In this way, Schelling suggests that, far from having been supplanted by Kantian criticism, the Leibnizian system should be reconcilable with Kantianism (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 94). Indeed, Schelling also tells us that ‘in addition to the literal language [Wort-Sprache]’ of Kant's works ‘there also exists a language of spirit [Sprache der Geister]’ and that Kant has been ‘misunderstood’ by both his supporters and opponents because they focused upon the former to the detriment of the latter (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 69; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 68). Whereas Kant had, for the benefit of speculation, separated human knowledge into distinctive components, the lack of ‘philosophical talent’ of both his supporters and opponents, means they are incapable of reuniting what has been separated, and realizing that what has been separated can never be separated in reality (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 77–78; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 73–74). If one possesses ‘philosophical talent’ and thus focuses upon the ‘spirit’ of Kant's work, then, Schelling somewhat controversially suggests, one would reunite that which was separated, and realize that Kant in no way espouses a cognitive dualism in which there is ‘an utter separation’ of understanding and sensibility, ideality and reality, and form and matter, but rather claims that they are in reality one (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 77 & 91; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 73 & 82–83). Schelling thus interprets Kant as claiming that ‘both matter and form must primordially emerge and originate from within ourselves’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 91; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 83).
To account for Leibniz's change of fortune, this article will focus upon the work of another contributor to the Academy's contest, Salomon Maimon. Maimon's contribution, ‘Concerning the Progress of Philosophy', claims to ‘reconcile Leibniz with the Critique of Pure Reason’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 51). This is possible, Maimon contends, since, if correctly understood, Leibniz's monadology is, contra Kant, not a metaphysical doctrine resolving the world into an infinity of simple things in themselves, but rather – like Bonaventura Cavalieri's method of indivisibles within mathematics – a doctrine of ‘fictions', useful for explaining cognition of nature (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 51–54 & 78). This article shows how Maimon drew upon this reading of Leibniz within his earlier Essay on Transcendental Philosophy of 1790, a work which (like Schelling's ‘General Overview’) argues that Kant's (supposed) cognitive dualism is so problematic that it requires Leibnizian resources to be salvaged, to thus offer ‘a coalition-system’ appropriating both Kantian and Leibnizian insights (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1, 557). We shall begin by (1) discussing the problems Maimon locates in Kant's work and then (2) show how the attempt to resolve these difficulties leads him to embrace a Leibnizian position. Finally, (3) we shall see how many aspects of Maimon's resolutions to these problems are appropriated by Schelling in 1797.
Maimon's reading of Kant very much focuses upon his ‘literal language'. According to Maimon, Kant's work rests on a fundamental assumption concerning our relation to the world. Thus, whereas Hume starts from the assumption that we are ultimately only conscious of a subjective sequence of perceptions, Kant starts from the assumption that everyday consciousness is related to both a subjective sequence of perceptions within us and an objective sequence of events in space. The latter consciousness finds expression within the truth-claims of natural science that describe necessary connections within the world and claim objective validity (see B141–142 & AA vol. 4, 298–301). For Maimon, Kant assumes from the outset that the natural scientist is justified in issuing such judgements. He thus writes that ‘Kant presupposes as indubitable the fact that we possess propositions of experience (expressing necessity)’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 186; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 100). And since consciousness of necessarily connected states of affairs constitutes experience (Erfahrung) in Kant's sense, Maimon says Kant simply presupposes that such experience is ‘actual’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 186; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 100) Accordingly, Maimon bemoans the paucity of Kant's response to the question quid facti?, the question concerning whether we actually do possess such experience at all (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 70–71; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 42).
Presupposing that such experience is actual, much of Kant's speculative philosophy is concerned with how it is possible. His answer is that it is conditioned by a priori concepts of the understanding or categories, under which given intuitions are subsumed. He thus answers Hume's claim that the idea of causality arises from our imagination compelling us to believe that constantly conjoined perceptions are necessarily connected, since, according to Kant, causality is one of those a priori categories conditioning experience, and thus it has an objective as opposed to subjective validity (AA vol. 4, 312–313). Kant therefore – according to Maimon – proves the ‘objective reality’ of the categories by showing that they make possible that fact of experience which he presupposed as indubitably actual (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 186; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 100). But while Kant's attention to the question quid facti? may be negligible, the same cannot be said about his attention to the question quid juris?, the question concerning the right with which a priori categories are applied to a posteriori intuitions to make experience possible. According to Maimon, Kant correctly recognizes that it is impossible for a priori categories to be legitimately applied directly to anything given a posteriori, and thus attempts to answer the question quid juris? by identifying something a priori within empirical intuitions that can bridge the gap between a priori categories and the a posteriori given (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 363; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 187). Kant thus identifies time as a form of all intuition, which, insofar as it logically precedes the a posteriori data organized within it, is, like the categories, a priori. For Kant, therefore, we do not directly apply categories to the a posteriori content of empirical intuition, but rather to a particular a priori determination (i.e. transcendental schema) of the a priori form of intuition (i.e. time) in which the a posteriori content of any intuition is organized.
Maimon's divergence from Kant stems from his dissatisfaction with his response to both the question quid facti? and the question quid juris? In response to the question quid facti?, Maimon suggests that Kant's presupposition that the fact of experience is indubitable cannot silence Hume's doubts. Referencing Kant's example of a ‘judgement of experience', that ‘the fire warms (makes warm) the stone', Maimon notes that, for Hume, this proposition only describes an association of ideas that has become subjectively necessary as a result of constant conjunction, and not objectively valid insight into necessary connections in the world – and that the same thing can be said of any ‘judgement of experience’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 72–74; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 42–43). Conversely, Maimon argues that, even if we assume that we have some consciousness of objectively valid states of affairs, we would still need experience of constant conjunction to ascertain which objective states of affairs are necessarily connected. For example, if both (b) warm air and (c) a snowfall are perceived soon after (a) the lighting of a stove, we do not regard b but not c as a necessary consequence of a because c unlike b is a merely subjective state of affairs. It would therefore seem that our conviction that a causes b but not c can only be explained in terms of our previous experience of having found a and b – but not a and c – to be constantly conjoined. But to concede this is to grant Hume's claim. And if the category of causality has no objective reality in any such particular cases, then ‘it would also fail to have objective reality in its use in general, because we would not in fact possess any objective sequences’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 372; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 191). Maimon therefore sees no reason for why Kant's assumption that consciousness is related to both a subjective sequence of perceptions and an objective sequence of events should be privileged over Hume's competing assumption that we are conscious of only subjective sequences of perceptions. Whereas Kant saw the fact of experience as indubitable, Maimon believes that it may be denied.
This sceptical response to the question quid facti? presents a serious challenge. For, Kant does indeed frequently begin arguments with the fact of experience, before separating its distinctive components (e.g. A22/B36). But if we doubt the premises we must doubt the conclusions. Hence we may doubt whether space and time are pure forms of intuition logically preceding the given material content of experience, and also whether the categories possess objective validity. Maimon thus tells us that doubting the fact of experience means that ‘we would have nothing solid to lean on in determining the reality of the categories’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 71; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 42) and thus that ‘I cannot prove their objective validity the way Kant does’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 186; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 100). However, even if we grant Kant's claims concerning experience, Maimon argues that we should still reject Kant's claims concerning the objective reality of the categories, since he also believes that Kant has inadequately answered the question quid juris? – and thus has not provided a completely comprehensible account of how the categories are applicable to intuitions. As we saw, Kant attempts to explain how a priori categories could be applied to the empirical content of intuition by appealing to something which these two heterogeneous elements have in common, namely, temporal determinations. Maimon objects, however, that this supposed solution immediately generates another version of the problem it was intended to solve. For Kant insists that sensibility and understanding are completely heterogeneous faculties, thus meaning that a connection between a priori categories and a priori forms of intuition is, just as much as any connection between a priori categories and the a posteriori given, a connection between two completely heterogeneous elements.
Confronted with Maimon's doubts concerning the fact of experience, we might be surprised to subsequently learn that he is still interested in providing a satisfactory answer to the question quid juris? Maimon is aware, however, that, according to Kant, one must appeal to the supposed connection between understanding and intuitions to explain the possibility of a priori synthetic cognition within mathematics. Maimon agrees with Kant that mathematical propositions are apodictic and also that they are – at least for us – synthetic, but he disagrees with Kant's account of the possibility of such cognition. Maimon distinguishes two senses in which something's possibility can be explained. An explanation of something's possibility can be either ‘the explanation of the meaning of a rule of condition, i.e. the demand that a merely symbolic concept be made intuitive’ or ‘the genetic explanation of a concept whose meaning is already familiar to us’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 58; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 35). Maimon believes that Kant's account of the possibility of mathematical propositions does not succeed in explaining their possibility in the second sense, but merely explains their possibility in the first sense, i.e. in appealing to the fact that mathematical concepts can be ‘constructed’ within intuition. Such an explanation, however, will only satisfy someone convinced by Kant's account of space and time as a priori forms of intuition which specifically precede material content. Anyone unconvinced by this specific claim about intuitions, like Maimon himself, will, in contrast, be unable to appeal to these forms of intuition to explain why any mathematical proposition possesses objective as opposed to subjective necessity. Maimon illustrates this with regard to Kant's example that ‘the straight line between two points is always the shortest’ to suggest that the fact that it can continually be exhibited within intuition in no way explains why this proposition possesses apodictic certainty and objective validity as opposed to a high degree of probability (see Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 364; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 187). To satisfactorily explain this we would have to appeal to the second sense of the explanation of possibility, and explain why the concept of a straight line arises in such a way that the concept of shortness is necessarily connected with it. Maimon thus says that ‘Quid juris? for me means the same as quid rationis?’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 364; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 187). For if we are to explain why the understanding's concept of a straight line is universally found in intuition to be shortest then we need to make comprehensible how the very concept of a straight line is necessarily connected with the predicate of shortness. Maimon is convinced, however, that the only way that such a proposition could possess both apodictic certainty and objective validity is if it were based upon the principle of non-contradiction and therefore analytic – even while, at the very same time, agreeing with Kant that, for us, such propositions are synthetic. Maimon therefore finds himself in the position of being convinced that mathematical truths possess apodictic certainty and, hence, objective validity with respect to our intuitions, while nevertheless being convinced that any apodictically certain, objectively valid truth can only be based upon the principle of non-contradiction; and yet, at one and the same time, even if some acceptable definitions were to render them analytic, he is still convinced that the bulk of our mathematical cognitions are, for us, synthetic. Maimon's positive innovations in the sphere of transcendental philosophy arise as a result of his attempts to resolve this apparent paradox.
In analogy with Kant's supposed procedure of presupposing the fact of experience and then asking how it is possible, Maimon suggests that his own philosophical project arises as a result of starting out from the indubitability of mathematics, and then asking how it can be made comprehensible. He writes:
I also take a fact as ground, but not a fact relating to a posteriori objects (because I doubt the latter) but a fact relating to a priori objects (of pure mathematics) where we connect forms (relations) with intuitions; and because this undoubted fact refers to a priori objects, it is certainly possible, and at the same time actual. But my question is: how is it comprehensible? (Quid juris? for me means the same as quid rationis? because what is justified is what is legitimate, and with respect to thought, something is justified if it conforms to the laws of thought or reason.) Kant shows merely the possibility of his fact, which he merely presupposes. By contrast, my fact is certain and also possible. I merely ask: what sort of hypothesis must I adopt for it to be comprehensible? So my question does not belong to transcendental philosophy. But because my solution is universal, and can accordingly be used in relation to the objects of transcendental philosophy … I therefore think I am justified in introducing it here.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 363–364; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 187)
The hypothesis which Maimon adopts to explain how mathematical propositions can, for us, be both apodictic and synthetic, while, at the same time, any apodictically and objectively valid proposition must be analytic, claims that, for an ‘infinite understanding' which thinks all possible concepts, all apodictic and objectively valid propositions are analytic, while nonetheless appearing synthetic to us on account of our finitude. Accordingly, the fact that ‘the straight line between two points is always the shortest’ is comprehensible on account of it being grounded by the infinite understanding's concept of a straight line, in which the predicate of shortness is necessarily contained (see Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 181; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 97); for us, meanwhile, this proposition remains synthetic on account of the fact that, due to our finitude, we cannot have a complete insight into the concepts thought by an infinite understanding. It is precisely this hypothesis that Maimon believes can be employed within transcendental philosophy to explain the connection between a priori concepts and empirical intuitions. For even though Maimon doubts that we possess ‘experience’ in Kant's sense, he still believes that we require an explanation of the possibility of the ‘experience’ that we do possess, since he believes that even if our experience is constituted by nothing other than a subjective sequence of perceptions, a priori categories in fact serve as conditions of possibility of perception itself (see Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 214–215; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 114).
To overcome the difficulties within Kantian transcendental philosophy, Maimon promulgates a position which he describes as both rational dogmatism and empirical scepticism (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 430–432; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 114). According to his system, there is only one a priori form of thought that has objective validity, namely, the principle of non-contradiction. All other a priori forms are declared to possess only subjective reality, even though their universality means that they ‘serve in exactly the same way as if they had objective reality’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 432–433; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 222). Accordingly, Maimon proposes a philosophical system in which an infinite understanding thinks ‘objects of reason’ of which we can only attain ‘confused representations’ within intuition (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 432; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 222). For the infinite understanding all truths are analytic, although, because of our limitations, the very same truths will frequently appear to us as synthetic. Maimon thus writes that: ‘for the infinite understanding [our] assertoric-synthetic propositions must be apodictic and the apodictic-synthetic propositions analytic’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 93; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 53). In this regard Maimon understands himself as following in Leibniz's footsteps. Indeed, other than himself, Leibniz would be the only philosopher likewise deserving the title of ‘rational dogmatist'. He writes: ‘If I am asked: who are these rational dogmatists? then for the moment I can name no one but myself. But I believe that this is the Leibnizian system (if it is understood correctly)’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 433; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 222). This is the second time within the Essay that Maimon suggests that parallels between his own position and that of Leibniz will only be apparent to those who have correctly understood the latter. And it may well be Kant who is being implicitly reproached for failing to grasp the ‘spirit’ of the Leibnizian system here. Before its publication, after reading the first couple of chapters of the Essay, Kant expressed misgivings about its interpretation of Leibniz that were communicated to Maimon:
[Maimon] seeks … to demonstrate that a priori synthesis can possess objective validity only because the divine understanding, of which our understanding is only a part … is itself the originator of the forms and of the possibility of the things in the world (in themselves). But I very much doubt that this was Leibniz or Wolff's meaning.
(AA vol. 11, 49–50; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 231)
In the two passages in which Maimon suggests that one must ‘correctly understand’ Leibniz in order to realize his proximity to him, both of which were subsequently appended to the manuscript which Kant read, Maimon seemingly retorts that it is he himself, rather than Kant, who has in fact correctly grasped the ‘spirit’ of Leibniz. Accordingly, we may assume that Maimon does read Leibniz as claiming (1) that our understanding is a part of God's understanding4 and (2) that the forms and possibility of things in the world originate with the latter.
To understand Maimon's reading of Leibniz, it is useful to consider some of Kant's remarks in the ‘B Deduction'. When wrestling with the question quid juris?, Kant frequently draws attention to his own doctrine of cognitive dualism by contrasting the twofold nature of the human cognitive faculties with those of a divine being whose ‘understanding … itself intuited’ (B145). Such a ‘divine understanding', possessing intellectual intuition, would constitute a being that ‘would not represent given objects, but through whose representation the objects would themselves at the same time be given, or produced’ (B145),5 and would thus be ‘an understanding through whose representation the objects of this representation would at the same time exist’ (B139). Within the divine understanding there is therefore no distinction between representation and thing and possibility and actuality. Since, for Maimon, the heterogeneity of sensibility and understanding rendered the question quid juris? ‘insoluble’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 63; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38), he is clearly inspired to view the (for Kant) diametrically opposed faculty of ‘an infinite understanding’ which ‘represents everything to itself intuitively [intuitive]’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 65; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38) as providing a clue to a satisfactory answer to that question. ‘Difficulties of this kind', he thus writes, could be ‘overcome’ on the assumption that ‘our understanding is just the same [as the infinite understanding], only in a limited way’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 65; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38).6
Furthermore, if the limited human understanding is just the same as the infinite understanding then it follows that the former's transcendental apperception can, contra Kant, justify the claim that it is an apperceptive monad. For Kant, although I must represent myself as one and the same in my synthesis of the manifold of intuition, this mere representation ‘I think’ accompanying and logically preceding all intuitions in no way justifies the claim that I am a substance that is simple, numerically identical and enduring throughout time. On Maimon's hypothesis that representation and thing are one and the same, however, Kant's objections to rational psychology fall aside, thus allowing Maimon to anticipate Fichte's subsequent claim (four years later) that, effectively, we do possess an ‘intellectual intuition’ of the ‘I'.7 Maimon thus writes:
I maintain that the I is an intuition, indeed even an a priori intuition (because it is the condition of all thought in general). So the category of substance can be applied to it and the question quid juris? does not arise. But if we inquire further: how do I recognize the fact that my I endures in time? Then I reply: because it accompanies all of my representations in a time series. How do I recognize the fact that it is simple? Because I cannot perceive any manifoldness in it. How that it is numerically identical? Because I have cognition of it at different times as one and the same as itself. Kant no doubt objects that perhaps … this is correct only of our representation of the I, but not with respect to this real thing that grounds it. But I have already explained that I hold the representation or concept of the thing to be one and the same as the thing, and that they can only be distinguished through the completeness of the latter with respect to the former. So, where there is no manifoldness, as in this case, the thing itself is one and the same as its representation, and what is valid of the latter must be valid of the former.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 209–210; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 111)
The understanding of such an apperceptive monad is limited, however, because in its consciousness of all things other than itself, its representations only partially correspond to – and are hence ‘incomplete’ in comparison with – things themselves. This occurs because consciousness is always necessarily related to a manifold which it must synthesize. Maimon thus writes that ‘the condition of our thought (consciousness) in general is unity in the manifold’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 16; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 13) since ‘without synthesis no consciousness is possible’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 349; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 181). Any actual and determinate object of consciousness must therefore ultimately consist of different ‘elements', which, qua ‘elements', cannot themselves be objects of consciousness and are thus appropriately referred to as ‘ideas'. To distinguish them from Kant's ‘ideas of reason', Maimon calls them ‘ideas of understanding’ and says that they are distinguished from the former on account of the fact that ‘we must presuppose their existence in us for any determined consciousness’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 350; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 181). A straight line of determinate length can thus be an actual object of consciousness for the human understanding, but the human understanding can never attain consciousness of the infinitesimally small elements within which such a straight line must ultimately be resolved (through differentiation). For us such infinitesimals are only ‘ideas’ or ‘limit concepts'. As such our understanding remains ‘incomplete'. However, the infinite understanding's concept of a straight line and the straight line itself are one and the same. Indeed, the infinite understanding's concept of a straight line is, for Maimon, that very infinitesimally small element from which our imagination constructs through continual repetition (integration) any determinate straight line. And it is precisely this metaphysical picture which Maimon uses to answer the question quid juris? in respect of pure mathematics. Because ‘the infinite thinking being thinks all possible concepts all at once with the greatest completeness without any admixture of sensibility', for this understanding the proposition that, for example, ‘the straight line between two points is always the shortest’ is analytic (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 183; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 98). The limited human understanding can, however, merely be conscious of determinate straight lines and is ‘not conscious of the concepts contained within sensibility’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 182; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 98). As such, although we can continually exhibit within intuition the apodictic truth that ‘the straight line between two points is always the shortest', for us this truth remains synthetic. Maimon thus writes that ‘the faculty of intuition … conforms to rules, but does not comprehend rules’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 34–35; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 23). Against Kant, therefore, he argues that spatio-temporal intuition cannot ground the apodictic certainty of mathematical propositions, and that our need to appeal to such intuition simply demonstrates our imperfect comprehension of their true ground. He thus writes that ‘synthetic propositions … derive their existence from the incompleteness of our concepts’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 65; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38) and that ‘for us sensibility is incomplete understanding’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 183; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 98). The fate of human consciousness is thus merely to be able to partially grasp, by means of intuition, the concepts thought by an infinite understanding. We can thus see that to resolve the question quid juris? Maimon believes it necessary to depart from the Kantian system and return to Leibniz. He thus writes:
How can the understanding subject something (the given object) to its power (to its rules) that is not in its power? In the Kantian system, namely, where sensibility and understanding are two totally different sources of our cognition, the question is insoluble as I have shown; on the other hand in the Leibnizian-Wolffian system, both flow from one and the same cognitive source (the difference lies only in the degree of completeness of the cognition) and so the question is easily resolved.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 63–64; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38)
Maimon also believes that the hypothesis he adopts to make comprehensible pure mathematical cognition, can also be employed within transcendental philosophy to explain how we can legitimately connect a priori concepts with empirical intuitions to constitute, even if not ‘experience’ in Kant's sense, our consciousness of empirical objects and the alterations they undergo.
Firstly, Maimon argues that, since the infinite understanding thinks all possible concepts, and, in doing so, all possible relations between them, it thinks of concepts (a) in terms of identity and difference, as (b) in a relation of dependency (in accordance with which one is thought as determinable and another as a determination) and as (c) within relations of reciprocal determination. The (b) synthesis of determinable and determination describes the relation between subject and predicate, in which we find one term (i.e. the determinable) that can be thought ‘either in itself or in another synthesis’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 84; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 49) and another term (i.e. the determination) that can only be thought in reference to the former (i.e. the determinable). In the (c) synthesis of reciprocal determination, on the other hand, we find two terms which cannot be thought without reference to one another, where ‘each is at the same time subject and predicate in relation to the other’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 85; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 50). Concerning (c) the latter, Maimon writes:
an infinite understanding thinks all possible things by this means. For an infinite understanding everything is in itself fully determined because it thinks all possible real relations between the ideas as their principles. For example, let us suppose that x is a function of y, y a function of z, etc. A necessary relation of x to z etc. arises out of these merely possible relations. Through this new function, x is more determined than before, and through being related to all possible relations, it is completely determined.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 86–87n; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 50n)
This clearly parallels Leibniz's claims that God thinks all monads within a pre-established harmony and that by means of this ‘each simple substance has relations that express all the others’ (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 220). Furthermore, Maimon's claim that, for our finite understanding, the (c) synthesis of reciprocal determination ‘is a mere form that (viewed in itself and apart from its application to a determined object of intuition) does not determine any object’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 86n; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 50n) clearly parallels Leibniz's claim that ‘in simple substances the influence of one monad over another can only be ideal, and can only produce its effect through God's intervention’ (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 219).
Secondly, Maimon argues that these very same concepts (which exist within the three aforementioned relations) serve as infinitesimally small elements or differentials from which the imagination of a limited understanding constructs empirical intuitions (through a process akin to mathematical integration). It is thus the repetition and synthesis of these elements, in accordance with spatio-temporal forms, that generates our empirical intuitions. But in order for us to understand these empirical intuitions as perceptions of real determinate objects subject to alteration, it is necessary for us to apply the categories of substance and accident and cause and effect. For Maimon, the understanding's application of categories is perfectly legitimate because it applies them neither to the empirical intuitions as such nor to their spatio-temporal structure, but rather to the elements from which these intuitions are constituted. And since these elements are concepts for an infinite understanding and our categories are reflections of the very same relations in which the infinite understanding thinks all concepts – the (b) synthesis of determinable and determination corresponding to our concepts of substance and accident and the (c) synthesis of reciprocal determination corresponding to our concept of cause and effect – Kant's problem concerning the heterogeneity of the subsumed and the subsuming falls away, so that thought and intuition can be here said to be quite legitimately bound together. Maimon thus writes:
The metaphysically infinitely small is real because quality can certainly be considered in itself abstracted from all quantity. This way of considering it is also useful for resolving the question quid juris? because the pure concepts of the understanding or categories are never directly related to intuitions, but only to their elements, and these are ideas of reason [i.e. ideas of understanding] concerning the way these intuitions arise; it is through the mediation of these ideas that the categories are related to the intuitions themselves. Just as in higher mathematics we produce the relations of different magnitude themselves from their differentials, so the understanding (admittedly in an obscure way) produces the real relations of qualities themselves from the real relations of their differentials. So, if we judge that fire melts wax, then this judgement does not relate to fire and wax as objects of intuition, but to their elements, which the understanding thinks in the relation of cause and effect to one another.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 133; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 74)
Maimon's Leibnizian claim that sensibility is incomplete understanding inevitably leads him to also promulgate a Leibnizian conception of time and space, in which these ‘forms of intuition’ are, contra Kant, conceived as ‘concepts of the understanding of the connections and relations of things in general’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 64; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 38). He thus writes that ‘I speak … as a Leibnizian who treats time and space as universal undetermined concepts of reflection that must have an objective ground’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 133; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 74). This objective ground is the manifold of concepts or things existing within an infinite understanding. Since human thought or consciousness is a ‘synthesis', it only emerges insofar as the aforementioned elements are conceived by the understanding as different, and are thus subsumed under the understanding's pure concept of difference. In order that this difference can be perceived, however, these different elements must be ‘ordered’ by the imagination. That is to say, repetition or integration must occur so that these different elements become, for us, different sensible objects. This ordering process, however, universally occurs within a spatio-temporal form. Much follows from this: Firstly, it follows that, contra Kant, we should not conceive of space and time as pure forms of intuition which logically precede the sensible data organized within them, but rather conceive of the space and time which we intuit as arising as a result of the imagination's organization of that sensible data; and secondly, it follows that any perceptual field must contain a diversity of perceptual data in order for us to be conscious of it at all. Both points are illustrated by the following passage:
Kant … only proves that space is a universal concept, not that it is an a priori one (according to my definition). By contrast, I claim that as intuition space is a schema or image of the difference between given objects, that is, a subjective way of representing this objective difference, a difference that is a universal form or necessary condition of thinking things in general; without this objective difference it would be an empty space, i.e., a transcendent representation without any reality (as when I imagine an homogenous object in space, without relating it to something heterogeneous). So, considered in itself, space is indeed a universal concept but not an a priori one; only when considered in relation to what it represents (difference) is it an a priori concept, namely because difference pertains to all things; or all things must be – or must be thought as – different from one another: for it is just this that makes them all things.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 179–180; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 96–97)
Space and time are therefore originally concepts of the difference between things, but Maimon claims that one can concede this point without necessarily falling foul of Kant's objections to this Leibnizian conception, by stressing that the intuited space and time generated by the imagination (as the schema of the concept of difference) are just as universal as they were for Kant.8 Of course, qua intuitions, space and time remain, for Maimon, just as subjective as they were for Kant, although they nevertheless possess a real or objective ground which would remain even if our capacity for intuition were annihilated. As such, Maimon describes his position as one that lies between the extremes of transcendental idealism and transcendental realism (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 204–206; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 108–109): He is not a transcendental realist insofar as he is certain that no determined objects could exist independently of his faculty of intuition, but he is not a transcendental idealist insofar as he does not deny that something determinable could exist independently of his faculty of intuition. For, divorced from this faculty, the ideas thought by the understanding would still remain. And it is precisely such an intermediary position which he claims to find in Leibniz. He thus writes that ‘I could … easily show that [my] system agrees very precisely with the Leibnizian one (if this system is correctly understood)’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 206; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 110).
We thus see how Maimon reconciles Leibniz's monadology with Kantian criticism. Leibniz's God is clearly conceived by Maimon as a being possessing ‘intellectual intuition’ in the Kantian sense. Therefore, for Maimon, any distinction between God's concepts and God's actualized possibilities is merely a distinction of reason. Accordingly, Maimon's monads are not things in themselves, but concepts contained within understanding, which although grasped completely by God's understanding, are nonetheless grasped incompletely by us. Hence, within our limited understanding, these monads constitute the infinitesimally small elements from which our perceptions emerge. And therefore, as Leibniz stressed, the empirical content of our perceptions can in no way be accounted for in terms of a causal affection on the part of things independent of us. Likewise, according to Maimon, the same denial of the affective origin of the empirical content of perceptions is present within Kant:
Kant very often uses the word ‘given’ in connection with the matter of intuition; by this he does not mean (and nor do I) something within us that has a cause outside us … hence ‘given’ signifies only this: a representation that arises in us in an unknown way.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 203; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 108)
Maimon adds that since ‘space itself is only a form within us’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 203; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 108) it would be incoherent to talk of a cause outside us in a spatial sense – and about this Kant would certainly agree (see, e.g. A373). He goes on to argue, however, that since time is likewise within us, it would be incoherent to employ the category of causality to even think the source of the material content of our intuitions. Accordingly, for Maimon, there exist only concepts and perceptions within an understanding, and it would be incoherent to even talk of things in themselves supplying the given material content of perception:
For Kant, the given representation cannot signify what has a cause outside the faculty of representation because it is unthinkable that we can have cognition of the thing in itself (noumenon) as a cause outside the faculty of representation, since in this case the schema of time is lacking.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 415/419; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 213)
For Maimon, therefore, ‘differentials of objects are the so-called noumena’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 32; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 21).
In 1797 Schelling can also be seen as reconciling Kantian criticism with Leibnizian monadalogy. Schelling is well-known for his constant changes in philosophical position and also for the affinity of his thought with that of Spinoza. When considering his career as a whole, one would inevitably have to conclude that he was far more of a Spinozist than a Leibnizian. Nevertheless, around 1797, Leibniz was at least as – if not more – important for him.
While Schelling's earliest works do not betray an especially high regard for Leibniz (see Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 2, 110 & 140–145), in a letter to Jacob Hermann Obereit of 12 March 1796, Schelling is decidedly critical of him:
I believe that Leibniz actually marks the beginning of philosophy's middle-ages (although the Scholastics had already paved the way for this), because in philosophy one then began to make the Absolute into a merely abstract being, and to consider God, not as the being of all beings, but rather (in the popular manner) as being outside of all beings.
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. III, 1, 46)
This negative assessment was a response to Obereit's far more enthusiastic reception of Leibniz, who he saw as a precursor of Schelling's own position (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. III, 1, 36–37). It is possible that Obereit nevertheless provoked Schelling soon afterwards to enter into a more thorough study of Leibniz and to reconsider his relation towards him.9 In any case, Schelling's ‘General Overview’ announces that ‘the time has come to understand Leibniz. For surely he must not be understood as he has been understood thus far’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 170; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 132). Leibniz's importance for Schelling during this period is also reflected in a letter to Niethammer of 4 August 1797, in which Schelling discusses a proposed work entitled Philosophische Parallelen, which he says would ‘begin with an interpretation of the Leibnizian philosophy’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. III, 1, 134), as well as his claim within his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature that ‘the time has come when [Leibniz's] philosophy can be re-established’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 5, 77; Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, 16). The question concerning Maimon's influence on Schelling during this period is difficult to determine. Within Vom Ich als Princip of 1795, Schelling praises Maimon for his critical destruction of Reinhold's Grundsatzphilosophie (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 2, 137; see also: Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 1, 267) and his penetrating analysis of the nature of infinite judgements (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 2, 151), thus proving his engagement with Maimon's Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie der Denkens of 1794. Although it is most probable that he knew of it, there is no explicit evidence to suggest that Schelling similarly engaged with the Essay. Nonetheless, we can still find remarkable systematic parallels between Maimon's position in 1790 and Schelling's position in 1797.
In the ‘General Overview', Schelling explicitly states that its interpretation of Kant is not intended to present what Kant himself had actually ‘intended with his philosophy but merely [to provide] what … he had to have intended if his philosophy was to prove internally cohesive’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 107; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 84). Like Maimon, Schelling argues that if Kant is understood as a cognitive dualist – asserting ‘an utter separation of the understanding and sensibility’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 77; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 73)10 – then his philosophy cannot be ‘internally cohesive'. As Schelling notes, Kant's cognitive dualism amounts to the claim that ‘the form of our cognitions originates within ourselves, whereas its matter is given to us from the outside’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 82; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 76). Echoing Maimon's criticisms of Kant's answer to the question quid juris?, Schelling proceeds to argue that, on this assumption, it remains incomprehensible as to how the understanding's categories can be legitimately applied to the data passively received by sensibility. He writes:
For [Kant's disciples] the world and all reality prove primordially alien to our spirit [Gesite], and the world bears no affinity to the spirit other than that of an accidental [zufällige] affect. Nevertheless such a world, although for them it is merely accidental and thus might just as well be different, they claim to govern with laws that – they neither know how nor whence – have been implanted in their understanding. As the supreme legislators of nature [and] with the full consciousness that the world is composed of things in themselves, they impose these concepts and laws of understanding onto these things in themselves … and this world of eternal and determinate nature obeys their speculative decree … A more ridiculous or preposterous system has hardly ever been thought out.
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 78–79; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 74)
Schelling then proceeds to argue that, because such a system would render contingent the affinity between the world and the understanding's laws, it could not prove that we possess cognition of a law-governed nature as opposed to a merely subjective sequence of perceptions, which, due to laws of association, gives us the illusion of insight into a law-governed reality. Thus, also like Maimon, Schelling raises the question quid facti? and, in this regard, evokes Hume's scepticism:
Our understanding is supposed to have imposed [these laws] onto nature as something completely heterogeneous. Hume, the sceptic, first had claimed what is now being attributed to Kant. Yet Hume readily admitted that all natural sciences amount to deception, [and] that all laws of nature constitute but a routine [Gewohnheiten] of our imagination. This was a consistent philosophy. And Kant is supposed to have done no more than repeat Hume so as to now render him, who had been consistent, inconsistent?
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 79; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 78)
Schelling is thus convinced that, if transcendental philosophy is intended to account for the legitimacy of our claims to possess a priori cognition of nature, it cannot proceed from the standpoint of cognitive dualism.
It is in the process of reconfiguring transcendental philosophy to exclude such pernicious dualisms that Schelling has recourse to the resources of Leibnizian philosophy. Whereas Maimon, in order to explain the possibility of a priori cognition, had recourse to an ‘infinite understanding', Schelling has recourse to – what he describes as – an ‘infinite spirit’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 79; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 78) or ‘absolute subject’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 85; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 78). This infinite spirit acts upon itself to become a finite object for itself, or, in other words, intuit itself (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 141; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 112). Qua intuiting, spirit is infinite and expansive; qua intuited, spirit is finite and contractive. An ‘absolute simultaneity of the infinite and the finite’ writes Schelling ‘contains the essence of an individual nature (of selfhood [Ichheit])’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 86–87; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 79. See also Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 5, 91; Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, 16). And this individual ‘I’ (the product of spirit's self-intuition) is explicitly conceived as a windowless monad. Schelling thus tells us that ‘the human spirit is of an organic nature, nothing will enter it mechanically from the outside’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 113; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 92) and that ‘primordially, we possess neither an intuition of things outside ourselves nor, as some have taught, in God, but … we intuit them exclusively within ourselves’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 118; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 95). Schelling thus claims that infinite spirit produces finite spirits which intuit a world within themselves, in an analogous manner to how Leibniz claimed that God produces monads with their own perceptions of a world. Indeed, Schelling explicitly equates his view that ‘the world itself consists only of this expansion and contraction of the spirit’ with Leibniz's ‘image of a perpetual creation’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 123; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory). In re-appropriating this Leibnizian position, however, it is clear that Schelling believes that, if we are to focus upon the ‘spirit’ as opposed to the ‘letter’ of his philosophy, we must not understand the Leibnizian God as a ‘being outside of all beings', but rather, like Maimon, see the apperceptive monad as a limitation of the infinite spirit – and, conversely, sees the divine as immanently contained within ourselves. That Schelling came to read Leibniz in such a manner is suggested by the following passage, which implies that Leibniz – just as much as Spinoza and Maimon – conceived of the human soul as a limitation of an immanent God:
[Spinoza's] system was the first bold outline of a creative imagination, which went over from the infinite in idea to the finite in intuition. Leibniz came, and went the opposite way. [ … ] The first thought from which he set out was: ‘that the representations of external things would have arisen in the soul by virtue of her own laws as in a particular world, even though nothing were present but God (the infinite) and the soul (the intuition of the infinite)’.
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 5, 76–77; Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, 15–16)
Schelling also argues that it is only insofar as God is conceived in such a way – as a being who creates the world through ourselves – that we can explain our cognition of this world:
even if we understand the origin of a world external to ourselves, we still do not understand how the representations of this world could have entered into our consciousness. In the last effort, then, it had to be explained not how external things could have originated independently of ourselves – (for of these we cannot have any knowledge, since they themselves are the ultimate substratum for any explanation of external phenomena) – but how a representation of these [things] could have originated within us.
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 83; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 77)
If the world consists of things in themselves created by a transcendent God, accounting for the possibility of a priori cognition of the world would indeed embroil the Kantian cognitive dualist within the aforementioned problems Schelling discusses. Adopting the Leibnizian view, however, the problem falls away. Accordingly, for Schelling, ‘nature is nothing different from [its] laws’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 79; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 75). Similarly, by adopting this Leibnizian position, Schelling, like Maimon, also rejects the Kantian view that ‘we … simply bring along [the] forms [of space and time] as something finished and ready made for the purpose of intuition’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 73; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 71). Space and time are instead declared to be ‘modes of activity of our subject’ (Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 74; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 72) – the former corresponding to the infinite and expansive, the latter corresponding to the finite and contractive – in accordance with which the transcendental imagination generates intuitions of finite objects. Thus, anything that is an object exists only for a subject, for objects are generated by the imagination's synthesis of that which is created ex nihilo through the infinite spirit's original act of self-intuition. Accordingly, also as in Maimon, the material content of intuition is not to be explained by the affection of things in themselves:
If [Kant's doctrine of the transcendental synthesis of imagination] had been understood, the chimera that has tormented our philosophers for so long – viz. the things in themselves … would have disappeared like mists of the night dispelled by the light of the sun. It would have been recognized that nothing can be real unless there is a spirit to know it. For Leibniz ‘things in themselves’ were something quite different. Leibniz did not know of any other being other than one that knows itself or is known by a spirit [das sich selbst erkennt oder von einem Geiste erkannt wird]. The latter he considered strictly as appearance. Yet he did not turn into a dead, selfless object what exceeded mere appearance. For that reason he invested his monads with the capacity for representation and turned them into mirrors of the universe, into knowing [erkennenden], representing, and precisely to that extent not ‘knowable [erkennbaren]’ and ‘representable’ beings.
(Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 75–76; Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 72)
Therefore, for Schelling, just as little as for Maimon, Leibniz's monadology is not to be understood as a metaphysics resolving the world into an infinity of simple things in themselves. Hence, according to Schelling, a focus upon the ‘spirit’ (as opposed to the ‘letter’) of the work of Leibniz and Kant reveals that both systems can be reconciled.
Kant may well have understood Leibniz's monads as things in themselves thought by means of transcendental ideas, but, as we have seen, some of his successors provided other interpretations. Maimon and Schelling introduce monadologies as necessary hypotheses for explaining our capacity for a priori cognition of the world, with the result that their monads could be said to likewise be transcendental conditions of the possibility of our knowledge and experience. For both Maimon and Schelling, therefore, Leibnizian monadology can not only survive the onslaught of Kantian criticism, but even provides the latter with a vitally important source of support.
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Freudenthal, Gideon, ed. Salomon Maimon: Rationalist Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003.
Kant, Immanuel. Gesammelte Schriften. Edited by Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900ff.
Kant, Immanuel. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992ff.
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1 Kant's works are cited according to the Akademie Ausgabe (AA) (i.e. Kants, Gesammelte Schriften) pagination with the exception of the Critique of Pure Reason for which the standard A/B pagination is provided. In all cases the Kant, Cambridge Edition translations have been followed.
2 This was originally published in instalments in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten between February 1797 and November 1798. A slightly abridged and amended version reappeared within Schelling's Philosophische Schriften of 1809 with the title Abhandlungen zur Erläuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre. The second version of the text is translated in Pfau, Idealism and the Endgame of Theory, 62–138.
3 Schelling is here referencing a passage from Leibniz's Recueil de div Pieces par des Maizeaux (see Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 327).
4 On occasions Maimon explicitly casts doubt upon the idea that Leibniz himself conceived the human soul as possessing a substantiality separable from God's (e.g. Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 414). Nonetheless, this claim that our understanding is a ‘limitation’ of the divine understanding seems to have closer affinities with Spinoza. Yitzhak Y. Melamed argues that Maimon was primarily a Spinozist ‘cautiously’ masquerading as a Leibnizian. While it cannot be denied that Spinoza also influenced Maimon, it is possible that Melamed somewhat overstates his case. Indeed, it must be observed that, even while making the Spinozistic claim that the human understanding is a part of God's understanding, Maimon nonetheless, unlike Spinoza, remains an idealist, suggesting, like Leibniz, a thorough reduction of all things to thought (Melamed, ‘Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism', 75). Even if, as Melamed demonstrates (‘Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism’, 76–77), idealist misconstruals of Spinoza were prevalent within the eighteenth century, the fact that Maimon does not attribute extension to God may make us question the extent of Spinoza's influence upon him. Furthermore, Melamed admits that ‘Maimon did adopt some important doctrines from Leibniz’ (‘Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism’, 93) and as an example refers to the theory of differentials introduced to resolve the quid juris? problem within the Essay. The truth of the matter is most probably that which is suggested by Maimon's description of the latter as containing a ‘coalition-system’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1, 557) appropriating the insights of Hume, Kant, Spinoza and Leibniz. The continental rationalist aspect of his thinking is shaped by both Spinoza and Leibniz, and the influence of the latter is at least as great – if not greater – as the influence of the former. Indeed, when describing how the world exists for an understanding of which ours is only a part, Maimon writes that ‘this is … the point at which Leibnizians [and] Spinozans … can be united’ (Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 208; Maimon, Essay on Transcendental Philosophy, 110).
5 See also AA vol. 5, 401–403. For a detailed account of Kant's conception of intellectual intuition see Förster, The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy, 141–152.
6 In his ‘Concerning the Progress of Philosophy’ Maimon suggests that in mathematical reasoning we can attain some insight into the operation of such a divine understanding – and explicitly equates his views on this matter with the true ‘spirit’ of Leibniz. He writes:
God … does not think discursively as we do, rather his thoughts are at the same time presentations [Darstellungen]. If one objects that we have no concept of such a manner of thinking then I answer, we do actually have such a concept since we ourselves partially possess it. All concepts of mathematics are thought by it and at the same time presented as real objects through construction a priori. We are therefore in this respect similar to God [ … ]. God … thinks all real objects … (although certainly in a more complete manner) as we think the objects of mathematics, i.e. he brings them about at the same time by his thinking.
(Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 42)
7 Fichte refers to the immediate intuition that he believes constitutes I-consciousness (i.e. the consciousness that I am) as intellectual intuition within his review of Aenesidemus of 1794 and Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre of 1797/98. He employs this term to capture how, in I-consciousness, there is no distinction between the intuited and intuitant. It seems that a case could be made for claiming that Fichte follows Maimon (for whom he expressed admiration) in claiming that, in regard to I-consciousness, there is – in one sense – no distinction between representation and thing. We must, however, add the caveat that Fichte himself resisted the ascription of ‘thinghood’ or ‘substantiality’ to the ultimate nature of subjectivity. For further information about the relationship between Maimon and Fichte, see Freudenthal, Salomon Maimon, 233–248.
8 In an insightful discussion of Maimon's conception of space and time, Peter Thielke notes that Maimon's ‘position escapes the obvious objections Kant levels against the Leibnizian explanation of space and time, while retaining the general tenor of the rationalist party line’ (Freudenthal, Salomon Maimon, 90).
9 That Schelling entered into a study of Leibniz within this period has been suggested by Manfred Duner. See Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 5, 16–17.
10 Following this passage, the editors of the Historisch-kritische Ausgabe invite comparison with §697 of Ernst Platner's Philosophische Aphorismen nebst einigen Anleitungen zur philosophischen Geschichte of 1793. In this section, which is headed ‘throughgoing separation of the sensibility from the understanding and the intuition from the concept’ (as qtd. in Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 315), Platner questions the grounds for Kant's cognitive dualism, and within this context refers to Maimon's Essay, writing: ‘Maimon, otherwise a friend of the Kantian system, finds this separation unnatural; Transcendental Philosophy, pp. 63, 183’ (as qtd. in Schelling, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, vol. I, 4, 316).