Solomon Maimon
Salomon ben Josua Maimon (1754, Sukowiborg/Niasviž, near Mirz, Polish Lithuania – November 22, 1800, Nieder-Siegersdorf, Niederschlesien) was a German philosopher born of Jewish parentage in Belarus. Born Shlomo ben Joshua, he acquired great respect for the twelfth century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and adopted the surname “Maimon.” Educated as a rabbi, Maimon studied German philosophy and raised important objections to the transcendental idealism of Kant. Kant remarked that Maimon alone of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy. Arguing that cognition requires absolute unity of the subject and object, Maimon criticized Kant’s dualism, pointing out that there could not be an external material reality and a separate internal, mental comprehension of it.
Maimon modernized the ideas of Maimonides and proposed the concept of the human mind as an imperfect expression of the infinite divine mind, which was the source of both the form and the matter of knowledge. An object could be known in its completeness by the infinite mind, in which matter and understanding are not comprehended separately. Maimon believed that through scientific progress, human minds would become more adequate expressions of the divine mind. This monistic concept opened new possibilities for German idealism and influenced Schelling, Fichte and Hegel.
Life
Although there are some disputes about the year of Maimon’s birth (around 1754), Salomon Maimon (real name Heimann (Cheiman)) was born and grew up in Mir, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now in Belarus). He was born Shlomo ben Joshua, finished Jewish school in Mir, and learned the Talmud pefectly by the age of nine. He was only twelve when he was married to a girl from Nesvizh, and at the age of fourteen he was already a father and was making a living by teaching Talmud. As a mark of his great respect for the twelfth century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, he adopted the surname “Maimon.” Later he learned some German from books and walked all the way to Slutsk, where he met a rabbi who had studied in Germany and who loaned him German books on physics, optics and medicine which made him determine to study further.
At the age of twenty-five, he left for Germany and studied medicine in Berlin. In 1770 he severed his connection with his orthodox co-religionists over his critical commentary on the Moreh Nebukhim (Guide of the Perplexed) of Maimonides, and devoted himself to the study of philosophy as it was presented by Wolff and Moses Mendelssohn. After many vicissitudes he found a peaceful residence in the house of Count Kalkreuth at Nieder-Siegersdorf in 1790. During the ensuing ten years he published the works which have made his reputation as a critical philosopher. Until 1790 his life was a struggle against difficulties of all kinds. From his autobiography, it is clear that his keen critical faculty was developed in great measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal. It was not until 1788 that he made the acquaintance of the Kantian philosophy, which was to form the basis of his lifework, and as early as 1790 he published the Versuch uber die Transcendentalphilosophie, in which he formulated his objections to the system.
Thought and Works
Maimon seized upon the fundamental incompatibility of a consciousness which can apprehend, and yet is separated from, the object being comprehended (thing-in-itself), and declared that the object of thought cannot be outside consciousness. Concluding that complete or perfect knowledge is confined to the domain of pure thought, to logic and mathematics, he explained the Kantian paradox as the result of an attempt to explain the origin of the given in consciousness. The form of things is admittedly subjective; the "mind" endeavors to explain the material of the given in the same terms, an attempt which is not only impossible but involves a denial of the elementary laws of thought. Real knowledge of a given object is, therefore, essentially incomplete. Thus the problem of the “thing-in-itself” is a philosophical problem, limited to the sphere of pure thought but not applicable to practical knowledge of the material world. The Kantian categories are, indeed, demonstrable and true, but their application to the given (material world) is meaningless and unthinkable. By this critical skepticism Maimon took up a position intermediate between Kant and Hume. He supported Hume's attitude to the empirical, that a causal concept, as perceived through experience, expresses not a necessary objective order of things, but an ordered scheme of perception; it is subjective and cannot be postulated as a concrete law apart from consciousness. The main argument of the Transcendentalphilosophie not only drew from Kant, but also directed the path of most subsequent criticism and created a new direction for German idealism.
Critique of Kant’s “The Thing in Itself “
Immanuel Kant remarked that Maimon alone of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy. In 1791, Maimon wrote in a letter to Kant that while he found the skeptical part of the Critique of Pure Reason wholly convincing, he harbored doubts about the more dogmatic aspects of Kant's system. Maimon’s criticisms involved what he regarded as an internal problem in Kant’s transcendental idealism. Kant accounted for the content of cognition by proposing that the actual object of cognition (the "thing-in-itself") was outside the realm of possible human experience, but caused the sensations through which its content was perceived. Maimon criticized Kant’s dualism, pointing out that there could not be a separate, external material object and an internal, mental form;or a distinction between the mental faculty of understanding and the faculty of sensibility. Maimon argued that cognition required absolute unity of the subject and object. Kant’s cognitive dualism, which began with distinct faculties of sensibility and understanding, failed to explain how the various elements of cognition could come together to realize an experience. Maimon held that the object of cognition (the “thing in itself”) was simply an object of inquiry, not an independent noumenal reality. Maimon agreed with Kant that since human beings are finite beings, restricted by time and space, there were aspects of reality which the human mind could not grasp intuitively, but this did not imply that, in principle, these things could never be an object of cognition. Maimon regarded Kant’s transcendental arguments as “castles in the air” which might be valid, but did not provide the “fact of experience” to prove that they were sound.
Maimon combined rational dogmatism with empirical skepticism. He did not have a criterion for truth outside of human consciousness, and the object of cognition was itself not beyond human cognition. An object was simply the sum of all the predicates attributable to it. Maimon used a distinction, probably borrowed from Mendelssohn, between “presentation” (Darstellung) and “representation” (Vorstellung). When an object was cognized as fully determined, it was known as it truly was, and was a “presentation.” When an object was only partial cognized and not known in all of its determinations, it was a “representation.”
Infinite Mind
Maimon modernized the ideas of Maimonides (1186 – 1237) with his doctrine of the infinite mind. Our finite, human minds are imperfect expressions of the infinite, divine mind that is the source of both the form and the matter of knowledge. An object (the thing-in-itself) would be cognized in its completeness by the infinite mind, in which matter and understanding are not comprehended separately. The human, finite mind would experience the object to the fullest extent possible using sensory data, understanding and the knowledge accumulated about that object through scientific research. Maimon believed that through scientific progress, human minds would become more adequate expressions of the divine mind, able to comprehend reality ever more completely. Perfect science, or complete comprehension equal to that of the infinite mind, was an ideal for which mankind must strive but could never reach. This ideal encompassed the role of empiricism in constantly broadening the human experience. Ultimately, Maimon proposed that Kant could not refute Hume’s skepticism until the ideal of perfect science was reached and all was completely understood. This monistic concept of the human mind as an imperfect expression of the infinite divine mind opened new possibilities for German idealism and influenced Schelling, Fichte and Hegel.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Atlas, Samuel. From Critical to Speculative Idealism: The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965.
- Bansen, Jan. The Antinomy of Thought: Maimonian Skepticism and the Relation between Thoughts and Objects. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991.
- Bergmann, Samuel Hugo. The Autobiography of Salomon Maimon with an Essay on Maimon's Philosophy. London: The East and West Library, 1954.
- Bergmann, Samuel , Hugo. The Philosophy of Salomon Maimon. Translated from the Hebrew by Noah J. Jacobs. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1967.
- Maimon, Solomon. Gesammelte Werke. Volumes 1-7. Edited by V. Verra. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1970.
External links
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
