Beiser's Neo Kantians (9): Other Figures

In Beiser’s account the neo Kantian revival is not the work of a few great names erupting in the 1870s. It is a gradual, uneven reawakening stretching over decades, involving many thinkers who are usually left out of mainstream histories. Some were university teachers, some were critics of materialism, some were historians of philosophy, some were psychologists, and some were independent scholars writing for a wider audience. Beiser treats them as the connective tissue of the movement. Without them the revival would never have taken the shape that later became the Marburg and Baden schools.

One of the earliest of these is Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg. He is sometimes remembered for his long dispute with Kuno Fischer over the interpretation of Kant’s theory of space and time. Beiser uses him, however, to show something more subtle. Trendelenburg tries to preserve what he sees as the Aristotelian insight that thought and being must share some structure. He argues that Kant may have overlooked a possibility: that space and time are not merely forms of intuition but also reflect something real in the world. Trendelenburg’s concern is that if we treat space and time as purely subjective we risk losing the connection between knowledge and reality. For Beiser the importance of Trendelenburg lies in the way he sharpens the question of how far the critical philosophy can go in separating appearance from the thing in itself. He pushes neo Kantianism to say clearly what kind of realism it can preserve. 

Imagine looking through a coloured lens and saying, since the lens is ours, nothing about the external world can share the colour. Trendelenburg replies that the lens may colour what we see, but the world might still genuinely have that colour. His role in Beiser’s story is to insist that the alignment between our forms of thought and the structure of reality is not something we should give up too quickly.

Another lesser known figure is Johannes Volkelt, whom Beiser takes seriously because he represents a line of thought that emphasises the limits of knowledge with great rigor. Volkelt argues that Kant’s insight into the limits of cognition must be extended further than Kant himself allowed. He believes that even the forms of experience that Kant takes for granted require a deeper grounding than critical philosophy has supplied. This makes Volkelt appear almost like an anti metaphysical sceptic, yet his purpose, as Beiser explains, is to defend philosophy by clarifying what it can and cannot do. Volkelt becomes a conscience of the movement, a reminder that the temptation to smuggle in metaphysical claims under the cover of critique must be resisted. 

Beiser also attends to Rudolf Hermann Lotze, who does not usually appear on neo Kantian lists but whose influence on the development of critical philosophy is undeniable. Lotze tries to reconcile the mechanistic worldview of the natural sciences with the personal and value laden world of human experience. He insists that values, meanings and purposes are not reducible to physical facts. Although Lotze does not call himself a neo Kantian, Beiser treats him as an important precursor. His insistence that values belong to the fabric of reality influences later thinkers like Windelband and Rickert. Lotze thus stands at the crossroads of psychology, metaphysics and value theory. If the world were a book of facts, Lotze keeps reminding us that it is also a book of meanings, and that understanding meanings requires rules other than those used to read facts.

Another significant figure is Friedrich Überweg, a historian of philosophy who plays a role similar to Zeller but with a distinctive emphasis. Überweg used handbooks that present Kant not as the final word in philosophy but as the starting point for modern critical thought. He gives many young students their first systematic introduction to Kantian ideas. For Beiser this is crucial. Philosophical movements need not only innovators but also those who create the intellectual climate in which innovations can take root. Überweg helps normalise the view that Kant is the frame of reference against which all contemporary philosophical claims must be measured. He is the kind of teacher who gives you the basic map before you attempt the difficult terrain.

Beiser draws attention as well to Friedrich Harms, another figure in the transitional generation. Harms tries to reconcile Kant with a modest realism, arguing that although all knowledge depends on our faculties, this does not prevent us from also affirming the existence of a mind independent world. Harms worries that some readings of Kant make the world too thin or too internal. His position, as Beiser presents it, is that critical philosophy is compatible with a robust belief that we are genuinely in contact with reality, even if our access is always mediated. This provides a counterweight to the more idealistic or psychologistic tendencies in the early revival. Harms contributes by insisting that philosophy must not let its account of knowledge sever the tie between thought and world entirely.

Beiser also mentions Christian Hermann Weisse, whose influence is more indirect. Weisse attempts to combine Kantian critique with a kind of theistic metaphysics, proposing that the limits of knowledge point toward a divine ground. He does not belong to the organised neo Kantian schools, yet his work shows the range of directions in which Kant could be taken. Beiser includes him to illustrate that the revival was not clean and linear. The early decades saw competing interpretations of what Kant’s limits on knowledge implied for religion and metaphysics. Weisse is an example of a thinker who sees those limits as openings to the transcendent rather than closures. His presence in the story shows that neo Kantianism did not begin as a single orthodoxy, but as a wide, searching field.

There is also Kuno Fischer’s early contemporary, Ernst Friedrich Apelt, a more obscure figure whom Beiser treats with respect. Apelt is part of the Friesian legacy and tries to defend a doctrine of immanent realism. His interest lies in bridging subjective and objective elements of knowledge. Although he never becomes widely influential, Beiser credits him with clarifying problems later neo Kantians had to address. Apelt is a reminder that many philosophical advances begin as footnotes in lesser known authors, only later to be developed systematically by major figures.

Beiser also notes the role of the popularising figures, such as Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn earlier on, though they remain outside the strict neo Kantian circle. What matters for Beiser is that the entire nineteenth century contains a network of thinkers reinterpreting Kant through different lenses. The revival that later becomes neo Kantianism proper does not spring from nowhere. It arises from long debates about psychology, physiology, realism, scepticism, the nature of science and the possibility of value. Collectively these lesser known figures contribute specific impulses. Trendelenburg defends a realist reading of the forms of intuition. Volkelt shows the limits of knowledge and warns against metaphysical overreach. Lotze brings value and meaning into the picture. Überweg supplies the pedagogical backbone. Harms insists on realism within critique. Weisse explores religious implications. Apelt maintains the Friesian strand. Each does something different, yet each keeps Kant in the centre of philosophical discussion. Through them, as Beiser argues, the intellectual atmosphere shifts. Kant once again becomes necessary reading for anyone trying to define what philosophy can be.

What emerges from Beiser’s reconstruction is a picture of a philosophical landscape in motion rather than a simple procession of doctrines. The early revival looks like a group of travellers approaching the same mountain from different sides. They do not see the same face of the mountain. Some focus on psychology. Others on realism. Others on value. Yet their paths converge. Without their combined movement later figures such as Cohen, Natorp, Windelband and Rickert would not have found the route that eventually becomes the neo Kantian mainstream.