A pioneering book that sheds crucial light on the distinctions between Kants philosophical project and German Idealism as a whole, resolving problems that are as relevant to scholars today as they were to Kants immediate successors.
This ground-breaking study is the first detailed exploration of hylomorphism, or the division of all mental faculties and acts into form and matter. Identifying hylomorphism as the fundamental unifying dynamic in post-Kantian philosophy, David Sommer explores how Kants idealist successors in the early 1790sspecifically Reinhold, Maimon and Fichte mapped this dualism in the realm of cognition onto the systematic foundations of philosophy itself.
Proceeding through close analyses of primary texts, Sommer addresses an important gap in the existing scholarship while opening up new avenues of research into the works of Kant and his successors. He illuminates key yet understudied philosophical concepts within their historical contexts, notably providing an in-depth examination of the complex and innovative early works of Maimon and Fichte.
This is an essential contribution to our understanding of the origins of German idealism and Romanticism in general.
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Creates a foundationalist transcendental philosophy by revealing the crucial role of the form/matter distinction in Kants idealist successors in the early 1790s.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Form and Matter in Kants theoretical philosophy
1.1. Form and Matter prior to transcendental idealism?
1.2. Form and Matter and the Faculties?
1.3. Form and Matter of the Understanding
2. Form and Matter in Reinholds Elementarphilosophie
2.1. Form and Matter in the first Elementarphilosophie
2.2. Form and matter in the revised Elementarphilosophie of 1790
2.3. Aenesidemus: Schulzes attack on the Elementarphilosophie
3. Form and matter?in Maimons Versuch?
3.1. Introduction?
3.2. Form and matter?and the universal antinomy of thought?
3.3. Differentials
4. Form and Matter in Fichtes early Wissenschaftslehre
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Eigne Meditationen Über die Elementarphilosophie
4.3. On the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre
4.4. Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre
Concluding remarks
Bibliography
David Sommer is an independent scholar in Kantian philosophy. He received his AHRC-funded PhD from University College London, where he also taught.
