Reason’s genuine historicity: the establishment of a history of philosophy as a philosophical sub-discipline in Marburg Neo-Kantianism

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of history of philosophy as established in Marburg Neo-Kantianism. It does so by discussing the methodological concepts and principles underlying the formation of the kind of Neo-Kantianism advocated by Hermann Cohen, as well as by looking into the roots of the term ‘problem' as employed in Neo-Kantian ‘problem history'. It turns out that, although Marburg Neo-Kantians valued historical scholarship highly, they were not primarily driven by historical interests; rather, they mainly engaged with past philosophies for philosophical reasons. I further argue that, to the extent they drew attention to scientific or cultural contexts, this should not be taken to imply commitment to some kind of historical contextualism. Their turn to contexts was, on the contrary, motivated by the idealist contention that developments in science and cultural history are shaped by philosophical concepts and tenets. I will conclude by showing how both Cohen and his major student Ernst Cassirer could understand philosophical reasoning as a genuinely historical, and yet irreducibly rational, practice.