Cadenza 3 critical idealism at the time of difference

pp. 61-68

in: Andrea Poma, Cadenzas, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

The philosophy of Hermann Cohen is certainly, in all respects, idealistic. Jacob Klatzkin writes: "As a philosopher Hermann Cohen was the strictest idealist of our time." However, in my opinion, Cohen's idealism – radically different and in some ways opposed to Fichte's, Schelling's and Hegel's speculative and absolute idealism – is not refuted by the numerous criticisms that the latter received by different thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the same way, I believe it isn't refuted by the criticism that idealism is a totalitarian philosophy of identity, as posited by the theorists of postmodernism. In fact, Cohen's idealism can be proposed even today, as a reference philosophy for developments that address the problems raised by culture in our age.