Kantian Review· 2026Q1
‘Something Entirely Contingent’: Hermann Cohen’s Already Relativized A Priori
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Short summary
Hermann Cohen's interpretation of Kant posits an 'already relativized a priori', arguing that Kant recognized the necessity of constitutive principles as relative to the contingent historical fact of natural science.
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Key points
- The paper argues against a misleading opposition between Reichenbach's and Cassirer's historicizations of Kantianism.
- It highlights Hermann Cohen's significant, yet underappreciated, influence on the Marburg interpretation of Kant.
- Cohen's interpretation hinges on Kant's concept of the possibility of experience being 'something entirely contingent'.
- This leads to the concept of an 'already relativized a priori', where constitutive principles are relative to the historical fact of natural science.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Among current endeavours to historicize Kantianism, two prevailing approaches are frequently discussed: Reichenbach’s ‘constitutive, but relative a priori ’ and Cassirer’s ‘regulative, but absolute a priori ’. This paper argues that this opposition is misleading, as it fails to fully appreciate the significant influence of Hermann Cohen in shaping Cassirer’s and, more generally, the ‘Marburg’ interpretation of Kant. The paper aims to demonstrate that Cohen’s interpretation of Kant is prominently centred around a relatively obscure passage from the Kritik der reinen Vernunft , in which Kant highlights that the possibility of experience is ‘something entirely contingent’ ( etwas ganz Zufälliges ). It suggests that Cohen argued for what might be called an ‘already relativized a priori ’: already in Kant’s philosophy, the necessity of the constitutive principles was recognized as being relative to ‘something entirely contingent’, i.e. , the historical fact of the science of nature.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Kantian Review, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: History and Philosophy of Science
History and Philosophy of ScienceArts and Humanities