## 1. Intellectual Biography



"*Scholars of Wisdom have no rest in this world or in the
world to come*."



This Talmudic saying, with which Maimon concludes his first
philosophical work, the *Essay on Transcendental Philosophy*
(1790), applies strikingly well to the life story of Salomon Maimon.
Maimon was born in 1753 in Suchowyborg (Sukowy Borek), a village on
the tributary of the Nieman river, next to the town of Mir (Mirz) in
Lithuania. His family, which originally was rather wealthy, fell into
poverty due to poor management of its properties. Thus, Maimon's
father became a children's teacher, an example that was followed
later by his son Salomon. Maimon received a traditional religious
education, which concentrated mainly on the study of the
*Talmud*. At the age of 11, shortly after the death of his
mother and following a comedy of errors involving the mothers of two
young girls, Maimon was married in an arranged ceremony, and three
years later, in 1767, his first son, David, was born. During his early
adulthood, Maimon developed a keen curiosity about the sciences and
philosophy. The most crucial influence was that of Maimonides'
*Guide of the Perplexed*, through which Maimon became
acquainted with Aristotelian philosophy in its medieval cloth, and
with the iconoclastic spirit of Maimonides' philosophy of
religion. Maimon's attachment to Maimonides -- both
personally and philosophically -- ran throughout his life. Even
Maimon's own name was adopted as an expression of respect
towards this teacher. (At the time, few Jews adopted family names.
Before taking the surname 'Maimon', Maimon used to be
called after his father: Salomon *ben* ("*son
of*") *Joshua*.) Maimon also developed an interest in
Kabbalistic texts, which in spite of his relatively young age, he
attempted to study and interpret according to the bodies of knowledge
he had already mastered (i.e., Maimonidean philosophy). Around 1770
Maimon went to visit the court of the *Maggid* (*The
Preacher*) of Mezrich, the contemporary leader and one of the
founders of *Hassidism*. Maimon's visit seems to have
lasted no more than a few weeks; still it is clear that he was
strongly impressed by this new form of religious life and its teaching
of self-annihilation in God. Maimon dedicates a chapter and half of
his 1792/3 *Lebensgeschichte* to the portrayal of early
Hassidism, and these chapters are indeed the most valuable external
historical source on the emergence of Hassidism. Maimon passes a
negative judgment on some aspects of Hassidism, still even from the
late perspective of his writing in the 1790s his enthusiasm about some
features of the movement (such as, the use of improvisation in
expounding the Torah) are salient. Recent scholarship on Hassidism
confirmed virtually all of the teaching's Maimon quotes in the
name of the Maggid and his disciples (see Melamed 2018). It is also
remarkable that the story of Maimon's visit to the court of the
Maggid is documented in Hassidic sources which describe Maimon as one
of the disciples of the Maggid "*she-shana
u-firesh*" ("who studied and reneged"). See
Hoizman (1962, 261-62). Maimon's discussion of Hassidic
pantheism is highly sympathetic, and occasionally he alludes to the
similarities between Hassidic acosmism, and Spinozism.



In his mid-twenties, hoping to widen his knowledge of philosophy and
the sciences, Maimon left his family and went to Berlin (under the
pretense of attempting to study medicine there). This first visit to
Berlin ended shortly and grimly. Having confided to one of the
officers of the Jewish community that the purpose of his visit was to
study philosophy and that he intended to publish a new commentary on
Maimonides' *Guide of the Perplexed*, Maimon was asked to
pack his belongings and leave the shelter of the Jewish community
-- and thus the city -- at once. The following half year
Maimon spent as a wandering beggar. Eventually, he and his beggar
friend decided to return to Poland. As they reached the border town of
Posen, Maimon's talent and erudition were recognized by the
chief rabbi of the town, and he was offered a shelter and a position
as a tutor at the house of one of the city's Jews. During his
stay in Posen Maimon wrote one of his Hebrew works, *Hesheq
Shelomo* ("Solomon's Desire." See the
Bibliography).



In 1780 Maimon, went again to Berlin. This journey was much more
successful and Maimon established a close connection with Moses
Mendelssohn and entered the circles of the *Haskala* (the
Jewish Enlightenment movement) in Berlin. Yet neither Berlin nor its
enlightened Jews provided a real home for Maimon. For the cultured
Jews of Berlin, Maimon was a rude *Ostjude* (East-European
Jew), who spoke awful German accompanied by a variety of wild
gesticulations. They did, however, acknowledge the genius of this
person, who could, for example, read a difficult book of mathematics
for the first time, and then explain it -- in his savage manner
-- a short while later. Similarly, Maimon had little appreciation
for these fine bourgeois who, free from any barriers which would
impede their ability to study the sciences, only contented themselves
with a shallow acquaintance with what a civilized person
*should* know. Furthermore, they lacked the sharpness of mind
of his fellow Talmudists in Poland. Maimon does seem to have had a
genuine appreciation for Mendelssohn, both because of his
kindheartedness and because, unlike most others of the circles of the
Jewish Enlightenment, Mendelssohn had a reasonable grasp of the
*Talmud* and rabbinic literature.



In 1783, Mendelssohn asked Maimon to leave Berlin due to
Maimon's open Spinozism and his bohemian lifestyle. After a
journey to Hamburg, Amsterdam and then back to Hamburg, Maimon entered
the Gymnasium Christianeum in Altona, where he stayed for two years.
During this period Maimon studied several European languages and
improved his knowledge of the natural sciences and his command of
German. In 1785, Maimon left Altona for Berlin, where he met
Mendelssohn for the last time. Later that year Maimon moved to Dessau,
where he wrote a Hebrew textbook on mathematics, and subsequently
settled in Breslau. Here, after a failed attempt to study medicine,
Maimon again took up the position of a tutor. While staying in
Breslau, Maimon translated Mendelssohn's *Morgenstunden*
into Hebrew (a manuscript which is now lost) and wrote a Hebrew
textbook of Newtonian physics -- *Ta'alumoth Hochma*
("*Mysteries of Wisdom*"). After more than a decade
of separation, Maimon's wife, Sarah, accompanied by their eldest
son, David, succeeded in locating him in Breslau, and demanded that he
either return to Lithuania or get a divorce. Reluctant to sever his
ties with his past, Maimon tried to postpone the decision, but after
his wife insisted that he must make the choice, he finally agreed to
the divorce.



In 1787 Maimon traveled again to Berlin. There he heard about
Kant's new philosophy, and for a couple of months dedicated
himself to a careful study of the *Critique of Pure Reason*. In
his *Autobiography*, Maimon alludes to his "rather
curious" methods for understanding this text:



> 
> In the first reading I reached a vague sense of each section, which
> through subsequent readings I then sought to make determinate, and by
> this to penetrate the meaning of the author. This is what is properly
> meant when one thinks oneself into a system. Since I had already used
> this method in mastering the systems of Spinoza, D. Hume, and Leibniz,
> it was natural that I would be led to think of them as a
> 'Coalition-System.' This I actually discovered, and by and
> by set it out in the form of notes and observations on the
> *Critique of Pure Reason* (GW I, 557 | LB 253).
> 



Maimon put his thoughts about the *Critique* in a letter he
sent to Kant through a common friend, Markus Herz. Kant responded in a
letter full of praise for Maimon, describing him as "having an
acumen for such deep investigation that very few men have" and
claiming that "none of my critics understood me and the main
questions as well as Herr Maimon does." (Ak. 11:48)



Kant's recognition opened for Maimon the salons of Berlin as
well as the contemporary leading journals, in which Maimon started
publishing. The story of the crude genius who came from the East and
penetrated the heart of German philosophy became a common topic of
small talk in these circles. In 1790, Maimon published an expanded
version of his comments of Kant's first *Critique* as the
*Versuch uber die Transcendentalphilosophie* ("An
Essay on Transcendental Philosophy"). A year later, Maimon
collaborated with the members of the Jewish Enlightenment and prepared
a Hebrew commentary on Maimonides' *Guide of the
Perplexed.* (The publisher decided to publish only the first part
of this work, since he found Maimon's commentary much too deep
philosophically, and thus unfitting for the political purposes of
propagating the ideology of the enlightenment among the Jews.)



During the early 1790s, Maimon struck a close friendship with Karl
Philipp Moritz (the author of the first Bildungsroman, *Anton
Reiser*). Maimon became a frequent contributor and later the
co-editor of Moritz's *Magazin zur
Erfahrungsseelenkunde*, which was in fact the first journal
dedicated to the study of psychology. Following Moritz's death
in 1793 Maimon attempted to find a new patron. He established a
connection with Goethe, who invited him to Weimar, yet because of
reasons that remain unclear, this relationship did not succeed.
Maimon's material life in that period was quite miserable. He
lived in extreme poverty, and spent the little money he earned on
alcohol -- for the price of a drink one could buy his
conversation in a tavern. In 1795, Maimon accepted a generous offer by
a young Silesian nobleman, Graf Heinrich Wilhelm Adolf Kalkreuth, and
moved to the latter's estate in Siegersdorf (currently:
Kozuchow) in Lower Silesia. From this time until his death in November
22, 1800, Maimon led a quiet, though lonely and melancholic, life on
Kalkreuth's estate. In May 1800, Maimon wrote to Lazarus
Bendavid, one of his Jewish friends in Berlin, attempting to arrange
his return to Berlin -- and to find financial support for that
purpose -- but this plan never materialized.



In the last decade of his life, Maimon wrote ten books, and numerous
articles. The most important among these books (apart from the
*Transcendentalphilosophie*) are his philosophical works,
*Versuch einer neuen Logik, oder Theorie des Denkens* *(An
Attempt at a New Logic, or a Theory of Thinking*) (1793),
*Kritische Untersuchungen uber den menschlichen Geist, oder
das hohere Erkenntniss und Willensvermogen*
(*Critical Investigations on the Human Mind, or the Highest Faculty
of Knowledge and Will*) (1797), and his *Lebensgeschichte*
(*Autobiography*) (1792/3), which is his only work which
achieved wide public recognition.


## 2. Maimon's Critique of Kant



In the highly polarized German philosophical community in the 1790s,
Maimon's intellectual allegiances remained rather ambiguous. In
a letter of 1791, Maimon wrote to Kant that while he found the
skeptical part of the *Critique of Pure Reason* wholly
convincing, he harbored doubts about the more dogmatic aspects of
Kant's system. Kant, of course, viewed Maimon not as an ally,
but as the best of his critics -- it remains an open question
whether Maimon saw himself as fundamentally a friend or foe of the
critical philosophy. At the very least, however, Maimon's
criticisms of the *Critique* aim at the core of Kant's
transcendental idealism, in particular because they engage with what
Maimon sees as an *internal* problem for Kant's
system.



Perhaps the most obvious problem -- and certainly one of the
earliest -- that Kant faces concerns the issue of the thing in
itself. In order to account for the content of cognition, Kant
notoriously posits a thing in itself that stands outside of the realm
of possible experience yet nevertheless serves as the causal source of
cognitive content. This mysterious entity was attacked most famously
by Jacobi, with his accusation that one could not enter into
Kant's system without the assumption of the thing in itself, but
that with such an assumption one could not remain within it. Maimon
too was quick to point out that the thing in itself could not be
understood realistically. Rather, Maimon argues, the thing in itself
must be understood not as a noumenal entity but rather as the complete
conceptual determination of an object, which can be approached only
asymptotically. Against Kant's claims about a noumenal realm of
things as they are in themselves, Maimon holds that the thing in
itself stands only as an object of inquiry, rather than an
independent, noumenal entity: in a letter he notes that the thing in
itself is "nothing other than the complete cognition of
appearances. Metaphysics is thus not the study of something apart from
experience, but rather merely of the limits (Ideas) of experience
itself." (in Ehrensperger (2004), 250-1) As such, while
Maimon agrees with Kant that since we are finite beings the thing in
itself is in fact beyond the realm of possible experience, this does
not imply that the thing in itself cannot *in principle* be an
object of cognition.



Maimon's criticisms of Kant's account of the thing in
itself, however, are connected to a deeper concern about the notions
of experience and cognition that stand at the heart of Kant's
critical idealism. Kant posits the thing in itself in large part
because of his commitment to a type of cognitive dualism, in which
human experience is taken to involve both a faculty of thought (the
understanding), as well as a faculty of receptivity (sensibility). In
order to have any content, experience requires data, which must be
given to the subject through the senses. Moreover, the data of
experience cannot be produced by the faculty of thought itself. The
given content of sensibility plays an ineliminable role in cognition,
and its source must ultimately be traced to the subject's being
affected by something distinct from itself, a role played by the thing
in itself. But while the content of thought is provided by the
affection of an object on the faculty of sensibility, the way in which
this content is cognized remains the purview of the faculty of the
understanding. Mere affection, in other words, is not equivalent to
cognition. In Kant's terms, the "understanding is not
capable of intuiting anything, and the senses are not capable of
thinking anything." (A52/B56)



For Maimon, Kant's cognitive dualism -- which begins with
distinct faculties of cognition -- fails to explain how the
various elements can come together in a way that makes experience
possible. On this objection, Kant cannot justify his assumption that
concepts and intuitions necessarily unite in cognition. In more
Kantian terms, Maimon calls into question Kant's answers to both
the *quid facti* and the *quid juris* that begin the
Transcendental Deduction in the first *Critique*. According to
Maimon, while the *quid facti* -- the question of the fact
of our use of a priori concepts in experience -- is taken by Kant
to be an unproblematic statement about the nature of human experience,
the very assumption that we in fact do possess the type of experience
Kant ascribes to us can be called into doubt. Kant's central
argument in the Transcendental Deduction begins by assuming that
experience exhibits a 'dualistic' structure, but according
to Maimon, this position is not warranted, since the presumed
constituent elements of experience (bare intuitions or concepts) are
never themselves objects of experience. For Maimon, Kant's
transcendental arguments remain mere 'castles in the air':
while they might be valid, they fail to provide the 'fact of
experience' that would make them sound. From the beginning,
then, Maimon views Kant's transcendental project with
suspicion.



The precise force of Maimon's objections to Kant's claims
in the Transcendental Deduction remains, however, a bit unclear.
Certainly the criticisms are forceful against regressive
interpretations of Kant's argument, in which the Deduction
begins with strong premises about the nature and objectivity of our
experience, but other, less contentious premises perhaps fare better
against Maimon's attack. And, as some commentators have noted,
Maimon's own characterization of Kant's 'cognitive
dualism' itself might be viewed with suspicion, since Maimon
attributes to Kant the view that the faculties of sensibility and
understanding are really distinct, when in fact Kant's
considered position might be better understood as claiming only that
there is a modal distinction between the faculties (This is a point
made by Franks (2005), though Look (2017) challenges the claim that
Kant's distinction can be understood in solely modal terms;
Nisenbaum (2016) also offers a good discussion of this issue). But, at
the very least, Maimon's concerns demand that the Kantian
attempt to clarify what remains a very obscure part of the Critical
Philosophy, and Maimon remains suspicious that any suitable answer is
possible.



This suspicion becomes an explicit problem, Maimon claims, when the
specific structure of Kant's system is examined. Here, Maimon
argues, the *quid juris* of the deduction -- the question
about the legitimate use of the categories -- can likewise be
cast into doubt. While Kant claims in the Deduction that the *a
priori* concepts of the understanding -- the categories
-- are necessary conditions on the unity of the manifold of
sensible data given in intuition, Maimon argues that such a position
leads to serious problems for the later claims Kant makes in the
'Schematism' and 'Principles' sections of the
*Critique*. According to Maimon, Kant cannot explain how
different categories are able to discriminate between different
intuitive content. Using the example of causality, Maimon argues that
Kant has no way of explaining why some orders of perceptions represent
causal connections, and why other orders of perceptions are merely
associative. The reason for this claim is found in the fact that while
Kant grounds the category of causality in a necessary order of
perceptions, his justification for this claim appeals not to the
content of the perceptions, but only to their formal
'rule-governed' connection -- but, as Maimon argues,
*any* order of perceptions can meet this formal requirement.
Yet since the content of intuitions by itself does not contain any
temporal ordering, Kant explicitly bars an appeal to such content in
applying the category of causality. As such, Kant's account of
cognition faces a dilemma: either it must appeal to the content of
experience and so violate Kant's own strictures, or the
application of categories is merely arbitrary. Kant's central
epistemological commitment -- his 'cognitive dualism'
-- then leads, Maimon claims, to insuperable problems.



While Maimon's objections to Kant focus on specific issues that
arise in the *Critique*, they all rest on Maimon's
commitment to a type of 'skeptical rationalism.' Maimon
notes that in the *Versuch uber die
Transcendentalphilosophie* the important problem of the *quid
juris* was "presented in a much wider sense than that in
which Kant takes it, and thereby [such a position] allowed a place for
Hume's skepticism in its complete power. On the other hand, the
complete solution to this problem necessarily leads to Spinozistic or
Leibnizian dogmatism." (GW I, 558 | LB 254) Maimon's
position is then dogmatically rationalist insofar as it endorses the
standards of reason found in Leibniz and Spinoza, but it remains
empirically skeptical insofar as he agrees with Hume that such
standards of reason are never met in our experience of the
world-he is, in pithy phrase, a 'rational dogmatist and an
empirical skeptic.'



Moreover, in the face of the question of how the understanding can
subsume or comprehend a given object, Maimon notes that "for the
Kantian system, [which claims] that our sensibility and understanding
are two entirely different sources of our cognition, this question is
... unanswerable; on the other hand, for the Leibnizian-Wolffian
system, in which both [sensibility and understanding] flow from the
same cognitive source (their difference consisting only in the grades
of completeness of this cognition), the question can easily be
answered." (GW II, 63-4 | VT 63-4) But while Maimon
sees in the dogmatism of Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff a means of
avoiding the problems that attend Kant's 'cognitive
dualism,' he remains a skeptic about whether this solution can
ever be carried out.


## 3. Content, Givenness, and Space and Time



The rejection of cognitive dualism raises a rather vexing problem for
Maimon: if the content of cognition is not to be found in the
affection of the merely passive faculty of sensibility, where does the
content come from? On the face of it, of course, it seems clear that
humans are not wholly responsible for the world of experience, but
rather encounter it; Maimon must provide some explanation of the
'given' content of experience without appealing to
something like the Kantian cognitive dualism he finds so
problematic.



Although the details of Maimon's answer to this problem remain
obscure, the kernel of his position can be found in his analysis of
what it is to be a finite cognizer. While Kant moves from the fact of
our human finitude to the need for a 'given' element of
cognition, Maimon claims that such a step need not be taken. Instead
of characterizing finitude in terms of the need for a passive faculty
of receptivity, Maimon insists that finitude only implies
incompleteness in our cognition -- but this incompleteness does
not warrant any conclusions about the provenance of the matter of
cognition. The content of sensibility is simply that which is passive
in cognition -- namely, that upon which the understanding
operates. The expression that content is given from 'outside of
us,' Maimon writes, means only "something in a
representation of which we are conscious of no spontaneity, that is,
(in view of our consciousness) a mere passivity without
activity." And, he continues, the word 'given'
signifies not "something in us that has its cause outside of us
... rather, [the given] means merely a representation, whose
manner of origin in us is unknown to us." (*GW* II, 203 |
VT 203) What we take to be merely given to us in experience can in
fact be explained in terms of a productive -- and hence active
-- capacity of the mind, although the procedures of this activity
remain unknown to us.



In this respect Maimon revives the Leibnizian notion that there is not
a difference in kind, but only in degree, between a finite and an
infinite intellect. Maimon argues that for an infinite intellect, all
of the content of thought is consciously produced through the
mind's own activity -- by virtue of its infinity, nothing
needs to be given to such an intellect. By the same token, Maimon
holds that we can think of finite cognizers in the same terms, but
with the crucial difference that finite minds are not aware of the
productive capacities that create the matter of experience. The
supposedly given content provided by sensibility, in other words, can
in fact be explained in terms of the 'subconscious'
productive capacities of the active mind. In this respect, Maimon
argues that our minds are limited reflections of the divine or
infinite mind; our active powers are conscious, he claims, in
mathematics, where we display a 'god-like' ability to
create content according to rules of thought. Mathematical objects,
that is, are constructed according to the complete determinations of
our concepts, rather than merely encountered in our sensible
interactions with the world. In the case of empirical content,
however, the creative process remains uncognized, since the
'manner of origination' of empirical objects or the
complete conceptual determination that guides construction remains
unknown to us.



These 'subconscious' products become conscious to the
finite mind, Maimon claims, by being represented in space and time.
The contrast with Kant is again important, for while Kant claims that
space and time are forms of human intuition, Maimon maintains that
space and time are in fact the ways in which humans represent
conceptual differences between thoughts. Space and time, that is,
"are both concepts and intuitions, and the latter presupposes
the former." (GW II, 18 | VT 18) Space and time are concepts as
representations of the differences of things in general, but they are
intuitions when they represent a particular sensible object in
relation to other sensible objects. As finite cognizers, we represent
in space and time what we have not completely conceptualized. The fact
that we represent content spatially and temporally indicates only that
there is some incompleteness in our conception of the world, and not
that this content is provided by a realm of wholly independent
objects. Maimon claims that the representations of space and time as
intuitions arise as the result of the faculty of imagination, which
is, as he describes it, the faculty of fictions (GW III, 61 | PW 37).
Space and time are then taken to be fictions in that they add
properties to objects that are not present in the conceptual
determination of these objects (for a sustained discussion of
Maimon's more general treatment of philosophical fictions, which
Maimon views as practically indispensable for our ordinary cognition,
see Breazeale (2017)). As such, they serve as "negative
criteria" for the incompleteness of our knowledge of objects (GW
V, 192 | VnL 134). Although we never have complete determination, we
do get *nearer* to the complete concept of an object. The fact
that we represent objects in space and time points to the fact that
something *remains to be* determined -- spatial or
temporal diversities, that is, must have their ground in some
conceptual differences. The representations of space and time provide
indications that "the concepts of experience, and consequently
also the determined relations of objects of experience, are
incomplete." (*GW* V, 192 | VnL 134)



This emphasis on the fictional nature of spatial and temporal
properties again echoes the Leibnizian explanation of space and time
as the representation of conceptual differences, but where Leibniz
claims that space and time are derived from monadic relations, Maimon
argues that the intuitions of space and time are in fact *a
priori* human forms of representation, or, in Maimon's
terms, 'forms of difference'. In order to represent an
object in space and time, Maimon maintains, the conceptual content
that grounds such a representation must contain a diversity in order
to be represented spatially and temporally. An intuited visual field
of homogeneous red, for example, would not be spatially represented,
since there would not be any diversity present. Spatiality would arise
only with the introduction of some distinct content -- a spot of
green in the red field, for example (for a very helpful account of
Maimon's theory of fictions, see Schmid 2021).



For Maimon, the *formal* nature of space and time suffices to
yield mathematical and geometric necessity. In mathematics, Maimon
claims, space and time are *given* *a priori* to the
faculty of cognition; the objects of mathematics are "nothing
but space and time in all their possible modifications."
(*GW* V, 184 | VnL 126) Mathematics, that is, relates to an
object given a priori, or rather "itself determines these
objects *a priori*." (*GW* V, 183 | VnL 125) The
objects of mathematics and geometry are then directly constructed or
determined according to the understanding's *a priori*
rules of production. For Maimon, as for Kant, the ground of the a
priority and necessity of geometry and arithmetic lies in the need for
the construction and exhibition of concepts.



Space and time are then presented as *a priori* 'forms of
difference,' but a question remains about the content of
experience: the supposedly independent world of objects, in all of its
variety and multiplicity, still needs to be explained. On this
question, unfortunately, Maimon's position is particularly
obscure. In the *Versuch uber die
Transcendentalphilosophie*, Maimon develops a theory about the
content of experience in terms of what he calls 'infinitesimals
of perception.' Here the invocation of the calculus is
deliberate, for he argues that the content of experience can be
explained in terms analogous to the way in which infinitesimals are
treated in mathematics. A line, for example, can be understood as
composed of an infinite number of points, each of which stands in
relation to the others; moreover, these points are densely ordered,
for there are an infinite number of points between any two points. But
while the differences between the points of the line are themselves
infinitely small, the relation between them is a determinate value
-- the slope, which can be calculated for any point on the line.
Likewise, Maimon claims, the content of experience can be understood
as analogous to a 'perceptible line' that is composed of
an infinite number of smaller components, none of which is
ontologically distinct from the experience itself. On this view,
"sensibility provides the differentials to a determined
consciousness; the imagination produces from these [differentials]
finite (determinate) objects of intuition; the understanding produces
from the relations of these different differentials, which are its
objects, the relation from which arise sensible objects."
(*GW* II, 31-2 | VT 31-2) In this sense, there is
-- at least in principle -- no need to appeal to a content
given from outside of experience; instead, experience is itself
composed or 'integrated' from the posited infinitesimal
elements of thought. As finite cognizers, we *represent* in
space and time the purely conceptual differences that are simply
presented in thought. (A similar strategy for dealing with the problem
of the thing-in-itself was developed a century later by the Marburg
Neo-Kantians, especially Hermann Cohen.)



The theory of the infinitesimals of perception is both complex and
exceedingly opaque, and perhaps for this reason it largely disappears
from Maimon's later work (for more on infinitesimals, see Duffy
2014). But despite its gradual diminution in Maimon's thought,
the spirit it reflects continues to be expressed in Maimon's
steadfast commitment to his 'skeptical rationalism'. Both
his objections to Kant's account of cognition as well as his own
positive project turn on a rejection of what might be called
'brute givens.' For Maimon, givenness stands in opposition
to cognition, for he holds that no explanation can be provided for how
merely given content can be taken up in thought -- how, that is,
the active faculties of thought can legitimately apply to a passively
received given. By attempting to explain givenness within a larger
framework of an active consciousness, Maimon presents a position that
avoids -- at least in principle -- the problems that Maimon
sees with Kant's cognitive dualism.


## 4. Logic and the Law of Determinability



In the *Critique of Pure Reason* Kant contemplates the
possibility of a law that would govern the *content* of
synthetic judgements. This law is supposed to be a complement to the
principles of non-contradiction and excluded middle, which govern the
logical *form* of both synthetic and analytic propositions. The
law, which Kant terms "The Principle of Thoroughgoing
Determinability" (*Grundsatz der durchgaengigen
Bestimmung*), states that "of every pair of possible [and
opposite] predicates, one of them must apply" to every single
thing [A573/B601]. As a result, every single thing would be thoroughly
determined with regard to any pair of opposite predicates. This law
seems to necessitate the idea of the sum total of all possibility, and
as a further result, the concept of an *ens realismus*. Kant
argues, however, that this derivation is not valid insofar as it
attempts to apply a principle that is limited to possible experience
to all things (including things in themselves) [A583/B661]. Like Kant,
Maimon too suggests a transcendental principle that will govern
synthetic propositions with regard to their content and not their form
(the latter being governed by the law of non-contradiction). In spite
of these similarities, Maimon's Law of Determinability (*Satz
der Bestimmbarkeit*) is significantly different from the one
offered by Kant. The two laws not only differ with regard to their
contents, but they also serve different functions, and have different
weight in the two systems. While the Kantian law has a relatively
marginal place within his systems (and is considered by many scholars
as a mere residue of the metaphysical inheritance of Baumgarten and
Wolff), Maimon's law seems to be the crucial axis of his
positive philosophy.



> 
> ... [T]he *principle of determinability* laid down in this
> work is a principle of all *objectively real* thought, and
> consequently of *philosophy* as a whole too. All the
> propositions of philosophy can be derived from, and be determined by
> it. (*Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of
> Post-Kantian Idealism*, George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris (trans.
> & ed.), 165 | Maimon, *Gesammelte Werke*, V 368).
> 



The two laws also differ with regard to their domains of
applicability. While Kant restricts his law to possible experience,
Maimon argues that the demands of his law are satisfied only within
the domain of *a priori* thinking, and that empirical cognition
fails to pass its test.



The main aim of Maimon's Law of Determinability is to provide a
*criterion* that would distinguish between syntheses that
reflect a *real* connection between concepts, and
*arbitrary* syntheses, which result from the mere activity of
the imagination. Real syntheses are of crucial importance for Maimon,
since through this kind of syntheses we can create new concepts, and,
in the case of *a priori* syntheses, even create genuine
objects. But whether this can actually come about is where
Maimon's skeptical worries come to the fore. According to
Maimon, in any real synthesis of a subject and a predicate, the
following two principles must be observed:



> 
> 
> (1) A principle for the *subject* in general: every subject
> must be a possible object of consciousness, not only as a subject but
> also in itself;
> 
> 
> 
> (2) A principle for *predicates*: every predicate must be a
> possible object of consciousness, not in itself, but only as a
> predicate (in connection with the subject) What does not conform to
> this principle can be a merely *formal*, or *arbitrary*,
> but not a *real* thought (GW V, 78 | VnL 20).
> 
> 
> 



A synthetic judgment then accords with the law of determinability when
its predicate is a real determination of the subject (i.e., when its
predicate is asymmetrically dependent upon its subject). Thus, for
example, in the synthesis 'straight line', the predicate
'straight' is a real determination of the subject
'line', since one can think of the subject without the
concept of the predicate, while one can conceive of straightness only
through the concept of a line. In an empirical synthesis, such as,
'red line', the predicate is merely an arbitrary
determination insofar as our intellect does not decipher any internal
connection and dependence between the subject and the predicate (and
since we can easily imagine other subjects having the same predicate)
(GW II, 92-3 | VT 92-3).



Relying on the principle of determinability, we can distinguish
between the subject and the predicate of a given synthesis, e.g., in
the synthesis 'acute triangle' we can see that
'triangle' can be thought without 'acute' but
not the other way around, and hence ascertain that 'acute'
is the predicate and 'triangle' the subject. Now, we can
of course go one step further and try to unfold the concept of
'triangle'. But here, the principle of determinability
could assist us only to a limited degree. It will not tell us what is
the genus under which 'triangle' falls. All it can do is
to provide a *negative* criterion once we suggest such a genus.
Thus, the principle will tell us that 'triangle' is not a
determination of a specific figure which I see in front of me (since I
can conceive of a triangle without thinking of the figure in front of
me). Once I come with another candidate, such as 'space'
and suggest that 'triangle' might be a determination of
'space', the principle will approve this suggestion, since
we cannot think of a 'triangle' without
'space', though we can think of 'space'
without 'triangle'. This is the first main role of the
principle of determinability: it assists us in uncovering the main
categories of thought and their interrelations.



The other main role of the principle is to assist us in forming new
concepts (this is Maimon's attempt to have an *ars
invendi* ). Here again, the principle provides us only with a
negative criterion. If we ask ourselves: what are the possible
determinations of 'line', the principle would not tell us
that 'straight' is such a determination. Only once we
suggest 'straight' as such a determination, could the
principle evaluate -- and in this case, approve -- the
relation of 'straight' to 'line'.



Maimon's reliance on mathematical examples is not coincidental,
since it is (primarily) in mathematics that we find real syntheses,
namely, syntheses that pass the test of the law of determinability.
This special advantage of mathematics is due to the role of
construction in mathematics. Thus, in the case of the straight line
the intellect commands a construction of a line in pure intuition
according to the concept of straight. In such a way, the connection
between the subject and the predicate, while synthetic, is
nevertheless necessary. (As Freudenthal (2006) notes, however, as
Maimon's thought develops he becomes more skeptical that
straightness can be constructed according to the concept of a line, or
that a circle can be constructed from its concept. Since these stand
at the heart of Euclidean geometry, Freudenthal argues that while
Maimon holds that geometry is synthetic, he begins to doubt that it is
absolutely necessary, since it must rely on ineliminable intuitions
rather than the understanding alone.) By contrast, a judgment such as
"The cup is green" fails to accord with the law of
determinability, for the connection between the subject and the
predicate remains merely problematic. For our intellect, the greenness
of the cup is something that is merely encountered, rather than
consciously constructed, and thus it fails to express any internal
connection between the subject and its predicate. By using the Law of
Determinability Maimon thought to provide a way both to generate new
concepts as well as to decipher the basic categories of thought.
Mathematics provides us with an example of how these derivations
should work. However, this law also seems to point out the
unreliability of empirical judgments.



Determinability then provides a standard of synthetic judgments: it
tells us not merely the form that such judgments must take, but also
specifies what counts as a legitimate content of such a judgment. In
this sense, determinability provides a certain cohesion between the
products of the mind. But while the Law of Determinability presents
the standard which *real* thought must meet, it is important to
note that Maimon remains dubious about the possibility of ever
achieving real thought except in the realm of mathematics. Only when
the determinable relation between the subject and predicate of a
judgment is *constructed* can real thought be reached; in
empirical judgments about the world, no such determinable relation can
be proved. And it is just this concern that leads to Maimon's
skepticism.



## 5. From Dogmatism to Skepticism (and Back?)



Maimon describes his position as "Humean dogmatism," (or,
alternately, as "Leibnizian skepticism"), and this
characterization is apt - he is both a rational dogmatist and an
empirical skeptic. His commitment to both camps, however, makes the
question of his ultimate allegiance a difficult one. While Maimon
agrees with the rationalists about the standards provided by reason,
he claims to follow Hume in denying that there can ever be a proof of
the applicability of reason to the world of experience. In this
respect, the status of the principle of determinability encapsulates
Maimon's position: while we can comprehend what the standard of
real thought involves (since we have an example in mathematics), we
can never be sure about its application to empirical matters (since we
cannot guarantee the requisite determinable relation between subject
and predicate). Maimon's skepticism arises "from the lack
of the required ground for this use [of the categories], namely, the
insight into the relation of determinability (that the subject, as the
determinable, can be an object of consciousness in itself, while the
predicate cannot be so in itself, but only as a determination [of the
subject]). The categories are therefore, according to me, determined
not for empirical use, but only for the objects of mathematics
determined *a priori*" (*GW* V, 495-6 | VnL
437-8).



Maimon here exposes what seem to be the skeptical implications of his
rationalism, for while the standards of real thought are available to
us as finite cognizers, the satisfaction of these criteria remains
beyond our power. According to this skeptical rationalism, the
conditions that allow us entry into the realm of reason can never be
satisfied in our relations to the sensible world: reason tells us what
standards our explanations must meet, but nothing in our experience
can discharge these demands. Rather, in our dealings with the sensible
world, we must remain Humean skeptics, who can appeal to regularities
and customs in our attempts to explain the empirical world, but who
recognize that these explanations always remain provisional and
unsure, since they never meet the demands of reason.



But while Maimon's skepticism commits him to the view that human
knowledge remains incomplete, he does not abandon the notion of
intellectual progress. While we can despair of ever reaching complete
knowledge, the rationalist project at least holds out the hope of
advancing us in our conceptual grasp of the world (on this point, see
Chicharel 2020). In this sense, while Maimon is led by his skeptical
conclusions to see human cognition as essentially antinomial, he
retains the prospect of a solution:



> 
> Thought in general consists in a relation of a form (a rule of the
> understanding) to matter (the given subsumed by [the form]). Without
> matter one cannot attain consciousness of the form, and consequently
> the matter is a necessary condition of thought; that is, for the real
> thought of a form or rule of the understanding, there must necessarily
> be given a matter to which this form relates. On the other hand,
> however, the completeness of the thought of an object requires that
> nothing be given in [this completeness], but rather that everything
> must be thought. Since we cannot deny either of these demands, we must
> therefore try to satisfy both, in that we make our thought ever more
> complete, whereby the matter always approaches the form, through
> infinity -- and this is the solution of this antinomy
> (*GW* III, 186-7 | PW 162-3).
> 



This relation between skepticism and rationalism is nicely captured in
a biblical metaphor Maimon offers:



> 
> Reason, which in its theoretical employment is conditioned by given
> objects, and is thus very limited, is now, in its practical use in
> relation to the will, absolute. The principle which it presents is
> both determined in itself, and in its application is capable of no
> illegitimacy. This highly pleasant prospect is certainly doubted by
> the skeptic, who reduces any law, as an original fact, into many. An
> uplifting and at once humbling voice calls out to him: "You
> should see the promised land from afar, but you may not enter
> it!" [Deut 34:4] Still, fortunately the seeing and the entering
> are the same: for those who boast of being able to enter can, for
> their legitimation, do no more than show the distant view (*GW*
> VII, 554).
> 



The vision of the promised land is an especially apt characterization
of Maimon's skepticism: we can see what conditions would need to
be satisfied for real cognition, but we are barred from ever knowing
if these conditions are met. When pressed for a warrant for his claims
to certainty, the dogmatist can do no more than simply point to the
far-off land of philosophical milk and honey.


## 6. Ethics



Unlike Kant and most of the German Idealists, Maimon denies that
practical reason enjoys a primacy over theoretical reason. For Maimon,
the force of both morality and epistemology resides in the notion of
universal validity: as rational beings we are bound by both
philosophical truth and moral duty. As Maimon puts the matter,
"the moral good is good only because it is true."
(*GW* II, 405 | VT 409) And, in the 1794 essay "Attempt
at a New Presentation of the Principle of Morality and a New Deduction
of its Reality," Maimon radically alters Kant's famous
claim in the *Groundwork* about the good will being the only
unconditioned good, instead holding that "it is impossible to
think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that
could be considered good without limitation except *the striving
after cognition*." (*GW* VI, 407; translated in Quinn
(2018)) As such, the theoretical and the practical go hand in hand;
for Maimon, it makes no sense to follow Kant's claim to have
denied knowledge to make room for faith. Rather, Maimon revives
something like the Aristotelian notion that the highest virtue and
pleasure are found in philosophical contemplation. This results,
Maimon claims, because both practical and theoretical cognition follow
from the same notion of freedom:



> 
> Just as I have produced the principle of practical cognition from the
> mere widening of the theoretical, so I find practical freedom from the
> mere widening of what is theoretically given as a fact, and this
> concept of freedom first makes possible the use of this principle
> (*GW* VII, 275 | KU 273).
> 



Our cognitive situations in the theoretical and moral arenas are then
identical; in each, the conflicts that characterize our cognitive
capacities can be resolved only by assuming that our cognition is a
'schema' of an infinite intellect, which is to embrace a
type of dogmatism that echoes Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff.



The similarities between the theoretical and the practical realms
allow for an explanation of the possibility of freedom, even though
"this concept [of freedom] is capable of no empirical
presentation." (*GW* VII 241 | KU 241) Thought, Maimon
argues, is an absolutely free activity of the faculty of cognition,
which is not determined *a priori* by natural laws, but rather
according to the laws of the faculty of cognition itself. The will
that is related to the faculty of cognition (the will to think) is
likewise not determined through objects of thought, but rather through
the *a priori* form of thought, which precedes the actual
thought of these objects (on this point, see Ware (2019)). We thus
have an instance of a free will in general (*GW* VII 242 | KU
240).



Although Maimon's account of freedom is related to Kant's
position, Maimon diverges from the critical philosophy by insisting
that since the moral law provides only the form of the determination
of the will, the actualization of this form "must be connected
to an originally agreeable feeling (which does not arise from
habit)." (GW VII 243 | KU 241) This feeling, Maimon argues, must
be understood not in terms of a particular sensuous desire, but rather
as "abstracted from all individuality." (*GW* VII
245 | KU 243) Here the close connection between the theoretical and
the practical spheres is again important, for Maimon argues that the
'abstract feeling' is best understood in terms of a
'drive for cognition':



> 
> Man considers himself as an object of nature, and consequently as a
> limited being, and yet, since his faculty of cognition extends to all
> possible objects, he finds himself in a position to strive to
> infinity, and to get ever closer to the infinite faculty of cognition
> (divinity). Can a greater worth for a being be thought than to get
> closer to divinity? And must not all other motives vanish in the face
> of the motives of cognition and morality (whereby all lofty
> preferences extend to outer actions)? Here we have the prevailing
> motive of morality, whose power no one who has considered the case can
> doubt (*GW* VII 246-7 | KU 244-5).
> 



The role played by the pleasure of the striving after knowledge,
however, recedes in importance as Maimon becomes more skeptical about
the possibility of explaining the motivations that lead to moral
actions. On this point, Pollock (2020) notes the similarities between
Maimon's skeptical response to Kant' transcendental
idealism and his moral philosophy: both fall prey to the worries that
arise from the *quid juris* and the *quid facti*.
Perhaps the clearest formulation of Maimon's later position is
in 'The Moral Skeptic,' a late work from 1800, where a
sketch of the difference between moral dogmatism and skepticism is
provided. As in the theoretical realm, Maimon focuses on the problem
of the legitimate application of universal rules to particular cases
(a problem that Kant in the *Groundwork* is well aware of).
Just as we can be skeptical of whether the category of causality is
legitimately applied to particular intuitions, so too can the
connection between the moral law and particular actions be called into
doubt. While the moral law presents the rule of conduct that I ought
to follow, there is no way, Maimon claims, to determine whether in
fact I act only according to it, or whether other motivations have
insinuated themselves into the action. Kant, of course, agrees with
this point, but Maimon attempts to draw a more skeptical conclusion
from it than Kant does. On Maimon's view, one cannot determine
whether an action simply accords with the moral law "and hence
possesses mere legality" or whether it in fact follows from the
motive of duty itself, and as such lays claim to morality. This
uncertainty arises, Maimon argues, because the moral character of an
action is not immediately present to cognition. Rather, one can
ascribe a moral character to a person or action only after excluding
all other possible motives as insufficient to explain the action
-- but, Maimon notes, such a strategy would require an
'infinite faculty of cognition' in order to accomplish
this task. Given the uncertainty about motivations, Maimon argues that
the moral law can at best be viewed as an "idea that provides
only a regulative use (for legality)." (*GW* VII 547 | MS
285) As such, while the moral law presents a universal command, it
cannot be shown to be the ground of human actions, since -- to
employ a term from Maimon's theoretical philosophy -- there
is no determinate relation between the moral law and particular
actions. For Maimon, the moral law stands, as do the Kantian
categories in the theoretical realm, as a 'castle in the
air,' incapable of reaching the solid ground of particular
actions.


## 7. Maimon's Influence on the Formation of German Idealism



Kant's high regard for Maimon was shared by a number of the
important figures of the movements of German Enlightenment and
Idealism. Mendelssohn, of course, had initially recognized the genius
beneath Maimon's coarse exterior, and Reinhold too took Maimon
seriously, although their relation soured after Maimon published a
volume of their increasingly acrimonious correspondence without
Reinhold's permission. On a much more positive note, Fichte
wrote that his admiration for Maimon's talent "[k]nows no
limit," and he continues that "Maimon has completely
overturned the entire Kantian philosophy as it has been understood by
everyone until now." (*Gesamtausgabe* III, 2: 275)



Although Maimon's positive system was of interest to the German
philosophical community in the 1790s, his greatest influence was as a
skeptic, and in particular as a critic of the 'cognitive
dualism' that characterized Kant's critical philosophy.
The force of Maimon's objections to Kant was felt most directly
by Fichte, who in the *Wissenschaftslehre* devotes considerable
attention to Maimon's skeptical challenge to Kant. For Fichte,
Maimon pointed out the fatal shortcomings of Kant's system, but
failed to move beyond a skepticism about the prospects for knowledge.
This is reflected in Fichte's claim that Maimon's position
"would ground a skepticism that taught us to doubt our own
existence." (*GA* I, 2: 369) Fichte sought to remedy this
situation by developing a more thoroughgoing idealistic account of
experience, one which placed the notion of 'positing' at
the center of the system. Only in so doing, Fichte claims, can both
Kant's dualism and Maimon's skepticism be avoided.



The *Wissenschaftslehre* set the stage for the subsequent rise
of Absolute Idealism, and its key commitments: the centrality of a
productive faculty of mind, as well as an embrace of a rationalist
methodology and a concomitant rejection of any type of dualism. In
this respect, the project of Absolute Idealism owes much to Maimon,
who himself had developed just these themes in his various works. But
where Fichte -- and Schelling and Hegel -- stand as
optimists about the prospects for this type of philosophical inquiry,
Maimon remains much less sanguine about the ability of finite minds to
reach a final 'System' of philosophy. It is perhaps
testament to the force of Maimon's skepticism that while the
Systems of German Idealism have collapsed, the skeptical challenge
Maimon poses for accounts of experience remains vital and forceful
-- if unduly neglected -- today. Maimon, that is,
anticipates key points of the contemporary debates about the nature of
Givenness, and his skeptical position offers and interesting and novel
perspective on discussions of the issue.



Maimon also seems to have played an important role in the reception of
Spinoza in German Idealism. Maimon was not only the first to try to
create a synthesis between Kantian idealism and Spinozistic pantheism
(*GW* III 455), but he was also apparently the first to suggest
that Spinoza's philosophy was not atheistic, but rather a strong
though unorthodox religious view. Instead of characterizing
Spinoza's philosophy as atheism, a view which denies Gods
existence, Maimon argues that it should rather be called acosmism,
insofar as it denies the reality of the diverse world and affirms the
sole reality of God. This characterization of Spinoza was later
adopted by Hegel (See Hegel's *Encyclopedia Logic*,
sections 50 and 151, and his discussion of Spinoza in the *Lectures
on the History of Philosophy*) and seems to play a central role in
Hegel's perception of Spinoza.


## 8. Jewish Philosophy and Culture



Being raised in an East-European Jewish surrounding, Maimon's
thought was influenced by the major intellectual movements of this
arena. Talmud, *Kabbalah*, contemporary *Hassidism* and
medieval Jewish philosophy played a crucial role in the formation of
Maimon's philosophy as well as the style of his writings. The
strongest influence was that of Maimonides, whose unbiased and strict
rationalism Maimon took as a guiding example throughout his life (even
when he no longer adhered to Maimonidean metaphysics). Following
Maimonides, Maimon held intellectual perfection as the ultimate human
end, and saw moral perfection merely as means for achieving this end.
Like Maimonides, Maimon argued that God's image in humanity is
the intellect and that to the extent that we activate and develop our
intellectual capacities we become closer and more similar to God.



Maimon's relation to the *Kabbalah* was a bit more
ambivalent. While he had no sympathy for the anthropomorphic teachings
of some of the major Kabbalistic works, Maimon attempted to disclose
the rationalistic core of the *Kabbalah*, which he identified
with Spinoza's pantheistic teachings. In his early Hebrew
writings Maimon develops the view that God is also the *material
cause* of the world (i.e., that all things are merely predicates
of God, who is their substratum). Since Maimon conceives God to be a
pure intellect, the result is a genuine form of radical -- and
pantheistic -- idealism. This form of idealism plays a
significant role in Maimon's thought in the 1790s, and possibly
also in the development of German Idealism in general.



Maimon also seems to borrow from Kabbalistic and contemporary Hassidic
writings the idea of an infinite process through which one
"strives to turn matter into form," though he will
interpret this formula in metaphysical rather than ethical terms.



In his early Hebrew writings Maimon expresses a deep interest and
curiosity about astrology and magic, an interest that he returns to as
a contributor and editor of the *Magazin zur
Erfahrungsseelenkunde*.



After his migration from Lithuania to Germany, Maimon entered the
circles of the *Haskala* (the Jewish Enlightenment movement) in
Berlin. Maimon shared with this circle the idea that there is a need
to propagate the enlightenment and scientific education among
traditional Jews; yet, he seemed to have a very different
understanding of what Enlightenment is. While for the Berlin
*Haskala*, 'Enlightenment' was primarily the
attempt to acculturate the Jewish masses in order to allow their
acceptance into modern German society, Maimon's idea of
Enlightenment was that of propagating science and philosophy. This
understanding of Enlightenment was deeply imbedded in Maimon's
inheritance of Maimonidean philosophy, which took philosophy and the
sciences to be the highest stages of religious work, through which one
comes to know God in the deepest sense. This attitude is clearly
demonstrated in Maimon's 1791 commentary on the *Guide of the
Perplexed* -- *Giva'ath ha-Moreh* (Hebrew: The
Hill of the Guide). In this work Maimon frequently interprets the
claims of Maimonides according to 18th century science and philosophy
(especially Kant). While this form of intentional anachronism reveals
Maimon's view of philosophy as a perennial discourse, it was
also designed to serve the propagation of modern science and thought
among its readers (Maimon himself explains in a similar way
Maimonides' decision to open his legal codex, the *Mishne
Torah*, with a summary of Aristotelian first philosophy).



Like other members of the Jewish enlightenment, Maimon criticized
traditional Jewish society, and primarily the Talmudists, for their
prejudices and idleness. Yet, along with this straightforward
criticism, Maimon also expressed a deep appreciation for the
sharpness, devotion and moral character of the Talmudists. In his
*Autobiography*, Maimon writes that he "would have to
write a book, had I wished to answer all the unjust charges and
ridicule brought against the Talmud by both Christian authors as well
as wishing-to-be-enlightened Jews." (GW I 172 | LB I 172). Here
Maimon gives a detailed picture of various streams and aspects of the
Jewish culture. In most cases his account is a masterpiece of a
thoughtful, thoroughly informed, and unbiased exploration of
one's own culture.



Maimon's reception by both traditional and enlightened Jews was
quite poor. In a few texts Maimon was lumped together with Spinoza and
Acosta to form "the great chain of Jewish heretics," but
mostly Maimon's writings and philosophy were ignored. The
traditional community could not forgive him his infidelity and his
desertion of their ranks (A certain literary source tells us that in
Maimon's funeral the children of the nearby Jewish community of
Glogau ran after his coffin and threw stones on it. Maimon's
corpse was buried at the margin of the Jewish cemetery in Glogau. When
Maimon's friend, Graf Kalkreuth, asked why he was treated with
such disrespect, he was told that "the edge of the cemetery is
an honorary place designated traditionally for philosophers and their
like"). For the enlightened Jews of Germany, Maimon was too much
of an *Ostjude* and had too much sympathy for and similarity to
the Talmudists. Furthermore, Maimon never took part in the attempt to
define the "essence" of Judaism and by this to provide a
theology that would imitate and be able to compete with modern
Protestant theology. Being thoroughly knowledgeable about the variety
of aspects and streams of Judaism, Maimon simply *could not*
participate in this reductive project which unfortunately was quite
central to modern Jewish philosophy. Thus, in spite of the fact that
Maimon's erudition in Jewish literature was hardly equaled by
*any* other modern Jewish thinker, Maimon's name is
omitted in many, if not most, 20th century surveys of
modern Jewish philosophy.