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MAIMON, SALOMON (1754—1800)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 430 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MAIMON, SALOMON (1754—1800) , See also:German philosopher, was See also:born of Jewish parentage in See also:Polish Lithuania, and died at Nieder-Siegersdorf on the 22nd of See also:November 1800. He married at the See also:age of twelve, and studied See also:medicine in See also:Berlin. In 1770 he severed his connexion with his orthodox co-religionists by his See also:critical commentary on the Moreh Nebultim of See also:Maimonides, and devoted himself to the study of See also:philosophy on the lines of See also:Wolff and See also:Moses Mendelssohn. After many vicissitudes he found a peaceful See also:residence in the See also:house of -See also:Count Kalkreuth at Nieder-Siegersdorf in 179o. During the ensuing ten years he published the See also:works which have made his reputation as a critical philosopher. Hitherto his See also:life had been a See also:long struggle against difficulties of all kinds. From his autobiography, it is clear that his keen critical See also:faculty was See also:developed in See also:great measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal. It was not till 1788 that he made the acquaintance of the Kantian philosophy, which was to See also:form the basis of his lifework, and as See also:early as 1790 he published the Versuch uber See also:die Transcendentalphilosophie, in which he formulates his objections to the See also:system. He seizes upon the fundamental incompatibility of a conscious. ness which can apprehend, and yet is separated from, the " thing-in-itself." That which is See also:object of thought cannot be outside consciousness; just as in See also:mathematics sl — r is an unreal quantity, so " things-in-themselves " are ex hypothesi outside consciousness, i.e. are unthinkable. The Kantian See also:paradox he explains as the result of an See also:attempt to explain the origin of the " given " in consciousness. The form of things is admittedly subjective; the mind endeavours to explain the material of the given in the same terms, an attempt which is not only impossible but involves a denial of the elementary See also:laws of thought. Know-ledge of the given is, therefore, essentially incomplete.

See also:

Complete or perfect knowledge is confined to the domain of pure thought, to See also:logic and mathematics. Thus the problem of the " thing-in-itself " is dismissed from the inquiry, and philosophy is limited to the See also:sphere of pure thought. The Kantian categories are, indeed, demonstrable and true, but their application to the given is meaningless and unthinkable. By this critical See also:scepticism Maimon takes up a position intermediate between See also:Kant and See also:Hume. Hume's attitude to the empirical is entirely supported by Maimon. The casual concept, as given by experience, expresses not a necessary See also:objective See also:order of things, but an ordered See also:scheme of See also:perception; it is subjective and cannot be postulated as a See also:concrete See also:law apart from consciousness. The See also:main See also:argument of the Transcendentalphilosophie not only See also:drew from Kant, who saw it in MS., the remark that Maimon alone' of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy, but also directed the path of most subsequent See also:criticism. Maimon's See also:chief works, in addition to the above quoted, are Philos. Worterbuch (1791) ; Streifereien See also:im Gebiete der Philos. (1793) Ober die Progresse der Philos. (1793) ; Die Kategorien See also:des Aristoteles mit Anmerkungen erlautert (1794) ; Versuch einer neuen Logik (1794 and 1798) ; Kritische Untersuchungen uber den menschl. Geist (1797).

See S. Maimons Lebensgeschichte von ihm selbst beschrieben (1792, ed. K. P. See also:

Moritz; Eng. trans. by J. C. See also:Murray, 1888); Wolff, Maimoniana (1813); See also:Witte, S. Maimon (1876).

End of Article: MAIMON, SALOMON (1754—1800)

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