Weimar Philosophy and the Fate of Neo-Kantianism

This chapter explains the decline of neo-Kantianism. In a polemically revisionist account of this major intellectual movement, it casts neo-Kantians as somewhat less than benevolent purveyors of pacifism and cosmopolitanism, explaining how long-simmering cultural and philosophical traditions of pessimism and nihilism ultimately displaced the authoritative role of genuinely Kantian themes in their writings. It shows that the old story told about the fate of neo-Kantianism during the Weimar years—that it represented the path of reason, that it was the sensible via media between the extremes of right and left, that it was murdered by irrationalist fanatics— is a myth. It is philosophically problematic because neo-Kantianism could not effectively justify the democratic and moral values of the Weimar Constitution. And it is historically inaccurate, because the great reaction against neo-Kantianism arose less because of its support for Weimar than because of its support for the Great War.