The Neo-Kantian Philosopher in the 1870s

This chapter examines Cohen’s philosophical development in the 1870s, after he became established as a professor in Marburg. It first takes a look at Cohen’s early dispute with Kuno Fischer about the early Kant. It then proceeds to examine one of Cohen’s most important early writings, Platos Ideenlehre und die Mathematik. Here Cohen develops the outlines of his critical idealism. The chapter also examines Cohen’s first work on ethics, his 1877 Kants Begründung der Ethik. A remarkable feature of this work is its strict distinction between the normative and factual but its insistence on the interpretation of ethical value as a form of being.