SALOMON MAIMON'S MATURE PHILOSOPHY: NEW PERSPECTIVES AFTER 1790

This international conference is dedicated to fostering new understanding of the philosophy of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800). Maimon is well-known for posing lasting challenges to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and for developing an influential combination of Humean empirical skepticism and Leibnizian rationalist dogmatism in the Essay on Transcendental Philosophy of 1790. But he also published a wealth of further argumentation between 1790-1800 in pursuit of philosophical unity and enlightenment in the fields of logic, philosophy of cognition, philosophy of science, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. Much of this work remains underexplored and understudied. 

In the conference we aim to discuss, among other things, how Maimon's systematic approach to philosophy evolved in his last decade, and to what extent his later works responded to Kant's transcendental project in a way that rivalled the efforts of his contemporaries like Reinhold, Fichte, and the later German Idealists. This event will bring together new and established Maimon scholars to discuss his contributions, reevaluate the philosophical tradition in light of them, and develop a network devoted to further study in this field. It will also celebrate important new achievements in Maimon scholarship, including the publication of the first volume of the new edition of Maimon’s Gesamtausgabe (ed. Ives Radrizzani and M. Caterina Marinelli, Frommann-Holzboog, 2023) and the first English translation of his 1794 Essay on a New Logic or Theory of Thinking: a Translation and Commentary (ed. and trans. Timothy Franz, Oxford University Press, 2024).

To attend online, please register by sending an email to [email protected] with your name and affiliation. You’ll receive an email with the link to attend the conference the day before.

Program

September 16

09:00 - 09:15 Opening remarks

09:15 – 10:15 Yitzhak Melamed (John Hopkins University). Maimon’s Early Hebrew Texts

10:15 – 11:00 Yoav Schaefer (Princeton University). The Nature and Scope of Metaphysics in Maimon’s Hebrew Commentary on Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed

11:15 – 12:15 Katharina Kraus (John Hopkins University). Kant and Maimon on Ideas of Reason

12:15 – 13:00 David Hereza Modrego (Universidad de Zaragoza). Principle of Reason and Principle of Sufficient Reason: An Overlooked Distinction in Maimon’s Mature Philosophy

14:00 – 15:00 Karin Nisenbaum (Syracuse University). Kant and Maimon on God as a Theoretical and Practical Ideal

15:00 – 15:45 Jelscha Schmid (Universität Heidelberg). Maimon’s Pragmatic History of Philosophy

16:00 – 16:45 Jonathan Schmidt-Dominée (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt). Petites perceptions and the transition from Maimon’s Versuch über die Transscendentalphilosophie to the Weltseele

16:45 – 17:30 Idit Chikurel (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München). Maimon as a Baconian: Natural Histories, Induction, and the Ladder of Certainty

September 17

09:15 – 10:15 Julia Peters (Universität Heidelberg). Maimon’s Critique of Kant’s Moral Philosophy

10:15 – 11:00 Jason Maurice Yonover (Yale University). Maimon on Right and Power

11:15 – 12:15 Peter Thielke (Pomona College). Maimon as Mereologist

12:15 – 13:00 Narciso Lopez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Salomon Maimon’s Rejection of Kant’s Theory of Thought

14:00 – 14:45 Malte Schlenker (Universität Heidelberg). Maimon’s Theory of Truth and Meaninglessness of Expressions

14:45 – 15:30 Maria Caterina Marinelli (Universität Hamburg). Maimon on the Philosophical Language

15:45 – 16:30 Timothy Franz (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile). What I Learned from Translating Maimon’s New Logic: Five Surprising Theses

16:30 – 17:15 Roundtable on Translation and new Gesamtausgabe

17:15 - 17:30 Closing remarks