Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant:

Reason, Finitude and Truth

in the CassirerHeidegger Debate
by Frank Schalow, New Orleans
Die folgende Auslegung holt nach, was in der
Schrift "Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik" (1929) fehlt.
Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding1

This paper reassess the impact of Heidegger's radical interpretation of transcendental philosophy in light of his subsequent discussion in Die Frage nach dem Ding
(1935/36) and with an eye to incorporating the critique advanced against him by
Ernst Cassirer. In giving voice to the objective content of the principles of understanding, Heidegger corrects the excesses which typified his earlier phenomenological treatment of human finitude as outlined in Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik.2 While in retrospect Heidegger's 1935/36 work appears as an exercise in selfcriticism, it is equally the case that the elements of synthetic a priori knowledge
which come under renewed scrutiny are those whose earlier omission made him
vulnerable to Cassirer's pointed critique as developed in his review of the Kantbook.3 In employing different terminology, it is not surprising that Heidegger and
Cassirer should argue at cross purposes.4 Yet in punctuating our discussion with
the key points of that debate, we will find that an appreciation of their sharply
1

Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding: Zu Kants Lehre von den transcendentalen Grundstzen, Gesamtausgabe 41 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984), p. 127. What Is a Thing?,
trans. W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, inc., 1967),
p. 125. Hereafter, all references to Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe will be given by the abbreviation G A, followed by the page number and corresponding where available (GA p.; tr.).
Passages in the Gesamtausgabe which occur without a published English translation will be
quoted in the original German.
Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann,
1992.) Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1991.), Fourth Edition.
Ernst Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," in Kant: Disputed
Questions, ed. Molke S. Gram (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1967), pp. 131 157. This
essay was originally published as Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Bemerkungen zu
Martin Heideggers Kant-Interpretation," Kant-Studien, 36 (1931), 126.
For a portrait of how sharp these differences are, and how this "incompatibility" leads to
complete different political stances by Heidegger and Cassirer, see Wayne Cristaudo, "Heidegger and Cassirer: Being, Knowing, and Politics," Kant-Studien, 82/4 (1991), 473-483.

Kant-Studien 87. Jahrg., S. 198-217

Walter de Gruyter 1996
ISSN 0022-8877
Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn
Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

199

different approaches to Kant proves crucial in cultivating the spirit of transcendental philosophy.
Most of all, Cassirer reminds us of the differences separating Heidegger and
Kant, and hence underscores the need to situate the latter's task within the Enlightenment conflict between the mandates of rationality and freedom and the mechanistic precepts of natural science. In retrospect, Heidegger may have taken this
historical gulf too much for granted in his initial attempt to draw a parallel
between the common emphasis on human finitude held by his own fundamental
ontology and Kant's transcendental philosophy. Ironically, it is this declaration of
finitude, where a "monism of imagination" replaces the "dualism of the sensuous
and intelligible world," which Cassirer finds most problematic in his review of the
Kant-book.5 By contrast, Cassirer emphasizes the critical powers of reason as presiding over, rather than becoming subservient to, the quest to delimit knowledge
through the synthetic combination of understanding, imagination, and sensibility.
As the pivot for Kant's entire inquiry, the Copernican revolution must extend its
radius in two directions so as to include the lawfulness sought by reason and understanding. Only in this manner can a vision of truth prevail which exposes the
opposite tendency toward illusion. Transcendental philosophy arrives at such a
truth when it upholds the boundaries (Grenzen) which safeguard the lawful use of
reason, while curbing natural science's presumption of supremacy. By employing
the sharpened edge of Cassirer's criticism, we will discover that Heidegger's attempt
to equate the synthesis of imagination with finite transcendence requires clarifying
the dual role which transcendental philosophy reserves for truth. Transcendental
truth not only distinguishes human finitude and time as the origin of the a priori
synthesis, as Heidegger contends, but also reveals the arche or first principles of
reason.
This paper will be divided into four parts. First, I will develop Cassirer's criticism
that Heidegger inadvertently construes human finitude as the center of transcendental philosophy rather than as its point of departure.6 Second, I will consider Heidegger's attempt in Die Prge nach dem Ding to draw out the clues for a critique of
modern science from Kant's epistemology. Third, I will develop the concern for
truth in a twofold way which passes the torch of Kant's insight into the Copernican
revolution from the hands of understanding (Verstand) to that of reason (Vernunft).
Finally, I will consider the further development of the task of metaphysics latent
within Kant's thought as opened up at the interface of Cassirer's and Heidegger's
debate.

Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 148. For a pivotal

analysis of these issues, see Calvin Schrg, "Heidegger and Cassirer on Kant," Kant-Studien,
58/1 (1967), 98.
Ibid., p. 149.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

200

Frank Schalow
I. Relocating the Source of Finitude

In light of Heideggers' current prominence, it is easy to forget that in 1929 Cassirer stood as the elder statesman in German philosophy. Cassirer's stature exceeded
that of Heidegger even though the later's reputation had begun to spread like the
"rumor of a hidden king."7 Cassirer's and Heidegger's different backgrounds and
orientations already provoked a spark to their encounter in Davos (1929).8 Their
relationship became even more polarized with Heidegger's publication of Kant und
das Problem der Metaphysik, along with Cassirer's review of it where a sense of
factionalism within competing schools of German philosophy prevails.9 A polemical tone echoes from Heidegger's repeated disavowal of epistemology in favor of
the metaphysical side of Kant's thought. Cassirer also recognizes the danger of
polemics:
If any kind of form of philosophical discussion is to be possible or in any sense fruitful, the
criticism must decide to place himself on the ground which Heidegger has chosen. Whether
he can remain on this ground is a question that is to be decided only through the discussion
itself. But we must move to that ground so that criticism does not degenerate into mere
polemic and in a constant talking at cross purposes.10
In his conversation with Cassirer at Davos in 1929, Heidegger suggests that his
major adversaries are the neo-Kantians who espouse an epistemic side of transcendental philosophy.11 His Kant-book becomes an attempt to stake out an ontological
problematic otherwise omitted by neo-Kantianism.12 Yet six years later in Die Frage
nach dem Ding, Heidegger re-evaluates the claims of knowledge insofar as they
7
8

9
10
11
12

Heidegger's student, Hannah Arendt, coins this phrase. See Theodore Kisiel, The Genesis
of Heidegger's Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 16.
The German version of the "Davos Disputation" which I will cite comes from the Gesamtausgabe edition of Heidegger's Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (GA3). Also included in GA 3 is Heidegger's 1928 review of Cassirer's Philosophie der symbolischen
Formen. 2. Teil: Das mythische Denken, in this review, Heidegger develops a phenomenological analysis of myth and symbol (vis a vis the structures of care and transcendence),
pp. 255270. Also of note are some brief remarks that Heidegger makes concerning his
thoughts on Cassirer's review of the Kant-book (GA 3, pp. 297303). I will use the most
recent English translation, which is of the fourth edition of the Kant-book, 1973, by Richard Taft (Indiana University Press, 1991). In the "Preface to the Fourth Edition," Heidegger
observes how important his debate with Cassirer at Davos was in writing the Kant-book,
p. xv. It is worth noting that Cassirer was ill during part of the ten day period in which
the Davos lectures occurred. See Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time,
pp. 550, 561.
See Carl Hamburg, "A Cassirer-Heidegger Seminar," Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, Vol. XXV (Dec. 1964), 209-220.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 135 (emphasis my
own).
GA 3, pp. 274-275; tr. 171-172.
Otto Pggeler, Martin Heidegger's Path of Thought, trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund
Barber (Atlantic Highlands, N. J., 1963), pp. 63-67.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

201

provide a mathematical framework in which to define nature. His reinstatement of

a concern for epistemology leads us to ask whether his initial dismissal of neoKantianism was short-sighted. Indeed, if there are any adversaries within his scenario of which Heidegger remains wary, it proves to be a strain of nineteenth century positivism which may or may not be best represented by the neo-Kantian
movement in the early 1920's. Perhaps Cassirer had the best sense of this ambiguity
when he posed this question at Davos:
What does Heidegger understand by neo-Kantianism. Who is the opponent to whom Heidegger has addressed himself? I believe that there is hardly a single concept which has been
paraphrased with so little clarity as that of neo-Kantianism. What does Heidegger has in mind
when he employs his own phenomenological critique in place of the neo-Kantian one? NeoKantianism is the whipping boy of the newer philosophy. To me, there is an absence of existing
neo-Kantians. ... As I had not expected to find it in him, I must confess that I have found a
neo-Kantian here in Heidegger.13

In the opening pages of the Kant-book, Heidegger appeals to the Copernican

revolution in order to mark the prefigurement of his own attempt to redirect philosophy from the antecedent conditions of our understanding. This "pre-understanding" governs in advance our comportment toward beings, and makes explicit the
priority of metaphysica generalis as an inquiry into beings as such (Seienden als
solchen) over metaphysica specialis as an inquiry into regions of beings. For Heidegger, the key to Kant's transcendental turn lies in a regress back to the "preliminary
understanding of being" (des vorgngigen Seinsverstndnisses), which takes its orientation from a parallel concern for human finitude.14 According to Cassirer, however, Heidegger exaggerates the emphasis on human finitude in such a way as to
grant excessive import to the sensibilized conditions of cognition, i. e., receptivity,
time, and imagination as if the spontaneous contribution of thought were almost
secondary.15 While praising Heidegger's attempt to re-establish schematism as the
fulcrum of cognition, Cassirer argues that the schematized categories distinguish
only one side of the overall quest to delimit reason's employment in contrast to
13

14

15

GA 3, 274; tr. 171. See Daniel O. Dahlstrom, "Heidegger's Kantian Turn: Notes to His
Commentary on the Kritik der reinen Vernunft," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XLV, No. 2
(Dec. 1991), 329361. As Dahlstrom points out, in his attempt to round out apparent
assymetries in the first Critique, Heidegger's approach resembles that of the neo-Kantians
despite arriving at opposite conclusions. Specifically, in maintaining that the a priori synthesis is to be defined primarily through imagination, Heidegger opposes the attempt by the
Marburg neo-Kantians to derive knowledge from the understanding alone (pp. 332,
349-350). Ironically, in the period from 1919-1923, Heidegger had found the clue to
developing his own hermeneutic phenomenology through an encounter with a side of "neoKantianism," specifically, Emil Lask's inquiry into the roots of all concept formation. See
Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, pp. 2338. For an interesting discussion of Lask's place within neo-Kantianism, see Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, "Two
Idealisms: Lask and Husserl," Kant-Studien, 84/4 (1993), 448-449. Of course, the neoKantian Heinrich Rickert directed Heidegger's Habilitationsschrift on Duns Scotus (1915).
GA 3, p. 15; tr. 10.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 141 142.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

202

Frank Schalow

understanding. In short, the demands of transforming Kant into a prototypical

metaphysician all but sacrifice the key components of his epistemology along with
his architectonic of reason.
As penetrating as his criticisms are, Cassirer cannot help but he misled by an
ambiguity which pervades Heidegger's exchange with transcendental philosophy.
For without much warning, Heidegger vacillates between the attempt to develop
the implications which transcendental philosophy has for clarifying his own point
of departure, and seeking in phenomenology the key to break Kant's thought of its
tie to a narrowly epistemic mode. We must recognize, however, that a reinterpretation of transcendental philosophy did not initially figure into Heidegger's strategy
for re-asking the question of being. Indeed, upon seeking a more systematic outline
upon which to recast his phenomenological insights into being (Sein), he abruptly
turned to transcendental philosophy in the winter semester of 1925/26.16 For the
first time, he recognized that synthetic a priori judgments reveal the anticipatory
structure of understanding, and thus exhibit the feature of "hermeneutische Indikation."17 In his 1927/28 lecture course on Kant, Heidegger proceeded to clarify how
his earlier insight held the key to a new appreciation of the "transcendental," insofar as "der Sinn und das Recht solcher Antizipation sind das Grundproblem der
transcendentalen Logik."18
In transcendental philosophy, Heidegger discovered a terminology which would
help to translate the diffuse determinations of being gathered pre-ontologically into
a well-articulated concept of the meaning of being. He appealed to time as the
"upon which" (Woraufhin) for distinguishing our understanding of being prior to
the attempt to define the nature of beings present-at-hand. A special niche must
then be reserved for a "philosophical logic," which is centered on the phenomenon
of finite transcendence.19 A philosophical logic recognizes a further shift in orientation which arises from our temporal finitude, in order to make explicit the presuppositions that underlie an ontology of presence-at-hand (Ontologie der Vorhandenheit). In an effort to re-orient his inquiry into being from the presupposition of existence rather than presence-at-hand, Heidegger develops a "fundamental ontology." His radical departure for ontology shifts the focus of understanding to a preconceptual level of meaning, and seeks a more original place for truth apart from
16
17

18

19

Heidegger, Logik: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit, GA 21 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann,
1976), pp. 375 ff. See Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, pp. 408409.
GA 21, p. 410.
Heidegger, Phnomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, G A 25
(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), p. 195. The transcript of this lecture course prefigures the 1929 Kant-book. See Frank Schalow, The Renewal of the Heidegger-Kant Dialogue
(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), Chapter Two and Three.
See Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgrnde der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, GA 26
(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), pp. 69. The Metaphysical foundations of Logic,
trans. Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 67. See Frank
Schalow, "The Unique Role of Logic in the Development of Heidegger's Dialogue with
Kant," Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan. 1994), 103-125.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

203

the proposition. Rather than denouncing Kant's project, this attempt to organize
logic around a more primordial root may instead uncover a wider spectrum of
meaning, including that of myth, symbol and culture that Cassirer develops as the
cornerstone of his philosophy.20
For Heidegger, this deeper locus of meaning can be reached only by projecting
human existence upon its limits, that is, through temporality. By weaving together
the dimensions of future, past, and present, the ecstatic structure of time shapes
the project of understanding (Verstehen) and draws forth the "toward which" (Worauf) of its limits, the pre-assembling of a horizon of meaning. In revealing the
possibilities of our understanding, primordial time (ursprngliche Zeit) uncovers
the basic conceptual determinations which define being. Primordial time provides
this intermediary role in a way analogous to Kant's attempt to identify the temporal
schemata which bridge the "heterogenity"21 of a universal category with the particular as given in experience. For Heidegger, temporality yields the key for developing
a language of being. He differs from Cassirer, however, by suggesting that the
power to form schemata, or imagination (Einbildungskraft), is devoted to developing ontological concepts. By contrast, Cassirer allows for the possibility, as Kant
did in the third Critique, for cultivating imagination's creativity apart from concepts
through a symbolic language; such a language reflects the cultural diversity of
meanings.22
In Being and Time, Heidegger calls attention to the uniquely logical character of
his inquiry into being and to its search for transcendental truth by stating: "Thus
the way in which being and its modes and characteristics have their meaning determined primordially in terms of time, is what we shall call its 'Temporal' determinateness [Bestimmtheit]."23 In recognizing that temporality configures the conceptual determinations essential to understand being, Heidegger seeks an ally within
the tradition who most explicitly finds in time the potential determinancy of all
thought, namely, Kant with his doctrine of transcendental schematism. As Kant
suggests, the key to the categorial relations which accomplish the a priori passing
over to the object (Gegenstand), "becomes possible by means of the transcendental
determination of time (transzendentale Zeitbestimmung)" (A 139/B 178).24
20
21
22

23

24

See Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York: Harper &
Row, Publishers, Inc., 1946), pp. 45 ff.
See Henry Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983), pp. 178-187.
Cassirer, Language and Myth, pp. 74 ff. See Cristaudo, "Heidegger and Cassirer: Being,
Knowing and Politics," p. 474. Also see Heidegger's review of Cassirer's analysis of myth,
GA 3, pp. 265269. Heidegger examines the way in which Cassirer expands Kant's Critical
philosophy to include a "critique of culture." Heidegger argues, however, that this critique
must be balanced by a detailed account of transcendence and care.
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, G A 2 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), p. 26. Being and
Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1962), p. 40.
Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965).
All further citations to the first Critique will be included parenthetically within the text as

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

204

Frank Schalow

Given Kant's emphasis on the centrality of time, Heidegger then embarks upon
an intricate analysis of Kantian schematism. As one scholar suggests, Heidegger
claimed that Kantian schematism makes explicit a "semiotic level" (semiotische
Ebene) within temporality which provides the root for a "pre-predicative"
(vorprdikativ) understanding of being.25 Heidegger's entire interpretation demonstrates how temporality shapes the signifying relations of the categories, so as to
establish in advance the possibility of "passing over to" an object (transcendence).
Thus primordial time makes possible finite transcendence.26 To underscore the link
between his own thought and Kant's, Heidegger argues that time not only governs
the legitimate employment of the categories, but determines their genesis as well.
As the faculty of time-formation, transcendental imagination emerges as the new
locus for generating thought in its connection with sensibility. The threefold synthesis of imagination encompasses the other two faculties, of understanding and sensibility, so as to qualify as their ultimate root.27 The heart of Heidegger's thesis in
the Kant-book, which Cassirer vehemently opposes, becomes evident.28
The objective content of the categories appears incidental to Heidegger. He emphasizes the "subjective deduction" as an analogue to undertaking a phenomenological "critique of the subjectivity of the subject,"29 but does not consider how the
schematized categories give rise to the principles of understanding which govern
our knowledge of natural events.30 While Cassirer reveals the danger of emphasizing one facet of transcendental philosophy at the expense of another, Heidegger
only belatedly seeks the proper remedy for his interpretation. As Heidegger illustrates in Die Frage nach dem Ding, the attempt to nurture Kant's ontological
stance of finitude in a deeper, prepredicative root of imagination, does not require
forsaking the concern for knowledge. Rather, when singled out as a facet of human
concern, our cognitive capacity can be developed within the horizon of worldly
involvements. What Heidegger initially describes as the fore-structure of understanding admits such everyday involvement as one avenue of disclosure. Yet that

25
26
27

28

29

30

above. Also see GA 3, p. 197; tr. 135. Heidegger uses the plural, "transzendentale Zeitbestimmungen."
C. La Rocca, "Schematismus und Anwendung," Kant-Studien, 80/2 (1989), 89 (also note
#8).
GA3, 197; tr. 134-135.
GA 3, pp. 176189; tr. 120129. Apprehension as related to the present, reproduction as
related to the past, and recognition as related to the future, are united more primordially
through the temporal synthesis of imagination which combines each of those dimensions
through primordial time.
Within the hermeneutical tradition, Paul Ricoeur is the thinker whose criticism of Heidegger
most closely parallels Cassirer's. Like Cassirer, Ricoeur opposes a too abrupt appeal to time
and finitude which undermines reason and the pursuit of its regulative ideal. See Fallible
Man (Chicago: Henry Regnery Comapny, 1965), pp. 6875.
GA3, p. 195; tr. 133.
D. A. Lynch, "Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger: The Davos Debate," Kant-Studien,
81/3 (1990), 363.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

205

disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) allows for further gradations, in order to solicit a

stance of objectification. Because it attends to things only secondarily from a further
level of abstraction, a scientific mode of cognition presupposes the interweaving of
all the other avenues of disclosure. The wider horizon of disclosure encompasses
not only the knower's relation to an object, but also the precognitive mode of
concern indicative of its finite nature.
Just as Kant can be criticized for adopting a transcendental stance divorced from
the dynamics of experience, so Heidegger later recognizes the difficulties in beginning from a pre-ontological understanding of being. Let us then examine the shifting contours of the problematic which leads Heidegger in his 1935/36 lecture course
to recover Kant's epistemology.
II. Transcendental Reflection and the Domain of Science
Insofar as the hold of neo-Kantianism had diminished by 1935, Heidegger turns
to confront the remanents of nineteenth century positivism that Dilthey first opposed. But the positivistic tendency to make science supreme cannot be countered
without also recovering the basic question directing metaphysics, the inaugural
query "why?" The parallel need to seek the historical origin of metaphysics, and to
expose the roots of modernity in the rise of modern science, requires that Heidegger
renew his allegiance with Kant. A further need to situate Kant's thought in its
relation to the Enlightenment becomes equally important.
Heidegger's inquiry must be able to turn in two directions at once. On the one
hand, he must be able to locate a more finely etched critique of metaphysics which
can preserve the sovereignty of its question (of the "why?"). On the other hand, he
must be able to establish the limits of the specific disciplines which metaphysics
grounds as epitomized by modern science in its regional investigation of nature.
Heidegger's way of distinguishing between being (das Sein) and beings (die Seienden) the backbone of his reinterpretation of the Copernican revolution31 assumes a more radical form as the need to differentiate between specialized areas of
research (e. g., biology, chemistry), and the inquiry into being's disclosure. The different demarcation of themes suggests a sharper division between a language which
nurtures the disclosure of being and a narrowly discursive delineation of extant
properties.
In contrasting his own task with modern science, Heidegger renews his dialogue
with transcendental philosophy. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, he emphasizes for the
first time the critical sense of the self-examination of pure reason as revealing the
premises on which our knowledge of nature rests.32 Heidegger specifically ad31
32

GA3, pp. 17-18; p. 11.

GA41, pp. 121 123; tr. 119121. For an account of how the architectonic structure of
Critical philosophy can be recast in hermeneutical terms, see A. T. Nuyen, "On Interpretating Kant's Architectonic in Terms of the Hermeneutical Model," Kant-Studien, 84/2 (1993),
154-166.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

206

Frank Schalow

dresses Kant's attempt to delimit in advance the entirety of what is on a mathematical plane, to seek the principles which show beforehand how whatever we encounter (as Gegenstand) appears in conformity with numerical conditions. The precursory comprehension of the domain in which objects display their ability to be
graphed upon numerical coordinates constitutes the "mathematical project" distinguishing modern science.33 The term "project" (Entwurf) is taken quite literally
here as a preliminary disclosure which circumscribes the entirety of what can show
itself. Heidegger first employs the term Entwurf in Being and Time to convey the
dynamic power of disclosure reserved for understanding (Verstehen). He subsequently shows how the area of that disclosure recedes in favor of what becomes
present in it.
Understanding belongs to a more primordial disclosure which can extend and
narrow its radius, and thereby delimit the horizon of meaning to facilitate a progressively thematic grasp of beings. Such a transformation would recast the sphere
of what is understandable, sorting out in advance a field of meaning in which the
stance of a knowing comportment could take root. In order to be fundamental,
however, such knowledge requires a "towards which" (Worauf) that leads from its
most remote boundaries back to its situatedness among beings.34 Only given this
dual comportment (Verhalten) can knower and object be related within a cognitive
field. This knowing act includes two foci, which extend on one side to determine
the mode of objectivity, and, on the other, to distinguish the knower's anticipatory
mode of comportment. Heidegger can then appreciate further the sense of the "transcendental" in the special way ascribed to transcendental knowledge. This higher
knowledge marks the difference between the anticipatory character of the knowing
act which facilitates a "reflective" attentiveness toward the cognitive relation as a
whole, and the content pertaining to the scientific properties of what is known.
Heidegger's emphasis on transcendental reflection (transzendentale Betrachtung)
which Kant addresses most explicitly in the Appendix to the Transcendental
Analytic proves to be an important concession that the uniqueness of Kant's
method must be preserved before comparing it to phenomenology.
The transcendental is what concerns transcendence. Viewed transcendentally, thought is
considered in the passing over to the object. Transcendental reflection is not directed upon
objects themselves nor upon thought as the mere representation of the subject-predicate relationship, but upon the passing over (berstieg) and the relation to the object as this relation.35

Indeed, reflection distinguishes the counterpole of the apperceptive "I" in directing

the representational act through which thought can exhibit the "standing over
against" of the object, its objectivity.
33
34

35

GA 41, pp. 93-94; tr. 92-93.

As Kisiel points out, the dynamics of this "toward-which" allows for the counterstance of
the object, and marks the "formal indication" of the act of objectification itself. The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, p. 509.
GA 41, p. 179; tr. 176.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

207

In examining more directly the elements of cognition, however, Heidegger does

not in any way diminish the importance of the ontological features implied in any
knowing comportment. On the contrary, the initial separation of subject and object
on a cognitive level presupposes a cognitive field, which determines the object in
relation to the knower's anticipation of it. Even within the significantly narrow
sphere of scientific knowing there remains a juncture of exchange, the Worauf of a
horizon in regard to which an object can emerge in the intricacy of its determination. Heidegger does not explicitly equate this Worauf with the intermediary role
of imagination, the threefold synthesis, as he did in the Kant-book. The apparent
reduction of our cognitive power to its imaginative source, which Cassirer denounces so strongly, plays no explicit part in Heidegger's new interpretation. Yet
the need remains to expose a disclosive counterpart to cognition as the crucial step
toward exposing the derivative assumptions of positivism, of tracing its origin to
an ontology of presence-at-hand. As Heidegger states in Die Frage nach dem Ding:
This transcendental consideration, however, is not an external hooking up of psychological
and logical modes of reflection, but something more primordial, from which these two sides
have been separately lifted out. Whenever, within a science, we reflect in some way upon that
science itself, we take the step into the line of vision and onto the plane of transcendental
reflection.36

Ultimately, metaphysics must recognize that the uniqueness of its task begins
where the claim of scientific legitimacy ends. In grasping the wider import of science
as constituting a problem in its own right, Heidegger amends a remark he originally
made to Cassirer at Davos upon identifying the limits of neo-Kantianism.
I understand by neo-Kantianism the conception of the Critique of Pure Reason which explains, with reference to natural science, the part of pure reason that leads up to the Transcendental Dialectic as theory of knowledge. For me, what matters is to show that what came to
be extracted here as theory of science was nonessential for Kant. Kant did not want to give
an sort of theory of natural science, but rather wanted to point out the problematic of metaphysics, which is to say, the problematic of ontology.37

In Die Prge nach dem Ding, Heidegger recognizes that marking the limits of natural science is an essential component of a critique of pure reason. The process of
schematism not only restricts the application of the categories to possible experience. This delimitation also allows for the converse proof that what can be known
within experience does not exhaust the systematic unity sought by reason. Not
surprisingly, Cassirer's criticism hinges on identifying this concern otherwise overlooked by Heidegger, namely, the need to "limit the presumption of sensibility" by
upholding the "limit concept" of reason. This concept marks the pitfall of the at-

36

37

GA 41, p. 182; tr. 179.

GA 3, pp. 274-275; tr. 172.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

208

Frank Schalow

tempt to cognize a supersensible object, while offsetting the prejudice of natural

science's claim of supremacy.38
In the conclusion to the Prolegomena, Kant outlines the metaphysical implications of his attempt to delimit knowledge in a way that best reinforces Cassirer's
emphasis. In discussing the role of the transcendental ideas, Kant recognizes that
the delimitation (Umgrenzung) of knowledge is only complete once the complementary move has been made to extend to the boundaries (Grenzen) marked by them:
But metaphysics leads us toward bounds in the dialectical attempts of pure reason (not
undertaken arbitrarily or wantonly) but stimulated thereto by the nature of reason itself. And
the transcendental Ideas ... serve to point out to us actually not only the bounds of the pure
use of reason, but also the way to determine them. Such is the end and the use of this natural
predisposition of our reason, which has brought forth metaphysics as its favorite child ...39

Kant's reply to Hume on the issue of cause and effect remains incomplete so long
as the ends of reason have been sacrificed to the facts of sense experience.
As Heidegger emphasizes in Die Frage nach dem Ding, no matter how compelling
those matters of facts are, they remain insignificant without their incorporation
into a wider cognitive field. Left to its own resources science may fall prey to a
myopia of its vision. Conversely, science's advance requires correlating the facts
within different paradigms in which the import of a single fact can be ascertained
in new ways. Science does not accept the premise of an independent reality, but, as
Kant suggests, it can grasp the objectivity of its claims only by turning back to the
antecedent conditions that foster such an objective relation. For Heidegger, this
cognitive field receives its orientation from a pregiven, historically and culturally
defined network of concerns. Only then can the attempt to outline the contours of
such a cognitive field, as Kant does, for example, in calling upon transcendental
reflection, exceed in import the specific knowledge claims of science. The wider
horizon of meaning arising from finite transcendence gathers together the steps by
which we attain a critical stance toward knowledge in contrast to defining the
constitution of objects.
Heidegger's insight into how a horizon of finitude orients all self-criticism
including that undertaken by reason brings to fruition his earlier attempt to
show that fundamental ontology radically reformulates the Kantian question "what
38

39

Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 141. Having made

this observation, Cassirer then concludes: "Schematism and the doctrine of the transcendental imagination stand in the middle of Kant's analysis but not in the focal point of Kant's
system. This system is completed only in the transcendental dialectic, and, further in the
Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of judgment. ... The theme 'Kant and the
Problem of Metaphysics' cannot, therefore, be treated exclusively under the aspect of the
chapter on schematism but only under the aspect of the Kantian doctrine of freedom and
his theory of the beautiful" (p. 149).
Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Prolegomena zu einer jeden knftigen
Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten knnen, Band IV (Berlin, 1922),
pp. 107108. Prolegomena to Any Puture Metaphysics, trans. Paul Carus (and Lewis White
Beck) (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1950), p. 102.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

209

is man?" With a different terminology, Cassirer instead follows reason's quest to

distinguish the complementarity of its theoretical and practical use. Only in this
way does it become possible for reason to reconcile itself with its highest ends, and
do so in light of our cultural heritage and its symbolic expression. The value of
these two ways of interpreting transcendental philosophy will be determined by
considering the different approaches to the Dialectic implied in them. Insofar as
the Dialectic completes the process of reason's self-criticism, a reinterpretation of
this part of transcendental logic would yield a proper response to the challenge
posed by neo-Kantianism.40

III. Truth and the Principles of Reason

The Transcendental Dialectic begins by tracing the origin of metaphysics through
reason's natural disposition to seek the whole, and then proceeds to show the misappropriation of the sources of knowledge (of thought and sensibility) which
spawns the spurious attempt to cognize a supersensible object. In this way, transcendental logic reveals its two-pronged approach, i. e., through its division into a
"logic of truth" (Analytic) and a "critique of dialectical illusion" (Dialectic) (A 63/
B 8788). But how can this distinction, which seems to be primarily epistemic,
betray a deeper ontological basis in Heidegger's sense? In order to succeed in delimiting knowledge to possible experience, the Copernican shift to finitude must locate
its possibility within the wider organization of reason (and not just understanding).
Only then could such a transcendental turn ensure the equal contribution of all
levels of cognition.
By the same token, the danger of cutting too quickly to the imagination as the
common root of understanding and sensibility (a "receptive spontaneity"), and uprooting reason in the process, becomes apparent. Not surprisingly, Cassirer reiterates the need to observe the distinctions comprising the architectonic of reason.41
Perhaps the clue to moving toward a possible middle ground lies in recognizing
that reason is itself not a monolithic structure. Reason must instead undergo devel40

41

Despite the rather cursory manner with which Heidegger examines the Dialectic, he does
state: "On the grounds of my interpretation of Dialectic as ontology, I believe I am able
to show that the problem of appearance [Scheins] in the Transcendental Logic, which for
Kant is only negative in the form in which it first appears there, is [actually] a positive
problem ...", GA 3, 275; tr. 172. Also of special note is Heidegger's discussion of the "cosmological idea," or, in phenomenological terms, the concept of world (Welt). See G A 25,
p. 295. Cf. Heidegger, Vom Wesen des Grundes in Wegmarken, G A 9 (Frankfurt: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1976), p. 152. The Essence of Reasons, trans. Terrence Malick (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1969), pp. 7375. Despite providing an extremely helpful
chart of the passages from the Kant's writings which Heidegger cites from 19261936,
Dahlstrom does not acknowledge the importance of Heidegger's treatment of the cosmological idea in Vom Wesen des Grundes (1928). See "Heidegger's Kantian Turn," pp. 349350.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 145151.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

210

Frank Schalow

opment in distinguishing between its own self-critical capacity and the employment
of understanding (Verstand) in cognizing objects (A61/B85). 42 Likewise, what
manifests itself within experience is not defined exclusively by its sense characteristics. Rather, only in conjunction with the complementary locus of unity supplied
by the transcendental object = can we represent appearances in the fullest intentional sense as something.43
In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger comes closest to appreciating the import
of Kant's epistemological dualism. Heidegger shows how the sense of Gegenstand
includes both the object's independence of offering itself to us and the knower's
maintaining a deeper source of unity in the "I" of original apperception. The Gegenstand's twofold role as encompassing both the sensuous event of appearance and
the cognitive uniformity of a standard, has for its preface overturning a complete
isomorphism between the predicates ascribed to things and their formal unity in
thought. As Heidegger begins to recognize, even though the Dialectic follows on
the heels of the Analytic, its ability to unravel the assumptions on which rational
metaphysics rests provides the entry point to relocate the center of knowledge.
Thus, the Dialectic, in exposing the spurious attempt to prove that God exists,
reveals how the category of existence is employed as if it were sufficient to command a relationship of identity so pervasive as to support a cognition of something
in general (i. e., the ens realissimum). The critical stance of the Dialectic brings into
a wider focus the conclusion of the Analytic. That is, the infinite claim of pure
identity must bow before the finite/insistence of admitting a relation of opposition
via the object (as Gegenstand). As stated in the highest principle of synthetic judgments, the standard supplied by a relation to an object supercedes the merely formal
canon of thought's consistency, which is expressed in the principle of non-contradiction.
If there is a linchpin between the Analytic and the Dialectic, it lies in a section
of the Critique which Kant reserves to contrast his own method with Leibniz's,
"The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection." In this section, Kant shows how the
difficulties surrounding Leibniz's attempt to ground knowledge in a cognition of
absolute identity must be countered by a more discrete, cognitively centered process
of transcendental reflection (A 264/B 320).44 Such reflection turns back to consider
the distinct sources of our knowledge, so that the apprehension of our finitude
42
43

44

Kant identifies the architectonic precedent of this distinction in differentiating between a

critical and doctrinal use of reason.
See G. Zller, "Apriorische Gegenstandsbeziehung als Intentionalitt in % 14 der 'Kritik
der reinen Vernunft,'" Proceedings of the Sixth International Kant Congress, Vol. II/l, ed.
Gerhard Funke and Thomas M. Seebohm (Washington, DC: University Press of America,
1989), pp. 424425. Also see Hoke Robinson, "The Transcendental Deduction From A to
B: Combination in the Threefold Synthesis and the Representation of a Whole," in The BDeduction (Spindel Conference, 1986), The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXV,
pp. 52-54.
For Cassirer's account of transcendental reflection, see Kant's Life and Thought, trans.
James Haden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), pp. 193, 203.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

211

(i. e., of our cognitive powers) can instruct us as to the need to separate sensibility
from understanding. Only by observing this difference can cognition expand its
radius to include on one side the oppositional stance of the object (Gegenstand)
and, on the other side, the unification of all the knower's representations under the
principle of transcendental apperception.
By intervening to distinguish these two sides of cognition at once, transcendental
reflection shows that the boundary of truth circles back to include its corollary
development as monitoring the threat of illusion. Initially, what Kant describes as
transcendental knowledge pertains to administering the decree of finitude whereby
the possibility of knowledge hinges on showing how an object can emerge in opposition to a knower. "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not
so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as
this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori" (A 12/B 2). But such knowledge
cannot develop without also undertaking the reciprocal move of dissecting the illusion of perfect identity in the search for a supersensible object. The complementary
side of the Copernican revolution lies in undertaking the reflection which turns
back to distinguish between the sensible and intellectual origin of our cognitive
capacities. Transcendental reflection thereby broadens the Copernican revolution,
and makes explicit a further line of delimitation that extends from reason back
to understanding. This delimitation centers the cognitive act within the polarity
established between the transcendental object and transcendental apperception.
Interestingly enough, Cassirer begins his review of the Kant-book by indicating
the close tie between Kant's Copernican revolution and his insight into the transcendental object.
In February 1772, Kant reported in a letter to Marcus Herz that his investigations of the
form and the principles of the sensuous and the intelligible worlds had taken a new and
decisive turn a turn through which he thought he had in his possession now, after long
searching and wavering, "the key to all of metaphysics, which up to that time concealed to
itself." He now conceived the problem of the "transcendental object" as the core of metaphysics. The question, "What is the ground of the relation to the object of that in us which is called
representation?" now became the central point of philosophy. It created the new intellectual
orientation out of which the plan of the Critique of Pure Reason grew and in regard to which
it was carried out. This new orientation constitutes the content and the basic meaning of
Kant's Copernican Revolution.45

The polarity established by shifting the fulcrum of knowledge overcomes the

formal identity which mistakenly translates merely subjective elements of our
thought into the constitutive conditions of things as such (A 242). The Dialectic
thereby brings into focus our knowledge as the capacity to represent the object qua
appearance in contrast to its immediate presentation to an absolute cognition. The
principles of understanding outlined in the Analytic, then, implement this insight;
these principles indicate the stages of synthetic combination, which must be developed in order that the object can exhibit its feature of standing over against and
45

Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 131.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

212

Frank Schalow

emerge in conjunction with an antecedent synthetic unity. A regard for the distinctly
human mode of cognition as addressed in the Analytic develops as the counterpart
to the critical appeal made in the Dialectic. Only then can the task of addressing
truth and illusion be shown to complement each other such that the Dialectic is the
"obverse (and thereby the confirmation) of the cognitive limits pronounced in the
Analytic."46
Thus, the Dialectic shows how reason can apprehend its limits through the medium provided by its own example rather than through a direct vehicle of discursivity. The need for reason to appeal to such an intermediary in order to grasp its
own structure an insight which Kant takes as the key to the third Critique
only reinforces the finitude of its powers. In the Kant-book, Heidegger had sought
to amplify reason's finitude according to the paradox of denying its independence
in favor of imagination. Yet, the overly economic character of his argument does
not constitute the only way to transfer the results of Kant's critical survey of reason
back upon the wider platform of human finitude. For transcendental reflection
extends the radius of cognition in such a way as to include the complementary roles
of reason and understanding within the scope of a larger inquiry.
The ability to preserve the systematic integrity of Kant's thought, while re-assembling it along the axis of finitude, provides the missing step which Heidegger lacked
to coordinate two distinctly different notions of metaphysics. The rational metaphysics which Kant rejects presumes to cognize a supersensible object and thereby
perpetuates transcendental illusion. For Kant, a critical metaphysics which examines
its own possibility (as metaphysica generalis) grows out of this crisis, the conflict
between truth and illusion. The critical appraisal of reason's power may not qualify
as a cognition in the strict sense as having a determinate object. Yet an apprehension
of the lawfulness exhibited by reason's example, in marking both the center and
circumference of cognition, may still comprise a facet of transcendental truth, i. e.,
in marking the highest arche of knowledge within metaphysica generalis. The transcendental reflection which traverses the parameters of truth, while entertaining the
corollary prospect of reason's entangelment in illusion, can alone plant the seeds
for any "future metaphysics which would come forth as science." A metaphysics of
this futural form must accomodate the movement fueling the reflective grasp of the
object in its opposition to us, as well as the neglect for the field of finite cognition.
It is with an eye to apprehending the dynamics of truth that Heidegger employs the
adjectival modifier, "transcendental," and thereby re-defines Kant's task as a "laying
the ground for metaphysics."47
Transcendental truth is required in order to establish the possibility of any correspondence between an empirical judgment and its object, i. e., empirical truth. For
example, the claim that one event follows another in temporal sucession could not
46
47

Charles M. Sherover, "Two Kinds of Transcendental Objectivity: Their Differentiation," in

Philosophical Topics, 12/2 (Summer 1981), 267.
GA3, p.3;tr. 1.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

213

serve as an instance of knowledge without the unity supplied by the category which
designates for that empirical representation the uniformity of reference of an object.
The diverse judgments which comprise nature (natura) must themselves depend on
the antecedent conditions which govern the dynamic interaction between knower
and object. Empirical truth presupposes transcendental truth, or in the terms Heidegger initially employed in 1929, ontic truth presupposes ontological truth.48 Yet
truth also includes the counter prospect for its own neglect. As Heidegger remarks
in his conversation with Cassirer at Davos: "On the ground of the finitude of the
being-in-truth (In-der-Wahrheit-sein) of human beings, there exists at the same time
a being-in-the-untruth" (In-der-Un-wahrheit-sein).49 According to Heidegger, the
presumption of supersensible knowledge marks a tendency toward error which is
only possible for a finite being.
Put simply, rational metaphysics skirts the requirements of truth as translated
into synthetic a priori principles by employing an incomplete canon of knowledge,
the law of non-contradiction. This attempt to employ a canon as if it were the sole
authority for knowledge ignores the wider axis along which truth becomes possible,
the horizon of objectivity. Conversely, the denial of this ontological horizon, which
for Kant amounts to thought's seeking its immediate identity with an object without
the guidance of an a priori synthesis, fuels the presumption of rational metaphysics.
Thus, rational metaphysics is seen to derive its own tendency toward illusion from
a deeper "untruth" whose prefigurement lies in neglecting the difference between
being and beings (Unterschied zwischen Sein und Seiendem), or forgetting the priority of metaphysica generalis over metaphysica specialist Only by first marking
the intersection of Kant's view of untruth with Heidegger's, can we then accept the
latter's initial premise of a common concern for the possibility of metaphysics held
by both.
The Transcendental Dialectic is focal because it prefigures Heidegger's attempt
to criticize a traditonal ontology of presence-at-hand. In reinterpreting the Dialectic
in this manner, we can compare Heidegger's fundamental ontology with Kant's
critical metaphysics, without precluding other ways of developing the metaphysical
implications of Kantian thought. No doubt Cassirer had the firmest grip on what
these other possibilities might entail when he stated in his conversation with Heidegger at Davos:
What is new in this [Copernican] turn appears to me to lie in the fact that now there is no
longer one single such structure of being, but that instead we have completely different ones.
Every new structure of being has its new a priori presuppositions. Kant shows how every kind
of new form now also refers to a new world of the objective, how the aesthetic object is not
48
49

50

GA3, p. 18; tr. 11.

GA 3, p. 281; tr. 176.
For a discussion of how Heidegger's interpretation of Kant hinges on the issues of the
"ontologische Differenz," see A. Rosales, Transcendenz und Differenz (Den Haag: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 9-10, 97. See Frank Schalow, "Re-Opening the Issue of World: Heidegger and Kant," Man and World, Vol. 20 (1987), 200.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

214

Frank Schalow

bound to the empirical object, how it has its own a priori categories, how art also builds up
a world, but also how it has its own a priori categories, how art also builds up a world, but
also how these laws are different from the laws of the physical. For this reason, the new
multiplicity enters into the problem of the object in general. ... Being in the new metaphysics
is, in my language, no longer the being of a substance, but rather the being which starts from
a variety of functional determinations and meanings.51

IV. Freedom and the Metaphysics of the Puture

Heideggers's emphasis on temporality becomes never more problematic than
when he turns to the realm of practical reason and attempts to reconcile moral
freedom with human finitude. While Heidegger emphasizes the "thrown" dimension (Geworfenheit) of choice within moral action, Cassirer upholds a cosmopolitan
sense of humanity qua spirit which subscribes to the ideal of reason.52 Yet in opposing the existential motifs of his day,53 even Cassirer can defend Kant's epistemic
dualism of the sensible and the intelligible worlds only by confronting the accompanying problems its spawns on a metaphysical level. Kant's ability to distinguish
reason allows transcendental philosophy to reserve a place for the idea of freedom,
while still maintaining nature's governance by the law of cause and effect. His
solution to the third antinomy has its own special caveat, insofar as the activity of
the will as initiating an uncaused cause within nature remains difficult to fathom.
In addressing this problem, Heidegger argues that even a noumenal freedom requires the development of an accompanying horizon for action in order to be experienced. As he states in his 1930 lectures on human freedom: "Die Tatschlichkeit,
die der Realitt der Freiheit entspricht, ist die der Praxis."54 Thus Heidegger
transposes the precise Kantian formulation of the problem of freedom and necessity
by seeking the will's corollary enactment within the temporal horizon of being-inthe-world. Despite our immersion in worldly concerns, there must already be a
contrary orientation which induces us to rise above the expediency of events. The
concern for expediency proves to be an extension of our engagement with the instrumental complex of things ready-to-hand, or what Kant might describe as "rela51

52

53

54

GA 3, p. 294; tr. 184.

For a brief discussion of this difference, see Jrgen Habermas, Politisch-philosophische
Profile (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 5254. Habermas points out the conflict between
Heidegger's emphasis on "Schickal" and Cassirer's appeal to cultural development and
progress. I am grateful to Professor Randall Auxier for directing me to this source.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 155156. As Cassirer indicates, Heidegger's emphasis on the abyss of the imagination, from which Kant
supposely "recoiled," paints a picture of the human situation which belongs more to Kierkegaard's world than to Kant's. By contrast, Cassirer points to the luminosity of Kant's
thought which led Goethe to suggest that reading a page of Kant's writings was like "entering a bright room" (p. 155).
Heidegger, Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, G A 31 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann,
1982), p. 271. "The factuality that corresponds to the reality of freedom is praxis."

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

215

tive ends."55 By seeking possibilities whose relevance exceeds purely instrumental

ends, a person can become the recipient of freedom and qualify as a "world citizen"
(ein Weltbrger).56
But how does Kant's attempt to establish the dependence of our will on an unchanging moral law also lend itself to reveal time as the organizational field of
human action, as Heidegger contends? In his analysis of the first Critique, Heidegger shows that the transcendental concern for the process of cognition exhibits a
polarity within our temporal natures which is both "situated" and "projective."
What on an existential plane consists of a relation between thrownness and projection has its epistemic analogue in what Heidegger boldly describes in the Kantbook as a spontaneous-receptivity. But can this spontaneous-receptivity found in
cognition also hold for moral action, such that imagination can emerge as the root
of both theoretical and practical reason?
In his review of the Kant-book, Cassirer points to the final incoherence of Heidegger's attempt to seek a deeper unity for reason in both its theoretical and practical reason in imagination. According to Cassirer, a "sensibilized reason" of this
kind constitutes a "wooden iron," a contradiction which cannnot be resolved.57 A
"typic" of practical reason must replace a complementary schematism for theoretical reason, because there is no analogous role for sensibility within practical reason.
The various replies Heidegger could offer may not do justice to Cassirer's criticism.
But indirectly, there is at least a sense that no matter how rarified the idea of
freedom may be, the context relevant to it depends upon formulating a judgment
which can reveal the moral law in relation to us and do so by calling forth an
equally definitive response, i. e., a feeling of respect. The feeling of respect is an
instance of spontaneous-receptivity and constitutes an "ontological" rather than a
"psychological description."58
Heidegger's retrieval of transcendental philosophy hinges on merging two theses
into one. First, Heidegger claims that temporality exhibits an organizational capacity in its own right, and thereby becomes a factor in the governance of a principle
(even in the practical sphere). Second, finitude derives its meaning through itself as
55

56
57
58

Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,
Band IV (Berlin, 1922), p. 287. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis
White Beck (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1959), pp. 4546. Cassirer
opposes Heidegger's attempt to define meaning and truth in terms of temporality, as if to
diminish all claims of objective status. Yet Heidegger does leave room for considering the
subordinate status of instrumental or "relative" ends in contrast to the primary structure
of that "that for the sake of" which allows a sense of the purposefulness of human existence
to prevail before any preoccupation with instrumental ends. See Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phnomenologie, GA 24 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975), pp. 193-202.
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1982), pp. 137-140.
GA31, pp.264ff.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 149.
Schrg, "Heidegger and Cassirer," p. 100.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

216

Frank Schalow

synonymous with temporality, rather than forming one side of an opposition whose
other side is the infinite. The elevation of finitude to this higher ontological level
marks the corollary to Heidegger's attempt to overthrow reason in favor of the
privileged root of imagination. The major drawback of removing reason as the
centerpiece of ethics, however, lies in renouncing any criteria by which to ajudicate
moral disputes. Paul Tillich, who referred to Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik
as "one of [Heidegger's] most profound books," identifies this problem in a lecture
delivered in New York in 1954. Tillich reflects on the strange reaction Cassirer
must have experienced in 1929 at Davos upon defending a Kantian ethic of rational
criteria against Heidegger, "who defended himself on the notion that there are no
such criteria."59 As foreign as Heidegger's thought must have seemed to Cassirer,
perhaps the true measure of that debate lies in its enduring so long despite having
been initiated at cross purposes.
While not ascribing to Kant's epistemic dualism, Heidegger still incorporates into
his own fundamental ontology a concern for boundaries of human understanding
and action. The strength of Heidegger's commitment to transcendental philosophy
comes out most strongly in his defending Kant against the chief spokesman of
German idealism who sought to replace Kant's dualism with the self-mediating
identity of the Absolute. As Heidegger states at the close of the Kant-book:
What does the struggle against the "thing in itself," which started with German idealism,
mean, other than the growing forgetting of what Kant struggled for: that the inner possibility
and necessity of metaphysics, i. e., its essence, are at bottom brought forth and preserved
through the most original working-out and increased preservation of the problem of finitude?60

The need to cultivate the diversity of culture through an appeal to myth and
symbol, as a regulative idea which contributes to a cosmopolitan vision, distinguishes one alternative to the inevitable march of Absolute idealism.61 In appreciating
the symbolic as well as the predicative forms of this diversity, Cassirer marks the
avenues which remain open to preserve Kant's legacy. Cassirer's path is not Heidegger's. As Cassirer remarks at the close of his review of the Kant-book: "In my
conversations with Heidegger at Davos, I have already emphasized that I do not
nurture the wish and hope of converting him to my standpoint."62 In contrast to a
fundamental ontology centered only on the question of being, Cassirer highlights a
59

60
61
62

Paul Tillich, "Heidegger and Jaspers," in Heidegger and Jaspers, ed. Alan M. Olson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 21, 25. For a perception of the personality
clash between Cassirer and Heidegger, see Hendrik J. Pos, "Recollections of Ernst Cassirer," in The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, Ed. Paul Schlipp (Lasalle, IL: Open Court,
1949), pp. 6769. Also see a review of this book by J. S. Bixler, Journal of Religion, 30
(1950), 73-74.
GA 3, pp. 244-245; tr. 166-167.
Ernst Cassirer, Symbol, Myth, and Culture, ed. Donald Phillip Verene (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1979), pp. 72-73.
Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 157.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant

217

variety of angles by which we can appreciate the plenitude of human experience,

along with a gradual historical self-understanding of the majesty and breadth of
human culture. For Cassirer, even the most stark dualism of practical reason must
allow for its temperament within a critical evaluation of aesthetic and teleological
judgments. In Kant's account of reflective judgment (i. e., of the beautiful and the
sublime), we discover a reciprocity between the sensuous experience of art's formal
purposiveness, and a hint of the supersensible destination of our natures sought by
reason. Even the height of human aspiration does not become possible without a
preliminary orientation to "life" and to its historical embodiment in culture.63
Cassirer may not accept Heidegger's radical emphasis on finitude. But Heidegger
may still recognize the formation of a horizon which yields the breadth of our
cultural experiences. Such a horizon would mark reason's ability to seek its highest
ends, and, by upholding the sublimity of personhood, would delimit humanity's
highest vocation as a "citizen of the world." Whether expressed in the symbolic
manner of our cultural heritage, or in the form of our concernful being with others,
the sense of our "world-citizenship" distinguishes a vision that still remains relevant
today. In this regard, the common place of exchange between Heidegger and Cassirer may be most appropriately located in a poignant passage from Kant's Logic,
where he places in perspective the pervasiveness of the question "What is man?":
"By the absolute and universal horizon is to be understood the congruence of the
limit of human cognitions with the limits [Grenzen] of the complete human perfection as such, and here the question is: What can man, as man, know at all?"64

63
64

Rudolf A. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutic Import of

the Third Critique (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 154 ff.
Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Vorlesungen Kants ber Logik, Band
VIII (Berlin, 1923), p. 357. Logic, trans. Robert Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1974), p. 46.

Bereitgestellt von | ULB Bonn

Angemeldet | 131.220.250.176
Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.13 21:00