Vol 29, No 1 (2025): THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAUL NATORP

The musician and composer Paul Natorp has not been recognised in research. The references in his Self-Presentation (Selbstdarstellung) (1921) to the importance of music, especially in his early years, have so far remained unacknowledged. The musical legacy and previously unpublished diaries and letters provide more detailed information. They demonstrate the young Natorp’s passionate relationship with music. In addition, it becomes clear that Natorp was active as a composer throughout his life. The article starts by describing the musical legacy. At the centre is the correspondence with Johannes Brahms, to whom the young Natorp submitted some of his compositions for review. Brahms strongly advised against a career as a musician and composer. Also significant are reports from the young Natorp about his composition studies with the musicologist and composer Gustav Jacobsthal (1845-1912) in Strasbourg. Reports on concerts with Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt are biographical and cultural-historical documents. The article concludes with a sketch of Natorp's reflections on the world-historical significance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s music.

The research is focused on the analysis of Paul Natorp’s work Plato’s Doctrine of Ideas . The paper consists of three sections: 1) a definition of Platonic idea; 2) an analysis of the dialogue Parmenides ; and 3) a commentary on Natorp’s interpretation of Parmenides . The first section discusses Natorp’s transcendental method, which he uses as a critical approach to philosophical problems. The application of this method to the history of philosophy is examined, and it is shown that, thanks to Natorp, transcendentalism finds its history beginning with Plato and leading through Descartes and Kant to Cohen and the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. According to this method, the core of Plato’s doctrine is idealism. Natorp’s definition of the Platonic idea is examined. Parmenides dialogue, in which Plato attempts to formulate his concept of the idea. The analysis focuses on the problem of the scope of ideas, the interaction between ideas and things, and the relationship between empirical and pure ideas. It traces some of Natorp’s steps in defending his thesis that ideas are methods of apprehending the object of knowledge. The third section questions the adequacy of Natorp’s proposed epistemological treatment of Plato’s concept of idea. A counterargument to each of Natorp’s main arguments is presented in turn. Finally, with reference to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason , an alternative interpretation of the discussion between Socrates and Parmenides in the dialogue is given. Its essence, in contrast to Natorp’s affirmative interpretation, which presents Parmenides’ deductions as a development of Plato’s theory, is summed up in the fact that this dialogue represents Plato’s criticism of Parmenides’ approach of taking the ultimate pure concepts as essences and then, on this basis, developing his doctrine of being based, as it were, on the internal logic of these essences themselves. The paper concludes with a discussion of Natorp’s historical-philosophical method, which predetermined his interpretation of Plato’s concept of idea.

In the historical-philosophical literature devoted to the neo-Kantianism of the Marburg School, not enough space is given to the thematisation of Paul Natorp’s transcendental method. Besides, it is of natural scientific interest to explicate the differences in the methods of Kant and the philosophers of the Marburg School. It is supposed that such differences are caused by the ‘incommensurability’ of the paradigms of science on which the philosophers orientated themselves. The aims of the article are (1) to explicate Natorp’s doctrine of the transcendental method; (2) to analyse the differences in Natorp’s and Cohen’s views on this transcendental strategy; (3) to demonstrate the divergence of Kant’s and the Marburgians’ views on method. For Kant, the critical method is a fundamental strategy of analysing the conditions of the possibility of a priori cognition, its essence and origin, scope and limits, principles and laws of application, tools and mechanisms. With Cohen, the transcendental method is not only a strategy of researching scientific experience, but also a genetic, generating tool of scientific thinking. Cohen’s method is oriented towards judgements rather than categories, as was the case with Kant. Natorp’s transcendental method is (1) a meta-method of research and justification of systematic scientific knowledge and (2) a genetic way of generating knowledge and then building a scientific system. The method is initially oriented to the ‘fact of science’ and provides justification of the conditions of possibility of scientific knowledge as a whole. The properties of the method include its critical, immanent, reflexive, and self-generating character. Natorp’s transcendental method works within the logic of pure cognition, but also in ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of consciousness. In doing so, it is oriented towards the genetic basic logical forms (and further, the generating categories) as the a priori tool for the production of science. This focus of Natorp’s method distinguishes it from Cohen’s logic, which focuses on judgements (the foundations of experience), and from Kant’s criticism, which concentrates on synthetic a priori categories.

This paper presents an interpretation of the connection between Natorp’s early and late philosophy. An analysis of two versions of Natorp’s deduction of categories shows the consistent development of Natorp’s thought. Each deduction expresses, in Natorp’s words, a direction of movement between the centre and the periphery. The early deduction moves from the periphery to the centre by means of the transcendental method. The critical investigation of the conditions of possibility of mathematical-physical science reveals the structure of thought itself. The late deduction is oriented in the opposite direction, from the centre to the periphery. Thought now develops freely and establishes the systematic character of philosophy. We argue that the two deductions complement each other in a single coherent position that accounts for the relationship between critique and system. Philosophical systematics is conceived as the necessary sequel and culmination of an inquiry, the first part of which is developed according to the transcendental method.

The systematic confrontation between neo-Kantianism and phenomenology was strongly influenced by the dialogue between Natorp and Husserl, which largely dealt with the question of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, between the “bottom up” description promoted by the phenomenological method and the “top down” construction that characterizes instead the transcendental method. At the root of this passionate philosophical dispute, however, there is also another issue that is not always adequately considered: the nature of pure logic in the context of the rejection of psychologism. My paper focuses on this aspect and, in particular, examines Natorp’s anti-psychologistic conception of knowledge and his extensive discussion of Husserl’s Prolegomena to Pure Logic .

The paper attempts to identify the period in Russia when professional specialization in scientific and educational spheres is formed. To solve this problem, the author takes into account the institutional segment of philosophy in Russia, first of all, the university. Then he identifies the functionality of holders of academic degrees “Master of Philosophy”, determines the moment when and how, where and under what conditions philosophy becomes a designation of professional interests. To achieve this goal, the author analyzes the activities of the teaching corporation of metropolitan (Moscow, St. Petersburg) and provincial (Kazan, Kiev) universities of the Russian Empire. The author pays attention to the content of the actual educational process and research activities, and also takes into account the normative documents of general and private character ((local, regional levels, governmental orders, University Statutes). To form the context, the author pays attention to the interaction of academic corporations with state structures (Ministry of Public Education, Senate, Synod), takes into account the mindset of society, ideological background, and political situation. All this makes it possible to record important moments when philosophy, from a kind of “private case” of professional training, from a “secondary element” of professional development, is gradually transformed into a life choice, into a professional activity, into one of the dominant spheres of the academic community.

The research emphasizes the demand for the philosophy of criminal law as such, as well as reveals the ways of application of philosophical knowledge by criminal law specialists. As it is known, philosophical teaching helps to understand the essence of specific phenomena or events with the help of appropriate tools, forming a complete picture of existence and its components. Such a doctrine is necessary today for those who produce exclusively scientific and legal knowledge in any objective form and those engaged in lawmaking and law-enforcement activities. Science has always demanded philosophical thought of criminal law, and their close relationship is traced in the most significant works of prominent philosophers since ancient times. The authors emphasize the unique value of philosophical teachings of the ancient period for modern criminal law, which, even nowadays, is based mainly on the postulates of the philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The conceptual foundations of these philosophical views have demonstrated their significance over the millennia, and this study highlights the need for their scientific rethinking and the use of the latter’s results in legislative and law enforcement activities. Rethinking the philosophical works of the Antique period by modern lawyers will allow us to clearly build a hierarchy of values protected in the modern world, confirm the principles of the rule of law, and rationally assess the role of criminal punishment and other criminal legal institutions.

In his Novum Organum, F. Bacon put forward the idea of “prerogative instances” as a means of shortening the paths of putting forward and testing hypotheses. Bacon’s “prerogative instances” are considered in the research as a possible answer to J.S. Mill’s question about why in some cases one example is enough for complete induction, while in other cases even myriads of mutually agreeing examples are not enough for a reliable conclusion. It is shown how the assessment of “prerogative instances” and F. Bacon’s theory of induction itself changed among historians of philosophy and science throughout the 19th-20th centuries. The classification of “prerogative instances” carried out by F. Bacon is analyzed, and its weak points are identified. The author’s classification of “prerogative instances” based on F. Bacon’s ideas is proposed, and the possibility and prospects of alternative approaches to such classification are assessed. The place of “prerogative instances” in F. Bacon’s general theory of induction is considered. It is shown that some of them can be used before compiling the “tables of presence”, “tables of absence” and “tables of degrees” that form the basis of F. Bacon’s method of eliminative induction, another part should be placed in these tables, and the third part can be applied after the corresponding hypotheses have been put forward on the basis of the tables. A distinction is made between induction as a derivation of universal hypotheses from singular premises and induction as a method of empirical research that allows one to put forward and test generalizing hypotheses on the basis of individual facts. It is noted that the fair criticism of induction as an unreliable conclusion was unjustifiably transferred to induction as a method in the post-positivist philosophy of science of the 20th century. The possibility of using “prerogative instances” as heuristic methods of putting forward and testing hypotheses, the effectiveness of which depends on the adopted metaphysical assumptions, is indicated in those modern theories of induction that reject the idea of constructing a universal inductive method.

The review is focused on the analysis of H. Ruthrof’s book based on the belief that I. Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” contains a detailed platform of “proto-hermeneutics”. This work is considered as the basis for the subsequent formation and development of a variety of hermeneutical schools. Examining the content of this academically significant and valuable history of philosophy study, based on a large number of carefully analyzed sources and interdisciplinary material, the review authors polemically discuss Ruthrof’s approach to the second part of the third critique as the main fragment of Kant’s work containing the roots of hermeneutic thinking developed in the doctrine of reflective-teleological judgment. The authors substantiate the thesis that the foundations of hermeneutical thinking are laid by the categorical structure of the third critique in its entirety, the whole set of ideas developed in its context about the dynamics of the relationship between experience, productive imagination, intellect, both the determining and the reflective ability of judgment, which depend on the meaning-creation activity of reason. This allows them to consider the subject of cultural creativity in the unity of the cognitive, aesthetic and moral vectors of his activity. It is shown that the birth and subsequent development of hermeneutics is associated with a essential rethinking of the provisions of the third critique in terms of emphasizing the historical and linguistic aspects of human creativity. The classification of schools of hermeneutics proposed by the book’s author is considered in detail, which allows to evaluate his significant contribution to understanding the specifics of the evolution of this trend of post-classical philosophical thought.