Platonism in the Philosophical Systems of Thinkers Associated with the Baden and Marburg School: Review of Selected Positions

Abstract

The present article examines the interpretations of Platonism in the philosophical systems of selected representatives of the Baden and Marburg schools of neo-Kantianism. Using the method of comparative analysis and focusing on epistemological, metaphysical-ontological, mathematical, and historical interpretations of Plato’s idealism, I present the philosophical positions of the following Baden thinkers: Wilhelm Windelband, Emil Lask, Jonas Cohn, Karl Jaspers; and the following Marburg thinkers: Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, August Auffarth and Elisabeth Rotten. The choice of these philosophers is deliberate and related to different ways of interpreting ancient Platonic idealism. The historical-philosophical approach in this article consists in describing various ways of interpreting Plato’s philosophy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the circles of German philosophers inspired by the philosophy of Kant. I will address this research topic using a novel method, considering selected assumptions of the broadly understood intellectual environment associated with critical philosophy.

Keywords

• Plato
• Kant’s transcendentalism and apriorism
• neo-Kantianism
• Baden school and Marburg school
• epistemology and ontology
• history of philosophy