Is ethics a logic? Sergei Rubinstein’s interpretation of Hermann Cohen’s ideas

Abstract

In Sergei L. Rubinstein’s article “On the Philosophical System of H. Cohen” (1918), Hermann Cohen’s judgments on ethics and logic and their partly problematic relationship are considered. On the basis of historical and philosophical research into the epistemological views of Cohen I show the interaction between the ideas of Rubinstein and Neo-Kantianism. Common features of the following concepts are revealed: criticism, installation of logic, aspiration to prove philosophy a science with the help either of mathematics or the confirmation of its origin (Ursprung). Insofar as the problem of ethics plays a central role in his account, thanks to the inclusiveness in history, Rubinstein argues that ethics has the same objectivity as logic. The central problem of ethics both in Kant and in Cohen (and indeed in Rubinstein) lies in the nature of the person. In Rubinstein’s work, the answer to the main issue of ethics opens up the world of Ideas. The Ideas and logical content of consciousness constitute the person, just as in Cohen’s work ethics “generates” the person and the world. In this regard Rubinstein believed that Cohen had adopted a distinctive feature of the interpretation of ethics and freedom from Kant. Before presenting this background, an attempt is made to update the historical and philosophical value of the ideas of Rubinstein, clarifying the essence of the objects of ethics and logic.

Keywords

• sergei rubinstein
• hermann cohen
• neo-kantianism
• logic
• ethics