Cassirer Heidegger Debate

Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant:Reason, Finitude and Truth

in the Cassirer—Heidegger Debate

by Frank Schalow, New Orleans

Die folgende Auslegung holt nach, was in derSchrift "Kant und das Problem der Meta-physik" (1929) fehlt.Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding1

This paper reassess the impact of Heidegger's radical interpretation of transcen-dental 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 byErnst Cassirer. In giving voice to the objective content of the principles of under-standing, Heidegger corrects the excesses which typified his earlier phenomenologi-cal treatment of human finitude as outlined in Kant und das Problem der Metaphy-sik.2 While in retrospect Heidegger's 1935/36 work appears as an exercise in self-criticism, it is equally the case that the elements of synthetic a priori knowledgewhich come under renewed scrutiny are those whose earlier omission made himvulnerable to Cassirer's pointed critique as developed in his review of the Kant-book.3 In employing different terminology, it is not surprising that Heidegger andCassirer should argue at cross purposes.4 Yet in punctuating our discussion withthe 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 Grundsät-zen, 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 abbrevia-tion 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 bequoted in the original German.

2 Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann,1992.) Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1991.), Fourth Edition.

3 Ernst Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," in Kant: DisputedQuestions, ed. Molke S. Gram (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1967), pp. 131 — 157. Thisessay was originally published as „Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Bemerkungen zuMartin Heideggers Kant-Interpretation," Kant-Studien, 36 (1931), 1—26.

4 For a portrait of how sharp these differences are, and how this "incompatibility" leads tocomplete different political stances by Heidegger and Cassirer, see Wayne Cristaudo, "Hei-degger and Cassirer: Being, Knowing, and Politics," Kant-Studien, 82/4 (1991), 473-483.

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Thinking at Cross Purposes with Kant 199

different approaches to Kant proves crucial in cultivating the spirit of transcenden-tal philosophy.

Most of all, Cassirer reminds us of the differences separating Heidegger andKant, and hence underscores the need to situate the latter's task within the Enlight-enment conflict between the mandates of rationality and freedom and the mecha-nistic precepts of natural science. In retrospect, Heidegger may have taken thishistorical gulf too much for granted in his initial attempt to draw a parallelbetween the common emphasis on human finitude held by his own fundamentalontology and Kant's transcendental philosophy. Ironically, it is this declaration offinitude, where a "monism of imagination" replaces the "dualism of the sensuousand intelligible world," which Cassirer finds most problematic in his review of theKant-book.5 By contrast, Cassirer emphasizes the critical powers of reason as pre-siding over, rather than becoming subservient to, the quest to delimit knowledgethrough the synthetic combination of understanding, imagination, and sensibility.As the pivot for Kant's entire inquiry, the Copernican revolution must extend itsradius in two directions so as to include the lawfulness sought by reason and under-standing. Only in this manner can a vision of truth prevail which exposes theopposite tendency toward illusion. Transcendental philosophy arrives at such atruth when it upholds the boundaries (Grenzen) which safeguard the lawful use ofreason, while curbing natural science's presumption of supremacy. By employingthe sharpened edge of Cassirer's criticism, we will discover that Heidegger's attemptto equate the synthesis of imagination with finite transcendence requires clarifyingthe dual role which transcendental philosophy reserves for truth. Transcendentaltruth not only distinguishes human finitude and time as the origin of the a priorisynthesis, as Heidegger contends, but also reveals the arche or first principles ofreason.

This paper will be divided into four parts. First, I will develop Cassirer's criticismthat Heidegger inadvertently construes human finitude as the center of transcenden-tal philosophy rather than as its point of departure.6 Second, I will consider Heideg-ger's attempt in Die Präge nach dem Ding to draw out the clues for a critique ofmodern science from Kant's epistemology. Third, I will develop the concern fortruth in a twofold way which passes the torch of Kant's insight into the Copernicanrevolution from the hands of understanding (Verstand) to that of reason (Vernunft).Finally, I will consider the further development of the task of metaphysics latentwithin Kant's thought as opened up at the interface of Cassirer's and Heidegger'sdebate.

5 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 148. For a pivotalanalysis of these issues, see Calvin Schräg, "Heidegger and Cassirer on Kant," Kant-Studien,58/1 (1967), 98.

6 Ibid., p. 149.



200 Frank Schalow

I. Relocating the Source of Finitude

In light of Heideggers' current prominence, it is easy to forget that in 1929 Cas-sirer stood as the elder statesman in German philosophy. Cassirer's stature exceededthat 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 andorientations already provoked a spark to their encounter in Davos (1929).8 Theirrelationship became even more polarized with Heidegger's publication of Kant unddas Problem der Metaphysik, along with Cassirer's review of it where a sense offactionalism within competing schools of German philosophy prevails.9 A polemi-cal tone echoes from Heidegger's repeated disavowal of epistemology in favor ofthe metaphysical side of Kant's thought. Cassirer also recognizes the danger ofpolemics:

If any kind of form of philosophical discussion is to be possible or in any sense fruitful, thecriticism must decide to place himself on the ground which Heidegger has chosen. Whetherhe can remain on this ground is a question that is to be decided only through the discussionitself. But we must move to that ground so that criticism does not degenerate into merepolemic and in a constant talking at cross purposes.10

In his conversation with Cassirer at Davos in 1929, Heidegger suggests that hismajor adversaries are the neo-Kantians who espouse an epistemic side of transcen-dental philosophy.11 His Kant-book becomes an attempt to stake out an ontologicalproblematic otherwise omitted by neo-Kantianism.12 Yet six years later in Die Fragenach dem Ding, Heidegger re-evaluates the claims of knowledge insofar as they

7 Heidegger's student, Hannah Arendt, coins this phrase. See Theodore Kisiel, The Genesisof Heidegger's Being and Time (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 16.

8 The German version of the "Davos Disputation" which I will cite comes from the Gesamt-ausgabe edition of Heidegger's Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (GA3). Also in-cluded in GA 3 is Heidegger's 1928 review of Cassirer's Philosophie der symbolischenFormen. 2. Teil: Das mythische Denken, in this review, Heidegger develops a phenomeno-logical analysis of myth and symbol (vis a vis the structures of care and transcendence),pp. 255—270. Also of note are some brief remarks that Heidegger makes concerning histhoughts on Cassirer's review of the Kant-book (GA 3, pp. 297—303). I will use the mostrecent English translation, which is of the fourth edition of the Kant-book, 1973, by Rich-ard Taft (Indiana University Press, 1991). In the "Preface to the Fourth Edition," Heideggerobserves 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 whichthe Davos lectures occurred. See Kisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time,pp. 550, 561.

9 See Carl Hamburg, "A Cassirer-Heidegger Seminar," Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch, Vol. XXV (Dec. 1964), 209-220.

10 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 135 (emphasis myown).

11 GA 3, pp. 274-275; tr. 171-172.12 Otto Pöggeler, Martin Heidegger's Path of Thought, trans. Daniel Magurshak and Sigmund

Barber (Atlantic Highlands, N. J., 1963), pp. 63-67.




provide a mathematical framework in which to define nature. His reinstatement ofa concern for epistemology leads us to ask whether his initial dismissal of neo-Kantianism was short-sighted. Indeed, if there are any adversaries within his sce-nario of which Heidegger remains wary, it proves to be a strain of nineteenth cen-tury positivism which may or may not be best represented by the neo-Kantianmovement in the early 1920's. Perhaps Cassirer had the best sense of this ambiguitywhen he posed this question at Davos:

What does Heidegger understand by neo-Kantianism. Who is the opponent to whom Hei-degger has addressed himself? I believe that there is hardly a single concept which has beenparaphrased with so little clarity as that of neo-Kantianism. What does Heidegger has in mindwhen he employs his own phenomenological critique in place of the neo-Kantian one? Neo-Kantianism is the whipping boy of the newer philosophy. To me, there is an absence of existingneo-Kantians. ... As I had not expected to find it in him, I must confess that I have found aneo-Kantian here in Heidegger.13

In the opening pages of the Kant-book, Heidegger appeals to the Copernicanrevolution in order to mark the prefigurement of his own attempt to redirect philos-ophy from the antecedent conditions of our understanding. This "pre-understand-ing" governs in advance our comportment toward beings, and makes explicit thepriority of metaphysica generalis as an inquiry into beings as such (Seienden alssolchen) over metaphysica specialis as an inquiry into regions of beings. For Heideg-ger, the key to Kant's transcendental turn lies in a regress back to the "preliminaryunderstanding of being" (des vorgängigen Seinsverständnisses), which takes its ori-entation from a parallel concern for human finitude.14 According to Cassirer, how-ever, Heidegger exaggerates the emphasis on human finitude in such a way as togrant excessive import to the sensibilized conditions of cognition, i. e., receptivity,time, and imagination as if the spontaneous contribution of thought were almostsecondary.15 While praising Heidegger's attempt to re-establish schematism as thefulcrum of cognition, Cassirer argues that the schematized categories distinguishonly one side of the overall quest to delimit reason's employment in contrast to

13 GA 3, 274; tr. 171. See Daniel O. Dahlstrom, "Heidegger's Kantian Turn: Notes to HisCommentary on the Kritik der reinen Vernunft," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XLV, No. 2(Dec. 1991), 329—361. As Dahlstrom points out, in his attempt to round out apparentassymetries in the first Critique, Heidegger's approach resembles that of the neo-Kantiansdespite arriving at opposite conclusions. Specifically, in maintaining that the a priori synthe-sis is to be defined primarily through imagination, Heidegger opposes the attempt by theMarburg 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 todeveloping his own hermeneutic phenomenology through an encounter with a side of "neo-Kantianism," specifically, Emil Lask's inquiry into the roots of all concept formation. SeeKisiel, The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and Time, pp. 23—38. For an interesting discus-sion of Lask's place within neo-Kantianism, see Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, "TwoIdealisms: Lask and Husserl," Kant-Studien, 84/4 (1993), 448-449. Of course, the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert directed Heidegger's Habilitationsschrift on Duns Scotus (1915).

14 GA 3, p. 15; tr. 10.15 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 141 — 142.



202 Frank Schalow

understanding. In short, the demands of transforming Kant into a prototypicalmetaphysician all but sacrifice the key components of his epistemology along withhis architectonic of reason.

As penetrating as his criticisms are, Cassirer cannot help but he misled by anambiguity which pervades Heidegger's exchange with transcendental philosophy.For without much warning, Heidegger vacillates between the attempt to developthe implications which transcendental philosophy has for clarifying his own pointof departure, and seeking in phenomenology the key to break Kant's thought of itstie to a narrowly epistemic mode. We must recognize, however, that a reinterpreta-tion of transcendental philosophy did not initially figure into Heidegger's strategyfor re-asking the question of being. Indeed, upon seeking a more systematic outlineupon which to recast his phenomenological insights into being (Sein), he abruptlyturned to transcendental philosophy in the winter semester of 1925/26.16 For thefirst time, he recognized that synthetic a priori judgments reveal the anticipatorystructure of understanding, and thus exhibit the feature of "hermeneutische Indika-tion."17 In his 1927/28 lecture course on Kant, Heidegger proceeded to clarify howhis earlier insight held the key to a new appreciation of the "transcendental," inso-far as "der Sinn und das Recht solcher Antizipation sind das Grundproblem dertranscendentalen Logik."18

In transcendental philosophy, Heidegger discovered a terminology which wouldhelp to translate the diffuse determinations of being gathered pre-ontologically intoa well-articulated concept of the meaning of being. He appealed to time as the"upon which" (Woraufhin) for distinguishing our understanding of being prior tothe attempt to define the nature of beings present-at-hand. A special niche mustthen be reserved for a "philosophical logic," which is centered on the phenomenonof finite transcendence.19 A philosophical logic recognizes a further shift in orienta-tion which arises from our temporal finitude, in order to make explicit the presup-positions that underlie an ontology of presence-at-hand (Ontologie der Vorhanden-heit). In an effort to re-orient his inquiry into being from the presupposition of ex-istence rather than presence-at-hand, Heidegger develops a "fundamental ontol-ogy." His radical departure for ontology shifts the focus of understanding to a pre-conceptual level of meaning, and seeks a more original place for truth apart from

16 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. 408—409.

17 GA 21, p. 410.18 Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, G A 25

(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), p. 195. The transcript of this lecture course prefig-ures the 1929 Kant-book. See Frank Schalow, The Renewal of the Heidegger-Kant Dialogue(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), Chapter Two and Three.

19 See Heidegger, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, GA 26(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1978), pp. 6—9. The Metaphysical foundations of Logic,trans. Michael Heim (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 6—7. See FrankSchalow, "The Unique Role of Logic in the Development of Heidegger's Dialogue withKant," Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan. 1994), 103-125.




the proposition. Rather than denouncing Kant's project, this attempt to organizelogic around a more primordial root may instead uncover a wider spectrum ofmeaning, including that of myth, symbol and culture that Cassirer develops as thecornerstone of his philosophy.20

For Heidegger, this deeper locus of meaning can be reached only by projectinghuman existence upon its limits, that is, through temporality. By weaving togetherthe dimensions of future, past, and present, the ecstatic structure of time shapesthe project of understanding (Verstehen) and draws forth the "toward which" (Wor-auf) of its limits, the pre-assembling of a horizon of meaning. In revealing thepossibilities of our understanding, primordial time (ursprüngliche Zeit) uncoversthe basic conceptual determinations which define being. Primordial time providesthis intermediary role in a way analogous to Kant's attempt to identify the temporalschemata which bridge the "heterogenity"21 of a universal category with the partic-ular as given in experience. For Heidegger, temporality yields the key for developinga language of being. He differs from Cassirer, however, by suggesting that thepower to form schemata, or imagination (Einbildungskraft), is devoted to develop-ing ontological concepts. By contrast, Cassirer allows for the possibility, as Kantdid in the third Critique, for cultivating imagination's creativity apart from conceptsthrough a symbolic language; such a language reflects the cultural diversity ofmeanings.22

In Being and Time, Heidegger calls attention to the uniquely logical character ofhis inquiry into being and to its search for transcendental truth by stating: "Thusthe way in which being and its modes and characteristics have their meaning deter-mined primordially in terms of time, is what we shall call its 'Temporal' determi-nateness [Bestimmtheit]."23 In recognizing that temporality configures the concep-tual determinations essential to understand being, Heidegger seeks an ally withinthe tradition who most explicitly finds in time the potential determinancy of allthought, namely, Kant with his doctrine of transcendental schematism. As Kantsuggests, the key to the categorial relations which accomplish the a priori passingover to the object (Gegenstand), "becomes possible by means of the transcendentaldetermination of time (transzendentale Zeitbestimmung)" (A 139/B 178).24

20 See Ernst Cassirer, Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer (New York: Harper &Row, Publishers, Inc., 1946), pp. 45 ff.

21 See Henry Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale University Press,1983), pp. 178-187.

22 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. 265—269. Heidegger examines the way in which Cassirer expands Kant's Criticalphilosophy to include a "critique of culture." Heidegger argues, however, that this critiquemust be balanced by a detailed account of transcendence and care.

23 Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, G A 2 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), p. 26. Being andTime, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, Publish-ers, Inc., 1962), p. 40.

24 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



204 Frank Schalow

Given Kant's emphasis on the centrality of time, Heidegger then embarks uponan intricate analysis of Kantian schematism. As one scholar suggests, Heideggerclaimed that Kantian schematism makes explicit a "semiotic level" (semiotischeEbene) within temporality which provides the root for a "pre-predicative"(vorprädikativ) understanding of being.25 Heidegger's entire interpretation demon-strates how temporality shapes the signifying relations of the categories, so as toestablish in advance the possibility of "passing over to" an object (transcendence).Thus primordial time makes possible finite transcendence.26 To underscore the linkbetween his own thought and Kant's, Heidegger argues that time not only governsthe legitimate employment of the categories, but determines their genesis as well.As the faculty of time-formation, transcendental imagination emerges as the newlocus for generating thought in its connection with sensibility. The threefold synthe-sis of imagination encompasses the other two faculties, of understanding and sensi-bility, so as to qualify as their ultimate root.27 The heart of Heidegger's thesis inthe Kant-book, which Cassirer vehemently opposes, becomes evident.28

The objective content of the categories appears incidental to Heidegger. He em-phasizes the "subjective deduction" as an analogue to undertaking a phenomenolog-ical "critique of the subjectivity of the subject,"29 but does not consider how theschematized categories give rise to the principles of understanding which governour knowledge of natural events.30 While Cassirer reveals the danger of emphasiz-ing one facet of transcendental philosophy at the expense of another, Heideggeronly belatedly seeks the proper remedy for his interpretation. As Heidegger il-lustrates in Die Frage nach dem Ding, the attempt to nurture Kant's ontologicalstance of finitude in a deeper, prepredicative root of imagination, does not requireforsaking the concern for knowledge. Rather, when singled out as a facet of humanconcern, our cognitive capacity can be developed within the horizon of worldlyinvolvements. What Heidegger initially describes as the fore-structure of under-standing admits such everyday involvement as one avenue of disclosure. Yet that

above. Also see GA 3, p. 197; tr. 135. Heidegger uses the plural, "transzendentale Zeitbe-stimmungen."

25 C. La Rocca, "Schematismus und Anwendung," Kant-Studien, 80/2 (1989), 89 (also note#8).

26 GA3, 197; tr. 134-135.27 GA 3, pp. 176—189; tr. 120—129. Apprehension as related to the present, reproduction as

related to the past, and recognition as related to the future, are united more primordiallythrough the temporal synthesis of imagination which combines each of those dimensionsthrough primordial time.

28 Within the hermeneutical tradition, Paul Ricoeur is the thinker whose criticism of Heideggermost closely parallels Cassirer's. Like Cassirer, Ricoeur opposes a too abrupt appeal to timeand finitude which undermines reason and the pursuit of its regulative ideal. See FallibleMan (Chicago: Henry Regnery Comapny, 1965), pp. 68—75.

29 GA3, p. 195; tr. 133.30 D. A. Lynch, "Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger: The Davos Debate," Kant-Studien,

81/3 (1990), 363.




disclosedness (Erschlossenheit) allows for further gradations, in order to solicit astance of objectification. Because it attends to things only secondarily from a furtherlevel of abstraction, a scientific mode of cognition presupposes the interweaving ofall the other avenues of disclosure. The wider horizon of disclosure encompassesnot only the knower's relation to an object, but also the precognitive mode ofconcern indicative of its finite nature.

Just as Kant can be criticized for adopting a transcendental stance divorced fromthe dynamics of experience, so Heidegger later recognizes the difficulties in begin-ning from a pre-ontological understanding of being. Let us then examine the shift-ing contours of the problematic which leads Heidegger in his 1935/36 lecture courseto recover Kant's epistemology.

II. Transcendental Reflection and the Domain of Science

Insofar as the hold of neo-Kantianism had diminished by 1935, Heidegger turnsto confront the remanents of nineteenth century positivism that Dilthey first op-posed. But the positivistic tendency to make science supreme cannot be counteredwithout also recovering the basic question directing metaphysics, the inauguralquery "why?" The parallel need to seek the historical origin of metaphysics, and toexpose the roots of modernity in the rise of modern science, requires that Heideggerrenew his allegiance with Kant. A further need to situate Kant's thought in itsrelation to the Enlightenment becomes equally important.

Heidegger's inquiry must be able to turn in two directions at once. On the onehand, he must be able to locate a more finely etched critique of metaphysics whichcan preserve the sovereignty of its question (of the "why?"). On the other hand, hemust be able to establish the limits of the specific disciplines which metaphysicsgrounds as epitomized by modern science in its regional investigation of nature.Heidegger's way of distinguishing between being (das Sein) and beings (die Seien-den) — the backbone of his reinterpretation of the Copernican revolution31 — as-sumes a more radical form as the need to differentiate between specialized areas ofresearch (e. g., biology, chemistry), and the inquiry into being's disclosure. The dif-ferent demarcation of themes suggests a sharper division between a language whichnurtures the disclosure of being and a narrowly discursive delineation of extantproperties.

In contrasting his own task with modern science, Heidegger renews his dialoguewith transcendental philosophy. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, he emphasizes for thefirst time the critical sense of the self-examination of pure reason as revealing thepremises on which our knowledge of nature rests.32 Heidegger specifically ad-31 GA3, pp. 17-18; p. 11.32 GA41, pp. 121 — 123; tr. 119—121. For an account of how the architectonic structure of

Critical philosophy can be recast in hermeneutical terms, see A. T. Nuyen, "On Interpretat-ing Kant's Architectonic in Terms of the Hermeneutical Model," Kant-Studien, 84/2 (1993),154-166.



206 Frank Schalow

dresses Kant's attempt to delimit in advance the entirety of what is on a mathemati-cal plane, to seek the principles which show beforehand how whatever we en-counter (as Gegenstand) appears in conformity with numerical conditions. The pre-cursory comprehension of the domain in which objects display their ability to begraphed upon numerical coordinates constitutes the "mathematical project" distin-guishing modern science.33 The term "project" (Entwurf) is taken quite literallyhere as a preliminary disclosure which circumscribes the entirety of what can showitself. Heidegger first employs the term Entwurf in Being and Time to convey thedynamic power of disclosure reserved for understanding (Verstehen). He subse-quently shows how the area of that disclosure recedes in favor of what becomespresent in it.

Understanding belongs to a more primordial disclosure which can extend andnarrow its radius, and thereby delimit the horizon of meaning to facilitate a pro-gressively thematic grasp of beings. Such a transformation would recast the sphereof what is understandable, sorting out in advance a field of meaning in which thestance of a knowing comportment could take root. In order to be fundamental,however, such knowledge requires a "towards which" (Worauf) that leads from itsmost remote boundaries back to its situatedness among beings.34 Only given thisdual comportment (Verhalten) can knower and object be related within a cognitivefield. This knowing act includes two foci, which extend on one side to determinethe mode of objectivity, and, on the other, to distinguish the knower's anticipatorymode of comportment. Heidegger can then appreciate further the sense of the "tran-scendental" in the special way ascribed to transcendental knowledge. This higherknowledge marks the difference between the anticipatory character of the knowingact which facilitates a "reflective" attentiveness toward the cognitive relation as awhole, 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 TranscendentalAnalytic — proves to be an important concession that the uniqueness of Kant'smethod must be preserved before comparing it to phenomenology.

The transcendental is what concerns transcendence. Viewed transcendentally, thought isconsidered in the passing over to the object. Transcendental reflection is not directed uponobjects themselves nor upon thought as the mere representation of the subject-predicate rela-tionship, but upon the passing over (Überstieg) and the relation to the object as this relation.35

Indeed, reflection distinguishes the counterpole of the apperceptive "I" in directingthe representational act through which thought can exhibit the "standing overagainst" of the object, its objectivity.

33 GA 41, pp. 93-94; tr. 92-93.34 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 Gene-sis of Heidegger's Being and Time, p. 509.

35 GA 41, p. 179; tr. 176.




In examining more directly the elements of cognition, however, Heidegger doesnot in any way diminish the importance of the ontological features implied in anyknowing comportment. On the contrary, the initial separation of subject and objecton a cognitive level presupposes a cognitive field, which determines the object inrelation to the knower's anticipation of it. Even within the significantly narrowsphere of scientific knowing there remains a juncture of exchange, the Worauf of ahorizon in regard to which an object can emerge in the intricacy of its determina-tion. Heidegger does not explicitly equate this Worauf with the intermediary roleof imagination, the threefold synthesis, as he did in the Kant-book. The apparentreduction of our cognitive power to its imaginative source, which Cassirer de-nounces so strongly, plays no explicit part in Heidegger's new interpretation. Yetthe need remains to expose a disclosive counterpart to cognition as the crucial steptoward exposing the derivative assumptions of positivism, of tracing its origin toan 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 psychologicaland logical modes of reflection, but something more primordial, from which these two sideshave been separately lifted out. Whenever, within a science, we reflect in some way upon thatscience itself, we take the step into the line of vision and onto the plane of transcendentalreflection.36

Ultimately, metaphysics must recognize that the uniqueness of its task beginswhere the claim of scientific legitimacy ends. In grasping the wider import of scienceas constituting a problem in its own right, Heidegger amends a remark he originallymade 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 ex-plains, with reference to natural science, the part of pure reason that leads up to the Transcen-dental Dialectic as theory of knowledge. For me, what matters is to show that what came tobe extracted here as theory of science was nonessential for Kant. Kant did not want to givean sort of theory of natural science, but rather wanted to point out the problematic of meta-physics, which is to say, the problematic of ontology.37

In Die Präge nach dem Ding, Heidegger recognizes that marking the limits of natu-ral science is an essential component of a critique of pure reason. The process ofschematism not only restricts the application of the categories to possible experi-ence. This delimitation also allows for the converse proof that what can be knownwithin experience does not exhaust the systematic unity sought by reason. Notsurprisingly, Cassirer's criticism hinges on identifying this concern otherwise over-looked by Heidegger, namely, the need to "limit the presumption of sensibility" byupholding the "limit concept" of reason. This concept marks the pitfall of the at-

36 GA 41, p. 182; tr. 179.37 GA 3, pp. 274-275; tr. 172.



208 Frank Schalow

tempt to cognize a supersensible object, while offsetting the prejudice of naturalscience's claim of supremacy.38

In the conclusion to the Prolegomena, Kant outlines the metaphysical implica-tions of his attempt to delimit knowledge in a way that best reinforces Cassirer'semphasis. In discussing the role of the transcendental ideas, Kant recognizes thatthe delimitation (Umgrenzung) of knowledge is only complete once the complemen-tary 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 (notundertaken arbitrarily or wantonly) but stimulated thereto by the nature of reason itself. Andthe transcendental Ideas ... serve to point out to us actually not only the bounds of the pureuse of reason, but also the way to determine them. Such is the end and the use of this naturalpredisposition 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 longas 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 compellingthose matters of facts are, they remain insignificant without their incorporationinto a wider cognitive field. Left to its own resources science may fall prey to amyopia of its vision. Conversely, science's advance requires correlating the factswithin different paradigms in which the import of a single fact can be ascertainedin new ways. Science does not accept the premise of an independent reality, but, asKant suggests, it can grasp the objectivity of its claims only by turning back to theantecedent conditions that foster such an objective relation. For Heidegger, thiscognitive field receives its orientation from a pregiven, historically and culturallydefined network of concerns. Only then can the attempt to outline the contours ofsuch a cognitive field, as Kant does, for example, in calling upon transcendentalreflection, exceed in import the specific knowledge claims of science. The widerhorizon of meaning arising from finite transcendence gathers together the steps bywhich we attain a critical stance toward knowledge in contrast to defining theconstitution 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 toshow that fundamental ontology radically reformulates the Kantian question "what

38 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 141. Having madethis observation, Cassirer then concludes: "Schematism and the doctrine of the transcenden-tal imagination stand in the middle of Kant's analysis but not in the focal point of Kant'ssystem. This system is completed only in the transcendental dialectic, and, further in theCritique of Practical Reason and the Critique of judgment. ... The theme 'Kant and theProblem of Metaphysics' cannot, therefore, be treated exclusively under the aspect of thechapter on schematism but only under the aspect of the Kantian doctrine of freedom andhis theory of the beautiful" (p. 149).

39 Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigenMetaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, Band IV (Berlin, 1922),pp. 107—108. Prolegomena to Any Puture Metaphysics, trans. Paul Carus (and Lewis WhiteBeck) (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1950), p. 102.




is man?" With a different terminology, Cassirer instead follows reason's quest todistinguish the complementarity of its theoretical and practical use. Only in thisway does it become possible for reason to reconcile itself with its highest ends, anddo so in light of our cultural heritage and its symbolic expression. The value ofthese two ways of interpreting transcendental philosophy will be determined byconsidering the different approaches to the Dialectic implied in them. Insofar asthe Dialectic completes the process of reason's self-criticism, a reinterpretation ofthis part of transcendental logic would yield a proper response to the challengeposed by neo-Kantianism.40

III. Truth and the Principles of Reason

The Transcendental Dialectic begins by tracing the origin of metaphysics throughreason's natural disposition to seek the whole, and then proceeds to show the mis-appropriation of the sources of knowledge (of thought and sensibility) whichspawns the spurious attempt to cognize a supersensible object. In this way, tran-scendental 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 87—88). 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 delim-iting knowledge to possible experience, the Copernican shift to finitude must locateits possibility within the wider organization of reason (and not just understanding).Only then could such a transcendental turn ensure the equal contribution of alllevels of cognition.

By the same token, the danger of cutting too quickly to the imagination as thecommon root of understanding and sensibility (a "receptive spontaneity"), and up-rooting reason in the process, becomes apparent. Not surprisingly, Cassirer reiter-ates the need to observe the distinctions comprising the architectonic of reason.41

Perhaps the clue to moving toward a possible middle ground lies in recognizingthat reason is itself not a monolithic structure. Reason must instead undergo devel-

40 Despite the rather cursory manner with which Heidegger examines the Dialectic, he doesstate: "On the grounds of my interpretation of Dialectic as ontology, I believe I am ableto show that the problem of appearance [Scheins] in the Transcendental Logic, which forKant is only negative in the form in which it first appears there, is [actually] a positiveproblem ...", GA 3, 275; tr. 172. Also of special note is Heidegger's discussion of the "cos-mological 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: VittorioKlostermann, 1976), p. 152. The Essence of Reasons, trans. Terrence Malick (Evanston:Northwestern University Press, 1969), pp. 73—75. Despite providing an extremely helpfulchart of the passages from the Kant's writings which Heidegger cites from 1926—1936,Dahlstrom does not acknowledge the importance of Heidegger's treatment of the cosmolog-ical idea in Vom Wesen des Grundes (1928). See "Heidegger's Kantian Turn," pp. 349—350.

41 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 145—151.



210 Frank Schalow

opment in distinguishing between its own self-critical capacity and the employmentof understanding (Verstand) in cognizing objects (A61/B85).42 Likewise, whatmanifests itself within experience is not defined exclusively by its sense characteris-tics. Rather, only in conjunction with the complementary locus of unity suppliedby the transcendental object = can we represent appearances in the fullest inten-tional sense as something.43

In Die Frage nach dem Ding, Heidegger comes closest to appreciating the importof Kant's epistemological dualism. Heidegger shows how the sense of Gegenstandincludes both the object's independence of offering itself to us and the knower'smaintaining a deeper source of unity in the "I" of original apperception. The Gegen-stand's twofold role as encompassing both the sensuous event of appearance andthe cognitive uniformity of a standard, has for its preface overturning a completeisomorphism between the predicates ascribed to things and their formal unity inthought. As Heidegger begins to recognize, even though the Dialectic follows onthe heels of the Analytic, its ability to unravel the assumptions on which rationalmetaphysics 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 com-mand a relationship of identity so pervasive as to support a cognition of somethingin general (i. e., the ens realissimum). The critical stance of the Dialectic brings intoa wider focus the conclusion of the Analytic. That is, the infinite claim of pureidentity must bow before the finite/insistence of admitting a relation of oppositionvia the object (as Gegenstand). As stated in the highest principle of synthetic judg-ments, the standard supplied by a relation to an object supercedes the merely formalcanon of thought's consistency, which is expressed in the principle of non-contradic-tion.

If there is a linchpin between the Analytic and the Dialectic, it lies in a sectionof 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 thedifficulties surrounding Leibniz's attempt to ground knowledge in a cognition ofabsolute identity must be countered by a more discrete, cognitively centered processof transcendental reflection (A 264/B 320).44 Such reflection turns back to considerthe distinct sources of our knowledge, so that the apprehension of our finitude

42 Kant identifies the architectonic precedent of this distinction in differentiating between acritical and doctrinal use of reason.

43 See G. Zöller, "Apriorische Gegenstandsbeziehung als Intentionalität in % 14 der 'Kritikder 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. 424—425. Also see Hoke Robinson, "The Transcendental Deduction From A toB: Combination in the Threefold Synthesis and the Representation of a Whole," in The B-Deduction (Spindel Conference, 1986), The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXV,pp. 52-54.

44 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.




(i. e., of our cognitive powers) can instruct us as to the need to separate sensibilityfrom understanding. Only by observing this difference can cognition expand itsradius 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 theprinciple of transcendental apperception.

By intervening to distinguish these two sides of cognition at once, transcendentalreflection shows that the boundary of truth circles back to include its corollarydevelopment as monitoring the threat of illusion. Initially, what Kant describes astranscendental knowledge pertains to administering the decree of finitude wherebythe possibility of knowledge hinges on showing how an object can emerge in oppo-sition to a knower. "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied notso much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far asthis mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori" (A 12/B 2). But such knowledgecannot develop without also undertaking the reciprocal move of dissecting the illu-sion of perfect identity in the search for a supersensible object. The complementaryside of the Copernican revolution lies in undertaking the reflection which turnsback to distinguish between the sensible and intellectual origin of our cognitivecapacities. Transcendental reflection thereby broadens the Copernican revolution,and makes explicit a further line of delimitation that extends from reason backto understanding. This delimitation centers the cognitive act within the polarityestablished between the transcendental object and transcendental apperception.

Interestingly enough, Cassirer begins his review of the Kant-book by indicatingthe close tie between Kant's Copernican revolution and his insight into the transcen-dental object.

In February 1772, Kant reported in a letter to Marcus Herz that his investigations of theform and the principles of the sensuous and the intelligible worlds had taken a new anddecisive turn — a turn through which he thought he had in his possession now, after longsearching and wavering, "the key to all of metaphysics, which up to that time concealed toitself." He now conceived the problem of the "transcendental object" as the core of metaphys-ics. The question, "What is the ground of the relation to the object of that in us which is calledrepresentation?" now became the central point of philosophy. It created the new intellectualorientation out of which the plan of the Critique of Pure Reason grew and in regard to whichit was carried out. This new orientation constitutes the content and the basic meaning ofKant's Copernican Revolution.45

The polarity established by shifting the fulcrum of knowledge overcomes theformal identity which mistakenly translates merely subjective elements of ourthought into the constitutive conditions of things as such (A 242). The Dialecticthereby brings into focus our knowledge as the capacity to represent the object quaappearance in contrast to its immediate presentation to an absolute cognition. Theprinciples of understanding outlined in the Analytic, then, implement this insight;these principles indicate the stages of synthetic combination, which must be devel-oped 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.



212 Frank Schalow

emerge in conjunction with an antecedent synthetic unity. A regard for the distinctlyhuman mode of cognition as addressed in the Analytic develops as the counterpartto the critical appeal made in the Dialectic. Only then can the task of addressingtruth 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 theAnalytic."46

Thus, the Dialectic shows how reason can apprehend its limits through the me-dium provided by its own example rather than through a direct vehicle of discursiv-ity. The need for reason to appeal to such an intermediary in order to grasp itsown 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 soughtto amplify reason's finitude according to the paradox of denying its independencein favor of imagination. Yet, the overly economic character of his argument doesnot constitute the only way to transfer the results of Kant's critical survey of reasonback upon the wider platform of human finitude. For transcendental reflectionextends the radius of cognition in such a way as to include the complementary rolesof reason and understanding within the scope of a larger inquiry.

The ability to preserve the systematic integrity of Kant's thought, while re-assem-bling it along the axis of finitude, provides the missing step which Heidegger lackedto coordinate two distinctly different notions of metaphysics. The rational meta-physics which Kant rejects presumes to cognize a supersensible object and therebyperpetuates transcendental illusion. For Kant, a critical metaphysics which examinesits own possibility (as metaphysica generalis) grows out of this crisis, the conflictbetween truth and illusion. The critical appraisal of reason's power may not qualifyas a cognition in the strict sense as having a determinate object. Yet an apprehensionof the lawfulness exhibited by reason's example, in marking both the center andcircumference of cognition, may still comprise a facet of transcendental truth, i. e.,in marking the highest arche of knowledge within metaphysica generalis. The tran-scendental reflection which traverses the parameters of truth, while entertaining thecorollary prospect of reason's entangelment in illusion, can alone plant the seedsfor any "future metaphysics which would come forth as science." A metaphysics ofthis futural form must accomodate the movement fueling the reflective grasp of theobject 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 theadjectival modifier, "transcendental," and thereby re-defines Kant's task as a "layingthe ground for metaphysics."47

Transcendental truth is required in order to establish the possibility of any corre-spondence between an empirical judgment and its object, i. e., empirical truth. Forexample, the claim that one event follows another in temporal sucession could not

46 Charles M. Sherover, "Two Kinds of Transcendental Objectivity: Their Differentiation," inPhilosophical Topics, 12/2 (Summer 1981), 267.

47 GA3, p.3;tr. 1.




serve as an instance of knowledge without the unity supplied by the category whichdesignates for that empirical representation the uniformity of reference of an object.The diverse judgments which comprise nature (natura) must themselves depend onthe antecedent conditions which govern the dynamic interaction between knowerand object. Empirical truth presupposes transcendental truth, or in the terms Hei-degger initially employed in 1929, ontic truth presupposes ontological truth.48 Yettruth also includes the counter prospect for its own neglect. As Heidegger remarksin his conversation with Cassirer at Davos: "On the ground of the finitude of thebeing-in-truth (In-der-Wahrheit-sein) of human beings, there exists at the same timea being-in-the-untruth" (In-der-Un-wahrheit-sein).49 According to Heidegger, thepresumption of supersensible knowledge marks a tendency toward error which isonly possible for a finite being.

Put simply, rational metaphysics skirts the requirements of truth as translatedinto 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 soleauthority for knowledge ignores the wider axis along which truth becomes possible,the horizon of objectivity. Conversely, the denial of this ontological horizon, whichfor Kant amounts to thought's seeking its immediate identity with an object withoutthe guidance of an a priori synthesis, fuels the presumption of rational metaphysics.Thus, rational metaphysics is seen to derive its own tendency toward illusion froma deeper "untruth" whose prefigurement lies in neglecting the difference betweenbeing and beings (Unterschied zwischen Sein und Seiendem), or forgetting the prio-rity of metaphysica generalis over metaphysica specialist Only by first markingthe intersection of Kant's view of untruth with Heidegger's, can we then accept thelatter's initial premise of a common concern for the possibility of metaphysics heldby both.

The Transcendental Dialectic is focal because it prefigures Heidegger's attemptto criticize a traditonal ontology of presence-at-hand. In reinterpreting the Dialecticin this manner, we can compare Heidegger's fundamental ontology with Kant'scritical metaphysics, without precluding other ways of developing the metaphysicalimplications of Kantian thought. No doubt Cassirer had the firmest grip on whatthese other possibilities might entail when he stated in his conversation with Hei-degger at Davos:

What is new in this [Copernican] turn appears to me to lie in the fact that now there is nolonger 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 kindof new form now also refers to a new world of the objective, how the aesthetic object is not

48 GA3, p. 18; tr. 11.49 GA 3, p. 281; tr. 176.50 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: MartinusNijhoff, 1970), pp. 9-10, 97. See Frank Schalow, "Re-Opening the Issue of World: Heideg-ger and Kant," Man and World, Vol. 20 (1987), 200.



214 Frank Schalow

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

IV. Freedom and the Metaphysics of the Puture

Heideggers's emphasis on temporality becomes never more problematic thanwhen he turns to the realm of practical reason and attempts to reconcile moralfreedom with human finitude. While Heidegger emphasizes the "thrown" dimen-sion (Geworfenheit) of choice within moral action, Cassirer upholds a cosmopolitansense of humanity qua spirit which subscribes to the ideal of reason.52 Yet in oppos-ing the existential motifs of his day,53 even Cassirer can defend Kant's epistemicdualism of the sensible and the intelligible worlds only by confronting the accompa-nying problems its spawns on a metaphysical level. Kant's ability to distinguishreason 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. Hissolution to the third antinomy has its own special caveat, insofar as the activity ofthe will as initiating an uncaused cause within nature remains difficult to fathom.

In addressing this problem, Heidegger argues that even a noumenal freedom re-quires the development of an accompanying horizon for action in order to be expe-rienced. As he states in his 1930 lectures on human freedom: "Die Tatsächlichkeit,die der Realität der Freiheit entspricht, ist die der Praxis."54 Thus Heideggertransposes the precise Kantian formulation of the problem of freedom and necessityby seeking the will's corollary enactment within the temporal horizon of being-in-the-world. Despite our immersion in worldly concerns, there must already be acontrary orientation which induces us to rise above the expediency of events. Theconcern for expediency proves to be an extension of our engagement with the in-strumental complex of things ready-to-hand, or what Kant might describe as "rela-

51 GA 3, p. 294; tr. 184.52 For a brief discussion of this difference, see Jürgen Habermas, Politisch-philosophische

Profile (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 52—54. Habermas points out the conflict betweenHeidegger's emphasis on "Schickal" and Cassirer's appeal to cultural development andprogress. I am grateful to Professor Randall Auxier for directing me to this source.

53 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," pp. 155—156. As Cas-sirer indicates, Heidegger's emphasis on the abyss of the imagination, from which Kantsupposely "recoiled," paints a picture of the human situation which belongs more to Kier-kegaard's world than to Kant's. By contrast, Cassirer points to the luminosity of Kant'sthought which led Goethe to suggest that reading a page of Kant's writings was like "enter-ing a bright room" (p. 155).

54 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."




tive ends."55 By seeking possibilities whose relevance exceeds purely instrumentalends, a person can become the recipient of freedom and qualify as a "world citizen"(ein Weltbürger).56

But how does Kant's attempt to establish the dependence of our will on an un-changing moral law also lend itself to reveal time as the organizational field ofhuman action, as Heidegger contends? In his analysis of the first Critique, Heideg-ger shows that the transcendental concern for the process of cognition exhibits apolarity within our temporal natures which is both "situated" and "projective."What on an existential plane consists of a relation between thrownness and pro-jection has its epistemic analogue in what Heidegger boldly describes in the Kant-book as a spontaneous-receptivity. But can this spontaneous-receptivity found incognition also hold for moral action, such that imagination can emerge as the rootof both theoretical and practical reason?

In his review of the Kant-book, Cassirer points to the final incoherence of Hei-degger's attempt to seek a deeper unity for reason in both its theoretical and practi-cal reason in imagination. According to Cassirer, a "sensibilized reason" of thiskind constitutes a "wooden iron," a contradiction which cannnot be resolved.57 A"typic" of practical reason must replace a complementary schematism for theoreti-cal 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 offreedom may be, the context relevant to it depends upon formulating a judgmentwhich can reveal the moral law in relation to us and do so by calling forth anequally definitive response, i. e., a feeling of respect. The feeling of respect is aninstance of spontaneous-receptivity and constitutes an "ontological" rather than a"psychological description." 58

Heidegger's retrieval of transcendental philosophy hinges on merging two thesesinto one. First, Heidegger claims that temporality exhibits an organizational capac-ity 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 Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,Band IV (Berlin, 1922), p. 287. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. LewisWhite Beck (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1959), pp. 45—46. Cassireropposes Heidegger's attempt to define meaning and truth in terms of temporality, as if todiminish all claims of objective status. Yet Heidegger does leave room for considering thesubordinate status of instrumental or "relative" ends in contrast to the primary structureof that "that for the sake of" which allows a sense of the purposefulness of human existenceto prevail before any preoccupation with instrumental ends. See Heidegger, Die Grundpro-bleme der Phänomenologie, GA 24 (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1975), pp. 193-202.The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1982), pp. 137-140.

56 GA31, pp.264ff.57 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 149.58 Schräg, "Heidegger and Cassirer," p. 100.



216 Frank Schalow

synonymous with temporality, rather than forming one side of an opposition whoseother side is the infinite. The elevation of finitude to this higher ontological levelmarks the corollary to Heidegger's attempt to overthrow reason in favor of theprivileged root of imagination. The major drawback of removing reason as thecenterpiece of ethics, however, lies in renouncing any criteria by which to ajudicatemoral disputes. Paul Tillich, who referred to Kant und das Problem der Metaphysikas "one of [Heidegger's] most profound books," identifies this problem in a lecturedelivered in New York in 1954. Tillich reflects on the strange reaction Cassirermust have experienced in 1929 at Davos upon defending a Kantian ethic of rationalcriteria against Heidegger, "who defended himself on the notion that there are nosuch 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 havingbeen initiated at cross purposes.

While not ascribing to Kant's epistemic dualism, Heidegger still incorporates intohis own fundamental ontology a concern for boundaries of human understandingand action. The strength of Heidegger's commitment to transcendental philosophycomes out most strongly in his defending Kant against the chief spokesman ofGerman idealism who sought to replace Kant's dualism with the self-mediatingidentity 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 possibilityand necessity of metaphysics, i. e., its essence, are at bottom brought forth and preservedthrough the most original working-out and increased preservation of the problem of fini-tude?60

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

59 Paul Tillich, "Heidegger and Jaspers," in Heidegger and Jaspers, ed. Alan M. Olson (Phila-delphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 21, 25. For a perception of the personalityclash between Cassirer and Heidegger, see Hendrik J. Pos, "Recollections of Ernst Cas-sirer," in The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, Ed. Paul Schlipp (Lasalle, IL: Open Court,1949), pp. 67—69. Also see a review of this book by J. S. Bixler, Journal of Religion, 30(1950), 73-74.

60 GA 3, pp. 244-245; tr. 166-167.61 Ernst Cassirer, Symbol, Myth, and Culture, ed. Donald Phillip Verene (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1979), pp. 72-73.62 Cassirer, "Remarks on Martin Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant," p. 157.




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 ofhuman culture. For Cassirer, even the most stark dualism of practical reason mustallow for its temperament within a critical evaluation of aesthetic and teleologicaljudgments. In Kant's account of reflective judgment (i. e., of the beautiful and thesublime), we discover a reciprocity between the sensuous experience of art's formalpurposiveness, and a hint of the supersensible destination of our natures sought byreason. Even the height of human aspiration does not become possible without apreliminary orientation to "life" and to its historical embodiment in culture.63

Cassirer may not accept Heidegger's radical emphasis on finitude. But Heideggermay still recognize the formation of a horizon which yields the breadth of ourcultural experiences. Such a horizon would mark reason's ability to seek its highestends, and, by upholding the sublimity of personhood, would delimit humanity'shighest vocation as a "citizen of the world." Whether expressed in the symbolicmanner 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 relevanttoday. In this regard, the common place of exchange between Heidegger and Cas-sirer 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 thelimit of human cognitions with the limits [Grenzen] of the complete human perfec-tion as such, and here the question is: What can man, as man, know at all?"64

63 Rudolf A. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutic Import ofthe Third Critique (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 154 ff.

64 Kants Werke (Herausgegeben von Ernst Cassirer), Vorlesungen Kants über Logik, BandVIII (Berlin, 1923), p. 357. Logic, trans. Robert Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz (Indiana-polis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1974), p. 46.



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