Autonomy of Reason and the Religion of Revelation in the Philosophy of the Religion of Hermann Cohen

Abstract

The article substantiates the idea that the philosophy of the religion of Cohen is an attempt at the synthesis of Kantianism and Judaism, and analyzes the main ideas of the head of the Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism, which, in his opinion, were to implement this synthesis within the framework of transcendental philosophy. There are two reasons that motivated Cohen to review Kant's assessment of the place and role of religion in the cultural progress of mankind: the desire to more accurately and consistently build his philosophical system, avoiding the dualism of the logical and ethical principles of thinking and at the same time breaking the formalism of the ethical principle itself, as well as the desire to write Judaism in the European tradition of the Enlightenment. The article traces three periods in the evolution of Cohen's views on religion, its place and role in the system of transcendental idealism and in the system of human culture: the first period conditionally covers the time from the appearance of the first fundamental work of the Marburg ethical philosopher “Kant's Foundation of Ethics” and ends with the first edition another fundamental work on the ethics “Ethics of Pure Will”, the third period, which provokes the most contradictory evaluations among researchers, marks two of Cohen's main works devoted to his philosophy of religion: “The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy” and “Religion of Reason from Jewish Sources”. It is in the latter work that there appears the theme of Revelation, which is described by the Marburgian thinker strictly within the framework of the correlation between God and man and the relationship through the mind of the man of Creation and Revelation.