The 1860s Kant revival and the Philosophical Society of Berlin

Abstract

The paper addresses two reactions of the members of the Philosophical Society of Berlin to the 1860s Kant revival. Demands for “getting back to Kant” became common in Germany in the early 1860s. Within the Berlin Society, founded by the pupils of G.W.F. Hegel, reaction towards the emerging neo-Kantianism was mainly critical. However, there was also a kind of Kant-revival within the Society. The paper thematises contributions by C.L. Michelet and Julius Bergmann, the two editors of the Society’s journal Der Gedanke. Michelet and Bergmann discussed some classics of the early neo-Kantianism by Eduard Zeller and F.A. Lange.