Paul Natorp

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Paul Natorp

1854–1924

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Natorp held that philosophy is the critique of the conditions of scientific knowledge, and he read Plato’s Ideas as hypotheses of such a method rather than as separate beings.

Placement

German Idealism & Its Heirs · Western Europe · Epistemology, Metaphysics

Marburg neo-Kantian with Cohen: he read Plato’s Ideas as hypotheses of a scientific method rather than separate beings, developed a critical psychology and a social pedagogy, and taught Cassirer.

Key ideas

Plato’s Ideas as a method, not as separate beings
Critical psychology

Students: Ernst Cassirer

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Influence

Influenced by 2

Plato

influenced by
Natorp’s Platos Ideenlehre (1903) reads Plato’s Ideas critically, as hypotheses of a scientific method, and finds in Plato an early idealism. SEP “Paul Natorp” (A. Kim), §1; SEP “Neo-Kantianism” (J. Heis), §2
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Hermann Cohen

influenced by ✓
Natorp became, with Cohen, the second leading voice of the Marburg School and shared its transcendental method. SEP “Paul Natorp” (A. Kim), §1; SEP “Neo-Kantianism” (J. Heis), §2 (habilitation under Cohen, 1881)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Hermann Cohen › 1842–1918

Influenced 1

Ernst Cassirer taught

taught
Cassirer studied at Marburg from 1896 under Cohen and Natorp and took his doctorate there in 1899. J. M. Krois, Kurzbiographie Cassirer (Universität Hamburg, digitalisate.sub.uni-hamburg.de); Mathematics Genealogy Project lists Cohen and Natorp as advisors
Evidence: AI draft
Ernst Cassirer › 1874–1945

Works

1903Plato’s Theory of Ideas
Natorp’s major work: he reads Plato’s Ideas as hypotheses of a scientific method rather than as separate beings, and so finds in Plato an early form of idealism.
1912General Psychology According to the Critical Method
Critical psychology: immediate experience cannot be observed directly and is reached only indirectly, by methodically reversing from the objectified results of science; Natorp thus carries the transcendental method into psychology.

Position

Natorp is on the map as the second voice of the Marburg School of neo-Kantianism beside Cohen. He explained and developed Cohen’s work on Kant and the theory of science and carried the transcendental method into psychology, ethics, politics and pedagogy. Philosophy is for him critique of the conditions of scientific knowledge and, more widely, of culture; science advances through hypotheses, which he treats as active positings, and thinking is functional and synthetic. In Plato’s Theory of Ideas (1903), his major work, he reads Plato’s Ideas as hypotheses of a scientific method rather than as separate beings, finding in Plato an early idealism. His Social Pedagogy (1899) belongs to this extension, and in the General Psychology According to the Critical Method (1912) he argues that immediate experience can be reached only indirectly, by reversing from the objectified results of science. Cassirer was his student, and Gadamer wrote his dissertation under him; Natorp reported that reading Lange led him into philosophy.

Life & context

Paul Natorp was born on 24 January 1854 in Düsseldorf. He began with classical philology under Hermann Usener in Bonn and continued in Strasbourg before turning to philosophy under the influence of the Marburg reading of Kant. In 1881 he habilitated in Marburg under Hermann Cohen with a study of Descartes’ theory of knowledge, and he stayed in Marburg for the rest of his career, becoming a professor in 1893. Late in life he helped to secure Martin Heidegger’s appointment as associate professor at Marburg; Heidegger later held his chair. He died on 17 August 1924.