Résumé Dans sa discussion critique du matérialisme – qui traite le droit et l’État comme « des réalités simplement fictives », par opposition à la « société dans l’économie » – Cohen écrit dans le dernier chapitre de son Introduction avec supplément critique à l’ Histoire du matérialisme de F.A. Lange que le droit et l’État ne doivent en effet être valorisés que comme « un système d’équilibre en pensée », à savoir comme « fiction de l’équilibre ». Même s’il (...) ne doit pas s’agir là d’un équilibre « stable », seulement d’un équilibre « labile », la « nécessité de la fiction»s’avère être néanmoins la seule possibilité offerte à la raison de demeurer dans le champ de tensions de l’histoire, si elle ne veut pas (comme l’écrit Cohen dans l’ Éthique de la volonté pure ) « laisser les tâches éthiques […] éclairer l’obscurité qui régnait jusque-là dans l’histoire, telles des fulgurations de forces en quelque sorte post-historiques ». (shrink)

Cohen′s critical remarks on natural-law theories argue that the identification between unwritten law and written Torah, which he suggests in his opus postumum, cannot mean that written Torah should be understood as a dogmatic code of natural law. This identification has to be understood on the basis of the constitutive relation of the written Torah to the oral one and has implications in view of a theory of reason: following the analogy of written Torah, the a priori of reason turns (...) out to be like a code, whose canonical authority is always presupposed although it is rewritten like a palimpsest at every new application. (shrink)

Uma referênda à obra Kants Theorie der Erfahrung de Hermann Cohen feita na primeira redacção do Prefácio à obra Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels de Walter Benjamin faz com que o conceito coheniano de origem saia do sen isolamento, deixando ao mesmo tempo entrever os traços de um confronto mais rico e articulado entre Walter Benjamin e o pensador de Marburgo. A dimensão histórica que segundo Benjamin permanecia fora da exposição coheniana do conceito de origem, emerge aqui de forma saliente. Assim, (...) o facto de Cohen ter discutido nesse contexto a relação entre a priori metafísico e a priori transcendental sugere que a obra Kants Theorie der Erfahrung representa verdadeiramente um texto não secundário em ordem a demonstrar o significado da presença de Hermann Cohen no Prefácio de Walter Benjamin. Finalmente, o artigo pretende demonstrar de que modo a retomada por parte de Hermann Cohen da mesma problemática a propósito da definição do conceito de revelação permite ao mesmo tempo instituir um nexo com algumas considerações de Benjamin sobre a linguagem e a terminologia filosófica e até mesmo com aquilo que ele considera sera dimensão "esotérica" dopensamento de Kant. /// The standard interpretation of Benjamin's critique of Cohen is that his concept of origin had no historical dimension. However, a reference by Benjamin to Kant's Theory of Experience in the first draft of the Epistemo-Critical Prologue to The Origin of the German Tragic Drama seems to cast doubt on this interpretation. Moreover, the fact that Cohen had discussed the relation between metaphysical and transcendental a priori in the Introduction to Kant's Theory of Experience confirms its relevance in the said Prologue. Cohens revival of this problem in the context of his theory of revelation suggests that there is a connection with Benjamin's reflections on language and philosophical terminology, and even with what he calls the "esoterical" dimension of Kant's thought. (shrink)