Marinelli, Maria Caterina
Junior Fellow: October 2023–September 2024
Research Project: The “philosophische Täuschung”: The Ground Concept of Salomon Maimon’s Critical Scepticism
The goal of this research project is to analyse the concept of “Täuschung” in Maimon’s works in order to obtain two main results: on the one hand, to define his major sceptical tool against the unproven grounds of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, as well as any kind of dogmatic assumption; on the other, to shed light on his peculiar and controversial intention to combine his sceptical doubt with the aim to follow and endorse Kant’s critical project; that is, his so-called “critical scepticism.” As will be shown, the concept of “Täuschung” clarifies how and why the necessary illusion of the certainty of those grounds arises, also establishing to what extent philosophy as critical engagement can be developed. Although present in all of Maimon’s most important essays and articles, this notion has not been deepened in any specific study that would allow us to define its function. Reconstructing the meaning of this concept would not only explain the possibility of Maimon’s project of making scepticism (understood in its much broader sense) coexist with criticism in a single system, but would also define his most challenging sceptical strategy against any uncertain argumentation, which maintains its validity beyond the limits of Maimon’s own time.
Maria Caterina Marinelli is a postdoctoral researcher. She has a PhD in philosophy from the Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata in cotutelle with Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.