The Copernican revolution in philosophy

Subject and object

pp. 38-53

in: Samuel Atlas, From critical to speculative idealism, Berlin, Springer, 1964

Abstract

In taking up Kant's comparison of the critical method in philosophy with that of Copernicus, Maimon defines the essence of the Kantian revolution in metaphysics in connection with his own distinct position regarding the problem of the thing-in-itself.¹ Maimon's position, as it emerges from his conception of the essence of the Copernican revolution, can be summarized by the following principle: Being cannot be explained by another mode of being, but by the laws of thought as creative functions of consciousness.