MARBURGO, SCUOLA DI - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. VIII, p. 30

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

MARBURG, MARBURG SCHOOL OF. — This is one of the two main directions of German Neo-Kantianism; its founder was Hermann Cohen (q.v.; 1842–1918), and its principal continuators were Paul Natorp (q.v.; 1854–1924) and Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945).

Unlike the Southwest Neo-Kantianism of Freiburg and Heidelberg, which devoted itself to the “philosophy of values,” the Marburg School sought instead to clarify the foundations of the mathematical and natural sciences through the theory of productive thought, elevating logic to the status of a fundamental discipline. In its early phase, the philosophy of N. Hartmann (1882–1950) was also connected with the Marburg School; later, however, Hartmann turned to phenomenology in order to construct a metaphysics and a theory of values that made substantial concessions to traditional realism (q.V. NEOCRITICISM).

BIBL.: E. V. ASERAH, Der Neukantianismus, in Die Philos. der Gegenwart, Leiden 1935, p. 4; seq.: K. Larenz, Der «Marburger» Neukantianismus, in Rechts- und Staatsphilos. der Gegenwart, Berlin 1935, p. 35; seq.: J. F. Brecht, Einführung in die Philos. der Existenz, Heidelberg 1948, p. 15; seq. Cornelio Fabro.