Chaos in Heinrich Rickert’s Philosophy

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Chaos in Heinrich Rickert's Philosophy

Oleksandr Kulyk

The term `chaos' comes to philosophy from Theogony in which Hesiod narrates that Chaos was the first born. When Plato in Symposium and Aristotle in Physics mention `chaos,' they refer to Hesiod's poem. Traditionally philosophers interpret chaos as something primordial and contrast it with cosmos as the ordered world. One of the most interesting versions of this term was elaborated by Heinrich Rickert in the twentieth century.

In his Die Philosophie des Lebens Rickert claims that chaos exists. He also claims that chaos can be converted into cosmos. Given these claims, one might expect that when confronted with the question of what chaos is, he would adopt one of the three versions of ideas on chaos that were argued previously by German philosophers. First, Kant held in works of his “precritical period” that chaos was a pre-cosmic state in the evolution of the universe (e.g. Kant, 1755, p. 78). Second, German Romantics used the term `chaos' when they wrote about ancient mythology and the first attempts of philosophers to grasp the absolute (e.g. Schlegel, 1982, p. 154). Third, Friedrich Nietzsche described chaos as “the zero degree of Being” (Haar, 1998, p. 82). But these three interpretations are not what Rickert writes. He writes, rather, that chaos consists of infinite manifolds of our experiences of the world and life.

Literature review

Rickert's ideas about chaos have usually remained unnoticed. The majority of interest in Rickert has revolved around his theories on values (e.g. Krijnen, 2001; Oaks, 1988), cultural sciences (e.g. Bohlken, 2002), social concepts (e.g. Dewalque, 2016), the status of philosophy (e.g. Staiti, 2015), issues of ethics (e.g. Centi, 2015), and religion (e.g. Crowe, 2010). Only in a few papers do researchers (e.g. Zijderveld, 2006) pay some attention to Rickert's ideas on chaos. I have not found any that focused on this issue. This is unsurprising for a number of reasons.

Firstly, applying the term `chaos' has no comparison among neo-Kantian thinkers. Philosophers of Marburg neo-Kantianism, Rickert's colleagues in Heidelberg neo-Kantianism, representatives of other groups of neo-Kantians, as well as researchers of neo-Kantianism do not address chaos. Secondly, Rickert used the term `chaos' extensively in only one of his important writings, Die Philosophie des Lebens. Customarily this book does not arouse researchers' interest as much as his other writings: it has not even been translated into English. There are two books in English of translations of Heinrich Rickert's writings now: Science and History: a Critique of Positivist Epistemology (1962) and The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science: A Logical

Introduction to the Historical Sciences (1986). Neither contains a translation of Die Philosophie des Lebens. Thirdly, the influence of Rickert's ideas about chaos on other philosophers is undiscovered. Researchers rightfully argue that Rickert exercised a profound influence on generations of theorists in a host of disciplines, namely on Martin Heidegger, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Ernst Troeltsch and others (e.g. Crowe, 2010, p. 617). But Rickert certainly influenced these thinkers with his more famous concepts, not with his ideas about chaos.

The appearance of the term `chaos' in Rickert's philosophy is puzzling. Rickert does not use the word `chaos' at all in the majority of his writings. But in Die Philosophie des Lebens he suddenly uses `Chaos' 13 times (Rickert, 1922, p. 14, 16, 53, 148, 149, 172, 181, and 182), the term `Lebenschaos' [chaos of life] 3 times (Rickert, 1922, p. 45, 140, and 182), `Weltchaos' [world chaos] and `chaotisch' [chaotic] twice each (Rickert, 1922, p. 14, 45, 46, and 181), and the word `Wertchaos' [chaos of values] once (Rickert, 1922, p. 140).

The Purpose of the Research

The question provoked by the appearance of the term `chaos' in Rickert's philosophy and by the originality of his version of chaos is as follows: what exactly does Rickert mean when he claims that there is chaos? To answer this question, it will be helpful to analyze Rickert's ideas on chaos in the context of his epistemological theories. It will also be useful to compare his ideas about chaos with the ideas of other German philosophers who wrote about chaos, namely Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, Friedrich von Schlegel, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

The Main Material

Chaos and Rickert's Theory of Concept Formation

In the writings of neo-Kantians, as Christian Krijnen and Kurt Walter Zeidler have convincingly argued, “philosophy is not reduced to epistemology, but epistemology functions as the philosophia prima” (Krijnen and Zeidler, 2012, p. 232). Rickert's ideas on chaos are no exception. He uses the term `chaos' when he examines epistemological issues. For instance, he writes the following: “For a man of theory, free from any extrascientific [auBerwissenschaftlichen] evaluations, at the beginning of investigation, that is regardless of any understanding, the world appears not as a world in the meaning of cosmos, an ordered whole, but as chaos, depiction of which is practically impossible, and as we have seen, it is useless in a theoretical sense, because it would lose cognitive importance, even if we were able to do it” (Rickert, 1922, p. 148, my translation).

Rickert stresses that philosophy has only one tool for understanding the world. This tool is concepts. He believes the aim of philosophy is to possess the world by concepts, organize and unambiguously define it. In Die Philosophie des Lebens he uses the metaphor of building a house out of bricks when he wants to illustrate a process of creating theories. He writes that a man has to build the house, has to live in it, and has to watch the world from this house. According to Rickert, if a theory is a house, it must be built by sound building blocks, that is, by concepts. We can not use sensations as building blocks, because such material is poorly adapted for creating a theory. Rickert believes that our experiences of the world are chaos. Before building a theory we have to do some pre-construction activities, that is, concept formation. The chaos of experience is only a raw material of concept formation. We should form building blocks from parts of this chaos.

Rickert defines a concept as a combination of essential parts of reality. He argues that a concept does not reflect all parts of given reality, only some of these parts, although they are essential ones. Rickert regards cognition as a transformation, not as a literal reflection of an external world. In the process of cognition using concepts, we designate essential relationships, separating them from non-essential ones. We dismember and order the chaos of the infinite manifolds of our experiences by this process of designating. Developing Windelband's distinction between nomothetic and idiographic judgments, Rickert points out that there are two ways of grasping reality: generalizing [generalisierende Auffassung] and individualizing [individualisierende Auffassung]. Both help us to order `chaos', creating `cosmos.'

It is important that Rickert uses the term `chaos' in his Die Philosophie des Lebens, in which he criticizes thinkers of Lebensphilosophie [philosophy of life] such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, and Wilhelm Dilthey. Against these philosophers he contends that they reject the idea of a clear distinction between form and content when they do not see a distinction between cosmos and chaos. Rickert argues that thinkers of Lebensphilosophie are mistaken when they assert that life is both cosmos and chaos. He emphasizes that these are different things. Rickert writes the following: “The scientific work of philosophy loses any meaning if it is impossible to work out cosmos by means of theories from the chaos of experiences” (Rickert, 1922, p.172, my translation)

Rickert's theories raise a puzzling question: when he writes about chaos does he mean chaos of transcendent objects or chaos of immanent ones? Dutch researcher Anton Zijderveld has argued that Rickert means both: “Rickert believes that the concepts of his transcendental philosophy ought to remain empty forms which allegedly mold chaotic and irrational contents (the transcendent and immanent realities) into a rationally understandable cosmos” (Zijderveld, 2006, p. 87). But it is clear that transcendent things can acquire the status of reality for us only after they have been experienced by us. In other words, transcendent things can become a reality for us only as immanent things. I think that when Rickert writes about chaos he means only the chaos of human experiences, only immanent reality.

To understand Rickert's ideas about chaos it is necessary to analyze his conception of philosophy. Rickert characterizes true philosophy as a reasoning of values and also as a science of a whole.

Rickert believes that philosophy discovers general principles through investigating values. Philosophy begins, he holds, where problems of values begin. Oakes and other researchers have pointed out important influences of this theory on a lot of thinkers of the twentieth century (e.g. Oakes, 1990). Rickert stresses that philosophy has to seek values and systematically order them. This ordering must have general principles. For example, when philosophy orders life, it has to give a whole interpretation of the meaning of life. Anton Zijderveld has given one such explanation of Rickert's idea about using awareness of values in the process of ordering chaos: “Only he who, or that which is related to values, can logically be singled out from the irrational chaos of facts, objects, and living beings as individual, particular, unique” (Zijderveld, 2006, p. 178).

Rickert, like other representatives of neo- Kantianism, believes that philosophy has to be a science. Of course, he assumes that philosophy cannot be an ordinary science: it must be oriented toward the world as a whole, and not merely toward this or that specific part of it. Concepts of other sciences represent only separate parts of the world, but philosophy is a conceptual construction that can explain the world as a whole. This task can be performed only by philosophy as a system. He believes that concepts in philosophy have to be a system. According to Rickert, successful dismembering of the chaos of experience is possible only by a system of concepts. He emphasizes: “Only the system enables converting world chaos [Weltchaos] into world cosmos [Weltkosmos], so we can say that any philosophy has to have the form of the system” (Rickert, 1922, p. 14, my translation).

That is, if philosophy wants to be a science about a whole, it has to build a whole ordered system of its concepts. Singular concepts designate only singular parts of life, not life as a whole. In order to grasp the world as a whole, philosophers ought to use a form. And a system of concepts has to be this form. It is important to be aware of the fact that Rickert gives great importance to using a system in philosophy. Beatrice Centi has correctly stressed that “Rickert's system is not merely an ordering procedure, but rather the instrument, through which philosophy unearths what is fundamental” (Centi, 2015, p. 139).

Rickert points out that dismembering and ordering the chaos of the world have significant utility for people. They give us the possibility of being oriented in this reality. Rickert agrees with thinkers of Lebensphilosophie that life is inherently elusive and obscure. He describes our experiences of life as volatile manifolds of sensations that appear in an infinite number of combinations. But he claims that a philosopher can grasp the world as a whole using theories. Rickert contradicts philosophers of Lebensphilosophie in saying that a theoretically oriented man is able to reflect upon the world in its totality. He compares life to a sea and says that we need a compass or guiding lights to philosophize about life. Ordering chaos by concepts with our intellect gives us such a compass and guiding lights. I agree with the opinion of A. Staiti that “Rickert is arguing that the intellect is the organ of freedom, that freedom which alone allows our thoughts to soar over the daily concerns and chores of our existence” (Staiti, 2015, p. 31).

Even more, Rickert believes that a man who orders chaos gains mastery over life. One subdues the chaos of his experiences and this activity enables him to set about systematic ordering of the world. Rickert concludes that our cognition of the world aims to master the world in concepts.

At the same time, it is important to say that Rickert's version of chaos is not as profound in the areas of ethics and metaphysics as some modern researchers would want it to be. For example, Tano S.Posteraro has raised a good question: “What does it mean for philosophy to take seriously the chaos that haunts and threatens to undermine the fleetingly static formations that populate our epistemological landscapes?” (Posteraro, 2015, p. 455). Rickert

does not analyze such questions. By using the term `chaos' he does not repudiate the theories traditional in German idealism. He does not believe that the world is murky, inevitable chaos. He develops Kantianism, though he does it with his original ideas and theories. Another deep issue was posed by Martine Hollins: “How is a personal life to be lived when there is knowledge of chaos?” (Hollins, 1996, p. 29). Hollins states that it is impossible for a person to live in constant awareness of chaos. But Heinrich Rickert does not think that awareness of chaos is a problem. He uses the term `chaos' to designate a variety of experiences. And he does not think that awareness of the chaotic state of these experiences threatens a person. He offers a way of ordering chaos and describes dismembering it as a clear procedure for doing this.

Rickert and Kant on Chaos

The primordial meaning of `chaos' used by traditional philosophers is also used by Immanuel Kant, in the writings of his precritical period when he wants to designate an unformed state of nature.

As is well-known, Kant's earlier writings are primarily contributions to natural philosophy and his interest in cosmogony is one of his earliest. Kant describes the evolution of nature as a cyclical process, including the formation of new worlds and the decline of old ones. According to Kant's account, chaos is the raw material of the dispersed elements. Nature forms new worlds out of this chaos. Kant considers chaos to be not only the raw material of world formation but also the result of how long worlds have existed. In Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels Kant writes about the decay and destruction of worlds that finally buries all the worlds that have completed their term in one total state of chaos. The process of world formation starts out of this raw material again. Kant stresses that chaos plays an important role in the rejuvenation of decayed nature. The raw state contains the seed of future worlds that strive to evolve out of it. Kant believes that creation is never complete; it will never stop.

Kant also uses the term `chaos' when he analyzes the process of Earth formation. In his early works he argues that in the beginning the Earth was a wholly liquid mass, a `chaos' in which all the elements, air, water, etc. were commingled. For example, in his Die Frage, ob die Erde Veralte, Physikalisch Erwogen he assumes that the separation of the elements and the air that are intermingled in the “general chaos” [gemeinen Chaos] is not achieved very rapidly (Kant, 1839, p. 8). It is clear that Kant uses the term `chaos' to designate unformed nature.

Kant believes that the formation process does not need human assistance: nature evolves from chaos to cosmos not by human efforts. Kant argues in Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels that “Even in chaos, nature is productive [fruchtbar]” (Kant, 1755, p. 78, my translation).

In contrast, formation from chaos to cosmos, according to Rickert, is a human business. He stresses that one creates cosmos from chaos. However by chaos Rickert certainly means something different from Kant's version. Rickert and Kant agree that chaos is the unformed state and that cosmos is the formed state. Further, they agree that chaos can be converted into cosmos. But Rickert refuses to designate nature as the place and substance of such formation. He holds that this formation takes place in human consciousness. When Rickert writes about chaos he does not describe the primal state of the universe or a planet. He means the difficulty in cognition of ordering infinite manifolds of experiences.

Immanuel Kant often uses the term `chaos' in his precritical period, but he almost never uses this term when he begins to examine the capacities and limitations of reason. For example, in his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels Kant used the term `chaos' 22 times, but in his Critik der Reinen Vernunft it is used only once in the preface. When Kant uses the term `chaos' he describes processes in the realm of matter, not in the realm of judgments and reason. Of course, neo-Kantians are concerned with theories from Kant's Critiques and cannot use Kant's term `chaos' in its “precritical” sense. Rickert took Kant's term from books of the precritical period, but he interprets it in the spirit of Kant's theories of the period of the Critiques. As Daniel Smyth has argued, a distinction between sensibility and understanding is the keystone of Kant's critical enterprise (Smyth, 2014, p. 551). Rickert continues this tradition when he writes that our senses produce a chaos of experiences that can be converted into a cosmos by means of understanding.

What causes me to think that, in Die Philosophie des Lebens, Rickert develops the term `chaos' of early Kant? At first glance, he could have taken this term from books by Nietzsche. To answer this question I should note that when Rickert uses the term `chaos' he does so while also applying another term, `cosmos.' Using this pair of terms is the feature of Kant's early works. In the writings of Kant's precritical period, he uses the system of two notions, namely `chaos' and `cosmos', to explain the processes of formation of unformed things. I think that it is not a coincidence that Rickert does the same. Nietzsche usually does not use the term `cosmos' to designate the opposite of chaos. He uses metaphoric expressions for this purpose. For instance, Nietzsche discusses tanzende Stern [a dancing star] (Nietzsche, 1954a). Moreover, as is well-known, Rickert regarded Kant as a model philosopher and criticized Nietzsche. Of course, Rickert would prefer to develop the notions of the first, not the latter. Drawing on this, I argue that Rickert develops the term `chaos' of early Kant, not of Nietzsche.

Rickert and Romantic Philosophers on Chaos

Romantic philosophers addressing the unmeasurable and the infinite cannot pass over the theme of chaos in silence. I will compare Rickert's version of chaos with those of three German Romantics, namely Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, and Friedrich von Schlegel.

Johann Gottfried Herder in his Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit describes the idea that the beginning of all things was a dark and troubled chaos without limits or form. He believes that this idea belongs to a mythology that is very ancient, and common to different nations. However Rickert does not support the Romantics' interest in mythology. Neither cosmogony nor mythology are close to Rickert's ideas on chaos.

But another passage by Herder is more interesting to compare with Rickert's ideas. Herder writes the following: “In the chaos of beings, which the senses point out to him, he has sought and discovered unity and intelligence, order and beauty” (Herder, 1996, p. 136). Herder used the words “Chaos der Wesen” [chaos of beings] in this passage (Herder, 1965, p. 110). This passage seems to be close to the epistemological views of Rickert. He stresses that our experiences of life appear as chaos, as I have said. Nonetheless in the passage above, Herder does not write about concept formation. He writes about perception of external objects by a “soul.” From the chaos of things a soul calls forth a figure, on which it fixes its attention. Rickert's theory about dismembering and ordering chaos by concept formation is far from Herder's ideas. chaos cosmos epistemological

Another Romantic philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, defines chaos as pure formlessness. But he does not think that chaos is simply a void. Schelling interprets this formlessness as the bounteous and inexhaustible source of forms. In his Philosophie der Kunst Schelling writes the following: “The inner essence of the absolute, that in which all resides as one and one as all, is primal chaos itself.31 (Schelling, 2008, p. 88). Schelling used the words “ursprьngliche Chaos selbst” [primal chaos itself] in this passage (Schelling, 1859, p. 465). Of course, Heinrich Rickert does not mean primal chaos in his theories. He discusses chaos when he analyses contemporary life, not prehistoric times.

Arguably it would be more productive to compare Rickert's ideas about chaos with another passage by Schelling. Schelling holds that when ancient thinkers coined the concept `chaos,' it was the first attempt to grasp the absolute. That is, `chaos' as a philosophical concept is the first attempt of philosophers to see a whole. Rickert writes that conceptual construction enables a man to see life as a whole, as I have mentioned above. But Rickert does not discuss the concept `chaos' as something unique. Schelling insists that inventing the term `chaos' to describe the absolute was the starting point for philosophy. However Rickert believes that only a system of concepts can represent the world as a whole. Any single concept, for example the concept `chaos,' cannot address the challenge adequately.

Moreover, researchers claim that “Schelling means the chaos that is beyond or indifferent to the difference between chaos and order” (Schuback, 2005, p. 75). Marcia Sa Cavalcante Schuback argues that Schelling's `chaos' is not a place before the order of places but the inconceivably placeless force of an eternal beginning. Rickert's and Schelling's versions of chaos are certainly different.

Another Romantic, Friedrich von Schlegel, in his Ьber das Studium der Griechischen Poesie gives the following description of ways of converting original chaos to cosmos. He writes that original “old chaos” [alten Chaos], according to legend, “awaited a love [Liebe] and a hatred [HaЯ] in order to separate the different parts and to unify the similar ones” (Schlegel, 1982, p. 154, my translation). The process of converting chaos into cosmos was described by Rickert similarly. He wrote that concepts dismember and order chaos. But Rickert definitely is not concerned with the original chaos of Romantic cosmogonies and ancient legends, or poetic metaphors of love and hatred.

Drawing on the results of this comparison, I argue that Rickert does not develop the German Romantics' ideas on chaos; he develops Kant's version of the term `chaos,' as I have said.

Rickert and Nietzsche on Chaos

Friedrich Nietzsche often uses the term `chaos' in his writings. For instance, in Die Frцhliche Wissenschaft he claims that “The total character of the world, however, is in all eternity chaos - in the sense not of a lack of necessity but of a lack of order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever other names there are for our aesthetic anthropomorphisms (Nietzsche, 2006c, p. 219). Nietzsche used the words “alle Ewigkeit Chaos” [all eternity chaos] in this passage (Nietzsche, 1906, 174).

In his Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fьr das Leben, Nietzsche uses the term `chaos' when he discusses the formation of Greek culture. He states that the Greeks for many years lived in “a chaos of foreign - Semitic, Babylonian, Lydian, and Egyptian - forms and concepts” (Nietzsche, 2006b, p. 140). Nietzsche used the words “ein Chaos von auslдndischen” [a chaos of foreign] in this passage (Nietzsche, 1954c, p. 283). Nietzsche stresses that Hellenic culture could have become an aggregate, but it did not. He argues that the Greeks gradually learned how to organize [organisieren] this chaos by concentrating on their genuine needs, and by letting the pseudoneeds die out. As a result of organizing the chaos of forms and concepts of various peoples of the entire Orient, the Greeks increased that inherited treasure of Oriental ideas. Nietzsche claims that the Greeks, by organizing this chaos, became the first cultured people.

Nietzsche assumes that the Greek example of organizing chaos is a parable for individuals, for “each of us”. He believes that one “has to organize the chaos within him by concentrating [zurьckbesinnen] on his genuine needs” (Nietzsche, 1954c, p. 283, my translation.)

In Jenseits von Gut und Bцse, Nietzsche claims that one can order his chaos. He emphasizes that creature and creator are united in a human being: “the human being is matter, fragment, excess, clay, filth, nonsense, chaos; but the human being is also a creator, sculptor, hammer-hardness, observer- divinity, and the Seventh Day” (Nietzsche, 2006a, p.348). Nietzsche used the words “Unsinn, Chaos” [nonsense, chaos] in this passage (Nietzsche, 1954b, p. 688). Describing the process of ordering this chaos, Nietzsche stresses that the “creature in the human being” [Geschцpf im Menschen] “must be formed, broken, forged, torn, burned, annealed, purified” (Nietzsche, 2006a, p. 348).

Nietzsche regards chaos as necessary to develop a person. He states this clearly in the famous phrase: “I tell you: one must have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you still have chaos in you. Alas! The time is coming when man will give birth to no more stars. (Nietzsche, 2006d, p. 258). Nietzsche used the words “Chaos in sich” [chaos in you] in this passage (Nietzsche, 1954a, p. 283).

Although Rickert criticizes Nietzsche, their ideas about chaos seem similar. Neither describes ordering chaos as a process of nature. They agree that a person can perform this process. However there are essential differences in their interpretations of chaos. Michael Haar has convincingly argued that Nietzsche regards chaos as “the zero degree of Being” (Haar, 1998, p. 82). Similarly, I argue that Rickert interprets chaos as the zero degree of cognition.

Rickert writes that we cannot achieve tanzende Stern without conceptual construction: “Without mastering the chaos of life [des Lebenschaos] with concepts, we will not come to any star not to mention cosmos” (Rickert, 1922, p. 182, my translation). Nietzsche does not write about conceptual construction or other epistemological issues of the process of cognition. He is concerned with the transvaluation of all values and the will to power. This is very far from Rickert's idea about ordering chaos to get a true picture of life as a whole.

However, I think that Nietzsche's writings played a certain role in forming Rickert's ideas about chaos. It is interesting that Rickert does not use the term `chaos' in the overwhelming majority of his important articles and books on epistemological issues. For example, Rickert absolutely did not use this term in Fichtes Atheismusstreit und die Kantische Philosophie: Eine Sдkularbetrachtung, Die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaftlichen

Begriffsbilding: Eine Logische Einleitung in die Historischen Wissenschaften, Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft: Ein Vortrag, Der

Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Einfьhrung in die Transzendentalphilosophie, or Zur Lehre von der Definition. But Rickert actively uses `chaos' in his Die Philosophie des Lebens, in which he criticizes the thoughts of philosophers of Lebensphilosophie, especially Nietzsche. Arguably Rickert decided to give his own “correct” interpretation of the term that was important for Nietzsche, as well as give his own interpretation of the term “philosophy of life.” Nietzsche's ideas occasioned Rickert's articulation of his own understanding of meaning of `chaos.'

Nietzsche's interpretation of chaos does not provide a strong distinction between content and form. But this distinction was important to the philosophy of Kant, whose theories were the ideal for neo-Kantian Rickert. I agree with Anton Zijderveld, when he calls Rickert “a loyal follower of the great philosopher of Kцnigsberg” in the ongoing discussion of the distinction between form and content (Zijderveld, 2006, p. 21). In his philosophy, Kant used various pairs of terms to designate a distinction between content and form. One of these pairs is `chaos' and `cosmos,' which he used during his precritical period. When Rickert criticized the ideas of thinkers of Lebensphilosophie in Die Philosophie des Lebens, he used this pair of Kant's notions to articulate his opinion, correcting Nietzsche's understanding of chaos. However, Rickert also had to modify Kant's early version of the distinction between content and form. He rejects all “precritical” features of this version. Rickert refuses to see cosmogonical connotations in the term `chaos'. Also, according to Rickert, this kind of chaos can be ordered into cosmos not by nature but by a human by means of his consciousness.

Conclusion

As I have shown, a lot of German philosophers used the term `chaos,' namely Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, Friedrich von Schlegel, Friedrich Nietzsche etc. But Rickert's version of this term is original because he gave it the meaning that corresponds to his own epistemological system.

Rickert and early Kant agree that chaos is an unformed state and that cosmos is a formed state. They agree, further, that chaos can be converted into cosmos. But Rickert refuses to discuss nature as the place and substance of this formation. He holds that this formation takes place in consciousness. When Rickert writes about chaos he does not designate a primal state of the universe or a planet as Kant did in his early writings. For Rickert chaos is a raw material that consciousness uses to create a cosmos of theories by means of human reflection. According to Rickert, chaos can be ordered into cosmos not by nature, as early Kant thought, but by a philosopher. Rickert develops Kant's term `chaos' from the works of his precritical period, and interprets this term in the spirit of Kant's theories of the period of the Critiques with his own developments.

I have shown that the use of `chaos' by some German Romantic philosophers is close to Rickert's use of the term. Johann Gottfried Herder applies `chaos' when he writes about perception of external objects by a “soul.” Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling interprets the formlessness of chaos as the bounteous and inexhaustible source of forms. Friedrich von Schlegel uses the term `chaos' when he describes the process of converting primal chaos into cosmos. But the German Romantics do not use this term to designate the process of concept formation as Rickert does. Further, Rickert does not address the initial chaos of cosmogonies and ancient legends, in contrast to the Romanics. However the process of converting chaos into cosmos was described similarly by Rickert and some Romantic philosophers. For instance, Heinrich Rickert and Friedrich von Schlegel both hold that chaos has to be ordered by means of dismembering.

Although Rickert criticizes Friedrich Nietzsche, their ideas on chaos seem to have some similar, important features. Rickert and Nietzsche do not describe the process of ordering chaos as one of the processes of nature. They both claim that a human being can perform this process. However, Nietzsche does not address conceptual construction. Yet, Nietzsche's writings played a role in forming Rickert's ideas on chaos. In Die Philosophie des Lebens Rickert gives his own interpretation of this term that was important for Nietzsche. In light of the background of the term `chaos,' Rickert's interpretation becomes deep and interesting for understanding the processes of human cognition.

It would be reasonable to continue the analysis of Rickert's ideas about chaos by exploring the issue of the influence of these ideas on other philosophers. I will do it in other articles.

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze what neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert designates by the term `chaos'. I argue that using this term Rickert means infinite manifolds of human life experiences, that philosophers have to convert into `cosmos' of theories by using concept formation. Rickert thinks that cognition orders chaos. I show that Rickert's version of `chaos' is different from the ones that were expressed by I. Kant, J. G. Herder, F. W. von Schelling, F. von Schlegel, and F. Nietzsche. I also argue that ideas of

I. Kant influenced the formation of Rickert's ideas on chaos. Heinrich Rickert uses the term `chaos' in his epistemological theories that describe the process of cognition. Rickert claims that chaos is a raw material from which a philosopher can form concepts for understanding the world and life. When creating concepts, the building blocks of theories, we order this chaos by dismembering it and marking essential relationships, separating them from non-essential ones. According to Rickert, ways of scientifically grasping reality such as generalizing and individualizing help us dismember and order the `chaos' of our experiences, creating a `cosmos' of theories. Rickert correlates the terms `cosmos' and `form.' He believes that philosophers have to provide the idea of the clear distinction between form and content and have to see, in the same way, the distinction between cosmos and chaos. Philosophers, with their concepts, can give form to the chaos of experiences of the world and life, that is, they can create theoretical cosmos. Rickert states that only a system of concepts can order chaos into cosmos. Concepts that are not part of a system cannot represent the world as a whole. They represent only separate parts of the world, thus they cannot create a `cosmos' as an ordered whole. Therefore any philosophy must be formed by a system. Another important part of Rickert's ideas on chaos is his thought that ordering chaos has utility for a person. Through this activity we subdue the chaos of experiences of the world and life and it gives us the possibility of being oriented in reality and to gain mastery over it.

Keywords: Rickert, chaos, concept formation, neo-Kantianism, cognition, German idealism, epistemology

У даній статті проаналізовано зміст, який вкладав представник неокантіанства Генріх Риккерт у термін «хаос». Як було показано, цей філософ позначав терміном «хаос» нескінченне різноманіття життєвого досвіду людини, яке філософи мають перетворювати на «космос» теорій. Риккерт вважав, що в процесі пізнання людина впорядковує хаос. У статті аргументовано, що інтерпретація змісту поняття «хаос», яку запропонував Г. Риккерт, відрізняється від тлумачень даного терміну, які використовували інші представники німецької філософії - І. Кант, Й. Гердер, Ф. Шеллінг, Ф. Шлегель та Ф. Ніцше. Також було показано, що ідеї І. Канта вплинули на формування уявлень Риккерта щодо хаосу. Як було продемонстровано в статті, Генріх Риккерт використовує термін «хаос» у своїх гносеологічних теоріях, що осмислюють процес пізнання. Риккерт стверджує, що хаос - це те, з чого філософ може формувати поняття для розуміння світу. Створюючи поняття як складові елементи теорій, людина впорядковує хаос, розчленовуючи його, маркуючи сутнісні зв'язки. На переконання Риккерта, такі способи наукового осмислення дійсності, як узагальнення та індивідуалізація, допомагають нам розчленувати та упорядкувати «хаос» нашого досвіду, створюючи «космос» теорій. Риккерт переконаний, що лише система понять здатна перетворити хаос на космос. Адже поняття, які не входять до системи, не можуть репрезентувати світ загалом. Крім того, було показано важливість думки Г. Риккерта про те, що впорядкування хаосу є корисним для людини. Риккерт вказує, що завдяки впорядкуванню хаосу людина здатна орієнтуватися в реальності та стверджувати себе в ній.

Ключові слова: українські медіа, інструменти дискурс-аналізу, медіаподія, атрибутивні слова, знак «мусульманин», дослідницьке питання, ланцюг еквівалентності

В данной статье проанализированы содержание, которое вкладывал представитель неокантианства Генрих Риккерт в термин «хаос». Как было показано, этот философ обозначал термином «хаос» бесконечное многообразие жизненного опыта человека, которое философы имеют превращать в «космос» теорий. Риккерт считал, что в процессе познания человек упорядочивает хаос. В статье аргументировано, что интерпретация содержания понятия «хаос», которую предложил Г. Риккерт, отличается от толкований данного срока, которые использовали другие представители немецкой философии - И. Кант, И. Гердер, Ф. Шеллинг, Ф. Шлегель и Ф. Ницше . Также было показано, что идеи Канта повлияли на формирование представлений Риккерта по хаоса. Как было продемонстрировано в статье, Генрих Риккерт использует термин «хаос» в своих гносеологических теориях, осмысливают процесс познания. Риккерт утверждает, что хаос - это то, с чего философ может формировать понятие для понимания мира. Создавая понятие как составные элементы теорий, человек упорядочивает хаос, расчленяя его, маркируя сущностные связи. По мнению Риккерта, такие способы научного осмысления действительности, как обобщение и индивидуализация, помогают нам расчленить и упорядочить «хаос» нашего опыта, создавая «космос» теорий. Риккерт убежден, что только система понятий способна превратить хаос на космос. Ведь понятия, не входящих в систему, не могут представлять мир в целом. Кроме того, было показано важность мысли Г. Риккерта о том, что упорядочение хаоса является полезным для человека. Риккерт указывает, что благодаря упорядочению хаоса человек способен ориентироваться в реальности и утверждать себя в ней.

Ключевые слова: Риккерт, хаос, формирование понятий, неокантианство, познание, немецкий идеализм, эпистемология

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