Reconstructing the relationship between science and politics in Imperial Germany, this book covers the early work of the philosopher and historian Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) and discusses his relation to the Marburg School of philosophy.

Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; Introduction: "Reading a Mute History": Ernst Cassirer, the Marburg School and the Crises of Modern Germany; PART I: THE MARBURG SCHOOL AND THE POLITICS OF SCIENCE IN GERMANY: Chapter One: The Twentieth-Century Conflict of the Faculties: The Marburg School and the Reform of the Sciences; Chapter Two: Cassirer and the Marburg School in the Administrative and Political Context of the "Kaiserreich"; Chapter Three: "The Supreme Principles of Knowledge": Cassirer's Transformation of the Tenets of Cohen's "Infinitesimal Method" (1882) and "System of Philosophy" (1902-1912); PART II: CRITICAL SCIENCE AND MODERNITY: Chapter Four: Leibniz and the Foundation of Critical Science: "Leibniz's System in its Scientific Foundations" (1902); Chapter Five: Science and History in Cassirer's "Substance and Function" (1910); PART III: LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND LAW: Chapter Six: Liberalism and the Conflict of Forms: "The Knowledge Problem" (1906-1940) and "Freedom and Form" (1916); Chapter Seven: Law as Science and the "Coming-into-Being" of Natural Right in Cohen, Cassirer and Kelsen Conclusion Critical Science, the Future of Humanity and the Riddle of "An Essay on Man" (1944); Index

Gregory B. Moynahan is associate professor of history and co-director of the Science, Technology and Society Program at Bard College, New York, USA.