Maimon's Essay on a New Logic Or Theory of Thinking

Book excerpt: The Essay on a New Logic or Theory of Thinking, originally published in Berlin in 1794, was Salomon Maimon's hard-won success after a lifetime's pursuit of philosophical wisdom, Timothy Franz presents its first English translation. Franz translates the entirety of the New Logic, Maimon's Letters to Aenesidemus, two hostile reviews he vigorously annotated, and his letters to Kant, Reinhold, and Fichte about the work. Franz prefaces the text with a new history of Maimon's unique philosophical development, an introduction that discusses Maimon's relation to Kant, and a commentary that reconciles Maimon's idiosyncratically disjointed style with his unified vision of a systematic philosophy of reflection. This makes Maimon's work available for further study.