Greg Detre
Tuesday, 02 April, 2002
�charlatan and obscurantist� or �one of the greatest thinkers of modern philosophy�?
he considers his system to provide the only viable middle path between every philosophical antithesis
two broad approaches to Hegel�s metaphysics:
1. describe its relations to historical antecedents
2. more modern positivistic approach, which tends to dismiss his metaphysics (�mystical shell�), but values his contributions to epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics (�rational core�), or as �categorical analysis� (Hartmann)
both ignore that Hegel accepted the Kantian challenge to metaphysics, insisting that �any future metaphsyics that is to come forward as a science� must be based on a critique of knowledge
four basic questions around Hegel�s metaphysics:
1. what does Hegel mean by metaphysics?
2. what does he mean by �the absolute�?
3. why does he postulate the existence of the absolute?
4. how does he justify the attempt to know it in the face of Kant�s critique of knowledge?
�metaphysics� is a vague term � it can refer to:
� ontology = study of the most general predicates of being
� theology = study of the highest being
� cosmology = study of the first principles + forces of nature
instead of defining it, Hegel does not adopt the term � he only uses it to refer to the antiquated doctrines + methods of rationalism (discredited by Kant�s critique of knowledge)
Hegel saw the purpose of philosophy as the rational knowledge of the absolute
i.e. the attempt to know the unconditioned through pure reason (in Kantian terms)
Beiser defines metaphysics then as knowledge of the absolute
Schelling (former philosophical ally):
the absolute = that which does not depend upon anything else in order to exist or be conceived
independent of/unconditioned by all other things, both in existence + essence
i.e. causa sui, that whose essence necessarily involves existence
based on Spinoza: substance = �that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception�
Schelling: the absolute = �the infinite substance� or �the in-itself� (das An-sich)
like Spinoza, Hegel and Schelling argued that only one thing can satisfy this definition: the universe as a whole
since the universe contains everything, there will be nothing outside it for it to depend on
for anything less, there will always be something outside it in relation to which it must be conceived
Schelling: �the absolute is not the cause of the universe but the universe itself�
thus, Schelling + Hegel�s metaphysics is not about souls, Providence or other supernatural entities, but rather the whole of which all things are only parts
like Kant, they warn against hypostasis = treats the absolute as if it were only a specific thing
everything is explained in terms of natural laws (naturalistic rather than supernatural)
Schelling: conception of the absolute as �subject-object identity� (anti-Spinozistic)
= the mental + physical, the subjective + objective, are only different attributes of a single infinite substance
vitalistic + teleological terms (following Herder): substance as living force, �the force of all forces�, �primal force�
all of nature is a hierarchic (degrees of organisation + development) manifestation of this force
the absolute is an organism, a self-generating + self-organising whole (rather than a machine)
Schelling saw a more dynamic conception of matter as necessary to explain recent discoveries like electricity, magnetism, and as a solution to the mind-body problem
mind as the most organised + developed living force, and matter as the least
Hegel inherited this organic conception of the absolute while working with Schelling (collaborated on the Critical Journal of Philosophy (1802-04))
he agreed with Schelling�s:
definition of the absolute as that which has an independent essence + existence
conception of the absolute in organic terms, so that the mental + physical are only attributes/degrees of organisation + development
however, more and more Schelling seemed to conceive of the absolute as only subject-object identity
i.e. �the point of indifference� between the subjective + objective
as only the infinite substance without its finite modes
this seems to exclude the realm of the tfinite + appearance from it
then, contrary to its definition, the absolute becomes dependent in its essence, conceivable only in contrast to something it is not, namely the realm of appearance and finitude
Hegel: if we are to remain true to its definition, then it is necessary to conceive of the absolute as the whole of substance and its modes, as the unity of the infinite and finite, including all the flux of finitude and appearance within itself
hence: �a Bacchalian revel in which no member is not drunken� (preface to Phenomenology)
the absolute is not only substance but also subject
Schelling and Hegel felt that their conception of the absolute exempted them from Kant�s critique of metaphysics
the target of Kant�s critique was the old Leibnizian-Wolffian metaphysics, in the service of a deistic theology, which conceived of the absolute as a supernatural entity existing beyond the sphere of nature
they agreed that metaphysics in this sense is impossible, because the supernatural does not exist (rather than because it�s unknowable, as Kant held)
Kant�s worries about the unknowability of the noumenal world were the result of hypostasis
if we conceive of the absolute in naturalistic terms, then metaphysics does not require the transcendent knowledge condemned by Kant � all that we then need to know is nature herself, which is given to our experience
they regarded it as a form of scientific naturalism, the appropriate philosophy for contemporary natural science
they rejected a sharp distinction between a priori and a posteriori, insisting that their metaphysical principles be confirmed through experience
however, they conceived of the laws of nature in teleological rather than mechanical terms, although those purposes of nature were internal not imposed by an external designer
the question of metaphysics depended quite a lot upon the possibility of Naturphilosophie itself(???)
they should be seen as within the tradition of vitalistic materialism (e.g. Bruno) = God as the whole of nature
nature consisting of matter
matter being dynamic, self-generating, self-organising
also shared its commitment to egalitarianism, republicanism, religious tolerance and political liberty
Hegel is still a materialist, but in a non-mechanistic sense, which his how �spirit�, as the highest form of organisation, fits in
in these ways (metaphysics of nature), Hegel and Kant seem easily reconciled
but the real point at issue is that in claiming that we can know nature as an organism, as a totality of living forces, Schelling + Hegel were ignoring Kant�s strictures upon teleology in the Critique of Judgement:
� that we cannot confirm the idea of a natural purpose through experience
� and that we attribute purposes to nature only by analogy with our own conscious intentions
� the idea of an organism is not a �constitutive� but a �regulative� one
rather than describing anything that exists, it simply prescribes a task, the organisation of all our detailed knowledge, into a system
basically, Kant denies and Hegel affirms, that we can know that nature is an organism
i.e. why give constitutive validity to the idea of nature as an organism?
Hegel argued that Schelling�s system was superior to Fichte�s because Schelling�s absolute provided the solution to Fichte�s central outstanding problem
Fichte�s early philosophy:
began with the Transcendental Deduction of Kant�s Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant raised the question:
how is empirical knowledge possible if it requries a universality and necessity that cannot be verified in experience?
dualistic picture of the faculty of knowledge � empirical knowledge requires the interchange between the form and matter of experience:
form of experience = universal + necessary concepts
concepts = originate a priori in the understanding (= a purely active + intellectual faculty)
matter of experience = particular + contingent intuitions or impressions
intuitions = given a posteriori to our sensibility (= a purely pasive + sensitive faculty)
so if our a priori concepts derive from the understanding, how do we know they apply to the a posteriori intuitions of sensibility
i.e. if these concepts do not derive from experience, how do we know they are valid for it?
Kant�s complicated argument in the Transcendental Deduction is that these a priori concepts apply to experience only if they are its necessary conditions
if they determine the very conditions under which we have representations, then they will indeed be valid for them, although they will have no validity beyond them
early critics (e.g. Hamann, Schulze and Maimon) felt that Kant had postulated such a wide divide between the faculties of understanding (active, intellectual, not in space + time) + sensibility (passive, sensitive, not in space + time) that there could not be any correspondence between a priori and a posteriori intuitions
Maimon: like Descartes� dualism, Kant could not explain how two such heterogenous substances interact
left him open to skeptical objections, for it seemed that his faculties could interact only in virtue of some mysterious pre-established harmony
philosophers tried to unite them as aspects of a higher power/source of the mind
raised questions that Kant himself refused to answer:
how is the faculty of thought itself possible?
what makes the understanding and sensibility different functions of thought in general?
overcoming Kant�s dualisms was a major objective in post-Kantian philosophy
including in moral philosophy, the dualism between reason + desire
Fichte posited a principle of �subject-object identity�
= all knowledge requires nothing less than the identity of the knower and the known
i.e. the subject who knows must be one and the same as the object that is known
this is necessary because any form of dualism leaves us open to skepticism
self-knowledge is the only kind of knowledge (i.e. that meets the demanding conditions of subject-object identity)
Schelling on Fichte: �it must be shown that the mind, insofar as it intuits objects, realy intuits itself�
Fichte rejects Berkeley�s idealism, since it doesn't explain the givenness and contingency of experience
the subject of subject-object identity is �the infinite� or �absolute� e.g.
= comprises all of reality, creates its objects in the very act of knowing them
it is the divine intellect, the �intellectus archetypus� of Kant�s third Critique
because of his Kantian strictures on metaphysics and knowledge, Fichte explicitly rejected an idealism where an absolute ego creates all of the reality of the external world
rather, the idea of the absolute ego should be read as a strictly regulative principle
we have no right to believe in the existence of the absolute ego, but we do have a duty to make it the goal of our moral action
it�s a useful heuristic principle and a necessary postulate of morality itself
the mroal demand for complete autonomy/independence requires that we strive to become like the absolute ego, a perfectly intelligible being that creates all of nature according to its reason
however, the absolute ego is a goal that we (as finite egos) cannot realise, though we can approach it
and so make the intelligible content of experience increase as the sensible content decreases
we cannot refute the skeptic by theoretical reason, but only by acting (striving to make nature conform to the demands of our reason) � all the mysteries of transcendental philosophy are dissolved only in practice
Schelling + Hegel argued that the chief weakness of Fichte�s system came from giving the idea of the absolute a purely regulative status
we cannot approach the goal of subject-object identity if the finite ego and nature are so heterogenous
so we have to give the idea of the absolute constitutive status
it is necessary to suppose that when the finite ego knows an object that appears given and external to it, this is really only its subconscious self-knowledge as an absolute ego
in Hegel�s words, the absolute is not only subject-object identity but the identity of subject-object identity and subject-object non-identity
the subject-object identity has to exist within the subject-object dualism of our experience to explain the necessary conditions of empirical knowledge
Hegel: and in order to overcome Kant�s disastrous dualisms, we have to conceive of subject-object identity along Schellingian lines (single infinite substance, whose nature consists in living force and whose attributes are the subjective + objective)
thus the self-consciousness of the subject will be only the highest degree of organisation + development, rather than one of heterogenous substances/faculties
Beiser thinks that �it should now be clear that Schelling and Hegel�s idea of the absolute was anything but an uncritical leap into metaphysics. Rather than ignoring the challenge of Kant�s philosophy, their metaphysics was the only means to resolve its fundamental problem, namely to explain how our a priori concepts apply to experience. Only if we remove Kant�s strictures upon teleology, giving the idea of an organism a full constitutive validity��
like Kant + Fichte, they insisted that we cannot have any knowledge beyond the limits of experience
how does the necessary conditino of our experience (i.e. the absolute) become the object of it?
Schelling�s theory of �philosophical construction� or �intellectual intuition� = elaborate epistemology to supply/justify knowledge of the absolute
agreed with Kant that our discursive powers of conception, judgement and demonstration cannot know the unconditioned, and if they go beyond experience they will end in antinomies, amphibolies and paralogisms
but it is a mistake to conceive of reason as a discursive power
it is a power of intellectual intution/perception
an intellectual intuition = a kind of experience, a form of intuition/perception, so that it can provide the basis for a purely immanent metaphysics
this notion is borrowed from Kant, who felt that in maths (but not in philosophy), we demonstrate mathematical truths by presenting them in intuition, e.g. drawing two equidistant lines to show that parallel lines do not intersect
which is distinct from both:
1. the empirical intuitions of sensibility
2. the discursive powers of the understanding
and so it is not subject to Kant�s strictures upon knowledge
we comprehend something through reason when we see it in a whoel � if we focus upon the object itself, abstracting from all its specific properties (as we abstract from all the accidental features of a figure in maths), we should also see its identity with the whole universe, for things differ from one another only through their properties
Hegel started to have doubts about intellectual intuition around 1804 when Schelling left Jena:
1. the insights of intellectual intuition cannot be demonstrated against competing views
2. we can identify the object of our intuition only by applying concepts (i.e. it is only through concepts that we can determine what a thing is)
�so an intellectual intuition will be at best ineffable, and at worst, empty (???)
3. the method of philosophical construction cannot explain the place of a particular in a whole because it abstracts from all its specific differences � the point, however, is to see how these specific differences are necessary to the whole and not to abstract from them, leaving the particulars outside the absolute
4. it�s esoteric, the privilege of an elite few, whereas philosophy should be accessible to everyone
by rejecting intellectual intuition (and the Leibnizian-Wolffian syllogistic method), Hegel needed some ther discursive method by which to know the absolute
only a conceptual + demonstrative knowledge would be exoteric (appealing to the intellect of everyone alike), and would be able to prove the philosopher�s viewpoint against common sense
but what about Kant�s strictures against a conceptual + demonstrative knowledge of the absolute?
Hegel came up with a �logic� � to show how the concepts of the understanding necessarily contradict themselves, and these contradictions can be resolved only by seeing them as parts of a wider whole
three stages of the dialectic:
1. some finite concept would attempt to know all of reality, claiming to be an adequate concept to describe the absolute because it has a complete/self-sufficient meaning independent of any other concept
2. but it would depend for its meaning on some other concept, having meaning only in contrast to its negation
3. to resolve the contradiction, need to reinterpret the claim to independence so that it applies to the whole of both concepts
these stages could be repeated on a higher level until we come to the complete system of all concepts, which is alone adequate to describe the absolute
the plan for a dialectic leading to absolute knowledge was first completed in the Phenomenology of Spirit
deals not with the concepts of the understanding but with the standpoints of consciousness
the dialectic of ordinary consciousness consists in its self-examination, the comparison of its actual knowing with its own standard of knowledge
this self-examination essentially consists in two tests:
1. the claim of ordinary consciousness to know reality itself is tested against its own standard of knowledge
2. this standard of knowledge is itself tested against its own experience
the dialectic continues until a standard of knowledge is found that is adequate to the experience of consciousness � this standard is that of subject-object identity itself
Hegel tries in the Phenomenology to legitimate metaphysics against Kantian criticism
attempts to provide a �transcendental deduction� of absolute knowledge, i.e. to show the possibility, indeed thenecessity, of a strictly immanent metaphsyics based on experience alone
just as Kant attempted to provide a transcendental deduction of the concepts of the understanding by showing them to be necessary conditions of possible experience, so Hegel tries with absolute knowledge
refers to his dialect as �the experience of consciousness�, and his phenomenology �the science of the experience of consciousness�
whether or not Hegel is successful, Beiser considers his attempt to be original/ingenious and certainly not an uncritical indulgence in metaphysics
end
Kant�s indispensable contribution to the progress of philosophy was in recognising that the most basic principles of human thought reflect the structure of our own minds. The final step consisted in realising the identity between the nature of reality and human thought.
Hegel does not engage in internal criticism of Kant�s premises or argument.
Kant saw that we could not have both necessary and empirical knowledge, that we could either know what is necessary a priori, or learn contingent and particular truths through experience. His acceptance of this impassable gulf was based on Hume (distinction between contingent matters of fact vs a priori knowledge of the principles of our own thought and how things appear to us given those principles).
Hegel and Kant have very different sensibilities, and Guyer wonders whether they are even addressing the same issues.
Hegel brings various charges of unnecessary dualisms, all ultimately depending on his underlying objection to Kant�s basic separation of thought + being.
Hegel offers no explanation of how to justify necessary truth without controverting Kant�s analysis of the limitations of the intellect (i.e. that nothing can be said of the thing in-itself). Guyere accuses him of trying to avail himself of the Kantian claims to a priori knowledge in order to apply them beyond the scope of human representation to which Kant saw they are limited.
However, Hegel may be correct in his basic point that the necessary truths Kant holds up may well themselves be radically contingent. This isn't n outright refutation of Kant, since Kant himself recognises that the necessities of our thought are connected with irrmediable contingencies as well. Hegel sees it as a sign that Kant�s philosophy will ultimately become a superceded period in the history of philosophy.
Critique
of Pure Reason two major divisions:
1.
Doctrine
of Elements
Transcendental Aesthetic
Transcendental Logic
Transcendental Analytic
Transcendental Dialectic
2.
Doctrine
of Method
discusses Kant�s definitions �xxx pg 174
two main divisions:
Aesthetic/Logic
Aesthetic = intuition
Logic = concept
analytic/dialectic:
analytic = the legitimate use of understanding
genuinely informative application of concepts constructed by the faculty of human undersatnding to intuitions furnished by the faculty of human sensibility
dialectic = the attempted but fallacious real use of reason
the vain attempt on the other hand to construct knowledge out of ideas supplied by the faculty of reason alone, without any limitation by the possibilities of human sensibility
conflating the roles of intuition + concept would lead to Leibniz�s unjustifiable principle of the identity of indiscernibles
= what would otherwise be thought to be two distinct objects must in fact be numerically identical whenever their concepts are qualitatively indiscernible
Kant�s general division of the cognitive faculties thus reflects the main points of his critique of traditional metaphysics
synthetic a priori knowledge = explanation of the possibliity of knowledge of propositions that are universal and necessary, and which must therefore be known independent of any particular experience, yet are genuinely informative/synthetic rather than definitional/analytic
requires further distinctions of faculties
distinguishes between:
empirical intuition = the presentation of particular objects through sensory stimuli
pure intuition = the form in which such empirical intuition takes place
two pure forms of intuition through which all particulars are presented: space + time
the mathematics that reflects this basic structure (e.g. geometry) can be known a priori
but the only way in which these basic structures can
be known independent of experience, if they reflect the structure of our own
capacity for sensibility, through which objects appear to us
in this case, space + time must be subjective forms
of intuition, although it seems possible that they could also be forms inherent
in the independent objects that we perceive
if our claims about space + time are to be necessarily true of all the objects of which they hold, then they cannot be true at all
of things as they are in themselves, for we could never have grounds for supposing
them to be anything more than contingently
true of things existing independent of our necessarily spatial/temporal
representations of them
therefore, space + time are necessary features of
all apprances of objects to us, but are true only of the appearances of those
objects, not of the things as they may be inthemselves
he also argues for the same conclusion, because otherwise wewill be committed to incompatible but equally valid arguments that space + tiem are both finite and infinite in maximal and minimal extension, which is clearly impossible (see pg 175)
Next, Kant argues that although empirical concepts
of objects must always be based on empirical intuitions, we can have a priori
knowledge of a set of pure categories of the understanding htat determine the
strucutre of empirical concepts just as the pure forms of intuition determine
the structure of empirical intuitions. Kant begins by noting that any claim to
knowledg is cast in the form of a judgement, and that the logical strucutre of
all judgements can be characterised in terms of:� logical quantity, quality, relation, modality etc. (� xxx pg
176).
Then Kant argues that objects must be conceptualised in such a way that judgements that are characterised in these terms can be asserted of them � thus, certain pure concepts of the understanding, commonly called the categories, must provide the form for all empirical concepts of the understanding so that judgements employing these logical functions can be asserted of objects of knowledge. The categories are thus known a priori as the conditions of the possible conceptualisation of all objects.
tries to connect this doctrine of categories with a
conception of self-consciousness (apperception)
by the �Transcendental Deduction� of the categories
the possibility of self-consciousness itself implies
the possibility of knowledge of objects by means of the categories, and that
there is a unity among all the representations comprising one�s
self-consciousness that can be grounded only by means of judgements connecting
them all as representations of a coherent realm of objects
the unity of objects in a coherent space + time is
not given by the pure forms of intuition alone, but depends on the possibility
of objectively valid judgements about objects in space and time structured by
means of the categories
� xxx pg 176
then in the �System of the Principles of Pure
Understanding�: certain principles applying the categories to spatio-temporal
intuitions � the principles that all objects may be measured by means of extensive
+ intensive quantities, and the principles of the conservation of substance and
the universal validity of causation + interaction � are necessary conditions
for the representation of a unitary + determinate realm of relationships among
such intuitions understood as representations of both external objects and the
states of one�s own experience
then in the �Transcendental Dialectic�: � xxx pg 177
we always need empirical intuitions given by
sensibility to give content to the use of the categories
empirical intuitions are given in a spatio-temporal
framework that is unitary + determinate but indefinitely extendable
there can never be completeness/closure in the use
of the categories, though we can use reason to regiment empirical concepts formed
in accordance with the categories into an explanatory and classificatory
hierarchy
the ideas of reason thus have a legitimate regulative but not constituve employment
they properly describe our cognitive ambitions as
well as presuppositions, but cannot be taken by themselves to furnish absolute
knowledge of metaphysical reality
In conclusion: We can explain how we have a priori
knowledge of the structure of appearance only by denying that we have knowledge
of the ultimate nature of reality by means of sensibility, understanding or
pure reason. The pure forms of intuition provide knowledge of appearances, not
things as they are in themselves, because they can be known to be necessarily
true of appearances only by being denied to be true of things as they are in themselves
at all. The pure concepts of understanding and the ideas of pure reason are not
in themselves unfit for the conception
of things as they are in themselves; on the contrary, they may be contingently
used to think of such objects. But
since both categories and ideas of reason yield knowledge only when applied to intuitions, and intuitions are
restricted to the appearance rather than the reality of things, the ctategories
of the understanding and ideas of reason also provide actual knowledge only of
appearances. In fact, Kant supposes that it is not only possible but neceessary
for us to use both the categories and ideas of reason to form concepts of
things in themselves as contrasted to appearances, especially to form the
concept of the freedom of things in themselves as contrasted to the determinism
that reigns in the realm of appearances; but as knowledge-claims always require
instantiation in intuition, such speculations, even if necessary, do not amount
to knowledge.
Hegel
on Kant: �it makes the identify of opposites into the absolute terminus of
philosophy, the pure boundary which is nothing but the negation of philosophy�
Hegel�s major objections to Kant�s philosophy were its:
1.
subjectivism
Kant�s contrast between appearance and things as they are in themselves
2. formalism/�formal thinking�
Kant�s contrast between the abstract form of knowledge and its particular matter
i.e. Kant�s insistence that, whether in the case of the pure intuitions of sensibility or the pure concepts of the understanding, we can have a priori knowledge only of the forms of representation, the abstract structures of intuition and reasoning, and must always wait upon experience for completion of the knowledge of particulars � so reason is never entirely a priori
Kant thought that these contrasts were necessary conditions for the explanation of the possibility of any a priori knowledge of universal and necessary truth at all
Hegel�s historicism: previous philosophical systems were incomplete but historically necessary stages in the self-expression of �spirit� (= the intellectual core of reality)
Hegel appears to read his own very different philosophical assumptions into Kant�s system from the start, and so made only external rather than internal criticisms
he thought that Kant had come very
close to realising the essential identity of thought and being, in his
conceptions of judgement and apperception and in the idea of an intuitive
intellect that Kant used to give graphic expression to the ideal of a completed
empirical knowledge based on a priori foundations
Hegel shoe-horns Kant�s conception of judgement into his own philosophical vision by interpreting the connection between subject and predicate as that between being and thought
as fas as he is concerned, Kant�s subjectivism + formalism shrink from the insight that the function of the totality of our judgements is to provide absolute knowledge of the identity between the structure of our own thought and that of reality itself, and this is the culmination of philosophy itself
how are synthetic a priori judgements possible?
Hegel: �the Idea that subject and predicate of the synthetic judgement are identical in the a priori way�
Kant�s answer is that the subject and predicate in synthetic a priori judgements are connected in virtue of the inherent structre of our capacities for intuition and judgement
Kant�s (unclear) account of judgement:
all judgements are composed of concepts (which are inherently general), yet ultimately relate to intuitions (which are representations of particulars)
some judgements predicate on general concepts of another concept that is also functioning in a general way (e.g. all bachelors are males)
other judgements predicate a general characteristic of a particular object not by incorporating an intuition directly into the judgement itself but by using a general sub-concept to a particular object in a certain context (e.g. this male is a bachelor) � it is the �this� here that indexes the concept male in a particular context, rather than the concept �male� by itself
so particular objects are brought into judgements through a complex relationship between general concepts and the forms of intuition and there is no question of any direct presence of real being in the judgement itself
so not only to intuitions not themselves enter into judgements, but intuitions are only representations anyway � so how could a judgement relating subject + predicate be be relating thought + being?
Kant�s conception of the trascendental unity of apperception:
the idea of trascendental apperception is the idea of a synthesis/combination of all my representations, so that I can see that in spite of their diversity, they are all representations belonging to a single self that can say �I think� of all of them
the unity of apperception = a synthetic unity among one�s representations
so, like the unity of a judgement, the unity of apperception remains within the realm of thought
Guyer seems to be saying that empirical judgement identifies representations of the successive states in the history of the self with representations of the successive states in the history of the world of objects external to the self � this is not an identity between the self + its objects themselves
Hegel interprets this as saying that self + object (or thought + being) are the same things but represented as different by abstractions that philosophy has to overcome
= neutral monism
Hegel�s criticisms of Kant:
1. methodological
a) Kant�s attempt to determine limits on knowledge from some standpoint prior to knowledge
whereas Hegel: �[thoughts] are at once the object of research and the action of that object. Hence they examine themselves: in their own action they must determine their limits, and point out their defects�
trying to scrutinise our cognitive capacities prior to use them is like trying to learn how to swim without actually getting into the water
this self-examination of forms of thoughts is the �dialectic�: internal process of self-correcting developing in both concepts and reality (previous philosophical theories� incompleteness reflects the stages of evolution) rather than Kant�s external criticism of fallacious metaphysical theories
Guyer responds:
and usually Kant�s procedure is to begin with certain apparently indisputable claims to knowledge, make inferences to the cognitive capcities necessary to explain such claims, and only then make further determinations about the inevitable limitations of such cognitive capacities � this is not the same as examining an instrument before using it
b) despite Kant�s anti-empiricism, there is something essentially empirical about his method
his tripartite distinction between sensibility, understanding and reason, and the twelve categories, are arrived at by empirical/historical/psychological means:
�just as little did Kant attempt to deduce time and space, for he accepted them likewise from experience � a quite unphilosophical and unjustifiable procedure�
Guyer responds:
Hegel�s claim that Kant�s list of the categories is merely empirically derived is the same accusation that Kant brought against Aristotle
Kant intended his derivation of the categories to proceed entirely a priori from the underlying insight into the judgemental nature of knowledge or even consciousness itself
although he did sometimes mystify his own methods
why doesn't Kant�s derivation of the list of categories (as being exhaustive) from the essentially judgemental or discursive nature of thought itself fulfill Hegel�s requirement of a deduction �from thought itself�?
perhaps because Kant appealed to two premises:
i. the discursive nature of thought
ii. a separate logical analysis of the posisble structures of judgement
whereas Guyer thinks that Hegel �seems to spupose that genuine philosophy requires dialectical advance from a single premise, or not just from �thought itself� but from some single thought� to justify a claim of necessity � Kant explicitly rejected this (Inquiry into the Clarity of the Principles of Natural Theology)
�Kant�s conjunction of principles for the derivation of the categories must for that reason alone have seemed to him to doom Kant�s categories to contingency�
Kant�s distinctions between sensibility, understanding and reason were not reached empirically, but rather to avoid the major errors of previous metaphysics (e.g. the confusions of Leibnizian philosophy)
2. that Kant unnecessarily takes the inherent forms of thought to be no more than forms of thought, not forms of real being as well
Hegel concedes that Kant was right not to try to find the categories in mere sensation or to simply conflate thought + sensation
(this was Hume�s mistake, in looking for an impression of necessary connection)
but wrong to think that because the categories must be added to sensation by thought, they are therefore merely valid for our own representation of the world, and not descriptive of genuine reality as well
Hegel just seems to assume that the real nature of thought + being, so if Kant had discovered the genuine structure of thought in the guise of the categories (and Kant�s fall short of this), then one would also have discovered the genuine structure of reality as well
he ignores Katn�s arguments that the categories do not furnish us with knowledge of reality not because of any defect of their own but because they always require application to sensory intuitions (which are given in the forms of space + time)
3. Kant�s philosophy is �formal thinking�
he confines necessity to the level of general forms/concepts, and leaves the application of such general structures to determinate particulars contingent
this results from the distinction between intuition and conceptualisation
the contingency of the application of the categories to any particular empirical data
Kant conceives of the categories (necessitated by the structure of our own understanding), as being externally applied to whatever sensations happen to present themselves to us (which are a formless lump to which we apply own forms in way that is not necessitated by anything in the source of the sensations themselves)
Hegel complains graphically that Kant ties concepts and perception together like a leg and a piece of wood � he seems to be saying both that:
there is no necessary connection between Kant�s pure forms of intuition and pure concepts of the understanding, and thus that we could have a different sort of perception without having to have a different sort of thought
there is no necessary connection between pure concepts of the understanding and particular empirical intuitions, and so the categories could apply to different empirical intuitions or none at all (in which case they might well lack all use but still preserve their own identity or sense(???))
Guyer says that Kant would have found these unintelligible � pg 192
4. critique of Kant�s treatment of the faculty of reason instead of sensibility or understanding
a) that the faculty of reason (like the faculty of understanding) is empty, i.e. it does not supply its own content but is only an apparatus for the organisation of information supplied to it from elsewhere
b) reason�s ideas of completeness are never granted reality, but always remain mere postulates
Kant saw these two aspects of his account of reason as the means of progression from the preceding dogmatic rationalism
Kant considered that the ideas of reason can function only as regulative but not constitutive ideas, posulates to help in the search for ever more simplicity, completeness and necessity within our scientific knowledge of self + world, but never direct evidence of absolutely unconditional simplicity, completeness and necessity
Kant regarded as his account�s most important result, Hegel saw as its deepest failure:
when we realise that reason is not itself a source of direct representations of objects, but only a source of principles for the regimentation of judgements, and that judgements in turn always require intuitinos to secure their reference to particular objects, and so reason cannot itself be the soruce for the knowledge of any objects (only the source of the systematisation of knowledge of objects, and subject to the limitations inherent in the other faculties that supply its subject-matter)
any alternative to this account which releases us from the limitations of the faculty of reason would have to show how reason itself furnishes such information
Hegel doesn't show how reason is to furnish its own content or how the contenst of reason are free from the indefiniteness of sensible intuitions
Hegel�s attack on the empitness of Kant�s conception of practical reason (in his moral philosophy) mirrors this criticism of theoretical reason
i.e. the CI allows for the universalisation of any proposed maxim of action (good or evil) as long as the agent is consistent in allowing all to act the same, and that the fundamental principle of practical reason is empity in the sense of depending upon anteceent desires for proposed goals of action rather than itself furnishing a criterion of permissible actions and some candidates for consideration as well
Hegel: the Kantian idea that we cannot find harmony between happiness and virtue in our natural lives but can only postulate an approach to it in a postulated immortal afterlife ruled by a postulated God is required only because Kant has separated reason + nature as one more instance of his (wholly unnecessary) separation between thought + being from the outset
themes of Hegel�s criticism:
Kant�s formal principles of thought are dependent upon external sources for their content � thus the character or their content is contingent relative to the necessity of the principles themselves
this dualism of form + content, necessity + contingency, is forced by the separation of thought + being
Guyer thinks that Hegel failed to see that without the rigorous separations (thougth from being, form from content, category from empirical intuition, rational principle from sensuous nature), the contingency of the real and particular would have undermined any claims to necessary truth at more abstract levels of understanding + reason
Hegel adopts the �intuitive intellect� (in the Critique of Judgement) as a glimpse of the deeper reality that Kant recoiled from
Kant: concepts by themselves merely limn possible objects, and only empirical intuitions demonstrate the actual existence of any particular objects
but this means that both the actual existence + detailed determination of instances must always seem contingent relative to any general concept
he considers an �intuitive understanding� as one whose intuition is active rather than passive, in particular whose concepts are themselves the source of particulars and all of their determinations
for such an understanding, it would not seem contingent that its general concepts were instantiated and realised by the particular objects that did so, for the particulars would somehow flow from the general concepts
�such an understanding would not experience the above contingency in the way nature and understanding accord in natural products subjects to particular laws�
but this intuitive understanding is just an idea to which we can contrast our own understanding to see our limitations
Kant gives two contexts in which we are tempted to consider our understanding as more than just a regulative ideal for guiding our cognitive inquiry:
when we assume systematicity/uniformity in our empirical concepts (i.e. the laws of nature)
inferring an intellectus archetypus that allows us to understand the whole of an organism as somehow antecedent to its parts (??? pg 201)
Hegel starts by characterising the intuitive intellect accurately enough as an intellect �for which possibility and actuality are one� and for which the accord between universal and particular in nature is not contingent (in Faith and Knowledge, pg 88)
but he adds that �Kant also recognises that we are necessarily driven to this idea�
he treated it as a means of contrasting/highlighting our own limitations, and doesn't argue that it exists, let alone in us
Hegel viewed the idea of the intuitive intellect as his own idea of the Idea, a mind-like source of concepts that it is at the same time the source of reality and thereby makes the fit between concepts and reality necessary rather than contingent
this overcomes the opposition between thought + being, but also between theoretical + practical reason (since the thought which is necessarily realised by such a being would also be necessarily good)
he attributed Kant�s �clinging hard to the dijunction of the notion from reality� to mere �laziness of thought�, or claimed that �Kant has simply no ground except experience and empirical psychology� for denying the reality of the intuitive intellect as the ultimate truth about human thought itself (Faith and knowledge, pg 89)
but Kant distinguished intuition + concept in order as the only way to avoid the philosophical confusions of Leibniz + Wolff, and Locke + Hume
the only laziness was in Kant�s suggesting that it is easy to imagine (as opposed to merely describe) such an intuitive understanding � what would it be like to produce evidence for particulars out of mere concepts (except maybe in maths, where we can construct formal objects in accord with our definitions of them)?
Hegel argues that you can only see something as limited and imperfect by comparing it with something infinite and unlimited, which Kant therefore proves by implication by showing our own cognitive limitations
but this old argument is crap: it�s not true that one must recognise the existence of something that does not have a certain property in order to conceive of that property as a defect/limit
e.g. being liable to doubt (hmmm???), or being mortal (yes, better), without having any reason to think there is any creature that is immortal
Hegel can/does not prove that the contingency inherent in Kant�s dual sources of knowledge is eliminable except by a positive explanation of how understanding and reason could lead to knowledge without empirical intuitions which are independent of thought and thus contingent relative to it
The only good is a �good will�, that acts �from duty�, from �respect for reason�s moral law�. We have no way of knowing the divine will, except as what a perfectly good being would will. This presupposes an autonomous theory of the good will. The only way to reconcile moral obligation with freedom is so that by obeying the moral law if we are obeying our own true will.
Happiness is objectively valuable because it is the end set by a rational will, but this happiness is only conditional upon it being a good will.
Wood argues that Hegel�s understanding of Kant was coloured by Fichte�s reworking, which emphasised the inter-subjective as part of the �I�s fulfilment of its practical striving.
Hegel started as a Kantian. Like Kant, he attacked ceremonial religion, advocating a harmonious naturalistic Hellenic �folk� religion over Kant�s austere, deistic moral religion (Wood). During his Frankfurt period (1797-1799), he attacks the (Kantian) moral stand-point as �self-alienated, pharasaical, a stand-point which can only blame and condemn but never convert its �ought� into an �is��.
He finds the moral standpoint �empty�, unable to produce determinate duties, but unlike Fichte, sees this endemic to the moral standpoint as such. During the Jena period, he contrasts Kantian and Fichtean �morality� (Moralit�/i>) with �ethical life� (Sittlichkeit). He ultimately tries to draw up on the �ethical life� of the Greeks to bridge the gap between reason and inclination, the abstract and a living society, and as a reaction to the formalism of modern individualist �morality�.
Finally, in The Philosophy of Right, he conceives of a tri-partite philosophy of objective spirit, consisting of �abstract right�, �morality� and �ethical life�. This integrates �morality� and �abstract right� more positively into a less paradigmatically Greek conception of �ethical life�.
Wood considers Hegel as working on the systematic self-actualisation of Geist�s freedom, in the specific form of the practical subject or free will. Hegel draws on the Aristotelian idea that ethics must be founded on a conception of the human good as the actualisation of human essence. But, as Kant emphasises, this good need not be happiness, or anything that our nature demands. Indeed, the human vocation is freedom itself, following Fichte�s identity of freedom with the activity of the self. It is thus neither deontological, nor teleological, but a self-actualisation theory.
Hegel�s system of the self breaks down into:
the �person�, a free volitional agent, capable of abstracting completely from desires and situation � �abstract right�
the individual as subject, a moral agent with its own agenda, as well as responsibility to others � �morality�
Neither of these can be actualised, except within a harmonious social system or ethical life.
Objective freedom, rather than the subjective view of it considered above, is freedom made objective or actual. Genuine (�positive�) freedom consists not in the unhindered capacity to act arbitrarily or do as you please, but in that activity which fully actualises reason. This is similar to the Kantian notion of autonomy, that has its source solely in the self-activity of the agent. However, Kant�s idea of such autonomous freedom includes freedom from the sensuous, and freedom from the external world. In contrast, Hegel is seeking a freedom that is rooted in embracing otherness, �being with oneself in an other�, and thus actualising freedom. This allows for freedom within rational self-actualising social institutions and empirical motives in a quite un-Kantian way.
abstract freedom � the spiritual self is with itself in external things, which are its property
morality � it is with itself in its own subjective willing and the external consequences
ethical life � it is with itself through social institutions that support it and provide community
Abstract right
do pre-neurophysiological/psychological theories of mind have anything to tell us??? do they obstruct/hold back the theories of which they are a part???
doesn't Beiser see that in simply identifying the problem with Kant�s system, and then creating some enormous twisted implausible behemoth play on terminology, they have not somehow responded to Kant�s arguments, but just posited the world as being such that there is no problem???
bringing in Nozick�s account of evolution and reason as a means of countering and progressing from Kant and Hegel seems somehow to be talking about something entirely different, or employing an entirely different (empirical) system on a different level � this is partly related to Nagel�s a priori objections, but they were couched in an analytic way that�s continuous at least with scientific a priorism, and meetable in various ways � but can I bring in evolution at all in these discussions??? I just don�t know
I think Hegel is guilty of the worst kind of psychologism � not even the kind that the world must be this way because this is the way we think, but that the world must be this way because it allows us to draw powerful, neat and elegant-seeming conclusions
what�s the difference between the forms of space + time and the categories???
at the end of the day, the reason that Hegel does not make the internal analytic criticisms that Guyer keeps chastising him about is because he simply does not accept that form of argument as a means of progressing our understanding � unfortunately, in the same way, we do not accept his
Hegel is truly a rationalist, in that he considers any knowledge which has its source/basis in experience to be inherently irredeemably contingent
faculty of reason vs faculty of understanding???
is Guyer a supporter of Hegel at all???
Hegel�s thought + being identity does the trick, doesn't it??? it�s just that he doesn't argue for it, right??? and that it�s implausible and fantastic as an explanation of human nature??? or is it actually that it�s incompatible with Kant�s system???