In what ways was Hegel indebted to Kant, and in what ways did he reject his philosophy?

Georg Willhelm Friedrich Hegel was a member of the ‘German idealists’, and arguably the finest philosopher from an era dominated by Kantian philosophy. It is clear that Hegel gained much from the works of Kant, adapting and evolving many of his philosophical developments. However, the degree to which Hegel should be seen as a continuation of Kant’s work, or a rejection of it, is unclear. As Scherer notes, 'disputes about their differences or affinities remain’ . Often, even in the process of directly criticising Kant’s work, Hegel appears to simultaneously subsume much of that work within his own, leading to conflicting conclusions about their relationship. This essay will examine both the similarities and differences of their work, with a particular emphasis on the latter, and conclude that, while much of Hegel’s work is novel, he still owes a great debt to Kantian philosophy.

There isn’t room in this essay to outline the full breadth of Kant’s work, but it should be noted that his project was ultimately intended  to critique the 'dogmatic’ metaphysics of his time, exemplified by Gottfried Liebniz. Kant was performing what has been called a 'critical turn’, moving philosophy onto a solid, scientific basis, much as Copernicus attempted for cosmology . For Copernicus, the change brought the reversal of the Sun and Earth in the cosmological system; for Kant the effect was as great. He sought to shift philosophy from object- to subject- orientated, believing that philosophical knowledge was to be found in rational self-knowledge. Hegel was deeply indebted to Kant for these innovations, and the philosophical systems of the two men shared many goals and aspirations. Both were interested in giving a total account of reality, through a deep and lasting commitment to science. For them, science began with sense knowledge, yet was 'not founded in the senses’ . They absolutely agreed that the 'most perplexing, hard problem’  worth solving within philosophy was the nature of human sensibility. They were against Berkeleian idealism, and would have agreed fully with the notion that 'nothing can be intellectually understood which has not first been in the senses.’  In the other direction, despite their love of the sciences, both men argued against empiricism, believing that there must be something underpinning human sensibility: something universal, pure and sensuously uncontaminated . Material content requires pre-existing features within our persons to be comprehended by us. However, while both believed that such features were indeed lodged in our senses, they greatly differed over how to disclose such existence. For Kant, the way forward was his 'Critique of Pure Reason’; for Hegel, a journey of phenomenological, historicist discovery.

From the above, one might assume that the two men were essentially identical, differing only in the details of their method. This would be an inaccurate picture, which I hope to dispel. One of Kant’s major notions was a priori concepts, existing independently of experience. These included space and time, which for Kant could not come from our sense perception. Unless we already have the outer sense, of material objects taking the form of space, and inner sense, the mind intuiting itself by the form of time, then how could we understand our sensory experiences? Kant was arguing that knowledge of such fundamental concepts as space or time couldn’t be given by themselves, but must already exist. For Hegel, such a notion was worthy of scorn, which he frequently heaped upon it. One of his favoured analogies was with a man learning to swim before ever entering a body of water . For Hegel, to know before knowing was as sensible an idea, requiring us to quite literally perform an impossible task. Indeed, he considered it a deviation from Kant’s love of the sciences, as a priori truths would require us to consider knowledge 'outside the science’ . Can we investigate cognition in any way other than cognitively?

This is closely related to another of Hegel’s major criticisms, concerning abstraction and ahistoricism. Kant began with that which he believed he could take for granted , such as 'all events have a cause’. He then attempted to find a priori conditions for such a possibility, and so build his philosophical system. For Hegel, this required Kant to afford himself powers of abstraction no man has available. We cannot say what 'all men would find agreeable’, as can’t step outside the culture of which we are necessarily a part. Hegel called this the 'shape’ or 'gestalt’  of our consciousness, a boundary from which we cannot escape. Much as we might think to the contrary, humans are not capable of purely spontaneous acts, uninformed by environmental, cultural and other realities . Of course, Hegel was not arguing that Kant was unaware of the intellectual forebears from which he worked, which would be entirely incorrect . Rather, Hegel’s argument is that Kant, like all men, is necessarily incapable of keeping all such information in mind, in order to make a truly abstract judgement.

The naturally leads into the other half of Hegel’s critique, that Kant’s search for Platonic, ahistorical philosophy is doomed to fail. We may spend all of our lives searching for such truths, even as the world changing around us should highlight the necessary nature of their absence. Hegel introduced the 'historically reflective dimension’  into philosophy, arguing that philosophy is 'its own time raised to the level of thought. ’ In other words, we cannot escape our the historical nature of our existence, and to even attempt such a move is futile. Even if Kant succeeded in sufficiently abstracting his thought to remove gestalt of his current consciousness, he would remain necessarily bound by the 'self-consciousness of [his] epoch’. If philosophy has the ahistorical nature which Hegel ascribes it, an essentially contested point,  then the Kantian project would take fairly serious damage.

Hegel is indebted to Kant for his understanding of categories, which structure the intuitions apprehended by sensibility. They formed a key strand of Artistotle’s metaphysics, but were strongly rejected be Descartes and had lain mainly dormant for centuries.  For Kant, some 'ideas of Reason’ transcend our perception, such as freedom, justice, God, etc. These bring no content of their own, but give us an objective manner to structure our sensory experience. Both Hegel and Kant see value in their use, and agree that categories derived from intuitive intellect are necessarily in 'agreement’ with 'nature’s products’ . However, for Kant the categories we find from discursive understanding, the mode open to humans, such a necessary relationship with nature does not hold. We must organise the world into categories, and feel compelled to act as if the world is organised in a similar manner, but we can’t know the truth of such a statement. Kant argues that this contingency is due to the patterns behind the variety of sensory data being unknown to us, so the categories of the intellect do not match with those of the real world. For Hegel, categories are not merely functions of the mind, but are active abstractions from reality. He believes that Kant’s categories are actually subjective, as they relate only to the world of appearances. For Hegel, objectivity occurs when concepts and intuitions are in unity, which for him describes the functioning of discursive understanding. To take the example of causality, it doesn’t merely exist in our intellects as Kant would have us believe, but is necessarily 'out there’ in the external world.

When considering whether Hegel is more indebted to Kant or a rejection of him, perhaps the most crucial area of interest is the nature of reality. Kant famously argued 'things in themselves’ or 'ding an sich selbst’  are 'inherently supersensible’ , beyond the possibility of our knowledge. He is describing a dualism between the 'universal and particular’ , which are joined by transcendental knowledge. Unfortunately, there is a two-tier system of ontological access, the empirical and the transcendental, and we may only know the former. The noumenal realm of the transcendental can only be inferred from the appearances or 'erscheinung’  we have the ability to interact with through 'sensible affectation’ . Indeed, one could say that we have 'no right to say anything’  about this noumenal world, beyond a most tendential acknowledgement of its possible existence. Hegel found such discussion of a two-tier world greatly disappointing, in that Kant seemed to have gotten so close to the Promised Land but failed to enter it. He argued that Kant’s philosophy was essentially abstract in nature, telling us nothing determinate about the world. In a sense this is quite true, as Kant’s system leaves everything but a few highly formal truths to the vagaries of experience. This relates to the concept of 'natural consciousness’ , that thought might be the vehicle to take us to things-in-themselves, either as tool or medium. But, if actively used as a tool, surely the observation of such objects would alter their essence and so make neutral observation impossible? Or, considered a passive medium through which to examine the world, we would be experiencing the world at a step removed, through the dilution of the medium. With such a constraint in mind, Kant enacted a revolution of his project, altering what he judged to be the 'proper objects of knowledge’ , i.e. appearances. For Hegel, such a move is needlessly defeatist, as the conception of thought as a means is 'absurd’ . He considers cognition not 'on the other side’ of content , but in unity with it.

Therefore, nothing is inaccessible to our reasoning minds, whether the chair in front of us or the very 'blueprint of the universe’ . We possess an intuitive intellect, an idea Hegel much admired in Kant’s work , and who argued that it captured 'the nature of our form of cognition’ . But, what is that existence? Rather than empirical and transcendental realms, Hegel talks of the 'Absolute’, the 'Geist’, the 'Spirit’, as the nature of his reality. The concept is never precisely defined, but Schelling described it as a 'causa sui’, something which doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence. Hegel is envisioning the ultimate monistic standpoint, that everything is wrapped up in a single idealistic form . Objects exist as a 'moment’ in that 'Spirit’, and are appearances for all. This is a profoundly naturalistic metaphysic, removing any of the theological undertones of Kant’s noumenal realm. The 'Geist’ is, much like the transcendental reality, not defined from an 'indutible, Archimidean’  point, but coherently justified from other experiments. For Hegel, all of reality is necessarily ordered by consciousness, but not that of an individual.  It is given order by the 'Absolute’, which, as a rational order, is absolutely accessible to reason.

I conclude that, despite a career spent attempting to remove the dualisms so beloved of Kant, Hegel’s relationship with his philosophical master is itself a dualism. Clearly, Hegel was greatly indebted to Kant for large sections of his philosophy, yet also rejected many of Kant’s most formative assumptions. Unfortunately, for now, the dispute will have to remain so.