HEGEL VERSUS KANT: SCIENCE OF LOGIC

AMERICAN IDEALISM
Sep 2, 2018 · 8 min read

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1832)

Reflective understanding took possession of philosophy¹ … this turn taken by cognition, which appears as a loss and retrograde step, is based on something more profound on which rests the elevation of reason into the loftier spirit of modern philosophy. The basis of that universally held conception is, namely, to be sought in the insight into the necessary conflict of the determinations of the understanding with themselves. The reflection already referred to is this, to transcend the concrete immediate object and to determine it and separate it. But equally it must transcend these its separating determinations and straightway connect them. It is at the stage of this connecting of the determinations that their conflict emerges. This connecting activity of reflection belongs in itself to reason and the rising above those determinations which attains to an insight into their conflict is the great negative step towards the true Notion of reason. But the insight, when not thorough–going, commits the mistake of thinking that it is reason which is in contradiction with itself; it does not recognize that the contradiction is precisely the rising of reason above the limitations of the understanding and the resolving of them. Cognition, instead of taking from this stage the final step into the heights, has fled from the unsatisfactoriness of the categories of the understanding to sensuous existence, imagining that in this it possesses what is solid and self–consistent. But on the other hand, since this knowledge is self–confessedly knowledge only of appearances, the unsatisfactoriness of the latter is admitted, but at the same time presupposed: As much as to say that admittedly, we have no proper knowledge of things–in–themselves but we do have a proper knowledge of them within the sphere of appearances, as if, so to speak, only the kind of objects were different, and one kind, namely things–in–themselves, did not fall within the scope of our knowledge but the other kind did, phenomena did … Recently Kant² has opposed to what has usually been called [62] logic another, namely, a transcendental logic.³ What has here been called objective logic would correspond in part to what with him is transcendental logic. He distinguishes it from what he calls general logic in this way, (α) that it treats of the notions which refer a priori to objects, and consequently does not abstract from the whole content of objective cognition, or, in other words, it contains the rules of the pure thinking of an object, and (β) at the same time it treats of the origin of our cognition so far as this cognition cannot be ascribed to the objects. It is to this second aspect that Kant’s philosophical interest is exclusively directed. His chief thought is to vindicate the categories for self–consciousness as the subjective ego. By virtue of this determination the point of view remains confined within consciousness and its opposition; and besides the empirical element of feeling and intuition it has something else left over which is not posited and determined by thinking self–consciousness, a thing–in–itself, something alien and external to thought — although it is easy to perceive that such an abstraction as the thing–in–itself is itself only a product of thought, and of merely abstractive thought at that. If other disciples of Kant have expressed themselves concerning the determining of the object by the ego in this way, that the objectifying of the ego is to be regarded as an original and necessary act of consciousness, so that in this original act there is not yet the idea of the ego itself — which would be a consciousness of that consciousness or even an objectifying of it — then this objectifying act, in its freedom from the opposition of consciousness, is nearer to what may be taken simply for thought as such.⁴ But this act should no longer be called [63]consciousness; consciousness embraces within itself the opposition of the ego and its object which is not present in that original act. The name consciousness gives it a semblance of subjectivity even more than does the term thought, which here, however, is to be taken simply in the absolute sense as infinite thought untainted by the finitude of consciousness, in short, thought as such.

Now because the interest of the Kantian philosophy was directed to the so–called transcendental aspect of the categories, the treatment of the categories themselves yielded a blank result; what they are in themselves without the abstract relation to the ego common to all, what is their specific nature relatively to each other and their relationship to each other, this has not been made an object of consideration. Hence this philosophy has not contributed in the slightest to our knowledge of their nature; what alone is of interest in this connection occurs in the Critique of Ideas. But if philosophy was to make any real progress, it was necessary that the interest of thought should be drawn to a consideration of the formal side, to a consideration of the ego, of consciousness as such, i.e., of the abstract relation of a subjective knowing to an object, so that in this way the cognition of the infinite form, that is, of the Notion, would be introduced. But in order that this cognition may be reached, that form has still to be relieved of the finite determinateness in which it is ego, or consciousness. The form, when thus thought out into its purity, will have within itself the capacity to determine itself, that is, to give itself a content, and that a necessarily explicated content — in the form of a system of determinations of thought.

The objective logic, then, takes the place rather of former metaphysics which was intended to be the scientific construction of the world in terms of thought alone. If we have regard to the final shape in the elaboration of this science, then it is first and immediately ontology whose place is taken by objective logic — that part of this metaphysics which was supposed to investigate the nature of ens in general; ens comprises both being and essence, a distinction for which the German language has unfortunately preserved different terms. But further, objective logic also comprises the rest of metaphysics in so far as this attempted to comprehend with the forms of pure thought particular substrata taken primarily from figurate conception, namely the soul, the world and God; and the determinations of thought constituted what was [64] essential in the mode of consideration. Logic, however, considers these forms free from those substrata, from the subjects of figurate conception; it considers them, their nature and worth, in their own proper character. Former metaphysics omitted to do this and consequently incurred the just reproach of having employed these forms uncritically without a preliminary investigation as to whether and how they were capable of being determinations of the thing–in–itself, to use the Kantian expression — or rather of the Reasonable. Objective logic is therefore the genuine critique of them — a critique which does not consider them as contrasted under the abstract forms of the a priori and the a posteriori, but considers the determinations themselves according to their specific content.

The subjective logic is the logic of the Notion, of essence which has sublated its relation to being or its illusory being [Schein], and in its determination is no longer external but is subjective — free, self–subsistent and self–determining, or rather it is the subject itself. Since subjectivity brings with it the misconception of contingency and caprice and, in general, characteristics belonging to the form of consciousness, no particular importance is to be attached here to the distinction of subjective and objective; since these determinations will be more precisely developed later on in the logic itself.

Logic thus falls generally into subjective and objective logic, but more specifically it has three parts:

I. The logic of being,

II. the logic of essence, and

III. The logic of the Notion.

ENDNOTES

1. Hegel, “Introduction: General Division of Logic,” Hegel’s Science of Logic, Arnold Vincent Miller (1899–1991), translator & John Niemeyer Findlay, Foreward, New York, The Humanities Press, 1976, 43–64; 59–64; 46–46–61–64. [1969]

2. I would mention that in this work I frequently refer to the Kantian philosophy (which to many may seem superfluous) because whatever may be said, both in this work and elsewhere, about the precise character of this philosophy and about particular parts of its exposition, it constitutes the base and the starting–point of recent German philosophy and this its merit remains unaffected by whatever faults may be found in it. The reason, too, why reference must often be made to it in the objective logic is that it enters into detailed consideration of important, more specific aspects of logic, whereas later philosophical works have paid little attention to these and in some instances have only displayed a crude — not unavenged — contempt for them. The [62] philosophizing which is most widespread among us does not go beyond the Kantian results, that Reason cannot acquire knowledge of any true content or subject matter and in regard to absolute truth must be directed by faith. But what with Kant is a result, forms the immediate starting–point in this philosophizing, so that the preceding exposition from which that result issued and which is a philosophical cognition, is cut away beforehand. The Kantian philosophy thus serves as a cushion for intellectual indolence which soothes itself with the conviction that everything is already proved and settled. Consequently for genuine knowledge, for a specific content of thought which is not to be found in such barren and arid complacency, one must turn to that preceding exposition. [Hegel]

3. Transcendental logic = 𝔇𝔦𝔢 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔷𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔨. [Editor]

4. If the expression “objectifying act of the ego” suggests other products of spirit, e.g., fantasy, it is to be observed that we are speaking of a determining of an object in so far as the elements of its content do not belong to feeling and intuition. Such an object is a thought, and to determine it means partly, first to produce it, partly, in so far as it is something presupposed, to have further thoughts about it, to develop it further by thought. [Hegel]

Remark: What is essential, therefore, in the rational Hegelian (systematic) reading of the Science of Logic, from the first and second editions, is the General Notion of Logic, which leads to the universal tripartite (dialectical) division of logic in the name of philosophical science: The rational conception of dialectical logic involves the speculative unfolding of the spiritual universe in the light of the history of philosophy, and therefore the speculative notion of the spiritual conception of philosophical science, in the rationality of the pure Hegelian Idea of Absolute Idealism of the philosophy of history in the Science of Logic, is not as comprehensive (systematic) as conceived world historically in the Weltgeist, via the Encyclopaedia and the Rechtsphilosophie:

Former metaphysics … consequently incurred the just reproach of having employed these forms uncritically without a preliminary investigation as to whether and how they were capable of being determinations of the thing–in–itself.”

The pure Hegelian distinction between the “former metaphysics” of Western civilization, and the genuine Hegelianism found in the great works, is therefore discovered speculatively (world historically) as the rational conception of Hegel’s critique of the Kantian philosophy as modern European sophistry: The pure Hegelian conception of the “former metaphysics” of Western civilization, in the philosophical science of genuine Hegelianism, is therefore inscribed speculatively within Hegel’s rational (anti–Kantian) notion of world historical criticism.

AMERICAN IDEALISM

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CHRISTOPHER RICHARD WADE DETTLING