From Transcendental Philosophy to Hegel’s Developmental Method

Abstract

As against the widespread inclination to interpret Hegel’s philosophical method as a modified version of Kant’s transcendental method, this chapter highlights the opposition between Hegel’s method in his Phenomenology of Spirit and Kant’s method. It is argued that Hegel rejects Kant’s method, principally on the grounds that the latter’s method presupposes the subjectivism (and dualism and formalism) of his own transcendental idealism. It is shown how Hegel tailors his own method in the Phenomenology to be free of the very sort of fixed starting point from which transcendental arguments proceed. Hegel develops his distinctive “developmental” method in the Phenomenology in response to Kant’s transcendental philosophy, but not in imitation of it; rather, indeed, in opposition to it.