Hegel's Critique of Kant's Theoretical Philosophy

Abstract

Ivan Soll has remarked that entire program and conception of philosophy depended upon refuting Kant's limitation of reason.' But while Soll discusses Hegel's attempts in this regard, he admits he has not attempted to corroborate or criticize Hegel's interpretation of Kant.' Soll is not alone here, for even with the great renewal of interest in Hegel today,3 there has been surprisingly little critical discussion of Hegel's treatment of Kant, especially with regard to the difficult core of that treatment, namely, the rejection of the two central components of Kant's theoretical philosophy: the transcendental deduction of the categories and the doctrine of transcendental idealism. There have been a few helpful discussions of this subject recently,4 but none has given a systematic account of the distinction between these two crucial components in Kant's own view and of the general nature and ground of Hegel's treatment of the distinction. In the following sections, I first offer such an account (in section I) and then distinguish and evaluate Hegel's three types of objections to Kant's deduction (in sections II-IV) and his three types of objections to Kant's idealism (in sections V-VIII). I argue these objections all fail because of a closely related set of errors, errors which are understandable because they concern some of the most