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Teddy Larkin

Philosophy 100
Osman Nemli
9/19/2012
Kant, Hegel, and Reason
Immanuel Kant, born in 1724, is regarded as the father of classical German
philosophy and perhaps best known for his magnum opus entitled, Critique of Pure
Reason, written in 1781. Kants compatriot, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in
1770, and his and one of his most important works, The Science of Logic, touches on
conceptions of reason as well. It seems clear that to some extent, Hegel was influenced
by Kant, who in turn, advanced both the science of logic and the logical categories
developed by Aristotle. Kant suggested that in order to have scientific validity, an idea
must be universally true. What he failed to fully appreciate, however, was that if they
were universal, then they were all inter-related, united, in this very universality. Hegel
used a somewhat different approach to describe precisely how all categories of thought
are interconnected, how they can be deduced one from another, and he went on to unite
all the concepts and categories of thought into a single whole system of logic. Hegel
began by tracking down the most fundamental and universal of all categories, being.
Before any existing thing, material object or thought, can exist in any quantity or have
any quality such a shape, color, hardness or softness, it must first be. The purpose of this
essay is to further unpack the differences between Kant and Hegel and their disparate
conceptions of reason.

Kant defines reason as the highest faculty of the human subject, to which all other
faculties are subordinated. Reason abstracts completely from the conditions of sensibility.
The second Critique examines the form of our desires in order to construct a system
based on a more practical standpoint. Kant acknowledges both the theoretical and
practical notions of reason. However, his writing suggests that reason's primary function
is practical; its theoretical function, though often believed to be more important, should
be viewed as having a secondary importance. Kant recognizes reason in its generic
connotation as the knowing faculty; however, he also provides it with a specific meaning
in the dialectic. For Kant, reason is both a logical and a transcendental faculty. As a
logical faculty, it produces so-called mediated conclusions through abstractions; as a
transcendental faculty, it creates conceptions and contains a priori cognitions whose
object cannot be given empirically.
For Kant, reason is different from understanding, he writes: In the first part of
our transcendental logic, we treated the understanding as being the faculty of rules;
reason we shall here distinguish from understanding by entitling it the faculty of
principles. (Critique of Pure Reason. p. 301, B356). Understanding cannot supply
synthetic cognitions from conceptions, in other words it cannot produce principles.
Principles for Kant are a priori cognitions, like mathematical axioms (there can be only
one straight line between two points). Kant ascribes them a purely regulative, rather than
constitutive function. Knowledge from principles is, therefore, that knowledge alone in
which I apprehend the particular in the universal through concepts.(Critique of Pure
Reason. p. 301, B357). So whilst the understanding operates by linking its structures to a
given content, reason, in its pure use, operates rather independently of experience.

In Kants Introduction to The Philosophy of History he discusses the various


ideas of reason, and how they mislead the mind into posing inexplicable metaphysical
questions. Kant expresses the cosmological ideas as four distinct metaphysical
propositions: (1) that the world has a definite beginning, (2) all things are made up of
simple parts against the claim that nothing is simple but everything is composite, (3) we
can act in accordance with our own free will against the claim that everything we do is
determined by nature, and (4) that there is some necessary being against the claim that
nothing is necessary and everything is contingent (Kant 75). Reason by itself appears
capable of proving either side of each proposition. Kant goes on to show how each
proposition results from a misunderstanding of the matter being discussed.
Kant gives an in depth explication of the flaws in the proofs for the existence of a
God. He states that any "proof" of God's existence (such as that of Anselm) is purely
intellectual, and cannot lead to fundamental and substantial conclusions regarding the
nature of experience. Kant has to make room for faith and thereby assume the ideas of
God, freedom, and immortality in order to employ reason into the supernatural realm.
While there exist many mysteries regarding what we experience, there should not be any
inexplicable problems in the realm of pure reason. This is due to the fact that these
problems do not reach beyond our own minds into experience. Kant furthermore
speculates that the emergence of reason has generated in us a host of complicated,
artificial desires, such as the desires for esteem, power, and beauty. In addition, we have
developed an appreciation for reason itself, for the special power it gives us to control our
destiny and choose a way of life. We have acquired an interest in freedom, and without

the assumption of freedom, reason cannot meaningfully act to accomplish ends. Over
time, we have come to value reasons freedom and its ability to give itself law.
Kant goes on to argue that pure reason, not experience, that is the author of moral
laws, including the supreme moral law or categorical imperative: Act only according to
that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal
law. (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals G 421/39) We bring to experience,
rather than abstract out of experience, what Kant sometimes refers to as our moral
compass. As rational natures, each of us already knows our duty and the difference
between right and wrong, between good and evil. We no more have to learn these
distinctions, he writes in one passage, than we have to learn to distinguish our right hand
from our left. Kant notes that it would be easy to show how common human reason,
with its compass in hand, is able to distinguish good from evil. It would be easy to
show this, he says, as did Socrates.
The differences drawn by Kant between reason and understanding have shown to
be and will continue to be crucial for philosophy. Hegel praises Kant for this distinction,
whilst criticizing his idea of the functions of reason. Hegels own account of practical
reason and of its relation to history is more than a mere continuation or elaboration of the
Kantian program. Hegel doubts that our practical laws exist a priori in the Kantian sense.
He also doubts that our freedom is transcendental and that our will is pure. Hegel does
not hold that we discover what is rational by accessing the already given nature of reason.
According to Hegel, a careful study of the history of philosophy reveals that there is no
already given nature of reason, and no fixed and eternally valid moral compass. The
history of philosophy instructs us that reason is a result, and that the philosophy that is

the latest in time is the result of all the previous philosophies.


Hegel begins his Introduction to The Philosophy of History by describing three
types of written history: original history , reflective history , and philosophic history.
Original history consists of an account of actions, events, and situations lived through and
witnessed by the historian. Other sources are secondary as the account depends
fundamentally on the historian's own witnessing of the times. Hegel states original
history excludes legends, folksongs, and traditions because these are obscure modes of
memory, proper to the mentality of pre-literate peoples. Therefore original history is
involved with the "observed and observable reality".
The second type of written history, reflective history, is history whose
presentation goes beyond the present in spirit. A reflective historian is absent during the
events of which he gives an account. Universal history aims to give an account of the
whole history of a people or even of the world, pragmatic history has a theory or ideology
behind it, critical history tests the accuracy of given accounts by posing alternative
accounts, and specialized history focuses on a single historical concept by taking a
universal viewpoint. The third type of written history, philosophic history, emphasizes
thought over history using solely philosophical ideas.
Hegel is consistent in his assertion that history follows a specific path, one
predetermined by the purposeful movement of Spirit through time as seen in his
Philosophy of History: Spirit does not toss itself about in the external play of chance
occurrences; on the contrary, it is that which determines history absolutely, and it stands
firm against the chance occurrences which it dominates and exploits for its own purpose

(Hegel 1770 1831). Hegel views the course of history as a fixed, immutable fact. To
Hegel, "world history is thus the unfolding of Spirit in time, as nature is the unfolding of
the Idea in space." The dialectical process thus virtually defines the meaning of history
for Hegel. Hegels history is fundamentally the striving of Spirit for its own freedom.
Kant argues that we cannot know a thing-in-itself. We can only know the
appearance, not the essence of reality. Hegel agrees that contradictions are inherent in
reality, but does not believe it matters that everything is made of opposites. To quote
Hegel, "Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of Dialectic."
(Hegel's Logic, page 118.) Hegel believed that it is the interplay between opposites that
leads to all observable phenomena and our interactions with the world.
For Kant, a mark of reasons dialectical nature is its insatiable curiosity, its
persistent questioning. He writes thats human reason is burdened with questions that it
cannot dismiss, questions rooted in the nature of reason itself (Critique of Pure Reason,
A vii). But Kant also holds that reasons dialectic results from its propensity to fall prey
to certain kind of illusion. By this definition, it is the nature of human reason to extend
beyond its proper limits. It does so when it misapplies its a priori concepts and laws, and
expects them to yield knowledge of objects outside the realm of possible experience. This
natural dialectic condemns reason to obscurity, he says; in some instances, it results in
self-contradictions reason can neither resolve nor put to rest.
For Hegel as well, reasons dialectical nature is exhibited in its persistent
questioning. But for Hegel, reason is powerful, and reasons dialectic does not rest on a
mistake or illusion. This dialectic instead reveals a positive feature of reason, a feature
he believes Kant overlooks. In particular, dialectic on Hegels conception instructs us

that reasons nature is not settled in advance. Dialectic exposes the error of assuming that
reason can be the author of laws and concepts that are pre-given or a priori, laws and
concepts that in no way reflect its engagement with experience. Dialectic reveals that the
content of reason is picked up in the course of its history. In itself, reason is somewhat
abstract, on Hegels account; reason has no determinate content. However, Hegel makes
clear in his lectures on the Philosophy of History that reason rules the world and is
God-like in its infinite power to actualize history. In his preface to Science of Logic,
Hegel describes both a positive and negative aspect of reason: reason is negative and
dialectical, because it resolves the determinations of the understanding into nothing; it is
positive because it generates the universal and comprehends the particular therein.
In summary, there is a vitally important connection between these two great
philosophers, a historical development of reason that was begun by the Kant and
continued by Hegel. This historical process is not in the physical sense, but in the
philosophical sense, the history of human thought. The history of philosophy suggests
that reason is not only a result of the dialectic, but the overarching cause as well. One is
incorrect if they suppose that by asking the right questions and providing the right
conditions they can access reasons pre-given inner light. Hegelian history teaches us that
the questions we ask change over time and that they dont just elicit, but also shape, the
answers we get. Indeed, for Hegel, reason is a sovereign force, a powerful and causal
force that refines the old and ushers in the new, connecting the ancient with the modern
in a clearly connected cascade of dialectical dominoes. Kant may not have approved of
Hegels developments in the realm of reason, but it is perhaps fitting that history gave its
younger student acolyte the last word.

Works Cited
Kant, Immanuel, J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, James Creed Meredith,
Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, and Immanuel Kant. The Critique of Pure Reason.
Chicago: Encyclopdia Britannica, 1955. Print.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, and Giovanni George Di. The Science of Logic.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel: Introduction to
the Philosophy of History. [Whitefish, MT]: Kessinger, 2005. Print.
Kant, Immanuel, Allen W. Wood, and J. B. Schneewind. Groundwork for the
Metaphysics of Morals. New Haven: Yale UP, 2002. Print.
From Kant to Hegel and From Hegel to Marx. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.marxistoutlook.com/article2.htm>.
Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics;. New York: Liberal Arts,
1950. Print.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Of Cloan Haldane, W. H. Johnston, and L. G. Strutners.
Science of Logic. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961. Print.
Harris, William Torrey. Hegel's Logic. New York: Garland, 1984. Print.

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