Idealistic Philosophies of I. Kant and G. Hegel

Introduction

As of today, the gnoseological methodologies of Immanuel Kant and George Hegel are being strongly associated with the concept of a so-called German philosophical idealism. Nevertheless, despite the fact that this concept is now being commonly assumed as such that represents essentially the idealistic philosophy of Greco-Roman antiquity, adapted to the realities of 18^th-19^th centuries’ living, there is still much inconsistency in how contemporary interpreters refer to the subject matter. In its turn, this can be explained by the fact that individuals that consider themselves affiliated with Idealistic philosophical tradition often have a different point of view as to what represents idealistic methodological appropriateness. For example, in his article Neo-Realism and Idealism, Hollands (1908, p. 509) had drawn a clear line between Idealistic philosopher’s innate predisposition towards perceiving reality and his or her tendency to address such predisposition in terms of categories of formal logic: “When Idealism says that reality is spiritual, it means this in a psychological and subjective sense and that this is its starting-point, instead of its conclusion”. Contrary to that, Pinkard (2002, p. 3) refers to the workings of an Idealistic psyche as such that promote the idea that the emanations of objective and subjective reality are being interwoven with each other: “To understand German idealistic philosophy, we must remember, as Hegel said, that the truth is the whole, that ideas and social structure do not neatly separate into different compartments”. According to Pinkard, being affiliated with German idealistic tradition means adopting an integral perspective onto the dialectical relationship between causes and effects.

Nevertheless, most researchers agree that the foremost conceptual premise of philosophical Idealism is being concerned with its promoters’ tendency to perceive the manifestations of the physical realm as such that provide us with only a partial insight into the true subtleties of objects/subjects, which exist within this realm, as these subtleties are essentially ideal. And, according to idealists, the ideal quintessence of a particular phenomenon is only the true one, simply because it is not being strictly bounded within the universe’s three-dimensional framework. As was rightly suggested by Cristi (1989, p. 721) in his article Hegel’s Conservative Liberalism: “Idealism aims at securing the autonomy of concepts and at canceling the mandate arising from particularity”. This is the reason why German idealists of the 18^th-19^th centuries (especially Hegel) used to imply that the concepts of physics and metaphysics derive out of each other, which in its turn, presupposes the universe’s structurally perceptional oneness. As Jones (1983, p. 294) had put it in his article Idealism and Epistemology: “I regard Idealism–to put the matter as plainly as I can- as a theory which represents the Universe as a thinking activity, an activity which reaches its highest form in this world in man”. Thus, even though the epistemological approaches of Kant and Hegel clearly differ from each other in terms of methodology, the metaphysical foundation upon which they are being based appears essentially the same – it is namely non-physical (ideal) characteristics of physical objects (which can be mentally ‘synthesized’ or analytically ‘deduced’ upon inside one’s mind), that should be seen as representing these objects’ actuality. In our paper, we will aim to substantiate this thesis even further, while also providing readers with insight into how both philosophers differed in their understanding of the very concept of idealistic epistemology.

Kantian idealism

According to Kant, the ‘realistic’ subtleties of our knowledge of a particular physical object or time-spatial phenomenon are being concerned with the notion of experience, conceptualized on the level of sensory perception – that is, an individual can only be sure as to the real nature of object’s qualitative emanations, for as long as these emanations affect his or her senses directly. Kant refers to experience-based knowledge as ‘empirical’. However, according to philosophers, there is also another kind of knowledge (transcendental), which has nothing to do with the acuteness of people’s sensory perceptions, in regards to a particular object of phenomena, but with their ability to transcend beyond sensory experience into the realm of pure metaphysics, in order to attain a better idea as to object/phenomena’s true essence. This is because; whereas empirical knowledge is being limited within the boundaries time-space continuum, transcendental knowledge seems to exist independently of people’s capacity to perceive it empirically. Empirical knowledge is incidental and therefore, secondary to the transcendental one.

Thus, it represents the matter of foremost importance for an individual not to indulge in the ‘sin’ of empiricism, while discussing the immanent representations of an object or idea as ‘thing in itself’: “The difference between the transcendental and the empirical therefore belongs only to the critique of cognition and does not concern their relation to their object” (Kant, 1998, p. 196). Nevertheless, it is important to understand that, despite their apparent similarity, Platonic and Kantian idealistic methodologies are based upon different gnoseological paradigms. Unlike Plato, Kant used to suggest that it is only the cognitive forms that can be thought of as ‘things in themselves’; whereas, the actual content of these forms derives out of the empirically obtained experience. Moreover, according to Kant, a priori forms of cognitive knowledge cannot be referred to as purely ideal categories, simply because these forms have a history behind them. Thus, the actual essence of Kantian apriorism derives out of the premise that, an individual in the process of assessing objective reality, operates with abstract categories that came into being prior to his or her birth and that cannot be methodologically rationalized but rather intuitively felt. Yet, even though intuitive knowledge is being more metaphysical, and therefore – more authentic than the empirical one, it still cannot be referred to as fully authentic: “We have therefore wanted to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of appearance; that the things that we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit them to be” (1998, p. 200). What it means is that, when idealistically minded individuals attempt to seek the ‘ultimate truth’ beyond the boundaries of empirical experience, they will inevitably come to conceptually fallacious conclusions. Therefore, the subject of metaphysics cannot be ‘things in themselves’ as purely ideal ideas, but rather the limits of empirical experience, as only the instrument of assessing those subtleties of surrounding reality that can be assessed, in the first place. In their book, Solomon and Higgins (2003, p. 105) make a perfectly good point when they state: “So far as the phenomenal sphere was concerned, Kant had argued that our familiar awareness of Spatio-temporal and causally governed world of perceivable entities and events presupposed a framework of universal forms and categories”. According to Kant, it is not people’s inborn ability to operate with metaphysical categories that define the intensity of their empirical experiences but rather vice versa.

Throughout his book Critique of Pure Reason, philosophers never ceased implying that the extent of our transcendental knowledge about the universe cannot be discussed outside of the methodological framework of empirical experience. This is exactly what represents the main characteristic of Kantian ‘transcendental idealism’ (as opposed to ‘transcendent idealism’) – according to Kant, the most comprehensive forms of knowledge can never be transcendentally real, but only transcendentally ideal and therefore – inaccessible for human understanding. Consequently, there can be only two types of cognitive knowledge – analytical and synthetic. It comes without saying, of course, that all cognitive judgments, based upon empirical experience, are synthetic. The question is, is there a possibility for a priori, transcendental judgments to be synthetic as well? There is plenty of evidence in the Critique of Pure Reason as to the fact that Kant never even doubted such a possibility. After all, if this was not the case the scientific notions would not be referred to as universally objective. Moreover, there would be no separate scientific disciplines that deal with utterly abstract subjects matter, such as math, geometry, physics, etc. Thus, the foremost premise of Kantian idealistic inquiry can be defined as follows: given the fact that empirically obtained knowledge does not adequately correspond to the ideal essence of surrounding reality (because it is limited in time and space), on one hand, and because transcendental knowledge does not adequately correspond to such reality’s physical emanations, on another, what represents the limits of knowledge as ‘thing in itself’? An Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, Guyer and Wood (1998, p. 6) define the essence of Kantian ‘transcendental idealism’ with perfect exactness: “This new science, which Kant calls ‘transcendental’, does not deal directly with objects of empirical cognition, but investigates the conditions of the possibility of our experience of them”. According to philosophers, regardless of how far we advance with gaining an insight into the true nature of things, our understanding of these things can never be fully complete.

Nevertheless, even though Kant does recognize the limits of transcendental knowledge, he points out this knowledge’s objectivity, for as long as people’s behavior is being concerned. This is another striking feature of his idealistic philosophy – despite his apparent gnoseological skepticism; Kant never ceased addressing people’s behavior from a positivist point of view. That is, he firmly believed that one’s ability to act as a productive member of society is being concerned with an individual’s endowment with certain moral paradigms, which have to be observed at all times and to which philosophers used to refer to as ‘categorical’ and ‘hypothetical’ imperatives. What differs Kant from religious philosophers, in this respect, is that he suggested that the concept of moral law does not originate in divinity but in people’s ability to act as existential sovereigns: “All imperatives are formulae for the determination of an action which is necessary for accord with the principle of a free will which is in some way good” (1998, p. 414). According to Sokoloff (2001, p. 772), Kantian ethical idealism is essentially an intellectual by-product of philosopher’s view on what represents the limits of human understanding – even though Kantian imperatives are being completely substantiated by rationale, the fact that people’s sense of rationale is being limited in space and time does not allow us to think of these imperatives as universally applicable. Kant himself was well aware of this, which is why he suggested that it is only when human beings transcend the understanding of their own mortality, that they would be able to utilize his hypothetical and categorical imperatives practically. In his article, The Possibility of the Categorical Imperative, Guyer (1995, p.367) provides us with the insight on the purely idealistic sounding of Kant’s concept of the moral law: “Kant’s argument seems simply to assume that any rational being should adopt the requirement of universality without mentioning an end”. Thus, despite the fact that Kant never ceased insisting on the primacy of application of rationale, within the context of dealing with metaphysical issues, the foremost feature of his philosophy is its clearly defined operational idealism. In the next part of this paper, we will outline the particulars of Hegel’s idealistic worldview, so that we would be able to compare and contrast Kantian and Hegelian idealisms in our work’s concluding part.

Hegelian idealism

As we have stated in the Introduction, the idealistic worldview is based upon the assumption that the physical realm, accessible to sensory perception, is being secondary to the ideal realm. It is namely this idea, which is being promoted throughout George Hegel’s most important philosophical work The Phenomenology of Spirit. According to Hegel, the fact that the thought and existence are being conceptually identical represents a subjectivized unity of the universe: “Substance is in itself or implicitly Subject, all content is its own reflection into itself… Comprehended in this is the fact that Being is Thought” (Hegel, 1977, p. 33). According to Hegel, ‘things’ and ‘thoughts about things’ are essentially the same. Therefore, the immanent ontological judgments as to what things really are and the true nature of things simply cannot be distinguished from each other on a metaphysical level. However, Hegel has come to the conclusion that, given the fact that subjectivized unity of the universe is best discussed in terms of empirical experience, this unity can still be deconstructed down to its integral components. And, when we do it, we will eventually realize that these components relate to each other in counter-wise progression – that is, the perceivable unity of surrounding reality is nothing but what philosopher refers to as the ‘unity of opposites’: “Through the Notion of inner difference… space and time, etc. are a difference which is no difference, or only a difference of what is self­ same, and its essence is unity. As positive and negative they stimulate each other into activity, and their being is rather to posit themselves as not-being and to suspend themselves in the unity” (1977, p. 99). As it was presupposed by Hegel, the absolute rationale/spirit (geist) is not only a starting point for all that exists but also its moving force. While being manifested in the variety of the universe’s physical and ideal emanations, the essence of objectively existing reality sublimates itself into the absolute idea. However, the absolute idea is not something static – it is being continuously transformed, while gradually attaining more and more concrete characteristics. The ascension from abstract to concrete Hegel defines as the most fundamental law universe while suggesting that an ‘absolute spirit’s’ highest point of ascension is human history because it is named within the context of history that just about any abstract idea attains self-actualization.

In his other book Reason in History, philosopher states: “History combines in our language the objective as well… We must hold that the narration of history and historical deeds and events appear at the same time; a common inner principle brings them forth together” (Hegel, 1953, p. 75). According to Hegel, the course of human history, which is being conceptualized by him within the context of ‘quantity’ undergoing periodic and abrupt transformations into a ‘quality, provides us with the most comprehensive insight into the fact that ‘thought’ is indeed a ‘reality. In its turn, this explains the foremost features of Hegelian idealism:

1. Pantheism – the absolute idea (God) is not something mechanistically separated from empirically assessable physical realm – it is something that is being interwoven with this realm rather organically. In his article, Shepherd (1968, p. 596) states: “Hegel moves to establish the impossibility between nature and grace because nature has been in the ‘covenant of grace ‘from the beginning”. God is not some emotional being but rather an unemotional law of nature.
2. Panlogism – the way of God’s (nature’s) thinking is perfectly logical.
3. Dialectics – the qualitative properties of effects are predetermined by qualitative properties their causes.

Thus, it appears that Kantian philosophical idealism is best described as gnoseologically positive (as opposed to Kantian). And, the reason for this is simple – unlike Kant, Hegel refused to recognize the implicational superiority of experienced-based logic as ‘thing in itself’. According to philosophers, the logical constructs are not only being dialectically predetermined but also mutually interrelated. While gaining the knowledge of things, one’s consciousness gets to recognize these things as nothing but three-dimensional representations of an absolute spirit – thus, everything that exists is essentially divine and vice versa.

Nevertheless, it is important to understand that, even though Hegel does point out the ‘absolute spirit’ as such that is being in the state of constant transition; he nevertheless does not refer to this process as being reflected in organic life. In his article Hegel’s Rationalism, Cohen (1932, p. 289) states: “He (Hegel) explicitly rejects what we today call evolution, that is, the transformation of organisms and species in time, and assures us that he is concerned with the concepts or ultimate categories of the Absolute”. In other words, even though Kantian idealism is being based upon recognition of the objectiveness of the concept of transition, as ‘thing in self’ (since the concept of ever-ongoing transition does correlate with the workings of the human mind), it nevertheless rejects any idea that the notion of change is being biologically applicable.

Our brief outline of what represents the core of idealistic worldviews, on the part of Kant and Hegel, allows us to proceed further with addressing this paper’s actual subject matter – namely, comparing and contrasting both individuals as promoters of idealist cause in the field of philosophy. In the following part of this paper, we will aim to do just that.

Similarities/differences

The main similarities between Kantian and Hegelian idealisms can be summarized as follows:

1. Both, Kant and Hegel believed that one’s mind is incapable of perceiving the totality of reality’s different emanations at the same time – that is, the process of gaining knowledge about reality can only proceed on ‘one pace at the time’ basis. Moreover, both philosophers agreed that it is only through the application of rationale, that people can gain a three-dimensional insight into objective reality’s mechanics. As Pippin (1989, p. 6) had put it: “Hegel’s entire philosophy should be understood as a direct variation on a crucial Kantian theme, the transcendental unity of apperception”. According to Kant and Hegel, the ultimate purpose of epistemology is to combine metaphysical knowledge with empirical one.
2. Both, Kant and Hegel thought of metaphysical (a priori) concepts as superior to empirical (experience-based) concepts. They also thought of the gnoseological process as such that can not be strictly concerned with trying to gain insight into the nature of things, without understanding what represents the formal limits of such an insight. In her article Hegel’s Logic of Actuality, Ng (2009, p.139) states: “What Kant and Hegel share in common is that knowledge and truth are not to be found by asking questions about the object, but by seeking knowledge and self-knowledge of the capacities and activities of thinking itself”. Given both philosophers’ strong affiliation with the methodology of philosophic idealism, his simply could not be otherwise,
3. Both, Kant and Hegel recognized the fact that, while accumulating knowledge about emanations of physical reality and while trying to relate this knowledge to idealistically defined ‘things in themselves’ (Kant) and to an ‘absolute spirit’ (Hegel), one’s mind would inevitably experience what today’s psychologists refer to as ‘cognitive dissonance’.

This effectively ends the list of similarities between Kantian and Hegelian idealism. The list of differences between the two idealistic philosophical doctrines appears to be much more extensive. These differences can be summarized as follows:

1. Whereas, Kant believed in an ideal (non-transitional) essence of abstract ideas, Hegel used to refer to these ideas as such that are being affected by social dynamics and by the pace of historical progress in every particular society. In its turn, this explains why Kantian idealism’s cornerstone has always been seeking the limits of empirically attainable knowledge about ideally existing ‘alternative’ reality – hence, the utter methodological complexity of Kant’s philosophy. As it was rightly pointed out by Ameriks (1985, p. 3) in his article Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy: “For Kant, the restriction thesis can be neither conflated with nor wholly cut off from the deduction. However, deduction alone does not prove the spatiotemporal data we deal with”. Hegel, on another hand, had simply refused to draw methodological lines between ideal and physical realms, while suggesting that it is specifically the workings of one’s rational psyche, which defines the gnoseological characteristics of both realms.
2. According to Kant, there is a difference between the concepts of mind and consciousness. Whereas the workings of consciousness are being concerned with evaluating and classifying experience-based data, the mind strives to gain an insight into the true nature of things, while utilizing this data as a ‘guiding light’ into the realm of metaphysics. Yet, Kant denies the methodological appropriateness of such a gnoseological method – thus, denying the objectivity of just about any rationale-based judgments. Contrary to that, Hegel suggests that both: mind and consciousness are not ‘things in themselves’, but rather the instruments that help ‘absolute idea’ to actualize itself in life. Therefore, questioning whether an ‘absolute idea’ defines consciousness/mind or vice versa is senseless – they simply derive out of each other, as they are the one. As it was rightly suggested by Warminski (1995, p. 120) in his article Hegel/Marx: Consciousness and Life: “For Hegel – Omnis determinatio est negatio, and therefore it does not matter whether consciousness is said to determine life or life consciousness”. Unlike Kant, Hegel was able to utilize its sense of rationale beyond the conceptual framework of essentially scholastic logical constructs.
3. According to Kant, once the gnoseological process becomes operationally self-contradictory, it serves as the best proof as to this process’s conceptual fallaciousness. With this Hegel could not agree less, simply because he viewed contradiction as the foremost criteria of truth and the absence of contradiction as the criteria of falseness – according to Hegel, such state of affairs has been brought about by the fact that the very process of thinking simultaneously revolves around mutually exclusive notions of ‘immediacy’ and ‘meditation’. As philosopher had put it in his book Science of Logic: “There is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation, so that these two determinations reveal themselves to be unseparated” (Hegel, 2001, p. 27). Thus, gnoseological contradictions appear to be natural and therefore – necessary.
4. Whereas, Kant used to discuss the notions of form and content as being conceptually different, Hegel never ceased stressing out these notions’ essential sameness, as in philosopher’s eyes they were nothing but simply different emanations of ‘actuality’, within which resides ‘absolute spirit’. In the article from which we have already quoted, Ng had made a perfectly legitimate point, while stating: “Hegel tells us that the very content manifested by the absolute as actuality is the overcoming of the distinction between form and content and that the content of actuality is simply self-manifestation” (2009, p. 154). Apparently, Hegel was able to overcome Kantian content vs. form methodological dualism. This is exactly the reason why Hegel is being commonly compared to Copernicus – Hegel’s realization of the dialectal relationship between ‘opposites’ represented a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of European idealistic philosophy, just as Copernicus’ heliocentric theory represented a breakthrough in the field of astronomy.
5. As we have mentioned earlier, Kant believed that it is namely individual’s ability to observe certain moral dogmas (categorical imperatives) in its relations to others, which reflects upon his or her ability to act as a productive member of society. However, Kant thought of these imperatives as being essentially static – that is, he rejected the idea that the continuous socio-cultural progress might have any effect on moral laws, whatsoever. As Despland (1975, p. 358) had pointed out in his article: “Moral men, in his (Kant’s) view, have always known the laws of morality… To have moral worth, an action must be done from duty”. In Kant’s eyes, people’s varying ability to choose in favor of moral behavior reflected the varying extent of their ability to operate with abstract categories of formal logic. To think of morals outside of the logical framework, proposed by Kant, would signify an individual’s willingness to rely upon ‘speculative reason’ while addressing the subject matter. Yet, Kant had made a point in referring to the ‘speculative reason’ as being synonymous to the notion of fallaciousness: “I deprive speculative reason of its pretension to extravagant insights; because in order to attain to such insights, speculative reason would have to help itself to principles that in fact reach only to objects of possible experience” (1998, p. 117). Hegel, on another hand, believed in something entirely opposite – according to him, ethics are the subject of socially defined circumstances. In its turn, the qualitative subtleties of these circumstances are being defined within the context of how the ‘opposites’ of freedom and necessity correlate with each other. Therefore, there can be no moral laws as ‘things in themselves’ – according to Hegel, moral laws are being the byproducts of particular historical discourse and not vice versa, as it was suggested by Kant.

Conclusion

Even though there can be little doubt as to the full validity of many Kantian idealistic viewpoints, it was specifically due to Hegel’s philosophical activities that an idealistic principle of cognitive inquiry remains methodologically legitimate even today. In the light of recent scientific discoveries (especially in the fields of biology and physics), Hegelian ideas that the universe is a process, that the ultimate ‘truth’ is also a process and that the fundamental root of all Spatio-temporal processes is a contradiction, cannot be referred to as anything but as such that has been articulated by Hegel well ahead of his time.

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