Kant Versus Hegel: Two Views on Metaphysics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18523/2313-4895.12.2025.30-53Keywords:
Kant, transcendentalism, science, metaphysics, Hegel, absolute idealism, speculative thinking and cognition, speculative metaphysics, absolute knowledge, methods of cognition, philosophical methodAbstract
The article highlights the special features of metaphysics in Kant and Hegel. Kant’s attitude toward traditional metaphysics was defined by a critical stance that limited knowledge to the transcendental conditions of possible experience. Traditional metaphysics did not meet the transcendental criteria of cognition. Instead, Kant developed transcendental metaphysics, which was confined to the study of the a priori foundations of natural science, morality, and law, and did not encroach upon the transcendent world. For Hegel, metaphysics in its traditional sense also lost its conceptual appeal, as it was restricted by rational definitions of God, Soul, and Freedom, which did not correspond to Hegel’s intentions. Consequently, metaphysics and its problems were incorporated into the system of absolute idealism, based on speculative cognition. Hegel broke with Kant’s transcendentalism because he built his philosophical system on the principle of the identity of thought and being, which fundamentally contradicted the principles of transcendentalism. In Hegel’s philosophy, traditional metaphysical disciplines lost their former significance; his project of metaphysics was grounded in speculative knowledge of the Absolute – its conceptual understanding within speculative logic, the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of spirit. This allows us to consider Hegel’s system in its internal connection with the Absolute. Thus, Hegel transforms metaphysics and its problems into speculative philosophy, which aligns with the aims of absolute idealism.
References
Beiser, F. C. (1995). Hegel. A Non-Metaphysician? A Polemic Review of Hugo Tristram Engelhardt and Terry Pinkard (eds), Hegel Reconsidered. Hegel Bulletin, 16 (2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0263523200005504.
Bowman, В. (2013). Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity. Cambridge University Press.
Bradley, F. H. (1962). Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. Clarendon Press. (Original work published 1893).
Brandom, R. B. (2019). A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press.
Cassirer, Е. (1931). Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Kant-Studien, 36 (1–2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1515/kant.1931.36.1-2.1.
Cassirer, Е. (2014). Nachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte. Band 17. Davoser Vorträge. Vorträge über Hermann Cohen. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Cassirer – Heidegger (Hrsg. von Jörn Bohr und Klaus-Christian Köhnke, SS. 3–119). Felix Meiner Verlag.
Collingwood, R. G. (1940). An Essay on Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
Engels, Fr. (2010). Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels Collected Works (Vol. 26. Engels, 1882–1889, рр. 353–398). Lawrence & Wishart Electric Book, 2010. (Original work published 1886).
Fichte, J. G. (2021). Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings, 1794–95 (Daniel Breazeale, Ed. and trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1795).
Gloy, К. (2021). Die Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus. Eine Einführung. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann.
Hartmann, N. (1960). Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus. 1. Fichte, Schelling und die Romantik. 2. Hegel. De Gruyter. (Original work published 1923/1929).
Hartmann, K. (1972). Hegel: A Non-Metaphysical View. In A. MacIntyre (Ed.), Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays. Doubleday Anchor.
Hartmann, К. (1999). Hegels Logik. Walter de Gruyter.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1988). Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The Lectures of 1827 (R. F. Brown, P. C. Hodgson, & J. M. Stewart with the assistance of H. S. Harris, Trans. & eds.). University of California Press.
Hegel, G. W. F. (2010). The Science of Logic (George di Giovanni, Trans. & ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1813/1816).
Hegel, G. W. F. (2018). The Phenomenology of Spirit (Terry Pinkard, Trans. & ed.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1807).
Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the Authoritarian State. (1994). (Еdited by H. T. Engelhardt and Terry Pinkard). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Heidegger, M. (1973). Gesamtausgabe. Band 3. Davoser Disputation zwischen Ernst Cassirer und Martin Heidegger (SS. 274–296). Vittorio Klostermann.
Heidegger, M. (1997). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Richard Taft, Trans.). Indiana University Press. (Original work published 1929).
Henrich, D. (1999). Bewusstes Leben: Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Subjektivität und Metaphysik. Reclam Verlag.
Hösle, V. (1998). Hegels System: der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Felix Meiner Verlag.
Kant, I. (1900 sqq.) Gesammelte Schriften: Hrsg. von der Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften; Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin; Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (Akademie-Ausgabe, XXIX Bde). Reimer, & De Gruyter.
Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason (Paul Guyer & Allen W. Wood, Trans. & eds.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1781).
Kant, I. (2004). Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science with Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason. Revised Edition (Gary Hatfield, Trans. & eds.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1783).
Kok, А. (2013). Kant, Hegel, und die Frage der Metaphysik. Über die Möglichkeit der Philosophie nach der kopernikanischen Wende. Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Kozlovskyi, V. (2024). Raselove vchennia pro prostir i chas u zviazku z transtsendentalnoiu estetykoiu Kanta [Russell’s doctrine of space and time in connection with Kant’s transcendental aesthetics]. Sententiae, 43 (2), 6–32. https://doi.org/10.31649/sent43.02.006 [in Ukrainian].
Kozlovskyi, V. (2025). Matematyka u svitli transtsendentalnoi estetyky: chy stvoryv Kant “filosofiiu matematyky”? [Mathematics in the Light of Transcendental Aesthetics: did Kant Create a “Philosophy of Mathematics”?]. Sententiae, 44 (2). https://doi.org/10.31649/sent44.02.058 [in Ukrainian].
Kroner, R. (1924). Von Kant bis Hegel. J. C. B. Mohr.
Marheineke, F. K. (1983). Einleitung in die öffentlichen Vorlesungen über die Bedeutung der Hegelschen Philosophie in der christlichen Theologie. Nebst einem Separatvotum über B. Bauers Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte. Minerva. (Original work published 1842).
Meer, R. (2022). Die Raum- und Zeitlehre Alois Riehls im Kontext realistischer Interpretationen von Kants transzendentalem Idealismus. Kant-Studien, 113 (3), 459–486.
Pinkard, Т. (1996). What is the Non-Metaphysical Reading of Hegel? A Reply to Frederick Beiser. Hegel Bulletin, 17 (2), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263523200005711.
Plevrakis, E. (2017). Das Absolute und der Begriff Zur Frage philosophischer Theologie in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Mohr Siebeck.
Rickert, H. (1930). Die Logik des Prädikats und das Problem der Ontologie. Carl Winters.
Redding, Р. (2007). Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought. Cambridge University Press.
Schelling, F. W. J. (1993). System of Transcendental Idealism (Peter Heath, Trans.). University of Virginia Press. (Original work published 1800).
Schelling, Fr. W. J. (2007). The grounding of positive philosophy: the Berlin lectures (Bruce Matthews, Trans. and with an introduction and notes). State University of New York Press. (Original work published 1856).
Stern, R. (1994). British Hegelianism: A Non-Metaphysical View? European Journal of Philosophy, 2, 293–321.
Williams, R. (1985). Hegel and Transcendental Philosophy. The Journal of Philosophy, 82 (11). https://doi.org/10.2307/2026413.
Whitehead, A. N. (1979). Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh during the session 1927-28. The Free Press; A Division of Macmi11an Publishing Co., Inc.; Collier Macmillan Publishers. (Original work published 1929).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Viktor Kozlovskyi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal provides free access to original research without restriction barriers (i.e. subscription fees, licensing fees etc.). The journal allows re-use of content for non-commercial/educational purposes indexing the source.
Unless otherwise indicated, content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which means you are free to:
copy
distribute
transmit
adapt
and make commercial use of the work
...provided that any use is made with attribution to author(s) and Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal.
The author passes copyright of the article to the journal and Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal; author can archive post-print articles (PDF versions) on s/he web-site (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk).
