The Question of System: How to Read the Development from Kant to Hegel

Abstract In order to understand Hegel's approach to philosophy, we need to ask why, and how, he reacts to the well‐known criticism of German Romantics, like Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel, against philosophical system building in general, and against Kant's system in particular. Hegel's encyclopedic system is a topical ordering of categorically different ontological realms, corresponding to different conceptual forms of representation and knowledge. All in all it turns into a systematic defense of Fichte's doctrine concerning the primacy of us as actors with respect to any knowledge claim or scientific theory. Hegel's limitations of the principle of causality and of the possibility of using mathematical methods in science show, in fact, how a merely compatibilist solution of Kant's third antinomy can be overcome. Notes 1. Novalis writes, “Je bonirter ein System ist, desto mehr wird es den Weltklugen gefallen. So hat das System der Materialisten, die Lehre des Helvetius und auch Locke den meisten Beyfall unter dieser Klasse erhalten. So wird Kant jetzt immer noch mehr Anhänger als Fichte finden.“ Athenaeum 1798, (Eds.) Friedrich cf. also p.83. 2. “Can Analytical Philosophy be Systematic, and Should it Be?” in D. Henrich (Ed.) Ist systematische Philosophie möglich? Hegel‐Studien, Beiheft 17, Bonn (1977), pp. 305–326. 3. Cf. e.g. the final passages of Theodor Adorno's book Negative Dialektik (Citation1984) (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp). 4. Cf. e.g. Habermas (Citation1985), p. 33. 5. Cf. Henrich (Citation1982), pp. 57ff. (“Fichtes ‘Ich’”). 6. Cf. Tugendhat 1979 (Citation1986), Lectures 13 and 14. 7. Cf. Habermas (Citation1985), p.79. 8. Cf. Frank (Citation1991), pp. 18ff, 94ff, and 143. 9. Cf. Brandom (Citation1994), pp. 4–8 et passim. 10. Cf. Kant Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) B247 (and B158). 11. Cf. Kant CPR B252. I do not comment here on the gross exaggeration in Kant's formulation. 12. Cf. Kant CPR B259. 13. This distinction between identification and identity refers, in a sense, to the distinction between epistemology and ontology. 14. Kant CPR 276. 15. The postulates of empirical thinking are the combined conditions of meaningful empirical knowledge‐claims, contemplations on empirical possibilities, assertions of empirical reality, or statements about universal empirical truths. Kant distinguishes between an empirically possible state of affairs, actual empirical facts, and necessary conditions which must be fulfilled when we want to refer successfully to a possible or actual world of objective things and facts. 16. Cf. Garver (Citation1969), p. 254. 17. Hegel presents fairly similar arguments as Winch (Citation1987), ch. 7. 18. For Kant, it is an “empirical fact” that bodies move (see, for example, “Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaften, 1. Hauptstück, Erklärung 1, Anmerkung 2”). This is astonishing because matter is defined by its very possibility of spatial movement, which should be understood as relative movement with reference to other bodies, not to some “space”. 19. When Hegel says that light is weightless (cf. Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, §§275ff including supplements), he not only says that the propagation of light does not fall under the concepts of inertia and gravitation (which we today consider false). He claims that electricity, magnetism and light are physical phenomena that cannot be described in the Kantian‐Newtonian system of moving particles. 20. We definitely should avoid the subjective connotations of the word “intuition”. Since the words “Anschauung” and “observation” both presuppose (possibly common) reference to the same object, I propose to translate the German word “Anschauung” (at least as used by Kant, Schelling and Hegel) by “common observations” – for lack of better alternatives. 21. Cf. Beck (Citation1975). 22. To see how much Kant himself has achieved on this path of thought would need a longer treatment. Cf. Kant CPR, B161. 23. Cf. Stekeler‐Weithofer (Citation2003). 24. Cf. Henrich (Citation1982), p.61. 25. Cf. Schiller, Friedrich (1943) Nationalausgabe, v.1, Weimar p. 302; or v.2, p.322. Cf. also W. Franzen, “Spricht die Seele, so spricht ach! schon die Seele nicht mehr. Einige Erwägungen,” in Hogrebe (Citation1998), pp. 87–103. 26. This insight is, once again, also shared by Schelling. 27. Cf. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus, §§5.541–5.5422. 28. Hegel's word is “Monstrieren”. 29. The fact that Fichte's way of speaking is too formal is nicely shown by the fact that Henrich's representation of Fichtean ideas is much too formal as well. 30. Cf. Hintikka a third asks why we should act in this way or another, a fourth why we should change an established practice or a system of norms according to some particular proposal (put forward by some proponents). 35. To this, cf. the fine and important texts by Thompson (Citation1995) and Rödl (Citation2005). 36. Nuel Belnap's logical analysis of “branching time” and of what it means “to see to it that an event e will happen or a state of affairs p will be the case” in his “Stit‐Theory” presents structural features of “time” and “ontological possibility” which are absolutely important for any realistic logical analysis of the concept of action. One of his central distinctions refers to the difference between events e or states of affairs p that are settled (here and now) and those that are not. A past or present event e or state of affair p is always settled. Some future events e or states of affairs p can be already settled now, but only some are. If e or p is settled now, statements about the possibility of e or p (now) can only be interpreted in an epistemic sense. But if e (or p) is not settled, we must distinguish between the objective (or ontological) possibility that e will or might happen (or that p will be the case) and merely subjective (or epistemic) attitudes of expectation with respect to the future possibility of e or p. I do not want to say that Hegel already had a similar insight. But he sees that the notion of possibility is the most difficult notion in logic and critical metaphysics. 37. I would like to express my thanks to Elizabeth Millán‐Zaibert and Susan Hahn for valuable suggestions.