Hegel's critique of Kant and pre-Kantian metaphysics

Klaus Brinkmann

pp. 57-78

in: Tristram Engelhardt, Terry Pinkard (eds), Hegel reconsidered, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

Two things have obscured an understanding of Hegelian philosophy more than anything else. One is the claim that Hegel's dialectic constitutes a violation of the laws of contradiction and excluded middle; the other is the verdict that Hegel is fundamentally a metaphysician. Klaus Hartmann has argued succinctly and convincingly that the dialectic is to be viewed as a procedure for the systematic construal and concatenation of categorial concepts, for which the principle of avoiding contradiction is absolutely essential ([4], p. 229; [5], p. 7). Above all, however, he was the first to have demonstrated that not only is a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel possible but that it makes more sense of, and is more consonant with, the spirit of Hegel's writings than a metaphysical interpretation.¹ According to this view, Hegelian theory is primarily a reconstructive hermeneutics of categorial concepts, i.e., an ontology ([6], p. 40f). Its greatest merits consist in the rationality of its procedure and its power to make thought intelligible to itself. The following may be seen, among other things, as a corroboration of this view.

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Hartmann Klaus