Kant’s Internal Purposiveness and Its Influence on Hegel’s Speculative Philosophy

This paper examines the contribution of Kant’s discussion of internal purposiveness to Hegel’s speculative philosophy. It argues that Kant’s analysis illuminates a distinctive notion essential to the success of speculative philosophy: the self-actualising concept. The organism serves as a prominent example, wherein the purpose of living is posited as both potentiality and actuality. Since speculative philosophy demands the identity of subject and object, it faces a fundamental challenge, that this relational identity inevitably reintroduces the very difference it seeks to overcome. Therefore, to establish a successful speculative framework, the compatibility between difference and self-relation must be explained. Although Kant relegates this notion to a mere idea of reason, the self-actualising concept represents a form of self-affected difference that satisfies this demand. This analysis reframes Hegel’s debt to Kant, demonstrating that Kant did not merely pose a problem but also provided the essential seed for its speculative solution.