Kant Versus Hegel: Two Views on Metaphysics

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.