Kant and Metaphysics

Abstract

There are two opposite interpretations of Kant’s philosophy. The one takes it to be the foundation of natural science, and values it for its rejection of metaphysics ; the other takes it to be a first step towards the establishment of a new metaphysics. The one is held by neo-Kantians,¹ who were influenced by 19th century positivism, the other by Paulsen, M. Wundt, Heimsoeth, Heidegger etc.² M. Wundt goes so far as to assert that Kant’s contemporaries and followers generally held the second interpretation.³ But although it is true that Kant’s successors, e.g. Fichte and Schelling, tended towards metaphysics, there are no sufficient grounds for the assertion that they thought him to be a pioneer of new metaphysics. Hegel, for example, in the preface to the first edition of his Science of Logic,⁴ published in 1812, said that German philosophy had been revolutionised during the previous 25 years. This was certainly a reference to the influence of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason; and Hegel went on to harshly reproach Kant’s theory for making the German nation lose their interest in metaphysics. In his lectures on the history of philosophy, Hegel also accused Kant of shallowness and cowardliness in giving up thought for emotion.⁵ Hegel’s view was that the Critique gained its many supporters not by offering them anything positive but by emancipating them at a stroke from the old metaphysics.⁶ He called Kant a repudiator of metaphysics like Jacobi,⁷ and although we must allow for some rhetorical exaggeration, remembering that Hegel was very proud of his completion of a new metaphysics, this is nonetheless a remarkable testimony to the way in which Kant was interpreted by his contemporaries. To take Kant as an opponent of metaphysics is not a recent misinterpretation by neo-Kantians, but perhaps the general view of Hegel’s or even of Kant’s contemporaries.