Hegel’s Critique of Kant and Pre-Kantian Metaphysics

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.