Hegel’s Logic: An Essay in Interpretation. John Grier Hibben 1902
The critical philosophy takes its name from the fundamental Kantian point of view that thought must itself investigate how far it has a capacity of knowledge, and in this way become critical of itself. Inasmuch as the sensations regarded as a pure sensation can never give in and of itself the idea of necessity and universality, and yet we are conscious that our whole theory of knowledge depends upon this very idea for its primary features of order and uniformity, therefore, the source of this idea, according to Kant, must lie in the very nature of thought itself.
Moreover, he insists that this source is not to be sought for in the thought of any individual, regarded merely in his individual capacity, but in the thought which is the common possession of all individuals alike, – that is, in the very nature of thought itself as pure thought irrespective of the peculiar modes, or habits of thought incident to the peculiarities of any particular individual whatsoever. These fundamental ideas which seem to be the property of all rational creatures, and which, together with their relations and connections, form the determining factors in reducing the crude material of sensation to a system of knowledge characterized by order and law, are the so-called categories, – such as the ideas of necessity, cause and effect, unity, plurality, and the like.
The critical philosophy sets itself the task of testing the value of these categories in reference to their application to the sciences, to the sphere of metaphysics, and to our ordinary conceptual processes. It also seeks to determine the prime nature and function of these categories so as to distinguish in our knowledge between that which is subjective and that which is objective. These terms “subjective” and “objective” play such an important role in philosophical discussions generally, and especially in the systems both of Kant and of Hegel, that it will repay us at this stage of our investigation to inquire somewhat in detail as to the meaning and usage of these terms. Hegel draws attention to three distinct senses in which the term “objective” is used: – In the first place, objective is used in a loose and rather popular manner to designate whatever subsists externally, in contrast to which the subjective comes to be regarded as that which exists only in our fancy, hopes, or dreams.
In the second place, the Kantian use of objective consists in an application of the term to the elements in thought which are universal and necessary, – that is, what all men are constrained to think, in contrast to the subjective character attached to individual experiences which give them a certain particular and occasional coloring.
In the third place, the Hegelian use of the terra objective has regard to the universal and necessary elements of thought in general after the manner of Kant, but in addition Hegel considers these universal and necessary elements of thought as representing at the same time the real essence of existing things.
This latter distinction marks the point of departure of Hegel from Kant. For, as Hegel maintains, if the necessary and essential factors in the building up of our world of knowledge belong only to the processes of thought, then all thought must be forever separated from the thing itself as the object of our thought which perceives it, and as it exists apart from our perception of it. And although it is true that the categories as causality, necessity, universality and the like lie strictly within the province of thought, it does not necessarily follow that they must be ours merely in a subjective sense and not at the same time also the essential characteristics of things themselves, Hegel, moreover, will not allow that the convenient Kantian fiction of the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) can possibly express the real nature of the object when we have eliminated all that is present in consciousness relative to it, – all the deliverances of feeling and all specific judgments concerning it as to its evident attributes and qualities. What is left, Hegel asks, but an utter abstraction, a total emptiness? When the balance between subjective and objective is struck by Kant the totality of knowledge is found to be on the side of the subjective, while nothing at all remains to the credit of the objective. For when Kant speaks of the unity of consciousness as transcendental, he means by this phrase that our body of knowledge regarded as constituting a system possessing order and unity throughout has validity only for our thoughts, and not for objects apart from our knowledge. What they are in themselves must remain, therefore, an unknown quantity, – the insoluble x of the equation of knowledge.
It is characteristic, moreover, of the Hegelian method that the significance which he attaches to the term objective is in reality a synthesis of the two other views mentioned above. The first holds that objectivity refers to the external thing; the second that objectivity refers to the necessary and universal thought; while Hegel insists that the objective is the combination of the two, being the true thought concerning the real thing. The subjective would signify, therefore, that which for the time being has a place in our thoughts but has no reference to reality, and which others under similar circumstances might not be constrained necessarily to entertain.
Kant’s position is known as one of subjective idealism, – that is, the things which we know are appearances merely, and we possess no certitude as to the truth of what they are in themselves. Hegel’s position, on the other hand, is one of absolute idealism, as has been already mentioned, – that is, it is conceded that the objects of our knowledge are phenomena, but nevertheless mast be regarded by us as the true representation of the things themselves. The warrant for such a belief lies in the postulate that what thought discovers in phenomena is a manifestation of the divine and universal reason, of which the very thought itself is a kindred manifestation. To show how this must he so, and to indicate its significance as the corner-stone of the entire Hegelian system, is the purpose of the Logic itself, and can be appreciated in its fulness only after a mastery of the detailed exposition which the Logic contains.
As to the special problems of the soul, the world, and of God, Kant’s position may be outlined as follows: – As to their teaching concerning the nature of the soul, Kant and Hegel are at one In their criticism of the old metaphysical definition of the soul as substantial, simple, selfsame, and maintaining its independence in its intercourse with the material world. Such a definition they both hold to be eminently unsatisfactory.
The reasons assigned for this opinion, however, are quite different. Kant affirms teat the metaphysical definition is unsatisfactory because the reason has no more of a warrant in making the transition from the soul as we think it to be, to the soul as it really is in itself, than in the procedure from the appearances of things as perceived by thought to the things as they are in themselves. Hegel, however, repudiates the metaphysical definition on the ground that these attributes enumerated as the elementary characteristics of the soul are totally inadequate to express the concrete wealth of content which our idea of the soul should embrace.
As to the problem of the weld, Kant draws attention to the fact that the thought in endeavoring to comprehend the unconditioned nature of the world stumbles upon certain contradictions which are called antinomies, for it is frequently found necessary to maintain two contradictory propositions about one and the same object in such away that each one of the mutually destructive propositions seems of itself to have the stamp of necessity and of universal validity. The Kantian antinomies are four in number and areas follows: –
1. The world is limited as to space and time.
The world is not limited as to space and time.
2. Matter is indefinitely divisible.
Matter is not indefinitely divisible.
3. The will must he free.
The will must be determined.
4. The world is caused.
The world is uncaused, eternal.
Kant’s explanation of these seemingly contradictory statements is that the difficulty is nat inherent in the objects themselves which are under contemplation, but attaches only to the reason which fails to comprehend them in their true significance. At this point Hegel takes exception to Kant’s explanation, and insists that there are not merely four antinomies, but that there is an indefinite number of such contradictions arising from the essential nature of all being itself. The difficulty, therefore, lies not in the defects of reason. On the contrary, it is the peculiar office of reason to show that these contradictions attach to the things themselves and that they are necessary in order to assume a progressive development whose very essence consists in overcoming contradictions and in establishing a higher unity in the midst of all differences. It is only the absolute reason, according to Hegel, which is capable of constructing such a unity, and so far forth as the reason of man partakes of the divine reason is he capable of comprehending it. Here, again, we obtain a characteristic glimpse of the fundamental Hegelian conception, and a suggestion as to the working of his dialectic method. As to the final problem, the theistic question, it would be well to examine briefly the Kantian criticism of the proofs concerning the being of God These proofs may he divided into two kinds according to one or the other of two methods of procedure: –
We may begin, on the one hand, with an analysis of being and through that process reach the idea of God.
Or, on the other hand, we may begin with an analysis of the idea of God, and through that process reach the ground of His being.
The former of these methods of procedure will give either the cosmological or the physico-theological proof of the being of God. The cosmological proof reasons from the variously related and interconnected phenomena of the universe to a first cause as necessary to account fan their origin and their sustained existence. This proof turns upon the concept of causation. The physico-theological proof reasons from evidences of design manifested in phenomena to the existence of One who is the great architect of them all, and this proof turns upon the concept of final cause. Kant’s criticism of these proofs is based upon the fact that in the transition from the world which is finite to God who is infinite, there is in the conclusion far more than is contained in the premises, and therefore the inference is an unwarranted one. For if we may not logically pass from the crude material of the sensations to the ideas of universality and necessity, neither may we pass from the same beginnings to the idea of God. Hegel contributes two thoughts of special significance to the general conclusions of Kant; the first is concerned with a question of form, the second with the question of matter or of content.
As to the first, that of the formal process involved in our reasoning; if we regard the transition from the finite to the infinite as represented by a syllogistic process, the starting-point must involve some theory of the world which makes it an aggregate either of contingent facts, or of relations implying design. But the world as thus conceived is no longer a world of mere sensations. It is a world of sensations as they have been transmuted by thought, and as they contain the elements of necessity and universality; for we have seen that it is the fundamental nature of thought to exercise this function of transmuting sensations into these higher forms of the mind. But in such a process the crude sensation is destroyed as a sensation. This is what Hegel culls the element of negation in the process of transition from the world to God. The world regarded as no aggregate of sensations has disappeared. But of its ashes rises the new world as interpreted by the categories of thought, and such a world with its implications of universality and necessity is on adequate starting-point for the proof of the being of God.
Hegel’s second contribution to this general discussion relates to the matter or body of truths to which the transition from the world to God at first leads, such truths as concern the nature of the world’s substance, its necessary essence, and the cause which regulates and directs it according to design. These ideas express but a every partial and inadequate knowledge of God, and yet they are necessary to a complete conception of him, Hegel insists that while they should not be overlooked, they mast nevertheless be supplemented by higher truths, and that while inanimate nature gives us intimations of God, there is a higher revelation of him when we start with living organisms. Thence we reach the idea of Gad as the source of life. In a similar way, there is still a higher level which maybe taken as oar starting-point. This higher level is that of mind itself; it is through mind alone that we reach the highest possible conception of God, His nature, therefore, can be adequately defined only when we regard Him as the absolute mind.
The second general method of proof is the inverse process of the first. It starts with the idea of God and reaches His being as the conclusion.
It is this so-called ontological argument for the being of God. Beginning with the idea of God as the most perfect being conceivable, it proceeds to the belief in the actual being of God. Kant’s criticism is that we may not reason from the thought in the mind to the actual existence of the object of that thought outside of the mind, and be illustrates this point by showing that a hundred thalers as conceived in the mind does not put a hundred thalers in ones purse. Hegel’s criticism of Kant, however, puts the matter in every different light. He insists that no such analogy as drawn by Kant can discredit the ontological argument, because the idea of God which we are constrained te entertain is wholly unique. The very nature of any finite thing is expressed by saying of it as Kant does that its being in time and space is very different from our notion of it. But of the idea of God it must be said, and of Him alone can it be said, that He can be thought of only as existing. He, the infinite One, occupies in our thoughts a position, therefore, accorded to nothing that is finite. In God and in God alone is the idea of Him and His being one and the same. Here is the supreme illustration that the rational is the real and the real is rational.
In the Critique of the Practical Reason Kant indicates his position in reference to the moral life. The free control of its own activity which Kant denied to the pure reason, he has vindicated for the practical reason which manifests itself in the various phases of human conduct. By practical reason he means the will that determines itself according to universal laws, and these universal laws he claims possess objective validity, that is, they are recognized by the human intellect everywhere and at all times, and they impose a common obligation upon all mankind.
Kant’s special contribution to ethical thought consists in his protest against the prevailing ethical theory of his day, – that of eudaemonism, the philosophy which finds mans chief end in some form of happiness, and fundamentally happiness as interpreted in the gratification of the selfish appetites and desires which are dictated by the pleasures and pains of life. Hegel’s criticism of Kant is that his theory gives the form of morality in a universal law of conduct, but that the formal expression of the law of conduct to do that which is right by no means determines the content of that law, and thereby does not definitely inform us as to what is the right in concrete cases.
It is thoroughly characteristic of the Hegelian method that it always criticises a one-sided view of things, and then seeks to correct it by showing the other and complementary side. So here, Hegel agrees with Kant completely, only he adds that the Kantian system is inadequate and needs to be rounded out in some way that will provide, not merely for the basis of a formal ethic, but for a material ethic as well, so that the two may be regarded as mutually related elements which together form the complete whole.
In the third division of Kant’s great work, The Critique of the Judgment, the reflective power of judgment is declared to be equivalent to the function of the intuitive understanding. In this position Kant, in a dim way at least, approaches the Hegelian conception of reason as the basis of all things, in affirming that everything which exists manifests its nature according to its inner idea, if we may here use an Hegelian phrase. Thus in the intuitive judgment of beauty in nature or in art, in the judgment of an ideal end which is being realized in all the living organisms throughout the vast range of nature, – in all this man rises to the “height of comprehension” in some measure that the mere phenomena of the universe reveal in themselves an ideal and a purpose. The universe is thus to be regarded as the incarnation of reason.
Hegel’s system marks a point of departure in that he holds that this ideal, this incarnate reason, is not merely revealed to the artistic instinct of the genius or of the poet, but may be made manifest to humbler minds through the simple operations of pure thought Kant went so far towards the Hegelian position as to assert that the natural purposiveness seen in nature was not an external principle of finality, but was immanent within each organism, wherein the final cause is active as a molding principle, forming a constructive dynamic centre. He fails, however, to attain to the Hegelian doctrine in its completeness, because he says that, at the last analysis, the idea of an immanent finality can be affirmed with positive assurance only of our thought of things and not of the things themselves.
Whereas Hegel insists that there is an objective finality as well as a subjective, or rather that the subjective and the objective are here one and the same, the finality is both in our thoughts and also characteristic of things as well.
In the summary of his review of the critical philosophy of Kant, Hegel assigns to it two points of merit, in that, positively, it emphasizes the independence of reason, and, negatively, it insists that the categories of the understanding are finite. Kant’s weakness, on the other hand, lies in affirming that what is false or inadequate in knowledge is due solely to the limitations of oar mental faculties. Hegel insists, on the contrary, that the defects of knowledge must be ascribed to the finite nature of the objects of thought themselves and not to the categories by which they are constructed into a system of knowledge.