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Hegel and Kant On Contradictions
Hegel and Kant On Contradictions
study of the shapes of consciousness. The aim is to find absolute knowledge through the
Stoicism, Skepticism and Unhappy Consciousness. Then I will follow it with Kant’s
arrive at a destination. At the end you learn something from it. The nature of the journey
is consciousness trying to know the nature of the object we are experiencing; the truth.
Hegel is striving after this absolute Truth. First, we come up with a standard of truth, an
expectation. Then consciousness tests this standard against the world itself to see if this is
the way we see reality. But when consciousness does a mistake it alters its conception of
the nature of reality. It becomes a journey of despair because we get disappointed. But
consciousness does not give up and learns that expectations must be revised.
The revision is called “Negation.” This is like saying no to your expectations. Our
negation.” According to Hegel, “as a determinate negation, a new form has thereby
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November 22, 2010
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immediately arisen, and in the negation the transition is made through which the progress
through the complete series of forms comes about of itself” (Section 79, page 51). This
tells our consciousness specifically where our standard has failed. So consciousness
revises and incorporates and integrates the negation. Thus, despair gives rise to learning.
However, we do not get to see the moment of revision. We think it’s just one conception
of reality that takes over. For example, I used to think this way but now I think that way.
Consciousness can’t see that one standard of truth is selected, tested and revised and then
gives a new standard. However, one shape of consciousness will necessarily give rise to
unhappy consciousness. Stoicism according to Hegel is, “For the essence of that freedom
is at first only thinking in general, the form as such [of thought], which has turned away
from the independence of things and returned into itself” (Sec 200, pg. 122). Stoicism
identifies with freedom of thought. The slave doesn’t live in their work. They live in their
own private life and enjoy it. This attitude becomes passive indifference: the slave is
indifferent to his work. However, “This thinking consciousness as determined in the form
of abstract freedom is thus only the incomplete negation of otherness. Withdrawn from
existence only into itself, it has not there achieved its consummation as absolute negation
of that existence” (Sec 201, pg. 122). Thus, the slave holds his self back; it’s just
something he does at work. He doesn’t care about what he does. He seeks peace from
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November 22, 2010
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within and withdraws from life. However, this means that the slave is then confronted
with the world of alienation. A person must be in what he does but the world doesn’t
matter to the stoic. He doesn’t seem to care about alienation and makes everything
vanish.
The problem with this sense of freedom is that “Consciousness does indeed
destroy the content as alien immediacy when it thinks it; but the Notion is a determinate
Notion, and this determinateness of the Notion is the alien element which it has within
it… The True and the Good, wisdom and virtue, the general terms beyond which
Stoicism cannot get, are therefore in a general way no doubt uplifting, but since they
cannot in fact produce any expansion of the content, the soon become tedious” (Section
200, page 122). The determinate negation points out that stoic still can’t enjoy his
freedom because he needs recognition to be satisfied. His form of freedom doesn’t solve
breathing freedom.
this ‘other’ becomes explicit for consciousness; the [abstract] thought becomes the
concrete thinking which annihilates the being of the world in all its manifold
determinateness, and the negativity of free self-consciousness comes to know itself in the
many and varies forms of life as a real negativity” (Section 202, pg. 123). The skeptic
won’t be inwardly indifferent like the stoic. The skeptic will deal with it by destroying it.
This shape of consciousness wants to destroy everything. It will destroy alienation and
everything that causes it. The skeptic does not stay within. But the determinate negation
shows that by destroying everything, the skeptic is left with nothing. The problem of
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skepticism is that annihilation cannot be annihilated. Everything can be destroyed except
the statement everything can be destroyed. This ends in a contradiction. Thus, everything
that everything can change. We are put together such that we are unhappy. This is what it
is to be human. To solve this, is to get rid of me. We want oness and unification of the
same and the changing. Our alien reality must be transformed uniting the changing and
not claim to have knowledge of things that we cannot experience by giving us four
antinomies. The third antinomy is the one in which will be imperative to know Kant’s
approach to philosophical inquiry. Each antinomy is carried out by pure reason, but is
also contradicted by pure reason. Pure reason to Kant goes beyond the phenomenal
realm, and extends to the numenal realm. The first antinomy’s thesis is that “The world
has, as to time and space, a beginning (limit). The antithesis is, “the world is, as to time
and space, infinite” (Section 50, IV 339). This means, the world has a beginning in time
and an ending in space. However, this claim cannot hold because time and space cannot
be experienced separately from experience. So the limit can only be experienced in the
of the simple” and the antithesis, “There is nothing simple, but everything is composite”
(Sec 51, IV 339). This antinomy first claims that our world is simple, for example it is
easily understood that everything we find in our world is made up of atoms. However,
pure reason contradicts this because our world has complicated compositions. For
The third antinomy’s thesis is that “There are in the world causes through
freedom” and the antithesis that “There is no freedom, but all is nature” (Sec 51, IV 339).
This means, we may believe we have freedom in the choice of what food to eat and what
clothes to wear, however, we are physiologically forced to eat and cover up when the
weather is cold. Or else, we cannot survive as humans. Our biological nature does not
allow us to be free.
The fourth antinomy’s thesis holds that, “In the series of world-causes there is
some necessary being” and the antithesis, “There is nothing necessary in the world, but in
this series all is contingent” (Sec 51, IV 339). This means that there must be a necessary
uncaused being, such as us humans acting freely, however, pure reason argues that there
The first two antinomies are false for Kant because they deal with objects
unconditioned to space and time which are always finite. For example I cannot say that
our world is both finite and infinite. Moreover, they consider the appearance of objects to
be the thing in itself, which is not true. The third and fourth antinomies are possible
because they are not necessarily based on time and space and both the thesis and
inquiry. Pure reason rescues freedom without harming “natural necessity”. The third
antinomy claims that there are two different types of causality. The first type is natural
causes governed either by the law of nature or by uncaused causes from man acting up
freely. The second type of causality is the causal laws of nature themselves which govern
the world and man’s actions. Pure reason can show that man is free and not free in the
same time. But Kant claims that the actions of a person as appearances are bound to the
necessity of nature. The contradiction of the third antinomy is resolved only if natural
necessity of things is taken as a mere appearances. Freedom on the other hand is given to
We are mistaken to see the causal necessity and freedom as separate. Rather they
go hand in hand. Laws of nature are possible only in space and time, and thus apply to
appearances. Freedom of man however, exists outside the phenomenal realm and does
not apply to appearances. More specifically, freedom applies to the things in themselves
and never bound to space and time or even causal influences. And so freedom is
expressed through maxims while still following laws of nature that govern the
phenomenal realm of appearances. For example, I get hungry and I must eat to live as a
law of nature. However, as a human I am free to choose whatever I want to eat to fulfill
In conclusion we find that Kant introduces a new way of doing philosophy. Kant
is concerned with the inquiry into the world of appearances rather than reality. The only
way we can know is through a priori principles. Kant rejects skepticism and is focused on
arguing against skepticism. Hegel on the other hand, believes in determinate negation
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where the philosopher will first create a standard, test it and then if it does not measure up
to reality then it is negated with determinant negation. This was shown through the