There is a growing interest in both Kant’s conception of philosophy and contemporary metaphilosophy, understood as philosophical inquiry into philosophy, its aims, purpose, subjects, structure, practice and methods. Kant has not contributed to metaphilosophy qua contemporary discipline, but his direct analyses of what philosophy is and how it is to be done can be identified with general subjects and problems constituting the research field of metaphilosophy. Several aspects of Kant’s conception of philosophy and its metaphilosophical value are the subject of (...) current debates, such as the taxonomy of philosophy, relation between empirical and non-empirical philosophy, relation between philosophy and its history, conceptual analysis, deductive reasoning and philosophical disagreement. (shrink)

While the term “metaphilosophy” enjoys increasing popularity in Kant scholarship, it is neither clear what distinguishes a metaphilosophical theory from a philosophical one nor to what extent Kant’s philosophy contains metaphilosophical views. In the first part of the article, I will introduce a demarcation criterion and show how scholars fall prey to the fallacy of extension confusing Kant’s philosophical theories with his theories about philosophy. In the second part, I will analyze eight elements for an “imperfect definition” of philosophy outlining (...) the scope of Kant’s explicit metaphilosophy against the backdrop of recent metaphilosophical research: scientific concept of philosophy, philosophy as an activity, worldly concept, philosophy as a science, philosophy as an architectonic idea, philosophy as a social practice and the appropriate holding-to-be-true, reason as the absolute condition and subject of philosophy, and methodology of philosophy. I will put these elements together for an attempt to give an imperfect definition of philosophy – something that Kant promised but never did – in the conclusion. (shrink)

My aim is to reconstruct the basic steps and the fundamental idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories as well as Hegel’s interpretation and reframing of Kant’s idea. Hegel’s reading is crucial for two reasons: first, for fixing the basic form of the Kant­ian argument and secondly, for understanding its metaphilosophical relevance. For Hegel, philosophical proof has a specific nature, which distinguishes it from scientific proof and brings it closer to a juridical one. In this perspective the transcendental deduction, which (...) is universally considered one of the most difficult chapters in the history of philosophy, reveals itself as the genuine clarification of specifically philosophical proof. I first present the idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason as well as its Hegelian reading in the Science of Logic and reformulation as the very method of philosophy in the Philo­sophy of Right. I show what in the Kantian argumentation constituted the basis for Hegel’s own interpretation and transformation. In so doing, I highlight a ‘red thread’ between the two ideas of the transcendental deduction. I conclude by proposing a formal account of Kant’s and Hegel’s ideas and by summing up the main metaphilosophical insights we can gain from Kant’s idea and its Hegelian interpretation. (shrink)