Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T21:58:21.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

To Suspend Finitude Itself: Hegel’s Reaction to Kant’s First Antinomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2016

Reed Winegar
Reed Winegar*
Affiliation:
Fordham University, USAbwinegar@fordham.edu
Get access

Abstract

Hegel famously criticizes Kant’s resolution of the antinomies. According to Sedgwick, Hegel primarily chastises Kant’s resolution for presupposing that concepts are ‘one-sided’, rather than identical to their opposites. If Kant had accepted the dialectical nature of concepts, then (according to Sedgwick) Kant would not have needed to resolve the antinomies. However, as Ameriks has noted, any such interpretation faces a serious challenge. Namely, Kant’s first antinomy concerns the universe’s physical dimensions. Even if we grant that the concept of the finite is necessarily related to that of the infinite, the physical universe cannot both have and lack a temporal beginning. I argue that Hegel neither adopts Sedgwick’s view that Kant’s antinomies require no resolution nor absurdly accepts that the physical universe both has and lacks a temporal beginning. Instead, Hegel proposes a sophisticated resolution of Kant’s first antinomy (including its physical aspect) that depends on Hegel’s theory of the Absolute.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , May 2016 , pp. 81 - 103
Copyright
© The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Azm, S. J. (1972), The Origins of Kant’s Arguments in the Antinomies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Allison, H. E. (2004), Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, revised and enlarged edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ameriks, K. (2000), Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: Problems in the Appropriation of the Critical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beiser, F. C. (2005), Hegel. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (1974), Kant’s Dialectic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Boehm, O. (2011), ‘The First Antinomy and Spinoza’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19: 683–710.Google Scholar
Bowman, B. (2013), Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Düsing, K. (2010), ‘Ontology and Dialectic in Hegel’s Thought’, in N. G. Limnatis (ed.), The Dimensions of Hegel’s Dialectic. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Forster, M. N. (1998), Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Förster, E. (2011), Die 25 Jahre der Philosophie. Frankfurt: Klostermann.Google Scholar
Franks, P. W. (2005), All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grier, M. (2001), Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, P. (1987), Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1896), Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. III, trans. E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1970), Werke in zwanzig Bänden: Theorie-Werkausgabe, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977a), The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy, ed. W. Cerf and H. S. Harris. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1977b), Faith and Knowledge, ed. W. Cerf and H. S. Harris. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Heidemann, D. H. (2010), ‘Doubt and Dialectic: Hegel on Logic, Metaphysics, and Skepticism’, in N. G. Limnatis (ed.), The Dimensions of Hegel’s Dialectic. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Horstmann, R.-P. (1990), Wahrheit aus dem Begriff: Eine Einführung in Hegel. Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain.Google Scholar
Horstmann, R.-P. (1995), ‘What’s Wrong with Kant’s Categories, Professor Hegel?’, in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, ed. H. Robinson. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.Google Scholar
Horstmann, R.-P. (2003), ‘Den Verstand zur Vernunft bringen? Hegels Auseinandersetzung mit Kant in der Differenz-Schrift’, in W. Welsch and K. Vieweg (eds.), Das Interesse des Denkens: Hegel aus heutiger Sicht. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1997), Critique of Pure Reason, ed. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1900ff.), Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin: Reimer [later de Gruyter].Google Scholar
Kreines, J. (2006), ‘Hegel’s Metaphysics: Changing the Debate’, Philosophy Compass 1: 466–480.Google Scholar
Longuenesse, B. (2000), ‘Point of View of Man or Knowledge of God: Kant and Hegel on Concept, Judgment, and Reason’, in S. Sedgwick (ed.), The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maaß, J. G. E. (1789), ‘Ueber die Antinomie der reinen Vernunft’, Philosophisches Magazin 1: 469–495.Google Scholar
Maimon, S. (1794), Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens: Nebst angehängten Briefen des Philadeletes an Aenesidemus. Berlin: Ernst Felisch.Google Scholar
McTaggart, J. M. E. (1908), ‘The Unreality of Time’, Mind 17: 457–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedgwick, S. (1991), ‘Hegel’s Strategy and Critique of Kant’s Mathematical Antinomies’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 8: 423–440.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, S. (2012), Hegel’s Critique of Kant: From Dichotomy to Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar