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How did Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel differ from Immanuel Kant on the limits of human knowledge?
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, engraving by Lazarus Gottlieb Sichling after a lithograph by Julius Ludwig Sebbers, c. 1828; in the Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, Germany.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel fundamentally disagreed with Immanuel Kant regarding the limits of human knowledge, viewing Kant’s restrictions as a "scandal to Reason".1
Their primary differences include:
- Phenomena vs. Essences: Kant argued that human knowledge is strictly limited to phenomena—the world as it appears to us through the senses. He maintained that the noumenon, or "thing-in-itself," is beyond human cognitive capacity. In contrast, Hegel sought to transcend this divide, arguing that reason is capable of "absolute knowledge" that can penetrate into the true essence of reality.12
- The Role of Reason: For Kant, the ideas of pure reason were merely "regulative ideals" that could not be verified by experience. Hegel, however, viewed the dialectical process of thought as a way to eliminate "otherness," allowing consciousness to reach a state of unconditional truth where the rational structure of reality is fully understood.13
- Subjectivity: Hegel criticized Kant’s philosophy for being overly dependent on the standpoint of the knowing subject, which he believed led to "subjectivism" and a devaluation of objective reality. While Kant focused on the limits of the human mind, Hegel aimed to reconcile ontology and epistemology to comprehend the universe as a systematic whole.13