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BetweenKantand Hegel.
(SUNYseriesinHegelianstudies)
Bibliography:p.
1.Philosophy,Modern-18thcentury-Addresses,essays,
lectures. 2.Philosophy,Modern-19thcentury- Addresses,
essays,lectures. 3.Philosophy,German-18thcentury
Addresses,essays,lectures. 4. Philosophy,German-19th
century- Addresses,essays,lectures. I. DiGiovanni,
George, 1935- II. Harris, H.S.(HenrySilton),
1926- Ill.Series.
B2741,B485 1985 142'.3 84-16252
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PREFACE
This volume was born in what was at first only a strategic decision
to combine two mutually compatible (but more limited) projects. On
the one hand, there was a desire to fill one of the most important
lacunae in the philosophical tradition as it exists for English speaking
readers, by providing an anthology from the crucial generation of
Germanthinkers betweenKant andHegel; onthe otherhand, adesire
to make available the few important essays from the Critical Journal
of Schelling and Hegel that were still untranslated. But there was
hardly enough material in this second project to make a proper book
by itself. The problem with the first project, on the other hand, was
to reduce it to the dimensions of a single volume appropriately.
Coalescing the two projects resolved both problems at once. The first
offered the larger material context required by the second, while the
focus provided by the CriticalJournal supplied the first with the limit
that it needed.
The resulting volume, however, has an organic unity that the original
purely strategic decision could not have provided by itself. The
remarkable coherence of the philosophical experience documented
by the texts in this volume is something which the translators came
to appreciate only in the process ofworking on them. It is the lesson
that we learned.
Kant's critical philosophy was determined by three factors. There
was, first, the desire to establish philosophy on a sound scientificbasis;
second, the awareness ofthe limitations ofhuman reason; and third,
the belief that a science of philosophy could be established all the
same, in spite of these limitations, using the 'subject' as principle.
Now, in the first period ofthe reception ofcritical philosophy, which
is documented in the first part ofthis volume, the tone was setby K.
L. Reinhold. Reinhold was a product of the Erllightenment, and his
almost instantaneous success in making the Critique popular among
his contemporaries was due to a large extent to his ability to re"'state
it in term.s drawn from the Enlightenment tradition which they could
all understand. The universally accepted assumption was that
philosophy mustbe based on the 'factsofconsciousness'. Dissensions
arose only in respect to the nature of these supposed facts, or the
viii di Giovanni and Harris
possibility ofever establishing the truth about them with any degree
of certainty. As Reinhold now re...interpreted the Critique, the latter
had uncovered a new and infallible source of'original facts' that could
resolve all past philosophical dissensions, and finally set philosophy
on a scientific, systematic basis. Reinhold's interpretation, in other
words, stressed the first and third element of critical philosophy to
the prejudice of the second. Of course Reinhold paid abundant lip
service to Kant's pronouncements about the limitations of human
reason. But in fact there was in him not the least trace of the new
'critical skepticism', or the belief that reason is at odds with itself
precisely qua reason, that animated the Critique. In this respect
Reinhold's interpretation was a very conservative one. It forced critical
philosophybackinto theconceptualstraight...jacketoftheEnlightenment.
How much it was still vulnerable, when viewed in this way, to the
attacks of the skepticism of the Enlightenment type was amply
demonstrated by the Aenesidemus of Schulze.
The appearance ofthe Aenesidemus precipitated Fichte's statement
of his version of critical philosophy. Fichte, and also Schelling soon
after, contributed a new and much more romantic note to the debate
surrounding the Critique. They also provided anew definition of'fact
of consciousness', and re...stated the problem of the relationship that
Kant had assumed between 'appearances' aIld 'thing...in...itself in strictly
subjective terms, as a relationship between the 'conscious' and the
'unconscious'. The latter move was one which Reinhold had already
anticipated; but it remained for Fichte and Schelling to exploit it in
full. Yet, for all their differences from Reinhold, the interpretation of
criticalphilosophygivenby Fichte and Schellingwas nolessconservative
than his. It was still based on the beliefthat we can escape from the
limits of conceptualization, and ground the edifice of philosophical
reason on some sort ofimmediate infallible 'fact'. Although they were
now parading it in a more dynamicform, dressed up in the execrable
language of the Absolute, Fichte and Schelling were still bound to
the intuitionism of classical philosophy.
The originality of Hegel's interpretation of critical philosophy can
only be appreciated when this is recognized. Hegel was the first to
take seriously the skeptical aspect ofthe Critique, which was after all
its most revolutionary one. He understood that reason is antinomic
by nature. It has to enter into conflict with itself, since it is capable of
reflecting upon its concepts, and hence is constantly creating adistance
between itself and itself. On the other hand, by the very fact that
reason recognized its inner discord, it has already overcome it. It knows
how to contain it. This, ifany, is the fundamental 'fact' ofconsciousness
on which philosophy has to capitalize in order to establish itself as
genuine science. To take this as the starting point of philosophy,
-----------------------
Preface ix
however, as Hegel eventually did, was to reverse the whole thrust of
the previous interpretations of critical philosophy. It was to commit
philosophy to the circle of conceptualization, whereas all previous
philosophy had tried to transcend it. The task ofphilosophywas now
to abide by the conflictsofreasoninorderto deepen their significance,
and ultimately turn them into constructive means ofthe life ofspirit.
Kanthadofcourse implicidy defined aprogramme ofthis sort. Criticism
was for him a way ofliving at the very limitofthought, by recognizing
that limit and ensuring that it is never transcended. But Kant still
hankered after a supposed intellectual intuition that would have
removed the limit-as if the labour of the concept could yield only
the second best truth, or the only truthfor us. The difference in Hegel
is th.at for him that labour is all that there is, and to try to escape it
through some mystical intuition only leads to nihilism.
This position of Hegel is only to be found fully elaborated in the
Phenomenology and in the Logic. It is not to be found in the essays
from the CriticalJournal translated in the second part ofthis volume.
Yet these essays are significant, because they show Hegel precisely as
he is reflecting on the nature of skepticism, both new and old. The
break from Schelling's intuitionism was still to come, but the
reconstruction of the history of skepticism that Hegel was now
attempting provided the falling stone that eventually precipitated the
latter developments, as the actual facts show. For even now Hegel
perceived that the truth of skepticism (of ancient skepticism at least,
for Hegel put no more store by the skepticism of the Enlightenment
type than he did by Reinhold) is that there is no criterionby which to
distinguish between true appearance and false. At this time Hegel
could just as well use his insight to justify the kind of negative logic
with which he routinely prefaced his lectures on metaphysics. The
function of this logic was to unmask the contradiction inherent in
any conceptual construct, and thereby clear the way for the intuition
on which the metaphysics supposedly depended. ButHegel only had
torealize thatthe soughtfor criterionlies preciselyinthe debatebetween
one philosophical position and another, between skepticism and
dogmatism, and ultimately between philosophy and unphilosophy,
in order to make that supposed intuition superfluous.
The texts in the second part of this volume document some of
Hegel's earliest public reflections on critical philosophy, and on the
debate surrounding it. They herald his eventual shift ofconcern away
from the 'content' ofphilosophicaldebate to the 'debate' itself. Together
with the texts in the first part they represent one aspect of the story
of the events that run from Kant to Hegel. The whole story, as we
see it, consistsinHegel'sreturn to aKantfreed from hisEnlightenment
encumbrances, after Hegel's break from Schelling's intuitionism has
x di Giovanni and Harris
allowed him to shake off those encumbrances himself. Neither the
texts, nor the two introductory essays (either singly or together) give
the full story, of course. They only hint at it; we only hope that the
hint is more than just a vague gesture.
In another respect too the present volume is limited. The focus
provided for itby the CriticalJournal has resulted in abias that should
not be overlooked or minimized. What happened in Germany in the
twenty,five years following the publication of the Critique of Pure
Reason (1781) is far more complex than this selection of texts can
reveal; there are importantfigures and groups who are here omitted,
and in some instances what is included can hardly provide an adequate
sample of the author's range and significance. There is scope left for
at least another volume of texts that would reflect the moral side of
the debate represented here. At any rate, the present volume ought
to be read in conjunction with the translations by Cerf and Harris,
PeterHeath, and FritzMarti, ofotherearly textsfrom Fichte, Schelling,
and Hegel.
The complete absence in thisvolume ofF.H.Jacobi is to be regretted.
But the reader will soon realize that repetitive long,windedness is a
common fault in this generation of writers; andJacobi suffered from
it more than most of them (as Hegel's summaries and citations in
Faith and Knowledge rather cruelly underline). Jacobi was an
influential thinker-not least upon Coleridge. But his first appearance
in English dress must wait upon another occasion.
Exceptin the case ofone previously published essay, we have each
gone over the other's work carefully; but only the Schelling essay is a
collaborative effort in the full sense. There the first draft and the
final revision of the text is by di Giovanni; but a second draft was
made, and finally the footnotes were added by Harris. Elsewhere we
have operated more independently, and each of us bears the final
responsibility for his own decisions. Because of this independence
some variations in terminology will be observed; but we hardly feel
that this calls for apology, since even one translator working alone
could not maintain terminological uniformity in rendering such.a varied
group ofwriters (atleastnotwithout awkward artificialities, and perhaps
not without serious distortions).
We should mention, on the other hand, three instances in which
we deliberately chose to be consistent. The distinction between wissen
and erkennen (and their derivatives) is in German to a large extent
idiomatic. Butin Hegel it assumes philosophical significance, and for
this reason we decided to retain it in English as far as possible by
translating the two terms with 'knowledge' and 'cognition' (and their
derivatives) respectively. But 'cognition' and 'cognizing' can be terribly
artificial in English; so, in the other (non...Hegelian) texts we have
Preface xi
been prepared to shift back to 'knowledge' and 'knowing' whenever
the awkwardness became unbearable, provided that there was no
obvious advantage in abiding by the convention. (This happened
especially in the excerpts from Aenesidemus and from Beck). The
same applies to Verhaltnis and Beziehung. In this case too the distinction
acquires a technical meaning in Hegel, and we have tried to preserve
itby translating Verhaltnis as 'relation' and Beziehung(apartfrom rare
and unimportant exceptions) as 'connection' or 'reference'. In any
event, 'relation' as itis being used in English nowadays is too broad a
term for Beziehung; the epistemological bias of our texts requires a
narrower concept such as 'connection' or 'reference'. The translation
of ich also presented a problem. '1' can be awkward. 'Self, which is
the translation adopted by Heath and Lachs, does notreally translate
ich. Moreover, it carries psychological connotations that are completely
outofplace incertaincontexts (notablyin Fichte). The term isobviously
a technical one which our authors use with meanings that vary
considerably and since in English the natural way of rendering
philosophical technical terms is Latin, we finally opted for ego. This
translation also has the advantage of reminding the reader of the
Cartesian background of the German philosophical ich.
All the internalreferences to the texts translated in thisvolume are
by the pagination of the original text (which is printed in the margin
of our text).
It remains for us to make due acknowledgements. We shall do this
under separate initials below. To all those mentioned, and to the
others, some ofwhom we may notremember, we wish to express our
heartfelt thanks.
George di Giovanni H.S. Harris
McGill University YorkUniversity
Montreal Toronto
I wish to thank McGill University for a research grant that helped
defray some of the expenses incurred in the work of translation and
in the preparation ofthe final manuscript; my colleagues in the German
J.
Department, Profs. H. Richter and Schmidt, who answered
innumerable questions about German usage; Dr. Manfred Kuehn,
who helped track down some very obscure references; Mrs. Laurie
McRobert, who read and commented on an early draft of the Beck
Itext; and Dr. Laura Zagolin, who did the same for the other texts for
IwhichI amresponsible. MostofallI wishto thankmy collaboratorin
this project, H.S. Harris, who went over all my texts with a fine
xii di Giovanni and Harris
toothcomb, detected many inaccuracies and made innumerable stylistic
suggestions. If Reinhold, Schulze, Fichte, Maimon and Beck have as
good acommand ofcolloquialEnglish as they show in this volume, it
is due to a large extent to him. I am responsible of course for any
mistake.
G. di G.
The editing and preparation of the final manuscript of the Critical
Journal essays was supported by two research grants from Glendon
College (York University) for which I am very grateful. Most of this
final editorial work was done by Anne Harris (who also helped in lots
of other ways). The «Introduction for the Critical Journal» and the
«Scepticism» essay were typed by Ruth Koski Harris; «Scepticism,
Dogmatism and Speculation» and the «Krug» essay were typed first
by Ida Sabag and again by Anne Harris. Stephen Boos helped with
the Bibliography. To all of them, my thanks.
For the text of the essays from the Critical Journal I have used the
reprint published in 1957 (Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung,
Hildesheim). But Ihave also consulted both the critical edition, edited
by H. Buchner and O. Poggeler (Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. IV,
Hamburg: Meiner, 1968) and the French translation of the «Intro..
duction» and the «Skepticism» essay by B. Fauquet (Paris: Vrin, 1972).
From these two sources I derived much of the information in the
footnotes; and the pioneer work ofFauquet was an immense help in
the making of the English version. (I wish that I had discovered N.
Merker's Italian translation .. Bari, Laterza, 1970-sooner. He was the
real pioneer, but I did not know it).
The translation of the «Introduction» for the Critical Journal was
first published in the Independent Journal of Philosophy, III (1979). It
appears here bykind permissionofthe editor, Dr. George ElliotTucker.
Dr. Tucker deserves my thanks also for his careful examination of
the translation at the time ofitsfirst appearance. Many ofhis helpful
suggestions were adopted then and are preserved now.
To George di Giovanni lowe a debt of a different kind. It is true
that he went over my other contributions in the way that Dr. Tucker
wentover the "Essence ofPhilosophical Criticism"; and Iam grateful
for that. But the insights Ihave gained from his own contributions to
this volume (and from our discussions about it) into whatHegel called
the "revolution" to be expected from the perfecting of the Kantian
system are much more important. Ihave written about that"revolution"
for years without any proper grasp of its context. I trust that I am
only the first ofmany readers to owe this debt to George; and Iwould
Preface xiii
wish their gratitude to be directed to the right address-as mine is.
George being on sabbatical leave in Belgium at the time, the task
ofcorrecting proofs and preparing the indexfell to my lot(whichwas
only fair since he did most of the work in the earlier preparation of
the manuscript). I have received valuable assistance in both tasks
from Carol and Anne Harris and from Pierre Bruneau and James
Devin. The index was typed by Ruth Koski Harris. I am very grateful
to all of them.
H. S. H.
PART
I
The Critical Philosophy
and its First Reception
The Facts of Consciousness
George di Giovanni
