Hegel's critique of Kant was a turning point in the history of philosophy: for the first time, the concrete, situated, and in certain senses "naturalistic" style pioneered by Hegel confronted the thin, universalistic, and argumentatively purified style of philosophy that had found its most rigorous expression in Kant. The controversy has hardly died away: it virtually haunts contemporary philosophy from epistemology to ethical theory. Yet if this book is right, the full import of Hegel's critique of Kant has not been understood. Working from Hegel's mature texts (after 1807) and reading them in light of an overall interpretation of Hegel's project as a linguistic, "definitional" system, the book offers major reinterpretations of Hegel's views: The Kantian thing-in-itself is not denied but relocated as a temporal aspect of our experience. Hegel's linguistic idealism is understood in terms of his realistic view of sensation. Instead of claiming that Kant's categorical imperative is too empty to provide concrete moral guidance, Hegel praises its emptiness as the foundation for a diverse society. "Recommended." -- J. M. Fritzman ― CHOICE "...McCumber shows in a detailed and highly informative way how Hegel's idealism can be understood as a response to Kant's distinction between transcendental idealism and empirical realism by redefining not just intuition but also the sphere of universality in linguistic terms." -- Johan Siebers ― Hegel Studien "McCumber has been developing a fresh, persuasive reinterpretation of Hegel over multiple books and years; this book is a welcome extension of that project. It offers not only an important corrective to Hegel scholarship but dissolves some of the thorniest questions regarding Kant's undeniable but elusive influence on Hegel's development." -- Lydia Moland ― Colby College "McCumber's linguistic interpretation of Hegel's idealism offers an elegant, attractive and―in the best philosophical sense―provocative understanding of Hegel's position, one that makes him at once comprehensible and relevant to contemporary philosophy. The book will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the development of German philosophy." -- Peter Thielke ― Pomona College "McCumber takes a stance on some of the most pressing and interesting topics in recent Hegel scholarship, including the question of whether and in what sense Hegel can be considered a naturalist, the nature of Hegelian idealism, and Hegel's understanding of the freedom of the will." -- Julia Peters ― International Yearbook of German Idealism John McCumber is Distinguished Professor of Germanic Languages at UCLA. His most recent book is On Philosophy: Notes From a Crisis (Stanford University Press, 2013). UNDERSTANDING HEGEL'S MATURE CRITIQUE OF KANT By JOHN McCUMBER Stanford University Press Copyright © 2014 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8047-8545-7 Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................viiABBREVIATIONS..............................................................ixA NOTE ON THE TEXTS........................................................xiA SHORT INTRODUCTION TO AN ENDLESS TASK....................................11 HEGEL AND HIS PROJECT....................................................152 HEGEL CONTRA KANT ON PHILOSOPHICAL CRITIQUE AND THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE..433 TRANSCENDENTAL VERSUS LINGUISTIC IDEALISM................................774 THE NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF WILL.......................................1115 HEGEL'S CRITIQUE OF KANT'S MORAL THEORY..................................147NOTES......................................................................173REFERENCES.................................................................195INDEX......................................................................205 CHAPTER 1 HEGEL AND HIS PROJECT TWO CENTURIES OF STRENUOUS EFFORT at understanding the nature ofHegel's philosophical project have generated two main families of views—one,indeed, for each century. Both are predicated on views of Hegel's relationship toKant's critical project, but their stances on this are opposed: the older view seesHegel as revoking Kant's critique of metaphysics, while the younger one, closerto mine, sees him as continuing it. My next tasks, then, are to sketch these twogeneral understandings of Hegel, to show why they are defective, and to indicatewith what they might be replaced. A general account of that replacementwill occupy the rest of the chapter, with the specific payoffs concerning Hegel'scritique of Kant reserved for the rest of the book. That Hegel's "philosophical vision" differs from Kant's is obvious enough;even to a nonphilosophical eye, a page of Hegel does not look at all like a pageof Kant, nor of anyone else, for that matter. What is not obvious, to say theleast, is just what Hegel's way of doing philosophy amoun