Idealism Without Limits (Ebook) von Klaus Brinkmann

This text defends Hegel’s claim to objective knowledge by bringing out the transcendental strategy underlying Hegel’s argument in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Logic. It thus sheds new light on the internal structure of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.

In this study of Hegel's philosophy, Brinkmann undertakes to defend Hegel's claim to objective knowledge by bringing out the transcendental strategy underlying Hegel's argument in thePhenomenology of Spirit and the Logic. Hegel's metaphysical commitments are shown to become moot through this transcendental reading. Starting with a survey of current debates about the possibility of objective knowledge, the book next turns to the original formulation of the transcendental argument in favor of a priori knowledge in Kant's First Critique. Through a close reading of Kant's Transcendental Deduction and Hegel's critique of it, Brinkmann tries to show that Hegel develops an immanent critique of Kant's position that informs his reformulation of the transcendental project in the Introduction to thePhenomenology of Spirit and the formulation of the position of 'objective thought' in theScience of Logic and theEncyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Brinkmann takes the reader through the strategic junctures of the argument of thePhenomenologythat establishes the position of objective thinking with which the Logic begins. A critical examination of the Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy shows that Hegel's metaphysical doctrine of the self-externalization of spirit need not compromise the ontological project of the Logic and thus does not burden the position of objective thought with pre-critical metaphysical claims.