Kant was already dead, when both were active in the univ. lecturing. Hegel's class was full with the students, while Schopenhauer class had 3 - 4. Schopen wasn't pleased.
Schopen's philosophy was largely based on Kant's system, hence he couldn't have had been overly and unfairly critical to Kant.

he couldn't have had been overly and unfairly critical to Kant. — Corvus

I dunno, man. He spent 184 pages rippin’ Kant a new one. Right after page one, where he says Kant’s the greatest philosopher ever ….until he came along to show how he could have been even better.

God for Hegel I believe is reason personified, but it is always a personification. My grasp of Hegels philosophy of religion is not that great though, but he sees in the elaboration of God a similar process of development as he sees in reason — Tobias

"Logic is his [mans'] natural element, indeed his own peculiar nature. If nature as such, as the physical world, is contrasted with the spiritual sphere, then logic must certainly be said to be the supernatural element which permeates every relationship of man to nature, his sensation, intuition, desire, need, instinct, and simply by doing so transforms it into something human".
Preface to the second edizione, Science of Logic

This is interesting:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ruAPCcdklS4&pp=ygUbd2h5IHNjaG9wZW5oYXVlciBoYXRlIGhlZ2Vs

Although unfair to Hegel, this too has good information and might be more agreeable than the previous link

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tNP5O3GXKdo&pp=ygUUV2VpZ2llc3QgaGF0ZWQgaGVnZWw%3D

This is interesting: — Gregory

Indeed. :grin:

Even Kant was branded as an idiot by Nietzsche.

My idea on Will is in line with both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's. I am still trying to find out on Hegel's idea on will.

I am still trying to find out on Hegel's idea on — Corvus

Think of how Spinoza held that the world was God's thought and that this God had no free will. Then think of how for Hegel the world is Spirit enfolding into it own's complete freedom.

Hegel believed in fate and free will, compatabilism

Spirit pushes itself from potential to actual because the way was always open for it to

Reasoning is going on, but what reasoning is is itself a manifestation of spirit, the flow of the idea. — Tobias

I was thinking about what reasoning could be. There is no such things as reason, but reasonable acts, rational decisions and thoughts about the world, objects and movements.

Spirit sounds like the mind of the ghosts, i.e. the dead. Reasoning is the mind of the living. The fact that Hegel wrote about spirit sounds like he must have had believed in the life after death.

That we do not know something does not mean that we cannot know it. for Hegel we can know it as there cannot be anything apart from knowledge. — Tobias

In Kant, our knowledge is limited to what we can experience. Beyond that is the world of unknown. Some say that it is Kant giving room for faith alongside knowledge. Does Hegel go beyond the limit? How and what sort of knowledge is possible on the world of unknown in Hegel?

In Kant, our knowledge is limited to what we can experience. Beyond that is the world of unknown. Some say that it is Kant giving room for faith alongside knowledge. Does Hegel go beyond the limit? How and what sort of knowledge is possible on the world of unknown in Hegel? — Corvus

Yes, Hegel goes beyond those limits. Somewhere, I believe in the Pheno, but perhaps in the Logik, he writes something along the lines of 'if you pull the curtains away, the room where the thing in itself is supposed to be, is empty'. The thing in itself is constructed by Kant, as a product of his dualistic thinking. There is no 'thing in itself'. 'A world of the unknown' is contradictory because how can we know of such a 'world' and in what way would something posited as absolutely unknown, constitute a world? He leaves no room for that which cannot be understood, which actually led to large criticisms of Hegel because it gives his philosophy a rather 'absolute' character. After Hegel came Nietzsche's abyss, Heidegger and the post modern emphasis on the 'finite'. Or think of someone like Vico who held that there is always something that escapes determination. I wonder how strong these criticisms are though. I think Hegel also allows for something that necessarily escapes, but not for a 'world of the unknown'. The knowledge that is possible for Hegel is knowledge of knowledge. We learn how we know, how we think and that is all there is to know. Knowledge is self knowledge.

Spirit sounds like the mind of the ghosts, i.e. the dead. Reasoning is the mind of the living. The fact that Hegel wrote about spirit sounds like he must have had believed in the life after death. — Corvus

No, not at all. He uses spirit in a similar way like he could use a concept like 'substance'. However with 'spirit' he indicates that substance is not dead matter, but living, as in a 'spirited individual'. Don't let yourself be bewitched by some modern connotations of a word or connotations a word has in contemporary engllsh but might not have in 18th century German.

Yes, Hegel goes beyond those limits. Somewhere, I believe in the Pheno, but perhaps in the Logik, he writes something along the lines of 'if you pull the curtains away, the room where the thing in itself is supposed to be, is empty'. — Tobias

So Hegel criticised Kant setting up his own system of philosophy.  But almost all the philosophers after Hegel criticised Hegel's philosophy, it looks.  Nietzsche doesn't appear to have engaged with Hegel's philosophy directly, but he seemed to have disagreed on Hegel's concept of absolute spirit quite understandably.  I, myself, cannot quite grasp what absolute spirit means.  It sounds like as you said, personified God, or could it be something else. I am new to Hegel, so trying to understand as much as possible from the discussions while reading some of the articles on Hegel as well as the original texts too.

 But why would anyone personify God?  It seems a futile and meaningless attempt.
Kant's thing-in-itself is only dualism, if one looks at Thing-in-itself as some concrete legitimate entity even if it is known to be unknowable.  It is contradictory, and as Hegel saw it as nonexistence and illusion, then it cannot be dualism anymore.

Knowledge of knowledge?  Knowledge must be true and verifiable as truth.  If not, it is not knowledge.  There are different types of knowledge.  Analytic knowledge is from math and geometry.  Empirical knowledge is from the observation of the world. There are also types of knowledge which is neither analytic nor empirical such as self knowledge or subjective knowledge on one's own mental state, which is private to oneself the owner of the mental state. But knowledge on God or the universe doesn't belong to any of these. Does Hegel deny then knowledge of God?

No, not at all. He uses spirit in a similar way like he could use a concept like 'substance'. However with 'spirit' he indicates that substance is not dead matter, but living, as in a 'spirited individual'. — Tobias

Not many folks used the concept "spirit" in their philosophy in history. Even Aristotle doesn't appear to have used it. Aristotle used the concept of soul which is close to spirit, but not quite the same. But then you mention substance and spirit, and I wonder what the relationship between the two concepts could be. Substance sounds like material stuff that things and objects are made of. Spirit sounds mental in its nature. Perhaps you could elaborate more on the two?

But almost all the philosophers after Hegel criticised Hegel's philosophy, it looks.  Nietzsche doesn't appear to have engaged with Hegel's philosophy directly, but he seemed to have disagreed on Hegel's concept of absolute spirit quite understandably.  I, myself, cannot quite grasp what absolute spirit means.  It sounds like as you said, personified God, or could it be something else. I am new to Hegel, so trying to understand as much as possible from the discussions while reading some of the articles on Hegel as well as the original texts too. — Corvus

Well, that he is criticized a lot only attests to his importance. And, according to Hegel, it is exactly how the dialectic (aka thought) works. I do not see that at all as problematic. I think you have it the other way around. Spirit is not personified God, not at all, in fact, God is personified spirit. Spirit is the idea that the movement of thought, its dialectical development in a process of position, negation and negation of the negation, permeates the whole of reality. It can also not be otherwise, because thinking is being, we cannot conceive of anything as other than thought and so the process of history works in a similar pattern as our thought process. Spirit though is itself a very empty idea, you cannot point to it and say 'hey, this is spirit', so people tend to personfy it and that personification is called God. Philosophy though is for Hegel a more fruitful endeavor and more apprehensive of spirit than religion.

Kant's thing-in-itself is only dualism, if one looks at Thing-in-itself as some concrete legitimate entity even if it is known to be unknowable.  It is contradictory, and as Hegel saw it as nonexistence and illusion, then it cannot be dualism anymore. — Corvus

Hegel is a monist. I do not understand what you mean here very well I think...

Knowledge of knowledge?  Knowledge must be true and verifiable as truth.  If not, it is not knowledge. — Corvus

Such a definition looks more like Gettier than Hegel. For analytic philosophers truth is a truth value which can be assigned to propositions. That is not what Hegel is getting at. For Hegel knowledge is much more akin to 'recognition', a recognition of the logical categories (quanitty, quality, measure, being, nothing, becoming etc) that we have imposed on the world. That was also Kant's problem. Hegel criticizes Kant but also embraces him. He tries to make Kant practical and thinks the 'modern' train of thought is capable of more than Kant thought possible.

Not many folks used the concept "spirit" in their philosophy in history. Even Aristotle doesn't appear to have used it. — Corvus

It has some commonalities with philosophical concepts like stoic anima or Aristotelian energeia I guess. Schelling was a predecessor of Hegel, he used it. The notion comes up in a specific philosophical tradition, that of German idealism. It has made marks though. In both German and Dutch the science of the humanities is still called 'Geisteswissenschaft', of geesteswetenschap.

Substance sounds like material stuff that things and objects are made of. Spirit sounds mental in its nature. Perhaps you could elaborate more on the two? — Corvus

The material that objects are made of and its mental conception are not different things. Only in our ways of conceptualizing did we find it necessary to make distinction between mind and matter. There is nothing objective about the distinction though, it is a product of mental activity. Since thought dictates all the conceptual distinctions we make, 'substance' is a mental thing. Substance is subject, 'spirit'.

There is no 'thing in itself'. 'A world of the unknown' is contradictory because how can we know of such a 'world' and in what way would something posited as absolutely unknown, constitute a world? — Tobias

There is a passage in Logic that describes that as the problem of the 'knower' determining the conditions of cognition independently of the attempts to know:

This thought, which is proposed as the instrument of philosophic knowledge, itself calls for further explanation. We must understand in what way it possesses necessity or cogency: and when it claims to be equal to the task of apprehending the absolute objects (God, Spirit, Freedom), that claim must be substantiated. Such an explanation, however, is itself a lesson in philosophy, and properly falls within the scope of the science itself. A preliminary attempt to make matters plain would only be unphilosophical, and consist of a tissue of assumptions, assertions, and inferential pros and cons, i.e. of dogmatism without cogency, as against which there would be an equal right of counter-dogmatism.

A main line of argument in the Critical Philosophy bids us pause before proceeding to inquire into God or into the true being of things, and tells us first of all to examine the faculty of cognition and see whether it is equal to such an effort. We ought, says Kant, to become acquainted with the instrument, before we undertake the work for which it is to be employed; for if the instrument be insufficient, all our trouble will be spent in vain. The plausibility of this suggestion has won for it general assent and admiration; the result of which has been to withdraw cognition from an interest in its objects and absorption in the study of them, and to direct it back upon itself; and so turn it to a question of form. Unless we wish to be deceived by words, it is easy to see what this amounts to. In the case of other instruments, we can try and criticize them in other ways than by setting about the special work for which they are destined. But the examination of knowledge can only be carried out by an act of knowledge. To examine this so-called instrument is the same thing as to know it. But to seek to know before we know is as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, not to venture into the water until he had learned to swim.

Reinhold saw the confusion with which this style of commencement is chargeable, and tried to get out of the difficulty by starting with a hypothetical and problematical stage of philosophizing. In this way he supposed that it would be possible, nobody can tell how, to get along, until we found ourselves, further on, arrived at the primary truth of truths. His method, when closely looked into, will be seen to be identical with a very common practice. It starts from a substratum of experiential fact, or from a provisional assumption which has been brought into a definition; and then proceeds to analyse this starting-point. We can detect in Reinhold’s argument a perception of the truth, that the usual course which proceeds by assumptions and anticipations is no better than a hypothetical and problematical mode of procedure. But his perceiving this does not alter the character of this method; it only makes clear its imperfections. — Hegel's Logic, Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of The Philosophical Sciences, page 116

Learning to swim while in the water is to become aware of the movement in which 'subject' and 'object' occur in life experiences:

With self-consciousness, then, we have therefore entered the realm of truth. We have now to see how the shape of self-consciousness first makes its appearance. If we consider this new shape of knowing, the knowing of itself, in relation to that which preceded, viz. the knowing of another, the knowing of an other, then we see that though this other has vanished, its moments have at the same time no less been preserved, and the loss consists in this, that here they are present as they are in themselves. The [mere] being of what is merely 'meant', the singleness and universality opposed to it of perception, as also empty inner being of the Understanding, these are no longer essences, but are moments of self-consciousness, i.e. abstraction or distinctions which at the same time have no reality for consciousness itself, and are purely vanishing essences. Thus it seems that only the principal moment itself has been lost, viz. the simple self-subsistent existence for consciousness. But in point of fact self-consciousness is the reflection out of the being of the world of sense and perception, and is essentially the return from otherness. — Phenomenology of Spirit, B. Self-Consciousness, IV. The Truth of Self-Certainty, 167, translated by Miller

The way the Phenomenology passage nestles the 'objects' referred to in Logic prompts me to qualify your statement:

Yes, Hegel goes beyond those limits. — Tobias

The "simple self-subsistent existence" is what was being sought "outside the water" by Kant. For Hegel, however, the isolated ego is no longer juxtaposed by 'true' objects.

Independent beings are seen through a process of living. the sections from 168 to 173 of the Phenomenology lay out how this Life generates our experience. In 170, Individuals are described as:

The independent members are for themselves; but this being-for-itself is really no less immediately their reflection into the unity than this unity is the splitting-up into independent shapes. The unity is divided within itself because it is an absolutely negative or infinite unity; and because it is what subsists, the difference, too, has independence only in it. — ibid. 170

The limits to knowledge for an individual are depicted as floating in a larger sea:

Life in the universal fluid medium, a passive separating-out of the shapes becomes, just by doing so, a movement of those shapes or becomes Life as a process. The simple universal fluid is the in-itself, and the difference of the shapes is the other. But this fluid this fluid medium itself becomes the other through this difference; for now it is for the difference which exists in and for itself, and consequentially is the ceaseless movement by which this passive medium is consumed: Life as a living thing. — ibid. 171

I think you have it the other way around. Spirit is not personified God, not at all, in fact, God is personified spirit. — Tobias

Saying God is personified spirit, that sounds like a religious claim. In philosophy, God is to be proved either via reasoning or presenting the evidence of the existence of God.

It is understandable to say spirit could be personified God as a part of assumptions or inferences for further arguments for the proof of God, but saying God is personified spirit sounds like the claimer has already accepted the existence of God without any proof or evidence blindly, which doesn't quite sound like a philosophical claim.

Spirit is the idea that the movement of thought, its dialectical development in a process of position, negation and negation of the negation, permeates the whole of reality. — Tobias

This sounds ambiguous too. The expression "the movement of thought" doesn't make sense at all. Thought is always about something, and it always happens in the thinkers mind. Saying "the movement of thought" without any clarification, who the thinker of the thought is, and what the content of the thought is, saying thought is moving to some direction sounds like a groundless personification of thought, which breaks the logic of thought.

Saying God is personified spirit, that sounds like a religious claim. In philosophy, God is to be proved either via reasoning or presenting the evidence of the existence of God. — Corvus

It is more akin to a sociological claim. I do not think God is to be proved at all actually. Hegels point is not to prove or disprove the existence of God but to understand the function of God as a category of though.

This sounds ambiguous too. The expression "the movement of thought" doesn't make sense at all. Thought is always about something, and it always happens in the thinkers mind. — Corvus

I suggest that if you like to read Hegel you read him on his own terms and not provide your own assumptions as gospel. You reenact some kind of dualist philosophy of mind I guess, but that is not where Hegel is at. He does not abide by the categories of analytic philosophy.

Hegel is a monist. I do not understand what you mean here very well I think... — Tobias

Yes, you misunderstood me there. Everyone knows Hegel is a monist. I meant, from what Hegel was saying, Kant's dualism doesn't make sense, unless of course, Kant believed in the concrete existence of Thing-in-itself. He didn't.

Why saying the world beyond experience is unknowable makes Kant a dualist? "unknowable world" doesn't mean it exists. It is unknowable on whether it exists or not. I have been denying Kant was a dualist. Some other folks think Kant was a dualist. I hope this point makes sense. If not, please let me know.

I suggest that if you like to read Hegel you read him on his own terms and not provide your own assumptions as gospel. You reenact some kind of dualist philosophy of mind I guess, but that is not where Hegel is at. He does not abide by the categories of analytic philosophy. — Tobias

There are some common grounds between Hegel's philosophy and Analytic philosophy. They are not totally opposite ends with no common grounds. There are many analytic philosophers who are deeply influenced by Hegel such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell. I found parts of Hegel's writings in SL and PS highly analytic in fact.

Using the logical analysis on the original writings of philosophy is not just for analytic traditional folks. All philosophers do use the analysis for making the texts clearer and more understandable for us. Not doing so would be seen as acts of denying the legitimate philosophical analysis, and could even be regarded as acts of unnecessary and meaningless abstraction of the original texts.

There are some common grounds between Hegel's philosophy and Analytic philosophy. They are not totally opposite ends with no common grounds. There are many analytic philosophers who are deeply influenced by Hegel such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell. I found parts of Hegel's writings in SL and PS highly analytic in fact. — Corvus

Yes, th Pittsburgh Hegelians are indebted to Hegel. Hegel uses rational argumentation to that extent he is 'analytic'. I do think his concepts are very different though and he does not attach equal importance to conceptual definition.

Using the logical analysis on the original writings of philosophy is not just for analytic traditional folks. All philosophers do use the analysis for making the texts clearer and more understandable for us. — Corvus

I have a great admiration for Hegel, he is my favorite, but I have a hard time holding him up as an example of clear writing...

Not doing so would be seen as acts of denying the legitimate philosophical analysis, and could even be regarded as acts of unnecessary and meaningless abstraction of the original texts. — Corvus

I do not know if there is one 'legitimate' conception of philosophical analysis. The tradition includes writers who are highly mystic such as Plato or Al Ghazali, poetic like Nietzsche, logical like Russel or Wittgenstein and social scientific like Foucault. I find Hegel interesting because he seems like a bridge, his concerns are metaphysical, while he also initiated a 'historic' turn.

The "simple self-subsistent existence" is what was being sought "outside the water" by Kant. For Hegel, however, the isolated ego is no longer juxtaposed by 'true' objects.

Independent beings are seen through a process of living. the sections from 168 to 173 of the Phenomenology lay out how this Life generates our experience. In 170, Individuals are described as: — Paine

Thanks for these Paine. You are right to qualify my statement. It is not that Hegel goed beyond the limit, he does not recognize it as such. The thing in itself is a consequence of Kant's formality.

The thing in itself is a consequence of Kant's formality. — Tobias

Hegel seems to reenlist a lot of these terms for his own purposes.

Hegel seems to reenlist a lot of these terms for his own purposes. — Paine

That's the history of philosophy in a nutshell ;)

The thing in itself is constructed by Kant, as a product of his dualistic thinking. There is no 'thing in itself'. 'A world of the unknown' is contradictory because how can we know of such a 'world' and in what way would something posited as absolutely unknown, constitute a world? — Tobias

I would be interested in your view of this interpretation: I understand the in-itself to refer to the world (or object) prior to or outside the way it appears to the observer. We don't see the world (or object) as it is in itself, because the very act of perceiving requires that what is seen has been assimilated by the observer as an appearance. So the 'in itself' is not anything, but it's not a 'mysterious entity' or 'unknown thing'.

As per this interpretation:

Kant's introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. The concept was harshly criticized in his own time and has been lambasted by generations of critics since. A standard objection to the notion is that Kant has no business positing it given his insistence that we can only know what lies within the limits of possible experience. But a more sympathetic reading is to see the concept of the “thing in itself” as a sort of placeholder in Kant's system; it both marks the limits of what we can know and expresses a sense of mystery that cannot be dissolved, the sense of mystery that underlies our unanswerable questions. — Emrys Westacott

There's also the much-overlooked distinction in Kant's texts between the in-itself and the noumenal. They're not synonyms.