Quotes from Stephen Houlgate

Kantian philosophical caution is thus not actually as cautious as it pretends to be, for it rests on assumptions that it takes for granted.

In the Logic, Hegel states that this 'unity' of thought and being constitutes the 'element' or 'principle' of logic.7 Logic thus starts from the idea that being is known by pure thought to be intelligible to pure thought.

In Hegel's view, Kant is the father of the critical era in philosophy to which we all now belong. He contends, however, that Kant himself did not carry out a sufficiently profound critique of the categories. What Kant did, in Hegel's view, was – mistakenly – restrict their range of validity: he argued that they should be employed to understand only possible objects of experience, but not things 'in themselves'.

In Hegel's view, an uncritical, or inadequately critical, approach to the categories takes a certain understanding of them on authority – be it the authority of past philosophers, tradition, common sense or formal logic.

For Hegel, therefore, all truly critical philosophy in the wake of Kant is governed by the following imperative: all 'presuppositions or assumptions must equally be given up when we enter into science'. Science – that is to say, philosophy – should thus be 'preceded by universal doubt, i.e.,

Whereas Spinoza begins with contestable definitions of substance, attribute and mode, Hegel begins with the utterly indeterminate thought of pure 'being'.