One of Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) most controversial philosophical assertions is that space and time are, as far as we can know, nothing more than features of the way our minds are constituted, rather than features of a mind-independent reality. We will initially examine this allegedly subjective nature of space and time, the necessary logical orderings that we project onto our experience, along with Kant’s theory of freedom. The aim will be to understand how Kant protected science from sceptical attacks, while paying for it by maintaining that metaphysical truth is unknowable.
We will also consider how GWF Hegel (1770-1831) replied that we can, by looking into ourselves, indeed know the essential nature of the universe. Our focus will be on the metaphysical nature of self-consciousness, Hegel’s various formulations of the essence of Christianity, his dialectical logic and his foundational belief that everything in the universe is rationally interconnected and moving in a positive direction.