1001Philosophers

Immanuel Kant vs Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel vs Arthur Schopenhauer

Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer are the three foundational figures of nineteenth-century German philosophy. Hegel and Schopenhauer were near contemporaries who developed sharply opposed responses to Kant's critical philosophy, and the contrast between them frames much of the subsequent continental tradition.

Key differences at a glance

Immanuel KantGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelArthur Schopenhauer
Status of the thing in itself Real but in principle unknowable to finite reason.Knowable as appearance grasped in its full development.Identifiable as blind, irrational will.
Direction of reason Critical limit on what knowledge can claim.Self-realizing; develops through history toward the absolute.Subordinate; reason serves the underlying will.
Verdict on existence Neutral; structured by the categories.Optimistic; freedom realizes itself in modern institutions.Pessimistic; life is suffering produced by aimless will.
Practical conclusion Act from duty in accordance with the moral law.Recognize freedom realized in the rational state.Deny the will through asceticism, contemplation, art.

Biographical facts

Immanuel KantGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelArthur Schopenhauer
Dates 1724 – 18041770 – 18311788 – 1860
Nationality GermanGermanGerman
Era ModernModernModern
Profile Immanuel Kant →Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel →Arthur Schopenhauer →

Where they agree

All three worked within the post-Kantian project of analyzing the conditions of experience, all three held that the appearance of the world conceals an underlying reality, and all three took aesthetic experience as central to philosophical reflection. Hegel and Schopenhauer are unintelligible without Kant's critical philosophy behind them.

Where they disagree

The decisive disagreement is over what underlies appearance. Kant restricted knowledge to appearances and held that things in themselves are unknowable — a critical limit that defines the modesty of his project. Hegel rejected the restriction: the thing in itself is not unknowable but rather the appearance grasped in its full development, and reason itself develops through history toward absolute self-knowledge. Schopenhauer accepted Kant's distinction but identified the thing in itself with blind, irrational will — a striving force whose recognition is the precondition of its denial through asceticism. Where Kant marks a limit, Hegel finds a higher rational unity, and Schopenhauer finds the basis for philosophical pessimism.

Representative quotes

Immanuel Kant

  • “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

    Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

  • “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”

    Der kategorische Imperativ, der überhaupt nur aussagt, was Verbindlichkeit sei, ist: handle nach einer Maxime, welche zugleich als ein allgemeines Gesetz gelten kann.

  • “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

    Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6. | Variant translations: Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built. | From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned. | Never a straight thing was made from the crooked timber of man.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  • “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”

    Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counter

  • “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”

    What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

  • “Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.”

    Often abbreviated to: Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion. | Variant translation: We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm.

Arthur Schopenhauer

  • “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.”

    Das Talent gleicht dem Schützen, der ein Ziel trifft, welches die Uebrigen nicht erreichen können; das Genie dem, der eines trifft, bis zu welchem sie nicht ein Mal zu sehn vermögen... | Vol. II, Ch. III, para. 31 (On Genius), 1844 | As cited in The Little Book of Bathroom Philosophy: Daily Wisdom from the Greatest Thinkers‎ (2004) by Gregory Bergman, p. 137

  • “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

    Psychological Observations

  • “We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.”

    As attributed in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 624

Pairwise comparisons

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