Hegel's Theory Of Self-consciousness And Its Relations With Kant's Theory Of Self-consciousness

Hegel's theory of self-consciousness is the important part of his philosophy, which had impact on later philosophies. However, there is a close ties between Hegel's theory of self-consciousness and Kant's theory of self-consciousness. In this paper, the author tries to elaborate Kant's and Hegel's theories of self-consciousness and the relations between the two.The paper is divided into four chapters. In the Chapter One, the author selectively introduces the pre-Kant's viewpoints on self-consciousness, which are the germ of the theory of self-consciousness in the Greece, and the viewpoints of self-consciousness in empiricism and rationalism in the modern time. Especially, the concepts of Descartes''I think', Leibniz's apperception, Locke's identity of personality, Hume's stream of self-consciousness had impacts on Kant's philosophy.In the Chapter Two, the author sets forth Kant's theory of self-consciousness. Kant divides the self- consciousness into'empiricist self- consciousness'and'transcendental self- consciousness'according to their sources. He thinks that Descartes theory of self-consciousness deal merely with'the empiricist self- consciousness', which is changeable and has only subjective unity. Contrarily, Kant insists on'transcendental self- consciousness'which is most important and the sources of all knowledge a priori.Chapter Three and Chapter Four are main ones of the paper. In the third chapter, the author reviews Hegel's theory of self-consciousness. Hegel mostly expounds his theory of self-consciousness in Phenomenology of Spirit, Philosophy of Spirit and Science of Logic. He elaborates the self-consciousness in the long river of development of human mind. In the chapter, the author discusses the background of production of Hegel's theory of self-consciousness, the basic of self-consciousness—the consciousness, the meanings of self-consciousness, the independence and dependence of self-consciousness, and the freedom of self-consciousness.In the fourth chapter, the author expounds the relations between Hegel's and Kant's theories of self-consciousness. This relations manifest as Hegel's affirmation, criticism and surpassing to Kant. Firstly, Hegel affirms Kant's philosophy in the total and think that Kant's philosophy is the basic and the starting point in modern Germany philosophy , and Kant's transcendental self-consciousness (transcendental apperception) expresses'the nature of all consciousness'. Hegel mainly criticizes the subjectivity and limitation Kant's theory of self-consciousness. Comparative to Kant's self-consciousness, Hegel's self-consciousness has the historical nature, knowability and dialectical nature.