Determination and Reflection: Epistemology from Kant to Hegel

The goal of this paper is to sketch the passages that bring about the constitution of a full-fledged logic of negation, a logic, namely, which makes possible exhausting the integral list of the intensions present in the notion of an individual substance. The paper argues that idealistic philosophy is based in the most fundamental way on the Spinozan principle omnis determinatio negatio est, which sets forth a development that transforms eighteenth-century epistemic logic, passing through Kant’s epistemology, into Hegel’s speculative logic. The first part of the paper sketches the history of concepts “determination” and “reflection” from the Greeks to Spinoza, the second part considers Kant’s theory of judgment, the third Schelling’s appropriation of Kant, and the fourth concludes with Hegel.