A History of Western Philosophy and Theology

Kant now argues that man, not nature, is the source of the synthetic a priori truths that constitute genuine knowledge.396

Kant, man replaces God: in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and religion. In this, he anticipates, unfortunately, the main currents of philosophy since his time. This is, finally, the meaning of Kant’s Copernican revolution.

Like Parmenides before him and Heidegger after him, he believes that the nature of being is the fundamental question of philosophy.

the essence of Hegel’s dialectic is a pursuit of truth by way of negation and higher synthesis.

Recall here our earlier discussion (under Leibniz and Hume) of the distinctions between a priori and a posteriori and between analytic and synthetic.387

Hegel is a monist, and he seeks to understand the world by understanding being in general.

Kant replaces the grace of God with its virtual opposite, the freedom of autonomous man.

in the modern period, best exemplified by Kant, the grace of Aquinas becomes secularized into the concept of freedom.

For this process, Hegel uses the German verb aufheben (passive participle aufgehoben), which has three meanings: “preserve,” “cancel,” and “lift up.”412