“Kant's critical philosophy is the most elaborate fit of panic in the history of the Earth.”
Source: The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (1992), Chapter 1: "The death of sound philosophy", p. 1
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Vol 3 1837 translated by ES Haldane and Francis H. Simson) first translated 1896 p. 410-411
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 3
Context: In connection with Kant we must here begin by speaking of Jacobi, whose philosophy is contemporaneous with that of Kant; in both of these the advance beyond the preceding period is very evident. The result in the two cases is much the same, although both the starting point and the method of progression are somewhat different. In Jacobi's case the stimulus was given mainly by French philosophy, with which he was very conversant, and also by German metaphysics, while Kant began rather from the English side, that is, from the skepticism of Hume. Jacobi, in that negative attitude which he preserved as well as Kant, kept before him the objective aspect of the method of knowledge, and specially considered it, for he declared knowledge to be in its content incapable of recognizing the Absolute: the truth must be concrete, present, but not finite. Kant does not consider the content, but took the view of knowledge being subjective; and for this reason he declared it to be incapable of recognizing absolute existence. To Kant knowledge is thus a knowledge of phenomena only, not because the categories are merely limited and finite, but because they are subjective. To Jacobi, on the other hand, the chief point is that the categories are not merely subjective, but that they themselves are conditioned. This is an essential difference between the two points of view, even if they both arrive at the same result.
“Kant's critical philosophy is the most elaborate fit of panic in the history of the Earth.”
Source: The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (1992), Chapter 1: "The death of sound philosophy", p. 1
Preface
Spinoza's Critique of Religion (1965)
Source: Confessions of a Philosopher (1997), p. 157
Context: As Voltaire once remarked, "It is the privilege of the real genius, especially one who opens up a new path, to make great mistakes with impunity." The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy. For that reason there has been, ever since, a watershed in understanding between those who have taken his work on board and those who have not. For a good many of the problems he uncovered, the solutions he put forward have not stood the test of time, but his uncovering of the problems remains the most illuminating thing a philosopher has ever done. Because of the fundamental character of these problems, and because Kant did not solve them, confronting them has been the most important challenge to philosophy ever since.
Quoted by Frederic Prokosch in Voices: A Memoir (1983)
Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction