provokes its contradiction, because he lets thinking begin with the absolute. Kant's path, in contrast, is different~ and is even more decisive than Spinoza's system for the thinking of absolute idealism and for philosophy generally. Hegel sees in Kant's idea of the original synthesis of apperception "one of the most profound principles for speculative development." (Ibid.) For Hegel, the force of each thinker lies in what each has thought, in that their thought can be incorporated into absolute thinking as one of its stages. Absolute thinking is absolute only by moving within its dialectical-speculative process, and thus requiring stages.
For us, the criterion for the conversation with historical tradition is the same, insofar as it is a question of entering into the force of earlier thinking. We, however, do not seek that force in what has already been thought: we seek it in something that has not been thought, and from which what has been thought receives its essential space. But only what has already been thought prepares what has not yet been thought, which enters ever anew into its abundance. The criterion of what has not been thought does not lead to the inclusion of previous thought into a still higher development and systematization that surpass it. Rather, the criterion demands that traditional thinking be set free into its essential past which is still preserved. This essential past prevails throughout the tradition in an originary way, is always in being in advance of it,
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