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ABSTRACT
This paper ties together several anthropological and naturphilosophische themes in Hegel in order to re-examine the place of the philosophy of nature in the Encyclopedia. By taking Hegel’s anthropology as a starting point, I argue that his philosophy of nature has for its subject not nature “as such,” but nature as cognized by Geist, so that the identity of these two natures is only constructed by spirit itself retroactively. I trace the origin of this difference to the revolutionary event that institutes Hegel’s anthropology – which is not a transition from nature to spirit, but a pure break or new beginning, culminating in the creation of the conceptual world of nature as “we” (philosophers of nature) know it. As a result, the philosophy of nature does not precede, but follows from, the anthropology and the philosophy of spirit; the natural foundation is retroactively replaced by the philosopher with the anthropological one.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the audience at the Pittsburgh Summer Symposium in Contemporary Philosophy 2013, as well as the two anonymous referees for CCP, for their valuable feedback and comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Kirill Chepurin is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Theology, Humboldt University of Berlin. His current research focuses on German Idealism, Utopian thought, and political theology.
ORCiD
Kirill Chepurin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0265-7730
Notes
1 Most references to Hegel in this paper are either to the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830) (Hegel Citation1970), designated by a paragraph number occasionally followed by “A.” to indicate an Anmerkung (note) or “Z.” to indicate a Zusatz (addition) to the cited paragraph, as is standard in Hegel scholarship, or to Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes (Hegel Citation1994). Translations are mine.
2 Cited in Stederoth (Citation2001, 106).
3 This kind of anthropological revolution – as a new beginning as well as a revolt against or break from the natural status quo – also invites comparison to Hegel’s account of revolution in his other works, from the Phenomenology of Spirit to the Philosophy of Right and Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of history. Here, too, the “new spirit” (Hegel Citation1970, 12:528) begins as an “absolute negativity,” or absolutely “negative” freedom (Philosophy of Right §5A.), over and against the old regime. There are, however, no explicit connotations of death here – not until the beginning of the phenomenology, where the abstract world of Verstand is described as that of “death” (Hegel Citation1994, 139). The anthropological revolution is not abstract; it is, by contrast, a revolution of life. Similarly, the individual “spheres” that are destroyed by the French Revolution (Hegel Citation1970, 3:433) are here, on the contrary, first constructed and defined (Hegel Citation1994, 55–58). A comparative analysis of these accounts goes beyond the scope of this paper, but could, I believe, be illuminating.
4 Hegel plays here on the German word Erinnerung (usually translated as “recollection”), breaking it down into Er-innerung, “internalization.” In this Er-innerung, the particular sensation in question is negated so that, according to the way Hegel wants us to understand negation in the note to §403, it is “virtually preserved even if it does not exist” (emphasis mine). It is “virtually preserved” in the sense that there is always a “virtual” possibility that it might be produced again; it has become assimilated and therefore no longer exists (independently) except “inside” the soul or, on the contrary, it is yet to exist, to be brought forth from within the soul.
5 See also Hegel (Citation1994, 74, 88, 131).
6 The knowledge that corresponds to this (active, not passive) subjectivity is mediated through the structure of sensation as Verleiblichung-Erinnerung. Hence Hegel’s insistence that the knowledge proper to the non-subject of Selbstgefül is not dependent “on the immediate sensuous present” (§400Z.). However, in contrast to the knowledge proper to consciousness, the subject of sensation never separates itself from what it feels – it is the kind of knowledge that never loses contact with what it knows, being the “determinacy of my entire Fürsichsein” (§400A.). As a consequence, sensation cannot serve as the basis for the philosophy of nature, whereas consciousness can.
7 With regard to the gap between nature and spirit, it should also be noted that, even though the logic of the philosophy of nature presents an attempt to lead up to the human via the animal soul, it never actually achieves that goal. The animal soul is for Hegel completely caught up in the endless digestive-reproductive cycle, the animal’s unity with the genus being, according to Hegel, “the highest” that is available to it (Enz §§351Z., 356, 356Z., 369, 369Z.; compare with Hegel Citation1994, 25–26).
8 Naturally, this kind of utopian character of Hegel’s system also entails important political and theological consequences. These go beyond the scope of this paper, but I hope to explore them in my future work.
9 This is also why, as pointed out at the beginning of this paper, the philosophy of nature cannot be written as if seen through the eyes of the pre-Incarnational God (that is, before the human and the anthropological) – giving further meaning to Hegel’s characterization of nature as “other” to the Logic, that is, to “God the Father” (see O’Regan Citation1994).