On Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’ : A Free Reflex of Spirit — part eighteen.
‘The Weight’
by Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner (1786–1862)
That which in the quiet midnight,
When round about the world was sleeping,
Often brought forth songs
From deep within my heart,
It was only life’s heaviness
That often pulls at my heart,
As the weight pulls on the clock
Until it loudly flutes forth a song.
‘Das Gewicht’
Was in stiller Mitternacht,
Wenn die Erde ringsum schlief,
Mir oft aus dem Herzen tief
Lieder hat hervorgebracht,
War des Lebens Schwere nur,
Die mir oft am Herzen zieht,
Wie’s Gewicht zieht an der Uhr,
Bis sie flötet laut ein Lied.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831), ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Hegel and universal gravitation.
Hegel’s discussions of Newton’s laws have led many readers to suppose that he does not understand them and that his criticism stems from ignorance. ‘As far as Newton’s mechanics are concerned, Hegel lacks the most elementary knowledge, probably on account of his lack of mathematical skill and the preponderance of his structure of notional determinations’, claims F. H. van Lunteren. Well, he certainly refers to two opposing forces on a body in circular motion, centripetal and centrifugal forces, and that the one force dominates the other at different times even though the one should destroy the other. Is not centrifugal force a pseudo-force, a fictitious force? That is to say, an apparent force acting on a body but there is no force present, the centrifugal force is simply due to the object wanting to continue going straight due to inertia, for instance if you are in a fast car and you stomp on the accelerator you feel pressed into the back of the seat. In which direction are you accelerating? Clearly forward and yet you feel a force pushing against your back, and if you turn a corner your seatbelt and perhaps the door next to you presses against your side. In which direction are you accelerating? Now that is not so obvious but it is inward not outward and there is no centrifugal force here. Water in a bucket swung over one’s head does not fall out because it tends to continue traveling in the same direction, at every instant the direction that is the tangent to the circular arc the bucket makes yet this tendency is matter’s inertia, not a force. And furthermore, the centripetal force that pulls the bucket remains constant as does the inertial tendency of the water in the bucket, contrary to what Hegel appears to say. However Hegel’s putative errors can be traced to some strange manners of speaking that in turn derive from those of Newton. E. J. Dijksterhuis contends that Newton does not think that rectilinear motion of a point would continue but holds the Aristotelian view that every motion requires a mover as its cause and the view that body is that cause, a claim repeated by I. Bernard Cohen who asserts that although the idea of motion as produced by some external force ‘led Newton to the Principia’, Newton himself begins ‘with ‘force’ as inherent force causing a uniform motion (F = mv). The inherent force represented for Newton one of the universal properties of matter, not displacing extension, but standing equally beside it together with hardness and impenetrability’. Hegel holds the same view but Shea did not apparently think this sufficed to acquit Hegel of the charge of deficient understanding of Newtonian physics.
It is indeed Newton who speaks of the vis inertia, the force of inertia, and identifies it with the vis insita, the force inherent in bodies.
‘The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to persevere in its present stale, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a right line. This force is ever proportional to the body whose force it is; and differs nothing from the inactivity of the mass, but in our manner of conceiving it. A body, from the inactivity of matter, is not without difficulty put out of its state of rest or motion. Upon which account, this vis insita, may, by a most significant name, be called vis inertia, or force of inactivity. But a body exerts this force only, when another force, impressed upon it, endeavours to change its condition ; and the exercise of this force may be considered both as resistance and impulse; it is resistance, in so far as the body, for maintaining its present state, withstands the force impressed; it is impulse, in so far as the body, by not easily giving way to the impressed force of another, endeavours to change the state of that other. Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion; but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so’.
- ‘Principia Mathematica’
Newton explains that a body exerts this force only during a change of state caused by another force impressed upon it and this exercise of force is depending on the viewpoint both resistance and impetus, resistance insofar as the body, in order to maintain its state, strives against the impressed force, and impetus insofar as the same body endeavours to change the state of another body. This last part is a way of saying that the moving body that impacts another body and exerts a force over it must itself have its own inner force that maintains it in a state of motion and resists its being affected in turn by the impacted body. Force is no longer spoken of as an internal character of a body but Newton’s meaning is evident enough, when one body impacts another the first exerts a force over the second a force that we know from Newton’s second law will accelerate the second body, and likewise the impacted body will at the moment of impact exert a force over the first body that will, in turn, accelerate or decelerate it. The second law is expressed as F = ma, and force is frequently thought of as if it somehow existed abstractly yet in the Newtonian universe force can only come from gravity or a body in motion and in the latter case it is that body’s being in motion relative to the impacted body that allows it to exert the force.
The amount of force exerted here clearly depends upon how much motion the impacting body has and therefore an impacting body will exert a force in proportion to its momentum or more exactly to the momentum it has relative to the impacted body and then the question arises as to how either body can exert force on the other without itself having a force to exert. And so it is that Newton speaks of the force that is internal to a body identifies this force that resists change with the force that enables the body to impose change from which it follows that the force that initially belongs internally to the impacting body is exerted over the impacted body, that this force accelerates the impacted body, thereby, augmenting the impacted body’s own internal force and indeed the situation is now treated merely as a problem of conservation of momentum and force is ignored which is perfect from a computational point of view but conceptually Newton is correct.
Immanuel Kant also uses force to designate the inner state of a body. ‘In mechanics, the force of a matter set in motion is regarded as present in order to impart this motion to another matter’, he said. And Hegel follows him in that.
‘Resistance implies the motion of two bodies, so that a determinate motion and a determinate resistance are one and the same thing. Bodies act upon one another only in so far as they are independent, and they are only independent by means of gravity. Therefore, bodies only offer resistance to one another through their gravity. This gravity is relative however, it is not the absolute gravity which expresses the Notion of matter. One of the moments of the body is its weight, by which, in its tendency towards the centre of the Earth, it puts pressure on that which resists it. Pressure is therefore a motion which tends to sublate the separation of one mass from another. The other moment of the body is the transversal movement posited within it, which diverges from the tendency towards the centre. The magnitude of its motion is then determined by these two moments, i.e. by its mass, and the determinability of its transversal motion as velocity. If we posit the magnitude of this motion as internal to matter, we have what is called force. We could however dispense with this apparatus of forces, for the propositions of mechanics which deal with them are very largely tautological’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
The magnitude of its motion is determined by these two moments by mass and by the specific tangential motion as velocity and if this magnitude is posited as something internal it is what we call force and Shea sees Hegel’s usage as rooted in ambiguities in Newton particularly in the notion of an inner force and he thinks that Hegel’s objections could have stemmed from these ambiguities but that they represented instead Hegel’s failure to grasp Newtonian physics. So is it the case that none of the three understood mechanics because their usage is out of tune with current usage? Upon recognising that speaking of a body’s inner force is merely another way to speak about its momentum some of Hegel’s other alleged mistakes are rectified as well. A body that is in an elliptical orbit travels with varying velocities as Johannes Kepler’s (1571–1630), second law asserts and if its inner force depends on its velocity then that force will vary with its position in orbit. Since this inner force expresses the inertia of the body, it is the so-called centrifugal force and Newton uses the term centrifugal force.
‘In any circle suppose a polygon to be inscribed of any number of sides. And if a body, moved with a given velocity along the sides of the polygon, is reflected from the circle at the several angular points, the force, with which at every reflection it strikes the circle, will be as its velocity : and therefore the sum of the forces, in a given time, will be as that velocity and the number of reflections conjunctly ; that is (if the species of the polygon be given), as the length described in that given time, and increased or diminished in the ratio of the same length to the radius of the circle ; that is, as the square of that length applied to the radius ; and therefore the polygon, by having its sides diminished in infinitum, coincides with the circle, as the square of the arc described in a given time applied to the radius. This is the centrifugal force, with which the body impels the circle; and to which the contrary force, wherewith the circle continually repels the body towards the centre, is equal’.
- ‘Principia Mathematica’
And so it follows that the relative values of the centripetal to centrifugal forces do vary throughout a planet’s orbit as Hegel contends, in brief Hegel is not making the elementary errors ascribed to him for what is central to his account of Newton is that gravity and inertia are distinct and independent factors contributing to a body’s overall motion and that they must be combined to calculate the overall path of a projectile.
In addition a significant respect whereby Hegel stras from ordinary scientific notions is in his interpretation of equations for scientific laws are typically stated in equations and such equations are used to make calculations and predictions without much reflection upon their meaning and Hegel reads these laws ;ietrally from a metaphysical point of view. For instance, Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei’s, (1564–1642), law of gravitational acceleration at the earth’s surface asserts that the distances a body falls is proportional to the square of the time it falls, traditionally expressed as: s = 1/2gt(to the power of)2 and the formula indicates that velocity of the falling body will increase in proportion to the time so that its velocity at the end of a time interval, t, will be 2s/t, double its average velocity during the time interval, that is, s/t, and equivalently, the change in velocity, g, is constant, and Galileo’s law is merely the law of uniform acceleration. Following Newton closely Hegel explains that the law expresses an accelerating force imparting one and the same impulse in each unit of time, and a force of inertia which perpetuates the (greater) velocity acquired in each moment of time.
‘The tendency towards the centre is the only absolute factor in fall; we shall see later how the other moment, which is diremption, difference, the removal of the body into a state of supportlessness, also derives from the Notion. In fall mass does not separate itself of its own accord, but when it is separated, it returns into the unity. The motion which produces itself in fall constitutes the transition therefore, it is a middle term between inert matter, and matter in which its Notion finds absolute realization, i.e. absolutely free motion. As merely quantitative indifferent difference, mass is a factor in external motion, but here, where motion is posited through the Notion of matter, purely quantitative difference between masses has, as such, no significance, for masses fall not as masses but as matters in general. In fall it is in fact merely the weightedness of bodies which comes under consideration, and a large body is as heavy as a smaller one, i.e. one of less weight. We know well enough, that a feather does not fall like a plummet, but this is the result of the medium which has to give way, i.e. masses behave in accordance with the qualitative difference of the resistance they encounter. A stone falls faster in air than it does in water for example, but in airless space bodies fall in the same way. Galileo put forward this proposition, and expounded it to certain monks. Only one of the fathers got a slant on it when he said that a pair of scissors and a knife would reach the earth at the same time; but the matter cannot be decided so easily. Knowledge of this kind is worth more than thousands upon thousands of so-called brilliant thoughts’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
And so gravity is an outer force that continually augments whatever inner inertial force the body has already acquired and such reasoning relies upon the faculty of understanding to divide the force on the body into two constituents, and while Hegel recognises the mathematical achievement he also correctly contends that so far from proving uniform acceleration the law in fact presupposes it, the law leaves open the question of why a body falls with uniform acceleration and the answer to this question is to be found with a metaphysical derivation that uses the faculty of reason to derive the law from the concept of a body, for a body moves itself toward a centre of gravity. In any motion, the body traverses some space in some time and yet in the free motion, the motion that derives from the nature of the moving body itself, the relation between space and time depends simply upon their natures and so the problem is to determine how these two disparate natures can be equated so that the space traversed is equal to the time traversed. The nature of space lies in its otherness, its having one part next to or outside of another. Hegel is very nearly quoting Newton.
‘Space is, in general, pure quantity, no longer in its merely logical determination, but as an immediate and external being. Consequently, nature begins with quantity and not with quality, because its determination is not a primary abstract and immediate state like logical Being. Essentially, it is already internally mediated externality and otherness’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
This self-otherness is also a self-relation, space is self-related through its own nature, whereas time on the other hand is not self-related and each moment of time exists independently of any other and as such time is an instance of Hegel’s logical category of being-for-self the argument being that this latter category comes to be self-related and the result is another logical category, the One. See the Logic. Mathematically self-relation amounts to being raised to the second power or being squared and since space contains self-relation within itself as its very nature, space is, in itself, a kind of square while time on the other hand is not self-related in itself it is a kind of root that becomes one when it is self-related and since a body that traverses space will also traverse time the amount of space must be somehow equal or proportional to the amount of time and yet time must be squared to be equal to space since space is already intrinsically squared and so the space traversed by a body is proportional to time squared.
Buchdahl discusses Hegel’s derivation but he sees it as more of a conceptual explication than a deduction while L. Fleishhacker discusses Galileo’s law and Hegel’s derivation of it. Thus understood Galileo’s equation asserts a metaphysical identity between two entities, time and space, a type of reasoning that may trigger sceptical concerns since what we typically think of as simply mathematical quantities are considered in metaphysical terms and since this metaphysical derivation is considered superior to mathematical derivations of the law yet it appears unlikely that he could have derived the law solely from reason by thinking along these lines and we may inquire about what this type of speculation contributes to our grasp of the law. If grasping the law means making calculations then the metaphysical derivation is unnecessary and yet Hegel does address the question concerning why time and space stand in the proportion they have in the formula and no merely mathematical derivation of the law could answer this question, a question well worth asking.
It is important in addition to recognize that a metaphysical derivation of the law does not undermine either the mathematical derivation of it through the faculty of the understanding or the apprehension of its meaning that enables us to use it to make predictions, Hegel is not doing what is generally thought of as science, he is not evaluating the accuracy of a law’s predictions, he is doing metaphysics, and he approaches Newton’s laws in much the same way his concern being neither the science nor the mathematics for the issue here is conceptual, his contention is that Newton has two distinct notions of matter that are at odds with one another whereby according to one matter is inert, it does not cause motion in itself or other bodies, nor does it impede or enhance motion, and according to the other matter does cause motion because every body moves toward the centre of gravity because of its matter, gravitation directly contradicts the law of inertia: for, by the former, matter strives to get away out of itself to another and moves toward another.
‘Universal gravitation must be recognized as a profound thought in its own right. It has already attracted attention and inspired confidence, particularly through the quantitative determination bound up within it, and its verification has been pursued from the experience of the solar system down to that of the phenomenon of the miniature capillary tube. When it is seized upon in this way in the sphere of reflection however, it has a merely general abstract significance, which in its more concrete form is merely gravity in the quantitative determination of fall, and it therefore lacks the significance of the Idea developed into its reality, which is given to it in this paragraph. Gravitation is the immediate contradiction of the law of inertia, and it is because of this that matter strives out of itself towards another’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Inertia is matter’s striving to remain as it is hence the contradiction he ascribes to Newton lies in the incompatible natures that the two laws implicitly ascribe to matter yet scientists are not likely to be overly concerned with a conceptual contradiction in fact Hegel’s contentions concerning the nature or the concept of matter would appear to represent precisely the kind of thinking that Newton endeavours to overcome and Hegel is objecting to Newton’s not explaining how matter could be both inert and active while Newton prides himself on his not feigning hypotheses, referring in particular to his being unable to determine the cause of gravitational attraction. His law of gravity is a mathematical formula and there is no explicit contradiction between it and mathematical formulae that express the inertial laws, the nature of matter figures into the statements of neither group of laws and so there is no need to identify the inert and active characters of matter for nothing is to be gained by insisting that they must both stem from the same material nature, in fact this latter is simply a vacuous Scholastic notion that diverts attention away from the sort of scientific work that advances the understanding of matter and its motions instead moving it towards a metaphysical and occult discussion of causes.
Such is the Newtonian position which is apparently endorsed by Kant who also recognizes distinct types of matter, the first of his matters being that involved in inertial motion and the second that which is subject to gravity and Kant has to concur with Newton that we can keep the multiple matters conceptually distinct for he does not seek a unifying principle, nor does he ascribe any nature to the matters other than their capacity to receive determination through the qualitative or quantitative categories. And the Hegelian response? What he takes to be contradiction in Newton is simply the sort of conceptual problem that Newton wants to cast to one side and yet there is a good case to be made here for certainly matter must be one and to suppose otherwise holdover from past ages, from ancient philosophy, for Aristotle takes matter to be potential and he speaks of different kinds of matter that could be present together in the same sensible substance.
‘Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies only, not of incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things. And in trying to state the causes of generation and destruction, and in giving a physical account of all things, they do away with the cause of movement. Further, they err in not positing the substance, i.e. the essence, as the cause of anything, and besides this in lightly calling any of the simple bodies except earth the first principle, without inquiring how they are produced out of one anothers-I mean fire, water, earth, and air. For some things are produced out of each other by combination, others by separation, and this makes the greatest difference to their priority and posteriority. For (1) in a way the property of being most elementary of all would seem to belong to the first thing from which they are produced by combination, and this property would belong to the most fine-grained and subtle of bodies. For this reason those who make fire the principle would be most in agreement with this argument. But each of the other thinkers agrees that the element of corporeal things is of this sort. At least none of those who named one element claimed that earth was the element, evidently because of the coarseness of its grain. (Of the other three elements each has found some judge on its side; for some maintain that fire, others that water, others that air is the element. Yet why, after all, do they not name earth also, as most men do? For people say all things are earth Hesiod says earth was produced first of corporeal things; so primitive and popular has the opinion been.) According to this argument, then, no one would be right who either says the first principle is any of the elements other than fire, or supposes it to be denser than air but rarer than water. But (2) if that which is later in generation is prior in nature, and that which is concocted and compounded is later in generation, the contrary of what we have been saying must be true,-water must be prior to air, and earth to water’.
- ‘Metaphysics’
Such an option is not open for Newton because he makes matter a fully realized entity and if matter exists as a body whatever characters belong to matter must stem from its nature, and further there is good reason to think that Newton himself was concerned with the nature of matter and that this interest has continued in contemporary science.
Newton’s doctrine of the inner force (or innate force, see above), in the third definition is the recognition that bodies must contain some internal character that allows them to maintain their integrity as bodies by resisting forces imposed upon them and yet also to carry those forces in such a way as to pass them along to other bodies and this internal character is the nature of matter that manifests itself in the constitution of bodies. Cohen notes that Newton refers, in a letter, to the inner force as ‘innate, inherent, and essential’. It is not only Kant who is concerned with how bodies can be constituted and with the fundamental characters that belong to them. Newton claims that a stone swung in a sling endeavours to leave the hand that is whirling it suggesting that he thinks this behaviour a property of the body.
‘A centripetal force is that by which bodies are drawn or impelled, or any way tend, towards a point as to a centre. Of this sort is gravity, by which bodies tend to the centre of the earth magnetism, by which iron tends to the loadstone; and that force, what ever it is, by which the planets are perpetually drawn aside from the rectilinear motions, which otherwise they would pursue, and made to revolve in curvilinear orbits. A stone, whirled about in a sling, endeavours to recede from the hand that turns it; and by that endeavour, distends the sling, and that with so much the greater force, as it is revolved with the greater velocity, and as soon as ever it is let go, flies away. That force which opposes itself to this endeavour, and by which the sling perpetually draws back the stone towards the hand, and retains it in its orbit, because it is directed to the hand as the centre of the orbit, I call the centripetal force. And the same thing is to be understood of all bodies, revolved in any orbits. They all endeavour to recede from the centres of their orbits; and were it not for the opposition of a contrary force which restrains them to, and detains them in their orbits, which I therefore call centripetal, would fly off in right lines, with an uniform motion’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Likewise Newton’s first law asserts: ‘Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed’. Kant objects that ‘inertia does not signify a positive effort of something to maintain its state’. Only living things make such an effort but matter is entirely lifeless because it cannot ‘determine itself to motion or rest’. That is to say, ‘matter has no absolutely internal determinations and grounds of determination’. Kant is evidently speaking about the nature of matter and he identifies its lack of self-determination with its inertia, he thinks that the second law is properly the law of inertia and inertia in this sense is clearly at odds with the idea of gravity as a force through which matter naturally acts upon itself, in fact it is even more clearly at odds with gravity than Newton’s inertia albeit Kant does not take note of it. That bodies persevere in their states is presented here as a fundamental character of bodies part of their nature and this answers the question why Newton includes the first law when it appears to be a limiting case of the second, whereas the second refers to a change in motion being in proportion to an impressed force the first law makes the claim that matter’s nature is not to change its motion of its own accord. Cohen’s explanation for why the first and second laws are distinct is that the forces in the two laws are different, in the second law force is impulsive whereas in the first law it is conceived as continuously acting. Yet a case in which the force is assumed to be 0 is hardly best described as continuous force nonetheless insofar as it is the body’s internal force that maintains it in motion the inertial force has to be natural, as Cohen recognises. The difference between the first two laws is that whereas the second asserts positively that the action of an external force will accelerate or decelerate the body the first claims that there will be no such acceleration or deceleration in the absence of an external force hence the first law is a statement about the nature of the body.
The point concerns the nature of matter which is front of stage as the first law and Newton is certainly not alone for when scientists speak of their work they frequently present themselves as trying to get to the bottom of the inner workings and essential features of matter and philosophers are inclined to read such claims as declarations of enthusiasm and scientific laws are interpreted as weakly existential and a good deal of contemporary readers would for instance take a claim like all men are mortal to assert that every human being those who have lived and those yet to be born is alive for a finite period of time however in other eras such a claim would typically be understood as an assertion about human physical nature. It is not simply that the modality of these two interpretations is different but the first is merely extensional and descriptive whereas the second expresses an essential character and in the present case I think that contemporary thinkers are inclined to see Newton’s first law as asserting the existence of a fact about matter and by the same token they are inclined to read the law of gravity as asserting another fact about matter and thus understood the two laws are consistent since the facts are independent.
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Newton asserts these laws as claims about the nature of matter and both Kant and Hegel read Newton’s laws this way in fact Hegel reads every claim as an assertion about an essence which gets in the way of contemporary readers’ appreciating his thought. And if Newton’s first law asserts that matter does not of its nature cause motion in itself nor does it either impede or enhance whatever motion it already has and if the law of gravity implies that any material body will by its own nature, somehow move itself toward the centre of mass then the two laws assert contradictory characters of matter and are contradictory and the contradiction lies in the nature of matter that these laws assert on the strong, essential reading of them, and furthermore in these terms Kant aspires to sidestep the contradiction by distinguishing two distinct matters one of which is passive and inert and the other active along with two other distinct matters. Hegel rejects the distinction and insists on a single matter arguing that the feature that enables matter to be impacted, its ability to resist an impressed force, is the very feature that is responsible for matter’s gravitational attraction.
That is to say he thinks that the inner force that Newton equates with inertia and sees as necessary for the first three laws is also the gravitational force responsible for holding the body together and apart from this reasoning it is widely supposed that the matter that figures in the law of gravity should be the same as inertial matter because some single quantity of matter constitutes the body. It might be said that Albert Einstein’s, (1879–1955), General Relativity theory explains the identity by making gravity and inertia both functions of the curvature of space and the curvature of space in turn dependent on matter and from Hegel’s point of view such a unification represents a significant advance over Newton’s treatment of matter but it is still a scientific theory and hence relies upon the faculty of understanding and significantly leaves open the question of what matter is. Whatever, the idea that matter is or ought to be one and the idea that science ought to elucidate its essential features are widely accepted in science if only as as ideals and this is a metaphysical ideal with which Newton, who was concerned to discover the nature of matter would concur and his problem is really epistemic, he has not discovered what the deep causes of matter are, and furthermore since he aims to discover causes by describing motions it is unlikely that he could discover deep causes.
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Newton simply believes that simply characterizing phenomena will contribute to scientific knowledge and also protect him against the kind of criticism that Hegel brings and the root of the issue between them is not simply whether matter has a nature that we can apprehend that can account for both inertia and gravity but in addition what we can know about nature and how we can come to know it. Newton limits the scope of physics and settles for describing motions whose causes he concedes that he does not know and Hegel insists that discovering those causes is the central task of the Philosophy of Nature but to discover them he needs to apprehend matter in a way that is not supported by empirical evidence and given Newton’s reluctance to acknowledge the kind of evidence Hegel has to offer or in fact even to recognise the problem Hegel has to demonstrate that Newton himself is committed to some notion of the nature of matter and further that Hegel himself can expound this nature in a manner that overcomes the contradiction. Hegelian criticism lacks bite when confronted with Newton’s admission of his own failure to know nature unless Hegel can demonstrate that he can resolve the contradiction in Newton’s laws by properly explicating the nature of matter.
Hegel achieves this feat twice as it happens, once in the section ‘Absolute Mechanics’, the final part of ‘Mechanics’, see below, and in the argument leading up to that section. Hegel has discovered a contradiction in Newton’s conception of matter if not in his laws and the resolution that he advances is dialectical. Rather than dismissing Newton’s laws because they presuppose a contradiction the contradiction is used to arrive at an understanding of the nature of matter though his ultimate understanding of the nature of matter rests upon his a priori science which is remote from anything recognizable as science.
Between Hegel’s exposition of the contradiction in Newton’s conception of matter and his resolution of it there is an intermediate step whereby he demonstrates that both gravity and inertia spring from the same conception of matter a concept held but not acknowledged by Newton, which is to say prior to Hegel overcoming the contradiction he embraces it and in fact Newton’s laws presupposing contradictory notions of matter indicates their essential insight into matter and their significance in the conceptual movement toward a higher apprehension of it and this higher apprehension is expressed in ‘Physics’ and in the transition to it at the end of Mechanics’, Hegel praises Kepler’s laws and declares that Newton’s laws are consequences of them. Kepler’s laws come close to explaining motion through an inner principle as ‘Physics’ goes on to do, and recall the Aristotelian model whereby Aristotle traces nature’s attributes including its essential motions, to an inner principle, and there is no inner principle of matter that accounts for Newton’s three laws or for gravity, but Hegel contends that there is a principle that does account for all of Newton’s mechanics, it is an outer principle … namely, Otherness.
That Otherness is the principle of matter is presupposed by Newtonian mechanics, for Newton’s supposition is that his three laws of motion are independent of the law of gravity. The law of inertia asserts that a body will continue in its state of rest or motion unless disturbed, were there a single body in the universe it would continue forever at rest or in a straight line of motion nonetheless insofar as matter is inert and not a cause of motion this body could neither alter its own motion nor cause itself to move therefore if it does move it must have acquired its motion through a force exerted by another body and it follows that the supposition of a single body in the universe continuing in motion forever is impossible for a body that were truly by itself could have no motion since it would need another body to move it unless its cause were nonphysical. In virtue of bodies being inert the causes of their motion must lie outside themselves and yet between the body that is moved and the body that moves it there must be a gravitational force of attraction that would decelerate the impacted body and from a practical point of view the gravitational force is likely to be so much less than the force of impact than the force of impact that it is inconsequential for calculations of motion and yet theoretically the inescapability of gravitational attraction in any impact means that there could never be true inertial motion, gravity would always work against inertia and in no case would a body in motion actually remain in motion at the same velocity in a straight line and at the very best inertial motion is an approximation.
The fact that there is no actual inertial motion does not detract from the first law since it asserts only the tendency of matter to remain in motion and that this is amply confirmed by the actual motion’s being the resultant of inertial and gravitational motion and yet again Hegel is not denying that Newton’s techniques work the issue is whether inertia can be theoretically separated from gravity and the problem is that the inertness of matter makes another body necessary and this other body impacting the first body causes it to move rectilinearly but also to decelerate and furthermore since the second body is itself inert its own motion must have come from still another matter which latter also exerts a gravitational force on both it and the first body. It is possible that these impacts will be head on but the more general case is that one body hits another at some distance from its centre imparting to it a rectilinear motion at some angle and in this case the gravitational attraction does not merely slow the second body down it curves the second body’s trajectory and the degree of curvature depends upon the masses of all the bodies and their relative positions. The impacted body would not be curved if all the matter in the universe were arranged in a straight line but this case is merely a remote and abstract possibility and generally speaking the motion the impacted body receives is not rectilinear as Newton supposes but elliptical, the degree of curvature depends upon the masses of all the bodies and their centre of gravity and if we suppose that rectilinear motion has a curvature of 0 then we can say that whenever a body receives motion it must be curved and if this is correct motion is essentially curvilinear and it depends upon the masses of the impacting bodies and insofar as a material body is inert its motion is determined by what is other than it.
That one body’s motion is determined by another body is also a consequence of gravity and in order for one body to impact upon another each must be constituted so as to occupy a determinate volume of space and the principle that so constitutes a body is gravity, gravity is a force that attracts the parts of a single body toward a centre but this force necessarily extends beyond the boundaries of the body and attracts other matter and any two bodies are hence mutually attracted and move toward a centre point and by the same reasoning there must be a centre of gravity for the universe toward which all bodies are attracted. An apparent run of the mill Newtonian idea that has Hegel believes a profound consequence for if the principle that makes a body be a body also makes it move toward some point outside of itself then for something to be a material body is for it to seek something other than itself. The nature of matter is therefore to move away from itself and seek to be other than itself which is to say the character that belongs most of all to matter, its nature, is just its not being what it is and this nature of matter is gravity a movement of attraction toward something else even if matter appears not to move itself. Furthermore Otherness is the essence of matter, matter’s inner nature is its motion toward a point outside of itself, the centre of gravity of all matter, nonetheless matter’s nature is also its lack of its own character and consequent determination by another which is to say gravity and inertness both come to the same thing, matter’s being essentially something other.
And so it is that the laws of physics are consequences of a concept, and a concept, matter, that is contradictory to boot. What we want is a conceptual derivation of mechanics from the nature of matter yet the problem is that the nature of matter lies outside of matter, matter itself must depend upon something else and what that means is that to derive mechanics from the inner character of matter is ultimately to derive it from something other and external and derived from a contradictory concept mechanics must itself be contradictory, and to state it less abstractly the problem here is that the centre of gravity lies outside matter but inasmuch as the centre of gravity belongs intrinsically to matter it is conceptually, at least within matter.
Such a relation exists physically in the solar system as the nature of the orbiting bodies lies in the point around which they revolve and the planets have their natures outside of themselves but their motions toward the sun preserve them in the positions that they occupy which is to say their orbits and so their being other is what preserves them as the same and from the perspective of the solar system matter’s nature is not strictly other for the gravitational centre that defines matter lies within the solar system in the sun, and furthermore within the solar system the gravitational motion of the orbiting bodies is now understood to be their continuous inertial motions. The Hegelian notion is that since the nature of matter is to be other the matter arranges itself into a structure that manifests this otherness and that in manifesting itself as other matter locates its principle within itself and ceases to be other. And so a new kind of mechanics is under way that is grounded upon the primacy of elliptical motion, a mechanics whereby the nature of matter is no longer simply otherness but an otherness that is also an inner nature and so Hegel has made the transition to Physics. In the end he resolves the contradiction between inertia and gravity that he imputes to Newton by moving to this higher plane, and a dialectical argument based upon otherness as the inner nature of matter may not appear scientific yet the proposition is that it is not rectilinear motion that is fundamental to matter but elliptical motion and matter naturally moves itself elliptically as manifested in the solar system and if inertial motion is an elliptical motion around a centre of gravity then gravity and inertia are no longer at odds with each other.
And so the Hegelian question becomes why particular planets occupy the orbits they do, a question that he recognises himself as unable to answer yet what he does stress is that the character of their orbits is constant. Kepler’s third law declares that there is a constant proportion between the cube of a planet’s semi-major axis and the period of its revolution and this Hegel understands as a form of identity between space and time that is a kind of enrichment of the identity in the law of free fall and Hegel sees this relation as expressing the conceptual nature of gravitational attraction and thereby of matter and he credits Kepler with grasping its conceptual necessity and persevering in finding empirical confirmation. Hegel contends that Kepler spent twenty-seven years searching for a connection between the cube of the distance and the square of the period because of his faith that reason would manifest itself in nature and the implication is that Kepler grasped the a priori necessity for the law long before he found it. It is therefore clear enough why Hegel prefers Kepler to Newton for it is Kepler who proposes that matter moves elliptically by its very nature and that the solar system is a manifestation of the nature of matter and reasoning dialectically we can say that the sun as centre of gravity must belong to the nature of the matter that it attracts and yet to say this is to identify an inner nature of matter and thereby to undermine its otherness and then matter has been transformed into phusis and the subject for study is no longer bodies but a solar system as a whole with its necessary internal parts and structure.
Of course scientists are not so accepting with a dialectical treatment of the nature of matter and identifying it as otherness has a smack of anthropocentricity yet Hegel’s solution to the contradiction in matter’s nature is so far-reaching even for a metaphysics of nature that the positive contribution that metaphysical reflection can make to science is not so evident yet an a priori metaphysics of the sort practiced by Hegel can help to advance science.
The category of Matter emerges from Motion and Place.
‘Space in itself is the contradiction of indifferent juxtaposition and of continuity devoid of difference; it is the pure negativity of itself, and the initial transition into time. Time is similar, for as its opposed moments, held together in unity, immediately sublate themselves, it constitutes an immediate collapse into undifferentiation, into the undifferentiated extrinsicality of space. Consequently, the negative determination here, which is the exclusive point, is no longer merely implicit in its conformity to the Notion, but is posited, and is in itself concrete on account of the total negativity of time. This concrete point is place’.
‘Initially, the place which is thus the posited identity of space and time is also the posited contradiction set up by the mutual exclusiveness of space and time. place is spatial and therefore indifferent singularity, and is this only as the spatial now, or time. As this place, it is therefore in a condition of immediate indifference to itself; it is external to itself, the negation of itself, and constitutes another place. This passing away and self-regeneration of space in time and time in space, in which time posits itself spatially as place, while this indifferent spatiality is likewise posited immediately in a temporal manner, constitutes motion. To an equal extent however, this becoming is itself the internal collapse of its contradiction, it is therefore the immediately identical and existent unity of place and motion, i.e. matter’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
There is an unfamiliar conceptual exercise here if we consider a point lying somewhere within uniform infinite Space and this point should locate a position in space and position is essential to space which in its entirely abstract form just is position, however, a single point stands in exactly the same relation to infinite space as any other point does and no point could be closer or further from the boundary of unbounded space and so no single point by itself could mark out a position in space. If to be a point is to mark or to occupy a position in space then the point’s not marking out a position is a kind of failure to be what it is, a kind of conceptual destruction, on the other hand without the point space is entirely uniform extending in every direction the same way, it is abstract position without any concrete position and as such Space requires a point in order to define itself properly as position and yet once it is posited the point again destroys itself.
We cannot think the idea of Space without supposing it to contain a point that concretely defines position but since no single point could concretely define position in infinite space we cannot think of Space with a single point and this mental process of positing a point and destroying it is the point’s coming to be and passing away which is to say the point’s motion, however the plurality of points generated in this way does succeed in marking off position but position defined in respect of points temporally and spatially related to each other rather than in respect of a single point’s relation to abstract space and yet on the other hand from the perspective of the points becoming and ceasing are events that they experience and through which they persist as relative positions in space and the collection of the points that persist in space through the process of change constitutes matter and this is the first proper understanding of Matter.
The plurality of points that constitutes matter are united into a body however in order for these points to be united they must also be different from each other and from a conceptual point of view the gathering together of these points also presupposes their inherent distinctness.
‘Matter maintains itself against its self-identity and in a state of extrinsicality, through its moment of negativity, its abstract singularization, and it is this that constitutes the repulsion of matter. As these different singularities are one and the same however, the negative unity of the juxtaposed being of this being-for-self is just as essential, and constitutes their attraction, or the continuity of matter. Matter is inseparable from both these moments, and constitutes their negative unity, i.e. singularity. This is however still distinct from the immediate extrinsicality of matter, and is therefore not yet posited as being a centre, a material singularity of an ideal nature, i.e. gravity’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Their attraction presupposes a repulsion not only an internal repulsion of part against part that maintains their volume but a repulsion of the collection of such parts from what becomes external to them and the Hegelian term for such a self-attraction achieved through repulsion is One, hence matter is one body with parts that are united and extended to speak conceptually but such a characterization also describes the physical reality of a matter that occupies a volume of space and since its parts are all united into a single body there must be an attraction but there is also some repulsion that keeps them all from collapsing into a point.
‘It is to be regarded as one of the many merits of Kant, that in his ‘Metaphysical foundations of Natural Science’, he made an attempt at a so-called construction of matter, and by establishing a notion of matter, revived the concept of a philosophy of nature. In so doing however, he postulated the reflective determinations of the forces of attraction and repulsion as being firmly opposed to and independent of one another, and although matter had to be derived from them, assumed it to be complete in itself, and therefore that that which is to be attracted and repelled is already fully constituted matter. I have dealt more fully with the fundamental flaw in this Kantian exposition in my ‘Science of Logic’. It should be noted moreover that weighted matter is the first totality and real nature in which attraction and repulsion can occur; it has the ideal nature of the moments of the Notion, of singularity or subjectivity. Consequently they are not to be regarded as independent, or as self-contained forces. It is only as moments of the Notion that they result in matter, although matter is however the presupposition of their appearance’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Hegel is presupposing Kant’s argument yet Kant is talking about physical entities rather than conceptual relations and he thinks that any physical object must be spatial and what that means is that it will occupy some volume of space but its degree of intensity in this space can range between 0 and 1, which is to say that matter is what fills a volume of space to some degree, the degree to which the volume is filled depends upon the degree to which matter is compressed by outside forces and since the body’s matter holds together and does not dissipate there must be some force that pulls it toward the centre of the object, since the matter does not collapse into the centre, there must be a counteracting repulsive force. It may be objected that this attractive force is unnecessary since the repulsive forces from surrounding bodies will suffice to prevent the body from expanding indefinitely and this will not do for Kant since the surrounding matter ‘itself requires a compressive force in order that it be matter’.
To put it another way we cannot rely upon surrounding bodies to define a body since each of them would need its own principle of attraction before it itself could exist as a body and since the attractive force is a principle of matter, that is to say, since matter depends upon this force it cannot depend upon some other matter and this attractive force that holds a body together might seem to be some sort of cohesion but Kant rejects this supposition because even though liquids and gases have less cohesion they do not for that reason necessarily occupy greater volume so what is needed is an attractive force that prevents a body from expanding indefinitely and this Kant identifies as gravity and this attractive force must operate wherever the boundaries of the body exist, be the body expanded or compressed, and since it is a principle of matter it is prior to matter and cannot depend on it therefore the attractive force exists independently of the boundary of matter. However because matter does not limit it there is nothing to prevent gravity from extending infinitely though it will be diminished by being diffused through the volume of space.
In brief Kant argues that the law of gravity is a priori because gravity together with a force of repulsion makes material bodies possible and what is wrong here is Kant’s identification of two distinct forces, for Hegel there is rather a single contradictory principle at work and there cannot be an attraction unless there is something to attract and specifically what makes matter have a force of attraction is its apartness in space, that is to say, its occupying space, and it is just the repulsion between the parts intrinsic to its occupying space that makes the matter of a body be attracted to its centre hence occupying a volume of space is at once an attraction and expansion of points.
And further for the same reason that parts of one material body are attracted to its centre the parts of two or more bodies are attracted to the centre between them and so the attractive force of any individual material body is directed to some unifying centre point that lies outside of itself and gravity the essential feature of a matter is a kind of otherness of matter, this does not take us ahead scientifically but gravity and repulsion both belong essentially to bodies and the force of gravity extends throughout space tet, since gravity and repulsion are not simply one inasmuch as the centre of gravity generally falls outside of the matter which occupies some volume, there remains a certain unintelligibility to matter.
Insofar as a body is a filled volume of space it exists in space as well as time, but the position it occupies in space or in time does not affect its character.
‘Initially, in its mere universality and immediacy, matter has only a quantitative difference, and is particularized into different quanta or masses, which in the superficial determination of a whole or unit, are bodies. The body is also immediately distinguished from its ideality; it is however within space and time that it is essentially spatial and temporal, and it appears as their content, indifferent to this form. Addition. Matter fills space merely because it is exclusive in its being-for-self, and so posits a real limit in space. Space as such lacks this exclusiveness. The determination of plurality necessarily accompanies being-for-self, but is as yet completely indeterminate difference, and not yet a difference implicit within matter itself; matters are mutually exclusive’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
It follows that moving through space and time, that is to say, being in motion, also does not affect it.
‘In accordance with the spatial determination in which time is sublated; the body is durable; in accordance with the temporal determination in which indifferent spatial subsistence is sublated, it is transitory; in general, it is a wholly contingent unit. It is indeed the unity which binds both moments in their opposition, i.e. motion; but in its indifferent opposition to space and time (prev. §), and so to the relation of space and time in motion (§ 261), the body has motion external to it in the same way as its negation of motion, or rest. It is in fact inert’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
It is inert but since it is inert any motion it acquires must come from contact with some other body that is itself in motion and at the moment of impact the two bodies constitute a single body that moves as one, however the impact is only possible because the two bodies resist each other and their resistance is due to the internal repulsion between the parts of each a repulsion that exists because of their being distinct bodies each with its own inner gravity and it is this inner gravity that constitutes a body as a body and makes it capable of acquiring inertial motion from impact, in impact, then, the two bodies become one, but also remain distinct masses.
‘When movement which is external to an inert body and therefore finite, sets this body in motion and so relates it to another, the two form the momentary unit of a single body, for they are both masses, and only differ quantitatively. It is thus that both bodies are united by movement through the imparting of motion, but as each is to an equal extent presupposed as an immediate unit, they also resist one another. In the relationship between them, their being-for-self, which is further particularized by the quantum of mass, constitutes their relative gravity. This is weight as the gravity of a quantitatively distinct mass; it is extensive as a number of weighted parts, and intensive as a specific pressure (see § r03 Rem.). As the real determinateness, together with velocity, or the ideal nature of the quantitative determinateness of motion, it constitutes a single determinability (quantitas motus), within which weight and velocity can reciprocally replace one another (c£ § 26r Rem.)’.
- The Philosophy of Nature’
Their common motion depends on their relative matters and their relative motions and the matter and the velocity of the impacting body are therefore interchangeable insofar as each of these produces the same effect on the impacted body and the total motion of impacting and impacted bodies remains the same before and after impact because the matter remains inert and unaffected by motion, or more scientifically the total momentum of the system does not change. Each of the colliding bodies has its own centre of gravity but inasmuch as they differ only through the quantities of their masses the two together constitute a single body that has its own centre of gravity.
‘This weight, concentrated as an intensive amount into one point within a body, is the body’s centre of gravity; in that it is weighted, the body has its centre where it posits it however, i.e. outside itself. Consequently, impact and resistance, as well as the motion posited through them, have a substantial foundation in a centre which, while lying outside each particular body, is common to them all. This explains why each contingent motion imposed on them from without, passes into rest in this centre. As the centre is outside matter, this rest is at the same time merely a tendency towards the centre, and as the result of the relationship of the particular bodies, and of this tendency towards the centre in the matter which is common to them, they exert pressure on one another. In relationships where bodies are separated from their centre of gravity by relatively empty space, this tendency constitutes fall, i.e. essential motion, in which contingent motion conforms to the Notion and its existence, by passing over into rest’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
In respect of this latter centre of gravity both bodies are in motion, before impact, each body is falling toward this centre.
‘Fall is relatively free motion: free, in that it is posited through the Notion of the body and is the manifestation of the body’s own gravity; within the body it is therefore immanent. At the same time, it is however only the primary negation of externality, and is therefore conditioned. Separation from the connection with the centre is therefore still a contingent determination, posited externally.
Inasmuch as this centre of gravity is the point of attraction the bodies are moving toward it not with the uniform inertial motion initially supposed but with the uniform acceleration of gravitational attraction and in order that the bodies be able to impact each other each must have its own internal gravity and repulsion yet if each has its own gravity then together they have a common centre of gravity that is attracting both and so their fall toward this centre is not of uniform velocity but is the free fall of gravitational attraction and furthermore the motion between these bodies is an essential consequence of their being material bodies in space.
‘Fall is merely the abstract positing of a single centre, in the unity of which the difference between particular masses and bodies posits itself as sublated; consequently, mass or weight plays no part in the magnitude of this motion. As this negative relation to self, the simple being-for-self of the centre is essentially a repulsion of itself however. It is formal repulsion into many immobile centres (stars), and living repulsion in that it determines these centres according to the moments of the Notion and so establishes an essential relation within their Notional differentiation. This relation is the contradiction of their independent being-for-self, and their connectedness with the Notion; the appearance of this contradiction between the reality and ideality of these centres is motion, and indeed absolutely free motion’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
===
It follows that there can be no pure uniform rectilinear motion and the impact that places one body in motion must be caused by another body to which it cannot but be attracted gravitationally or, rather, because impact does not occur in absolute space but in respect of the relative position of another body, the appropriate frame of reference is the gravitational centre toward which both bodies move yet motion toward a gravitational centre is always an acceleration toward that centre and so all actual motion is gravitational acceleration and rectilinear motion is only theoretically possible in a universe with a single body but such a body could never receive the force it needs to move, in brief gravity undermines inertia and for the same reasons that two balls have the same centre of gravity all material bodies ought to have in addition to their individual centres of gravity a collective centre of gravity.
‘Gravitation is the true and determinate Notion of material corporeality realized as the Idea. Universal corporeality divides itself essentially into particular bodies, and links itself together in the moment of individuality or subjectivity, as determinate being appearing in motion; this, in its immediacy, is thus a system of many bodies’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Then, every material body would be attracted to it and in respect of the distance between them and it all would be falling toward it and falling is hence the essential motion of bodies and it is contingent insofar as a body’s separation from the centre is contingent but necessary in respect of the nature of matter (see above) and furthermore this universal attraction must presuppose some kind of plurality that is attracted and these bodies each have their own centres of gravity and hence maintain their individual identities. A body’s falling toward the collective centre does not undermine its identity but the way it falls depends upon its matter and motion and this attraction to the centre manifests itself as motion around the centre in particular as the elliptical motions of the planets around the sun. This is the free motion of matter the point being that matter realizes itself in a universe where matter moves in a cyclical motion wherein it returns to itself.
Newton’s bucket experiment (see previous article) was supposed to demonstrate that some motions are real, imagining a bucket with water in it suspended by a string, rotated, and then released and as the rope unwinds the water climbs up the sides of the bucket and Newton takes this to indicate that the rotation of the bucket is a real motion that results as an effect from an agent’s act. Kant also argues that circular rotary motion is actual or true and Hegel concurs that the rotation of matter about a centre is real but he contends that it follows necessarily from the nature of matter and Hegel insists that this real motion exists in the elliptical motions of the bodies orbiting the sun, for these orbiting bodies elliptical motion would be at once inertial and gravitational so the solar system is a sort of synthesis between gravitational and inertial motions and the reason that Hegel praises Kepler and disparages Newton is that Kepler realizes that the solar system is an expression of the nature of matter, planetary motions are not composite motions but fundamental and that these motions thereby overcome the contradiction in Newton’s laws.
‘In bodies in which the full freedom of the Notion of gravity is realized, the determinations of their distinctive nature are contained as the moments of their Notion. Thus, one of the moments is the universal centre of abstract relation to self. Opposed to this extreme is immediate singularity, which is self-external and centreless, and which also appears as an independent corporeality. The particular bodies are however those which simultaneously stand as much in the determination of self-externality, as they do in that of being-in-self; they are in themselves centres and find their essential unity through relating themselves to the universal centre’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Hegel does not know of course that the structure of the atom mirrors that of the solar system and he does not know that on the Bohr model the orbits of electrons around the nucleus are not composite motions (although Paolucci thinks he anticipated Bohr see previous article) nor does he know Einstein’s contention that matter is a form of energy yet this as evidence for his notion that rotation around a centre is a fundamental character of matter, matter does at the subatomic level take on a fundamental and necessary structure that is different from what either gravity or inertia by itself suggests. This structure is intelligible and explains features of matter albeit it adds nothing to the predictions usually identified with science and these developments demonstrate that Hegel’s approach was certainly not misguided and his scientific contribution is different and more profound for the particular structure that he proposes is not as important as the principle at stake. Newton understands matter as inert, it is a body, apart from its quantity it has no distinguishing characteristics, one body is the same as any other as far as Newton’s physics is concerned, and with this conception of matter laws of bodies are completely general, particular characteristics that distinguish one body from another need not be considered, a view of matter as neutral stuff in contrast with the premodern notion of matter as undetermined potential, and on this latter view there is no matter that stands by itself, matter is always that which is determined by something else, and matter is understood only as the potential for the specific form it can receive, hence wood is matter insofar as it has the potential to be fashioned into a house albeit it is also a formal determination of elements which latter are in turn its matter and since matter has no independent identity ancient and medieval science could make only the broadest and emptiest claims about matter in general and any more detailed understanding of matter would need to focus on one particular type of matter, such as the matter of dogs, the matter of plants, and so forth, and explain how such matter takes on specific functions when it receives a form. This is what Aristotle and his followers wanted science to do and in relation to this premodern view the Newtonian matter as stuff view has the big advantage of allowing general claims about matter and such claims constitute Newtonian physics.
However the problem with this new approach to matter is that it abstracts from real differences between different kinds of things, indeed the mere bodies it treats do not exist and furthermore in abstracting all particular characteristics to arrive at a mere body we take away all that could give the body its own character and as a result body must be inert, it cannot cause motion in itself or another body and any motion it acquires does not alter it, hence motion must exist as a kind of accidental attribute of matter and yet this conception of matter as inert body runs against the character that matter needs to have to constitute itself as a body and this latter consists of attractive and repulsive forces that allow it to occupy a volume of space, forces that cause motion, and Hegel resolves this contradiction by proposing a system in which the centre and the motions around it are inert because they are governed by attractive and repulsive forces. Although Hegel identifies it with the solar system what is really important about this solution far more than what it is embodied in is the notion that matter has its own activity and this we learn from Hegel’s solution, the notion implicit in Newtonian mechanics that matter is merely inert is incompatible with the activity that matter must have even to sustain itself as a body, matter must be active.
Such a conclusion is reached through metaphysical reflection on the concept of nature and in the early twentieth century scientists also reflecting upon basic scientific concepts as well as actual and possible experimental results arrived at the same conclusion, the inner dynamics of the atom constitutes one obvious example of matter’s intrinsic activity, electrons are no longer supposed to move around the nucleus as planets move around the sun, they appear rather to exist in states of excitation as does the equally active nucleus, and Einstein’s identification of matter as a form of energy expresses the same idea, matter is active.
This intrinsic activity of matter explains why the addition of motion in particular motion close to the speed of light does affect the quantity of matter though we need more reasoning to see why the change is what the Lorentz transformation describes (Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, (1853–1928), Einstein used this transformation to make claims to special theory of relativity). That matter according to general relativity does not naturally move in straight lines but somehow bends space and time with which it is intrinsically connected and that matter exists as elementary particles or waves each with its own motions and properties both suggest that contemporary science has accepted key features of Hegel’s view of matter. Yet just how is matter is active? Philosophy of nature ends here and science begins yet there is an important role for philosophy of nature in uncovering problems and resolving them conceptually as well as in making intelligible answers to why? questions that science does not address. (Recall Why? is not a meaningful question claimed intellectual giant Richard Dawkins (1941 -)… why scientists et al diminish whatever reputation they have by talking on things they know nothing about is certainly a why question hard to answer but it goes on, and on … and the colour of jealousy is green for his information).
Philosophy of nature does not replace science but neither is it without implication for science and there is a significant problem in Newtonian physics that is not easy to resolve and his solution in its form if not its detail continues to have an impact on the way we see and explore matter and Hegel the master a priori metaphysician is victorious over the great empiricist who made a virtue out of abstaining from metaphysics.
Dedicated to my favourite Hegelian category … the One … my lovely One … floating as one with you forever …
When you told your secret name
I burst in flame and burned
I’m floating
Love has set our hearts aflame
Burn like the sun
We’re floating as one
Floating
Floating
Floating with you
Ever since you kissed my eyes
I find myself alive
I’m floating
Ever since I held your face
I soar through space
I’m floating with you
Floating
Floating
Floating with you
Why don’t you come over to my house?
Please
Love has set our hearts aflame
Burn like the sun
We’re floating as one
Floating
Floating
Floating with you
Floating
Floating
Floating
Floating
Floating
=====
Coming up next:
Hegel and Kepler.
To be continued ..
