On Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’ : A Free Reflex of Spirit — part one.
‘The Glory of Nature’
by Frederick Tennyson (1807–1898)
If only once the chariot of the Morn
Had scatter’d from its wheels the twilight dun,
But once the unimaginable Sun
Flash’d godlike thro’ perennial clouds forlorn,
And shown us Beauty for a moment born;
If only once blind eyes had seen the Spring,
Waking amid the triumphs of midnoon;
But once had seen the lovely Summer boon
Pass by in state like a full-robed King,
The waters dance, the woodlands laugh and sing;
If only once deaf ears had heard the joy
Of the wild birds, or morning breezes blowing,
Or silver fountains from their caverns flowing,
Or the deep-voiced rivers rolling by;
Then Night eternal fallen from the sky;
If only once weird Time had rent asunder
The curtain of the Clouds, and shown us Night
Climbing into the awful Infinite
Those stairs whose steps are worlds, above and under,
Glory on glory, wonder upon wonder!
The Lightnings lit the Earthquake on his way;
The sovran Thunder spoken to the World;
The realm-wide banners of the Wind unfurl’d;
Earth-prison’d Fires broke loose into the day;
Or the great Seas awoke — then slept for aye!
Ah! sure the heart of Man, too strongly tried
By Godlike Presences so vast and fair,
Withering with dread, or sick with love’s despair,
Had wept for ever, and to Heaven cried,
Or struck with lightnings of delight had died.
But He, though heir of Immortality,
With mortal dust too feeble for the sight,
Draws thro’ a veil God’s overwhelming light;
Use arms the Soul — anon there moveth by
A more majestic Angel — and we die!
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‘Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead Heath with a Boy Sitting on a Bank’, c. 1825, John Constable
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Antonín Leopold Dvořák, (1841–1904), ‘In Nature’s Realm’:-
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831), ‘Philosophy of Nature’, 1817.
Natur, from the Latin natura and ultimately from nasci (to be born, to arise, originate) corresponds closely to nature. It means what has come about or grown without outside help; the creation or world, and, in a secondary sense, essence, character, etc., as in e.g. human nature. ‘Nature’ in both senses is often contrasted with culture and the cultural, and with art and the artificial. Nature in its primary sense is contrasted with man and with what is specifically human, Spirit and the spiritual. In the later nineteenth century, the Naturwissenschafien (natural sciences) were contrasted with the Geisteswissenschaften (originally a translation of John Stuart Mill’s, (1806–1873), moral sciences).)
The second volume of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia following on from the Logic is devoted to Naturphilosophie (natural philosophy, philosophy of nature), in contrast to Logic and the philosophy of Spirit or Mind which follows the philosophy of Nature. The expression philosophia naturalis first appears in Seneca, (4 BC — AD 65) but he, like other ancients, drew no distinction between science and philosophy of nature. They are still conflated in the expression natural philosophy which Newton and his English successors applied to physics and chemistry. But in the eighteenth century Wolff and his followers (including Kant) distinguished physica speculativa or philosophy of nature from physica empirica or natural science: natural science establishes empirical facts, while philosophy of nature examines general questions concerning nature and general concepts applicable to it.
‘The third part, Cosmology, dealt with the world, with its contingency, necessity, and eternity, with its being limited in space and time, with the formal laws and their modifications, and further with the freedom of man and the origin of evil. In this context, the following were taken to be absolute antitheses: contingency and necessity; external and internal necessity; efficient and final causes, or causality in general and purpose; essence, or substance, and appearance; form and matter; freedom and necessity; happiness and suffering; good and evil. The object of cosmology was both nature and also spirit in its external entanglements, or its appearance; in short, the object of cosmology was being there generally, the comprehensive sum of the finite. It did not treat its object as a concrete whole, however, but only according to abstract determinations. It dealt, for instance, with questions such as whether chance or necessity ruled the world, and whether the world is eternal or created. It was therefore one main concern of this discipline to establish what were called universal cosmological laws, such as the one that says that ‘nature makes no leaps’, for example. ‘Leap’ means here qualitative distinction and qualitative alteration, which appear to take place without mediation, whilst, on the contrary, what is (quantitatively) gradual presents itself as something mediated. With regard to the way spirit appears in the world, the main questions raised in this cosmology were those concerning the freedom of man and the origin of evil. These are certainly questions of the highest interest; but to answer them in a satisfactory way, it is above all necessary not to cling to the abstract determinations of the understanding as if they were ultimate-as if each of the two terms of an antithesis could stand on its own, and were to be considered as something substantial and genuine in its isolation. This, however, was the standpoint of the older metaphysics, and also the general framework of these cosmological discussions’.
‘Because of this, they could not attain their purpose, namely, a comprehension of the phenomena of the world. The distinction between freedom and necessity was subjected to inquiry, for example, and these determinations were applied to nature and spirit in such a way that the operations of nature were considered to be subject to necessity, while those of spirit were free. This distinction is certainly essential, and it is grounded in the very core of spirit; but considered as abstractly confronting one another, freedom and necessity pertain to finitude only and are valid only on its soil. A freedom that had no necessity within it, and a mere necessity without freedom, are determinations that are abstract and hence untrue. Freedom is essentially concrete, eternally determinate within itself, and thus necessary at the same time. When people speak of necessity, it is usually initially understood as just determination from without; for instance, in finite mechanics, a body moves only when another body collides with it, and precisely in the direction imparted to it by this collision. This is a merely external necessity, however, not a genuinely inner necessity, for that is freedom. The situation is the same with the antithesis between good and evil — one that is typical of the modern world, self-absorbed as it is. It is quite correct to consider evil as something that has a fixed character of its own, as something that is not the good-giving the antithesis its due-but only because its merely apparent and relative character should not be taken to mean that evil and good are all one in the Absolute, or, as it has lately been said, that evil is only something in the eye of the beholder. What is wrong here is that evil is looked on as something fixed and positive, whereas it is the negative that does not subsist on its own account, but only wants to be on its own account, and is in fact only the absolute semblance of inward negativity’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
Hegel discusses ‘cosmology’ as a branch of Christian Wolff’s, (1679–1754), metaphysics. Immanuel Kant’s, (1770–1831), ‘Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science’, considers the a priori principles of natural science and general concepts such as matter, force and motion. But Kant does not confine himself to examining the presuppositions of the natural sciences: he also attempts to establish a priori such scientific doctrines as that matter consists of the forces of attraction and repulsion. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, (1775–1854) went further than Kant in this respect, in ‘Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature’ he argued that philosophy of nature sets out from intrinsically certain principles and can dispense with any guidance by appearances (Erscheinungen) and on Schelling’s view, philosophy of nature, unlike the natural sciences, treats nature as living and creative. To express this he adopted the medieval and Spinozist (Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)) concept of natura naturans (creative nature), in contrast to natura naturata (created nature). Nature, like the realm of spirit, consists of stages or levels (Stufen), which Schelling calls powers or potencies (Potenzen), but these do not follow each other in time. The stages of nature are more or less parallel to those of spirit, and, he believes, ‘nature is just intelligence turned into the rigidity of being; its qualities are sensations extinguished to being; bodies are its perceptions, as it were, killed’.
Schelling’s philosophy of nature had a considerable influence on, for instance, Lorenz Oken, (1779–1851), Henrik Steffens, (1773–1845), Schopenhauer and Hegel. Hegel often criticizes Schelling’s philosophy of nature, especially for its use of imaginative analogies, but he apparently endorses Schelling’s claim that nature is petrified (or ossified or frozen) intelligence (versteinerte Intelligenz).
‘The thinking view of nature must note the implicit process by which nature sublates its otherness to become spirit, and the way in which the Idea is present in each stage of nature itself Estranged from the Idea, nature is merely the corpse of the understanding. Nature is the Idea, but only implicitly. That was why Schelling called it a petrified intelligence, which others have even said is frozen. God does not remain petrified and moribund however, the stones cry out and lift themselves up to spirit. God is subjectivity, activity, infinite actuosity, within which the other is only momentary, and remains implicit within the unity of the Idea, because it is itself this totality of the Idea. Since nature is the Idea in the form of otherness, according to the Notion of the Idea, the Idea is not within it as it is in and for itself, although nature is nevertheless one of the modes in which the Idea manifests itself, and in which it must come forth. Secondly, it has to be established and demonstrated that this mode of the Idea is nature. In order to do this, a comparison will subsequently have to be made, to see if the definition corresponds to ordinary thinking about nature. In other respects however, philosophy need not concern itself with ordinary thinking, nor undertake the tasks it carries out with respect to nature; although such thinking is conformable however, there must, in general, be an agreement between these two aspects’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
Recall:
‘And He answered and said unto them, ‘I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out’.
- ‘Luke’ 19.40.
Hegel’s own enterprise is similar to Schelling’s in both its overall purpose and its execution, philosophy of nature is distinct from philosophy of science, its primary subject-matter is nature as such, not the natural sciences, but neither Schelling nor Hegel claim to study nature independently of the natural sciences, their claim to derive nature, or general truths about it, a priori does not entail that they could have done so if natural scientists had not prepared the material for them.
‘The coming into being of philosophy out of the need that has been mentioned has experience, the immediate and argumentative consciousness, as its starting point. With these needs as its stimulus, thinking conducts itself essentially so as to raise itself above the natural, sensible, and argumentative consciousness into its own unadulterated element; and it gives itself initially a self-distancing negative relationship to this beginning. Thus, thinking finds its first satisfaction in itself-in the Idea of the universal essence of these appearances; this Idea (the Absolute, God) can be either more or less abstract. Conversely, the experiential sciences carry with them the stimulus to vanquish the form in which the wealth of their content is offered only as something that is merely immediate and simply found, as a manifold of juxtaposition, and hence as something altogether contingent. They are stimulated to elevate this content to [the level of] necessity: this stimulus pulls thinking out of its abstract universality, and out of the satisfaction that is only warranted implicitly; and it drives thinking on to develop itself by its own means . On the one hand, this development is just a taking up of the content and of the determinations that it displays; but, on the other hand, it also gives these determinations the shape of coming forth freely (in the sense of original thinking) in accordance with the necessity of the matter itself alone’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
The relationship between nature and the logical idea, or between logic and the philosophy of nature, has proven to be a somewhat controversial matter. At the end of the ‘Science of Logic’ the logical Idea freely releases itself (sich … entlasst, lets itself go) or by a free resolve (Entschluss) determines itself as the external or intuitive (anschauende) idea.
‘The idea, namely, in positing itself as the absolute unity of the pure concept and its reality and thus collecting itself in the immediacy of being, is in this form as totality — nature. — This determination, however, is nothing that has become, is not a transition, as was the case above when the subjective concept in its totality becomes objectivity, or the subjective purpose becomes life. The pure idea into which the determinateness or reality of the concept is itself raised into concept is rather an absolute liberation for which there is no longer an immediate determination which is not equally posited and is not concept; in this freedom, therefore, there is no transition that takes place; the simple being to which the idea determines itself remains perfectly transparent to it: it is the idea that in its determination remains with itself. The transition is to be grasped, therefore, in the sense that the idea freely discharges itself, absolutely certain of itself and internally at rest. On account of this freedom, the form of its determinateness is just as absolutely free: the externality of space and time absolutely existing for itself without subjectivity. — Inasmuch as this externality is only in the abstract determinateness of being and is apprehended by consciousness, it is as mere objectivity and external life; within the idea, however, it remains in and for itself the totality of the concept, and science in the relation of divine cognition to nature. But what is posited by this first resolve of the pure idea to determine itself as external idea is only the mediation out of which the concept, as free concrete existence that from externality has come to itself, raises itself up, completes this self-liberation in the science of spirit, and in the science of logic finds the highest concept of itself, the pure concept conceptually comprehending itself’. -
‘The Science of Logic’
‘Considered according to this unity that it has with itself, the Idea that is for itself is intuiting and the intuiting Idea is Nature. But as intuiting, the Idea is posited in the one-sided determination of immediacy or negation, through external reflection. The absolute freedom of the Idea, however, is that it does not merely pass over into life, nor that it lets life shine within itself as finite cognition, but that, in the absolute truth of itself, it resolves to release out of itself into freedom the moment of its particularity or of the initial determining and otherness, [i. e., ] the immediate Idea as its reflexion,a or itself as Nature. Addition . We have now returned to the Concept of the Idea with which we began. At the same time this return to the beginning is an advance. What we began with was being, abstract being, while now we have the Idea as being; and this Idea that is, is Nature’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
Entschluss is from (sich) entschliessen, which originally meant to open up (it-, oneself)and the prefix ent- still has, in some of its occurrences, the force of separation, (cf. ‘de-, and ‘un-’.) but in Hegel’s day it meant to resolve, decide, and thus his use of the term has anthropomorphic or theological overtones and this transition from logic to nature is quite different from the transitions (Übergange, from übergehen, to go, pass, over) linking categories within the Logic hence the logical idea does not immediately become life, the stage of nature that is the most obvious counterpart to the highest phase of logic, but returns, as it were, to its beginning and becomes the sheer being of space. It then passes through the phases of mechanics (space and time, matter and motion, absolute mechanics, viz. the planetary system), physics (passing from light to the chemical process), and organic physics (the earth as an organism and organic life). Each phase passes into its successor in a way similar to that in which categories pass into each other in the Logic. Nature does not, on Hegel’s view, have a history: fossil remains were never alive but like Schelling, he is constantly on the look-out for spiritual or conceptual significance in such phenomena as light and magnetism. There are several reasons for this. First, in accordance with Hegel’s overall Idealism, nature, though not the product of any finite mind, must bear the marks of spirit: it is intelligence, albeit petrified. Second, philosophy of nature is intended not simply to provide information about nature, but to reclaim it for spirit, to sublate or overcome nature or its alienation from humans (or his or her alienation from nature). Making discoveries about nature and adequately conceptualizing them is only one way of doing this, another, more satisfactory, way is to show that the products and operations of nature are more mind-like than are the solid atoms and their mechanical interactions in terms of which Sir Isaac Newton, (1642–1726/27), viewed it. Third, one aim of philosophy of nature is to show that (and how) the mind, in particular the mind that observes nature, emerges out of nature, this cannot be done if nature consists only of entities and processes that are entirely alien to the mind, or if we insist on conceptualizing them in ways that are inapplicable to the mind itself hence Newtonian physics implicitly postulates an unbridgeable gulf between nature and mind.
The point and purpose of Hegel’s philosophy of nature is in need of clarification in several respects: 1. Is its subject-matter simply nature as such or nature as seen by the natural sciences? Hegel’s overall programme suggests conflicting answers and the nature that emerges from the logical idea and that precedes the emergence of spirit should be simply nature as such, uncontaminated by human thought about it. On the other hand, Hegel could, and would, no more claim to describe nature as such, independently of previous thought about it, than to describe history as such, independently of previous historians albeit the cases differ in that there can be no history without contemporaneous historical writing, but the existence of nature does not presuppose that of natural science.He saw himself as completing the work of scientists, organizing their results into a unified system and occasionally criticizing their conceptual inadequacy. Unlike Kant, Hegel was not a natural scientist and usually confines himself to supporting one current theory, for instance Johannes Kepler, (1571–1630), on planetary motions or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749–1832), on light, against another, for instance Newtonianism in general.
2. To what extent are natural phenomena or truths about them necessary or a priori, in contrast to contingent? Hegel frequently suggests that his procedure is to compare the appearance (Erscheinung) with the conceptual determination (Begriffsbestimmung), implying that there is a necessary general scheme of nature, but the details of its realization are contingent but there is not so clear an account of where (or why) the line is to be drawn between the conceptual scheme and the empirical details.
For instance:
‘Bodies stand in relation to the elements in accordance with their determinate particularity; as shaped wholes however, they also enter into relationship with one another as physical individualities. They are independent through a particularity which has not yet entered the chemical process, and preserves their mutual indifference within a wholly mechanical relationship. Within this mechanical relationship they manifest their self as sound, which is an internal oscillation, a motion of an ideal nature. Now however it is as their light, in the reciprocal physical tension of their particularity, that they exhibit the real nature of their selfhood. Nevertheless, although this selfhood is at the same time an abstract reality, it is an intrinsically differentiated light-electrical relationship’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
3. Philosophy of nature is part of an overall process of sublating or overcoming nature. Hegel is less attracted to nature than Schelling, and tends to see Spirit as involving a conflict with nature, rather than a smooth development out of it: he agrees with Thomas Hobbes, (1588–1679), against Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (1712–1778), that the state of nature was a war of all against all which civilization needed to overcome and he saw this process reflected in such Greek myths as the battle of the gods against the Titans but the overcoming of nature involves several distinct strands that he does not clearly differentiate or relate: First, there is a sense in which nature overcomes itself, at least to the extent that without our assistance it rises from the level of mere space to that of the living animal and its death, the very brink of spirit. Second, science and philosophy of nature discover that, all along, nature has been less alien than we supposed, when they discover that it contains such mind-like phenomena as light, as well as atoms and earthquakes. Third, thinking about something, on Hegel’s view, ipso facto alters it, thus our discoveries about and conceptualization of nature not only show that nature is not wholly alien, but make it less alien. Science and philosophy reveal the truth of nature in Hegel’s, as well as the usual, sense. Fourth, practical activities make nature less alien by, for instance, transforming it into parks and by producing artefacts and social groups that insulate us against the rigours of raw nature.
‘The ‘Philosophy of Nature’ is structured as follows:
INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE
A. Ways of considering Nature.
B. The Notion of Nature.
C. Division.
SECTION ONE : MECHANICS
A. SPACE AND TIME
(1) Space
(2) Time
(3) Place and Motion
B. MATTER AND MOTION : FINITE MECHANICS
(1) Inert matter
(2) Thrust
(3) Falling
C. ABSOLUTE MECHANICS
(1) Universal gravitation
(2) Kepler’s Laws
(3) Transition to Physics
SECTION TWO : PHYSICS
PHYSICS OF THE UNIVERSAL INDIVIDUALITY
A. The free physical Bodies
1. The Sun, Light and its Reflection
2. The Bodies of Opposition (Moon and Comet)
3. The Planet as the Body of Individuality
b . The Elements
1. Air
2. The Elements of Opposition (Fire and Water)
3. The individual Element — Earth
C. Meteorology — Process of the Elements
PHYSICS OF THE PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALITY
A. Specific Gravity
B. Cohesion (Adhesion, Coherence, and Elasticity)
c. Sound
d. Heat
PHYSICS OF THE TOTAL INDIVIDUA LITY
A. Shape (Shapelessness, Magnetism, Crystallography)
B. Particularization of the individual Body
1. Relationship to Light (Transparency, Refraction of Light,
Theory of Colour)
2. Properties of the Opposition (Smell as particularized Airiness, Taste as particularized Water)
3. The Totality in the Particular Individuality — Electricity.
c. The Chemical Process
1. Combination
a. Galvanism
b. The Process of Fire (Combustion)
c. The Process of Water (Neutralization, Formation of Salts)
d. The Process in its Totality (Chemical Affinity)
2. Dissociation
SECTION THREE : O R G A N IC S
THE TERRESTRIAL ORGANISM
A. History of the Earth
b . Structure of the Earth — Geology
c. Life of the Earth (The Atmosphere, the Oceans, Land)
THE PLANT NATURE
A. The Process of Formation
b . The Process of Assimilation
c. The Process of Reproduction (Genus-Process)
THE ANIMAL ORGANISM
a . Shape (Structure)
1. Functions of the Organism
2. The Systems of Shape (Nervous, Muscular, Circulatory, Digestive)
3. Total Structure
4. The Structural Process
b . Assimilation
1. The Theoretical Process (Sense Organs)
2. The Practical Relationship (Instinctive and Reflex)
3. The Constructive Instinct
c. The Process of the Genus
1. The Sex-Relation
2. Genus and Species
3. The Genus and the Individual
а. The Disease of the Individual
b. Therapy
c. The Self-induced Destruction of the Individual
Those of you who followed my series on the ‘Science of Logic’ will now understand what he was trying to do in that great work, it is concerned with pure thoughts or categories and its object is to deduce these pure thoughts from each other…. what is he trying to do in the ‘Philosophy of Nature’? Does that not take us to the material realm? And what of the ‘Philosophy of Spirit’that follows on from that? It would appear that in passing from the Logic to Nature and and then to Spirit we are leaving behind the sphere of mere thoughts and coming to the consideration of concrete things for the philosophy of Nature considers no mere abstractions such as being, cause, or substance, but rather actually existent things, matter, plants, animals and the philosophy of Spirit is concerned with actual things which exist in the world, the actual minds of men and women, human institutions, the products of art, religion, and philosophy. Hence the transition from Logic to Nature is a critical point in the system, the point at which the system passes from thoughts to things, and in virtue of this transition having all the trappings of a logical deduction similar in all respects to the deductions within the Logic itself it is sometimes held y those who haven’t een paying attention that what we have here is an impossible leap from thoughts to things.
And then it is complained that nothing can possibly be deduced from a thought except another thought and to suppose that one can deduce a solid thing, a table or a chair or a lady (if only) from a system of abstract thoughts is equivalent to supposing that by mere thought we can create these solid things out of nothing. And suppose we allow for the sake of argument that all the deductions of category from category which the Logic contains are valid then long as thought keeps within its own sphere and so long as it merely endeavours to deduce thought from thought its procedure might well be legitimate but to suppose that any process of logic can deduce an existent thing from a mere thought is surely delusional, and it is supposed that Hegel embarked upon such an endeavour in the transition from Logic to Nature.
There are certainly complications in the transition but any such account of the matter as that just presented is totally illusory for this transition is not a leap from thoughts to things in the sense supposed by these objector it is rather like every other deduction which is to say a transition from one thought to another. The philosophies of Nature and of Spirit are still concerned not with things in their crude particularity but solely with thoughts and if Hegel seems to deduce Nature from the Idea what he in fact deduces is not Nature herself in the absurd sense supposed but the thought of Nature and if within the philosophy of Nature he appears to deduce animals from plants what he is in fact doing is to deduce the thought animal from the thought plant, and if, within the philosophy of Spirit, he appears to deduce civil society from the family and the state from civil society what he is in fact deducing is the thoughts of these things and everywhere throughout the entire system he is concerned solely with thoughts nothing ut thoughts and there is nowhere any endeavour to do anything other than deduce one thought from another thought.
All this is evident enough from the explicit statements of Hegel himself whereby the thoughts that he deduces in the second and third parts of his system are called by him notions and his procedure is to deduce one notion from another notion, the notion of civil society from the notion of the family, the notion of the state from the notion of civil society, and so on, and the dialectic method is as applicable here as elsewhere. To deduce civil society from the family means to demonstrate that the notion, thought, or idea, of the latter implicitly contains and involves the notion, thought, or idea of the former in the same way that the deduction of nothing from being consisted in demonstrating that the thought being contains the thought nothing.
Hegel explicitly and repeatedly informs us that the philosophies of Nature and of Spirit deduce only universals they do not deduce this particular pen (see below) or that particular grain of sand or that particular lady. And universals are concepts or thoughts and it is most assuredly clear enough that to deduce plant, animal, family, state, and the like, is to deduce nothing but concepts, which is to say thoughts, in virtue of all these terms applying, not to one thing, but to whole classes of things and here just as in the Logic we are concerned solely with concepts and the deduction of concepts from one another and there is absolutely nothing absurd or illegitimate in such a procedure.
It may be objected that if this is a true interpretation of Hegel’s system then that system in virtue of it never leaving the sphere of abstractions has or may have no application to things at all and is a mere system of empty thoughts constructed in the air yet whatsoever Hegel’s procedure may be actual things certainly exist, there is this solid world, this table, that chair, my hat, your shoes, my lady’s soft caress, and if philosophy is to explain the universe (the fundamental purpose of philosophy) it is these actual things it has to explain not mere abstractions and universals and since to explain a thing means to demonstrate that it flows from a reason, is the logical consequent of a logical antecedent, since in fact explanation means deduction philosophy must on Hegel’s own principle deduce actual things and not mere thoughts for failure to do so is a failure to demonstrate why anything should exist at all. If we allow that all these notions follow logically from one another what reason is there why they should not remain mere notions, mere thoughts? How is it that corresponding things actually exist? Well, the answer is merely that things are thoughts and nothing but thoughts and that to deduce the thoughts is therefore the same as to deduce the things so this actual piece of paper is nothing but the universals whiteness, squareness, and so on and there is nothing in the paper but universals and to suppose that there is anything other than universals is to believe in the existence of an unknowable entity completely outside the range of thought and hence to deduce all universals would be the same as deducing all actual things in the universe.
Does Hegel himself fully grasp this point? Is it the case that in spite of his frequent reiteration of the doctrine that thought is all reality he nonetheless allowed himself to be seduced by a lingering trace of the idea which he had himself explicitly repudiated, that there is some mysterious entity in or behind things in addition to the universals that compose all we know of them? There is an apparent inconsistency here lying at the root of the entire well-known difficulty about the transition from Logic to Nature, as well as of the difficulty of explaining the place of contingency (as opposed to necessity) in his philosophy. So let us dig into it.
In what has been said thus far there is an apparent inconsistency namely it was noted that deduction is from thoughts to thoughts and that the endeavour to deduce actual things from thought would be illegitimate and that Hegel embarked upon no such endeavour and yet it was also noted that in virtue of things being nothing but thoughts, the deduction of thoughts is the same as the deduction of things hence Hegel does deduce and thereby explain the actual world. Do not these two positions contradict each other ? Well, what is illegitimate and assuredly absurd is to suppose that subjective deductions and thoughts can produce actual facts and it would be absurd for Hegel to suppose that he could, by writing down deductions, create a world. In this sense he does not deduce things but the Hegelian deduction is no mere subjective process it is rather the discovery of an objective reality and the logical transition from the Idea to Nature means that Nature exists because there is the Idea because the Idea is objective and real and not because Hegel happens to think the Idea for it is not Hegel who deduces Nature from the Idea it is the Idea itself the objective Idea not the Idea in Hegel’s mind (or material brain a part of Nature) that produces Nature out of itself.
The Logic deals with thoughts and the philosophy of Nature also deals with thoughts but in that case the question arises as to what the difference is between the Logic and the philosophy of Nature. Is not the latter merely a continuation of the former? The Logic ends with the Absolute Idea which is said to be the highest category but if our interpretation is adopted will it not follow as night follows day that the lowest notion with which Nature begins is merely a higher and further category than the Absolute Idea? And will this not destroy the whole fabric of the Hegelian system? Well the philosophy of Nature is most assuredly a continuation of the Logic and it is certainly not cut off from it by any such absolute gulf as has been supposed to be implied in the impossible leap from thoughts to things, it is an integral part of the same system but it is a new sphere of the system which is clearly distinguished from the sphere which preceded it, the Logic, just as, within the Logic the doctrine of Essence is a continuation of the doctrine of Being but is also clearly distinguished from it and the categories of Being are thoughts which all have this in common that they are characterized by immediacy. The categories of essence are also thoughts but they are a different kind of thoughts for they are all characterized by the opposite of immediacy which is to say mediation.
The entire Logic deals with thoughts and the entire philosophy of Nature deals with thoughts and because both deal with thoughts it is legitimate to regard one as a continuation of the other but they are nevertheless fundamentally different and opposed and the difference consists in the Logic dealing with categories a special kind of universals whose peculiarity is that they apply to everything, are universal in their scope and the philosophy of Nature deals with other universals, universals which are not categories, universals which apply only to some things and not to all. Everything in the universe has being, has qualities, is a cause, or an effect, Being, quality, cause, effect, are therefore categories, and fall within the sphere of Logic ut only some things are plants, only some are animals, only some are inorganic matter, hence plant, animal, inorganic matter, are universals of a kind wholly different from categories and hence they fall outside the sphere of the Logic.
The distinction between the categories and the universals of nature may also be expressed by saying that the categories are pure non-sensuous universals while the universals of nature are sensuous universes and the factor of sense merely means that what is sensuous has not merely universality but particularity also, it is this as opposed to that hence a sensuous universal is the same as a universal which applies to these and not to those, to some things (moment of particularity) and not to all hence we may characterize the transition from Logic to Nature as follows: the Logic gives us the first reason of the world, consisting of pure universals and we have now arrived at the stage at which our account of the first reason of the world being complete we proceed to its logical consequence the world itself and he actual transition is from the general sphere of pure universals to the general sphere of sensuous universals.
‘The implicitly rational beginning of the sciences passes over into what is contingent, because they have to bring the universal down to empirical singularity and actuality. In this field of alterability and contingency, it is not the Concept that can be made to count, but only grounds . The science of jurisprudence, for instance, or the system of direct and indirect taxation, require ultimate and precise decisions. These lie outside the determinateness-in-and-for-itself of the Concept, so that they leave a latitude for their determination — which can be grasped in one way upon one ground, and in another way on another ground, and which admits of no certain and ultimate ground. In the same way the Idea of nature loses itself in its dispersion of isolated contingencies; and natural history, geography, medicine, etc., fall into determinations of existence, species, and distinctions, etc., that are determined externally, by chance and by a play [of circumstances] , not by reason. History, too, belongs here, inasmuch as, although the Idea is its essence, the appearing of this Idea takes place in contingency and in the field of freedom of choice’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
Two questions are to e distinguished here, (1) whether the endeavour to deduce Nature from the Idea is legitimate, and (2) whether Hegel’s endeavour is successful, that is, whether the actual deduction given by him is valid. To the first of these questions the answer is that the endeavour is not merely legitimate but absolutely necessary in virtue of it being legitimate because it is not in the absurd sense usually supposed a transition from thoughts to things but only a transition from one kind of thought to another and has anyone ever questioned the legitimacy of deducing thoughts from thoughts? And the deduction is also necessary because it is the only possible way of explaining the universe, it is necessitated by the entire body of considerations that have been adduced in the ‘Science of Logic’ whereby what we have seen is that to explain means nothing else than to deduce and all idealism is grounded upon the idea that the first principle of explanation of the universe is a logical principle, that it is the universal, and that the universal is the reason or logical antecedent of which the World is the consequent.
This can mean nothing less than that the World is to be deduced from the Idea.
The relation between the Absolute and the World is a logical and not a temporal relation as the Greeks in particular Aristotle (384–322 BC) were aware for the Aristotelian principle of form is prior to the world the end is prior to the beginning not in time but in logic but what the Greeks did not yet appreciate was that this thought when fully developed, can mean nothing other than that the Absolute is related to the world as the premises of a syllogism to its conclusion and hence the world must be deduced from the Absolute and the failure to appreciate this led to the hopeless dualism of the systems of Plato, (428/427 or 424/423–348/347 BC) and Aristotle and if we are to get on Hegel’s back for endeavouring to deduce Nature from the Idea should we not get off the backs of Plato and Aristotle for being culpable of an unreconcilable dualism between matter and thought. Monism means that there is only one absolute reality and that all else is produced by this reality and for Plato and Aristotle and for Idealists in general the absolute reality is thought hence they must demonstrate that matter is produced by thought and neither Plato nor Aristotle demonstrated this hence they left matter as an ultimate underived principle, an independent being, an absolute reality, alongside of thought, that is dualism and for this they are blamed yet upon Hegel endeavouring to reconcile this dualism in the only possible way that is to say by deducing matter from thought, he is considered to be doing something absurd yet unless we are to rest in an unreconciled dualism we must allow either that thought produces matter or that matter produces thought.
The latter case is materialists the former idealism and if we allow the general position of idealism, that thought is the Absolute, then we must demonstrate that thought produces matter otherwise we find ourselves in the dualism of Plato and Aristotle and there are only two ways in which it is possible to conceive that thought produces matter, either thought, the Absolute, is prior to matter in time, and produces it as a cause produces its effect, or the Absolute is logically prior and produces matter as its logical consequent. The former alternative is out of the question, the latter means that the World must be deduced from the Idea and were we to adopt neither of these alternatives, if the Absolute produces the world neither as its effect in time, nor as its conclusion in logic, the question arises by what manner should we conceive the relation of the Absolute to the World?
As for the actual transition which Hegel makes from the Idea to Nature we find that in the final sections of the larger Logic Hegel informs us that since the Idea posits itself as the absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality, and consequently assumes the form of immediate being, it is, as the totality of this form, Nature. Hegel proceeds to make a number of remarks upon this deduction, but this is all he gives us for the deduction itself and the corresponding passage in the Encyclopaedia tells us nothing further and this deduction seems to mean that since all mediation is absolutely merged in the Idea hence the Idea is an absolute immediacy but what is absolutely immediate is there, is present, is simply given and the character of being immediately given, presented to us from the outside, is the essential characteristic of the external world, that is to say of Nature, to be immediate is the same as to be given, for what is given is a mere fact a fact that simply is so without any reason being given for it.
It is that which is not mediated by a reason, it is the immediate hence the Idea as immediate is something simply externally presented as an immediate fact and this is precisely the character of the external world of Nature. It may be objected that the deduction is faulty for on innumerable occasions we have seen mediation collapse to immediacy and each or any of these immediacies might for all that we can see to the contrary have been taken as a transition to Nature if the mere fact of immediacy is sufficient to afford a transition to nature, rather it might be stated that Hegel’s transition affords a clue to the truth that some subsequent thinker might follow up to find a valid deduction I am working on it (no doubt the immediacy of the Absolute Idea differs from the immediacy of previous categories in that, according to Hegel, the Absolute Idea for the first time achieves absolute stability, and does not give rise to any contradiction which necessitates the passage to a higher category) yet after this deduction Hegel proceeds to comment upon it saying that this is not a becoming or a transition as above, when we took the step from the totality of the subjective Notion to objectivity, or when we passed over from subjective end to life. The Idea is not subject to any more transitions its simplicity is perfectly transparent and has the form of the abiding Notion. But if the transition to Nature is not a transition similar to previous logical deductions, what is it ? Hegel replies that it means that the Idea emits itself with freedom in the form of Nature, and he goes on to speak of the resolve of the pure Idea to determine itself as external Idea, that is to say as Nature. And in the Encyclopaedia he says that enjoying however an absolute liberty the Idea does not merely pass over into life or as finite cognition allow life to show in it in its own absolute truth it resolves to let the moment of its particularity or of the first characterization and other-being, the immediate Idea as its reflected image, go forth freely as Nature.
It is to these phrases that Schelling and others have objected that they are a mere tissue of metaphors which cover up an absolute break in the system, the Idea in its absolute freedom, in its liberty, resolves (makes up its mind) to let the moment of its particularity go forth freely, as its reflected image, as Nature. These are clearly poetic metaphors yet the critics of Hegel have almost invariably failed to note the important fact that these poetic phrases are not part of the deduction itself, but only appear as a commentary upon it. The deduction itself is contained in the single sentence, (since the Idea posits itself as the absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality, and consequently assumes the form of immediate being, it is, as the totality of this form, Nature), and is of purely logical character. The transition to nature is not of the same kind as the transitions within the Logic, it does not necessarily follow from this that he meant to deny that it is a logical deduction of any kind, within the limits of the Logic itself Hegel distinguishes various kinds of logical transition. In the sphere of Being transition consists in a passing over of one term into another. In the sphere of essence it is not a passing over but a reflection of one term on another. In the sphere of the Notion the onward movement of the Notion is no longer either a transition into, or a reflection on, something else, but development for in the Notion the elements dis- tinguished are without more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole. Therefor we see that as each of the three great divisions of the Logic makes its appearance the deductions by which it is characterized differ in character from those in the preceding division hence the mere fact that he now tells us that the transition to Nature is not like the transitions in the Logic does not of itself prove that the passage into Nature is not a logical deduction at all. The transitions in the spheres of Being, Essence, and the Notion, are said to be different from each other, yet they are all logical deductions, the transition from the Idea to Nature is perhaps a fourth kind of logical deduction yet if so it is unclear what kind of logical deduction is meant given the poetic language (I won’t say merely poetic since I rather like it). .
Two things are clear, Nature is to be deduced from the Idea and such a deduction is essential to the system, is essential to any explanation of the World. Secondly the passage in which the transition is made is of the nature of a logical deduction, the actual transition is not made in the poetic passages about the Idea resolving in its freedom to let its moment of particularity go forth as nature these passages are rather descriptions of the transition which has already been made in the single sentence previously given since the Idea posits itself as the absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality and consequently assumes the form of immediate being, it is, as the totality of this form, Nature. This means that the thought of the Idea contains and involves the thought of immediacy, that the thought of, immediacy is the same as the thought of givenness, externality, and that this is the thought of Nature and to demonstrate that one thought contains and involves another thought is to deduce the second from the first and this is a logical deduction, a deduction of a special type which first made its appearance at the category of specific quantum and of which we have since seen numerous examples, whether it is an invalid or insufficient deduction is a moot point.
Perhaps Hegel’s contention that this is not a transition like those in the Logic simply means that it is a logical deduction of a new kind yet if it be considered that he did really mean to deny that it is a logical deduction at all then something seems to be amiss. Some lowly calumniators have suggested that Hegel never completely rid himself of the spectre of the thing-in-itself notwithstanding his repeated attacks upon the thing-in-itself for if a material object, a rock say, is nothing but universals, thoughts, then there is no reason why it should not be deduced for to deduce thoughts from thoughts is admittedly legitimate but if it contains any element which is not thought then that element would be undeducible and unknowable. Was Hegel misled by traces of this idea, believing Nature to contain some undeducible element and thereby hesitated and stumbled over the transition from the Logic to nature? Not everyone thinks the transition from Logic to nature is even a deduction, H. S. Macran for instance.
Well this brings up the question of Hegel’s stance on the question of the contingency of nature. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, (1770–1842), supposing Hegel to be endeavouring in the philosophy of Nature to deduce all actual existent objects from the pure Idea enquired whether Hegel could deduce the quill with which he, Herr Krug, was writing whereby Hegel gives short shrift to the hapless Krug in a contemptuous footnote in which he states that philosophy has more important matters to concern itself with than Krug’s quill.
‘The infinite wealth and variety of forms, and the utterly irrational contingency which mixes with the external order of natural formations, have been praised as the sublime freedom and divinity of nature , or at least as the divinity within it. It is to be expected that ordinary ways of thinking should mistake contingency, caprice and lack of order, for freedom and rationality. This impotence on the part of nature sets limits to philosophy; and it is the height of pointlessness to demand of the Notion that it should explain, and as it is said, construe or deduce these contingent products of nature, although the more isolated and trifling they are the easier the task appears to be’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
At this point Hegel inserts a footnote:
‘This is what Mr. Krug did, in what was at the same time a wholly naive request, when he set the philosophy of nature the modest task of deducing his quill. If it were possible that the time should come when science should be so advanced and perfected in all the more important matters of heaven and earth, the present and the past, that there should be nothing more important to be explained, then one might have been able to offer him hope with regard to the accomplishment of this undertaking and the proper glorification of his quill’.
Hegel deals very shortly with Krug’s ideas in the ‘History of Philosophy’ and gives an even harder hitting treatment of him in an article published in the ‘Critical Journal of Philosophy’ (vol. I art. i, 1802).
For instance:
‘The ego is so far the ideal ground of all conceptions of the object; all determination of this object is a determination of the ego. But in order that it may be object, it must be placed in opposition to the ego, i.e. the determinations set forth through the ego are another, the non-ego; this placing of the object in opposition is the real ground of conceptions. The ego is, however, likewise the real ground of the object; for it is likewise a determination of the ego that the non-ego as object is set in opposition to the ego. Both, the real ground and the ideal ground of the conception, are thus one and the same. Regarding the ego as ideal principle and the non-ego as real principle, Krug has likewise talked a great deal of nonsense. Regarded from the one point of view, the ego is active and the non-ego purely passive; while from the other side the ego is passive and the object active and operative. But since the ego in the non-philosophic consciousness does not have the consciousness of its activity in the conception of the object, it represents to itself its own activity as foreign, i.e. as belonging to the non-ego’.
- ‘Lectures on the History of Philosophy’
W. T. Stace, (1886–1967), however, believes Krug’s quill has a point. The general position egel takes up is that the philosophy of Nature cannot and should not attempt to deduce particular facts and things, but only universals. It cannot deduce this plant, but only plant in general and so on and the details of Nature, he says, are governed by contingency and caprice, not by reason, they are irrational and the irrational is just what cannot be deduced, It is most improper to demand of philosophy that it should deduce this particular thing, this particular lady, and so forth. ‘This position will not bear examination’ protests Stace. ‘If there is in this stone, or this man, nothing but thought, nothing but universals, then it ought, theoretically at least, to be possible to deduce this stone or this man. If it is not possible, the impossibility can only arise because the stone contains some element which is not. universal, and which, as absolutely particular, is outside the reach of thought altogether. What is outside the reach of thought is unknowable. It is the Kantian thing-in-itself. Thus Hegel’s position as regards the contingency of nature lends some colour to the suggestion that he was still, in spite of all his assertions to the contrary, infected with the Kantian idea of the unknowable. And this in turn would explain his fumbling over the transition from Logic to nature. In my opinion Hegel was wrong, and Krug right, as regards the question of the pen. And Hegel’s ill-tempered petulance is possibly the outcome of an uneasy feeling that Krug’s attack was not without reason’.
Stace in thinking that Krug may well have made an important point here was presumably unfamiliar with the lectures which would have cleared up the issue for him, Hegel was justified in concentrating upon assessments of the generalized subject matter of the natural sciences rather than particularities. Particular phenomena certainly provide an essential foundation for these generalizations, but it is the generalizations which make further particularities intelligible, and not vice versa.
Stace’s line of reasoning runs as follows. If we are to have an idealistic monism it must explain everything from its single first principle, thought and that means that it must deduce everything and to leave anything outside the network of deduction, to declare anything utterly undeducible, is dualism and implies that something exists which is not the product of thought, which is outside thought altogether, which is an ultimate underived absolute being, this is an outcrop of that same dualism which is evident in the systems of Plato and Aristotle. In Hegel’s system Nature must be regarded as mindless and irrational for the Idea is reason and Nature is the opposite of the Idea hence is irrational and since rationality is the same as necessity, nature must be governed by the opposite of necessity, which is to say. contingency, there is no necessary logical reason why anything in nature should be as it is it simply is so yet it is an essential feature of the Hegelian system that any two terms which are opposites are also identical and there cannot be an absolute separation between the rational and the irrational, the irrational must be also, at the same time, rational, it must be demonstrated that it is rational that the irrational should exist and if Hegel had asserted that any particular object, say this rock, is, on the face of it, something irrational but had further gone on to demonstrate that this very irrationality was a product of reason, that, when the true essence of the rock is disclosed it is discovered that its centre and core is thought, reason, this would have been in consonance with the essentials of his system.
This would have been to deduce the stone yet to say that the stone is something so utterly irrational that it lies wholly outside the Notion, that it cannot be deduced, this is to admit an absolute separation and opposition between the rational and the irrational, an opposition within which there is no identity, an opposition so complete that it introduces a fatal dualism into the system for it means that there is in the universe a division which cannot be healed, an absolute cleavage into two incommensurable halves, each of which is an absolute and independent being hence on such a view there are two kinds of reality yet what is not rational is not real, we must avoid the contradiction found in Plato whereby Platonic matter is declared to be absolute not-being yet the truth is that this matter since it is an entity which Plato does not derive from the Ideas is really an absolute being. If we follow Stace’s misguided line of thought it seems that it is the same with Hegel’s contingent and irrational that is declared to be an absolute unreality yet since it exists and since it is not deduced, not derived from thought, it has thus an independent being of its own, it is an absolute reality.
An idealistic philosophy to be complete must accordingly deduce every detail in the universe and so one might say it can only ever be complete in principle for infinite knowledge, omniscience, would be required to complete it yet this is a minor detail. We can assume an air of omniscience while we get high on Hegelian philosophy. The system is to be complete, absolute, final and to solve all problems and to take up the position that a complete philosophy must deduce everything. Remember however not to make the mistake Stace made in his reading of Hegel, that Hegel adopted the view that particular things cannot be deduced, that nature is governed by caprice and contingency and that one is to deduce only the universal genera of nature and spirit and cannot even deduce all natural species. That is missing the point just outlined. Nature may well apparently run riot blindly multiplying species without reason whereby in the endless welter of forms which nature produces reason is completely lost an endless extravagance of natural production akin to madness the absolute unreason of nature. The wealth of nature, her infinite variety to be so much admired is indeed a display of impotence, a powerlessness to keep within the bounds of reason a mad productivity, a running amok, a Bacchantic dance in which Nature revels in uncontrolled reason.
Dedicated to my lovely One .. who was in my thoughts for so long and then she materialized, there she was, just like the consequent of a logical seduction … I mean deduction …
Listen, baby, ain’t no mountain high
Ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wide enough, baby
If you need me, call me, no matter where you are
No matter how far, don’t worry, baby
Just call my name, I’ll be there in a hurry
You don’t have to worry
’Cause baby, there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, baby
Remember the day I set you free
I told you, you could always count on me, girl
And from that day on I made a vow
I’ll be there when you want me some way, some how
’Cause baby, there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, baby
Oh no darling, no wind, no rain
Or winters cold can stop me baby
No, no baby, ’cause you are my love
If you ever in trouble, I’ll be there on the double
Just send for me, oh baby
My love is alive, way down in my heart
Although we are miles apart
If you ever need a helping hand
I’ll be there on the double just as fast as I can
Don’t you know that there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, baby
Don’t you know that there ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough
Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough
=====
Coming up next:
Further preliminary remarks …
To be continued …
