Causality, Natural Systems, and Hegel’s Organicism

Westphal, Kenneth R.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26597-7_12

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…However, in the final part of the paper, I will briefly argue that if we look at the nuances of his view, the notion of organisation appears less hopelessly flawed than most neo-Aristotelians seem to assume. As some scholars (Cooper 2020, Maraguat 2020, Westphal 2020) have noted, Hegel's view resonates with some ideas in contemporary theoretical biology which may help illuminate the issue of self-organisation in a useful way 2 . I will briefly outline the basic characteristics of such views to show how they can help clarify not only Hegel's account of function but also his understanding of organism more generally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Hegel's account of life and living organisms has been demonstrated to be a key element of his system of thought shaping not only his so-called philosophy of biology (Gambarotto-Illetterati 2019, Brinkmann 1996, Sell 2017, Kabehskin 2021a, Spahn 2007, Sell 2013, Furlotte 2018, Westphal 2020) but also his conception of reason and thinking more generally (cf. Kreines 2015, Ng 2020, Pippin 2018) and his views on practical and political philosophy (Quante 2001, Sedgwick 2001.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Logical Form of a Living Organism

Corti¹

2022

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy

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This chapter investigates Hegel's philosophical account of living organisms and its import for current philosophical conversation on life. In part one, I will address Hegel's stance towards the distinction between the manifest and scientific images of life and living organisms. I will argue that Hegel's philosophical views cannot be reduced to an analysis of common sense or the manifest image framework but rather investigate and integrate categories coming from the natural sciences of his period. This gives new meaning to the idea of Hegelian naturalism. In part two, I argue that this is particularly notable in the case of "organization", a notion central to Hegel's understanding of living beings. I will first briefly survey and contextualize the role this notion played in debates that took place around Hegel, especially in the work of comparative anatomist George 2 Cuvier, reconstructing Hegel's conception of "organization" in detail. I will then show that organization plays a fundamental role in Hegel's thought. I will close by pointing to a potential resonance between Hegel's views and a current conceptual framework in theoretical biology that aims to elaborate the notion of organization in a theoretically viable and scientifically sound way.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Logical Form of a Living Organism

Corti¹

2022

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy

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“Inadmissible Application”: Some Notes on Causality and Life in Hegel

Meyer

2023

Studies in German Idealism

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Brandom on Hegel’s Objective Idealism

Basmaci

2024

ejpap

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Brandom, in his recent Spirit of Trust, develops a novel reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as a theory of objective idealism. In this paper, I aim to defend this interesting blend of concept realism and idealism against some potential objections by revising Brandom’s account of conceptuality based on Hegel’s logical concept of life as constitutive of objective determinations. In the first section, I briefly reconstruct the main tenets of Brandom’s objective idealism and recount its achievements. In the second section, I point out some major potential issues. First, Brandom’s commitment to a semantic holism in the context of scientific laws is likely to have reductionist or scientifically untenable implications. Second, Brandom seems to ignore Hegel’s own definition of objective idealism based on the concept of life – the culmination of his theory of conceptuality in his logic. I claim that Hegel not only has a strong emergentist commitment to the concept of life, but also argues that life is the ground of logical determinations. The last section suggests that a revision of Brandom’s framework based on a constitutive category of life can solve the problems outlined in section two.

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Causality, Natural Systems, and Hegel’s Organicism

Cited by 3 publications

References 44 publications

The Logical Form of a Living Organism

The Logical Form of a Living Organism

“Inadmissible Application”: Some Notes on Causality and Life in Hegel

Brandom on Hegel’s Objective Idealism

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