Logical and natural life in Hegel

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the specific ways in which Hegel's account of life and organisms advances upon Kant's account of natural purposes in the third Critique. First of all, I argue that it is essential for Hegel's account that it contains two levels. The first level is that of logical life, the discussion of which does not depend on any empirical knowledge of natural organisms. I provide my reconstruction of this logical account of life that answers to the objection made by a number of Hegel scholars to the effect that Hegel does in fact rely on empirical knowledge at this place in the logic.The second level is that of natural organisms themselves. I argue that it is with the help of this separation of the logical and natural levels, as well as his doctrine of the impotence of nature, that Hegel, unlike Kant, (a) is able to claim that not everything in natural organisms is purposive, and (b) provide a philosophical, and not merely empirical, account of the distinction between plants and animals. In both of these respects, Hegel's position can be seen as a welcome advance over Kant.

External or Intrinsic Purpose—What comes first? On Hegel's Treatment of Teleology

“…This coincides with the recent reading of the difference between the ‘Idea of Life’ and life in nature in Kabeshkin (2022a) who argues that this distinction allows Hegel to go beyond Kant's notion that everything in the natural organism has to be ‘shaped by purpose’. For Hegel this would only be true for the ‘logical life’, but not for life in space and time.…”

“… 53 Kabeshkin accurately reconstructs Hegel's logical notion of life accordingly as essentially characterized by a unity of the ‘drive for differentiation and the drive for unification’ or ‘integration’, see (2022a: 132–33).…”

“… 28 Following Hegel's quoted parallelization I draw in this summary both from Hegel's remarks in the Philosophy of Nature , and from his more detailed analysis in the Logic . Recently see Kabeshkin (2022b), for an excellent discussion of the logical development in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature concerning Mechanism and Physics, and Kabeshkin (2022a) for a comparison of the discussion of Life in the Logic and the Philosophy of Nature .…”

“… 69 For a re-actualization of a logical notion of ‘life’, see especially Kabeshkin (2022a). I do believe with Kabeshkin that a notion of ‘Life’ belongs in fact to the Logic .…”