The Logic of Life: Hegel’s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings

Kreines, James

doi:10.1017/ccol9780521831673.014

Cited by 37 publications

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“…(On the contrary, Kant tends to think that if the idea of the whole, as a representation, had no role in its emergence, then a teleological judgement is not objectively justified). The only necessary condition to fulfil in order to submit such a verdict is that, in fact, these processes reproduce themselves (see Kreines 2008). If they reproduce themselves, then they enjoy the requisite objective self-sufficiency: they exist purely because they are effective as productive processes.…”

Section: Hegel's Metaphysical Answersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegel on the Productivity of Action: Metaphysical Questions, Non-Metaphysical Answers, and Metaphysical Answers

Maraguat

2019

Hegel Bulletin

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Charles Taylor claims that not only Kant, but also successors of Kant such as Fichte and Hegel, advocate a primitive concept of action, namely, a basic, irreducible, indispensable concept allegedly essential to our self-understanding. This paper shows how philosophers like Robert Brandom agree with Taylor explicitly with regard to Hegel, and attribute to him transcendental non-metaphysical arguments in support of such a concept. It then proceeds to challenge this attribution (both of the concept and the type of argument), offering a brief presentation of an alternative non-transcendental metaphysical approach to the Hegelian idea of giving actuality to a concept (or end) through a productive activity.

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Section: Hegel's Metaphysical Answersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hegel on the Productivity of Action: Metaphysical Questions, Non-Metaphysical Answers, and Metaphysical Answers

Maraguat

2019

Hegel Bulletin

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“…Of course, Hegel is wrong wherever his claims contradict later scientific insights, such as those in evolutionary biology. But I have argued elsewhere (Kreines 2008) that Hegel's philosophical argument in defense of teleological explanation in biology is entirely independent of any such obsolete scientific claims. More specifically, Hegel argues that living beings are composed of material parts themselves explicable in lower-level terms -for example, in terms of the natural laws and kinds noted above; and Hegel provides philosophical arguments for the conclusion that living beings themselves are not explicable in lower-level terms, but rather in teleological terms.…”

Section: A Brief Look At the Higher Levels: Biology And Spiritmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metaphysics without Pre-Critical Monism: Hegel on Lower-Level Natural Kinds and the Structure of Reality

Kreines

2008

Bull. Hegel Soc. G.B.

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Recent debates about Hegel's theoretical philosophy are marked by a surprising lack of agreement, extending all the way down to the most basic question: what is Hegel talking about? On the one hand, proponents of ‘metaphysical’ interpretations generally read Hegel as aiming to articulate the overall structure or organisation of reality itself, and the nature of a highest or most fundamental being. Particularly influential is the idea that Hegel is reviving and modifying a form of Spinoza's metaphysical monism, according to which the organised whole of everything is the highest being, providing a ground or reason for everything real. On the other hand, proponents of ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations argue Hegel's topic is something else entirely. The idea is that Hegel agrees with Kant in finding pre-critical forms of metaphysics to be uncritical or dogmatic. And the topic of Hegel's positive project is supposed to be not the nature of reality itself, nor any most fundamental being, but rather ‘forms of thought’ akin to Kant's categories and the objectivity, legitimacy, or normative authority of those forms of thought.This is of course only a rough sketch of the most basic recent debate, about which there is more to say than can fit in this paper. My focus here is on what Hegel has to say about nature and natural kinds, in ‘Observing Reason’ from the Phenomenology, and also in similar material from the Logic and Encyclopedia. I intend to argue that this material suggests a surprising way of stepping beyond the fundamental debate sketched above. There can of course be no question of elaborating and defending here a complete interpretation of Hegel's entire theoretical philosophy. I will have to restrict myself to arguing for the unlikely conclusion that there is an approach that can combine and integrate the strongest points made by both sides in the most basic debate shaping recent Hegel interpretation.

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“…Stern : 58–9 and passim (who talks of ‘substance kinds’, cf. note 29 below); : 25–6; deVries : 63–5; Kreines : 325–6; : passim; : 362–3. (I shall explain my own usage of ‘natural kind’ in Section 1 below.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…On this view, the ‘moments’ of the Concept can be understood in the sense that universal objective concepts have individual instances with particular properties (cf. Stern : 66, 155–6; Kreines : 363).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Hegel's Essentialism. Natural Kinds and the Metaphysics of Explanation in Hegel's Theory of ‘the Concept’

Knappik

2016

European J of Philosophy

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Several recent interpretations see Hegel's theory of the Concept as a form of conceptual realism, according to which finite reality is articulated by objectively existing concepts. More precisely, this theory has been interpreted as a version of natural kind essentialism, and it has been proposed that its function is to account for the possibility of genuine explanations. This suggests a promising way to reconstruct the argument that Hegel's theory of objective concepts is based on-an argument that shows that the possibility of explanation rests on metaphysical preconditions and that natural kind essentialism gives the only adequate account of those preconditions. But in order for such a reconstruction to be successful, one needs to spell out the metaphysical features in virtue of which Hegelian natural kinds can account for the possibility of explanation. The article takes up this challenge. It offers the first detailed analysis of the modal fine-structure of Hegel's natural kind essentialism and shows how Hegel's position, thus understood, provides the details needed to complete the explanation-based argument.

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The Logic of Life: Hegel’s Philosophical Defense of Teleological Explanation of Living Beings

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Hegel on the Productivity of Action: Metaphysical Questions, Non-Metaphysical Answers, and Metaphysical Answers

Hegel on the Productivity of Action: Metaphysical Questions, Non-Metaphysical Answers, and Metaphysical Answers

Metaphysics without Pre-Critical Monism: Hegel on Lower-Level Natural Kinds and the Structure of Reality

Hegel's Essentialism. Natural Kinds and the Metaphysics of Explanation in Hegel's Theory of ‘the Concept’

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