Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci.

34 (2003) 135147
www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa

Hegel and Naturphilosophie

Frederick Beiser
Syracuse University, 541 Hall of Languages, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA

Abstract

Against current non-metaphysical interpretations, I argue that Naturphilosophie is central

to Hegels philosophy. This is so for three reasons. First, it was crucial to Hegels program
to create a holistic culture. Second, Naturphilosophie is pivotal to absolute idealism, Hegels
characteristic philosophical doctrine. Third, the idea of organic development, so central to
Naturphilosophie, is pervasive throughout Hegels system. This idea is essential to Hegels
concepts of spirit, dialectic, and identity-in-difference. Finally, I take issue with the neo-
Kantian critique of Hegels Naturphilosophie on the grounds that it fails to appreciate the
underlying motive behind Hegels system: the attempt to resolve the aporia of Kants epistem-
ology.
2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Naturphilosophie; Absolute idealism; Organicism; Alienation; Subjective idealism; Dualism

1. Status controversiae

What role did Naturphilosophie play in Hegels philosophy? Was it really

important to him? Or was it dispensable to his basic philosophical project? These
are classical questions of Hegel scholarship which are still controversial. While some
scholars have stressed the significance of Naturphilosophie, others have insisted that
it plays a minor, or even dispensable, role in Hegels philosophy. This controversy
tends to be between historians and philosophers: the historians point to the historical
fact that Naturphilosophie was very important for Hegel; the philosophers stress that
the substance of Hegels thought is distinct from its accidental historical forms, chief
among them the early nineteenth century fashion for Naturphilosophie.
Prima facie it might seem the historians must be right: that there can be no ques-

E-mail address: fbeiser@mailbox.syr.edu (F. Beiser).

0039-3681/03/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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136 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

tion that Naturphilosophie plays a crucial role in Hegels philosophy. The sheer
architechtonic of his system seems to show nothing less. The 1830 Enzyklopadie
der philosophischen Wissenschaften, the mature exposition of Hegels system, gives
Naturphilosophie pride of place. In Hegels tripartite scheme, the philosophy of nat-
ure occupies the very centre of the system. It comprises Part II, sandwiched between
the logic, Part I, and the philosophy of spirit, Part III. Only slightly smaller in size
than the other parts, Naturphilosophie comprises no less than 131 sections.
It would be a mistake to assume, however, that the significance of Naturphiloso-
phie is measurable in architechtonic terms alone. For the question remains whether
Part II is logically or conceptually necessary for the foundation of Hegels philo-
sophy. Some scholars suggest that the Naturphilosophie is virtually dispensable
because it amounts to nothing more than an illustration of the categories of the logic,
which have an independent foundation.1 Furthermore, the architechtonic does not
impress those philosophers who are bent on a distinction between the spirit and
letter, or at least some kind of distinction between what is of lasting value and what
is of only historical interest in Hegels philosophy. Whatever weight Hegel happened
to give to the philosophy of nature in his system, these scholars argue, it is accidental
to its spirit.
The general tendency among recent Anglophone interpretations is to downplay
the significance of Naturphilosophie.2 This is the immediate and inevitable result of
their persistent efforts to secure the abiding relevance of Hegels philosophy. All
these scholars believe that Hegels philosophy is doomed to obsolescence if it is
understood as a form of metaphysics. Ever since Kants devastating attack on meta-
physics in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, the once venerable queen of the sciences
has been in disgrace. So if there is to be anything of value in Hegels philosophy,
these scholars argue, it must be understood in non-metaphysical terms. For this rea-
son they have put forward various kinds of non-metaphysical interpretations. Thus
Hegels philosophy has been read as a system of categories, a neo-Kantian theory
of knowledge, a proto-hermeneutics, or a new social epistemology.3
Naturally, these scholars refuse to acknowledge the significance of Hegels Natur-
philosophie, relegating it to a minor, negligible, or dispensable role in his philosophy.
Following the precedent of positivists and neo-Kantians, they see Naturphilosophie
as an example of the worst kind of metaphysics. In his Naturphilosophie Hegel seems
to run wild as an irresponsible metaphysician. He makes grand speculations about
the natural world; he imposes a priori schemas upon facts; he indulges in wild anal-
ogies and fanciful metaphors; and he does all this without ever engaging in obser-
vation and experiment. Indeed, Hegels meddling in the empirical sciences appears
to have been one long series of gaffes: he opposed the theory of evolution; he dispar-

1
See Bungay (1994), pp. 30, 3233; Hartmann (1972), p. 113.
2
For example, see Pippin (1989), p. 66; Hartmann (1972), pp. 113114; Bungay (1994), pp. 2930.
3
On the system of categories interpretation, see Hartmann (1972); Pinkard (1988), and the essays in
Pinkard (1994); on the neo-Kantian interpretation, see Pippin (1989); on the proto-hermeneutical interpret-
ation, see Redding (1996); and on the social epistemology interpretation, see Pinkard (1994). I have
already criticized Hartmann and his epigoni in Beiser (1995), pp. 113.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 137

aged Newtons theory of motion in favor of Kepler; he retained Aristotles theory

of the four elements; and he demonstrated the necessity of seven planets around the
sun.4 On these grounds, since the early nineteenth century, Hegels Naturphilosophie
has been held up as a perfect example of how not to pursue the study of nature.5
So, given the reputation and poor track record of Hegels Naturphilosophie, it seems
that to stress its importance for his general philosophy is only to doom it to obsol-
escence.
Given the vagueness and the multiple uses (and abuses) of the distinction between
the spirit and the letter of a philosophy, there is only one way to decide the dispute
about the status of Hegels Naturphilosophie. This is to determine whether the Natur-
philosophie is necessary to essential aspects of Hegels philosophy, aspects that
everyone would regard as central to and characteristic of his thought. If we can show
that Naturphilosophie is necessary to these aspects, then we will have shown that it
is essential to any adequate account of the spirit or substance of his philosophy.
In what follows I will argue, contrary to the non-metaphysical interpretations, that
Naturphilosophie belongs to the very heart and soul of Hegels philosophy. I will
make three arguments on behalf of this claim. First, that Naturphilosophie was vital
to the realization of Hegels basic moral and political ideal: a holistic culture (Sect.
2). Second, that Naturphilosophie was crucial to Hegels fundamental philosophical
doctrine: absolute idealism (Sect. 3). Third, that the idea of organic development
behind Naturphilosophie is central to Hegels entire philosophy, and should not be
confined to one part of his system alone (Sect. 5). In making these arguments on
behalf of Naturphilosophie I will take the defining characteristic of Naturphilosophie
to be its organic concept of nature. In spite of Hegels blunders about specific scien-
tific doctrines, this concept might still be of value.
After reinstating Naturphilosophie to the heart of Hegels philosophy I will briefly
address the question of its obsolescence. I will argue that the neo-Kantian embargo
against Hegels metaphysics begs the question and fails to appreciate the Kantian
problematic that gave rise to it in the first place.

2. The genesis of Hegels Naturphilosophie

If we go back in Hegels intellectual development, back to the earliest phases of

his thought in Berne and Frankfurt, we find that he, like virtually everyone else
in the early Romantic generation, was preoccupied with one fundamental problem:
alienation. This problem was posed for Hegel and the Romantics by all the growing
divisions of modern civil society. Modern forms of production and exchange had
divided the self from itself, from others, and from nature. Reacting against these
tendencies, Hegel and the romantics dreamed of a more holistic culture, a culture
inspired by classical Athens, one where the self was at one with itself, with others,

4
For a recent treatment of Hegels blunders, see Capek (1984), pp. 109122.
5
On the nineteenth century criticism of Naturphilosophie, see Schnadelbach (1984), pp. 76108.
138 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

and with nature. Like his friends at the Tubinger StiftSchelling and Holderlin
Hegel seized upon one central concept to express the possibility of harmony and
wholeness: the concept of life (das Leben). If the universe were only one single
living whole, Hegel believed, then all the divisions of modern life would have to
be artificial and arbitrary, a lapse from the natural state of mankind.
True to his organic vision, in some early fragments from 1797 and 1798 Hegel
suggests an organic concept of the world in order to heal the oppositions of modern
culture.6 It is striking, however, that Hegel does not seem to derive his concept from
Schellings Naturphilosophie, still less from the empirical sciences. Its sources
appear appear to be biblical since he introduces his organic concept with a passage
from John (1.11.4): In the beginning was the word, and word was with God. . .
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all the
people.7 Indeed, in these early fragments, Hegel is very far from embracing anything
like a Naturphilosophie. For he often insists that the concept of life can be verified
only through mystical experience. The intellect cannot grasp life, he argues, because
it is an analytical faculty that constantly divides things; hence to conceive life would
be to divide it, and so to destroy its characteristic unity.
It was not for long, however, that Hegel would remain content with mysticism.
By early 1800 he began to realize the necessity for a conceptual understanding and
logical demonstration of the organic concept of the world. If the general public was
to see the possibility of a more holistic culture, it was pointless to appeal to a mystical
experiencethe privilege of a fortunate few. To make the organic concept accessible
to everyone alike, it was necessary to conceptualize and demonstrate it through the
understanding, a faculty belonging to every intelligent being. Hence around 1800
Hegel began to argue that it was the task of Metaphysik to demonstrate the possi-
bility, indeed the necessity, of a more holistic view of the world.8 He even had a
rough idea of how such a demonstration should proceed. The philosopher would
have to show how all the oppositions of modern life of necessity contradict them-
selves, and then how these contradictions are resolvable only when opposites are

6
See especially the fragment on love, . . . welchem Zwecke denn alles Ubrige dient. . ., in Nohl
(1907), pp. 378382; Hegel (1969), Vol. I, pp. 244250. According to Schuler, the first draft of this
fragment was written around November 1797, the second draft in early winter 1798.
7
See the early fragment Jesus trat nicht lange vor. . ., in Hegel (1969), Vol. I, pp. 370377; Nohl
(1907), pp. 302309. This fragment, part of the larger manuscript known as Der Geist der Christenthums
und sein Schicksal, was written around the winter of 1798/99. That the inspiration for Hegels concept
of life comes from John is the argument of Haering (1929), Vol. I, pp. 510, 520521, 523, 525, 534,
which I endorse.
8
Hegels turn toward philosophy or metaphysics is apparent from the fragment Der immer sich verg-
roernde Widerspruch. . ., which was written around 1800. The fragment was from a draft of the introduc-
tion to the Verfassungsschrift. See Hegel (1969), Vol. I, pp. 457460. In this fragment Hegel argues that
the philosopher must show to the larger public the necessity for a more holistic conception of culture.
The importance of this fragment was first fully fathomed by Haym (1857), pp. 7983. There is a detailed
paraphrase in Harris (1972), pp. 440445.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 139

seen as parts of a wider whole. This project was the germ of Hegels later dialectic,
which he first sketched in his 1800 Systemfragment.9
By the summer of 1801 at the very latest, Hegel saw Naturphilosophie as crucial
to his new metaphysics. In his first philosophical publication, his Differenzschrift,
which he wrote from May to July 1801, he championed Schellings Naturphilosophie
against the subjective idealism of Kant and Fichte. Here Hegel declared that it was
the fundamental task of philosophy to overcome opposition, and he argued that only
Naturphilosophie could overcome the opposition between the subjective and objec-
tive, the ideal and the real, that still tarnished Kants and Fichtes subjective idealism.
The ultimate source of this opposition, in Schellings and Hegels view, lay in the
mechanical paradigm of nature of Descartes. If all events in nature were explicable
only in terms of inertia and impact, there would be only two options for the philo-
sophy of mind: dualism or materialism. The mind must be a machine in nature or
a ghost beyond it. Rather than escaping this dilemma, Kant and Fichte only fell
victim to it when they postulated a self-sufficient noumenal realm to escape the
determinism of the natural world. It was the task of Naturphilosophie to challenge
this mechanistic paradigm. If per contra it could be shown that nature were an organ-
ism, then it would be possible to make mind part of nature without embracing a
crude materialism and determinism.
It should now be obvious why Naturphilosophie was so important to Hegel. Natur-
philosophie was the vanguard and spearhead in the struggle against alienation. It
was the mission of Naturphilosophie to demonstrate the necessity of an organic
concept of nature, and therefore to overcome the alienation between the self and the
world so characteristic of modern culture. Naturphilosophie was therefore crucial to
Hegels holistic cultural program. Without it, the dualism between the subjective and
objectiveand hence the alienation of the self from naturewould appear eternal.

3. Absolute idealism

Given the importance of Naturphilosophie to Hegels general programme, it

should come as no surprise that it also plays a crucial role in his basic philosophical
doctrine: absolute idealism. This is evident from Schellings and Hegels explicit
formulations of their doctrine. They had two distinct formulations, each leading to
the same result: the pivotal place of the organic concept of nature, and therefore
Naturphilosophie, in absolute idealism.
The first formulation of absolute idealism consists in the thesis that reason is
something objective or within nature itself, and not something subjective or imposed
upon nature through the activity of the transcendental subject.10 According to this
formulation, the fundamental difference between objective and subjective idealism

9
See the early fragment . . . absolut Entgegensetzung gilt. . ., Nohl (1907), pp. 345351; Hegel
(1969), Vol. I, pp. 419427. This fragment was written around September 1800, after Der immer sich
vergroernde Widerspruch. . ..
10
See Hegels formulation of absolute idealism in the Enzyklopadie 24 and 45 Zusatz.
140 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

is between holding that the ideal is within nature itself and holding that the ideal is
something created by the transcendental subject and read into nature. Now, for both
Schelling and Hegel, to maintain that the ideal is within nature itself means that
everything in nature conforms to some end, or that it is governed by some underlying
purpose. The ideal here is not the mental or subjective opposed to the physical or
the objective; rather, it is the intelligible or archetypical in contrast to the sensible
and ectypical. More simply, the rational or ideal is the form or plan behind nature,
or, in more Aristotelian terms, its formal and final cause. To regard nature as ideal
in this latter sense means that it forms an organic or systematic whole, i.e. a whole
that precedes its parts and makes them possible (totum) and not a whole that arises
from its parts and made possible from them (compositum). In other words, objective
idealism essentially involves the thesis that nature forms an organic whole. Against
Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel contended that this organic whole is not simply
a regulative ideal that we read into nature but a constitutive principle that describes
reality itself.
The other formulation of absolute idealism employs one of the most celebrated
but also one of the most obscureprinciples of German idealism: the so-called prin-
ciple of subjectobject identity. Around 1801 Schelling defined absolute idealism
as the doctrine that the absolute is the pure identity of subject and object.11 In the
Differenzschrift Hegel too understood absolute idealism in these terms. To be sure,
even in this early work Hegel already began to go beyond Schelling by defining the
absolute as not only subjectobject identity but also the identity of identity and non-
identity; still, he never departed from Schellings central claim that subject-object
identity is essential to the absolute. This leaves us with the question: What does this
principle of subjectobject identity mean for Schelling and Hegel around 1801?
This principle was Schellings and Hegels slogan for monism. It was a declaration
against all forms of dualism, and more specifically against the dualisms of Kant,
Fichte, and Jacobi. Kant, Fichte, and Jacobi had not overcome the Cartesian legacy,
Schelling and Hegel complained, but had simply fallen prey to it. Rather than sur-
mounting the Cartesian division of the world into res cogitans and res extensans,
they simply reinstated it in new guises. In Kant it was the dualism between under-
standing and sensibility, or noumena and phenomena; in Fichte, it was the dualism
between the finite and infinite ego; and in Jacobi it was the dualism between the
supernatural and natural. Against all these forms of dualism Schelling and Hegel
declared their principle of subjectobject identity. To hold that the absolute consists
in the identity of subject and object means that the world cannot be divided into
distinct ontological realms, whether they be mental and physical, noumenal and
phenomenal, or transcendental and empirical.
In declaring their monism against all forms of dualism, Schelling and Hegel drew
their inspiration from their great seventeenth century antecedent: Spinoza. It was

11
See Schelling, Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophy, Vol. IV, p. 404; Ueber das
Verhaltni der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie uberhaupt, Vol. V, p. 112; the Zusatz zur Einleitung
to the Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, Vol. II, pp. 67, 68; and Bruno, Vol. IV, pp. 257, 322.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 141

Spinoza who had first combatted the Cartesian dualism and who had declared in
Book II, Prop. VII, of the Ethica that the order and connection of ideas is one and
the same as the order and connection of things. True to their mentor, Schelling and
Hegel sometimes defined their principle of subjectobject identity in Spinozist
terms.12 To say that the absolute is the identity of subject and object means that the
subjective and objective are simply different attributes, aspects or properties of one
and the same thing, the single universal substance, or what Schelling and Hegel,
alluding to definition 3 of Part I of the Ethica, call das An-sich or die Substanz.
Prima facie such a Spinozist doctrine should have nothing to do with an organic
concept of nature. Indeed, it would seem that just the opposite should be the case,
for Spinoza notoriously championed Descartes mechanical conception of nature.
One way of reading Prop. VII, Book II, of the Ethica is to say that the subjective
and objective are different aspects of one cosmic mechanism. Yet it is in just this
context that it is important to note Schelling and Hegel were never orthodox Spinoz-
ists. They saw Spinozas single cosmic substance through Herderian spectacles, and
more specifically in the terms outlined by Herder in his 1787 tract Gott, Einige
Gesprache. In that seminal tract Herder had argued for the need to update Spinozas
naturalism by interpreting his substance in more dynamic terms. Herder declared the
inadequacy of the old mechanistic paradigm, and contended that Spinozas philo-
sophy could survive only if it were complemented by Leibnizs; more specifically,
this meant that the single universal substance had to be understood in terms of Leib-
nizs concept of vis viva. Spinozas substance then became the fundamental organiz-
ing force of the whole cosmos of forces, die Urkraft aller Krafte. Thus the ultimate
result of Herders reading of Spinoza is a vitalistic monism or a monistic vitalism.
That Schelling and Hegel understood Spinozas monism in such vitalistic terms
there cannot be any doubt. They see the concept of life (das Leben) as the mediating
concept between the subjective and objective. The thesis of subjectobject identity
then means that the subjective and objective are simply different degrees of organiza-
tion and development of a single living force. The subjective is the internalization
of the objective, the objective is the externalization of the subjective. Or, as Schelling
once put it, spirit is invisible nature, and nature is visible spirit.13
Schellings and Hegels texts in the early Jena years confirm time and again that
vitalistic monism is the central thesis of absolute idealism. Still, this point has not
been fully appreciated or understood. Indeed, Hegels allegiance to the principle of
subjectobject identity has sometimes been taken as evidence for a non-metaphysical,
neo-Kantian reading of his philosophy. According to Robert Pippin, for example,
Hegels endorsement of the principle of subjectobject identity ultimately derives
from Kants principle of the unity of apperception.14 The principle of the unity of
apperceptionthat the I think must be able to accompany all my representations
is a form of subjectobject identity not only in the sense that it expresses self-

12
See Hegels Differenzschrift, in Hegel (1969), Vol. II, pp. 10, 106.
13
See Schellings Einleitung to Ideen zur einer Philosophie der Natur, in Schelling (1856), Vol. II,
p. 56.
14
See Pippin (1989), pp. 1641.
142 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

awareness, but also in the sense that it is the subjective basis for Kants deduction
of the categories, which are forms of objectivity. There seems to be some textual
basis for this reading of Hegels principle, given that Hegel tells us explicitly in
the preface to the Differenzschrift that the principle behind Kants deduction of the
categoriesthe principle of the unity of apperceptionexpresses authentic ideal-
ism.15 This statement is the inspiration for Pippins reading of Hegels idealism as
an essentially neo-Kantian epistemology. On these grounds Pippin thinks that he can
dispense with Naturphilosophie, along with pantheism or Spinozism, as belonging
to the mystical shell of Hegels philosophy.
A closer scrutiny of Hegels preface quickly reveals, however, the shortcomings
of such an interpretation. After praising Kants deduction of the categories for its
anticipation of the principle of subjectobject identity, Hegel immediately qualifies
his encomium by telling us that Kant has grasped this principle only at a very subor-
dinate stage.16 The problem with Kants interpretation of this principle, Hegel
explains, is that he construes subjectobject identity as transcendental apperception,
the self-awareness of the active subject. Since such apperception or self-awareness
is purely formal, it still leaves a gap between subject and object, or more specifically
between the transcendental subject and the content or manifold of experience. Hence
Hegel regards the Kantian principle as only a subjective principle of subjectobject
identity.17 Kants subjective reading of the principle of subjectobject identity, he
later contends, is indeed the basis for his solipsism, or subjectivism, because it traps
the self inside the circle of its own consciousness.18 If everything we know must be
only our own production or creation, then we cannot know any reality independent
of our representations, any thing existing in itself apart from, and prior to, the appli-
cation of our own knowing activity. It was one of the express aims of Schellings
and Hegels absolute or objective idealism to break outside this circle of conscious-
ness and to provide some knowledge of reality in itself. In the end then, Pippins
reading of Hegels principle of subjectobject identity reduces Hegels idealism
down to the very subjective idealism it was Hegels purpose to avoid.

4. Two objections

Obviously, the reading I have provided so far of Hegels absolute idealism sticks
to fundamentals. But nothing in Hegel is straightforward, least of all any reading of
his absolute idealism. An orthodox Hegelian might make two objections to my
account.
First, granted Naturphilosophie was crucial to Hegel in his Jena years, it does not

15
Hegel (1969), Vol. II, p. 10.
16
Hegel (1969), Vol. II, p. 10.
17
Hegel (1969), Vol. II, p. 11.
18
Schelling and Hegel put forward this argument in one of their joint productions for the Kritisches
Journal, Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie. See Schelling (1856), Vol. IV, pp.
352361.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 143

play such a prominent role in his mature system. If Hegels absolute idealism consists
in an attempt to rationalize an organic concept of nature, then it should be based
upon his philosophy of nature. Yet, in the mature system, the philosophy of nature
comes after the first part of the system, the science of logic, which provides the
foundation for speculative philosophy. This suggests that Hegels theory of nature
is based upon his logic, rather than conversely. Indeed, many of the deductions of
Hegels philosophy of nature presuppose the deductions and categories of the logic;
so the philosophy of nature is not even an autonomous discipline, let alone a domi-
nant one.
There are two replies to this objection. First, at least in principle, none of the
arguments of the philosophy of nature depend for their validity upon the principles
or deductions of the logic.19 Although the formal structure of the Naturphilosophie
is indeed similar to the logic, this is more the result rather than the premise of Hegels
deduction. The independence of the Naturphilosophie follows immediately from
Hegels insistence that its method is that of conceptual thinking (das begreifende
Denken).20 This means that Naturphilosophie must do nothing more than develop
the immanent necessity of its subject matter; in other words, it must lay aside all
a priori principles and examine its subject matter for its own sake according to its
own internal logic. Although conceptual thinking results in a universal, that universal
must be concrete, arising from the inner movement and self-organization of its parti-
cular instances. If it were to apply a priori principles from the logic, it would do
violence to that immanent necessity. Hence Hegel was extremely critical of those
Naturphilosophen who would apply a priori principles to their subject matter.21
Second, though the logic is prior to the philosophy of nature in the general structure
of the system, there is another respect in which it depends on Naturphilosophie. To
be sure, none of the arguments of the logic depend on Naturphilosophie; neverthe-
less, its agenda or underlying purpose derives from Naturphilosophie. For the pur-
pose of the logic is to demonstrate the possibility, and indeed necessity, of thinking
organically; it attempts to establish the necessity of an organic conception of the
world. Thus the absolute idea, the culminating category of the logic, has its foun-
dation in the category of life, which is the immediate existence of the idea.22 The
category of life arises from the inner contradictions of mechanism and chemism.
The other objection is that to stress the centrality of the philosophy of nature seems
to ignore or underplay what is characteristic of Hegels philosophy: his philosophy of

19
In this regard I differ from Buchdahl, who claims that Hegels conceptual approach to science presup-
poses the arguments of the logic. See Buchdahl (1984), pp. 1415, and Buchdahl (1985), p. 120. For the
same reason I question Buchdahls analogy between Hegels conceptual approach and Kants method of
construction, which involved the application of a priori principles. In my view, Buchdahls account of
Hegels methodology underestimates its phenomenological dimension, its claim to bracket all a priori
principles. The phenomenological method Hegel outlines in the Einleitung to the Phanomenologie des
Geistes is crucial to das begreifende Denken.
20
See Enzyklopadie 246, in Hegel (1969), Vol. IX, p. 15.
21
See the Zusatz to the Einleitung to Zweiter Teil of the Enzyklopadie, in Hegel (1969), Vol. IX,
pp. 911.
22
See Enzyklopadie 216, in Hegel (1969), Vol. VIII, p. 373.
144 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

spirit. It has been argued that what is distinctive about Hegels philosophy, in contrast
to that of Schelling, is its emphasis on the realm of spirit over that of nature.23 It
is indeed the realms of society, the state, and history that take pride of place in
Hegels mature system. In contrast, Schelling devoted little space to these realms,
which have no place at all in the first exposition of his system of identity, the 1800
Darstellung meines Systems, and which occupy only a small portion of the chief
exposition of his system, the 1804 System der gesammten Philosophie.
This contrast between Hegel and Schelling is correct, and from one perspective
it does show the limitations of Naturphilosophie in Hegels system. Nevertheless,
from another perspective, it shows just how important Naturphilosophie was for
Hegel. For what is distinctive of Hegels philosophy is his extension of the idea of
the organic to the realms of society, history, and state. What Schelling had limited
to the sphere of nature Hegel extended to the social, historical, and political spheres.
Of course, Hegels concept of spirit stands on a higher level than nature, and it is
not reducible to it; but it is still based upon nature, given that Hegel understands
spirit as the highest degree of organization and development of life. To abstract the
realm of spirit from that of nature would be to reinsert a dualism into Hegels philo-
sophythe very dualism between nature and spirit that it was his aim to overcome.

5. A logic of life

In replying to the second objection I departed from the orthodox sense of Naturphi-
losophie, the technical sense in which it specifies just one part of Hegels mature
system, Part II of his 1830 Enzyklopadie. The narrow technical reading of Naturphi-
losophie is indeed objectionable, because it artificially conceals and confines its
deeper significance for Hegels philosophy, and indeed for his system as a whole.
Ultimately, we cannot relegate the significance of Naturphilosophie to a specific part
of Hegels system. For the organic concept of the world, which is so central to, and
characteristic of, Naturphilosophie, appears throughout Hegels system. It plays a
fundamental role in his logic, metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy
of history, and aesthetics. In all these fields Hegels purpose was to explain and
justify the organic conception of the world, and to reveal its importance and fruitful-
ness for the study of ethics, politics, art, and history.
This becomes clear as soon as we consider some of Hegels central and character-
istic ideas: spirit, dialectic, and identity-in-difference. All these ideas grew directly
out of the organic concept of nature. They have to be understood first and foremost
in organic terms, as attempts to explain the idea of organic development. They state
that the movement of life consists in moments of unity, difference, and unity-in-
difference, or of oneness, opposition, and oneness-in-opposition. Such movement
reflects the theory that organic growth is a process of differentiation and reinte-
gration, of something originally one, inchoate and indeterminate becoming more

23
This is the contention of Hyppolyte (1969), pp. 321.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 145

organized and determinate. Such development can be understood as a movement

between opposites: unity and difference, potentiality and actuality, inner and outer,
essence and appearance; yet it is at the same time a single process of development,
and so a unity of opposites. All Hegels paradoxical talk about the unity of opposites,
identity-in-difference, the concrete universal, become perfectly intelligible as soon
as we take into account the logic of organic development.
It is not only Hegels central ideas that should be understood in organic terms;
the same is the case for his basic vocabulary. The term in itself [an sich] means
not only something by itself, apart from its relations to other things, but also some-
thing potential, undeveloped, and undifferentiated; the term for itself [fur sich]
means not only something self-conscious, but also something that acts for ends.
The pivotal term concept [Begriff], which is the subject matter of philosophical
investigation, means the purpose and the essence of a thing, the formal and final
cause behind its development.
The purpose of Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik was indeed to develop a logic of
life, a way of thinking that could conceive the irreducible movement and unity of
life. This made it necessary to break with traditional logic, whose rigid oppositions
made it impossible to describe the continuity of organic development. Traditional
logic assumes that it is impossible to combine opposing concepts; yet organic devel-
opment is intelligible only as a movement between opposites, such as potential and
actual, inner and outer, unity and difference. In Hegels view, traditional logic was
the tool of the old mechanistic view of the universe, which saw objects as static,
moving only if something else acted upon them.
In understanding Hegels philosophy as an attempt to develop a logic of life I
have not said anything new or original. This interpretation has been put foward long
ago by Benedetto Croce and William James.24 Indeed, it was nothing less than what
James Stirling, the first serious Anglophone scholar of Hegel, called the secret of
Hegel.25 My only task here is to defend this classical interpretation against some
of its detractors and to point out its important methodological consequences: that if
Hegels philosophy is an attempt to develop a logic of life, then we must understand
it as closely connected to, and indeed derivative from, Naturphilosophie.

6. The abiding relevance of Naturphilosophie

In closing it is necessary for me to consider one final objection: that in restoring

Naturphilosophie to Hegels fundamental doctrines I have doomed his philosophy
to the obsolescence that contemporary Hegel scholars are so eager to avoid. To
revive Naturphilosophie, so the objection goes, is just to bring back the organic
concept of the world, which is nothing less than the worst kind of metaphysics.
This objection raises larger issues which I cannot explore here. Suffice it to point

24
See Croce (1915), pp. 1920, 24, 57; James (1909), pp. 9093.
25
See Stirling (1898), pp. 159160.
146 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147

out now that the embargo against metaphysics only begs the question against Schel-
ling and Hegel. Those neo-Kantians who banish metaphysics assume that it is an
avoidable and superflous enterprise while the critique of knowledge is unproblematic.
They fail to recognize, however, the basic reason Schelling and Hegel developed
Naturphilosophie in the first place: to overcome the outstanding aporia of Kantian
critique.
The fundamental motivation for doing Naturphilosophie, Schelling and Hegel con-
tend, is that it alone resolves the problems of epistemology that Kant himself could
not resolve. Only Naturphilosophie surmounts that dualism between the subjective
and objective, the ideal and the real, which poses the main obstacle to resolving
the problem of knowledge. All knowledge involves some kind of interaction and
correspondence between the subjective and objective, because it presupposes that a
subjective representation is true of an objective thing. But how is such correspon-
dence possible if the subjective and objective belong to completely heterogeneous
realms of being?
That solving this problem was the basic motivation for Naturphilosophie becomes
very clear from the introduction to Schellings first writing on Naturphilosophie, his
1797 Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur. The main problem that Naturphilosophie
has to resolve, Schelling explains, is how knowledge of the world is possible. This
problem has become all the more pressing, he argues, because of Kants inability
to resolve the fundamental problem behind the transcendental deduction: How do
the a priori concepts of the understanding apply to the a posteriori intuitions of
sensibility? Kant cannot resolve this problem because his dualism between under-
standing and sensibility is so deep and drastic that it prevents any interchange
between them. Kant himself had taught that knowledge requires the most intimate
interchange between understanding and sensibility: Concepts without intuitions are
empty, intuitions without concepts are blind, as he famously put it.26 Yet Kant had
so divided these faculties that their interaction seemed impossible: the understanding
was a purely intellectual and active faculty beyond space and time, and sensibility
was a purely empirical and passive faculty within space and time. How then was it
possible for them to interact?
It was just this problematic that drove Schelling and Hegel to Naturphilosophie.
It seemed to them that the only way to resolve the Kantian dualisms was to drop
Kants constraints on reflective judgment, which had made the idea of an organism
a merely regulative principle. Although Schelling and Hegel praised Kant for for-
mulating an organic concept of nature in the Kritik der Urteilskraft, they contended
that he had been too cautious in giving this concept a merely regulative status. Kant
had argued that this concept is only of heuristic value in guiding enquiry into nature:
we have the right to proceed only as if it were true. Against such constraints, Schel-
ling and Hegel argued that they left a mystery at the very heart of the critique of
knowledge. If we cannot assume that nature is an organism, then the interaction

26
Kant, KrV A51/B75.
 F. Beiser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 34 (2003) 135147 147

between the subjective and objective remains a conundrum. If the interaction is real,
then so must be the organism that explains it.
Now that we have seen how the organic concept of nature of Naturphilosophie
was meant as a solution to the outstanding problem of the Kantian critique, it should
be clear that it is question-begging to appeal to this critique to banish Naturphiloso-
phie. If Naturphilosophie went beyond the Kantian limits of knowledge, it was forced
of necessity to do so to resolve a fundamental critical problem.
Some form of Naturphilosophie becomes inevitable as soon as we recognize that
overcoming dualism raises the more fundamental question: What is the nature of
matter itself? This was the fundamental question behind Schellings and Hegels
Naturphilosophie, and it is still alive today. The complacency with which some con-
temporary philosophers simply presuppose a Cartesian model of matter is indeed
extraordinary. Whatever the many sins of Schellings and Hegels Naturphilosophie,
it saw the imperative need for relating the central questions of metaphysics to the
empirical sciences. Alas, those Hegel scholars who wish to banish Naturphilosophie
only end out throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

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