The Importance and Relevance of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature

I INTRODUCTION. There can be no doubt that interest in Hegel among Anglo-American philosophers is greater now than it has been any point in past 100 years. This interest has happily taken form of increased attention to his major published works, primarily Phenomenology of Spirit and Philosophy of Right. (1) While more systematically central Science of Logic remains largely domain of Hegel specialists, non-specialists, particularly those interested in relation to Kant, are turning to that text as well. And given influence of Hegel on some contemporary philosophers of mind, it seems inevitable that Philosophy of Spirit will soon come in for detailed treatment. (2) But amidst all this increased interest in Hegel, a major part of his mature system has been almost completely ignored: Philosophy of Nature. (3) The Anglo-American tradition in philosophy, and Austrian tradition from which it in part stems, have always harbored deep suspicions about this area of thought. Bolzano, a contemporary of whom Dummett has called the great-grandfather of analytic (4) devoted considerable time and ink to attacks on Hegel generally and on Philosophy of Nature in particular; he repeatedly uses heading Hegel's Ignorance for his notebook entries on that text. (5) Helmholtz, sober-minded scientist and prominent member of back to Kant movement that eventually led to 20th-century neo-Kantianism and positivism, also singles out this part of system for scorn, saying that upon its release it appeared to natural scientists to be, very least, absolutely senseless. (6) He did not think time had improved its intelligibility, either. Similar, and well-known, comments are to be found in writings of Popper and Russell. (7) Yet it would be wrong to single out Anglo-American philosophers for their eagerness to condemn Philosophy of Nature. Perhaps predictably, some Hegel partisans, recognizing a chance to gain an audience for one part of system by disavowing another, have attacked Philosophy of Nature in process of advocating a approach to some other area of inquiry. (8) Indeed, this strategy appears particularly popular among Hegelians whose primary interest is in developing a approach to sciences of nature. So we can find Meyerson, an otherwise dedicated Hegelian, attacking philosophy of nature even as he advocates a Hegelian historical treatment of natural sciences themselves. (9) On whole, then, both passionate anti-Hegelians and passionate Hegelians are united in their rejection of Philosophy of Nature. (10) Are they wrong? The purpose of this paper is to indicate, if only briefly and in sketch form, basis for a new understanding and evaluation of Philosophy of Nature. The central task in carrying out this project is to show that philosophy of nature is entirely intelligible within context of a straightforward understanding of modern, mathematized natural science, its goals, and its values. Since many of these goals and values are intimately bound up with conceptions of experiment, empirical responsiveness, and responsibility to deliverances of senses and their technological proxies, I can carry out this task only if I can overcome central obstacle blocking virtually every reading of Philosophy of Nature to date: namely, conviction that Hegel claims a priori status for his system, and for part dealing with nature in particular. Beyond merely arguing that Philosophy of Nature is not at very least, absolutely senseless, I have another goal: to show that Philosophy of Nature is both important and relevant to contemporary philosophical concerns beyond areas of history of philosophy and Hegel scholarship. (11) In particular, an adequate study of Philosophy of Nature yields results for problem of rationality of scientific theory change, as well as yielding results in philosophy of mind and epistemology. …