Part I discusses what kind of ‘advances’ occur in Hegel's works, particularly his Philosophy of Nature. I then discuss evolution and extinction in relation to these advances. I summarize Errol Harris' view that Hegel's advances are consistent with current evolutionary theory and then critique this view using articles by Cinzia Ferinni and Alison Stone. I discuss an alternative, post-Kantian Hegelianism which dialectically unites the nature of our cognition with us as subjects that cognize (spirit). For that, I draw on Hegel's (...) claim that ‘The True is just as much Substance as Subject’, and I show how that claim is complicated in a helpful way when applied to the multiple kinds of ‘subjects’ in the Philosophy of Nature. Part II highlights the implications of biological mass extinction for these differing Hegelian theories. Part III brings the above post-Kantian dialectical Hegelianism together with the final chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit in order to align Hegelian terminology with current solutions for mass extinction: ‘Absolute Knowing’ is a self-sacrificing and a recollecting that reinstates the subject in and through nature; such knowing generates dialectically holistic logics of survival. This recollection of life produces neither abstract spiritual self-consciousness nor a mere ‘gallery’ of extinct life forms. It is philosophical responsibility, identity through natural differences, Absolute Spirit ‘tarrying’ with its world. 21st century Hegelians should be environmentalists on Hegel's terms, a surprising conclusion given that Hegel did not anticipate environmental problems. Hegel's Philosophy of Nature may in turn help environmentalists argue against unacknowledged and badly conceived philosophies of nature. Hegel's work is not reducible to either naturalism or metaphysical idealism: reading Hegel's Philosophy of Nature in conjunction with his Phenomenology of Spirit reveals ways in which a subject, widely and complexly defined at different levels (including different species), is dialectically inseparable from substance, equally widely and complexly defined. This helps us to understand the natural depths of Spirit, which we are at risk of losing. (shrink)

This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)

This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)

This paper explicates and argues for the thesis that individual rational judgment, of the kind required for rational justification in non-formal, substantive domains – i.e. in empirical knowledge or in morals (both ethics and justice) – is in fundamental part socially and historically based, although these social and historical aspects of rational justification are consistent with realism about the objects of empirical knowledge and with strict objectivity about basic moral principles. The central thesis is that, to judge fully rationally that (...) one judges – in ways which provide rational justification of one’s judgment about any substantive matter – requires recognising one’s inherent fallibility and consequently also recognising our mutual interdependence for assessing our own and each others’ judgments and their justification. This explication provides a pragmatic account of rational justification in substantive domains which puts paid to the traditional distinction, still influential today, between ‘rational’ and ‘historical’ knowledge. (Note: This paper is a counterpart to Westphal 2011b; each paper contains substantial material not included in the other.). (shrink)

Dans laScience de la logiqueet dans l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques,Hegel reconstruit la philosophie critique de Kant en développant i) une logique transcendantale dans laScience de la logiqueet dans laPhilosophie de la nature; ii) une conception pragmatique de l’a priori; et iii) une caractéristique-clé de l’usage du verbe «réaliser» en relation avec les concepts et les principes. Chacun de ces trois éléments constitue un aspect central de la sémantique spécifiquement cognitive de Hegel, que celui-ci développe, en partant de la thèse kantienne (...) de la référence cognitive singulière, en un réalisme pragmatique systématique. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise a question concerning the place of ‘Teleology’ in Hegel's system of logic and ask whether ‘Teleology’ as a logical category can and should come immediately before ‘Life’. I offer two main reasons to think that the category of ‘Teleology’ might be misplaced. The first and the indirect reason is inspired by a difference between the logical system and the Philosophy of Nature concerning the immediate precursors and the emergence of life as a logical category and (...) real determinacy. In Hegel's Logic, ‘Teleology’ is interposed between ‘Chemism’ and ‘Life’, while in his Philosophy of Nature, ‘Organics’ immediately follows ‘The Chemical Process’. Although the systematic order of the natural determinacies laid out in the Philosophy of Nature has no authority over the sequence of logical determinacies, and although there does not have to be a one-to-one correspondence between the logical categories and natural determinacies of Hegel's system, I argue that the smooth transition from the chemical process to the self-sustaining totality of the geological organism in the Philosophy of Nature, is an incentive to consider a parallel transition in the logical exposition, which I show to be workable. The second and the direct reason is that Hegel's category of ‘Teleology’ cannot but make a crucial reference to the initial determinacy of the category of ‘Life,’ without which it is inconceivable. By explaining why this reference is untenable and how, by contrast, the initial determinacy of life is conceivable independently of the process in which some subjective end is realized in objectivity through external means, I conclude that the logic of ‘Life’ and internal teleology should precede the logic of external teleology, allowing for a direct passage from ‘Chemism’ to ‘Life’. (shrink)