In the Observing Reason sub-section of the Phenomenology, Hegel deals with the philosophy of nature. What he says is very much related to Schelling's philosophy of nature. It is difficult to understand what Hegel is saying without a knowledge of the philosophical context to which he is responding.

I've been reading several books on Schelling's philosophy of nature lately, in order to try to understand what Hegel is talking about in the Observing Reason sub-section. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no detailed commentary on this section of the Phenomenology that is really of much help. One book that I found to be very helpful was Frederick Beiser's _German Idealism_, "The Struggle
against Subjectivism, 1781-1801.", (2002). I hope to post some things from this book and some other books, with the objective, eventually, of better understanding the Observing Reason sub-section. There is alot going on, though, and it is difficult to know where to start.

So I thought I might start by reposting the below, which is an "abridgement" of sorts of an essay by Beiser. I first posted this in Jan. of 2004. At that time I didn't know very much about Hegel, and what Beiser said wasn't at all clear to me. I do understand now what he is saying. To begin with, although the essay is supposedly about Hegel, it is mainly the philosophy of Schelling that Beiser is dealing with in the essay below.

At any rate, some time in the future I hope to post a good deal more about Hegel's philosophy of nature as it is presented in the Observing Reason sub-section. I don't really understand the sub-section completely, but I believe I understand it as well as I am going to any time soon. Unfortunately, so much of the relevant material in regard to the philosophy of nature at the beginning of the 19th century just simply hasn't been translated into English.

John

--- In hegel@yahoogroups.com, "JOHN BARDIS" <jgbardis@...> wrote:
>
> The below comes from an essay in THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO
> HEGEL by Frederick Beiser: "Introduction: Hegel and the problem of
> metaphysics".

> Beiser writes:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In his early Jena years, and indeed throughout his career, Hegel saw
> the purpose of philosophy as the rational knowledge of the absolute.
>
> According to Schelling, the absolute is that which does not depend
> upon anything else in order to exist or be conceived. Both in its
> existence and essence, the absolute is independent of, or
> unconditioned by, all other things. In other words, the absolute is
> causi sui, that whose essence necessarily involves existence.
>
> Schelling and Hegel did not hesitate to draw Spinozistic conclusions
> from this definition of substance. Like Spinoza, they argued that
> only one thing can satisfy this definition: the universe as a whole.
> Since the universe as a whole contains everything, there will be
> nothing outside it to depend upon; for anything less than the
> universe as a whole, however, there will be something outside
> it in relation to which it must be conceived. Schelling wrote: 'The
> absolute is not the cause of the universe but the universe itself.'
>
>
> But contrary to Spinoza's rigidly mechanical conception of the
> universe, Schelling conceived of the single infinite substance in
> vitalistic and teleological terms. Schelling saw substance as living
> force. According to Schelling, all of nature is a hierarchic
> manifestation of this force, beginning with its lower degrees of
> organization and development in minerals, plants, and animals, and
> ending with its highest degree of organization and development
> in human self-consciousness. The absolute is not simply a machine,
> then, but an organization, a self-generating and self-organizing
> whole.
>
> According to Schelling, the mind and body are not distinct kinds of
> entity, but simply different degrees of organization and development
> of living force. Mind is the most organized and developed form of
> matter, and matter is the least organized and developed form of mind.
>
> Hegel began to have serious doubts about some of Schelling's
> formulations of the nature of the absolute.
>
> Since Schelling's absolute excluded its modes, which determine the
> specific characteristics of a thing, Hegel likened it to 'a night when
> all cows are black'. If we are to remain true to its definition, Hegel
> argued, then it is necessary to conceive of the absolute as the
> whole of substance and its modes, as the unity of the infinite and
> finite. Since the absolute must include all the flux of finitude and
> appearance within itself, Hegel called it 'a Bacchanalian revel in
> which no member is not drunken'.
>
> Because of their conception of the absolute, Schelling and Hegel
> believed they were justified in exempting their philosophy from
> much of Kant's critique of metaphysics. The target of Kant's
> critique was the old metaphysics of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school.
> But this metaphysics was in the service of a deistic theology,
> which conceived of the absolute as a supernatural entity
> existing beyond the sphere of nature. Schelling and Hegel
> happily agreed with Kant that metaphysics in this sense is
> indeed impossible. They had, however, a different diagnosis of
> its impossibility: it is not because the supernatural is unknowable,
> as Kant thought, but because the supernatural does not exist.
> All of Kant's worries about the unknowability of the noumenal
> world were, in Schelling's and Hegel's view, simply the result of
> hypostasis, of conceiving of the absolute as if it were only a
> specific thing. If we conceive of the absolute in naturalistic
> terms, Schelling and Hegel argue, then metaphysics does not
> require the transcendent knowledge condemned by Kant. All
> that we then need to know is nature herself, which is given
> to our experience.
>
> Seen in its proper historical perspective, Schelling's and Hegel's
> metaphysics should be placed within the tradition of vitalistic
> materialism, which goes back to Bruno and the early free-thinkers
> of seventeenth-century England. This tradition attempted to
> banish the realm of the supernatural, yet it was not atheistic.
> Rather, it conceived of God as the whole of nature. Although it
> held that nature consists in matter alone, it conceives of matter
> in vitalistic rather than mechanistic terms. Matter was seen as
> dynamic, having self-generating and self-organizing powers. The
> similarities with Schelling's and Hegel's metaphysics are apparent.
> But Schelling and Hegel should also be placed within this tradition
> because they shared some of its underlying moral and political
> values: a commitment to egalitarianism, republicanism, religious
> tolerance, and political liberty. If it seems strange to regard
> Hegel as a materialist, given all his talk about 'spirit', then we
> must lay aside the usual mechanistic picture of materialism. We
> also must not forget that for Hegel, spirit is only the highest
> degree of organization and development of the organic powers
> within nature.
>
> Rather than being heterogeneous substances or faculties,
> subject and object will be only different degrees of organization
> and development of a single living force. The self-consciousness
> of the subject will be only the highest degree of organization
> and development of all the powers of nature, and inert matter
> will be only the lowest degree of organization and development
> of all the powers of the mind.
>
> ------------------------------------------