Deduction of the Concept of ‘Vitality’ in Hegel’s Philosophy

In Hegel’s philosophy, the dialectic of life is based on the expedient course of the concept. This contribution sets itself the task of conducting a hermeneutical and historical-critical reconstruction of the foundation of Hegel’s speculative-dialectical method. The aim is to reveal the philosophical genesis of the concept of ‘vitality’ and its interrelation with spirit. In such a perspective, the idea of the emergence of living matter, which is opposed to the processes of decomposition in the universe, is proposed. The hypothesis here offers a treatment of negative entropy (negentropy) in terms of Hegel’s speculative-dialectical methodology and the spiritual force of the concept that resists the decay of matter. Within such a philosophical conceptualisation arises the concept of vitality, which clarifies the relation between the form of consciousness that a subject can achieve and the energy it will expend to build and structure such a form of consciousness. Of interest is the result that the infinite growth of vitality simultaneously achieves absolute spiritualisation

The Dialectic of Life in Hegel’s Thought. An Introduction

This issue of Ethics in Progress titled Unfolding Life – The Dialectic of the Living in Hegel’s Thought. Philosophical Foundations and Contemporary Resonances builds upon the discussions initiated in issue no. 2/2024 of the journal, which explored the enduring relevance of Hegel’s early philosophy through the theme Nature and Spirit. While continuing along that trajectory into Hegel’s mature philosophy, the present issue narrows its focus to a central dimension of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature: the concept of life in its diverse manifestations. The contributions investigate various forms of living being – plant, animal, and human – examining their underlying impulses, structural dynamics, and vulnerabilities. Together, the essays highlight how Hegelian philosophy offers critical resources for engaging with contemporary questions about the nature and conditions of life

Between Life and Spirit: The Place of Plants in Hegel’s Dialectic of Nature

The aim of this paper is to examine the place of plants in G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy, highlighting their relevance for understanding the relationship between life and spirit within the Hegelian dialectical system. We will demonstrate how plants are situated in the context of the Philosophy of Nature proposed by the author, emphasizing how, despite being understood through their “incomplete subjectivity” and limited individuality (as there is no individual cohesion due to the separation of their organs), it is still possible to conceive of the basic metabolism of plants as the first expression of the dialectical relationship between inner life and the external environment. In this sense, plants represent a special transitional moment in the progressive realisation of the Idea. We will analyze how plants, for Hegel, embody a universal form of life – selforganized and oriented toward its relationship with the environment – that serves as a point of mediation, or the nexus, between the objectivity of nature and the subjectivity of spirit, which will develop more fully in animal life, especially human life. As we intend to demonstrate, referring to the subjective incompleteness of plant life does not deny it a place in the very history of spirit

The Life of/in Nature. From Hegel to British Idealism and Its Twentieth-Century Afterlives

This essay traces the philosophical development of the concept of organic life and nature from Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature through British Idealism to the twentieth-century thought of Alfred North Whitehead and Hans Jonas. It highlights how Hegel’s idea of the organism as a self-producing, purposive unity influenced later thinkers, directly or indirectly, shaping views of nature as inherently processual, relational, and teleological. By uncovering the Hegelian echoes in British Idealism and beyond, the essay argues for the continuing relevance of speculative conceptions of life and nature. This reconstruction offers new insights into contemporary philosophical biology and environmental ethics, suggesting that the categories of organism, purposiveness, and selfhood remain vital for rethinking the place of life within nature today

Tending and Logic between Bardili and Hegel: The Operativity of Reason beyond the Philosophy of the Subject

The paper traces some stages in the process of the speculative emancipation of the Trieb in Post-Kantian philosophy with the aim of reconstructing the context that allows explaining the outcomes of the treatment given to it by Hegel in the Science of Logic. Initially, some elements that underlie the speculative assimilation of the concept of Trieb in the course of the development of post-Kantian philosophy are presented, and in a second step, the position of an author central to the development of Hegel’s Logic, namely Christoph Gottfried Bardili, is discussed. The theory of the drive developed by Bardili in Grundriss der ersten Logik makes possible a clearer understanding of the different levels at which Hegel makes use of the notion of Trieb in the doctrine of the concept and particularly in the understanding of teleology developed in Wissenschaft der Logik. The overall purpose is to show how the debate on Trieb does not take the form of the evolution of a purely anthropological interpretation, oriented toward a supposed critique of ‘subjectivity’, but rather is the result of its integration in a speculative sense

Life as Self-Maintenance

The article constructs the organism as a living being and – unlike an automaton – as an individual concerned with its own self-maintenance, endowed with intrinsic purposiveness, autoregulation, and with an agency of the self as well. This is done from the perspective of the philosophy of organism developed by Kant, Hegel, and Plessner, and subsequently in the light of Systems Theory. Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature proves to be best suited to emancipate the contemporary, comprehensive concept of organism and its selfhood. To put it with Hegel’s words, it ‘is the Concept that comes into reality’ here

Hegel on Physical Health and Illness: A Brunonian Influence and a Metaphysical Approach

Physical health and illness according to Hegel is a topic that has been largely overlooked. To understand its importance in Hegel’s philosophy, one must first understand its medical context, which begins with the crisis of German medical theory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This crisis facilitated the entry of Brunonianism into German medicine. Hegel was influenced by this context but also introduced ideas of his own into his conception of health and illness. According to Hegel, health is related to fluidity and solidification, which are two metaphysical notions. Using the Brunonian vocabulary of his time alongside his own metaphysical framework, Hegel elaborated a metaphysical theory of physical health and illness

Animals We Eat and Animals We Care for: Hegel’s Ambiguous Notion of the Animal as Soul

There is a fundamental contradiction in most people’s behaviour towards animals. On certain occasions, we pet, nurture, name and even talk to them. On other occasions, we put up with or even endorse slaughtering and eating them. While this contradiction takes on a particular shape in times of modern slaughterhouses, petting zoos and pet culture, the contradiction itself is not modern at all. The ancient Chinese Confucian classic Mencius already speaks of the noble person who cultivates compassion while staying out of the kitchen (where animals are butchered). Modern philosophy begins with Descartes’ firm proposal of the animal machine, that is, of animal life as natural automaton or mechanism. By contrast, Hegel conceives of the animal as soul and the highest articulation of self-determination in nature. Yet Hegel’s position is ambiguous: he provides everything one needs to acknowledge animal subjectivity but does not propose any dignity of the animal. Drawing mostly from the Science of Logic and the Philosophy of Nature along with his discussion of Descartes in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, I examine Hegel’s account of animal subjectivity. I conclude by pondering why Hegel, nevertheless, does not attribute any dignity to the animal. &nbsp

Hegel’s Theory of Love as an Attitude to Life

For those who see Hegel as the philosopher of the closed system or the Prussian monarchy, it may come as a surprise or even a shock that love is one of the greatest and still inspiring topics of his philosophy. Hegel’s theory of love can enrich contemporary discussions on the philosophy of emotions and the theory of feeling in many ways, provided that it is reconstructed in a philologically and hermeneutically correct, philosophically profound and astute manner. The present paper will discuss Hegel’s views on love in two contexts. The first context is the history of progress summed up in his early considerations, which he treats in the field of tension between religion and philosophy. Within the extremely broad and manifold cultural horizon of the early works, Hegel assigns an existential meaning to love not only in an individual, but above all in an inter-individual sense. It is precisely in Hegel’s treatment of love that one can recognise the first germs of his intersubjective model of human existence – including individual existence – as it appears in his mature philosophy (second context)