Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:54:11.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hegel's Philosophy of Biology? A Programmatic Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2020

Andrea Gambarotto  and
Luca Illetterati
Andrea Gambarotto
Affiliation:
Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, UC Louvain, Belgium [email protected]
Luca Illetterati
Affiliation:
Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, UC Louvain, Belgium [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

This paper presents what we call ‘Hegel's philosophy of biology’ to a target audience of both Hegel scholars and philosophers of biology. It also serves to introduce a special issue of the Hegel Bulletin entirely dedicated to a first mapping of this yet to be explored domain of Hegel studies. We submit that Hegel's philosophy of biology can be understood as a radicalization of the Kantian approach to organisms, and as prefiguring current philosophy of biology in important ways, especially with regard to the nature of biological organization, the role of teleology in biological explanation, and the relation between life and cognition.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 41 , Special Issue 3: Hegel and the Philosophy of Biology , December 2020 , pp. 349 - 370
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achella, S. (2020), Pensare la vita: Saggio su Hegel. Milano: Carocci.Google Scholar
Baedke, J. (2019), ‘What Is a Biological Individual?’, in Martín-Durán, J. M. and Vellutini, B. C. (eds.), Old Questions and Young Approaches to Animal Evolution. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Baluska, F., Gagliano, M. and Witzany, G. (eds.) (2018), Memory and Learning in Plants. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baluska, F. and Mancuso, S. (2007), ‘Plant Neurobiology as a Paradigm Shift Not Only in the Plant Sciences’, Plant Signaling and Behavior 2:4: 205–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beiser, F. (2005), Hegel. Abington: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bognon-Küss, C. and Wolfe, C. T. (eds.) (2019), Philosophy of Biology before Biology. Abington: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boniolo, G. and Testa, G. (2012), ‘The Identity of Living Beings, Epigenetics, and the Modesty of Philosophy’, Erkenntnis 76:2: 279–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borghini, A. and Casetta, E. (2019), Brill's Companion to the Philosophy of Biology. Entities, Processes, Implications. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouchard, F. and Huneman, P. (eds.) (2013), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouton, C. (2018), ‘Dealing with Deep Time: The issue of Ancestrality from Kant to Hegel’, Anthropology and Aesthetics 69–70: 38–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breidbach, O. (1982), Das Organische in Hegels Denken. Studie zur Naturphilosophie und Biologie um 1800. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Google Scholar
Breitenbach, A. (2009), ‘Teleology in Biology: A Kantian Perspective’, Kant Yearbook 1:1: 31–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, E. (2010), ‘The Problem of Biological Individuality’, Biological Theory 5: 312–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corti, L. (2014), Ritratti hegeliani. Un capitolo della filosofia americana contemporanea. Rome: Carocci.Google Scholar
Corti, L. (2018), ‘Hegel After Sellars: Conceptual Connections’, in Corti, L. and Nunziante, A. (eds.), Sellars and the History of Modern Philosophy. Abington: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, A. (2018), ‘Two Directions for Teleology: Naturalism and Idealism’, Synthese 195:7: 3097–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, T. (2011), Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. New York: Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1839), Journal and Remarks, 1832–1836. London: Henry Colburn.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1976), The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Furlotte, W. (2018), The Problem of Nature in Hegel's Final System. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, S. (2017), Enactivist Interventions: Rethinking the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gambarotto, A. (2018), Vital Forces, Teleology and Organization: Philosophy of Nature and the Rise of Biology in Germany. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gambarotto, A. (2019), ‘Teleology: A Case Study in iHPS’, in Herring, E., Jones, K. M., Kiprijanov, K. S. and Sellers, L. (eds.), The Past, Present and Future of Integrated History and Philosophy of Science. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gambarotto, A. and Illetterati, L. (2014), ‘The Notion of Organism. Historical and Conceptual Approaches’, Verifiche 44: 3–13.Google Scholar
Gardner, S. (2007), ‘The Limits of Naturalism and the Metaphysics of German idealism’, in Hammer, E. (ed.), German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gardner, S. (2011), ‘Idealism and Naturalism in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy’, in Stone, A. (ed.), The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Giladi, P. (2014), ‘Liberal Naturalism: The Curious Case of Hegel’, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22:2: 248–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, S., Bosch, T. C. and Lédon-Rettig, C. (2015), ‘Eco-Evo-Devo: Developmental Symbiosis and Developmental Plasticity as Evolutionary Agents’, Nature Review Genetics 16:10: 611–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, S. and Sarkar, S. (2000), ‘Embracing Complexity: Organicism for the 21st Century’, Developmental Dynamics 219: 1–9.3.0.CO;2-A>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, S. (2017), ‘Biological individuality: a relational reading’, in Lidgard, S. and Nyhart, L. K. (eds.), Biological individuality: integrating scientific, philosophical, and historical perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, H. (2001), ‘Kant on Understanding Organisms as Natural Purposes’, in Watkins, E. (ed.), Kant and the Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, R. D., Griffith, P. E. and Oyama, S. (2001), Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2016), ‘Individuality, subjectivity, and minimal cognition’, Biology & Philosophy 31: 775–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1987), Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. and Lewontin, R. (1979), ‘The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 205:1161: 581–98.Google Scholar
Goy, I. and Watkins, E. (2014), Kant's Theory of Biology. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, E. (2007), A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, I. H. (2006), Philosophies of Nature after Schelling. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Hösle, V. (1987), Hegels System. Der Idealismus der Subjektivität und das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Hamburg: Meiner.Google Scholar
Houlgate, S. (ed.) (1998), Hegel and the Philosophy of Nature. Albany NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Huneman, P. (ed.) (2007), Understanding Purpose: Kant and the Philosophy of Biology. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Huneman, P. (2008), Métaphysique et biologie: Kant et la constitution du concept d'organisme. Paris: Kimé.Google Scholar
Huneman, P. (2014a), ‘Individuality as a Theoretical Scheme. I. Formal and Material Concepts of Individuality’, Biological Theory 9:4: 361–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huneman, P. (2014b), ‘Individuality as a Theoretical Scheme. II. About the Weak Individuality of Organisms and Ecosystems’, Biological Theory 9:4: 374–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Illetterati, L. (1995), Natura e Ragione. Sullo sviluppo dell'idea di natura in Hegel. Trento: Verifiche.Google Scholar
Illetterati, L. (1996), Introduction, Translation and Comments, in Hegel, G. W. F., Sul meccanismo, il chimismo, l'organismo e il conoscere. Trento: Verifiche.Google Scholar
Illetterati, L. (2014), ‘The Concept of Organism in Hegel's Philosophy of Nature’, Verifiche 44: 155–66.Google Scholar
Illetterati, L. (2019), ‘Die Logik des Lebens. Hegel und die Grammatik des Lebendigen’, in Koch, O. and Schülein, J-G. (eds.), Subjekt und Person. Beiträge zu einem Schlüsselproblem der klassischen deutschen Philosophie. Hamburg: Meiner.Google Scholar
Jablonka, E. and Lamb, M. (2005), Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jonas, H. (1966), The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Kauffman, S. (2000), Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Khurana, T. (2017), Das Leben der Freiheit. Form und Wirklichkeit der Autonomie. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Kisner, W. (2014), Ecological Ethics and Living Subjectivity in Hegel's Logic: The Middle Voice of Autopoietic Life. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kitching, R. L. (1983), Systems ecology: an introduction to ecological modelling. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Kreines, J. (2005), ‘The Inexplicability of Kant's Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation, and Biology’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 87:3: 270–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J. and Feldman, M. W. (2000), ‘Niche Construction, Biological Evolution, and Cultural Change’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23:1: 131–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laland, K. N. et al. (2014), ‘Does Evolutionary Theory Need a Rethink?’, Nature 514: 161–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levins, R. and Lewontin, R. (1985), The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewontin, R. (1985), ‘The Organism as Subject and Object of Evolution’, in Levins, R. and Lewontin, R., The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewontin, R. (2000), The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lidgard, S. and Nyhart, L. (eds.) (2017), Biological Individuality: Integrating Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovelock, J. (2000 [1979]), Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mancuso, S. and Viola, A. (2015), Brilliant Green: The Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence. Washington: Island Press.Google Scholar
Maturana, H. and Varela, F. (1980), Autopoiesis and Cognition. Dodrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. and Szathmáry, E. (1995), The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, P. (1990), Kant's Critique of Teleology in Biological Explanation: Antinomy and Teleology. Lewiton: Edwin Mellen.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, P. (2002), ‘Naming Biology’, Journal of the History of Biology 35:1: 1–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Michelini, F. (2012), ‘Hegel's Notion of Natural Purpose’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42: 133–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno, A. and Mossio, M. (2015), Biological Autonomy: A Philosophical and Theoretical Enquiry. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mossio, M. and Bich, L. (2017), ‘What Makes Biological Organization Teleological?’, Synthese 194:4: 1089–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ng, K. (2020), Hegel's Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oyama, S. (1985), The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Papazoglou, A. (2012), ‘Hegel and Naturalism’ Hegel Bulletin 33:2: 74–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pigliucci, M. and Müller, G. (2010), Evolution: The Extended Synthesis. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinkard, T. (2012), Hegel's Naturalism: Mind, Nature and the Final Ends of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinkard, T. (2018), ‘Conceptualistic Pragmatism’, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy. Available at: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/1338.Google Scholar
Pradeu, T. (2012), The Limits of the Self: Immunology and Biological Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quarfood, M. (2006), ‘Kant on Biological Teleology: Toward a Two-Level Interpretation’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37:4: 735–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rand, S. (2007), ‘The Importance and Relevance of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature’, Review of Metaphysics 60:2: 379–400.Google Scholar
Rand, S. (2015), ‘What's Wrong with Rex? Hegel on Animal Defect and Individuality’, European Journal of Philosophy 23:1: 68–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rand, S. (2017), ‘Hegel's Philosophy of Nature’, in Moyar, D. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Hegel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Richards, R. A. (2010), The Species Problem: A Philosophical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudwick, M. J. S. (1992), Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial Images of the Prehistoric World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudwick, M.J.S. (1997), Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sell, A. (2013), Der lebendige Begriff. Leben und Logik bei Hegel. Freiburg: Karl Alber.Google Scholar
Spahn, C. (2007), Lebendiger Begriff—Begriffenes Leben. Zur Grundlegung der Philosophie des Organischen bei G. W. F. Hegel. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Google Scholar
Steigerwald, J. (2019), Experimenting at the Boundaries of Life: Organic Vitality in Germany around 1800. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterner, B. (2015), ‘Pathways to Pluralism about Biological Individuality’, Biology & Philosophy 30: 609–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, A. (2004), Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegel's Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Stone, A. (2018), Nature, Ethics and Gender in German Romanticism and Idealism. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. (2007), Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trewavas, A. (2014), Plant Behaviour and Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den Berg, H. (2014), Kant on Proper Science: Biology in the Critical Philosophy and the Opus Postumum. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varela, F. (1997), ‘Patterns of Life: Intertwining Identity and Cognition’, Brain and Cognition 34: 72–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Varela, F., Rosch, E. and Thompson, E. (1991), The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Von Engelhardt, D. (1986), ‘Die biologischen Wissenschaften in Hegels Naturphilosophie’, in Horstmann, R-P. and Petry, M. J. (eds.), Hegels Philosophie der Natur. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.Google Scholar
Walsh, D. (2015), Organisms, Agency, and Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, D. (2018), ‘Objectcy and Agency: Toward A Methodological Vitalism’, in Nicholson, D. J. and Dupré, J. (eds.), Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wandschneider, D. (1987), ‘Anfänge des Seelischen in der Natur in der Deutung der Hegelschen Naturphilosophie und in systemtheoretischer Rekonstruktion’, in Petry, M. J. (ed.), Hegel und die Naturwissenschaften. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.Google Scholar
Ward, D., Silverman, D. and Villalobos, M. (2017), ‘Introduction: The Varieties of Enactivism’, Topoi 36:3: 365–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, C. T. (2019), La philosophie de la biologie avant la biologie: Une histoire du vitalisme. Paris: Classiques Garnier.Google Scholar
Weber, A. and Varela, F. (2002), ‘Life after Kant: Natural Purposes and the Autopoietic Foundations of Biological Individuality’, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1:2: 97–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zammito, J. (2006), ‘Teleology then and now: The question of Kant's relevance or contemporary controversies over function in biology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37:4: 748–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zammito, J. (2018), The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Zumbach, C. (1984), The Transcendent Science: Kant's Conception of Biological Methodology. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar