Two Conceptions of Second Nature (original) (raw)
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Nature, spirit and second nature: Hegel and McDowell
Revista Eletrônica Estudos Hegelianos, 2018
Both Hegel and McDowell make use of the expression ‘second nature’. Furthermore, each philosopher is concerned to connect talk of ‘second nature’ with a larger issue: that of the relation between nature and spirit. According to McDowell, being ‘reminded’ of the perfectly familiar phenomenon of second nature is to do the work of ‘deconstricting’ the conception of nature that bald naturalists operate with. Hegel, by contrast, works in the opposite direction. For Hegel, the phenomenon of second nature is to be understood in light of a prior characterization of the relation between nature and spirit, according to which spirit is the ‘truth of’ nature. This essay attempts to get into focus the difficulties (beginning from the surface grammar of the expressions ‘nature’, ‘second nature’, and ‘first nature’) that must be sorted out before we can properly understand how each philosopher connects the topic of second nature with the wider issue of how nature and spirit are related, and to provide a sketch of the philosophical issues that must be faced once we have the difficulties clearly in view. The philosophical difficulties faced by Hegel differ from those faced by McDowell, as reflects their difference in approach. Those faced by Hegel concern how precisely to spell out the conception of nature – such that ‘spirit is the truth of nature’ – in which his conception of second nature is embedded; those faced by McDowell concern how his ‘reminder’ about second nature is to be understood in the absence of something analogous to Hegel’s attempts to spell out a conception of nature.
Hegel’s Naturalism, the Negative and the First Person Standpoint [Special Issue]
Argumenta - Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 2019
In this paper I attempt to move the discussion of Hegel's naturalism past what I present as an impasse between the soft naturalist interpretation of Hegel's notion of Geist, in which Geist is continuous with nature, and the opposing claim that Geist is essentially normative and self-legislating. In order to do so I suggest we look to the question of value which underlies this dispute. While soft naturalists seek to make sense of value as arising from material nature, those who support the autonomy thesis propose that value is something inherent to human spiritual activity. Following McDowell's suggestion that value as neither inhering or supervening on nature, but is rather something we have been estranged from and hence something to be recovered, I suggested that we adopt the first person perspective as the starting point for an examination of the relation between nature and value. The first person perspective is to be understood as a position within value which imbues value to what it encounters and hence is a process of the reenchantment of nature. Seeing things from this perspective allows us to place the question of nature as external materiality (which both the soft naturalist and autonomy view seem to share) in its proper context as something which develops as the result of the self-unfolding activity of consciousness as it encounters nature as negativity. Understanding Geist in this way allows us to see value as inherent in nature.
Hegel on Human Ways of Considering Nature
Ethics in Progress, 2024
In this article I aim to show the limits of certain "ways of considering" nature, as well as the intrinsic contradictions in their modus operandi, following Hegel's analysis in the Introductions to the Encyclopaedic Naturphilosophie and the Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Nature. After framing the problem within the broader theme - already explored in Jena - of the relationship between nature and spirit, I will show that both the practical and the theoretical, insofar as they are founded in an original separation between man and nature, result in a subjection of the natural being to man. In order for this to be redeemed from one-sided conduct towards it, it is necessary to access through living intuition a philosophical consideration – both of the living being and of nature as a whole –, the activity of which Hegel understands as a rediscovery of the rationality of nature and its "liberation”.
Hegel's discussion of habit takes place at two critical junctures in his work. In the Philosophy of Right it occurs in a well-known paragraph at the outset of the discussion of ethical life. Habit in this context is used to show the limitations of Kantian autonomy and morality as a model for the kind of freedom possible in a modern society. The second juncture, which has received much less attention and which is the focus of this paper, is the discussion of habit in the subjective spirit. In the Encyclopaedia Hegel makes a strong claim for the importance of habit in the development of spirit, describing it as "what is most essential to the existence of all spirituality within the individual subject". 1 There he argues habit is critical to the emergence of consciousness and is the key bridge between nature and spirit. 2 What I want to argue in this paper is that habit is more than just a transition point, dissolving itself and nature with it in the move from nature to spirit. The way Hegel conceives habit, particularly his characterization of it as second nature, challenges the dualism of nature and spirit.
Second Nature, Critical Theory and Hegel's Phenomenology
International Journal of Philosophical Studies
While Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase “second nature” in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures “natural consciousness,” “natural notion,” and “inorganic nature,” in order to elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the “official” version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an “unofficial” version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a “second nature.”
Discussions of Hegel's Philosophy of Right usually focus on two central aspects of his theory of objective spirit: the model of freedom it articulates and the related issue of just what is innovative in his account of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). It is not my intention here to enter directly into the contested terrain of what exactly he means by these terms. My concern in this paper is rather to understand why the opening discussion of the third, final and arguably most important part of the Philosophy of Right, 'Ethical Life', makes appeal to the notion of habit. Habit, it will be argued, has an important transitional role in the development of Sittlichkeit and freedom, but habit is not just a moment on the way to the development of these core notions. It also has an ongoing role to play in Sittlichkeit.
Part one examines some of the main arguments made by naturalist interpreters of Hegel against Kant’s notion of a supernatural noumenon. Following a Fichte-inspired, Kantian response to naturalist critics, part two analyses how and why Fichte rejects Kant’s notion of two distinct realms of reality from a supernaturalist point of view when he integrates Kant’s notions of a supernatural, independent and spontaneous subjectivity into a subjectivity-prioritizing framework. This leads into part three’s discussion of how Hegel goes beyond naturalism by following Fichte in rejecting Kant’s notion of the noumenon whilst still integrating the notion of an independent and self-referential subjectivity into an account of supernatural mind (Geist).
2018
In this analysis, I will describe the structure of Subjective Spirit in order to gain insight in the dialectical system of immersion and opposition that is considered as essential to understanding Hegel’s point of departure to understand the realm of Geist. Throughout this paper, the concepts of body and soul – and corporeity and Spirit for that matter – are conceptualised as two concepts for the sake of language differentiation. This does not imply however that they exclude each other per definition, as they imply one another in Hegel’s systematics. This position is a result of the development of the immediate relation and unity between Spirit and Nature. It is imperative to keep this in mind, as it constitutes the core to Hegel’s project in the Encyclopaedia, and in the section of Philosophy of Mind. The position Hegel develops is that the immediate unity of Spirit and Nature is made explicit, in order to reach a position wherein they are implicitly united. Specifically, this essay will be subdivided in the three dialectical parts that Hegel poses in his Philosophy of Mind to do justice to each section, and in order to see how each stage may allow for Nature to subdue in Spirit. It will provide an in-depth closed-reading of Anthropology and Phenomenology of Mind, and a short insight on Psychology. This is because the former two present a more accurate foundation on the relationship and contradictions present in Hegel’s system with regards to how Nature is involved in the realm of Mind. The latter is a dialectical union of the former two, and will thus be analysed more holistically. Finally, in the conclusion the main points will be gathered in order to portray the embeddedness of natural conditions in Hegel’s formulation of Subjective Spirit.