Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Causality, Natural Systems, and Hegel’s Organicism

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Hegel Handbook

Part of the book series: Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism ((PHGI))

Abstract

Hegel’s holism or ‘organicism’ pertains to biology and to philosophy of biology, but how and why so remain obscure until basic features of Hegel’s epistemology and philosophy of nature are properly identified and integrated. These basic features Hegel identified and justified through his internal critique of Kant’s Critical philosophy, his consequent rejection of the late Mediaeval, deductivist ‘top-down’ model of a proper science (scientia) and his further development of conceptual explication to clarify, differentiate and also integrate concepts and principles fundamental (inter alia) to the natural sciences, so as to identify those conditions necessary and sufficient for any distinctive kind of natural phenomenon, and how those conditions are necessary to though insufficient for more complex kinds of natural phenomena. The specific constituents and their systematic structure and functioning (behavior) within any natural system must be identified and explained by empirical sciences. Hegel’s philosophical contribution is to show (inter alia) why and how the required concepts and principles are integrated and instantiated in ways which suffice for knowledge, understanding and explanation of natural phenomena, whilst foreclosing on conventionalism, scepticism or unwarranted transcendent metaphysical speculations. Hegel’s examination of causality and causal explanation highlight the centrality of causal processes, which involve causal powers, causal structures and causal activities, in ways congenial to organicism, to systems biology and to causal mechanisms within biological explanation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Anon. 1786. Review of Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen 191 (2 Dec. 1786):1914–1918. Reprinted in Kant Ak. 21:415.2–17; cf. 22:809.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnes, Jonathan. 1997. Logic and the Imperial Stoa. Leiden: Brill.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bliss, Ricki, and Kelly Trogdon. 2016. “Metaphysical Grounding.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/grounding/.

  • Bohnemeyer, Jürgen. 2015. “Deixis.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. 2nd ed., vol. 6, edited by J. Wright (editor-in-chief), 52–57. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boogerd, Fred, Frank Bruggemann, Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyer, and H. V. Westerhof, eds. 2007. Systems Biology: Philosophical Foundations. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boulter, Stephen. 2011. “The Origin of Conceivability Arguments.” Metaphilosophy 42 (5): 617–641.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breidbach, Olaf, and Dietrich von Engelhardt, eds. 2002. Hegel und die Lebenswissenschaften. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brook, Andrew. 1994. Kant and the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Brook, Andrew. 2016. “Kant’s View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by E. N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/kant-mind/.

  • Burbidge, John. 1996. Real Process: How Logic and Chemistry Combine in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burbidge, John. 2004. “Hegel’s Logic.” In Handbook of the History of Logic. Vol. 3, edited by D. M. Gabbay and J. Woods, 131–175. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiereghin, Franco. 2009. “Freedom and Thought: Stoicism, Skepticism, and Unhappy Consciousness.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, edited by K. R. Westphal, 55–71. London: Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Ardis. 1990. “Contradiction and Relations: Hegel and the Tradition.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64 (4): 509–541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Ardis. 2013. Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Dialectical Justification of Philosophy’s First Principles. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craver, Carl, and James Tabery. 2017. “Mechanisms in Science.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by E. N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/science-mechanisms/.

  • Davidson, Donald. 1987. “‘Afterthoughts’ to ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge.’” In idem. (2001), 154–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, Donald. 2001. Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries, Willem. 1988. Hegel’s Theory of Mental Activity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (Now available in PDF format from the author’s web site).

    Google Scholar 

  • de Vries, Willem. 1991. “The Dialectic of Teleology.” Philosophical Topics 19 (2): 51–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • di Giovanni, George. 2009. “Religion, History, and Spirit in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, edited by K. R. Westphal, 226–245. London: Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 1988. “On the Relation Between ‘Mode’ and ‘Measure’ in Hegel’s Science of Logic: Some Introductory Remarks.” The Owl of Minerva 20 (1): 21–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 1991/1992. “Logica e filosofia della natura nella Dottrina dell’essere hegeliana,” Parts 1, 2, Rivista di storia della filosofia, new series; Part 1, 46 (4) (1991): 701–735; Part 2, 47 (1) (1992): 103–124.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2004. “Heavenly Bodies, Crystals and Organisms: The Key-Role of Chemical Affinity in Kant’s Critical Cosmogony.” In Eredità kantiane (1804–2004). Questioni aperte e problemi irrisolti, edited by C. Ferrini, 277–317. Napoli: Bibliopolis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2007. “On Hegel’s Confrontation with the Sciences in “Observing Reason”: Notes for a Discussion.” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 55/56: 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2009a. “The Challenge of Reason: From Certainty to Truth.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, edited by K. R. Westphal, 73–91. London: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2009b. “Reason Observing Nature.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, edited by K. R. Westphal, 92–135. Blackwell: London.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2009c. “From Geological to Animal Nature in Hegel’s Idea of Life.” Hegel-Studien 44: 45–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2010. “From the Physical World to the Habitat: Biocentrism in Hegel’s Interrelation of Animal Subjectivity with Its Environment.” In Hegels Naturphilosophie in der Dritten Moderne. Bestimmungen, Probleme und Perspektiven, edited by O. Breidbach and W. Neuser (Ernst-Haeckel-Haus-Studien. Monographien zur Geschichte der Biowissenschaften und Medizin 13, 119–135). Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2011. “The Transition to Organics: Hegel’s Idea of Life.” In The Blackwell Companion to Hegel, edited by S. Houlgate and M. Baur, 203–224. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2012. “Hegel on Nature and Spirit: Some Systematic Remarks.” Hegel-Studien 46: 117–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrini, Cinzia. 2020. “Hegel’s Revisions of the Logic of Being: A Controversial Issue.” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 1.2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fulda, Hans-Friedrich. 1975. Das Problem einer Einleitung in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. 2nd rev. ed. Frankfurt am Main, Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gettier, Edmund. 1963. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23 (6): 121–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glennan, Stuart. 2002. “Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation.” Philosophy of Science 69 (S3): S342–S353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glennan, Stuart. 2010. “Mechanisms, Causes, and the Layered Model of the World.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2): s362–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanna, Robert. 2001. Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hare, R. M. 1960. “Philosophical Discoveries.” Mind 69 (274): 145–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Henry S. 1997. Hegel’s Ladder. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Houlgate, Stephen. 2005. An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History. 2nd rev. ed. London: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huneman, Philippe, ed. 2013. Functions: Selection and Mechanisms. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, Jagewon, 1999. “Making Sense of Emergence.” Philosophical Studies 95: 3–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LaPlace, Pierre Simon de. 1796. L’exposition du système du monde. 2 vols. Paris, Cercle-Social; 6th rev. ed.: Bruxelles: H. Remy, 1829; Paris: Bachelier, 1836; reprinted in idem. Œuvres de LaPlace (Paris: Impr. Royale, 1846), vol. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenz, Johann Georg, ed. 1804. Schriften der Herzoglichen Societät für die gesammte Mineralogie zu Jena. Jena: Göpferdt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lodish, Harvey, Arnold Berk, Chris Kaiser, Monty Krieger, Anthony Bretscher, Hidde Ploegh, Angelika Amon, and Matthew Scott. 2013. Molecular Cell Biology. 7th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mates, Benson. 1961. Stoic Logic. 2nd rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKeon, Richard. 1994. On Knowing: The Natural Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Melnick, Arthur. 1989. Space, Time and Thought in Kant. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Moretto, Antonio. 2004. Filosofia della Matematica e della Meccanica del sistema Hegeliano. 2nd rev. ed. Padova: Il Poligrafo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nasti de Vincentis, Mauro. 2018. “‘Chrysippus’ Counterargument Against the Master Argument: A Reappraisal.” SATS—Northern European Journal of Philosophy 19 (2): 139–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Daniel. 2014. “The Return of the Organism as a Fundamental Explanatory Concept in Biology.” Philosophy Compass 9 (5): 347–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Daniel, and Richard Gawne. 2015. “Neither Logical Empiricism nor Vitalism, but Organicism: What the Philosophy of Biology Was.” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37 (4): 345–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nobel, Denis. 2008. The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nobel, Denis. 2016. Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, Timothy, and Hong Yu Wong. 2015. “Emergent Properties.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited in E. N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/properties-emergent/.

  • Piché, David. 1999. La condamnation parisienne de 1277. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renault, Emmanuel. 2002. Philosophie chimique. Hegel et la science dynamiste de son temps. Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Robert. 2010. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, Richard. 1986. “Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth.” In Truth and Interpretation, edited by E. Lepore, 333–355. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schulze, G. E. [Anon. 1803]. 2020. “Aphorisms on the Absolute.” Translated by K. R. Westphal, James Sares, and Caleb Faul. The Owl of Minerva 51 (at press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stekeler-Weithofer, Pirmin. 1992. Hegels Analytische Philosophie. Die Wissenschaft der Logik als kritische Theorie der Bedeutung. Paderborn: Schöningh.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, Jon, ed. 1996. The Hegel Myths and Legends. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snow, C. P. 1964. The Two Cultures, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tennemann, Wilhelm Gottlieb. 1811. Geschichte der Philosophie, achter Band, zweite Hälfte. Leipzig: J.A. Barth.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Engelhardt, Dietrich. 1976. Hegel und die Chemie. Studie zur Philosophie und Wissenschaft der Natur um 1800. Wiesbaden: Guido Pressler.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Engelhardt, Dietrich. 1984. “The Chemical System of Substances, Forces and Processes in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature and in the Sciences of the Time.” In Hegel and the Sciences, edited by R. S. Cohen and M. Wartofsky, 41–54. Dordrecht: Riedel.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • von Pfleiderer, Christoph Friedrich. 1804. Physik. Naturlehre nach Klügel. Nachschrift einer Tübinger Vorlesung von 1804, edited by P. Ziche. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 1989. Hegel’s Epistemological Realism: A Study of the Aim and Method of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 1991. “Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Moral World View.” Philosophical Topics 19 (2): 133–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 1998. Hegel, Hume und die Identität wahrnehmbarer Dinge. Historisch-kritische Analyse zum Kapitel „Wahrnehmung“ in der Phänomenologie von 1807. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2002. “Hegel’s Internal Critique of Naïve Realism.” Journal of Philosophical Research 25: 173–229.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2002/2003. “Analytischer Gehalt und zeitgenössische Bedeutung von Hegels Kritik des unmittelbaren Wissens.” Jahrbuch für Hegel-Forschungen 8/9: 129–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2004. Kant’s Transcendental Proof of Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2007. “Consciousness and Its Transcendental Conditions: Kant’s Anti-Cartesian Revolt.” In Consciousness: From Perception to Reflection in the History of Philosophy, edited by S. Heinämaa, V. Lähteenmäki, and P. Remes, 223–243. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R., ed. 2009a. The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2009b. “Hegel’s Phenomenological Method & Analysis of Consciousness.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, edited by K. R. Westphal, 1–36. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2015a. “Causal Realism & the Limits of Empiricism: Some Unexpected Insights from Hegel.” HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5 (2): 281–317.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2015b. “Conventionalism & the Impoverishment of the Space of Reasons: Carnap, Quine.” Journal for the History of Analytic Philosophy 3 (8): 1–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2016. “Mind, Language & Behaviour: Kant’s Critical Cautions contra Contemporary Internalism & Causal Naturalism.” In Felsefede Yöntem/Method in Philosophy, special issue of Yeditepe’de Felsefe/Philosophy at Yeditepe 10, edited by S. Babür, 102–149. İstanbul: Yeditepe Üniversitesi Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2018. Grounds of Pragmatic Realism: Hegel’s Internal Critique & Transformation of Kant’s Critical Philosophy. Leiden: Brill (series: Critical Studies in German Idealism, edited by Paul Cobben).

    Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2019. “Hegel’s Critique of Theoretical Spirit: Kant’s Functionalist Cognitive Psychology in Context.” In Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit: A Critical Guide, edited by M. F. Bykova, 57–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Westphal, Kenneth R. 2020. “Kant’s Analytic of Principle.” In Kant, edited by M. Timmons & S. Baiasu, Chapter 8. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whewell, William. 1847. The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. 2 vols., 2nd rev. ed. London: J.W. Parker.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wimsatt, William. 2007. Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wimsatt, William. 2013. “Evolution and the Stability of Functional Architecture.” In Functions: Selection and Mechanisms, edited by P. Huneman, 19–41. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Michael. 1986. “Hegel und Cauchy. Eine Untersuchung zur Philosophie und Geschichte der Mathematik.” In Hegel und die Naturwissenschaften, edited by R.-P. Horstmann, 197–263. Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Michael. 1989. „Realitätsstufen oder Entwicklung? Hegels,Realphilosophie‘ und die Philosophie der Wissenschaften.” Hegel-Jahrbuch: 397–415.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Michael. 2009. Abhandlungen über die Prinzipien der Logik. 2nd rev. ed. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Michael. 2017. “How Precise is Kant’s Table of Judgments?” Translated by K. R. Westphal. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide, edited by J. O’Shea, 83–105. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Michael. 2020. “Levels of Reality or Development? Hegel’s “Realphilosophie” and Philosophy of the Sciences.” Translated by K. R. Westphal. In The Palgrave Hegel Handbook, edited by M. F. Bykova and K. R. Westphal, 201–217. London: Palgrave; translation of Wolff (1989).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziche, Paul. 2000. “Die Jenaer Naturforschende Gesellschaft und ihre Bedeutung für die Naturforschung in Jena.” In Gelehrte Gesellschaften im mitteldeutschen Raum (1650–1820), edited by D. Döring and K. Nowak, 107–131. Leipzig: Verlag der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziemke, Axel. 1992. System und Subjekt. Biosystemforschung und radikaler Konstruktivismus im Lichte der hegelschen Logik. Wiesbaden: Vieweg.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, Istanbul, Turkey

    Kenneth R. Westphal

Authors
  1. Kenneth R. Westphal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Marina F. Bykova

  2. Department of Philosophy, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, İstanbul, Turkey

    Kenneth R. Westphal

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Westphal, K.R. (2020). Causality, Natural Systems, and Hegel’s Organicism. In: Bykova, M.F., Westphal, K.R. (eds) The Palgrave Hegel Handbook. Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26597-7_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation