Observation of Organic Nature (B): Inner as Inner and Outer; Outer as Inner and Outer

Abstract

In order to maintain consistency with the analytic and summative character of the observational approach, the dialectician must refrain from speculations about purpose. Finality and causality are rigidly contrasted from within the standpoint of observation. The observer’s failure to observe purpose was largely due to his conception of a world governed by static mechanical laws. As long as the method of observation is to enjoy primary in the dialectic, the object under observation must remain particular and static. The next attempt to formulate a primary classification will be strictly in terms of a quantitative assessment of morphological characteristics (this will be discussed in section 2 of this chapter). This presupposes (a) that organic systems are static entities which can be abstractly determined in isolation from one another and from their functions, and (b) that observation has a criterion for distinguishing between a particular individual and its externality—though observation has yet to provide a criterion of classification. Against these assumptions, the Hegelian position is as follows: First, organic systems, being dynamic systems in a steady state, can only be distinguished from one another by conceptual means—as opposed to the atomistic and regional approach favoured by the observational consciousness.

We presently ‘see’ the universe as a tremendous hierarchy, from elementary particles to atomic nuclei, to atoms, molecules, high molecular compounds, to the wealth of structures (electron- and light-microscopic) between molecules and cells... to cells, organisms and beyond to supra-individual organisations. (Ludwig von Bertalanffy)²