Hegel and the Organic View of Nature

Abstract

As the title of this paper may easily yield to a misunderstanding, my first obligation is to dispel it. I plan to deal not with Hegel’s organic view of nature (for reasons which I am going to state) but with Hegel and the organic view of nature, which is something entirely different. The main reason I prefer not to dwell primarily on Hegel’s own philosophy of nature, including his own views of organic nature, is that it makes specific claims, many of which are obviously and fantastically wrong, not only in the light of our present science, but even in the light of the science of Hegel’s own time. On this point, I feel that Findlay’s view that Hegel’s science was “the science of his own time” is rather too charitable;¹ for the tragedy, or rather tragicomedy, of Hegel’s philosophy of nature is that it was far behind the science of his own time. Hegel’s errors fall into two main groups: (a) the plain and arrogant denials of those scientific discoveries which were generally accepted by the scientific community of his own time and without which classical nineteenth- century science was unthinkable; and (b) the peculiar, artificial, and often fantastic interpretations of some of the facts which even Hegel could not deny. I shall deal first with group (a).