{"id":903202,"date":"2026-09-17T16:09:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903202"},"modified":"2026-09-17T18:18:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T16:18:54","slug":"what-do-natural-scientists-get-from-hegel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/what-do-natural-scientists-get-from-hegel\/","title":{"rendered":"What do natural scientists get from Hegel?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> For physics nothing; for the question what one\u2019s own concepts actually do, a great deal. Hegel\u2019s philosophy of nature is out of date; his logic is an investigation of how determinations such as force<\/em>, law<\/em>, cause<\/em>, end<\/em>, reciprocal action<\/em> and measure<\/em> work \u2013 and those are not out of date, because they are used in every laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the irritation out of the way<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Hegel criticised Newton in a way that does not convince physicists. No, he did not claim that there could be only seven planets \u2013 that is a legend<\/a>. And he said expressly that the philosophy of nature would not come about at all without empirical research:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Not only must philosophy be in agreement with the experience of nature; the emergence and formation of philosophical science has empirical physics for its presupposition and condition.<\/p>\nEncyclopaedia (1830), \u00a7 246 note<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

How much of the rest holds up is treated in the answer to Is Hegel\u2019s philosophy of nature the Achilles heel of the system?<\/a> In short: on evolution he rejects more than his procedure required; on self-limitation he keeps his word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is actually usable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Science of Logic<\/a> is not a doctrine of nature but an investigation of determinations of thought. Four passages are unusually rewarding for readers trained in the sciences:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Quality, quantity, measure.<\/strong> Hegel\u2019s thesis that quantitative change turns at certain nodal points into qualitative change is developed on states of aggregation and applies to everything now called a phase transition.
\u2013 Force and its expression.<\/strong> Hegel shows that a \u201eforce\u201c which is nothing beyond that in which it expresses itself supplies no explanation but a renaming \u2013 a critique of the explanatory tautology that ought to figure in every seminar on method.
\u2013 Law and appearance.<\/strong> The question in what sense a law of nature \u201eexists\u201c is expressly put by him.
\u2013 End and mechanism.<\/strong> Whether teleology in biology is a manner of speaking or more has been disputed for two hundred years; Hegel\u2019s version of the \u201einner end\u201c is one of the few attempts that do not settle the question by prohibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point at which it really concerns natural science<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00a7 4<\/a> to \u00a7 7<\/a> of the Groundlines<\/em> start from a presupposition with which natural science has a problem: that there is a will<\/a> which determines itself. Hegel does not ground this on a gap in the causal chain \u2013 he holds the question \u201edetermined or free?\u201c to be wrongly put, because both answers understand freedom as arbitrary will<\/a> (\u00a7 15<\/a> note). Free, he says, is not the indeterminate will but the one that has itself as its content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether that meets the debate on freedom of the will or passes it by, a reader trained in the sciences can judge better than most. It is at any rate no retreat into ignorance but a different question \u2013 and the place at which such a reader can test Hegel fastest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A suggestion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One should not begin with the philosophy of nature but with \u00a7 1<\/a> to \u00a7 33<\/a>, in which the conceptual apparatus is displayed \u2013 and watch what happens there methodically. To anyone who takes that for word-play Hegel has nothing to say. For anyone who recognises in it a reconstruction of what actually happens when a conceptual definition is set up, the rest repays the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Encyclopaedia (1830), Part Two: Philosophy of Nature, \u00a7\u00a7 245\u2013251; Part One: Science of Logic, \u00a7\u00a7 84\u2013111 (being, quality, quantity, measure), \u00a7\u00a7 136\u2013141 (force and expression, law), \u00a7\u00a7 204\u2013212 (teleology). \u2013 Science of Logic I, first book, third section: Measure. \u2013 Groundlines \u00a7 4<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 7<\/a>, \u00a7 15<\/a> note. \u2013 In the glossary: The Science of Logic<\/a>, Dialectic<\/a>, The Understanding<\/a>. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Michael John Petry (ed.\/trans.), Hegel\u2019s Philosophy of Nature<\/em>, 3 vols., London 1970; Terry Pinkard, Hegel\u2019s Naturalism<\/em>, Oxford 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n