The Concept of Organism in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature

Abstract

I focus my attention on the conceptualization Hegel offers of the organism in his philosophy of nature. The aim of my paper is to show the naturalistic roots of the notions of subject. Through this path I also intend to shed light on the way the connections between these different notions – organism, subject, freedom – are capable of producing a certain re-definition and re-determination of the immediate use of the terms with which these are usually represented in ordinary language and the way they appear, prima facie, in Hegel’s system. This process of conceptual re-definition and re-determination of the terms that are here at stake could also be of some interest in relation to the philosophical debate of these last decades on naturalism and anti-naturalism. More specifically, it could shed light on the different ways of inflecting the notion of naturalism in philosophical context.