Hegel, Naturalism and Transcendental Philosophy

Abstract

The intention of this presentation is to offer an account of Hegel’s philosophical system as conditional upon a synthesis of naturalism and transcendental philosophy, the general features of which shall be elaborated. Despite his long-standing reputation as a critical successor to Kant’s idealist project, Hegel’s understanding of the dynamic relation between philosophy and empirical science cannot be easily accommodated within the formalistic horizons of Kantian transcendentalism. At the same time, however, Hegel credits philosophical reason with a synthetic function which few contemporary naturalists would recognise. As such, Hegel’s methodology combines features of philosophical persuasions often considered fundamentally irreconcilable. Such a synthesis of naturalism and transcendental philosophy is made possible by Hegel’s rejection of any Kantian dichotomy between a heteronomous animal nature and an autonomous rational freedom, and his proposal that mind or Spirit be understood as the ‘truth’ or self-fulfilment of nature, rather than its antithesis. For Hegel then, nature’s conformity to rational principles of synthetic unity need not be explained as necessarily conditional upon a priori criteria of intelligibility originating in a non-natural subject. Rather, Hegel maintains, nature grounds the ontological possibility of a Spirit which grounds the possibility of nature, so that nature and Spirit ground one another.