I. Hegel's idea of a philosophy of nature and its historical background

Hegel's philosophy of nature rests on the assumption that there is something to be known about nature that can only be known philosophically.Footnote ¹ Notwithstanding the invaluable and indispensable contributions of science to a unified understanding of natural phenomena, ultimately, the unity of nature can only be brought into view by philosophy rather than science, on his account.Footnote ² The concept of nature is accordingly a philosophical concept rather than a scientific one.Footnote ³

In light of our well-established division of labour between science and philosophy of science, these assumptions of Hegel's might seem highly dubious if not outrageous. From a contemporary vantage point it might seem that philosophy cannot reasonably purport to complement science by providing us with a kind of insight into nature that is inaccessible to it. When it comes to nature, philosophy must rather confine itself to logical clarification and epistemological reflection of natural science—or so it seems.

In any event, this worry in the face of Hegel's idea of a distinctively philosophical approach to nature is not as new as it might appear. As a matter of fact, a worry of that sort was already prevalent in Hegel's own day and it is one to which Hegel himself seeks to answer in devising his philosophy of nature:

The historical background of this doubt is of course the scientific revolution. In the early nineteenth century, when Hegel conceived his philosophy of nature, the emancipation of the natural sciences from philosophy that came with that revolution had to a large extent already been achieved.Footnote ⁵

To be sure, Hegel was neither the first nor the only philosopher of his time who came up with the idea of a philosophical discipline that should provide us with a kind of insight into nature that would somehow complement natural science. But while Kant had paved the way with the attempt to provide critical metaphysical foundations for Newtonian science, the whole idea of a philosophy of nature had soon fallen into disrepute—partly due to the lofty speculations of Schelling and his followers. This was the context in which Hegel found himself when devising his own philosophy of nature.

His mature contribution to the field makes up the second part of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. As an ‘outline for lectures’ the Encyclopaedia does not amount to a self-contained textbook. It was rather meant to be fleshed out in Hegel's lecture courses that did not usually deal with the work as a whole but with a specific part of it—and thus with a particular branch of philosophy. Such courses were not exclusively addressed to an audience of philosophers, but designed to reach a wider public.Footnote ⁶

Hegel thus found himself with two challenges when lecturing on the philosophy of nature. On the one hand he could not presuppose that all of his hearers possessed a thorough understanding of the Science of Logic, on which all other branches of philosophy were to be based.Footnote ⁷ On the other hand, the fact that many amongst Hegel's hearers were in fact scientists made it all the more pressing to address the worry that the attempt to complement natural science by a kind of philosophical investigation into nature was as such ill-founded.

Hegel found a way to tackle these two challenges in one go. He managed to introduce and motivate the idea of a philosophy of nature in a way that does not rely on previous knowledge of his logic.Footnote ⁸ This ambition is explicit in his remark that directly beginning with the ‘idea of nature’ (Idee der Natur) (GW 24.1: 478), as resulting from the logic, might be ‘unclear’ (undeutlich) (GW 24.1: 478) to his audience. Instead he starts with our ‘ordinary stance’ (gewöhnliche Verhalten) (V 17: 5) towards nature that is ‘familiar’ (bekannt) (GW 24.1: 478; GW 24.2: 758) to us and with the ‘preliminary’ (vorläufig) (V 17: 4) knowledge of nature implicit in it. By proceeding from our ordinary, non-philosophical ‘attitudes’ (Verhaltensweisen) towards nature—the ‘practical’ and the ‘theoretical attitude’ (of which the ‘scientific’ attitude is a refinement)Footnote ⁹—and by ‘reflecting upon them’ (Reflexionen anstellen) (GW 24.2: 758) he seeks to show that these attitudes implicitly presuppose the possibility of a further attitude towards nature. Namely, a philosophical one to which he also refers as the ‘speculative’ or ‘comprehending’ (begreifende) (EN: §246; V 17: 16) attitude. To arrive at an understanding of this further, comprehending attitude and, hence, of the vantage point of the philosophy of nature, nothing further is required, on his account, than coming up with a unified account of what is already contained in our ordinary attitudes.Footnote ¹⁰ In this vein, Hegel developed an argument for the conclusion that the philosophy of nature is indeed a viable discipline—an argument that deliberately abstains from appealing to his Science of Logic.Footnote ¹¹

The passage at the beginning of Hegel's encyclopaedic Philosophy of Nature in which that argument can be found appears to be somewhat neglected by Hegel scholars. It tends to be mentioned in passing, while rarely being investigated for its own sake.Footnote ¹² Hegel's systematic, albeit rather esoteric way of introducing the idea of a philosophy of nature by explicit recourse to his Logic seems to have received much more scholarly attention.Footnote ¹³ However, as it seems to me, Hegel's somewhat more exoteric claim that our usual, non-philosophical attitudes towards nature implicitly presuppose the possibility of a distinctively philosophical take on it, is based on a philosophical argument that is significant and revealing in its own right. Thanks to the recent publication of transcripts of all of Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of nature we are now in a position to fully appreciate this argument and to assess its variants.Footnote ¹⁴

The argument pertains to how science and philosophy might interact and complement each other. What seems particularly significant is that Hegel does not simply provide us with an argument for the conclusion that a further theoretical attitude towards nature beyond that of science must be possible. For the distinctively philosophical attitude towards nature that emerges in the course of his argument is not devised as a merely theoretical and contemplative one, but as one that might have a wider existential impact.Footnote ¹⁵ It is supposed to address the pressing problem for us modern, self-conscious rational animals of how to integrate our various, apparently conflicting attitudes towards nature which might often seem to pull into different directions into a coherent and sustainable way of relating to nature.

In what follows I will seek to provide a clear-cut reconstruction of the argument used by Hegel to motivate his philosophy of nature—an argument that is supposed to lead from reflection on our ordinary, non-philosophical ‘attitudes’ (Betrachtungsweisen, Verhalten) towards nature to a distinctively philosophical take on it.

The structure of the article is as follows. In section two I will explain and discuss Hegel's characterization of the practical and the theoretical attitudes towards nature. In section three I will seek to motivate the need for a further attitude beyond these and distinguish between two modes of such an attitude—an inchoate aesthetic mode as well as an articulate philosophical mode. I will conclude, in section four, by pointing out how that philosophical attitude towards nature might indeed provide us with an insight into the unity of nature as such and by discussing its relation to the practical and the theoretical attitude.

II. Two ordinary attitudes towards nature on the part of us modern subjects: the practical and the theoretical attitude

Hegel's argument starts by reminding us of two divergent attitudes towards nature that we ordinarily take. These are, on the one hand, a practical attitude that intervenes in the realm of nature and seeks to manipulate it according to our own purposes, which are taken to be external to that realmFootnote ¹⁶—for instance, the purpose to build a house which might require us to cut down trees. On the other hand, we find ourselves assuming a broadly theoretical attitude in which we set our own purposes aside and seek to address and meet nature on its own terms. That we ordinarily assume both of these attitudes is not something philosophically contentious, according to Hegel, that needs to be argued for, but something we would clearly admit upon reflection.Footnote ¹⁷

Hegel conceives of both the theoretical and the practical relation to nature as self-conscious, distinctively human attitudes.Footnote ¹⁸ Often he exhibits them as universal, non-historical stances, while in places ascribing to them a historical dimension and characterizing them in ways that seem distinctively modern, e.g., by referring to the theoretical attitude as a ‘scientific’ one.Footnote ¹⁹ The solution to this apparent tension is that on his account the attitudes make up a general logical space of how self-conscious beings can relate to nature, while also involving an inherent historical dynamic that leads to specific modes of them. He stresses explicitly that both the theoretical and the practical attitude allow for rudimentary formsFootnote ²⁰—pre-theoretical observation and desire-driven consumption of natural products—while also allowing for ‘higher’ (höhere),Footnote ²¹ reflective modes that can be scientifically and technologically advanced.

That Hegel sometimes refers to a specifically modern mode of our attitudes towards nature rather than characterizing them on a purely general, non-historical level, does not affect his overall argument for the conclusion that the two attitudes in question need to be reconciled by a third but renders it clearer: the argument itself deals with the attitudes in general, while an argument of that sort can only be devised once the attitudes are self-reflectively taken.

A distinctively modern trait of Hegel's characterization of our attitudes towards nature is that he presents them as attitudes towards nature as a distinctive realm that is set apart from another realm in which we self-consciously situate ourselves, namely the ‘realm of spirit’.Footnote ²² Taking an attitude towards nature as a realm ‘out there’ (draußen) (GW 24.1: 3) thus presupposes a clear-cut distinction between us who situate ourselves in a realm of spirit which is a space of reasons and the realm of nature that stands opposed to it and seems to be devoid of meaning and purpose.

It is only once we first and foremost approach the world from the self-reflective vantage point of ourselves as finite subjects rather than by recourse to a divine intellect that we find ourselves confronted with nature as a realm of which we do not take ourselves to be a part. In so far as we thus find ourselves confronted with nature as realm that seems ‘alien’ (fremd) (V 17: 8; EN: §246A) to us, we can then take various attitudes towards that realm which seek to appropriate it and make it less alien.

In so far as the challenge to appropriate nature which we self-conscious subjects set ourselves might be tackled according to the usual two ‘directions of fit’, from subject to nature and from nature to subject, the disjunction between the theoretical attitude that seeks to appropriate nature by cognizing it, and the practical attitude, that seeks to appropriate it through mastery and manipulation, might seem complete.

However, as Hegel seeks to bring out, none of these attitudes can stand on its own feet nor can they jointly count as self-sufficient. In so far as each attitude tends to undermine itself, we oscillate between the two;Footnote ²³ and in so far as these attitudes prove to be incompatible unless complemented by a further one we cannot content ourselves with peacefully alternating between them. Far from being exhaustive, the distinction thus implicitly presupposes a third attitude, as we shall see, and it is only by reflectively embracing this further attitude that we might reconcile the others. What Hegel seeks to bring out, accordingly, is that a philosophical approach to nature is not only viable, but that it brings to reflective consciousness an implicit presupposition of our practical and theoretical ways with nature—an implicit presupposition that we ordinarily embrace when dealing with nature but tend to overlook upon reflection.

So much for a programmatic outline of Hegel's argument. Let us now envisage the practical and the theoretical attitude in turn in order to exhibit the intrinsic instability of each of them before pointing out why we cannot content ourselves with merely switching to and fro between the two.

In assuming the practical attitude we take ourselves to be intervening into nature and shaping it according to ends that we set ourselves while nature is envisaged as a mere means to their fulfilment. In manipulating nature according to our own ends we treat it as a sphere that does itself lack a purpose and we envisage ourselves as its masters who are elevated above it in so far as it is us who are the source of unconditional ends imposed on it.Footnote ²⁴

One might object that Hegel's portrait of the practical attitude towards nature is one-sided in so far as it presents that attitude as merely instrumental, while we might in fact seek to intervene into nature in a way that envisages it as a purposeful unity of which our own practical purposes are a part. Hegel's point, however, is that against the background of the modern distinction between the realm of nature and that of spirit we cannot directly ‘act in line with nature’ and comprehend our own purposes as internal rather than external to it. We might only coherently overcome the instrumentalism that besets our practical attitude towards nature by going beyond that attitude itself. For in so far as practical intervention into nature engages with particulars, in assuming the practical attitude we can neither engage with nature as a whole nor can we arrive at some kind of distinctively practical insight into its unity.Footnote ²⁵ We rather manipulate and consume it on a local level. Accordingly, the practical attitude cannot bring the unity of nature into view. It does not, in other words, embrace nature as such.

To this it might be objected that the practical attitude does not aim at envisaging nature ‘as a whole’ or ‘as such’ and that assessing it with respect to that goal is thus measuring it by a criterion that is alien to it. However, since the practical attitude is self-consciously taken it is not just engaged with particular things that are manipulated according to specific purposes, but involves agents situating themselves with regard to the realm in which such things can be found.Footnote ²⁶ It thus includes an inchoate, practical understanding of natural kinds of thing and of the realm in which such things are found, while that understanding remains circumstantial, fleeting, and fragmented. Accordingly, the practical attitude itself gives rise to the demand to cognize nature, while it cannot fully embrace that demand, for doing so would require one to abstract from one's particular desires and purposes and to take up the theoretical attitude instead.

The practical attitude can also be exhibited as limited with regard to the aims it pursues and thus does not amount to a self-sufficient way of appropriating nature. For the desires which we seek to fulfil by intervening into nature arise constantly anew, and instead of once and for all subjecting nature to our purposes, nature prevails and thus proves the ultimate futility and insignificance of our attempts to shape it according to our own aims.Footnote ²⁷ Beyond its focus on particular objects and specific purposes the practical attitude thus involves an indirect and indefinite understanding of nature as a whole, namely as the given background of one's activities which ultimately thwarts human attempts to make their purposes hold sway. Embracing this background as such and thus turning it into the foreground would again amount to taking a theoretical stance towards it.

In so far as practical intervention does not engage with nature as a whole and reveals itself as ultimately futile in so far as nature prevails over the purposes which we seek to impose upon it, the practical attitude points beyond itself towards an attitude that seeks to envisage nature by setting our own purposes aside and meeting it on its own terms—the theoretical attitude. It does not, accordingly, require an external decision to pass from the practical to the theoretical attitude, but the practical attitude disrupts itself, giving way to the theoretical.

While it is characteristic of the practical way of appropriating nature to subject nature to our own purposes, it is distinctive of the theoretical attitude to abstain from doing so, seeking to approach and seize nature as it is in itself.Footnote ²⁸ The theoretical and the practical attitude are mutually exclusive to that extent that one cannot take up both in one and the same act.Footnote ²⁹

In distinction to practical intervention the theoretical attitude does not engage with nature on the level of particulars, but is ‘oriented’ (gerichtet)Footnote ³⁰ towards a general level in so far as it proceeds from sensible intuitions and representations to concepts, laws and theories.Footnote ³¹ As such it does not amount to a self-sufficient way of appropriating nature either. From a subjective idealist vantage point it might seem to bypass nature itself altogether, leaving us with something else instead, namely universal thoughts and theories about nature.Footnote ³² While this impression relies on a misguided picture of thought and nature as independent realms of their own, what is decisive for Hegel's argument to go through is that the theoretical attitude cannot by its own means bring the unity of nature into view.Footnote ³³

It cannot, because it is characteristic of the theoretical attitude to be based on disparate observations and to yield a manifold of concepts that pertain to various traits of nature while not being internally related to one another,Footnote ³⁴ as I shall argue in the next section. To a certain extent, the unity of these concepts thus remains an additive one, which means that they are externally connected by means of logical concatenation. We might say, for instance, that nature is temporal and spatial and material and in movement or rest, etc., and we might then seek for dependencies between these traits. The connection between time, space, matter, and movement on the part of nature itself, however, cannot be an external one, for otherwise there would not even be one realm of nature. These global traits must rather amount to dependent aspects of nature that cannot, accordingly, be understood in isolation. In so far as our theoretical attitude towards nature relies—to a certain extent at least—on externally relating fundamental traits of nature, it has bypassed the unity of nature from the very beginning, even when it succeeds to bring quantitative dependencies between such traits into view and to establish an order between them.

In so far as it cannot provide us with insight into the original qualitative unity of nature and in so far as it seems to replace nature as a realm of particulars by something else, namely, concepts, laws and theories, the theoretical attitude cannot content itself with its own results but finds itself referred back to the practical attitude as one that does indeed embrace nature in its particularity.

We can conclude that neither the practical nor the theoretical attitude allows us to envisage nature as such and to satisfy the desire to appropriate it in a stable, self-sufficient manner.Footnote ³⁵ These attitudes thus point beyond themselves towards a third one which they implicitly presuppose. For if they are indeed attitudes towards nature, while not on their own managing to bring nature's unity into view, that unity must be brought into view thanks to a further attitude that we already assume.

Against that conclusion it might be objected that nothing beyond a juxtaposition of the theoretical and the practical attitude is required to bring the unity of nature into view. For they seem to complement each other in such a way that their combination might provide us with a picture of nature as a whole. And even while one cannot take both attitudes in one and the same act, they do not seem to literally contradict each other. I might very well and consistently make apples in general the object of my botanical studies and also eat particular apples, even though I cannot do both in one and the same act. No contradiction here. The two attitudes rather seem to provide for complementary viewpoints on one and the same, viewpoints between which we tend to oscillate back and forth. Hegel captures this oscillation as follows:

Why should alternating between admiration and contempt—between the theoretical and the practical attitude—not be the end of the matter, in so far as both complement rather than contradict each other? Alternating between the two might thus seem viable in its own right, rather than implicitly presupposing and relying on a further attitude towards nature that is neither practical nor theoretical.

However, appearances to the contrary, conceiving of the theoretical and the practical attitude as complementing each other does indeed presuppose a further attitude rather than dispensing with the need to invoke one. For the theoretical and the practical attitude can only count as complementary attitudes towards one and the same—namely, nature—if there is a way of identifying their self-same point of reference.

However, there is no such way from the vantage point of the theoretical or the practical attitude. As we have seen, neither the former nor the latter provide us with a grip on nature as such, but only with a limited perspective upon it. Accordingly, the theoretical attitude cannot as such provide the practical attitude with its proper object. Science provides us with something that belongs to the order of thought—a theoretical account of nature—and that is not as such something practical intervention might get a grip on. The concept of the apple cannot be eaten. Neither does the practical attitude as such provide us with what might then equally count as the proper object of the theoretical attitude. For the practical attitude can only deal with a particular subsection of nature in a positive way, rather than with nature in general.Footnote ³⁶

The two attitudes do accordingly bypass each other and neither can by its own means provide the other with its proper object. In order to see both as compatible and complementary perspectives upon one and the same—nature—that which they are perspectives on must already be brought into view in a way that is neither theoretical nor practical. Wherever we oscillate between the practical and the theoretical attitude towards nature there must accordingly already be a further attitude in play on which we implicitly rely.

III. A third attitude towards nature and its two modes: aesthetic and philosophical

In its inchoate, inarticulate and largely unacknowledged form the further attitude on which the practical and the theoretical attitudes rely is an aesthetic one.Footnote ³⁷ As such it involves an imaginative and affective dimension.Footnote ³⁸ That our inchoate way of bringing the unity of nature into view is said to be an aesthetic one is not surprising for the following reason: nature as a whole can neither be embraced by the senses, because it surpasses them, nor can it be brought into view by conceptual means alone, because these leave us with something that belongs only to the general order of thought instead of putting us into touch with a realm of particulars. In so far as the imagination is both spontaneous and sensible, it can provide us with a ‘picture’ of nature as a whole. A paradigmatic way of imagining nature according to Hegel—albeit not the only one—is viewing it as a living unity, vibrant and pulsating. The aesthetic feeling that accompanies our so viewing it is one of awe and fascination:

One might grant that we might sometimes picture the whole of nature as a living, awe-inspiring unity,Footnote ³⁹ or that we at least picture it in some way, thereby relating to it aesthetically. But it would seem that this is nothing but a remnant of a prescientific, unenlightened attitude towards nature. Assuming such an attitude seems neither mandatory nor is that attitude of any significance when it comes to the question of what nature truly is.

An objection of that sort, however, seems a little premature. We can grant that viewing nature as a realm that is literally permeated by living forces would indeed amount to magical thinking. However, properly understood, the aesthetic attitude towards nature as an awe-inspiring living unity does not amount to a prescientific view about things in nature, but to a metaphorical way of bringing the distinctive unity of nature into view which is something neither the theoretical nor the practical attitude can achieve.

The unity of nature is of a completely different order than things in nature, and envisaging the latter in terms of the former would indeed be confused. But in so far as we can only take a practical or a theoretical attitude towards natural phenomena on the basis of an attitude that brings nature as such into view, the aesthetic attitude towards it is not something we might simply dispense with. And the picture of nature as living, if it is not taken literally, might indeed be seen as the manifestation of an insight. While we distinguish, in our theoretical approach to nature, between various global features of nature such as space, time, movement and rest, matter and force, nature as such cannot amount to a mere juxtaposition—an additive unity—of these features, as if space, for instance, were a container in which matter can be found. The global features of nature do not behave in the same way as things in space might do, namely as external to one another. These features of nature must rather be internally intertwined and their real unity cannot therefore be an additive one. If that is what the picture of nature as a living organism points to, it manifests an intuitive insight into the kind of unity pertaining to nature as such rather than being a remnant of a magical, prescientific attitude towards things in nature.

If the argument is sound, in assuming a practical or a theoretical attitude towards nature we implicitly rely on an aesthetic attitude, i.e. imagine nature as such, even while the ‘pictures’ of nature we come up with might seem accidental and dispensable upon reflection.Footnote ⁴⁰

With respect to the practical attitude this general thought can be fleshed out as follows: picturing nature as a realm that is susceptible to our purposes rather than viewing it as a sphere that is utterly alien and indifferent to them will be a precondition of conceiving of our practical purposes as ones that can indeed be fulfilled. The underlying aesthetic attitude thus amounts to a kind of non-discursive awareness that there is no absolute gulf between our own ends and nature, and without some such awareness we could not ordinarily conceive of ourselves as agents who are capable of intervening into nature.

More importantly, the theoretical approach to nature equally relies on an aesthetic attitude towards it as an awe-inspiring unity. For the fascination with nature that gives rise to science—the fact that we find ourselves irresistibly driven towards an ever-deeper apprehension of nature—is not something that can be explained by recourse to what science itself teaches us about nature. The scientific view of natural phenomena does not itself exhibit nature in a way that might provide us with a motive for our striving for an ever deeper scientific apprehension of it. The theoretical—scientific—attitude must therefore be based on another attitude which is not a scientific one, namely the feeling that nature is not as alien to the intellect as it might appear. It is only against the background of an aesthetic fascination of that sort that pursuing the aim of cognizing nature, of approaching it by way of theorizing, makes sense. Science is accordingly driven by a picture of nature as a kind of riddle that waits to be resolvedFootnote ⁴¹ and by a corresponding striving of ours to find ourselves in nature by rendering it intelligible:

On Hegel's account, science is not only driven by an aesthetic fascination with nature that often goes unacknowledged, but this attraction cannot ever be satisfied by means of science alone. In so far as we take a scientific attitude towards nature, we find ourselves both irresistibly attracted and repelled—attracted because we do indeed thereby manage to find ourselves in nature, rendering it more and more intelligible by means of scientific theories—and repelled, because scientific inquiry into nature cannot provide us with an insight into the unity of nature as such, but only with an ever deeper understanding of the quantitative covariation of its fundamental traits. Natural science cannot, accordingly, provide us with the concept of nature:

In order to see that this diagnosis is neither an arbitrary assumption on Hegel's part nor one that depreciates science, I shall now reconstruct his argument for the conclusion that science, while arriving at an ever-deeper comprehension of natural phenomena, cannot provide us with an understanding of nature as such, while such an understanding can indeed be provided by philosophy.

When Hegel discusses the limits of the scientific approach to nature which require this complementation, he does so with regard to physical science,Footnote ⁴³ and I will follow him in this. A systematic reason for focusing on physics is that only physics deals with the natural universe as a whole, focusing on global traits such as space, time, matter, motion, and force, while biology deals with local traits of nature on an earth. For this reason, it follows from its distinctive topic that biology cannot provide us with a grip on nature as such.Footnote ⁴⁴

According to Hegel the specific mode of theoretical attitude towards nature that arose in the course of the scientific revolution—i.e. the ‘scientific attitude’Footnote ⁴⁵—is particularly efficient in that it incorporates the practical attitude as a means to the theoretical end of cognizing nature.Footnote ⁴⁶ It incorporates the practical attitude in so far as it crucially relies on experiment.Footnote ⁴⁷ It is equally characteristic of the scientific approach to nature that it is thoroughly mathematized in so far as it seeks to bring into view the functional covariance between quantities that can be assigned to variable magnitudes such as place, time, mass, motion, etc.

What is peculiar about the modern scientific approach to nature is that these two features—experiment and mathematization—are not merely juxtaposed but intimately connected. Scientific experiments, on the one hand, are not just any observations of natural phenomena undertaken in a staged setting that is based on practical intervention. They are paradigmatically undertaken with the aim of bringing into view specific invariances and covariances of quantities that can be assigned to fundamental traits of nature. They are thus undertaken with an eye on subjecting the natural phenomena under observation to mathematical treatment. Mathematized theories of nature, on the other hand, even while they might unfold in a way that is largely independent of empirical input, nevertheless presuppose empirical observation, in so far as they rely on the observed fact that there are certain fundamental traits of nature that can be subjected to mathematical treatment. And it is crucial that some of these traits cannot ordinarily be observed but can only be brought into view in an experimental setting.

The starting point of Hegel's argument that the modern scientific approach to nature needs to be complemented by a philosophical account is the striving for conceptual (i.e. classificatory and nomological) unification that is inherent in modern science.Footnote ⁴⁸

In so far as physical science is empirical and mathematized it starts with a multiplicity of general traits of nature relying on disparate observations and with functional dependencies between such traits. It does not, accordingly, proceed from a unified conception of nature, but it does not content itself with a sheer variety of observations, concepts, and thoughts about it either. It rather strives to find an order between its concepts, to articulate laws that govern quantitative covariances between fundamental traits of nature, to integrate such laws into theories, and to unify diverse theories where possible.Footnote ⁴⁹

As Hegel argues, physics can indeed provide us with an ever deeper, deductively articulated understanding of the functional dependencies between variable traits of nature, i.e. of the ways in which the quantities that can be assigned to them by measurement vary with one another. However, in so far as it is empirical and mathematized, the striving for unification cannot find completion on the level of science itself. It cannot bring nature as such into view and cannot therefore provide us with the concept of nature:

The reason for this is the following. Both in so far as physics does not proceed wholly a priori but involves empirical observations which are as such disparate, as well as in so far as it is mathematized and thus articulates functional covariances between a given multiplicity of variable magnitudes by means of equations, it presupposes a multiplicity of fundamental traits of nature that are given independently of each other and to which variable quantities can be assigned whose covariances may be observed empirically and studied mathematically. In so far as they have a global character, however, these traits cannot pertain to independent parts or self-sufficient regions of nature, but must be internally intertwined on the level of nature itself.

Neither observation nor mathematical treatment can accordingly account for the real unity between those very general traits of nature which are assumed as fundamental. Physics cannot, therefore, provide us with the concept of nature, i.e. with insight into the internal, non-additive unity between fundamental traits of nature from which physical science proceeds.Footnote ⁵⁰ As Hegel notes:

We might for instance take space, time, mass, and force as fundamental, and pursue the question, both by experiment as well as by devising a mathematized theory, of how the quantities that measure them depend on each other. Doing so will bring into view functional dependencies between the variable quantities assigned to these fundamental traits, but due to its characteristic form of cognition physics cannot in principle explain why there are these fundamental traits in the first place and cannot bring into view their non-additive unity on the part of nature. It cannot do so because it is constitutive of physical theory to start by positing a certain number of such fundamental traits of nature as separate variables, which can then be envisaged as dependent or independent.

In so far as it necessarily starts by taking some traits of nature (such as space, time, mass, or force) as elementary and proceeds by studying the covariance between quantities that measure them, physical science cannot by its own means give an exhaustive answer to the question of the original unity between these traits. Ultimately, it cannot therefore arrive at an understanding of the unity of nature as such. It is therefore no wonder that the concept of nature is not itself a scientific concept that would lend itself to mathematical treatment.

In so far as the fundamental traits of nature must indeed be internally connected on the part of nature itself, it must be possible to complement the scientific treatment of these traits by a non-empirical, non-mathematized account that brings their internal connections into view. Such a philosophical account would provide us with a concrete grasp of the internal unity between these various traits and it would thus indeed provide us with the concept of nature.Footnote ⁵² It would do so by showing that we cannot and need not content ourselves with stating that nature is, for instance, spatial and temporal and material, but it would start with a first trait, say space, and would seek to demonstrate that it is not a self-standingly, intelligible trait but one that points beyond itself towards further traits.

IV. The philosophical attitude towards nature and its relations to the practical and the theoretical attitude

It is characteristic of Hegel's philosophical account of nature to take up concepts that originate in science, while seeking to strip off their empirical character:

This new way of knowing is the following. By thinking through the concept of one fundamental trait of nature, e.g., the concept of space, we arrive at the concept of a further trait of nature, e.g., the concept of time. In this way we develop a concrete understanding of the concept of nature.

What is meant by ‘thinking through’ one concept in such a way as to arrive at another might however seem both unclear and dubious. Obviously, what is at issue here, is neither analytic containment nor logical inference that proceeds from propositions involving one concept and arrives at propositions involving the other in a deductive manner.

In the context of the first steps of Hegel's philosophy of nature, ‘thinking through’ a concept rather means raising the question whether that concept might provide us with a global characterization of something that is ontologically self-sufficient and, hence, self-standingly intelligible.Footnote ⁵³ That the concept of space points beyond itself would accordingly mean that by thinking it through we arrive at the insight that space is not ontologically self-sufficient and that nature must be characterized by further global traits beyond spatiality.

While it might indeed be difficult to spell out an argument of that sort in a transparent manner, there is good reason for assuming that it should indeed be possible to devise such arguments. For if nature is indeed characterized by various global traits (such as space, time, movement and force) as science assumes these traits cannot be external to each other—as if each of them pertained to a world apart. They must rather amount to dependent aspects of nature, and it should therefore be possible to reveal them as such by thinking through the concept of one such trait, i.e. by concretely recognizing that it does not pertain to something that is ontologically self-sufficient but must rather be intertwined with further traits of nature.Footnote ⁵⁴

The very first steps of Hegel's philosophy of nature as outlined in the so-called ‘mechanics’ proceed in this way. By thinking through what space is, he seeks to show that what is spatial must also be temporal.Footnote ⁵⁵ Once we have shown that nature must be both spatial and temporal, we need to dispel with the impression that these are independent, juxtaposed traits of nature, and must therefore ask for that further, real trait of it in which they are united.Footnote ⁵⁶ We might thus arrive at the insight that nature must also be marked by movement and rest, in so far as movement is the answer to the question for that trait of nature in which space and time hang together, given that movement involves a variation of spatial position or orientation with time.Footnote ⁵⁷

By bringing into view the qualitative internal connections between fundamental traits of nature that might at first appear as external to each other, we do not just acquire philosophical insight into the unity of nature and thus arrive at an ever more concrete grasp of the concept of nature. We discover at the same time that the spontaneous self-determination that is characteristic of thinking is not as alien to nature as it might have appeared before:

This desire is fulfilled by successively unfolding the concept of nature. It is thereby shown that this concept has a kind of unity that lends itself to an articulation by means of the self-determination of thinking in the course of which we arrive at an ever more determinate qualitative understanding of the unity of nature. The metaphorical picture of nature as a living organism is thus cashed in by means of a philosophical elucidation of the concept of nature that exhibits the concrete, non-additive unity of its traits.

It is thus a crucial aim of Hegel's philosophy of nature to concretely unfold or develop the concept of nature by means of non-empirical, non-mathematized thinking.Footnote ⁵⁸ The philosophical development of the concept of nature that brings the internal unity between its various traits into view may not be confounded with some kind of real development in nature. Hegel's development of the concept of nature that proceeds from global traits of nature such as space and time via the concepts of natural kinds such as solar systems or chemical processes towards the concept of organic life does not as such imply a view of nature as evolving. The question of real development and evolution in nature is to be left to empirical science, on Hegel's account.Footnote ⁵⁹

Now that the outlook of the philosophical attitude towards nature has been brought into view a final question can be raised, namely: how should one conceive of the relations between the philosophical attitude towards nature and the other two attitudes, i.e. the practical and the theoretical? It would be absurd to assume that the philosophical attitude towards nature is meant to replace the theoretical and the practical attitude. It is rather meant to supplement these in so far as it seeks to bring into view something that the others tacitly presuppose while being unable to address it—namely nature as such, its unity.

Ordinarily, in taking the practical or the theoretical attitude, one does not self-consciously reckon with a third attitude which is in that case only present in the guise of concomitant and apparently insignificant aesthetic glimpses of nature.Footnote ⁶⁰ In so far as the attitude which indeed provides us with insight into nature as a unity remains unacknowledged,Footnote ⁶¹ one might be tempted to assign to the theoretical or the practical attitude tasks which they cannot reasonably fulfil.Footnote ⁶² Approaching the theoretical and the practical attitude from the philosophical vantage point will thus neither amount to replacing them nor to leaving them simply as they are. It will rather amount to becoming aware of their proper scope and limits and to assigning them a proper place within the integrated whole of our various attitudes towards nature.

With regard to the practical attitude, philosophy does not preclude us from shaping nature according to our own particular purposes which can indeed be external to it. But it does also provide us with a concrete understanding of us who subject nature to such purposes as ourselves rooted in nature in so far as we are living beings. In so far as life cannot occur in any arbitrary part of the universe, but only on a planet on which matter circulates in ways that involve both an organic as well as an inorganic contribution,Footnote ⁶³ we might then come to understand that there is a more fundamental purpose we might set ourselves, namely one that is not external to the natural surroundings in which we find ourselves, but consists in preserving the earth.

Obviously, it is not philosophy of nature but science that can tell us what to do in order to realize this aim most efficiently. Philosophy of nature might however help us to understand what kind of aim it is. For, from a distinctively practical vantage point, preserving the earth might only count as one more means to the end of human self-preservation. From that vantage point we still take our more global aims to be external to nature. The philosophical vantage point which allows us to see a certain complementarity between spirit and nature might instead allow us to wholeheartedly embrace the aim to preserve the earth as an ultimate one rather than a means to the ultimate goal of our own human self-preservation, narrowly conceived. For it might allow us to conceive of the earth as the ‘shared body’ of all lifeFootnote ⁶⁴—rational and non-rational—without thereby falling back onto a prescientific view of nature.

I took the liberty to fill in the preceding remarks on how the philosophical attitude towards nature might perhaps contribute to an adjustment of our practical attitude towards it that seems to be called for, while Hegel himself does not really say much about how these two attitudes might complement each other.

In contrast, he indeed presents us with a complex view about the complementarity and possible cooperation between the scientific and the philosophical attitude. The philosophical approach to nature complements the scientific account in so far as it brings nature as such into view and provides us with the concept of nature. It thus results in a non-empirical, non-mathematized understanding of nature. However, the philosophy of nature is not supposed to proceed in splendid isolation from science.Footnote ⁶⁵ It has to take up concepts provided by science and subject them to a conceptual investigation that brings into view their internal relations.Footnote ⁶⁶ As such it cannot arrive at an insight into determinate quantitative dependencies between fundamental traits of nature. Even while it provides us with a global understanding of the unity of nature, its own vantage point is accordingly a limited one that points back to empirical, mathematized science which it cannot in the least replace but at best complement.

Even while the question of how much of Hegel's philosophy of nature might lend itself to rigorous argumentative reconstruction and might indeed count as a viable complement of science is a most difficult and still largely open one, his view that we can only come to terms with our relation to nature by reflecting on how our practical, our scientific and our philosophical attitude towards nature both differ and complement each other, seems still of vital importance.