Hegel’s Concept of Life Hegel’s Concept of Life Self- Consciousness, Freedom, Logic KAREN NG 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data Names: Ng, Karen (Karen K.), author. Title: Hegel’s concept of life : self-consciousness, freedom, logic / Karen Ng. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019036521 (print) | LCCN 2019036522 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190947613 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190947644 (epub) | ISBN 9780190947620 (online) | ISBN 9780190947637 (updf) Subjects: LCSH: Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. Wissenschaft der Logik. | Self-consciousness (Awareness) | Life. | Logic, Modern. | Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. Kritik der Urteilskraft. Classification: LCC B2948 .N494 2020 (print) | LCC B2948 (ebook) | DDC 193—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036521 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036522 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America To my parents, with love Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi I. THINKING PURPOSIVENESS FROM KANT TO HEGEL 1. Introduction: Hegel’s Concept of Life 3 2. “Kant’s Great Service to Philosophy”: Purposiveness and Conceptual Form 23 2.1. The Purposiveness Theme 23 2.2. Purposiveness in the First Critique Theory of Judgment 27 2.3. “Applying Logic to Nature”: The Principle of Purposiveness 43 2.4. Internal Purposiveness and Naturzwecke 50 2.5. Purposiveness and Hegel’s Concept 61 3. Hegel’s Speculative Identity Thesis 65 3.1. The Importance of Hegel’s Differenzschrift 65 3.2. Speculative Identity in Outline: Objective and Subjective “Subject- Objects” 69 3.3. Self- Consciousness and Fichte’s Incomplete Synthesis 82 3.3.1. Hegel’s Fichtekritik 82 3.3.2. Dead Nature and Life in Fichte’s I 88 3.4. Speculative Identity in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit 95 3.4.1. Method and the Relation Between Consciousness and Self- Consciousness 95 3.4.2. Life, Self- Consciousness, Negativity: The Argumentative Strategies 100 3.5. Transition: Speculative Identity in the Science of Logic 119 II. THE PURPOSIVENESS OF THINKING IN HEGEL’S LOGIC 4. Actuality and the Genesis of the Concept 125 4.1. What Is the Genesis of the Concept? 125 viii Contents 4.2. Actuality and “Activity of Form” (Formtätigkeit): Nature, Spirit, Logic 128 4.3. The Absolute: Hegel’s Critique of Substance 132 4.3.1. Spinoza 132 4.3.2. Substance as Absolute 134 4.4. Modality: The Process of Actualization 139 4.5. The Absolute Relation: Reciprocity and Power 149 4.6. The Life of the Concept 158 5. Life as Ground, and the Limits of the Subjective Concept 165 5.1. Hegel’s Critique of Judgment: The Influence of Hölderlin and Life as a Logical Problem 168 5.2. The Subjective Concept 178 5.2.1. Concept 181 5.2.2. Judgment 186 5.2.3. Syllogism 200 6. The Objectivity of the Concept 219 6.1. The Transition to Objectivity: Being as Activity 220 6.2. Mechanism, Chemism, and External Purposiveness:  Striving and Violence 229 6.3. Objective Judgment: Internal Purposiveness and Transition to the Idea 233 7. Life as the Immediate Idea 243 7.1. The Idea 243 7.2. Two Interpretive Claims: Ground and Doubling 247 7.3. The Immediate Idea: The Original Judgment of Life 255 7.4. The Processes of Life as Form-C onstraints: Corporeality, Externality, and the Genus 260 7.4.1. The Living Individual: Corporeality (Leiblichkeit) 261 7.4.2. The Life- Process: Externality and Outwardness (Äußerlichkeit) 267 7.4.3. The Genus (Die Gattung) 271 8. The Idea of Cognition and Absolute Method 279 8.1. Theoretical and Practical Cognition 279 8.2. The Dialectic of Life and Cognition as Absolute Method 287 References 295 Index 307 Acknowledgments My greatest gratitude goes to Jay Bernstein for his unfailing support and wisdom from the very beginning of this project. Jay read and commented on the entire manuscript and its earlier iteration in the form of a disserta- tion. I am beyond fortunate to have had him as a teacher, and his example continues to guide my philosophical thinking and practice. I owe a great deal of thanks to Richard Bernstein, whose unforgettable graduate seminar at The New School for Social Research first guided me through a reading of the Science of Logic. I also want to express my deepest gratitude to Frederick Neuhouser, whose input and support has been invaluable. Dean Moyar and Terry Pinkard read the whole manuscript, and I am im- mensely grateful to them for their insight and comments. Their criticisms no doubt made the book better, but errors are of course my own. Christoph Menke lent critical insight concerning absolute method at an early stage. Andreja Novakovic and Rocío Zambrana discussed many of these ideas with me, as did Thomas Khurana and Dirk Quadflieg. For conversations and other support or assistance, thanks to G. Anthony Bruno, Markus Gabriel, Kristin Gjesdal, Axel Honneth, Daniel James, Jim Kreines, Paul Redding, Kelly Swope, and Clinton Tolley. I want to thank my former colleagues at Siena College, and I owe a deep thanks to my colleagues at Vanderbilt for an always stimulating philosophical environment and for continually supporting my work. I also want to thank Vanderbilt for support during a research leave, when much of the writing for this book was completed. The students in my graduate seminar on German idealism in spring 2016 allowed me to work through many ideas at a crucial stage. I owe them thanks for many important and helpful discussions. I am always grateful for the philosophical engage- ment and hospitality of Rahel Jaeggi, and I owe gratitude to the Center for Humanities and Social Change in Berlin for a research fellowship in 2018. I am very fortunate to have dear friends who supported me in a number of ways while completing this project, including Jacob Blumenfeld, Brendan Fernandes, Federica Gregoratto, Hilkje Hänel, Donny Hodge, Tom Krell, Francey Russell, Fanny Söderback, and Janna van Grunsven.