Leben (Life, Hegel — logical category)

Das Leben — Life — is the first concrete shape of die Idee in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 179–198). Crucially: Hegel insists that the logical concept of Life is to be distinguished from Naturleben (the life of nature, treated in the Philosophy of Nature) and Geistleben (the life of spirit, treated in the Philosophy of Spirit).

This is Life as logical category, not biological life. The living individual is a syllogism whose center (Soul / Sensibility) is reflected through difference (Irritability) into individuated self-relation (Reproduction) — Sensibility / Irritability / Reproduction as U / P / I of the living.

The living is the existing contradiction: the Concept dirempted from itself in objectivity. And it feels itself as that contradiction — *der Schmerz ist daher das Vorrecht lebendiger Naturen; weil sie der existirende Begriff sind* (p. 194). Pain is the privilege of the living because only the living is the existing contradiction.

The life-process consummates in the Gattungs-Proceß (genus-process): in Begattung (coupling) the immediacy of the living individual dies — and from the death of this individuated life emerges the species, and ultimately Geist.

Key Points

  • Life is logical category, not biological. Distinct from Naturleben (philosophy of nature) and Geistleben (philosophy of spirit).
  • The first concrete shape of die Idee. Life is the immediate Idea — the Concept totally objectively realized.
  • The living individual is a syllogism. Sensibility (Universal soul) / Irritability (Particular reflection through difference) / Reproduction (Individual self-relation) — U/P/I of the living.
  • The living is the existing contradiction. The Concept dirempted from itself in objectivity; the living feels itself as that contradiction.
  • Pain as privilege. "Der Schmerz ist daher das Vorrecht lebendiger Naturen; weil sie der existirende Begriff sind" (p. 194). See schmerz-als-vorrecht.
  • The Gattungs-Proceß. "In der Begattung erstirbt die Unmittelbarkeit der lebendigen Individualität; der Tod dieses Lebens ist das Hervorgehen des Geistes" (p. 198). Death of individuated immediacy → emergence of species → emergence of cognition / spirit.
  • Anti-vitalism. Life is not an irreducible substance; it is the logical category of the Concept totally objectively realized.
  • Anti-mechanism. Life is what mechanism and chemism aim at, not what they produce — mechanism and chemism are categorially inadequate to Life.
  • Anti-Kant on inner purposiveness. Kant restricts inner purposiveness to organisms as regulative; Hegel: inner purposiveness is the logical category of Life.

What the Concept Does

  1. It articulates Life as the first concrete shape of die Idee. The Concept totally objectively realized.
  2. It distinguishes logical Life from natural and spiritual Life. WdL Life is categorial; Naturleben and Geistleben are its realizations.
  3. It supplies the living-individual-as-syllogism doctrine. Sensibility / Irritability / Reproduction as U/P/I.
  4. It articulates the living-is-existing-contradiction doctrine. Pain as the privilege of the living.
  5. It articulates the Gattungs-Proceß — death of individuated immediacy → emergence of species → emergence of spirit.
  6. It transitions into Cognition via the Gattungs-Proceß — the species's emergence is the categorial bridge to Erkennen.

What It Rejects

  • Vitalism (life as irreducible substance).
  • Mechanism / chemism as adequate to Life — they are what life aims at, not what produces it.
  • Kant's regulative inner purposiveness for organisms — inner purposiveness is logical category, not regulative maxim.
  • The reduction of life to biology — logical Life is to be distinguished from Naturleben.

Connections

  • is the first concrete shape of die Idee (GW 12 pp. 179–198)
  • is structured by U / P / I — Sensibility / Irritability / Reproduction
  • contains pain as privilege of the living (p. 194)
  • transitions through Gattungs-Proceß into Cognition (p. 198)
  • is to be distinguished from Naturleben (philosophy of nature) and Geistleben (philosophy of spirit)
  • is the logical category that inner purposiveness becomes — Kant's restriction overcome
  • renovates the Aristotelian De anima tradition — the Sensibility/Irritability/Reproduction scheme has structural affinity with the nutritive / perceptive / rational soul progression
  • is the existing contradiction* — see widerspruch-hegel

Open Questions

  • Does Hegel's logical-categorial Life survive contemporary philosophy of biology (autopoiesis, organizational closure, enactivism)? The 20th-21st century philosophy of biology has variously appropriated and rejected the Hegelian doctrine.
  • What is the relation between WdL logical Life and the Encyclopedia's philosophy of nature treatment of organisms? The Encyclopedia develops the Realphilosophie; the continuity is a live scholarly question.
  • Does the Gattungs-Proceß (death-of-individual → species → spirit) genuinely transition into Cognition or does it require an additional move that Hegel asserts but does not provide?

Sources

  • hegel-1816-wdl-begriff — primary locus: GW 12 pp. 179–198. Life as Idea (distinguished from Naturleben and Geistleben) at p. 187. Sensibility / Irritability / Reproduction life-syllogism at p. 192. Pain as privilege at p. 194. Gattungs-Proceß and transition to Cognition / Spirit at pp. 197–198.