Hegel and Ecologically Oriented System Theory

Abstract

Introduction Hegel like Goethe and many thinkers of Romantic period describes numerous systems as organisms, wholes, wholes, etc. Among these are discipline of history of philosophy, which he considers an developing (1) discipline of physics, which also is not a simple aggregate, (2) of state, (3) and even geological nature, which he refers to as the primary (4) In various contexts he also speaks of development of or of Mind. (5) In all of these cases, one may wonder whether Hegel is simply using a popular metaphor of his time, as Rolf-Peter Hostmann argues, (6) or whether he intends to define systems more concretely. While I will argue that Hegel in fact understands these organisms, wholes, and so on more strictly in accord with a definition of living being, which he outlines in Science of Logic, in end a serious metaphor can do much same work. In any case, where Hegel refers to a system as organic without making some further qualifications, he appears to be pretty strictly characterizing it in accordance with view of laid out in his works on logic. Accepting Kant's view, in these texts he describes an organic system as a whole in which parts and whole are reciprocally means and ends. (7) Here Hegel's basic view of organic systems will be described, and it will be shown that, in expanding on Kant's view of in Encyclopedia treatment of logic, Hegel characterizes an organic system in accord with findings of early nineteenth century life sciences in ways that anticipate many ideas developed not only by early general systems theory but also by later system thinkers. In this article similarities between Hegel and systems theoreticians will be pointed out, especially with a concentration on ecologically oriented theoreticians. In last section of paper some key differences between their views will be noted. Hegel on Organic Systems The task in Hegel's logic is to describe basic categories of human thinking, much in line with Kant's project. In Hegel's case, these are of course also categories of Absolute. Hegel lays out a philosophically reflective view of an organism in logic, specifically in section on Life. Here Hegel is describing formal character of Idea, i.e., network of basic concepts that structure thought that he has been describing in logic up to this point, final section of book. The unmediated Idea has been described as Life. Now he says that as objective--thus mediated--it is an organism. This objectivity of living being is organism; it is means and instrument of end, perfect in its purposiveness since Notion constitutes its substance; but for that very reason this means and instrument is itself realized end, in which subjective end is thus immediately brought into unity with itself. In respect of its externality is a manifold, not of parts but of members. (8) Here Hegel does three things: (1) He includes living being as a constitutive in logic while (2) explicating concept and (3) arguing that it is thought determination that allows us to make clearest sense of our basic conceptual scheme, in its formal nature. That scheme, like other organic systems, is a whole with interrelated specific concepts as its parts. Hegel describes as an interdependent connected whole, constituted by very concepts that he has laid out in logic. He is also addressing perhaps his fundamental concern with Kantian project. Reason, he is telling us, is not just unified under a regulative idea, as Kant had maintained in his description of architectonic of reason. (9) The unity of reason is constitutive of reality. …