Abstract
This chapter first provides a critical discussion of Hegel’s theory of the soul’s (or natural spirit’s) emergence from nature, as laid out in the first paragraphs of the Anthropology. It then reconstructs what Hegel considers to be logically necessary stages of the existence of the soul as living organism, as animal subject, and as human individual (§§399–407). The chapter stresses (i) the importance of understanding the continuity and difference between sentience (Empfindung) in the Anthropology and sensibility (Sensibilitat) in the Philosophy of Nature; (ii) the asymmetrical relationship of dormancy and wakefulness as key to Hegel’s account of the emergence of sentience in nature; and (iii) the soul’s hybrid ontological status as an existent that is at once material and immaterial. The latter is key, not just for understanding various conceptual transitions in the Anthropology but also for appreciating Hegel’s embrace of psychosomatic explanations of phenomena such as the fetal life, hypnotism, and human insanity.
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