Guido Seddone

This contribution deals with the recent interest of the Hegelian studies around Hegel’s so-called naturalism and maintains that mind is possible by virtue of the relationship mind-life and that life and mind are mutually dependent. In order to understand the continuity mind-life the contribution accounts for both the Hegelian theory of self-consciousness and the chapter on life in the Science of Logic. Hegel’s peculiarity consists in investigating concrete issues such as life, nature, desires and subjective purposiveness by deploying a logical and formal analysis in order to attain a general comprehension of them. The result is that Hegel does not explain the mind as separate from nature but rather as the outcome of a crossed stratification between nature and spirit. The contribution also gives an account of the interdisciplinary aspects connected with Hegel’s naturalism and his proposal about the continuity life-mind.

The aim of this special issue is to tackle Hegel’s approach to the constitution of the normative on the basis of natural premises and to investigate his original version of naturalism. In the ambit of the American analytical philosophy, scholars like Sellars, Brandom and McDowell have already pointed out that Hegel’s thought is based on the inferential analysis of the logical and pragmatic elements constituting the mind, reason, self-consciousness and the normative. More recently authors like Terry Pinkard, Michael Thompson and Robert Pippin have highlighted that the Hegelian philosophy leads to the investigation about the natural requisites and premises of the cognitive and intentional stances, pinpointing that a naturalistic method of scrutiny is in play. Hegel’s naturalism is therefore a novel version of naturalism enhancing our understanding of the cognitive, intentional and social human dispositions by addressing their dependence on natural elements like life, desires, instincts and perception. As a naturalist Hegel claims that philosophy deals with natural entities and that the occurrence in human life of non observational entities like mind, cognition, self-consciousness, etc. has to be explained as emerging from and depending on natural requisites that the empirical sciences can directly observe like organic and biological properties. The domain of the normative is, following Hegel, constituted by means of the self-conscious life, namely the capacity to articulate concepts and to constitute a social dimension based on norms and interpersonal interaction. Self-conscious life and the normative, namely the domain of freedom and autonomy, are not explained in his thought as irreducible to and independent from nature understood as the domain of causality, but rather as elements proper of a natural substratum with which they establish a mutual dependence. Briefly illustrated, his naturalism consists in keeping the difference between the normative and nature and, nonetheless, avoiding any sort of dualism or unsolvable contrast between them. The advantage of this approach is explaining these two ambits as reciprocally dependent: self-conscious life does not originate by the separation from nature, but rather by establishing and understanding its own bonds and dependence to nature. In contrast to other more naive versions of naturalism, which separate mind from nature by underlining the former’s emergent character, Hegel’s one maintains that the relation nature-mind is based on the mutual dependence between these two ontogenetic factors of human life and that the cognitive and social dispositions originate from the naturalization of logical and inferential categories of thinking. Consequently, understanding the normative requires a naturalized approach to the cognitive and social aspects constituting what Hegel calls Geist, namely the normative substance subjected to a historic evolution and deployed for explaining the logical structure of human civilization. Finally, this special issue intends to account for the naturalistic premises of normativity in order to extend our understanding of the philosophical category of naturalism and to enhance the comprehension of normativity from a naturalized perspective.

In this contribution I defend the thesis that Hegel's notion of species (Gattung) is not merely the name given to a group of self-reproducing living beings but rather it is at the basis of the Hegelian naturalistic conceptions of self-conscious life, sociality and world history. I maintain that self-reflection and self-referring negativity are the main characteristics of the self-conscious life and they determine the features of both the individual self-consciousness and the entire human species by shaping social practices and world history as acts of actualized freedom. Therefore, the definition of human species goes far beyond the description of its natural features and depends on the fact that self-consciousness is able to determine itself by negating external powers or conditioning. The main argument of this contribution is that human species and its historical evolution can be defined by means of this self-referring negativity and by self-consciousness' capacity to place the external reality under an order of values and concept autonomously yielded.

The conference will address interdisciplinary issues connected to a naturalistic reading of Hegelian thought, with special reference to the social sciences, neurosciences, biology and philosophy of biology. Hegel's philosophy is in fact devoted to a revision of the transcendental philosophy by highlighting that thinking and cognition originate from the natural requisites of the subject. In this sense, his philosophy entails a novel naturalism accounting for the concrete interdependence between nature and thinking, life and mind, and enhancing our understanding of the human nature and its social outcomes. This version of naturalism not only has relevance for the contemporary philosophical debate on this category of thinking, it can also be elaborated through an interdisciplinary approach. What is Hegelian naturalism about, and why is it philosophically relevant? Can He-gel's philosophy improve our understanding on topics related to different disciplines? Is a dialogue between Hegelian thinking and the previous mentioned disciplines me-thodologically possible? In order to answer those questions, the conference will gather Hegelian scholars and researchers from different disciplines. Call for Papers:

This contribution aims to address the nature of the normative in Hegel's theory of habits and to highlight that social practices are the outcome of natural and biological characteristics related to the homeostasis of the organism and to the common biological features of the individuals of the same species. This should point out that habits and human practices have a concrete biological background and are the outcome of humans' eagerness to inhabit the world through socially codified activities. The contribution deals also with the relation habits have with the self-conscious life and human world history. Hegel's conception of mind in the Encyclopedia represents an exceptional contribution for understanding the mind-body relation and, particularly, the organic character of the cognitive functions. What Hegel proposes is to conceive of the human mind as a faculty that is developed within the biological evolution of the organism and as a function integrated in the organic living whole of the subject. He deals, therefore, with a soft version of naturalism as he claims that cognitive capacities are strictly connected with natural requisites and maintain a permanent relation with the natural dimension of the organic. Mind is the outcome of a crossed stratification of nature and cognitive dispositions because there is no stage of cognitive activities that can be considered as separated or totally emergent from their natural premises. The rational criterion of Hegel's naturalism is the idea that nature is a system of grades (System von Stufen) (Hegel, 1830, § 249) in which the idea and freedom represent the last step. However, this step can only be achieved by a natural organism having developed an organization of its own life based on self-consciousness and on the " Notion " [der Begriff]. Mind is, hence, an embodied faculty, determined by this embodiment and permanently related to this condition. In the Encyclopedia Hegel undertakes an analysis of the different levels of the cognitive disposition by starting with those that are mostly connected to the organic dimension of life in order to highlight that the highest level of life is freedom, which is attained by a dialectics between the organic requisites and the very pursuit of the mind. In this narrative, habit occupies a very important position for it is placed after the sentient faculty of the body and introduces the actual soul, i.e. the condition in which the soul conceives of its body as its own other and distinguishes itself from the outside environment, becoming an individual subject (Hegel, 1830, § 411). The notion of soul in the Hegelian conception of the mindful disposition is intended to correspond to the classical notions of anima and ψυχή in the ancient philosophy. Therefore, it is not a fully rational and self-conscious disposition because it is not based on a conceptual activity; it is rather much closer to sensibility and to what animates individual agency and behaviour. The

In this talk I will focus on the relation between the biological premises of the mind and the appropriate use of the languages. I will maintain that language acquisition and its correct deployment do not merely rely on the cerebral activities but that they are rather determined by a self-conscious process of codification of practices, uses and information about the outer world by which the rational subject masteries the brain processing itself.

This contribution aims to address the nature of the normative in Hegel's theory of habits and to highlight that social practices are the outcome of natural and biological characteristics related to the homeostasis of the organism and to the common biological features of the individuals of the same species. This should point out that habits and human practices have a concrete biological background and are the outcome of humans's eagerness to inhabit the world through socially codified activities. The contribution deals also with the relation habits have with the self-conscious life and human world history.

In this contribution I will address the mind-brain problem by giving account of their mutual dependence and by underlining the fact that the mind is the extension of the biological functions of the brain. I will assume that a correct investigation of the cognitive disposition requires to deal with the logical aspects connected with these functions, what also will explain the consistency and the self-regulative liability of both the formal and the natural languages. In order to grasp the way how mind rules the organic functions of the brain I will assume an enactivist approach by stressing the fact that mind bears logical and linguistic functions that are based on the same self-referential and self-maintaining operational closure that we also observe in both single-celled organisms and more evolved living beings. Eventually, I will also address the notion of the embodied mind in order to explain cognitive dispositions as the result of the process of individual and personal acculturation and acquisition of socially acknowledged practices and norms.

This article deals with the recent interest of the Hegelian studies around Hegel’s so-called naturalism and maintains that mind is possible by virtue of the relationship mind-life and that life and mind are mutually dependent. In order to understand the continuity mind-life the contribution accounts for both the Hegelian theory of self-consciousness and the chapter on life in the Science of Logic. Hegel’s peculiarity consists in investigating concrete issues such as life, nature, desires and subjective purposiveness by deploying a logical and formal analysis in order to attain a general comprehension of them. The result is that Hegel does not explain the mind as separate from nature but rather as the outcome of a crossed stratification between nature and spirit. The contribution also accounts for the interdisciplinary aspects connected with Hegel’s naturalism and his proposal about the continuity life-mind.

Description: The aim of this special issue is to tackle Hegel's approach to the constitution of the normative on the basis of natural premises and to investigate his original version of naturalism. In the ambit of the American analytical philosophy, scholars like Sellars, Brandom and McDowell have already pointed out that Hegel's thought is based on the inferential analysis of the logical and pragmatic elements constituting the mind, reason, self-consciousness and the normative. More recently authors like Terry Pinkard, Michael Thompson and Robert Pippin have highlighted that the Hegelian philosophy leads to the investigation about the natural requisites and premises of the cognitive and intentional stances, pinpointing that a naturalistic method of scrutiny is in play. Hegel's naturalism is therefore a novel version of naturalism enhancing our understanding of the cognitive, intentional and social human dispositions by addressing their dependence on natural elements like life, desires, instincts and perception. As a naturalist Hegel claims that philosophy deals with natural entities and that the occurrence in human life of non observational entities like mind, cognition, self-consciousness, etc. has to be explained as emerging from and depending on natural requisites that the empirical sciences can directly observe like organic and biological properties. The domain of the normative is, following Hegel, constituted by means of the self-conscious life, namely the capacity to articulate concepts and to constitute a social dimension based on norms and interpersonal interaction. Self-conscious life and the normative, namely the domain of freedom and autonomy, are not explained in his thought as irreducible to and independent from nature understood as the domain of causality, but rather as elements proper of a natural substratum with which they establish a mutual dependence. Briefly illustrated, his naturalism consists in keeping the difference between the normative and nature and, nonetheless, avoiding any sort of dualism or unsolvable contrast between them. The advantage of this approach is explaining these two ambits as reciprocally dependent: self-conscious life does not originate by the separation from nature, but rather by establishing and understanding its own

German Classical Philosophy and Naturalism
International Conference, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (December,
14th-16th 2017)
Topic: Very recent inquires on Hegel's philosophy highlight the role of nature in the Hegelian understanding of human mind, spirit, social interaction, recognition, second nature and normativity. It may be assumed that Hegel is a naturalist as he follows the path and the project of the Aristotelian naturalism by dealing with the continuity between life and cognition, nature and spirit in several parts of his works. Hegel's naturalism represents a good theoretical perspective for the investigation of the arduous concept of spirit by relating it to the notion of nature and explaining it as emerging from natural prerequisites. Moreover, by means of this approach we could understand how Hegel explores the continuity of life and mind, which is an issue with relevant interdisciplinary consequences already addressed by the philosophy of biology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology and social theory. However, the topic of nature has also been very important and central within the entire philosophical tradition known as German classical philosophy to which Hegel's thinking belongs. His reflection on naturalism has been developed within this tradition and by the philosophical debates at that time. Therefore, the conference will address both the theme of naturalism in the German classical philosophy from Kant to Hegel and the relevant interdisciplinary and theoretical aspects it attains in the Hegelian philosophy.

Conference topic: Very recent inquires on Hegel's philosophy highlight the role of nature in the Hegelian understanding of human mind, spirit, social interaction, recognition, second nature and normativity. It may be assumed that Hegel is a naturalist as he follows the path and the project of the Aristotelian naturalism by dealing with the continuity between life and cognition, nature and spirit in several parts of his works. Hegel's naturalism represents a good theoretical perspective for the investigation of the arduous concept of spirit by relating it to the notion of nature and explaining it as emerging from natural prerequisites. Moreover, by means of this approach we could understand how Hegel explores the continuity of life and mind, which is an issue with relevant interdisciplinary consequences already addressed by the philosophy of biology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology and social theory. However, the topic of nature has also been very important and central within the entire philosophical tradition known as German classical philosophy to which Hegel's thinking belongs. His reflection on naturalism has been developed within this tradition and by the philosophical debates at that time. Therefore, the conference will address both the theme of naturalism in the German classical philosophy from Kant to Hegel and the relevant interdisciplinary and theoretical aspects it attains in the Hegelian philosophy. The participation in the conference is free. However, we have a limited number of seats, therefore we kindly ask for previous registration. Please, send an email with contact details and affiliation to hegnat.project@gmail.com and wait for confirmation.

This article deals with the recent interest of the Hegelian studies around Hegel's so-called naturalism and maintains that mind is possible by virtue of the relationship mind-life and that life and mind are mutually dependent. In order to understand the continuity mind-life the contribution accounts for both the Hegelian theory of self-consciousness and the chapter on life in the Science of Logic. Hegel's peculiarity consists in investigating concrete issues such as life, nature, desires and subjective purposiveness by deploying a logical and formal analysis in order to attain a general comprehension of them. The result is that Hegel does not explain the mind as separate from nature but rather as the outcome of a crossed stratification between nature and spirit. The contribution also gives an account of the interdisciplinary aspects connected with Hegel's naturalism and his proposal about the continuity life-mind.

Very recent inquires on Hegel's philosophy highlight the role of nature in the Hegelian understanding of human mind, spirit, social interaction, recognition, second nature and normativity. It may be assumed that Hegel is a naturalist as he follows the path and the project of the Aristotelian naturalism by dealing with the continuity between life and cognition, nature and spirit in several parts of his works. Hegel's naturalism represents a good theoretical perspective for the investigation of the arduous concept of spirit by relating it to the notion of nature and explaining it as emerging from natural prerequisites. Moreover, by means of this approach we could understand how Hegel explores the continuity life-mind, which is an issue with relevant interdisciplinary consequences already addressed by the philosophy of biology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology and social theory. However, the topic of nature has also been very important and central within the entire philosophical tradition known as German classic philosophy to which Hegel's thinking belongs. It is out of doubt that his reflection on naturalism has been developed within this tradition and by the philosophical debate at that time. Therefore, the conference will address both the theme of naturalism in the German classic philosophy from Kant to Hegel and the relevant interdisciplinary and theoretical aspects it attains in the Hegelian philosophy.