Natural Becoming: From Bad Infinity Towards an Open Dialectic? Contemporary Issues Moving From Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature
Natural Becoming: From Bad Infinity Towards an Open Dialectic? Contemporary Issues Moving From Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature

Summary/Abstract: In Hegel’s Philosophy, natural time is the engine of bad infinity, presentingitself through disappearance. Nevertheless, as one proceeds towards the higher levelsof the realm of exteriority, this force from abstract becomes increasingly real until itbecomes part of vital processes in the organized subjectivity, such as that of the livingorganism that “knows” and uses this becoming as a force to its advantage, e.g., in theforms of metabolism. This effective meaning of natural becoming seems to us to havebeen particularly highlighted in the 20th–century in the “Philosophical Biology” of HansJonas, whereby even the elements of failure (e.g., in the animal’s procurement of food)are grasped as expressions of a distinctive trait of the subject, namely its capacity tobear the negative and with this to establish mediation.Even the mortal limit, which is what leads to the conclusion of the Naturphilosophierequiring the elevation to the Philosophy of Spirit in Hegel, according to Jonas, takes on,within the human awareness, a renewed ontological value that allows life to flourishagain and with this makes human beings able to ask themselves what kind of worldthey want to hand over (also with environmental regard) to future generations. If thisis the case, then a role for Naturphilosophie becomes highly topical about producingan “open dialectic” invoked many times in the philosophical paths of the 20th century.

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