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The Observation of Nature
Hegel begins his analysis of how scientific rationalism regards the natural world by suggesting that while the official allegiance of Observing Reason is to the primacy of experience and hence to empiricism, it is actually considerably more sophisticated in its outlook than the standpoints that were considered earlier in the 'Consciousness' chapter, both at the epistemological level (in allowing that there is no aconceptual 'given') and at the ontological level (in allowing that what is observed is not a bare particular): '[Observing Reason] will . . . readily admit that its concern is not wholly and solely with perception, and will not let, e.g., the perception that this penknife lies alongside this snuff-box, pass for an observation. What is perceived should at least have the significance of a universal, not of a sensuous particular'. Because it recognizes that things share universal properties, Observing Reason begins by attempting to describe the world in as much detail as it can, and to classify things into kinds, by distinguishing between essential and inessential properties. In doing so, it hopes to find vindication for its rationalistic picture, by showing that what is salient to us is also salient for nature itself, in a way that suggests that our classifications reflect structures inherent in things:
'Differentiae are supposed, not merely to have an essential connection with cognition, but also to accord with the essential characteristics of things, and our artificial system is supposed to accord with Nature's own system and to express only this'. Observing Reason finds support for this 'objectivity' in its classifications in some areas, as when in zoology we find that the claws and teeth with which certain animals set themselves apart from one another are also the features we use to mark off these animals into kinds. However, this argument for the rational transparency of nature does not take Observing Reason very far, as at other levels (particularly in botany and the inorganic sciences) it finds it hard to adopt any sort of stable and non-arbitrary classificatory scheme:
Observation, which kept them [i.e. its biological categories] properly apart and believed that in them it had something firm and settled, sees principles overlapping one another, transitions and confusions developing; what it at first took to be absolutely separate, it sees combined with something else, and what it reckoned to be in combination, it sees apart and separate. So it is that observation which clings to passive, unbroken selfsameness of being, inevitably sees itself tormented just in its most general determinations – e.g. of what are the differentiae of an animal or a plant – by instances which rob it of every determination, invalidate the universality to which it has risen, and reduce it to an observation and description which is devoid of thought.Hegel suggests that though the scientist wishes to vindicate a rationalistic outlook, he cannot do so, because he is torn between on the one hand adopting an empirical approach, which attempts to group creatures together using their merely observed similarities (claws, teeth, etc.), and on the other hand trying to base a system of natural kinds on these similarities; the scientist tries to treat these characteristics as fixed and essential, when the changeability and heterogeneity of creatures at this level makes this impossible. This scientific outlook therefore faces a fundamental tension between the 'universality' of its classificatory scheme and the 'particularity' of the individuals it tries but fails to subsume under the scheme. Finding itself frustrated by the apparent vagueness and arbitrariness of its attempts to 'carve nature at the joints' using a conception of natural kinds, Observing Reason now attempts to rise above mere observation and description and to satisfy thought by attempting to uncover the laws that govern phenomena. The difficulty for Observing Reason, however, is to know how to reconcile a conception of laws as universal and necessary with its residual empiricism. Hegel speaks here of an 'instinct of Reason', by which he means that while such empiricism should lead it to feel a Humean scepticism about such universality and necessity, nonetheless consciousness finds it hard to doubt that laws represent how it is that things must be, given their underlying natures: 'That a stone falls, is true for consciousness because in its heaviness the stone has in and for itself that essential relation to the earth which is expressed in falling'. Observing Reason thus finds itself constructing laws that are increasingly general and removed from the concreteness of the experimental situation, while its conception of a property becomes more abstract, culminating in the notion of 'matters' (such as positive and negative electricity, or heat), which are not observable particulars but are theoretical entities which have a status similar to universals. This allows Observing Reason to frame laws in a more and more abstract and 'pure' way: 'We find, as the truth of this experimenting consciousness, pure law, which is freed from sensuous being; we see it as a Notion which, while present in sensuous being, operates there independently and unrestrained, and, while immersed in it, is free of it, and a simple Notion'. In finding itself drawn away from empiricism and nominalism, Observing Reason gains an important insight into how the world incorporates structures that can only be uncovered by thought. However, although this is an important lesson for Observing Reason to learn, and one which allows it to fit inorganic nature into an increasingly complex and satisfying theoretical framework, it finds itself frustrated as it attempts to treat another part of the natural world in law-like terms: namely, living organisms. Here, Observing Reason attempts to find laws that will explain the nature of organisms in terms of their environment, which it hopes will enable it to classify organisms in ecological terms (e.g. pike are fish because they live best in water). However, Observing Reason finds that these laws are mere correlations, which appear to have no underlying necessity or rational force, for example in the sort of general theory of environmental influence proposed by the biologist G. E. Treviranus, according to which 'animals belonging to the air have the nature of birds, those belonging to water have the nature of fish, animals in northern latitudes have thick hairy pelts, and so on'. Hegel comments:
Such laws are seen at a glance to display a poverty which does not do justice to the manifold variety of organic Nature. Besides the fact that organic Nature in its freedom can divest its forms of these characteristics, and of necessity everywhere presents exceptions to such laws, or rules as we might call them, the characterization of the creatures to which they do apply is so superficial that even the necessity of the laws cannot be other than superficial, and amounts to no more than the great influence of environment; and this does not tell us what does and what does not strictly belong to this influence. Such relations of organisms to the elements [they live in] cannot therefore in fact be called laws. For, firstly, the content of such a relation, as we saw, does not exhaust the range of organisms concerned, and secondly, the sides of the relation are mutually indifferent and express no necessity. Now, once Observing Reason recognizes that there is no necessary relation between the nature of the organism and its environment (e.g. there are birds which cannot fly), it now looks for a different way of explaining the nature of the organism, which it now does in teleological terms. Such explanations assume that the organism has a purpose, and account for its various properties by showing how they help the organism to achieve that purpose. Hegel argues, however, that Observing Reason has an intentional model of teleology, according to which for an organism to have an end, it must either have that end intentionally, as a conscious goal, or it must have that end bestowed on it by some external designer who has adapted it for his or her purposes. The difficulty is, that Observing Reason cannot make either view fit with natural organisms, for they can scarcely be said to have chosen their ends, while if we say that they are as they are because they have been adapted as such by an external designer, we cannot use this idea to provide us with an explanation of the organism's nature. Thus, while Observing Reason acknowledges that 'the organism shows itself to be a being that preserves itself, that returns and has returned into itself', it thinks that this is not really teleological behaviour because it is not the intention of the organism to so preserve itself, so 'this observing consciousness does not recognize in this being [i.e. in the fact that the organism acts to preserve itself] the Notion of End, or that the Notion of End exists just here and in the form of a Thing, and not elsewhere in some other intelligence. It makes a distinction between the Notion of End and being-for-self and self-preservation, a distinction which is none' . Because Observing Reason does not really recognize the self-preservation of the organism as a purpose intrinsic to the thing itself (internal teleology), it only explains the nature of the organism by appealing to how that organism is adapted to serve purposes outside itself (external teleology), which then results in an unsatisfying explanatory account of why the organism is as it is. As Hegel puts it elsewhere: 'The notion of purpose is not merely external to nature, as it is when I say that sheep bear wool only in order that I may clothe myself. Silly remarks of this kind are often made, as for example in the Xenia, when the wisdom of God is admired because He causes cork trees to grow that we might have bottle- stoppers, herbs that we might cure disordered stomachs, and cinnabar that we might make ourselves up'. (For a helpful general discussion of Hegel's views on teleology, see deVries .) An obvious question to raise at this point, is why Hegel thinks that Observing Reason operates only with this intentional model of teleology, such that it does not think that self-preservation really counts as a goal of the organism, and hence believes that teleological explanations cannot be internal (e.g. the function or purpose of bark on a tree is to stop it dehydrating) but must be external (e.g. the purpose of bark on trees is so we can put stops in our bottles). One answer can of course be historical: that is, many scientists and philosophers associated with the scientific revolution actually did have such an intentional model of teleology, so that Hegel would seem justified in attributing this view with Observing Reason. But another answer relates more directly to my overall interpretation of the Phenomenology: namely, that Observing Reason lacks a properly Aristotelian understanding of universals as natural kinds, and so does not see that as an organism of a particular type, each organic thing is striving to realize its nature as a thing of that type.
Failing properly to understand the organism in teleological terms, Observing Reason goes back to looking for laws governing the central processes and capacities of living animals. In Hegel's time these were identified as the capacity for sensibility (meaning the capacity to transfer information about stimuli from one part of the body to another), irritability (meaning the capacity to respond to stimuli), and reproduction (meaning the capacity of the organism to grow and reproduce its tissue). These capacities were said to be located in the nervous system, the muscular system, and the viscera respectively. Observing Reason therefore sets about finding laws that relate these capacities to one another, and to the parts of the body said to possess these capacities. Hegel then proceeds to show how difficult it is for Observing Reason to find any real law-like correlations in this area, partly because sensibility, irritability, and reproduction are interrelated functions, partly because it cannot meaningfully apply quantitative determinations in trying to relate these capacities, and partly because the organism cannot really be divided into separate anatomical systems: 'In this way the idea of a law in the case of organic being is altogether lost' . Hegel therefore concludes that in its study of nature, Observing Reason cannot find the kind of rational satisfaction it seeks:
Here observation cannot do more than to make clever remarks, indicate interesting connections, and make a friendly approach to the Notion. But clever remarks are not a knowledge of necessity, interesting connections go no further than being 'of interest', while the interest is still nothing more than a mere subjective opinion about Reason; and the friendliness with which the individual alludes to the Notion is a childlike friendliness which is childish if it wants to be, or is supposed to be, valid in and for itself.
We have therefore seen the dialectic of universal and individual operating at several levels through this section, as Observing Reason has tried to bring the individual under some intelligible scheme of universal laws, but where these laws have turned out to be too ad hoc and empty, to be no more than mere regularities and correlations. Consciousness' conception of the natural world thus remains one in which universality and individuality stand opposed as categories, and so it is still unable to find in nature the rational structures that will enable it to feel 'at home'.
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