Essays on Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

Hegel’s Naturalism or Soul and Body in the Encyclopedia

Hegel’s Naturalism or Soul and Body in the Encyclopedia Italo Testa A Glocal Question The relation between soul and body, understood as a problem that demands a response through a constructive philosophical theory—capable of accounting for the possibility of the relation itself—never received full and systematic treatment in Hegel’s work. Even though he did dedicate a great deal of space in his writings to the notions of Seele, Geist, Leib, Körper, and Leiblichkeit in the Jena writings on the philosophy of Nature and of Spirit, in the Phenomenology, and also in the various editions of the Encyclopedia, apart from occasional references in the Lessons on the History of Philosophy in just one passage of the Encyclopaedia—precisely in the Anmerkung to § 389—does Hegel come to grips with the problem—first posed, in his view, by modern philosophy—that calls into question the relation (Verhältnis) between soul (Seele) and body (Körper). For Hegel this question involves, fundamentally, the question of whether the soul is immaterial and the question of the “community of soul and body (Gemeinschaft der Seele und des Körpers).”1 Hegel’s response to these issues found, moreover, no particular echo in the Hegelian school—with the exception of Johann Eduard Erdmann2 —or in the successive critical literature. Only recently has interest been taken in the importance of Hegel’s position in relation to contemporary philosophy of mind and to its Aristotelian roots,3 leading, with Michael Wolff, to the first modern monograph on the theme—in the form of a commentary on § 389 of the Encyclopedia.4 19 20 / Italo Testa The minimal attention paid to Hegel’s solution means neither that it was definitively comprehended by its interpreters nor that, within or outside Hegelian studies, prejudices reflecting a fundamental misunderstanding of the essential features of Hegel’s thought did not take hold. In some respects, as we shall show, an adequate comprehension of the solution of this local problem in the economy of the system is destined to shed light on the global meaning of Hegel’s philosophy, particularly with regard to what is called Hegel’s idealism; that is why the problem of the relation between soul and body has a glocal meaning. Redescription and Epistemological Strategy The marginal position that the modern soul-body question holds in the Hegelian texts is, moreover, neither fortuitous nor attributable to an oversight , but is due to the fact that it is not of systematic interest.5 This is because, for Hegel, it poses a false problem, the correct attitude to which does not consist in responding affirmatively or negatively to the dilemmas it implies (is the soul immaterial or material? is community of soul and body possible or impossible?) but rather in showing that the problem is only apparent and that not seeking a constructive response to it is, therefore , legitimate. Hegel’s therapeutic-constructive attitude6 leads to a solution strategy that demands, first, a redescription of the problem, and then its transcription in the more general question of the relation between Geist (mind, spirit) and Natur. The primary reason for this lies within the systematic division of Hegel’s philosophy, which in the Encyclopedia is divided into three parts: “Logic,” “Nature,” and “Spirit.” There is, however, also a substantial reason for such transcription: only if we topologically locate the soul-body problem at the systematic point that regards the transition from Nature to Spirit can we grasp the epistemological and ontological misunderstandings that create the appearance of an unsolvable problem. For Hegel, questions of epistemology, as theory of knowledge, can find adequate treatment only within the framework of a philosophy of subjective Spirit—which constitutes the first section of the Philosophy of Spirit. Here “Spirit as cognitive” (Geist als Erkennend)7 is thematized from the standpoint of the cognitive powers and dispositions available to a finite, natural individual capable of self-reference, which is to say, a living individual that is first of all a natural organism. Reconstruction of the genealogy of our cognitive powers develops through “Anthropology,” “Phenomenology,” and “Psychology”—the sections into which Subjective Spirit is divided: in the Hegel’s Naturalism or Soul and Body in the Encyclopedia / 21 same way, Hegel reconstructs the formal architecture of the different levels of Spirit, each one of which is deposited by the previous development but at the same time manifests an organizational logic that cannot...