Life and Logic in Hegel

Hegel famously claims that life is a proper part of logic. Puzzling enough, Hegel adds that life as regarded in logic is not about empirical facts but about a logical structure he refers to as life. And this structure is the foundation of his account of the ideas. Furthermore, this idea of life is rooted in Aristotelian metaphysics and has been carried on in the materialistic continuation of Hegel’s speculative metaphysics.

In this workshop, we aim to address and discuss questions concerning the Hegelian account of life in logic. Likewise, we want to use these questions as an opportunity to broaden the discussion from a strictly Hegelian perspective to a more general reflection.

Such questions might be: In which sense does Hegel introduce the concept of life into logic? How does life serve as a foundation of his account of the ideas? And why does a logic need the concept of life at all? What role does the concept of ‘Gattung’ play in Life? What role does Life play in other parts of the Logic?

Why is it that it seems so strange to us contemporaries to include the structure of life into logic? And are there connections to other philosophers which can put the Hegelian thought into a historical and systematic background? Does the theoretical idea of life in its relation to spirit and nature come with any particular normative and practical implications?

Speakers:

Karen Ng, Ana Miranda Mora, Marc Nikolas Sommer, Fabian Börchers, Karen Koch, Tobias Wieland