THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE SCIENCES IN GERMAN IDEALISM. Organism, System and Process from Goethe to Hegel

Fabrizio Bigotti. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE SCIENCES IN GERMAN IDEALISM. Organism, System and Process from Goethe to Hegel.pdf
2019

In the attempt to overcome Kant’s dualism between the phenomenal and noumenal world, German Idealists drew inspiration from the life sciences and especially from the concept of organism. They conceived philosophy itself as an organism, namely as a system of knowledge in which each part plays simultaneously the role of instrument and end in view of the preservation of the whole. This conception ultimately prompted a fruitful conversation between philosophy and biology which is still vital today and shaped new ways and methodologies to look at the dynamic interaction between human/non-human animals and their environment.
The module proposes a thematic study of some of the major figures of German Idealism, from the standpoint of their borrowing from and contributing to the nineteenth-century life sciences. In particular, the module features a reading of excerpts from Kant’s 'Critique of Judgment' („Kritik der Urteilskraft“) and Goethe's 'The Metamorphosis of Plants' („Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären“), in addition to chapters of Schelling’s and Hegel's 'Philosophies of Nature'. Each class will be integrated with powerpoint presentations, illustrating the development of nineteenth-century botany, medicine, and biology, an outline of the basic terminology of German idealism as well as a schematic presentation of the secondary literature available on each topic.