LIFE I will try to clarify the general structure of the section on the logical idea of life.

The analysis of life sounds strange in the Science of Logic, that is focused on the process of self-determination of thought in its pure form. Even Hegel underlines this problem just at the beginning of the section on life:
The Idea of Life is concerned with a subject matter so concrete; and if you will so real, that with it we may seem to have overstepped the domain of logic as it is commonly conceived1.

Subjective logic necessary deals with Life because the subject matter of subjective logic is cognition (das Erkennen, that is das sich selbst Erfassen des Begriffs: Notions apprehension of itself2), and therefore it analyses all the shapes of its presupposition [] which is itself Idea3. This means that the subject matter of subjective logic is the process of development of all the forms in which the Notion comes to know itself, that is to say the process through which the Notion determines itself and then makes explicit its own logical structure. Life is one of these forms. Life is the Idea in its immediacy. Then the question is: in what sense is Life the Idea in its immediacy? Idea is the objective or real Notion4, is the union of the subjective Notion and Objectivity5, the subject-object [] it is the formal or subjective Notion as it is the object as such6. This is the result of the dialectic of Objectivity, where purposiveness turns out to realize what objectivity actually is. It is objectivity in its truth, namely the process of self-determination of the Notion in its concrete existence. In this process the Notion and reality get concretely united. This unity is the Idea, which has its first and immediate articulation in Life. In fact, purposiveness ends up in being this very unity, whose structure mirrors the structure of the concrete universal notion7. This unity is not concretely realized in subjective external purposiveness, but in internal purposiveness. As we know, the distinction between external and internal purposiveness is a Kantian distinction. Whereas the former one is analyzed in the teleology section, the latter is analyzed in the logical idea of life. In fact, the structure of internal purposiveness is the structure of life itself. Life is the Notion that, distinguished from its objectivity and, as its own end, possesses its means in the objectivity and posits the latter as its
SdL, p. 761. Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ivi, p. 755. 5 Ivi, p. 758. 6 Ivi, p. 758. 7 It is the self-equal universal and this, as containing self-repellent negativity, is in the first instance universal, and therefore as yet indeterminate, activity; but because this is negative-relation-to-self it determines itself immediately, giving itself the moment of particularity, which, as likewise the totality of the form reflected into itself, is content as against the posited differences of the form. Equally immediately this negativity, through its relation-to-self, is absolute reflection of the form into itself and individuality (Ibid).
2 1

means, yet is immanent in this means and is therein the realized end that is identical with itself8. As it is structured by internal purposiveness, life has a self-determining structure: something that gets developed according to an inner end is something self-determined. Self-determination is the structure of the Notion itself, and in this sense Life is Idea. In the Teleology section Hegel refers to Kants distinction between external and internal purposiveness and to the relation of the latter to Life and Idea. He writes Kant [] has opened up the Notion of Life, the Idea9. Hegel returns to Kants insights on internal purposiveness and life in the analysis of the living individual too, when he notes that since the Notion is immanent in it, the purposiveness of the living being is to be grasped as inner10. This is why the Notion in living individual has the structure of the Idea: the Notion is in it as determinate Notion, distinct from its externality, and in its distinguishing, pervading the externality and remaining identical with itself11; or, in other words, the subject is its own end (Selbstzweck), the Notion, which has its means and subjective reality in the subjectivity that is subjugated to it. As such, it is constituted as the Idea in and for itself12. The Notion is a subjectivity that in its difference from objectivity is, at the same time, identical with it and identical with itself in it. In this way, it is the subject-object identity that is the Idea itself, at least in its immediate form. Idea is the self-determination of the subjective Notion in its other, namely Objectivity. Life is the first immediate form of this process and so it is the first immediate form of Idea. What is meant to be grasped in life is the content of life not as a natural or spiritual existence, but as the dynamic of living processes, as a pure logical movement where subject and object become one on the basis of their own difference. This is a crucial dynamic for Hegels logic as a whole in as much as the dialectic of each logical determination develops according to this very dynamic, that is to say as that unity of opposites which is the truth of the determinations themselves. Another introductory problem regarding the role life plays with respect not only to the Science of Logic, but also the Hegelian system as a whole, is the difference between the logical idea of life, natural life, and life in spirit. Natural life has its condition (Bedingung) in inorganic nature, that is not presupposed by the logical idea of life. The natural life is nature in its highest stage passing over into subjectivity. The logical idea of life is Notion that gets its first concrete and true form of

8 9

Ivi, 760. Ivi, p. 737. Cf. anche Enz 55A, Enz enz 204A. 10 SdL, p. 766. 11 SdL, p. 766. 12 P. 769.

realization in Objectivity, namely is a process of realization of the Notion in Objectivity where it has attained an externality that genuinely corresponds to it13. Spiritual life is not natural life. However, spirit is a sort of living individual, whose life gets embodied in different shapes. As well as natural life, the life of spirit possesses a determination of its externality, in the first case through its presupposition which are other formation of nature, in the second case through the ends and the activity of spirit14. After these introductory issues I will now summarize the basis moments of the dialectic of life, namely: a) Living individual; b) Life process; c) Genus process.

The living individual The first moment of life is living individual, where the relation between living being and objectivity is analyzed. In its immediacy, living individual is meant to be a subjective totality indifferent with respect to objectivity. This indifference is what is sublated in the development of the three moments constituting the individual itself. These three moments mirror the three moments of the dialectic of the Notion and this confirms, at this first level, how life is the immediate form of Idea, namely the immediate form of the unity of Notion and objectivity. The three moments in question are sensibility, irritability and reproduction, which correspond respectively to universality, particularity and individuality. I will briefly try to explain the nature of each moment and I will try to clarify in which sense each one embodies one side of the Notion. (1) Firstly, sensibility corresponds to universality and, as universality, is a simple relation to itself of the living individual, which exists in the simple identity with itself. Every kind of difference is immediately sublated in this immediate relation of the individual with itself. Every external determinateness is the simple impression on the individual and it is reduced to the individuals self-feeling. This is why the sensibility
is inwardness (das Insichseyn), not as abstract simplicity but as an infinite determinable receptivity, which in its determinateness does not become something manifold and external, but is simply reflected into itself15.

13 14

Ivi, 762. Ivi, p. 763. 15 WdL III, p. 185 (p. 768).

The negativity of the living individual as sensitive individual is still only being within itself absolute negativity16. Each external element is not acknowledged as such. Therefore, since everything external is reduced to the simple self-feeling of the individual, this individual is not really other-related, but simply and abstractly self-related. The negativity at the base of sensibility allows the living organism neither to determine its other, nor to determine itself on the basis of the relation with this other. This negativity does not allow the organism to act on objectivity and on itself. Quite the contrary, the organism is simply and passively determined by objectivity. (2) Secondly, irritability corresponds to particularity, and as particularity, it is the first abstract identity with itself that gets developed in the moment of difference and of the relation to other. The relation of the living individual to itself becomes a relation to other. The living individual posits its first determinateness because it opens up to the external world and it reacts against external stimulations:
The self-determination of the living being is its judgement or its self-limitation [Verendlichung =rendersi finito], whereby it relates itself to the external as to a presupposed objectivity and in its reciprocal activity with it17.

Thanks to its irritability, the individual develops the capability to live in that relation with the other that was suppressed in the living beings mere sensibility. The individual is therefore the opening up of the negativity that is locked up in the simple self-feeling (die Erffnung der Negativitt)18. The individual is not only determined by its external environment, but it is also the selfdetermination on the basis of the stimulations coming from external environment and moreover the acting on this very environment. (3) Thirdly, reproduction corresponds to individuality19. In reproduction the living organism embodies a relation to itself rooted in the relation to other (irritability). The reproduction Hegel is referring to is internal reproduction, namely the process through which the living individual grows and replaces its parts and cells only in the relation to objectivity and in responding to the stimuli coming from the outside world. Therefore the relation to the other becomes a self-relation through which the individual maintains itself. In this turning point the logical structure of opposition turns out to be the self-determining dynamic of living individual. The structure of its realization is a negative unity with
Ibid. WdL III, p. 186 (p. 768). 18 WdL III, p. 185 (p. 768) 19 Reproduction should be taken as the replacement of body parts or cells that permit the universal life to sustain itself (Carlson, A commentaly on hegels logic, p. 567). Reproduction is not to produce offspring, but to reproduce what one presently is: to maintain oneself in existence (R.N. Wallace, hegel refutation of regional egoism in true infinity and in the idea, in Hegel theory of the subject, 2005, p. 153.).
17 16

objectivity. Objectivity is not like the other as such, nor is it an other which stands in a relationship of mutual determination with the living organism. Objectivity is concretely united with living being in the process of reproduction, that is the process of assimilation of objectivity through which the individual maintains itself, is identical with itself and then realizes its own vitality:
The unity of the Notion posits itself in its external objectivity as negative unity; this is reproduction. [] in reproduction life is concrete and is vitality; in it, as in its truth, life for the first time has also the feeling and the power of resistance20.

In reproduction living being posits itself as an actual individuality, a self-related being for self21, because it is an individual that is completely at home with itself in its other. In their relation, the moments of sensibility, irritability and reproduction show how the living individual determines itself on the basis of a negativity that is characterized by the same dynamic characterizing the negativity of the Notion as such. On the one hand this negativity consists in a relation to itself (sensibility) that is at the same time a relation to other (irritability), and on the other hand this relation to other (irritability) is at the same time a relation to itself (reproduction). This negativity is essentially self-referential. In fact, the individual realizes its own vitality in a process of self-negation that is its going towards its other in order to be united with it and to realize itself in this unity. In the unity with this other living being is concretely identical with itself. The unity of the living individual and objectivity is the constitutive relation where objectivity is no longer something indifferent because it affects the way of being of the organism and changes its internal articulation. This is what Hegel means when he writes: the restlessness and mutability of the external side of the living being is the manifestation in it of the Notion, which as its own selfnegativity only has an objectivity in so far as the latters indifferent subsistence reveals itself as selfsublating22. In this sense the living organism maintains itself through its own changes, that is to say through its own differentiation. This dynamic relation between living being and objectivity gets a further determination in the second moment of life, the living process.

The living process The key dynamic of living process is need. In need the living being develops its intrinsic selfreferential negativity (the negation of negation). This negativity articulates itself in two essential moments:
20 21

WdL III, p. 186 (pp. 769). WdL III, p. 186 (p. 769). 22 SdL, p 766.

(1)

Firstly, need is the relation of individual to its other. The living being relates itself

to an other to it23, relates itself to what it misses. In this sense, the living being posits itself as denied24, namely it is the not being of what it needs. In this first articulation of need the negativity in action is simply the first negation. In feeling what it misses the organism has in itself its not-being, that is its own negation. In this first moment of the need the self-referential character of the negation intrinsic in living being is already evident. In this very self-negation the organism seems simply to lose itself. It seems to be simply denied. (2) Secondly, need is not simply the relation of the individual to its other. The feeling of

the other as something missing is also a relation to itself of the living individual. Actually, in its intrinsic negativity the living being is concretely at home with itself:
it is not lost in this loss of itself but maintains itself therein and remain the identity of the self-similar Notion; thus it is the urge to posit this other world as its own, as similar to itself, to sublate it and to objectify itself (der Trieb, jene ihm andre Welt fr sich, sich gleich zu setzen, sie aufzuheben und sich zu objektivieren)25.

Therefore the inner constitution of need is not only a first abstract negation. The individual is not simply the not-being of what it needs, namely the not-being of its other. It is not simply denied, or, more explicitly, it is not lost in this negation. Need is also the second negation, namely it is a concrete negation, that is a negation where living being realizes itself. In needing its other living being it is essentially this other by having it in itself as what he misses. In need the objectivity is constitutively inherent in the living being, and it is inherent in its radical otherness, because it subsists as negated, namely as what the individual is missing and therefore as what is other that the individual itself. In need the other is the presence of absence. In need the other is not simply in relation with the individual. It lies within it, and this is shown by the pain felt by the organism itself. As Mure writes, that the tension of unsatisfied want is painful is the clearest indication that the wanted object lies within the subject (Mure, A Study of Hegels Logic, 1950, p. 659). Yet, need is not only the presence of the absence. Need is also what moves the living individual toward its other in order to assimilate it. Hence, need is what guides individuals selfdetermining process through which the organism turns the presence of the absence into a real presence. In fact, need is embodied in the individuals urge to get what he misses and make it its own. In the process raised by need, the living being becomes concretely identical with its other in the appropriation of the object. They are one and the same thing.

23 24

WdL III, p. 187 (p. 770). Ibid. 25 Ibid.

Its self-determination has the form of objective externality, and as it is at the same time identical with itself it is absolute contradiction (absolute Widerspruch)26.

Need is the presence of the absence that is in fact turned into something present. In this way, if the individual is what is present and identical with itself, and objectivity is what is absent in and different from the individual but at the same time is made present and identical with it, then the structure of the need at the basis of the living process is the contradictory structure of the speculative truth, namely identity of identity and non-identity, the unity of opposites: the need and urge [] constitute the transition by which the individual, which is explicitly the negation of itself (wie es als Negation seiner fr sich ist), become also explicitly its own identity (Identitt) 27. The self-contradiction or the living process is the self-moving and self-determining principle of the organism itself, or, better said, the principle of its realization: in that process it posits itself as what it is in and for itself, namely, as self-identity and the negative unity of the negative in its otherness, which is posited as indifferent to it28.

The genus The contradictory identity of living being and objectivity gets a further articulation in the last moment of the dialectic of life, that is the genus process. In this process the organism faces an objectivity whose fixed and one-sided self-subsistence is completely sublated, because it is an objectivity that is identical with it, and a relationship of the living being to itself as to another living being29. The genus is the self-feeling of a living being in another living being. It is a relation of identity with itself in its other, and thus it has an inherently contradictory structure. The contradiction in question has the same structure that characterizes love in a manuscript of the Early Theological Writings, where Hegel writes: In love, life is present as a duplicate of itself and as a single and unified self. [] In love the separate does still remain, but as something united and no longer separate; life senses life30. This very contradiction gives rise to the urge of each organism to go towards and get united with another organism: only in this unity does the organism feel concretely itself because only in being one with its other does it realize itself as genus, namely as concrete universal. This process has two sides.

26 27

WdL III, p. 187 (p. 770). (WdL III, p. 188 (pp. 874-875)). 28 P. 772. 29 P. 773. 30 ETW, p.304-305.

On the one hand this process can be viewed from the perspective of the living individual. In the genus process the living being comes to life and passes over into a new organism. This gives rise to a sort of bad infinity where the living being manifests its own finitude and where the genus is only in itself. The living individual is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the concrete realization of the genus as a concrete universality. The genus is immediately present in the individual, but this immediacy is necessarily sublated with the death of the individual itself.

On the other hand this process can be viewed from the perspective of the genus, which has its concrete and infinite existence in the birth and death of finite organisms. In this way the relation between genus and living individuals is similar to the relation between finite and infinity in the Doctrine of Being. The genus is not something abstract and completely separated from existent living beings. Rather, it realizes itself only as their infinite process of sublation. Therefore, the genus is no more simply in itself, it is not simply immediately present in its particularizations, that are the living beings. The genus is concretely determined in and for itself, it is the process of mediation of living beings themselves, that is their coming to be and passing over into other living beings.

In this way the Idea, which as genus as implicit is now explicit, in that it has sublated its particularity which constituted the living species, and has thereby given itself a reality that is itself simple universality31.

31

WdL, p. 774.