Online Conference: The Concept of Nature in German Idealism
ISHPSS
Online Conference: The Concept of Nature in German Idealism / Der Naturbegriff im Deutschen Idealismus
8th, 9th and 10th April 2021
LMU Munich
Organization: Luis Fellipe Garcia
German Idealism has commonly been conceived as a period in the history of ideas in which the structure of mind is converted into the grounding principle of reality and nature. This assessment has a twofold consequence. On one hand, the philosophy of the period has been praised for its contributions to our understanding of multiple expressions of human rationality such as morality, history, art, religion, society and politics. On the other hand, it has been heavily criticized for its speculative character alien to the standards of scientific practice. As a consequence, the philosophy of nature developed at the time has been dismissed as a piece of dogmatic metaphysics of little philosophical and scientific interest.
However, recent studies have contributed to call this assessment into question. It has been argued that the philosophy of nature of the period contributed to later scientific discoveries, especially in the field of electromagnetism and chemistry (Friedman 2007, 2013), to the gestation of a new science such as biology (Zammito 2018), and to the elaboration of a conception of nature more suitable to deal with the contemporary environmental crisis (Nassar 2014). As regards the history of philosophy, it has been argued for the centrality of the philosophy of nature to the overall understanding of German Idealism (Beiser 2002), especially in relation to the elaboration of a new philosophical method (Förster 2018) and of a new approach to logic (Ng 2020).
The conference assembles researchers working on German Idealism to discuss the shared philosophical problem of nature. It focuses not on one specific author or work, but on different approaches to the concept of nature and the systematic challenges they entail.
Please see below for the list of speakers. All times are in CET.
April 8th (Thursday) – Visions of Nature
10:15-11:00 Thierry Schütz (Universität Zürich):
Kant on the Intelligibility of Nature: from Systematic to Purposive Unity
11:05-11:50 Gregor Schäfer (Universität Basel):
Natur als Utopie. Zu Fichtes Naturphilosophie
11:55-12:40 Ben Woodard (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg):
Schelling’s Diagrammatic Nature
Lunch Break
14:15-15:00 Oriane Petteni (Université de Liège):
Goethe Now: From Morphology to Artificial Life
15:05-15:50 Anton Kabeshkin (Universität Potsdam):
Hegel and the Rationality of Nature
15:55-16:40 Beatrice Beccari (Università di Ferrara):
A Familiar Resemblance. An Insight into Goethe’s Contribution to Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics of Nature
20 min Break
17:00-18:30 John Zammito (Rice University):
Three Visions of Nature for German Idealism: Kant, Herder, Goethe (Keynote)
15 min Break
18:45-19:30 Márcio Suzuki (Universidade de São Paulo):
Kant’s Place in the History of Modern Vitalism
19:35-20:20 Benjamin Berger (Haverford College):
Infusoria, Indifference, and the Structure of Life: Great Chains of Being in Schelling’s 1804 System
April 9th (Friday) – Metaphysics and Science
09:30-11:00 Dalia Nassar (University of Sydney):
Alexander von Humboldt's Embodied Aesthetics (Keynote)
15 min Break
11:15-12:00 Johanna Hueck (Universität Freiburg):
Ökologie des Bewusstseins. F.W.J. Schellings doppelte Kritik an einer reduktionistischen Subjektivitäts- und Naturauffassung
12:05-12:50 Ives Radrizzani (LMU München):
Schellings 'heiliger Sabbath der Natur' gegen Fichtes 'glücklich abgetane Natur'. Die tieferen Gründe einer erbitterten Polemik.
Lunch Break
14:15-15:00 Steffen Bonhoff (Universität Freiburg):
Hegels Problem des Zufalls in der Natur
15:05-15:50 Levin Zendeh (Universität Bonn):
The Emergence of Sentience: The Systematic Relevance of Hegel’s Discussion of Animal Shape in the Encyclopaedia (1830) for Contemporary Philosophy of Biology
15:55-16:40 Luis Fellipe Garcia (LMU München):
Schelling and the Need for a Metaphysics of Nature
20 min Break
17:00-18:30 Karen Ng (Vanderbilt University):
The Idea of the Earth in German Naturphilosophie - Günderrode, Hegel, and Schelling (Keynote)
20 min Break
18:45-19:30 Emmanuel Chaput (University of Ottawa):
The Relation between Nature and Consciousness in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature: The Inorganic Nature as Umwelt
19:35-20:20 Steven Lydon (Tokyo University):
Invading Dead Matter: Schelling’s Sound Figure Interpretation
April 10th (Saturday) – The Powers of Nature
09:30-10:15 Barbara Santini (Università di Padova):
»die erste Bedingung alles Lebens und aller Organisation«. Bemerkungen über Hölderlins Begriff „Natur“
10:20-11:05 Circé Furtwängler (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne):
Nature and Teleology in Schelling’s System des transzendentalen Idealismus
15 min Break
11:20-12:05 Louisa Estadieu (Universität Freiburg):
Zum Status des Natürlichen bei Kant und Hegel
12:10-12:55 Silvestre Gristina (Università di Padova):
Ludwig Feuerbach rejuvenated: from Hegelian to Young Hegelian. The Evolution of Feuerbach’s Concept of Nature from Time to Space
Lunch Break
14:15-15:00 Stefania Achella (Università "Gabriele d'Annunzio" di Chieti-Pescara):
Anatomopathologie der Vernunft. François Xavier Bichat und die Macht des Negativen
15:05-15:50 Giulia Battistoni (Università di Verona):
Nature in Spirit, Spirit in Nature: from Hegel to Hans Jonas
15min Break
16:05-16:50 Andrea Dezi (South Ural State University of Chelyabinsk):
Water and Fire: A View on the «Potenzlose» in Schelling’s Wurzburger Philosophy of Nature
16:55-17:40 Naomi Fisher (Loyola University Chicago):
Platonism in Schelling’s Powers of Nature
20min Break
18:00-18:45 Victor Béguin (Université de Poitiers):
Questioning the scala naturæ: Schelling and Hegel on “degrees” in nature
18:50-19:35 Thomas Spiegel (Universität Potsdam):
Idealism’s Lesson for Contemporary Naturalism
The workshop will take place on Zoom.
To receive the Zoom link, please register at: https://lmu-munich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Rn0ZXUJtSve1ZeRwAbWUlA
For more information: https://www.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/garcia_tagung_natur/index.html
*Bibliography mentioned in the description of the conference:
BEISER, F. (2002). German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism 1781-1801 (Cambridge, Ma & London: Harvard University Press).
FÖRSTER, E. (2018). Die 25 Jahre der Philosophie: Eine systematische Rekonstruktion, 3., verbesserte Auflage (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann).
FRIEDMAN. M. (2007). “Kant – Naturphilosophie – Electromagnetism”, Hans Christian Ørsted and The Romantic Legacy in Science, 135–58 (Dordrecht: Springer).
FRIEDMAN, M. (2013). “Philosophy of Natural Science in Idealism and neo-Kantianism”, The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian Idealism, vol. I Philosophy and the Natural Sciences, ed. K. Ameriks, 72–104 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
NASSAR, D. (2014). “Romantic Empiricism after the End of Nature: Contributions to Environmental Philosophy”, The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on German Romantic Philosophy, ed. D. Nassar, 296–314 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
NG, K. (2020). Hegel’s Concept of Life: Self-Consciousness, Freedom, Logic. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
ZAMMITO, J. (2018). The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).