Commentary on the Philosophy of Nature, Chapter 1
Why This Part Has the Worst Reputation
Of Hegel’s three parts of the system, the philosophy of nature has the worst reputation, and not undeservedly. Here stand the sentences one cites when one wants to finish Hegel off: that there must be exactly seven planets, that Newton’s optics is wrong, that the Earth is not a child of the sun. Here it seems to confirm what the philosophy of right is only accused of — that a thinker derives the world from concepts and refuses to let reality interfere.
This volume does not claim that the reputation is false. It claims that it hits the wrong target.
For clarification: This part is difficult because it contains outdated factual claims — one has to know what science has since learned, in order to see what remains. The subjective spirit is difficult in a different way: there it is the terminology and the unfamiliar cut of the subject matter that block access (see Hegels subjektiver Geist).
What is summarized briefly here is developed by Hegels Logik for the logical side; readers already familiar with the course of the logic may skip this section.
For marking purposes: Wherever [KF] appears in this part, it marks the author’s own further development or counter-check — not Hegel’s position, and not that of a commentator. The second part does without this marker, because there judgment is rendered throughout, and the distinction would separate nothing.