Commentary on the Philosophy of Nature, Chapter 46
Four Approaches, Compared
The two most extensive contemporary updates proceed in opposite directions, and comparing them clarifies where this volume stands.
Winfield ontologizes. He takes the sequence of stages as the architecture of nature itself and refills it with today’s physics, chemistry, and biology. His question: Which stages must nature pass through?
Stekeler reconstructs. He reads Hegel as a reflection on concepts, domains of objects, and types of explanation. His question: Which distinctions must we draw in order to speak adequately about nature?
Both save something, and both pay a price for it. Winfield too often turns conceptual dependencies into natural-historical transitions — hence plants before animals. Stekeler too often transforms sentences meant ontologically into methodological ones — and thereby immunizes Hegel against refutation.
Where they correct each other, both are useful: Winfield reminds us that Hegel wanted to speak about actual nature; Stekeler, that no speaking about nature can dispense with reflection on its categories.
This volume holds to both. It takes the substantive claims seriously enough to call them wrong where they are wrong — and takes the reflection on forms of explanation seriously enough to regard it as the more durable part. Where Hegel errs, it stands recorded as an error; where he marks a limit, it stands recorded as a limit.