Kommentar zur Naturphilosophie, Chapter 41
Neuser: why nature is the sphere of externality
Neuser’s most important contribution appears not in the Encyclopedia commentary but in Natur und Begriff (1995). There he explains what Hegel’s formula of nature as “the idea in its otherness” structurally means — and does so from the syllogistic form.
In logic, the particular mediates. The syllogism runs U–P–S [universal–particular–singular]: the universal and the singular are joined together through the particular, and the mediation occurs at the determination of the boundary — one extreme passes over into the other as its limit.
In the philosophy of nature, the singular mediates. The syllogism runs U–S–P: mediation occurs “via the uptake of the singular.” And from this follows something that explains Hegel’s basic determination of nature: “Since the singular is the mediating instance, on the one hand the external object does indeed enter constitutively into the concept, but on the other hand the mediation within it between the extremes of the syllogism always remains external. One extreme does not pass over into the other as its limit but persists alongside it.”[1]
Neuser’s conclusion: “Because this state of being-external is the logicality of natural lawfulness, Hegel describes nature as the thinking that the idea is in its being-external.”
This is an explanation, not a paraphrase. For Hegel, the externality of nature is neither a verdict nor a metaphor but a consequence of the form of mediation: where the singular mediates, the terms remain standing side by side. That is why the determinations in nature fall apart — and why nature needs four steps where logic needs three.
This also clarifies the question of the syllogistic figures: they do not accomplish what is often attributed to them, but they do mark a real difference between logic and the philosophy of nature — only a difference concerning the position of the mediating term, not concerning the subject matter.
Wolfgang Neuser, Natur und Begriff. Studien zur Theoriekonstitution und Begriffsgeschichte von Newton bis Hegel, Stuttgart 1995, chap. VIII.3. ↩︎