Eduard von Hartmann: The Unconscious as a Supposed Synthesis
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume I, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Basic Thesis and the Attempted Synthesis
Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906) undertook the remarkable attempt to unite Schopenhauer’s will and Hegel’s Idea in a new synthesis. His Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869) became one of the most widely read philosophical works of the late 19th century - and yet it is largely forgotten today. Hartmann’s starting question is: how can we explain the obvious purposiveness in nature - animal instincts, the body’s healing processes, artistic genius - without recourse to a conscious creator God? His answer: the world principle is the Unconscious - a unity of Schopenhauerian will as driving force and Hegelian Idea as guiding form.
“The Unconscious is […] the unity of will and representation, but not as conscious willing and conscious representing, but as unconscious will and unconscious representation.”[1] The Unconscious is not irrational like Schopenhauer’s will, but neither is it purely rational like Hegel’s Idea. It is both at once - and precisely for that reason more effective than either could be on its own. Hartmann’s critique of Hegel is: the optimism of Hegelian philosophy of history is untenable. History is not the rational self-realization of spirit but an irrational process with rational moments. Suffering, evil, failure are not dialectically “sublatable” - they are real resistance to every attempt at meaning. “The world is the worst of all conceivable worlds in which life is still possible.”[2] This is not pessimism as a mood but as a metaphysical diagnosis.
Hartmann’s critique of Schopenhauer is: blind will alone cannot explain the order of nature. How could a wholly irrational drive produce the purposive structures of instinct, the lawlike regularities of nature, the genius of art? There must be an ordering principle within the will itself - the unconscious representation, the unconscious Idea.
What Hegel Had Already Said: The Differentiated Account of Unconscious Structures
Hartmann’s “Unconscious” as a unity of will and Idea sounds like an original synthesis between Schopenhauer and Hegel. But if one reads Hegel’s Logic and philosophy of reality closely, it becomes clear: these structures are already developed in Hegel - and indeed far more differentiated than the negative concept “unconscious” can capture. “Unconscious” is too indeterminate - it is purely negative. It only says what something is not, namely conscious, but not what it is. Hegel shows the various ways in which structures operate without being conscious.
In the Science of Logic, Hegel develops mechanism as the first form of objectivity.[3] Mechanical interaction follows laws without “knowing” these laws. Two bodies collide according to the conservation of momentum - but they know nothing of this law. This is not simply “unconscious,” but a specific form of lawlike structuredness without any interiority. Mechanism is pure externality - cause and effect are external to each other, the objects are external to each other.
The chemical process shows a higher form: the elements “seek” one another, enter into combinations, react specifically.[4] This is more than mechanical interaction - it is affinity, but not yet subjectivity. Sodium ions “strive” toward chlorine, form a compound with it - but not consciously. It is a form of interiority - the elements have specific “properties” that determine with whom they react - but not yet self-relation. The purposive process that Hegel develops as teleology organizes means toward an end - but the end is still externally posited.[5] The tool serves the human being but does not know its purpose. The purposiveness is real - the tool is made in such a way that it fulfills its purpose - but it is external to the tool itself. Only at the next stage does the end become internal.
Life is the first form of internal purposiveness.[6] The organism organizes itself, preserves itself, reproduces itself - without knowing this purpose. The purpose - self-preservation - is not external to the organism. The organism is this purpose. But it knows nothing of it. Life is “unconscious” but not structureless - it is the concrete unity of concept, as internal purposiveness, and objectivity, as real organization. Animal instinct shows purposive action without purposive consciousness. In the Encyclopedia, Hegel writes: “Instinct is rational, but not known as reason.”[7] The animal builds a nest without knowing architecture. The spider weaves its web according to complex geometric patterns - but it has no concept of geometry. Instinct is an unconscious rationality - structured, purposive, but not reflected.
In the Encyclopedia, Hegel defines nature as “the Idea in the form of otherness.”[8] Nature is rationally structured - it follows laws, shows purposiveness - but it is outside itself, not with itself, not self-conscious. Logical structures operate in nature - but nature knows nothing of them. This is the most general determination of what Hartmann calls the “Unconscious.”
The decisive point is now the following: if one identifies the human spirit as what distinguishes the human being from the rest of nature - namely self-consciousness, the capacity for reflection - then it is trivial that nature has “no spirit,” that is, “no self-consciousness.” The philosophical achievement lies not in this negative statement but in the positive differentiation: how is nature organized? What stages of non-conscious structuredness are there? Hegel shows: mechanism is not the same as chemism is not the same as teleology is not the same as life is not the same as instinct. These are different forms of non-conscious rationality, different ways in which structures operate without being reflected. Hartmann’s unified “Unconscious” levels these differences. It is a regression to an undifferentiated view.
Hartmann’s Regression Behind Hegel
Wherein, then, does Hartmann’s supposed innovation consist? He attempts to unite Schopenhauer’s will - the irrational, instinctual, blind - and Hegel’s Idea - the rational, structured, purposive - into a “synthesis.” But this “synthesis” is external. Hartmann places two principles side by side and asserts their unity - without showing how they are mediated. This is precisely what Hegel criticizes as “external reflection”: one adds determinations together instead of developing their inner unity. Will plus Idea equals the Unconscious is not dialectical mediation but addition.
Hartmann falls behind Hegel’s differentiation. Where Hegel distinguishes six different stages - mechanism, chemism, teleology, life, instinct, conscious spirit - Hartmann posits a unified “Unconscious.” This is a loss of conceptual precision. The question “Is X conscious or unconscious?” is too coarse. The question must be: “How is X structured? Mechanically, chemically, teleologically, organically, instinctively?” Hartmann hypostatizes the “Unconscious” into a metaphysical world principle. Instead of thinking the development from unconscious to conscious structuredness - as Hegel does with in-itself to for-itself - he treats the Unconscious as an independent substance existing alongside the conscious. This is a metaphysical dualism that reproduces precisely the problem it wanted to solve.
What Hartmann actually accomplishes - and this is legitimate - is twofold: he makes the unconscious a theme in its own right, whereas for Hegel it is a transitional moment. This is a legitimate shift of emphasis - it shows that an aspect of Hegel’s system deserves more attention. He connects this with empirical research from biology, psychology, medicine. This is productive - it concretizes abstract categories through scientific findings. But in terms of systematic content, this is not progress beyond Hegel but rather a regression to a less differentiated view. If it turns out - as shown here - that the essential content of Schopenhauer’s “will” is already contained in Hegel’s differentiated account of objectivity and life, then there is no added value in an “external synthesis” of Schopenhauer and Hegel. The integration that Hartmann seeks had already been accomplished by Hegel - only not under the terminology “the Unconscious.” The structure, however - purposive organization without consciousness - is developed in Hegel, and more differentiated than in Hartmann.
Eduard von Hartmann: Philosophy of the Unconscious. Speculative Results According to the Inductive Method of Physical Science, 3 vols., Berlin 1869 (10th ed. 1890), vol. 1, p. 47. ↩︎
Hartmann: Philosophy of the Unconscious, vol. 3, p. 134. ↩︎
Hegel: Science of Logic II, Werke 6, pp. 410-442 (Mechanism). ↩︎
Hegel: Science of Logic II, Werke 6, pp. 443-455 (Chemism). ↩︎
Hegel: Science of Logic II, Werke 6, pp. 455-470 (Teleology). ↩︎
Hegel: Science of Logic II, Werke 6, pp. 470-478 (The Idea of Life). ↩︎
Hegel: Encyclopedia § 381, Werke 10, p. 26. ↩︎
Hegel: Encyclopedia § 247, Werke 9, p. 24. ↩︎