Four The Organic Worldview(2)
第四章 有机世界观(2)
THE KANTIAN LEGACY AND CHALLENGE
康德的遗产与挑战
Prima facie Hegel’s concept of the organic is a mere metaphor, something derived entirely from classical and Christian literature. But it is crucial to see that the concept has a much more precise and technical meaning. That meaning was laid down by Kant with his analysis of the concept of a ‘natural purpose’ (Naturzweck) in sections §§64–5 of the Critique of Judgment (V 373–4). In §55R of the Encyclopedia Hegel himself paid handsome tribute to his debts to Kant in this regard. But Hegel’s debts to Kant were both positive and negative. If Kant provided a clear technical meaning for the concept of the organic, he also challenged Hegel by laying down severe regulative constraints upon the use of this concept.
乍看起来，黑格尔的有机体概念仅仅是一个隐喻，某种完全源自古典的和基督教的文学的东西。但至关重要的是要看到，这一概念具有远为精确和专门的含义。那种含义是康德在其《判断力批判》（V373-374）第64-65节通过分析“自然目的”这一概念而精心阐释的。黑格尔在《百科全书》第55节中对他自己在这方面受惠于康德慷慨致意。但黑格尔之受惠于康德既是积极的，也是消极的。如果说康德为有机这一概念提供了清晰而专门含义的话，他也通过把一些严格的调节性限制加诸这一概念之上而对黑格尔提出了挑战。
In sections §§64–5 of the Critique of Judgment Kant maintains that there are two defining characteristics of a natural purpose. First, the idea of the whole precedes all its parts in the sense that it determines the identity of each of them. Second, the parts are reciprocally cause and effect of one another. Kant argued that the first characteristic alone is not sufficient to define a natural purpose, since it is found too in works of art, which are also produced according to a plan, an idea of the whole. It is also necessary to add the second characteristic, which means that an organism, unlike a work of art, is self-generating and self-organizing. In both respects, Kant argued, an organism is unlike matter. In matter the parts precede the whole and make them possible; and it is not selfgenerating or self-organizing because it acts only when acted upon by some external force.
在《判断力批判》第64-65节中，康德认为“自然目的”有两个定义上的特征。首先，在整体先于部分这一理念的意义上，整体决定着每一部分的同一性。其次，部分之间彼此是互为因果的。康德主张，单单是第一个特征还不足以定义自然目的，因为人们也可以在艺术作品中发现这一点，艺术作品也是按照计划、按照一个整体的理念生产出来的。加上第二个特征是必要的，这意味着一个有机体与艺术作品不同，它是自我生成和自我组织的。两个方面合起来看，康德认为，有机体与物质不同。在物质中，部分优先于整体并使整体成为可能；并且物质也不是自我生成和自我组织的，因为它只是在某种外力对其产生作用的时候才运动。
To understand the organic concept of nature it is of the first importance to dwell on the full meaning of Kant’s first requirement. For Kant, an organic whole is not only irreducible to its parts, as if it were only something more than them; it is also the source or foundation of its parts because the idea of the whole determines the identity of each of its parts. In sections §§76–8 of the Critique of Judgment Kant elaborated this point by his distinction between an analytic and a synthetic universal, the analogue of the traditional scholastic distinction between a compositum and a totum.17 In an analytic universal or compositum the parts precede the whole and each has its identity apart from it; in a synthetic universal or totum the whole precedes the parts and makes each of them possible. For an analytic universal there is a distinction between possibility and reality because there is no reason the universal applies to anything; for a synthetic universal there is no such distinction because the universal is self-realizing. When Hegel and the romantics write about the organic concept of nature they have in mind a totum or synthetic universal. Kant’s distinction was the ancestor of Hegel’s own later distinction between an abstract and a concrete universal.
为了理解有机的自然概念，第一重要的事情是不嫌辞费详尽阐述康德第一个前提的全幅意义。对康德而言，一个有机整体不仅仅不能还原为它的诸部分，就好像它仅仅是多余它们的某个东西；它还是它的诸部分的源泉和基础，因为整体的理念规定了它的每一个部分的身份。在《判断力批判》的第76节~第78节中，康德通过在分析的共相和综合的共相之间做出区分，详尽阐释了这一观点，这一区分对应于传统的经院主义在组成部分（compositium）和整体（totum）之间所作的区分。17在分析的共相或者组成部分（compositium）中，部分先于整体，而每一部分在整体之外还有自己的身份；在一个综合的普遍或者说整体（totum）之中，整体先于部分，并且使得每一个部分得以可能。就分析的普遍而言，在可能性与实在性之间存在着一个区别，因为普遍没有理由可以应用于任何事物之中；对于综合的普遍而言，不存在这样一种区分，因为普遍就是自我实现。在黑格尔和浪漫主义撰文讨论有机的自然概念之时，他们念兹在兹的是整体或者综合的普遍。康德的区分是黑格尔自己后来在抽象的普遍和具体的普遍之间所作区分的先驱。
Alone Kant’s concept of a natural purpose is still not sufficient to explain the organic concept of nature. Although it determines the structure of each organism, it does not take the added – and very large – step that the entire cosmos is a natural purpose. Here again, though, Kant anticipated Hegel and the romantics. In §67 of the Critique of Judgment Kant had suggested that we can generalize the idea of an organism so that it applies to nature as a whole. Once we conceive of things having final causes, we can go further, so that each organism becomes part of a wider organism and belongs to ‘a system of purposes’ (V 378, 380–1). This system of purposes comprises the idea of a ‘universal organism’ or a ‘system of ends’.
单单康德的自然目的这一概念还不足以解释有机的自然概念。尽管它规定了每一个有机体的结构，但是它并没有迈出额外的——而且是大大的——步子，亦即整个宇宙是一个自然的目的。然而在这里，再一次，康德预见了黑格尔和浪漫主义者（的思想）。在《判断力批判》的第67节，康德已经指出，我们能够概括出一个有机体的理念，以至于把它应用到自然整体之中去。一旦我们设想事物拥有目的因，那么我们就能够更进一步，结果，每一个有机体都变成一个更广阔的有机体的一部分，并且属于“一个诸目的的体系”（V第378页，第380页~第381页）。这个目的的体系包含了一个“普遍有机体”或者“目的的体系”的理念。
Setting another precedent for Hegel and the romantics, Kant had argued in the Critique of Judgment that his idea of a universal organism is irreducible to mechanical principles. Famously, he declared that there could not be a Newton for a single blade of grass (V 400). The apparent design of nature, its order and harmony, appears contingent with respect to the laws of nature, Kant argued, because we cannot see how it could arise purely through mechanical means (§61; V 360). In two fundamental respects Kant argued that the concept of an organism went beyond mechanism. First, an organism is self-generating and self-organizing; but mechanism explains an event only by another acting upon it. Second, an organism is an indivisible unity, a totum where the whole precedes its parts; but mechanism understood everything analytically, as a compositum where the parts precede the whole.
康德还给黑格尔和浪漫派设定了另一个先例，他在《判断力批判》中论证说，他的普遍有机体的理念是不可以还原为机械的原则的。非常著名的是，他宣称，根本不存在使得一根草茎得到理解的牛顿（V第400页）。康德论证说，自然的明显的设计、它的秩序与和谐，如果从自然的法则来看的话，似乎是偶然的，因为我们不能看到它是如何纯粹通过机械的方式而出现的（第61节；V第360页）。康德从两个基本的方面论证说，一个有机体的概念是超越于机械主义之外的。首先，有机体是自我生成和自我组织的；但是机械主义只能通过对它产生作用而解释一个事件。其次，有机体是不可分割的统一体，在这个整体（totum）之中，整体先于它的诸部分；但是机械主义以析解的方式理解所有事物，把它们看作是在其中部分先于整体的组成部分（compositium）。
Kant had further attracted his romantic contemporaries to the idea of a universal organism by suggesting in the Critique of Judgment that it could bridge his dualisms between the ideal and real, the noumenal and phenomenal, which had been such a stumbling block for the critical philosophy. In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788) Kant had resolved the conflict between freedom and necessity by assigning each to a distinct ontological domain: freedom belongs to a noumenal or intelligible realm where people act according to rational principles; and necessity is the hallmark of the phenomenal or empirical realm of nature, where everything acts according to mechanical laws of cause and effect. While this seemed to save the claims of both freedom and necessity by giving them a distinct jurisdiction, it also posed a problem of how to explain the interaction between such distinct realms. If the noumenal is intelligible, active and non-temporal, and if the phenomenal is sensible, passive and temporal, how do these realms interact with one another? In the Critique of Judgment Kant postulated the idea of a universal organism to address this dualism. There would be no mysterious harmony between the noumenal and phenomenal if the entire realm of nature were created according to the design of a divine understanding. The concept of a natural purpose seemed to provide an even closer connection between the ideal and real because the purpose of the organism, its formal or ideal element, is inherent in its matter, the material or real element. The purpose is not external to the matter, imposed upon it from outside, as an artist fashions a lump of clay, but it is internal to the matter, the source of all its activity.
通过在《判断力批判》中指出，普遍的有机体的理念可以在观念和实在、本体和现象之间的二元论架设桥梁，康德进一步把与他同时代的浪漫派吸引到这个理念上来，而这样一种二元论曾经是批判哲学的一块绊脚石。在《纯粹理性批判》（1781年）和《实践理性批判》（1788年）中，康德已经通过为自由与必然各自指派一个不同的本体论的区域而解决了自由与必然之间的冲突：自由属于本体或者可理解的领域，在这个领域，人们可以依照理性的法则而行动；必然是现象的或者经验的自然领域的标志，在这个领域，一切事物都依照原因和结果的机械法则而行动。一方面，这似乎通过赋予自由和必然以各自独特的管辖范围而拯救了它们的主张，另一方面，它也提出了一个问题，即如何解释这两个如此独特的领域的相互作用。如果本体是可理解的、积极的和非时间的，而且如果现象是可感知的、消极的和处于时间之中的，那么这些领域是如何相互作用的呢？在《判断力批判》中，康德悬设了普遍有机体的理念以解决这个二元论。如果整个的自然领域是依照神圣的知性的设计而被创造出来的，那么，在本体和现象之间就不存在什么神秘的和谐。一个自然的目的的概念似乎提供了一种观念和实在之间更为紧密的联系，因为有机体的目的、它的形式或观念的要素，都内在于它的质料的、物质的或实在的要素之中。目的不是外在于质料的，从外面强加于它之上的，就像一位艺术家揉捏一块黏土一样，而是内在于质料的，是所有它的行动的根源。
Regarding the meaning of the organic, its irreducibility to mechanism, and its importance in overcoming dualism, there was the closest agreement between Kant and Hegel. It was for all these reasons that Hegel declared in Encyclopedia §55R that Kant had expressed all the defining characteristics of the idea. Yet, despite all their agreement, there was still the most fundamental point of friction between them. Namely, Hegel affirmed, and Kant denied, that we have reason to assume that nature really is an organism. Throughout the Critique of Judgment Kant had argued that the idea of an organism has only a regulative status, i.e. it has only a heuristic value in guiding enquiry into nature, so that we have the right to proceed only as if nature were an organism. However, this principle has no constitutive status, i.e. we have no right to assume that nature really is an organism.
考虑到有机体的意义，它的不可还原为机械主义以及它在克服二元论中的重要性，那么，在康德和黑格尔之间就达成了最为紧密的协议。正是出于所有这些原因，黑格尔在《哲学科学百科全书》第55节附释中宣称，康德已经表达出了理念的所有定义性的特征。然而，尽管他们在所有这些方面达成一致，在他们之间仍然存在着最为根本的冲突点。也就是说，黑格尔肯定，而康德否定，我们有理由假定自然实际上是一个有机体。纵览《判断力批判》全书，康德一直论证说，有机体的理念仅仅具有调节性的身份，亦即，它仅仅在指导对于自然的探索时具有启发性的价值。因此，我们有权利继续说好像自然是一个有机体。然而，这条原则并没有建构性的身份，亦即，我们没有权利假定自然实际上是一个有机体。
Why did Kant insist on imposing regulative constraints on the idea of a natural purpose? Why did he hold that the human understanding is limited to a mechanical understanding of nature? Kant had three basic arguments.
为什么康德坚持把调节性的限制加诸于自然的目的的理念之上呢？为什么它坚持认为人的理解要限制在对于自然的机械的理解之上呢？康德做出了三个论证。
Kant’s first argument, which appears chiefly in his early essay on teleology,18 is essentially skeptical. It states that we have no means of knowing whether objects in nature, such as vegetables and animals, are really purposive; in other words, we have no criterion to determine whether such objects are really organisms rather than just very complex machines. According to Kant, we understand the power to act from purposes only from our own human experience when we create something according to our will, where the will consists in ‘the power to produce something according to an idea’ (VIII 181). If, therefore, something cannot act according to ideas, we have no right to assume that it has the power to act for ends. Hence the concept of a being that acts purposively yet does not have a will is ‘completely ficitious and empty’ (völlig erdichtet und leer) (181). In drawing such a conclusion Kant is not saying that the concept is completely meaningless – in that case it could hardly have even a regulative status – but that it has no reference. His point is simply that we only know of purposiveness in the cases of beings that act with will and understanding, and that we cannot therefore make verifiable claims about the purposiveness of beings that do not have will and understanding. In a nutshell, Kant’s argument is that intentionality – in the sense of conscious end- or goal-directed action – is the criterion of purposiveness.
康德的第一个论证主要出现在他早期关于目的论的论文中18，它本质上是怀疑论的。它说，我们没有手段知道自然中的对象，比如蔬菜和动物，是否实际上是有目的的；换言之，我们没有标准去决定，这些对象是否实际上是有机体，而不仅仅是复杂的机器。依照康德，只有在我们依照我们的意志创造出某物之时，我们只有从我们人的经验出发，把力量理解为出自目的而行动的，在这里，意志就存在于“依照一个理念而产生某物的力量”之中（VIII，第181页）。因此，如果某种东西不能依照理念而行动，我们就没有权利假定，它有力量为了某些目的而行动。因此，一个合目的而行动的存在者仍然没有意志的概念是“完全虚构的和空洞的”（voellig erdichtet und leer）（第181页）。在得出这样一个结论之时，康德不是说，这个概念是完全没有意义的——在这种情况下，它甚至几乎不能拥有一种调节性的身份——而是说它没有指称。他的要点不过是，我们只能在这些存在者带着意志和理解而行动时，才能认识合目的性（purposiveness），以及我们因此不能提出关于没有意志和理解的存在者的合目的性的可证实的主张。简而言之，康德的论证是，意向性——在有意识的目的或者目标定向的行动的意义上——是合目的性的标准。
Kant’s second argument, which occurs in §68 of the Critique of Judgment, consists in a simple application of the central principle of the critical philosophy, what Kant calls the principle behind its ‘new method of thought’.19 According to this principle, which Kant explicitly restates at §68, ‘we have complete insight only into that which we can make ourselves and according to our own concepts’ (V 384). This principle means that organisms are incomprehensible to us, Kant argues, because we do not have it within our means to create or produce them. We can indeed create some material thing, just as nature can produce one, and we do so through some combination of efficient causes. But we have no power to produce the infinitely complex structure of an organism. Hence if we know only what we can produce, and if we cannot produce organisms, it follows that we cannot know organisms.
康德的第二个论证出现在《判断力批判》的第68节，它存在于批判哲学的核心原则的一个简单运用之中，康德称之为“新的思维方法”背后的原则。19依照康德在第68节明确地重新阐述的这条原则，“我们可以完全看透的，只是那些我们能够按照概念制造和实现出来的东西”（V第384页）。这条原则意味着，有机体对于我们来说是完全不可以理解的，康德论证说，因为我们在我们的工具之中没有用来创造或者产生这些有机体的东西。实际上我们能够创造某些物质的东西，正如自然能够产生它一样，而我们之做到这一点是通过动力因的某种组合。但是我们没有力量产生有着无限复杂的结构的有机体。因此，如果我们仅仅知道我们能够生产什么，如果我们不能生产有机体，那么，就可以推论出，我们不能认识有机体。
Kant’s third argument is directed against hylozoism or vital materialism, the doctrine that matter consists in vis viva or living force. Kant’s argument against hylozoism proceeds from his analysis of matter in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. According to Kant’s second law of mechanics, the law of inertia, every change in matter must have an external cause, i.e. it persists in rest or motion, in the same direction and with the same speed, unless there is some external cause to make it change its direction and speed (IV 543). This principle states, therefore, that changes in matter cannot be internal, or that matter has no intrinsic grounds of determination. This means, Kant contends, that matter is essentially lifeless. For life is the faculty of a substance to act from an internal principle, its power to change itself. Kant vehemently insists that the very possibility of natural science rests upon fully recognizing these implications of the law of inertia, damning hylozoism as nothing less than ‘the death of all philosophy of nature’ (der Tod aller Naturphilosophie).
康德的第三个论证直接针对物活论（hylozoism）或者说生机唯物主义。这种学说认为，质料就拥有活力（vis viva）或者活生生的力量。康德反对物活论的论证是从他在《自然科学的形而上学基础》中对于物质的分析出发的。依照康德的第二条机械的法则——惰性的法则，物质的每一种变化都必须有一个外在的原因，亦即，物质保持静止或者在同一个方向或者以同一个速度保持运动，如果没有任何外在的原因使它改变它的方向和速度的话（IV第53-54页）。因此，这条原则认为，物质的变化不可能是内在的，或者物质没有任何内在的规定性的根据。康德论争说，这就意味着，物质本质上是无生命的。因为生命就是实体出自内在的原则而运动的能力，它改变它自身的力量。康德情怀激越地认为，自然科学的真正可能性就是建立在完全认识到惰性法则的这些蕴含的基础之上的，这条原则谴责物活论不过是“所有自然哲学的死亡”（der Tod aller Naturphilosophie）。
On the basis of all these arguments Kant concludes that the concept of an organism or a natural purpose has only a regulative status. To avoid some common misunderstandings, it is important to see precisely what this doctrine means. Except for the most radical version of vital materialism, Kant is not saying that this concept is only a fiction, as if it were false that there are organisms in nature. Rather, he is saying that this concept has only a problematic status. In other words, we have no evidence or reason to assume the existence or non-existence of organisms; while it is indeed possible that there are organisms or natural purposes, it is also possible that there are none at all and that they are really only complicated machines. It is important to see that, as a critical philosopher whose only goal is to determine the limits of our cognitive powers, Kant neither affirms nor denies the sui generis status of organisms, and he neither affirms nor denies the impossibility of mechanism. He states explicitly at §71 of the third Critique: ‘We are quite unable to prove that organized natural products cannot be produced through the mechanism of nature’ (V 388). When Kant denies the possibility of a complete mechanical explanation of organisms, when he famously proclaims that there will never be a Newton to explain the growth of a single blade of grass, he does so not because he thinks that organisms are extra-mechanical – for that too would be a dogmatic claim to knowledge – but because he thinks that it is a necessary limitation of the human understanding that we cannot fully understand an organism mechanically, and that we must resort to teleology to make them comprehensible.
在所有这些论证的基础之上，康德推断说，一个有机体的概念或者自然目的的概念仅仅具有调节性的身份。为了避免某些常见的误解，重要的是要看到这一学说的确切内涵是什么。除了生机唯物主义的某些最为激进的版本，康德不是说这个概念只是一个虚构，就好像自然中存在着有机体是错误的。相反，康德说的是，这一概念仅仅有一个颇成问题的身份。换言之，我们没有任何证据或者理由假定有机体的存在或者不存在；尽管事实上有可能存在着有机体或者自然的目的，但是也有可能它们根本不存在，或者它们实际上不过是极其复杂的机器。重要的是要看到，作为一个批判哲学家，康德的目标是确定我们的认识能力的限度，他既不想肯定也不想否定机械主义的不可能性。他在第三批判的第71节明申：“我们绝没有能力证明，有机的自然产物绝不可能通过自然的机械作用而产生出来。”（V第388页）如果说康德否定了对于有机体做完全机械解释的可能性，如果说他曾广为人知地声称过，从来不会有一个牛顿能够解释一根草茎的生长，那么，他之这样做，不是因为他认为有机体是超出机械作用之外的，因为这种看法也将成为对于知识的独断论的主张；而是因为他认为，我们不可能完全以机械主义的方式理解一个有机体，为了使有机体得以理解必须求助于目的论，这是人类知性的必要的限制。
REPLY TO KANT
回应康德
It was these Kantian arguments that posed such a challenge to Hegel and the whole generation of Naturphilosophen in the 1790s. To vindicate their organic concept of nature – to establish its constitutive validity – they would have to show the need to overcome Kant’s regulative restraints. How did Hegel and the Naturphilosophen respond to Kant’s arguments?
正是康德的这些论证对于黑格尔和1790年代的自然哲学家（Naturphilosophen）的一代人提出了那样一种挑战。为了维护他们的有机的自然概念——以便建立起它的构成性的有效性——他们将不得不指出有必要克服康德的调节性的限制。那么，黑格尔和自然哲学家又是如何回应康德的论证的呢？
Their first strategy was to distance themselves from traditional Christian teleology with all its indefensible metaphysical assumptions. They insisted that they did not wish to retain or revive the old extrinsic teleology, according to which the purposes of nature had been imposed upon it by God during the creation. This old teleology was essentially anthropocentric, holding that natural things were created by God to serve the purposes of human beings. God had created cork trees, for example, so that their bark could serve as stoppers in wine bottles. Hegel and the Naturphilosophen stressed that their teleology was completely intrinsic, limited to the ends observable within nature itself. According to their view, nature is an end in itself, and it has no higher purpose beyond itself.
他们的第一个策略是使他们自己和传统的基督教的目的论保持距离，因为后者带有全部无法捍卫的形而上学假定。他们认为，他们不想保留或者复兴古老的外在目的论，依照这种目的论，自然的目的是上帝在创造世界时加诸于世界之上的。这种古老的目的论本质上是人类中心论的，它认为，上帝创造自然的事物以用来服务于人类的诸种目的。例如，上帝创造了栓皮栎（cork trees），以便它们的树皮能够充当酒瓶的瓶塞。黑格尔和自然哲学家们强调说，他们的目的论完全是内在的，限定在可以在自然自身之中观察到的目的之内。依照他们的这种观点，自然自在地就是一个目的，它不需要在它自身之外拥有更高的目的。
While this strategy purges teleology of some questionable metaphysics, it still has little purchase against Kant’s main arguments. Although Kant sometimes wrote as if the concept of the objective purposiveness of nature inevitably led to a physico-theology (§75; V 398–9), the thrust of his arguments was directed against the concept of a natural purpose (Naturzweck), the idea that nature alone was self-generating and self-organizing. Hence his target was indeed the central doctrine of Hegel and the Naturphilosophen: an intrinsic teleology.
尽管这种策略清除了目的论中某些值得质疑的形而上学，但是它仍然不能确保与康德的主要论证相抗衡。尽管康德有时写起来似乎自然的客观合目的性这个概念不可避免地导致心理—目的论（physico-theology）（第75节；V的第398-389页），但是它的论证的要旨是直接针对自然目的的概念（Naturzweck）的，这个理念认为自然独自就是自我生成和自我组织的。因此，他的靶子实际上就是黑格尔和自然哲学家们的核心学说：内在目的论。
Limiting the question to the realm of nature itself, Hegel and the Naturphilosophen still counter that the concept of a natural purpose involves none of the other questionable assumptions Kant had attributed to it. First of all, Hegel insists that this concept does not involve intentionality, the attribution of will or self-conscious agency to a living thing. To state that a natural object serves a purpose is not to hold that there is some intention behind its creation, still less that there is some concealed intention within the object itself. Rather, all that it means is that the object serves a function, that it plays an essential role in the structure of the organism. Secondly, Hegel and the Naturphilosophen also contest that the idea of living matter entails that there is some kind of soul or spirit within matter itself, directing and organizing its growth. It is important to see that, like Kant, they were opposed to animism and vitalism, i.e. a doctrine that attributes some supernatural force or agency to organic growth. They too wanted to avoid the dilemma of materialism versus vitalism. While materialism was too reductivist, denying the sui generis structure of organisms, vitalism was too obscurantist, appealing to some occult force or supernatural agency.20
黑格尔和自然哲学家们把问题限制在自然领域自身之内，他们进一步反驳说，自然目的的概念不会牵涉任何康德将其归属于它的那些值得质疑的假定。首先，黑格尔认为，这个概念不牵涉意向性，把意志或者自我意识的动力归因于有生命物。说一个自然的客体服务于某个目的并不就是坚持在它的创造背后存在着某种意图，更不用说，在客体本身之中存在着某种被掩盖的意图。相反，它的全部蕴含是，客体服务于某种功能，这项功能在有机体的结构中起到某种本质的作用。其次，黑格尔和自然哲学家们还争辩说，活物质的理念势必主张，在物质自身之中存在着某种灵魂或者精神，它指导和组织它的生长。重要的是要看到，和康德一样，他们也和万物有灵论与生机论势不两立，这种学说把某种超自然的力量或者动因归之于有机生长。他们也想避免唯物主义和生机主义相对立这种困境。一方面，唯物主义太过于倾向还原论了，否认有机体的自我生成的结构；另一方面，生机主义太过于倾向蒙昧主义了，诉诸某种神秘的力量或者超自然的动因。20
All this makes it seem as if there is really no dispute after all. Kant is denying the attribution of purposiveness to objects in nature only in a very strong sense, one that implies the existence of intentionality or spiritual powers in nature, whereas Hegel and the Naturphilosophen are affirming it in a weaker sense, one that has no such implications. By denying that the idea of a natural purpose implies providence, intentionality or spiritual powers, some of the Naturphilosophen assumed they could bring the claims of teleology within the realm of experience itself. To them, it seemed possible to observe the self-generation and self-organization of a living thing. To understand their confidence about the empirical proof of organization, it is essential to consider the state of late eighteenth-century physiology.21
所有这些使得似乎实际上压根儿就不存在着什么争论。康德所否定的是在非常强的意义上把合目的性归因于自然客体，这种做法蕴含了意向性或者精神的力量在自然中的存在；而黑格尔和自然哲学家们在较弱的意义上肯定了这一点，这种做法没有那种蕴含。通过否定自然目的的理念蕴含着天意、意向性或者精神的力量，有些自然哲学家断定他们能够把目的论的主张带入经验自身的领域。对他们而言，对一个有生命物的自我生成和自我组织进行观察似乎是可能的。为了理解他们在有机构成的经验证明方面的信心，最根本的是要考察18世纪末期自然之学（physiology）的状况。21
By the late eighteenth century, the theory of preformation, which held that organisms were already preformed in the embryo, had been discredited because it could not account for some basic facts, such as hybrids and regeneration. J.F. Blumenbach and Caspar Wolff argued that they had strong empirical evidence for the theory of epigenesis, according to which an organism began from an inchoate mass and gradually organized itself. It seemed to be a datum of observation, therefore, that living matter organizes itself. Hence, in his famous dispute with Albrecht Haller, Wolff contended that his theory of epigenesis rested not upon the inference that what could not be observed (namely, a preformed embryo) did not exist but upon the simple observation of what did exist. Wolff held that he could simply see the structure of the embryo developing under the microscope, and those who denied its epigenesis were simply refusing to look through it.22 To those who align Kant with the cause of natural science, it is important to keep in mind that his regulative doctrine found little or no support among late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century physiologists. They treated organic concepts not as regulative fictions but as constitutive truths, which referred to active forces in nature.23 When Wolff and Blumenbach claimed to observe epigenesis they were simply expressing this crucial assumption.
到18世纪末期为止，预成论——这种理论认为，有机体在胚胎之中就已经预先形成了——已经丧失了名誉，因为它不能解释某些基本的事实，比如杂交和再生。J. F.布鲁姆巴赫和卡斯佩·沃尔夫论证说，他们有很强的经验证据支持渐成论，依照这种理论，有机体是从早期的团块开始生长，并逐渐自我组织起来的。因此，似乎有很多的观察数据可以证明，有生命的物质是自我组织的。由此，在他同阿尔布莱希特·哈勒之间进行争论时，沃尔夫争辩说，他的渐成论不是建立在这样一个推论的基础之上的，即不可观察的东西（也就是说，一个预成的胚胎）不可能存在，而是建立在对于实际存在着的事物的观察的基础之上的。沃尔夫认为，他只能在显微镜下才能观察发展中的胚胎的结构，而那些否认它的渐成的人只是简单地拒绝对它仔细检查。22对那些把康德和自然科学的原因联系在一起的人来说，重要的是要牢记，他的调节性学说在18世纪末期和19世纪早期的自然学家那里几乎或者根本找不到什么支持。他们不是把有机的概念看作调节性的虚构，而是把它当作构成性的真理，它指的是自然中的积极力量。23在沃尔夫和布鲁姆巴赫声称观察到预成的时候，他们只不过是表达这种至关重要的假设。
It is unlikely, however, that Kant would have been impressed by these appeals to observation and experiment. Hegel and the Naturphilosophen held that empirical evidence for both organic unity and self-organization is sufficient for the attribution of purposiveness to nature. But Kant denies this very point. He maintains that even if something in our experience shows both organic unity and self-organization, that still does not warrant the inference of the existence of natural purposes. Why not? Because, for all we know, the thing might still be acting strictly from mechanical causes. Again, Kant was quite explicit and emphatic about this point: ‘We are quite unable to prove that organized natural products cannot be produced through the mechanism of nature’ (§71; V 388). The attribution of purposes to nature implied that there is some other form of causality not strictly reducible to mechanism; but no amount of experience was sufficient to prove its existence. Ultimately, then, Kant was too much of a skeptic to be easily convinced by the empirical evidence in favor of organicism.
然而，绝无可能的是，康德曾经被这些对于观察和实验的求助所打动。黑格尔和自然哲学家们认为，支持有机统一和自我组织这两者的经验证据足以把合目的性归之于自然。但是康德否认的正是这一点。他坚持强调，即使我们经验中有某物既显示了有机统一，又显示了自我组织，那仍然不保证可以推论出自然目的的存在。为什么不能呢？因为，我们都知道，事物仍然有可能严格地出自机械的原因而行动。此外，康德对于这一点洞若观火，而且再三强调：“我们绝没有能力证明，有机的自然产物绝不可能通过自然的机械作用而产生出来”（第71节；V第388页）。把目的归之于自然蕴含着存在着绝对不可还原为机械论的某种形式的因果关系；但是再多的证据也不足以证明它的存在。那么，最终，康德太像一个怀疑论者，而不会轻易地被有利于有机体的经验证据所说服。
It is important to see, however, that Kant’s skepticism was not decisive. For it was not on the empirical plane that Hegel and the Naturphilosophen attempted to meet the Kantian challenge. The more important battle took place on the tougher terrain of epistemology.
然而，重要的是看到，康德的怀疑论不是决定性的。因为黑格尔和自然哲学家们不是在经验的层面上去试图迎接康德的挑战。更为重要的战斗发生在认识论这块更为粗糙的地面上。
IN DEFENSE OF NATURPHILOSOPHIE
为《自然哲学》辩护
Hegel’s concern to defend his organic worldview around 1800 made him turn toward Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Forming an alliance with Schelling suited Hegel’s own agenda, because Schelling had already defended an organic concept of nature in his 1798 tract On the World Soul. Although Hegel forged his own organic concept of nature independent of Schelling, he still had much to learn from his old friend from the Tübinger Stift. It was Schelling who was so well versed in all the latest developments of the natural sciences, and who had already formulated some of the technical arguments necessary to justify organicism. But, around 1800, Schelling was in urgent need of aid to defend his Naturphilosophie. He was on the verge of breaking his old alliance with Fichte, who had sharply criticized the possibility of a Naturphilosophie. Hence one of Hegel’s first acts as an ally of Schelling was to defend the necessity of a Naturphilosophie in his Differenzschrift.
在1800年左右黑格尔关心的是捍卫他的有机世界观，这使他求助于谢林的《自然哲学》。和谢林结成统一战线有利于黑格尔自己的事业，因为谢林在1798年的论文《论世界灵魂》中已经为有机的自然概念做了辩护。尽管黑格尔锻造了独立于谢林的他自己的有机的自然概念，但是从图宾根神学院开始他就从他的老朋友那里受益良多。对所有最近的自然科学的发展谙熟在心的是谢林，正是他已经形成了对于证明有机体来说必不可少的某些专门的论证。但是，在1800年前后，谢林急切需要有人帮助捍卫他的《自然哲学》。他正濒于与他的老盟友费希特割袍断义的边缘，费希特尖锐地批评《自然哲学》的可能性。因此，作为谢林的同盟，黑格尔最初的一个动作是在他的《差异论文》中捍卫《自然哲学》的必要性。
Hegel’s argument in behalf of Naturphilosophie in the Differenzschrift was essentially a defense of its organic concept of nature. His central thesis is that only the organic concept can overcome the persistent dualism between the subjective and objective that still vitiates Kant’s and Fichte’s idealism. According to Hegel, Kant and Fichte had not overcome the dualism of the Cartesian legacy but only reinstated it in new terms. Kant’s and Fichte’s idealism remained caught in a dualism between the transcendental and the empirical, the analogue of Descartes’s dualism between the res cogitans and res extensa. The Kantian transcendental ego is the source of the form of experience, while its empirical content remains simply given. If the form of experience arises from the active transcendental ego, which is beyond space and time, its content is simply given and passively received within space and time. Fichte had taken an important step toward overcoming Kant’s dualism, Hegel acknowledged, because he insisted upon a principle of subject–object identity, according to which the transcendental ego would create the entire content of its experience. Nevertheless, Fichte had still not succeeded in removing dualism, Hegel argued, because his principle of subject-object identity is only a goal, a regulative ideal, that the ego could forever approach, but never attain, in a process of infinite striving. The goal of subject–object identity contrasted sharply with the reality of a dualism between subject and object in ordinary experience. These dualisms can be overcome, Hegel maintains, only if we accept an organic concept of nature according to which the subjective and the objective are only different degrees of organization and development of a single living force. This means reinterpreting the principle of subject–object identity, so that it refers not to the activity of the knowing subject but to the living force within nature itself. This force is both subjective and objective since the realms of matter and self-consciousness are simply stages of its development.
黑格尔在《差异论文》中代表《自然哲学》的论证本质上是一种对于它的有机的自然概念的辩护。他的核心论题是，只有有机的概念才能克服长期以来盛行的主客之间的二元论，这种二元论会继续削弱康德和费希特的观念论的基础。依照黑格尔的观点，康德和费希特没有克服笛卡尔遗留下来的二元论，而不过是以新的术语重新申述了它。康德和费希特的观念论仍然深陷先验与经验的二元论的泥沼之中，而这是笛卡尔的思想的事物（res cogitans）和广延的事物（res extansa）的二元论的类似物。康德的先验自我是经验的形式的根源，而它的经验的内容却仍然是被给与的。一方面，经验的形式来自于主动的先验的自我，而先验自我又超越于时空之外；另一方面，它的内容只能是在时空之内被给与的和被动接受的。黑格尔承认，费希特已经迈出了朝向克服康德二元论的重要的一步，因为他坚持“主客同一”的原则。依照这个原则，先验自我会创造出它的经验的全部内容。尽管如此，费希特仍然没有成功地去除二元论。黑格尔论证说，因为他的主客同一的原则仅仅是一个目标，一个调节性的理想，在无限奋进的过程中，自我永远在接近，但却从来不能达到这个理想。主客同一的目标和日常经验中主客二元论的实在性尖锐对立。黑格尔坚决认为，只有我们接受了一个有机的自然概念。依据这个概念，主观和客观只是唯一的一个活生生的力量不同程度的组织和发展而已，这些二元论才能得到克服。这就意味着重新阐释主客同一的原则，以至于它不是指认识着的主体的行为，而是指自然自身中的活生生的力量。这种力量既是主观的，也是客观的，因为物质的领域和自我意识的领域只是它的发展历程中的不同阶段。
The dense and obscure argument of Hegel’s Differenzschrift gains much in purpose, meaning and cogency if we place it more in its original context. In his characteristically cumbrous prose Hegel was defending and elaborating an earlier argument of Schelling’s, which appears in its most compelling form in the introduction to his 1797 Ideas toward a Philosophy of Nature. The heart of Schelling’s argument is that only the organic concept of nature can resolve the outstanding aporia of transcendental philosophy. Schelling begins his argument with the basic question ‘What problems must a philosophy of nature resolve?’ It is striking that he answers by referring to the basic problem of transcendental philosophy: ‘How a world outside us, how nature, and with it experience, is possible?’ (Sämtliche Werke II, 15). Schelling makes it perfectly explicit, therefore, that Naturphilosophie has a transcendental task: its basic objective is to solve the problem of knowledge. The solution to this problem is especially difficult, Schelling explains, because all knowledge requires some form of correspondence or connection between the subjective and the objective, the ideal and the real, or the transcendental and the empirical. Such a connection or correspondence seems impossible, however, because these realms appear to be completely heterogeneous. To explain the possibility of knowledge, then, it is necessary to unite these realms, to forge a bridge between them. Schelling then argues at length that this problem cannot be resolved from conventional Kantian premises (II 16, 25–6). He contends that the orthodox Kantian distinction between the form and matter of experience simply reinstates the dualism that gave rise to the problem in the first place. The Kantians cannot bridge the gulf between these realms, because they make so sharp a distinction between the form and the matter of experience that they cannot explain how their interaction occurs. They simply state that the forms are imposed upon this matter, though they offer no explanation of how that is possible.
如果我们更多地把它放到它原本的语境之中，黑格尔在《差异论文》中浓缩而晦涩的论证在目标、意义和说服力等方面就会赢获更多。在这篇非常具有黑格尔特色的臃肿乏味的散文中，他捍卫并且阐发了谢林的早期的论证，那个论证以最为引人入胜的形式发表在他1797年《关于自然哲学的理念》的导论之中。谢林的论证的核心是，只有有机的自然概念才能解决先验哲学那触目惊心的困境（aporia）。谢林是从“自然哲学必须解决什么疑难”这一基本问题开始他的论证的。令人印象深刻的是，他通过提到先验哲学的基本疑难“一个在我们之外的世界，自然，以及与之一起的经验，是如何可能的？”（《全集》II，第15页）来作答。因此，谢林极为清晰地阐明了自然哲学有一个先验的任务：它的基本目标是解决知识的问题。谢林解释说，这个问题的答案尤其困难，因为所有知识都需要主体和客体、观念和实在或者先验和经验之间的某种形式的一致或关联。然而，这样一种联系或者一致似乎是不可能的，因为这些领域似乎是完全异质的。那么，为了解释知识的可能性，有必要把这些领域统一起来，以锻造一座它们之间的桥梁。于是，谢林详尽地论证了这个问题不可能从传统的康德的前提出发得到解决（II, 16页，25-26页）。他争辩说，在经验的形式和质料之间所做的正统的康德式的区分，只是重述了一开始就产生疑难的那个二元论。康德主义者不可能在这些领域之间的裂口上架设桥梁，因为他们在经验的形式和质料之间所造成的区别是如此强烈，以至于他们不可能解释它们的互动如何可能发生。他们仅仅是说，形式是强加给这个质料之上的，尽管他们不能解释这是如何可能的。
Schelling’s solution to the persistent Kantian dualisms is nothing less than his organic concept of nature. If nature is an organism, he argues, then it follows that there is no distinction in kind but only one of degree between the mental and the physical, the subjective and the objective, the ideal and the real. They are then simply different degrees of organization and development of a single living force, which is found everywhere within nature. These apparent opposites can then be viewed as interdependent. The mental is simply the highest degree of organization and development of the living powers of the body; and the body is only the lowest degree of organization and development of the living powers of the mind. According to the organic concept of nature, as Schelling puts it, ‘Nature should be visible spirit, and spirit [should be] invisible nature’ (II, 56).
谢林对长期存在的康德式二元论的解答无非是他的有机的自然概念。他论证说，如果自然是一个有机体，那么，就可以推断说，在心和物、主观和客观、观念与实在之间就不存在类的区别，而只是程度的区别。那么，它们就只是在自然之中随处可见的唯一的活生生的力量的不同程度的组织和发展。那么，这些表面上的对立就可以看作是相互依赖的。心只不过是身的活生生的力量最高程度的组织和发展；而身也只是心那活生生的力量的最低程度的组织与发展。正如谢林指出的，依据有机的自然概念，“自然应该是可见的精神，而精神（应该是）不可见的自然”（II，第66页）。
Schelling’s and Hegel’s response to the Kantian regulative constraints is that they undermine the fundamental aim of transcendental philosophy itself: to explain the possibility of knowledge. Since we need to overcome dualism to explain the possibility of knowledge, to grant only regulative status to the solution to that dualism means that we have no final explanation for the possibility of knowledge itself. We have no choice but to give the idea of an organism constitutive status; for only under the assumption that there is an organism is it possible to explain the actual interaction between the subjective and the objective, the ideal and the real, the noumenal and the phenomenal. To assign the concept a purely regulative status simply left the mystery of their actual interaction. Hence, for these reasons, Schelling and Hegel think that the concept of an organism had its own transcendental deduction: it is nothing less than a necessary condition of possible experience.
谢林和黑格尔对于康德的诸调节性限制的回应是，它们削弱了先验哲学自身的基本目标：解释知识的可能性。既然我们必需克服二元论以解释知识的可能性，那么，准许唯有调节性身份才是那种二元论的解答就意味着，我们没有给出知识自身可能性的最终解释。我们别无选择，只能赋予有机体的理念以构成性的身份；因为只有在假定存在着有机体的条件下，才有可能解释主观和客观、观念与实在、本体和现象之间的现实互动（actual interaction）。指派概念一个纯粹调节性的身份只会造成它们之间的现实互动的神秘性。因此，出于这些原因，谢林和黑格尔认为，有机体的概念有它自己的先验演绎：它无非就是可能经验的必要条件。
We will have to leave aside here the large question of the general merits of Schelling’s and Hegel’s argument. Clearly, the organic concept of nature is very bold and speculative, standing in much need of further argument. The only point to be stressed here is that it is question-begging to dismiss the organic concept of nature as an illegitimate metaphysics and to stress the need for philosophy to remain within the limits of epistemology. This was the old neo-Kantian criticism of Naturphilosophie, which still finds its defenders today.24 But the neo-Kantian criticism is dogmatic itself, for Schelling and Hegel are questioning its underlying premise: the selfsufficient status of epistemology, its power to solve its fundamental problem through its own resources. The heart of their argument is that the aporia of the critical philosophy are resolvable only by going beyond the Kantian limits and postulating the constitutive status of some of the ideas of reason.
在这里，我们不得不把谢林和黑格尔的论证的一般价值这个大问题放在一边。显然，有机的自然概念大胆自信而又富于思辨，亟需进一步论证。在这里唯一需要强调的是，它是一个循环论证，不去考虑有机的自然概念是一个不合法的形而上学，又强调需要哲学以保留在认识论的限度之内。这也是新康德主义对于自然哲学的陈年古久的批评，它至今都能找到它的辩护者。24但是新康德主义的批评自身是独断论，因为谢林和黑格尔已经质疑过它的奠基性的前提：认识论的自足的身份，它通过它自己的资源解决它的基本问题的能力。他们的论证的核心是，只需通过超越康德主义的界限和悬设某些理性的理念的构成性身份，批判哲学的困境（aporia）就可以解决。
MYTHS ABOUT NATURPHILOSOPHIE
关于《自然哲学》的神话
Hegel’s attempt to justify his organic worldview in the 1800s drove him into the realm of the empirical sciences. In his early Jena years Hegel would often lecture on Naturphilosophie, which was to be an integral part of his forthcoming system of philosophy. In an introduction we have no space for a detailed consideration of the doctrines and deductions of Hegel’s Naturphilosophie. All that we can do here is correct some common misconceptions.
黑格尔在1800年左右试图证成他的有机世界观，这驱迫他进入经验科学的领域。在他早期的耶拿岁月中，黑格尔常常讲述《自然哲学》，它将要成为他即将形成的哲学体系的一个固有部分。在一个导论中，我们没有留下篇幅详细考察黑格尔的《自然哲学》。我们在这里能够做的是订正某些常见的误解。
Hegel’s Naturphilosophie has often been dismissed as the worst aspect of his metaphysics. Rather than engaging in observation and experiment, it seems to indulge in a priori theorizing about nature and to force facts into a preconceived mould. As a result of this flawed method – so the objection goes – Hegel made some fantastic blunders: he opposed the theory of evolution; he disparaged Newton’s theory of motion in favor of Kepler’s; he retained Aristotle’s theory of the four elements; and he demonstrated the necessity of four planets around the sun. On these grounds, since the early nineteenth century, Hegel’s Naturphilosophie had been held up as a perfect example of how not to pursue the study of nature. Not surprisingly, therefore, some contemporary Hegel scholars avoid Hegel’s Naturphilosophie because it seems to doom his philosophy to obsolescence.25
人们常常认为黑格尔的《自然哲学》是他的形而上学中最糟糕的部分而不屑一提。它非但不从事观察与实验，而且似乎沉溺于一种关于自然的先天理论，强行把事实套进一个预先构想的模子。作为这种有着致命弱点的方法的结果——持异议者如是说——黑格尔犯下了很多梦幻般的错误；他反对进化的理论；他贬低牛顿的运动理论而青睐开普勒的理论；他顽固坚持亚里士多德的四因说；他证明了四颗星星绕着太阳运转的必然性等。基于这些理由，从19世纪上半叶以来，黑格尔的《自然哲学》已经被标举为如何不去追求自然的研究的完美范例。因此，毫不奇怪，某些当代的黑格尔学者有意避开《自然哲学》，因为它似乎注定会使得他的哲学成为明日黄花。25
There can be no question that Hegel did make some blunders, and that he was guilty of forcing facts into preconceived molds, contrary to his own methodological guidelines. Still, these points concern more the results and practice of Naturphilosophie than the enterprise itself. To avoid some crude neo-Kantian misconceptions about that enterprise, it is necessary to make a few points in Hegel’s behalf.
说黑格尔的确犯下很多错误，他涉嫌强行把事实套进一个预先构想的模子，这适和他自己的方法论准则南辕北辙，这可能没有什么问题。但是，这些事实关涉的与其说是《自然哲学》这项事业本身，不如说是它的结果和实践。为了避免对于这项事业的某些粗暴的新康德主义式误解，有必要站在黑格尔的立场做几点澄清。
First, Hegel never held that the conceptual method of Naturphilosophie should be a replacement for observation and experiment; he understood it as a method for organizing and systematizing the results of the empirical sciences, so that it presupposed their concrete results (EPW §§246, 250R). This does not mean that these results were to be developed according to the principles Hegel had already laid down in his Science of Logic; for Hegel insisted that each science develop according to the inherent logic of its subject matter, and that its principles should derive solely from this inherent logic. To apply presupposed principles from another discipline would be formalism, which he strongly condemned.
首先，黑格尔从来没有认为，《自然哲学》的概念方法应该取代观察与实验；他把它理解为将经验科学的结果组织化和系统化的方法，以至于它能够预设它们的具体结果（EPW第246节、第250节附释）。这并不意味着，这些结果是依照黑格尔在他的《逻辑学》中已经规定的那些原则发展出来的；因为黑格尔坚持认为，每一门科学之发展，都是依据它的主题的固有逻辑，它的原则只应该单独源出于这种固有逻辑。应用从另外一门学科中得来的预设的原则，就是形式主义，而这是他强烈谴责的。
Second, although Hegel insisted that Naturphilosophie, as the thinking consideration of nature, is distinct from observation and experiment, he never accepted any fundamental distinction in kind between philosophy and empirical science. Rather, he insisted that philosophical doctrines had to be true to experience and that they ultimately had to derive from it (EPW §§6, 7R, 38R). What made doctrines philosophical as opposed to empirical was only their formal structure, their organization or systematization (EPW §246R). In this regard it is important to note that Hegel, like Schelling, did not accept the Kantian distinction between a priori and a posteriori judgments, as if the former were the subject matter of metaphysics and the latter the concern of the empirical sciences.26 The distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori is not between distinct classes of judgments but depends entirely upon the state of our knowledge, on whether a judgment could be given a place in a system. If a judgment could have such a place it was a priori, because it could be demonstrated from other propositions; but if no such place could be provided, the judgment was a posteriori. Thus the neo-Kantian criticism that Naturphilosophie confuses the a priori concerns of metaphysics with the a posteriori results of the empirical sciences only begs the question.
其次，尽管黑格尔认为，《自然哲学》，作为对于自然的思想考察，不同于观察和实验，但是他从来没有接受哲学和科学在种类上存在根本的区别。相反，他认为，哲学学说必须忠实于经验，而且它们最终也必须来源于经验（EPW第6节，第7节附释，第8节附释）。使得某些学说成为与经验学说相对立的哲学学说的只是它们的形式结构，它们的组织或者系统化（EPW第246节附释）。在这方面，重要的是要注意到，黑格尔和谢林一样，并不接受在先天判断和后天判断之间做出的康德式区分，就好像前者是形而上学的题材，而后者是经验科学的关怀（concern）。26在先天和后天之间所作的区分并不是在判断的不同种类上做的区分，而是完全依赖于我们知识的状况，依赖于一个判断是否能够在一个体系中给与一个位置。如果判断能够有那样一个位置，它就是先天的，因为它能够从其他命题中得到证明；但是如果不能提供那样一个位置，那么，判断就是后天的。这样，新康德主义批评说，《自然哲学》混淆了形而上学的先天关怀和经验科学的后天结果，就只不过是循环论证。
Third, a crucial part of Hegel’s objection against mechanism, atomism and empiricism is that it presupposed a very crude metaphysics of its own (EPW §§38R, 98R, 270R). Its pretension to avoid metaphysics became a source of dogmatism because it failed to examine its own assumptions. Hegel insisted that metaphysical questions are inevitable in the natural sciences themselves, and that a properly critical methodology would acknowledge and discuss them rather than attempt to conceal them. Once again, the neoKantian critique of Hegel for introducing metaphysics into the natural sciences only begs the question.
复次，黑格尔对机械论、原子主义和经验主义所持异议的一个至关重要的部分是，它预设了一个关于它自己的非常粗糙的形而上学（EPW第38节附释，第98节附释，第270节附释）。它自负可以避免形而上学，却变成了独断论的源泉，因为它没有能力考察它自己的假设。黑格尔认为，在自然科学自身中形而上学是不可避免的，一个恰如其分的批判的方法论将会承认和讨论它们，而不是试图掩盖它们。再一次，新康德主义批评黑格尔把形而上学引入自然科学不过是循环论证。
