THE FREEDOM OF LIFE:

AN INTRODUCTION
Thomas Khurana

For post-Kantian philosophy, “life” is a transitional concept

that relates the realm of nature to the realm of freedom. From
this vantage point, what is living seems to have the double char-
acter of being both already and not yet free: Compared with the
external necessity of dead nature, living beings already seem
to exhibit a basic type of spontaneity and normativity that on
the other hand still has to be superseded on the path to the
freedom and normativity of spirit. The origin of this constella-
tion is to be found in Kant’s discussion of natural purposes in
the third Critique; its most articulated shape, however, is devel-
oped in Hegel’s conception of life. To introduce the questions
that this volume discusses, I will briefly characterize the way
in which Kant opens up this conception of the living (I) and
outline the way in which Hegel develops this approach (II, III).
I will close with a brief outlook on the contributions collected
in this volume (IV).

I.

After two critiques that have developed accounts of under-

standing and of reason, that is, of our theoretical and practical
capacities for cognition, and of the correlative concepts of
nature and freedom, Kant goes on to write a third Critique,
devoted to the faculty of judgment, understood as an “interme-
diary” between reason and understanding. The way the first
two critiques have developed understanding and reason, there
seems to be a deep rift between the two realms that each of

11
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

them governs and between the correlative concepts of nature This analogous conception is, however, only partly ade-
and the concept of freedom. The faculty of judgment is char- quate as we understand natural purposes not only as orga-
acterized by Kant as being productive of a concept—the con- nized, but, more precisely, as self-organizing beings. We cannot
cept of the “purposiveness of nature” (KU 5:196)—that is able point to a representation of the concept of the being external
to mediate between these concepts of nature and freedom. Gen- to and preceding this being, as we can in the case of an artifact,
erally speaking, this concept mediates between nature and free- which is produced according to a design in the mind of its
dom by making it possible to conceive of nature in such a way creator. We do not know the living being to be organized from
that it can be thought how freedom might realize itself in without; it rather appears to us as organizing itself in the sense
nature. It helps us see how nature can be understood by us to that its parts “combine themselves into a whole by being recip-
expose a form of order that goes beyond the order of causal rocally the cause and effect of their form” (KU 5:373; translation
necessities.1 It is in grasping what Kant calls “organized beings” modified). If there is a concept that is the cause of the reality
or “natural purposes,” which are exemplified in living beings, of this being, it is not present as an external representation of
that we so conceive of nature. Living beings seem striking to us this concept, but rather immanently present in the way in
because their structure would appear as contingent to the high- which the parts of the organized being condition and consti-
est degree if we were only to judge them according to the tute one another.
“mechanism of nature.” The inherent order and necessity that This leads us to a conception of the living being in which it
they exhibit goes beyond what we are able to explain by means is the source of its own order: it is cause and effect of itself and
of laws of mechanical causality alone. Kant argues that we can in this sense subject to a form of organization that it itself brings
only get to know these entities (KU 5:383; 370; 389f.; 400) and forth. On Kant’s description the living being thereby constitutes
begin accounting for the “surplus of form”2 they exhibit if we itself in such a way that it is already susceptible to a normative
consider them under the concept of purposiveness: if we treat description. Due to its inner purposiveness the living being sug-
them as if there were an underlying concept which is the cause gests “that there is something that it ought to be” (EE 20:240).3
of the reality of this being. We make use of an analogy with our In bringing forth their own order, living beings not only exhibit
own intentional purposiveness to conceive of the inherent a de facto order, but manifest a sort of oughtness: it seems to us
necessity of living beings. that the living beings’ parts and operations do not just happen
to be instrumental, but “ought to have been suitable” for some-
1
The concept of purposiveness thus answers to the task that Kant describes in the thing (EE 20:240). The living being thereby seems to be subject
introduction of the Critique of Judgment: “Now although there is an incalculable gulf
fixed between the domain of the concept of nature, as the sensible, and the domain to evaluations qualifying to what degree its moments actually
of the concept of freedom, as the supersensible, so that from the former to the latter are suitable in this way and grasping to what extent an actual
(thus by means of the theoretical use of reason) no transition is possible, just as if there
were so many different worlds, the first of which can have no influence on the second: creature adequately lives up to itself, that is to say: to its species,
yet the latter should have an influence on the former, namely the concept of freedom
should make the end that is imposed by its laws real in the sensible world; and nature
3
must consequently also be able to be conceived in such a way that the lawfulness of On this basic form of normativity see also Hannah Ginsborg, “Kant on Aesthetic
its form is at least in agreement with the possibility of the ends that are to be realized and Biological Purposiveness,” in: A. Reath, B. Herman, and C. Korsgaard (eds.),
in it in accordance with the laws of freedom.” (KU 5:175f.) Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls, Cambridge: Cambridge University
2
See Jay M. Bernstein, “Judging Life,” Constellations 7 (2000), pp. 157–177, here p. 161. Press 1997, pp. 351ff.

12 13
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

or, in a more abstract expression: to the concept that is the cause autonomous in Kant’s own account: Firstly, the self-determina-
of its existence. In this manner, the living creature manifests a tion and normativity they manifest still falls short of the auton-
norm to which it is specifically subject. omy of practical reason that is founded in transcendental free-
Thus, we might say that organized living beings constitute dom and that is understood by Kant to abstract from any mate-
themselves and are in doing so, in a certain sense, laws unto them- rial determination whatsoever. Secondly, the self-determination
selves. Understood in these terms, living beings seem to exem- and normativity that we attribute to living beings is of such a
plify a basic form of autonomy or normative self-determination sort that we cannot attribute it to them determinately, but only
and hence seem akin to the type of freedom that Kant has in an indirect and problematic manner. On Kant’s account, we
famously made the centerpiece of his practical philosophy.4 Of are not equipped to directly grasp the form of self-organization
course, this does not mean that we can directly ascribe practi- peculiar to living beings: as we only have a discursive intellect
cal freedom to living beings. But, insofar as the order of the liv- we are forced to model living beings according to the inade-
ing gives us an idea of a natural form of self-determination and quate analogy of practical purposiveness. Our teleological
normativity, it seems possible that it might thereby at least judgments of natural processes hence fail to fully grasp their
allow for the mediation between concepts of nature and the peculiar form of self-organization and natural teleology and
concept of freedom. Schelling has made this possible role of attribute purposiveness to them only per analogiam and indi-
the concept of the living explicit by defining life as “autonomy rectly. Kant adumbrates the form of an intuitive understanding
in appearance”: “the schema of freedom insofar as it reveals for which the mechanism and purposiveness of nature would
itself in nature.”5 The living being appears as a natural presen- converge and that would seem to be able to positively know the
tation of freedom, thereby suggesting that freedom might be organization of the living, yet at the same time he denies that
realized in nature and hence answers to a major desideratum we are capable of possessing or attaining such an intuitive
in Kant’s account: “If I am to rule in the world of appearance understanding.
and to govern nature according to moral laws, the causality of As is well known, this was a source of deep frustration for
freedom has to reveal itself through physical causality.”6 On Kant’s successors who argued that Kant here denied us a type
Schelling’s account the causality of life is exactly such a physi- of knowledge the shape of which he had already outlined.
cal causality revelatory of freedom. Hegel expresses this sense of frustration when he points out
There are, however, severe limitations with regard to the that although Kant had rightly conceived of nature as subject-
extent to which living beings can actually be considered as object in his understanding of living beings, he has unfortu-
nately qualified this insight as a merely subjective conception.
4
See GMS 4:431ff., 439ff., 446ff.; KpV 5:28ff., 42ff.; see also the contributions in an Kant has formed the idea of an intuitive intellect that would
earlier volume of this series: Thomas Khurana and Christoph Menke (eds.), Paradoxien
der Autonomie: Freiheit und Gesetz I, Berlin: August Verlag 2011. seem to be able to objectively conceive of nature as subject-
5
See F. W. J. Schelling, “Neue Deduction des Naturrechts” (1796/97), in: Historisch- object, but had failed to raise this idea to reality (D 2:103f./163).
kritische Ausgabe, Reihe I: Werke, Bd. 3, ed. H. Buchner, W. G. Jacobs, A. Pieper,
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann Holzboog 1982, §9; my translation. See also Bruce Although Kant concedes that this idea is “absolutely necessary,”
Matthews, Schelling’s Organic Form of Philosophy: Life as the Schema of Freedom, New
York: SUNY Press 2011.
it remains “problematic” for us (GW 2:325/89). The attempt to
6
Schelling, “Neue Deduction,” §8. overcome this view of natural teleology and of the forms of

14 15
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

understanding adequate to it as merely problematic has been necessity to freedom” (EPG §381Z). However, he criticizes Kant
a chief motivation for German Idealism.7 (1) for the way in which he withholds from us any adequate
form of knowledge of the living and (2) for the way in which he
characterizes the remaining gap between living self-organiza-
II. tion and practical autonomy. (1) Concerning the knowability of
the living, Hegel rearticulates the concept of inner purposive-
Kant has marked the problem of overcoming the mere opposi- ness and the living in such a way that it loses its merely prob-
tion between our concepts of nature and the concept of freedom lematic character.9 “Natural” or “inner” purposiveness is not an
and has indicated that the natural purposiveness exemplified in incomprehensible structure, dependent on an analogical use
living beings can play a decisive role in this task. Their media- of a notion of intentional purposiveness. On the contrary,
tion, however, seems to remain incomplete and problematic: As “inner purposiveness” designates the more fundamental con-
the actual concept of practical freedom goes beyond the basic cept and the most complete form of purposiveness, required in
autonomy presented by living beings, there seems to remain a order to make sense of relations of finite purposiveness. Thus,
gap; and as even the basic autonomy attributed to living beings we do not understand natural purposiveness by modeling it
is ascribed to them only problematically, the true foundations according to forms of intentional purposiveness, but on the
for this mediation seem inaccessible. Kant points to the pre- contrary understand intentional purposiveness against the
carious status of this mediation by suggesting that the “unifying background of inner purposiveness. Intentional purposiveness
point” can only reside in “the supersensible” (KU 5:341) and appears as a finite form of purposiveness in so far as the end in
hence in something we cannot have positive knowledge of.8 this case remains external to the objects or sites in which it real-
Now, Hegel accepts the task of thinking the passage from izes itself, so that these objects can always be regarded as mere
nature to freedom and he agrees with Kant that our conception means to the realization of the end, and not themselves as its
of the living is central to understanding this very passage “from realization. Inner purposiveness, however, defines an end
which “does not pass over into something else, but preserves
7
See Eckart Förster, The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy: A Systematic Reconstruction, itself, in its operation” (EL §204A; translation modified; cf. also
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2012, pp. 230ff. Förster describes the WL 6:454/747f.). As aiming for an end means aiming for a con-
different ways in which Fichte, Schelling, Goethe and Hegel have launched attempts
to develop further Kant’s ideas of intellectual intuition and intuitive intellect and have crete universal, for the objective realization of a concept, the
tried to “raise them to reality.” For an overview of the course of the reconstruction see concept of an end comes to itself only in the concept of inner
Ibid., pp. 373ff.
8
See KU 5:422: “Our reason does not comprehend the possibility of a unification of purposiveness.
two entirely different kinds of causality, that of nature in its universal lawfulness and (2) But Hegel not only takes issue with Kant’s qualification
that of an idea that limits the latter to a particular form for which nature does not
contain any ground at all; it lies in the supersensible substrate of nature, about which of natural purposiveness as a merely problematic concept. He
we can determine nothing affirmative except that it is the being in itself of which we also questions the way in which Kant conceives of the gap
know merely the appearance.” Cf. KU 5:428: “We have also seen that even the unifi-
ability of the two ways of representing the possibility of nature may well lie in the between living self-constitution and practical self-determina-
supersensible principle of nature (outside of as well as inside us), since the represen-
tation of it according to final causes is only a subjective condition of the use of our
9
reason.” For more on this point see James Kreines’ essay in this volume, pp. 111ff.

16 17
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

tion and the way in which he links freedom to an abstraction works.11 Historically, it is striking that although the concept of
from or domination of living nature. If it is true that the free is, life seems to lose its prominence in the course of Hegel’s devel-
as Hegel argues in the Science of Logic, nothing other than “the opment from the earliest writings to the Phenomenology and to
concept in its existence” (WL 6:437/734) and if an end is pre- make room for the concept of spirit as the foundational concept
cisely “the concept itself in its existence,” (WL 6:438/735) it of his system,12 Hegel continues to employ the concept of life as
seems that natural purposiveness manifests at least a basic a crucial transitory concept and, what is more, speaks of the “life
form of freedom and that practical freedom can not be under- of spirit” and hence characterizes spirit itself as alive in a pecu-
stood as merely abstracting from or suppressing the order of liar sense. Systematically speaking, it is noteworthy that the
living purposiveness. Accordingly, Hegel indeed criticizes Kant notion of life plays a central role in all three parts of Hegel’s
for conceiving of autonomy one-sidedly as a domination of or mature system: in his logic, where he describes life as the imme-
abstraction from living nature, rather than as a “modification diate idea and hence as the first form of true unity of concept
of life.”10 That does not mean that Hegel describes the structure and reality, subject and object (WL 6:464ff./756ff.);13 in his phi-
of living self-organization and spiritual self-determination as losophy of nature, where he describes life as the highest point
simply identical or continuous and that he ascribes freedom in of nature (EN §§248, 350Z, 376Z), a point at which it becomes
the full sense already to natural life. It just means that the turn “practical” (D 2:109/168);14 and in his philosophy of spirit, which
that is needed to develop the self-determination of spirit can- characterizes spirit as both opposed to and at one with life (WL
not be understood in terms of abstraction or suppression, but 6:471/ 762; PhG 3:139ff./106ff., 199ff./157ff.; EPG §§379Z, 381Z).15
rather in terms of a reflective grasp and transformation of the
form of the living and the peculiar “freedom” it might already 11
For an overview of the different uses, see Annette Sell, “Leben,” in: P. Cobben,
P. Cruysberghs, P. Jonkers, and L. De Vos (eds.), Hegel-Lexikon, Darmstadt: Wissen-
possess or display. For Hegel, the structure of free spirit is in schaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006; for some details on different aspects of Hegel’s use
important ways won in and from life, even if it can only be see also two recent monographs: Songsuk Susan Hahn, Contradiction in Motion: Hegel’s
Organic Conception of Life and Value, Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2007; Christian
attained by superseding natural life. Spahn, Lebendiger Begriff – Begriffenes Leben. Zur Grundlegung der Philosophie des Orga-
nischen bei G. W. F. Hegel, Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann 2007.
12
On the “metaphysics of life” in Hegel’s earliest writings see e.g. Manfred Baum, Die
Entstehung der Hegelschen Dialektik, Bonn: Bouvier 1986, pp. 35–75; on the notion of life
III. in Hegel’s Jena period cf. Jean Hyppolite, “The Concept of Life and the Consciousness
of Life in the Jena Philosophy,” in: Studies on Marx and Hegel, ed. and trans. J. O’Neill,
New York: Harper & Row 1969, pp. 3–21.
13
Against this background, it does not come as a surprise that the On logical life see e.g. Klaus Düsing, “Die Idee des Lebens in Hegels Logik,” in: R.-P.
Horstmann and M. J. Petry (eds.), Hegels Philosophie der Natur, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta
concept of life plays an important role throughout Hegel’s 1986, pp. 276–289; Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, “Gehört das Leben in die Logik?,” in: H.
Schneider (ed.), Sich in Freiheit entlassen: Natur und Idee bei Hegel, Frankfurt am Main:
Lang 2004, pp. 157–188.
14
On Hegel’s conception of natural life see e.g. the contributions on the organic and
10
On this point in Hegel’s early writings see G 1:324/212: “Since the commands of duty the biological in: Cohen and Wartofsky (eds.), Hegel and the Sciences, Dordrecht: Reidel
presuppose a cleavage and since the domination of the concept declares itself in a 1984; Horstmann and Petry (eds.), Hegels Philosophie der Natur; Petry (ed.), Hegel und
‘thou shalt,’ that which is raised above this cleavage is by contrast an ‘is,’ a modification die Naturwissenschaften, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann Holzboog 1987, pp. 349ff.;
of life.” See also the Difference essay where Hegel criticizes Fichte for conceiving Hegel-Jahrbuch 2007 “Das Leben denken.”
15
natural right in terms of a domination and subjection of the living (D 2:87–88/148–149; On this double character of spiritual life see Frederick Neuhouser, “Life, Freedom,
for more on this see Karen Ng’s contribution in this volume, p. 40). and Social Pathology,” in: A. Honneth and G. Hindrichs (eds.), Freiheit: Stuttgarter

18 19
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

Against this background the contributions in this volume are The peculiar character of this living unity in all its different
not confined to a certain stage in Hegel’s development or a cer- aspects is marked by two crucial features: Firstly, the fact that
tain part of his system. They rather take recourse to the whole it is not arrived at by the mere subjection of one side to the
span of Hegel’s development and address all forms in which the other or the mere elimination of the respective difference (of
conception of life is developed—as logical life, natural life and concept and reality, subject and object, general and particular).
spiritual life. In revisiting these conceptions of life, the specific It is rather a unity that contains and depends on the difference
question they unfold is how to relate logical, natural and spir- of the two sides unified in it. To use a phrase from the System-
itual life to self-determination and freedom. For this question fragment 1800, life is not just unity, but rather the “union of
the passage from nature to freedom, from natural life to the life union and nonunion” (SF 1:422/312).17 Secondly, this type of neg-
of spirit is of special importance. But in order to understand this ative unity has a processual and self-constitutive character: it is
passage, it is of course equally important to understand the log- not simply given as a unity or indifference of the respective
ics of life and the structure of natural life in its own right. sides; it rather only exists as an activity or process whereby the
Throughout the different phases of Hegel’s works and across sides are differentiated and unified, unified in their difference
the different stages of its articulation, Hegel approaches life as and differentiated in their unity.
a specific type of unity. In distinction from an entity that is Hegel specifies three processes that articulate this living
opposed to or separated from its concept and in opposition to unity: the process of shape, the process of assimilation and the
an object unrelated to itself, life is the name of a unity of con- process of genus.18 These processes are outlined in the Science
cept and reality (WL 6:464ff./756ff.) and, more specifically, of of Logic and are described in a more detailed and concrete way
subject and object (WL 6:466ff./758ff.)—or, to put it in terms with regard to natural life in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature. While
more common to the field of the living: a unity of soul and body. the process of shape concerns the living individual and the way
If life is that which vanishes when soul and body, concept and in which its parts reciprocally condition and produce one
reality separate of themselves (WL 6:464/756), it seems that the another, the process of assimilation describes the relation of the
living consists in the attaining and sustaining of such a unity living being to its (inorganic) other and the way the living being
and in realizing a “concept in its existence.” This living unity of assimilates it. The process of genus finally concerns the way in
concept and reality, subject and object includes a specific which the living being relates to itself in its other: the way in
“organic unity” of the particular and the general (GW 2:326/90).16 which a living being relates to other living beings and repro-
duces its genus. These three processes can generally be under-
Hegel-Kongress 2011, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 2013; see also the recent special
issue of Critical Horizons 13 (2012) on “Nature in Sprit”; with regard to the general idea
that forms the background of this double character—the idea that “spirit has for us Kant: From Dichotomy to Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, ch. 2. Certainly,
nature for its presupposition” and is at the same time “the truth of nature” and itself “its one could add further pairs to the ones named above that, according to Hegel, are
absolute prius” (EPG §381)—see Michael Quante, “Die Natur: Setzung und Vorausset- brought into a new form of unity in life: cause and effect, means and ends, inner and
zung des Geistes,” in: B. Merker, G. Mohr, and M. Quante, Subjektivität und Anerken- outer are obvious further candidates of opposites that are unified in a specific way in
nung, Paderborn: mentis 2004, pp. 81–101. the sphere of the living.
16
This unity of the particular and the general is manifest in the reciprocal 17
Cf. also the Phenomenology where Hegel characterizes life as an “absolutely negative
determination of particular part and overarching whole, in the relation of living being or infinite unity” (PhG 3:140/107).
18
and life process, individual and genus. For more on the concept of “organic unity” see For more on these processes see the contributions in this volume by Haase,
Sally Sedgwick’s contribution in this volume, pp. 212ff.; see also her Hegel’s Critique of pp. 104ff., Khurana, pp. 174ff., and Kreines, pp. 136ff.

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 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

stood as processes of self-constitution whereby the living being Hegel, thus, neither remains content with merely opposing
constitutes, preserves and reproduces itself and ‘unifies’ its con- life and spirit, nor does he aim to simply reduce human free-
cept and reality, subject and object, particular and general. dom to the self-constitution of natural life. Becoming a spiritual
If freedom can be understood as a way of “being at one with being for which life exposes a first form of the structure of free-
oneself in the other,” as Hegel repeatedly proposes, it suggests dom does not just mean continuously unfolding a potential
itself to consider the living being as a possible candidate for a that living beings already possess, it requires a turn or step that
basic model of freedom.19 Insofar as the living animal consti- implies an essential transformation.21 In this transformation,
tutes, sustains and reproduces its unity by way of assimilating detachment or abstraction from the determinations of life
its environment and by reproducing itself (its species) in relat- regain their place. But neither that which performs this trans-
ing to an other, it seems suggestive to understand it as a being formation nor that which it results in can be described as sim-
that is at one with itself in the other. However, although Hegel ply foreign or indifferent to life. Spirit still has (or rather: leads)
points out that in animal life nature in fact reaches the level of a “life,” even if the sense in which it does is deeply different
subjectivity, he does not go so far as to qualify natural life as from the way a plant or an animal has (or rather: is) a life.22
free in the full sense. It seems crucial to Hegel that what is liv-
ing manifests a higher form of necessity than the lifeless (EPG
§381Z), but he explicitly insists that the “animal soul is still not IV.
free.” If we attend more closely to the processes of organic self-
constitution, it becomes apparent that the way in which what The contributions in this volume thus do not aim to reduce the
is living is at one with itself in the other remains insufficient freedom of spirit to living self-organization or to identify life
compared to the way the human will manages to be at one with and spirit, they rather aim to investigate Hegel’s multifaceted
itself in its other. In interesting ways, life does not have the fun- concept of life in its logical, natural and spiritual articulation
damental structure of freedom for itself, but only for us—“this and determine its complex relation to the problem of free self-
other life,” as Hegel says in the Phenomenology, that knows itself determination.
as life.20
esp. 193; on the figure of a life that knows itself as life and thereby becomes something
19
For the idea “that being at one with oneself is an ideal with its roots in animal life” other than life see also VA 13:112/1:80.
21
and that “human subjectivity emerges as a kind of reflexive complication of this kind It requires “development” not in the sense of a mere unfolding or a continuous
of organic, animal self-relation,” see Terry Pinkard, Hegel’s Naturalism: Mind, Nature, growth, but rather in the sense of a certain “labor against itself” (see VPGE 184/109;
and the Final Ends of Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, p. 58, 30; see also for some further thoughts on the opposition of natural growth and spiritual
Sebastian Rödl, “Das Erbe der Philosophen,” Philosophische Rundschau 54 (2007), development see Derrida, Glas, pp. 34ff.).
22
pp. 123–147, with the assessment that for Hegel the living is already “characterized by On the related issue of how to understand that, for Hegel, self-consciousness is
subjectivity and freedom” in a basic sense (p. 137); see also Derrida’s diagnosis that for defined by a transition from a merely consuming desire to the search for recognition,
Hegel the “liberation of freedom” happens for the first time in becoming alive: Jacques and yet is determined by Hegel as “desire itself [Begierde überhaupt]” (PhG 3:139/105)
Derrida, Glas, trans. J. P. Leavey, Jr. and R. Rand, Lincoln and London: University of see, e.g., Frederick Neuhouser, “Deducing Desire and Recognition in the Phenomenol-
Nebraska Press 1986, p. 25. ogy of Spirit,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 24 (1986), pp. 243-262; Robert Brandom,
20
See PhG 3:143/109; on the “self-application of life” in the Phenomenology see also Axel “The Structure of Desire and Recognition,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 33 (2007),
Honneth, “Von der Begierde zur Anerkennung,” in: K. Vieweg and W. Welsch (eds.), pp. 127–150; Robert Pippin, Hegel on Self-Consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenom-
Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2008, pp. 187–204, enology of Spirit, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press 2011, esp. ch. 1.

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 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

The first two contributions by Karen Ng and Matthias Haase of the mind. Where the first is unable to account for the actual-
both start from the logical concept of life and touch on the ity of mind, the latter is unable to account for its unity. Haase
notorious question in what sense the concept of “life” might argues that by Hegel’s lights we have to depart from the concept
have a rightful place in the science of logic as Hegel has of life in order to think both the actuality and unity, i.e.: the living
famously argued. Both address this question indirectly by first unity of mind. The relation of life and mind is usually thought
clarifying the relation of life and self-consciousness, life and in terms of an additive model: subjective spirit is taken to be
spirit. Karen Ng starts out from Hegel’s Jena writings in order based on life, but defined by adding another layer to the more
to show that the structure of speculative unity that underlies basic vital capacities (e.g. an additional ability of stepping back
Hegel’s conception of knowledge and truth is first defined as a from our natural impulses and strivings). Haase criticizes this
relation of life and self-consciousness: as the unity of object and additive model and takes Hegel to outline a transformative
subject (or, more precisely: as the unity of the objective and the model in which the step from animal to self-conscious life com-
subjective subject-object). What is living is understood by pletely transforms the sense in which it is alive and also reorga-
Hegel as an objective subject-object and hence as a figure that nizes the capacities self-conscious life seems to share with plant
Hegel accuses Kant and Fichte of failing to account for. Ng then and animal life. This transformative model brings us back to the
proceeds to the Phenomenology of Spirit to investigate further problem of logic as it requires a conception of concepts that
the way in which life serves as the first object of self-conscious- allows for one and the same concept—the concept of life—to
ness.23 She develops the way in which self-conscious spirit transform its sense through the different stages of its realization.
depends on this first object and manifests itself as both differ- As the first two contributions give us an idea about the fun-
ent from and at one with the living. On her account, it is pre- damental role of the notion of life in Hegel’s account of self-
cisely this double character of self-consciousness that consti- consciousness, spirit, and thought as such, the following con-
tutes its very negativity. In closing Ng returns to the Logic and tributions focus on the way in which the concept of life is
develops the way in which thought itself can be said to be thereby related to the problem of freedom and self-determina-
dependent on the form of life. tion. The contributions by James Kreines and myself start out
Matthias Haase retraces why, in order to articulate the struc- from certain parallels between figures of life and freedom.24
ture of mind, Hegel feels driven to start from the concept of life. While Kreines argues that it is methodologically helpful to
According to Haase’s reconstruction, to start with the concept attend to formal features of the debate on free will in order to
of life seems necessary to avoid a rationalist or empiricist theory understand the debate on natural teleology and life in Kant and
Hegel, my own contribution suggests that it might be useful to
23
For another formulation and different understanding of the thesis that “the first attend to the self-constitutive structure of the living in order to
object of self-consciousness is life” see Pippin, Hegel on Self-Consciousness, pp. 32ff.; for
the general thesis that on Hegel’s account life—and not dead matter—is the
paradigmatic object of cognition see Dina Emundts, Erkennen und Erfahren: Hegels 24
For some contemporary works on Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy that argue
Theorie der Wirklichkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 2012, pp. 323ff.; on the related that the topics of the living and of freedom might illuminate each other cf. Sebastian
notion that what is to be grasped by thought and thereby to be transformed into Rödl, Self-consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007, ch. 4; Robert
something known is the “factum of physical or spiritual […] vitality” see Jean-Luc Hanna, “Freedom, Teleology, and Rational Causation,” Kant Yearbook 1 (2009),
Nancy, The Restlessness of the Negative, trans. J. Smith and S. Miller, Minneapolis: pp. 99–142; Christine Korsgaard, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity,
University of Minnesota Press 2002, p. 33. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009; Pinkard, Hegel’s Naturalism.

24 25
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

make progress in understanding the structure of freedom as their having to be a representation of the concept external to
autonomy. and prior to the process of its realization.
By analyzing debates on free will James Kreines gains a two- My own contribution starts from the diagnosis of a wide-
dimensional matrix of positions. In contradistinction to the spread problem in the conception of freedom as autonomy—
common tendency to perceive these debates only according to the threat of a paradox of autonomy—and considers the ten-
one dimension differentiating between inflationary and defla- dency to turn to laws of the living as a possible remedy, which
tionary accounts concerning the nature of free will, Kreines gives us the right basic idea of an autonomous law. In order to
argues that it is important to acknowledge a second, orthogonal investigate the merits of this strategy I turn to Kant and sketch
dimension: optimism or pessimism concerning the question a structural analogy between living self-organization and prac-
whether we have free will. Where an inflationary optimist in fact tical self-determination that in fact seems helpful to grasp the
ascribes to us the challenging type of freedom he has specified, structure of autonomy. In a second step I consider Kant’s rea-
the inflationary pessimist who shares this challenging account sons for not drawing on this analogy and turn to Hegel who has
of the nature of freedom holds that we do not have such free- deepened the analogy in terms of a systematic interrelation of
dom (or: can never know we do). In this sense, Kant is charac- life and spirit. In order to outline the way in which life and spirit
terized by Kreines as an inflationary pessimist about freedom. are conceived of as both continuous and discontinuous by
Kreines transposes this formal structure to Kant’s conception Hegel, I investigate his concept of habit as “second nature.”
of natural teleology, in order to show that Kant is an inflation- The last pair of contributions—those of Catherine Malabou
ary pessimist in this regard, too. Kant argues for a strong con- and Sally Sedgwick—both discuss the becoming of freedom
cept of natural purpose, and at the same time doubts that we and hence concern the passage from natural life to spirit. Mala-
can ever positively know something to be a natural purpose. bou addresses this question by revisiting three interpretations
The main reason is this: “anything knowable by us can be a tele- of the master-slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Spirit and
ological system only if it is the product of a prior representa- by developing a critical perspective on them. This dialectic con-
tion,”25 and it distinguishes natural purposes from artifacts that cerns a process of liberation that essentially depends on the
they do not depend on such a prior representation of the whole. way in which self-consciousness detaches itself from or attaches
This reconstruction allows Kreines to clarify Hegel’s critical to bodily life. The three readings Malabou considers—Kojève’s
response to Kant’s conception of natural teleology. Hegel gives interpretation, Bataille’s reading as presented by Derrida, and
up on Kant’s pessimism, but not by formulating a totally defla- Foucault’s understanding as reconstructed by Butler—all
tionary account, but rather by modifying his inflationary reveal that the operations of attachment and detachment are
account. Describing the way in which living beings reproduce intertwined or complicit with each other. The attachment to
themselves, Hegel tries to show how we can objectively know bodily life that characterizes the slave is at the same time
of a concept that is the cause of that which it conceives without related to a subtle form of detachment that the slave is subject
to in the process of labor and formation. The detachment on
the other hand that is characteristic of the master and, in a dif-
25
See Kreines, in this volume, p. 123. ferent way, of his double, Bataille’s sovereign, can be character-

26 27
 Thomas Khurana The Freedom of Life

ized as implying an attachment to detachment. In this dialectic nalizing this split and by reproducing the coerciveness of
of attachment and detachment neither a complete separation abstract right in a new form. It is only at the level of ethical life
from bodily life nor a reduction to it seems sustainable. What that a form of the will is established that overcomes the dual-
Malabou finds problematic in all these readings is their diag- istic model of the will and that overcomes a structure in which
nosis that within Hegel’s system it remains impossible to think one side of the subject assumes the role of self-sufficient lord
a form of absolute detachment. Malabou closes by pointing to as the origin of law and the other side is restricted to mere obe-
a form of absolute detachment that is not to be found in the dience. In order to think the inner form of this ethical will,
context of the master-slave dialectic, but emerges later in the Sedgwick points out, we have to think of an inner unity of par-
characterization of the absolute and its “giving up.” This form ticular and general that formally corresponds to the unity of an
of absolute detachment is connected to a freedom beyond self- organism.
subjugation and related to a fundamental feature of the spir- The series of these contributions highlights a remarkable
itual that Malabou characterizes as its plasticity.26 double feature in Hegel’s thinking of the passage from life to
Finally, Sally Sedgwick examines the process of “Becoming spirit: On the one hand, the passage from natural life to free
Ethical” as described in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Even though self-consciousness, from natural to ethical will, from first to
Hegel on the one hand explicitly denies non-human animals second nature seem to imply a detachment from and a trans-
the capacity of becoming ethical and suggests the necessity of formation of natural life. However, the capacities actualized in
a certain abstraction from the determinations of our living this transformation and the structure we arrive at are at the
nature on our path to freedom, the ethical will can on the other same time characterized as indebted to the form of life. It is
hand only be explicated by recourse to the idea of unity of the only in and from life that free spirit emerges, and it is only by
particular and the general that Hegel had introduced as in turn gaining its very own form of spiritual life that it can
“organic.” By going through the tree parts of Hegel’s Philosophy maintain itself. Thus, the passage from life to spirit cannot be
of Right, Sedgwick traces how our will becomes ethical by com- properly understood as a mere subjection or overcoming of life.
ing to be exercised in such a way that it wills the universal in For spirit to exceed life means at the same time to return to a
the right way. At the level of abstract right, the particular will form of life in a different guise. If this characterizes the genesis
already wills on the basis of a feature it shares with other par- of spirit in general, it becomes clear why Hegel thinks that in
ticular wills, but takes no interest in the universal aspect of its spirit life appears both “as opposed to it” and “as posited as at
willing. It understands the idea of right that it takes recourse to one with it, this unity being reborn as the pure off-spring of
as implying an indifference to particularity and hence as being spirit” (WL 6:471/762). Understanding this double relation
abstract. At the level of morality, the external relation of par- defines the vanishing point of this volume in its attempt to over-
ticular will and abstract right is superseded, but only by inter- come the alternative of either opposing life and spirit or of
reducing one to the other. The task that Hegel defines for us is
26
“Plasticity” designates the capacity of both giving and receiving form and further to articulate the way in which spirit might be both indebted to
implies a radical negative capacity to annihilate form. For more on the role of this
concept in Hegel see Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality,
and excessive of, both opposed to and at one with natural life.
and Dialectic, trans. L. During, London and New York: Routledge 2005. How exactly to characterize the form of life and how precisely

28 29
 Thomas Khurana

to describe the opposition and the unity of natural life and

spirit, is, of course, a contested matter between the contributors.
As the different contributions emphasize both the unitary and
the negative character of life, they raise the question how
exactly to relate unity and negativity, completion and diremp-
tion in the concept of life. And as the contributions point to
different figures for describing the passage from life to spirit—
union of union and nonunion, a step up the ladder, a reflective
turn, a relative or absolute detachment, a completion of organic
unity—they pose the question how best to characterize the rela-
tion of life and spirit: is spirit best grasped as the “highest form
of life,” as “an overcoming of natural life,” as “both alive and
more than alive”? The purpose of this volume was not to defend
a unanimous answer to these questions, but to establish their
relevance and to re-open the debate upon them.27

27
This collection has arisen from a workshop on “Life and Autonomy in Hegel,”
hosted at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main in December
2010. I would like to thank the Exzellenzcluster “The Formation of Normative Orders”
for making this workshop possible and its participants for their comments and
critique. I should also like to thank Erick Jiménez for his excellent editorial assistance
in completing this collection.

30
THOMAS KHURANA (ED.)

THE FREEDOM OF LIFE

HEGELIAN PERSPECTIVES
Freiheit und Gesetz III

With contributions by Matthias Haase, Thomas Khurana,

James Kreines, Catherine Malabou, Karen Ng, Sally Sedgwick

August Verlag
The book series “Freiheit und Gesetz” is dedicated to an idea that lies at the
foundation of modern practical philosophy: the notion that being free and being CONTENTS
obligated by norms (“the law”) do not stand in opposition to one another but
instead bear on each other in an essential relation. This is the very idea of
autonomy: laws are binding only to the extent that we have given them to
ourselves. The series is devoted to the critical examination of this concept. It
Abbreviations 7
investigates the complexities and tensions presented by the idea of autonomy,
the conditions upon which it is based, and the possible consequences of its
political, juridical, and social realization.
The Freedom of Life: An Introduction 11
Thomas Khurana

Life, Self-Consciousness, Negativity:

Understanding Hegel’s Speculative Identity Thesis 33
Karen Ng

Life and Mind 69

Matthias Haase

Kant and Hegel on Teleology and Life

from the Perspective of Debates about Free Will 111
James Kreines

Life and Autonomy:

Forms of Self-Determination in Kant and Hegel 155
Thomas Khurana

Negativity, Life, and the Body:

Some Reflections on Hegel’s “Lordship and Bondage” 195
Catherine Malabou

On Becoming Ethical:
The Emergence of Freedom in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 209
Sally Sedgwick
This volume was developed in the context of the Research Cluster The
Formation of Normative Orders and is published with the support of funds
made available to the Cluster by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Notes on the Contributors 229
ABBREVIATIONS

Works by Hegel

All references to Hegel’s writings in this volume will use the abbreviations listed below.
The abbreviations will be followed first by the page or section number of a German
edition (in most cases the Theorie-Werkausgabe edited by Eva Moldenhauer und Karl
Markus Michel) and secondly, if it differs, by the page or section number of an English
translation. The authors in this volume have sometimes altered the cited English
translations where they regarded it necessary. The referenced texts and editions are
the following:

D: Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie, in: G. W. F.

Hegel, Jenaer Schriften 1801–1807, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, vol. 2, ed. E. Mold-
enhauer and K. M. Michel, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970 (cited by vol-
ume and page number) / The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System
of Philosophy, trans., ed. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf, Albany: SUNY Press 1977
(cited by page number).

EL: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830): Erster Teil.

Die Wissenschaft der Logik mit den mündlichen Zusätzen, vol. 8 of Werke in zwan-
zig Bänden / The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosoph-
ical Sciences with the Zusätze, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Har-
ris, Indianapolis: Hackett 1991 (cited by section number).

EN: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830): Zweiter Teil.

Die Naturphilosophie mit den mündlichen Zusätzen, vol. 9 of Werke in zwanzig
Bänden / Philosophy of Nature: Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical
Sciences (1830), trans. A. V. Miller, with foreword by J. N. Findlay, Oxford:
Oxford University Press 1970 (cited by section number).

EPG: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830): Dritter Teil.

Die Philosophie des Geistes mit den mündlichen Zusätzen, vol. 10 of Werke in zwan-
zig Bänden / Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind: Translated from the 1830 Edition, together
with the Zusätze, trans. W. Wallace and A. V. Miller, rev. M. J. Inwood, Oxford:
Oxford University Press 2007 (cited by section number).

G: Geist des Christentums und sein Schicksal, in: vol. 1 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited
by volume and page number) / The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate, in: Early Theo-
logical Writings, trans. T. M. Knox, with an introduction, and fragments trans.
Richard Kroner, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1948 (cited by page number).

GW: Glauben und Wissen, in: vol. 2 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited by volume and
page number) / Faith and Knowledge, trans., ed. Walter Cerf and H.S. Harris,
Albany: SUNY Press 1977 (cited by page number).

PhG: Phänomenologie des Geistes, vol. 3 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited by volume
and page number) / Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, with foreword
by J. N. Findlay, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977 (cited by page number).

7
 Abbreviations Abbreviations

PP: Texte zur philosophischen Propädeutik, in: vol. 4 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited Works by Aristotle
by volume and page number) / The Philosophical Propaedeutic, ed. M. George and
A. Vincent, trans. A. V. Miller, Oxford: Blackwell 1986 (cited by page number). DA: De Anima, Books II and III, trans. D. W. Hamlyn, Oxford: Oxford University
Press 1993.
PR: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im
Grundrisse. Mit Hegels eigenhändigen Notizen und den mündlichen Zusätzen, vol.
7 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden / Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. A. W. Works by Kant
Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991 (cited
by section number). EE: Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft, in: Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, ed.
Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 20, ed. Gerhard Lehmann, Ber-
SF: “Systemfragment von 1800,” in: vol. 1 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited by vol- lin: de Gruyter 1942 / First Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment,
ume and page number) / “Fragment of a System,” in: Early Theological Writings, in: I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews,
trans. T. M. Knox, with an introduction, and fragments trans. Richard Kroner, ed. P. Guyer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000 (cited by volume
Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1948 (cited by page number). and page number of the German edition).

VA: Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik, vols. 13–15 of Werke in 20 Bänden (cited by volume GMS: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, in: vol. 4 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften /
and page number) / Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox, Oxford: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans., ed. M. Gregor, Cambridge: Cam-
Clarendon Press 1975, 3 vols. (cited by volume and page number). bridge University Press 1997 (cited by volume and page number of the German
edition).
VGP: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 18–20 of Werke in zwanzig
Bänden (cited by volume and page number) / Lectures on the History of Philoso- KpV: Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, in: vol. 5 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften / Critique
phy, trans. E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson, Lincoln: University of Nebraska of Practical Reason, trans., ed. M. Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1995, 3 vols. (cited by volume and page number). Press 1997 (cited by volume and page number of the German edition).

VL: Vorlesungen über die Logik (Berlin 1831), nachgeschrieben von Karl Hegel, ed. U. KrV: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in: vol. 3 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften / Critique of Pure
Rameil and H.-Ch. Lucas, vol. 10 of Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Reason, trans., ed. P. Guyer and A. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Manuskripte, Hamburg: Meiner 2001 (cited by page number). Press 1998 (cited according to the pagination of the first two editions, A (1781)
and B (1787)).
VPG: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (Berlin 1822/1823), ed. K.-H.
Ilting, K. Brehmer and H. N. Seelman, in: vol. 12 of Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte KU: Kritik der Urteilskraft, in: vol. 5 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften / Critique of the
Nachschriften und Manuskripte, Hamburg: Meiner 1996 (cited by page number) Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews, ed. P. Guyer, Cambridge:
/ Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vol. 1: Manuscripts of the Introduc- Cambridge University Press 2000 (cited by volume and page number of the
tion and the Lectures of 1822–1823, eds. and trans. R. F. Brown and P. C. Hodgson, German edition).
Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011 (cited by page number).

VPGE: Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. Einleitung 1830/31, in: vol. 18 of Gesammelte Werke,
ed. Walter Jaeschke, Hamburg: Meiner 1995 (cited by page number) / Introduc-
tion 1830–1, in: Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, vol. 1: Manuscripts of
the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822–1823, eds. and trans. R. F. Brown and P.
C. Hodgson, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011 (cited by page number).

VPR: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 16–17 of Werke in zwanzig
Bänden (cited by volume and page number) / Lectures on the Philosophy of Reli-
gion, trans. Rev. E. B. Speirs, B. D. and J. Burdon Sanderson, New York: Human-
ities Press 1895, 3 vols. (cited by volume and page number).

WL: Wissenschaft der Logik, vols. 5–6 of Werke in zwanzig Bänden (cited by volume
and page number) / Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller, Amherst: Humanity
Books 1969 (cited by page number).

8 9