The question of nature and its relation to the empirical sciences in Goethe, Hegel, and Humboldt

Resumo

In this essay, I consider the question of nature in Hegel’s thought and place his work into dialogue with the work of Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt. Goethe, Hegel, and Humboldt were each addressing the question of nature and its relation to the sciences. None of these thinkers believed that nature was whatever the natural sciences said it was. Yet, Hegel was a philosopher, and his view of nature grew from philosophy not empirical science: philosophy was the truth of the natural sciences. Hegel works with a hierarchy that places philosophy and the truths it can reveal above the natural sciences. This hierarchy is not present in the work of Humboldt and Goethe.