Real process Book

Hegel's Philosophy of Nature was for a long time regarded as an outdated historical curiosity. Yet if systematic completeness is given up, the value of Hegelian arguments and of Hegelian logic generally becomes uncertain. In this book, John Burbidge reveals the abiding significance of the Philosophy of Nature as the intermediate movement in Hegel's system. Burbidge looks at three specific texts in Hegel's work: the two chapters of the Science of Logic that deal with the concept of chemism, and the section on chemical process in the Philosophy of Nature. Through his detailed commentary, he clarifies Hegel's distinction between a strictly theoretical philosophy and one that understands the natural world. He shows that Hegel does not presume to derive natural data a priori, nor is he simply dependent on the explanatory theories arrived at by chemists themselves. Experience provides the data, but thought sets the parameters. Burbidge sets Hegel's thought in context with sketches of what Kant, Fichte, and Schelling had to say about chemistry, and with background outlining the stage chemistry had reached at the time Hegel was writing. He also reveals how Hegel changed his mind as he revised each section for succeeding editions of his work, thus providing a fascinating case study of the development of Hegel's ideas.