Book contents
- True Purposes in Hegel’s Logic
- True Purposes in Hegel’s Logic
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Kant’s Antinomies of Freedom and Teleology
- Chapter 3 Kant’s Concept of Inner Purposiveness
- Chapter 4 Aristotle’s Defence of Natural Teleology
- Chapter 5 The Non-truth of Mechanism
- Chapter 6 The Non-truth of External Purposiveness
- Chapter 7 The Truth of Inner Purposiveness
- Chapter 8 The Immediate Actuality of Purposes
- Chapter 9 The Absolute Realised Purpose
- References
- Index
Chapter 4 - Aristotle’s Defence of Natural Teleology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2023
- True Purposes in Hegel’s Logic
- True Purposes in Hegel’s Logic
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Kant’s Antinomies of Freedom and Teleology
- Chapter 3 Kant’s Concept of Inner Purposiveness
- Chapter 4 Aristotle’s Defence of Natural Teleology
- Chapter 5 The Non-truth of Mechanism
- Chapter 6 The Non-truth of External Purposiveness
- Chapter 7 The Truth of Inner Purposiveness
- Chapter 8 The Immediate Actuality of Purposes
- Chapter 9 The Absolute Realised Purpose
- References
- Index
Summary
In this chapter, I present Aristotle’s arguments in his books on Physics defending the claim that there is purposiveness in nature independent of thinking, foresight and deliberation. Hegel’s arguments for objective purposiveness are correctly understood only in light of those of Aristotle. In fact, I argue that the sense in which teleology is for Hegel the truth of mechanism (and, ultimately, of causality) is the sense in which, for Aristotle, final causes are the cause of ‘that which comes to be by nature’ and the cause of other kinds of causes (matter, efficient causes and even form) being where they are and having the effects that they eventually have. The chapter revises Aristotle’s understanding of this connection.
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- True Purposes in Hegel's Logic , pp. 60 - 78Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023