Abstract:
This essay argues for a common model to conceive of living organisms, shared by romantics, Hegel and Hans Jonas which is claimed to provide environmental ethics with new fruitful insights. It is the model of a self-organized natural being, whose members exist by virtue of the whole, in which spirit manifests itself. To demonstrate this, I will first focus on the features of the living organism developed by some romantic philosophers and scientists at the beginning of the 19th century in Jena, arguing for the relevance and legacy of Kant’s teleological view of organised natural beings (1.); I will then deal with Hegel’s theory of the organism (2.) and Jonas’ philosophical biology (3.), identifying in them the same features and ideas previously highlighted. While doing this, I will underline aspects that provide important insights in environmental ethics.
Keywords: Nature, life, organism, Romantics, Hegel, Jonas, environmental ethics.
The essay is available at this link: https://www.phil-responsibility.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/11-Battistoni_Wege-in-die-Zukunft_OK.pdf
Publisher’s website: https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/68239
