Nature, matter and consciousness in Hegel's philosophy of spirit

Abstract

In this contribution we would like to sketch and discuss some typical themes of Hegelian thought developed in the Jena works. The principal aim of our enquiry is to individuate the relation between subjectivity and the external reality, the latter conceived as a natural world or as a complex of cultural forms generated by the spirit or transmitted in an ethos. The scope of the essay is, on one side, to reflect on the positive and real consistence of the material determi nation, in an effort to avoid the consideration of the matter as a pure “limit” of the thought, and on the other side, to outline Hegel’s philosophy of the activity of the Spirit, in its original forms, dynamic and inner creativity, as elaborated in Hegel’s Jena works.