Force and Power in Hegel’s Anthropology

Rand, Sebastian

doi:10.5840/owl202482747

The Owl of Minerva

Volume 54, Issue 1/2, 2023

Discussion of Hegel’s Anthropology: Life, Psyche, and Second Nature, by Allegra De Laurentiis

Sebastian Rand

Pages 69-93

https://doi.org/10.5840/owl202482747

Force and Power in Hegel’s Anthropology

This essay challenges Allegra de Laurentiis’s characterization of Hegel’s philosophy of nature as involving a polar, oppositional force-metaphysics. I begin by showing the centrality of such a force-metaphysics to de Laurentiis’s interpretation, and I go on to argue that Hegel thoroughly rejects force-metaphysics. I then consider some possible difficulties for my argument, including Hegel’s elaboration of attraction and repulsion, before turning to his distinction between “force [Kraft]” and “power [Macht].” I argue that the concept of power captures what Hegel endorses in force-metaphysics, and that power is central to Hegel’s view of both spirit and nature. I conclude by suggesting that we best understand the Anthropology not as resolving a tension between natural polarity and ensouled unity, but as continuing a process of elaborating and extending a form of unity shared by both nature and spirit.

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