10.13135/2036-542X/8028
application/pdf
2036-542X
8028
1
en
Emilio Carlo Corriero
Trópos
Ethics and Ontology: 
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos
11
Monografica
2018-06-01
2023-08-08
2018-06-01
2023-08-08
5-8
1
Emilio Carlo Corriero
2018/06/01
10.13135/2036-542X/8028
5
Università di Torino
2036-542X
1
8
Ethics and Ontology: 
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos/article/download/8028/6751
11
                                                                                          – ISBN 978-88-255-1945-7
                                                                 DOI 10.4399/97888255194571 – pag. 5-8 (giugno 2018)




                                                             Ethics and Ontology
                             A View From a Contemporary Philosophy of Nature

                                                                      E C C*




From the s onwards within the analytical ambit, as Michael Esfeld
rightly observes, there has been a renewed interest in metaphysics under-
stood as a philosophical project that aims to pull all our knowledge together
into a coherent and comprehensive vision of the world (Esfeld ). In
this sense, we are witnessing the birth of a new philosophy of nature, that is
a renewed philosophical interest in nature, which we can also define as a
‘metaphysics of nature’ in that it aims to “propose a philosophical vision of
the whole of nature, based on the knowledge brought by science” (Esfeld
:), rather than reflect on the logical analysis of scientific theories (a
task belonging to epistemology) or on the conditions of the knowability
of nature in general (a wonderful example is the work of Rescher ).
By Esfeld’s own admission, such a conception of the philosophy of nature
depends exclusively on the natural sciences and in any case falls within the
branch of the philosophy of science.
    Of course, the philosophy of nature can only be linked to scientific knowl-
edge and its most recent results, but, as it is primarily philosophy, it requires
further reflection on its theoretical foundations, on the particular status
of the discipline as well as on the particular character of its object, nature.
Such an articulated reflection can contribute to restoring the philosophy
of nature’s centrality with respect to other philosophical disciplines and to
facilitating a philosophical vision of nature, whose examples are still rare.
    In the preface to the Italian edition of his Philosophies of Nature After
Schelling, Iain Hamilton Grant observes that a philosophy of nature becomes
contemporarily viable “once lazy readings of it as pro or ant science are
dismissed, and more nuanced and philosophical accounts of the materials
nature–philosophy draws on and the conclusions it reaches are provided”
(Grant :), and when nature is considered as the grounding of the entire
philosophy, as Schelling himself observes in his Einleitung in die Philosophie.
    ∗
        Università degli Studi di Torino; emilio.corriero@unito.it.


                                                                                                                  
     Emilio Carlo Corriero


    These days such a claim brings with it many questions about the le-
gitimacy of such a programme of philosophy of nature: how should it be
different from a philosophy of science, and what is its relation to epistemol-
ogy and the widespread philosophical “naturalism”? What is the meaning
of nature in this context and what is the very nature of nature? And, finally,
what is meant by the idea that nature should ground philosophy?
    An initial answer to these questions can come from direct consideration
of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, an author whose philosophy in recent years
— and I believe this is no coincidence — is experiencing a rebirth of interest,
especially in the English–speaking world (cf. Corriero, ). Compared
to the historical context of reference, Schelling’s Nature–Philosophy is cer-
tainly a unique example, as it is not limited to the unifying temptation
of knowledge in a determined and functional Weltanschauung, but also
reflects on transcendental ontology (to use one of Gabriel’s expressions,
), on the auto–epistemic character of nature (Hogrebe ) and on
the un–objectifiability of nature (Schelling ). Reflecting on the theo-
retical premises of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie can, in my opinion, also
contribute to the theoretical positioning of contemporary philosophy of
nature, and this probably constitutes the greatest theoretical legacy left by
the philosopher from Leonberg, together with his reflections on the system
of identity.
    The particular notion of nature that Schelling began to articulate from
s, which combines the Kantian concept of the “totality of all beings”
with the Greek one that sees the Phýsis as birth, origin that preserves the
beings in their becoming and as permanent productivity (Hadot ),
helps to determine a Naturphilosophie which presents itself as a dynamic
philosophy that, in order to think and ‘say’ nature in its progress, cannot
be separated from an identity concept of mind and nature. Without it,
the improper and apparently unavoidable objectification of nature could
not be circumvented. In fact, hiding is characteristic of nature (as Phýsis)
(Heraclitus). Not in the sense that it escapes from objectification, but rather
in the sense that that objectification, necessary for reflective and determining
knowledge, does not restore nature as the infinitely potential arché — that
is, as that which constantly produces and accompanies its products — but
only the beings (apparently) isolated from the original and permanent
becoming, which also commands and determines them, captured in the
Begriff, which describes and delimits them. But as Schelling observes, “the
concept of being as something original must simply be eliminated from the
philosophy of nature” (Schelling ). There cannot be a concept of this
becoming and all–pervasive origin that is nature itself: it cannot result from a
reflective knowledge of arché, it rather requires a new rationality and indeed
a philosophy (Naturphilosophie) that takes the subjective perspective of what
                                                        Ethics and Ontology    


it intends to investigate by recognizing that nature includes everything, even
the elusive Past “presupposed” to the “subject”, which participates in the
Subjectivity of nature, wanting to “express” it and therefore to continue its
becoming.
    From here one can comprehend how a philosophy of nature, which
accepts these premises, cannot be understood as a second philosophy, but
must be understood properly as meta–physics, as a first philosophy. However,
Naturphilosophie is not simply a “first philosophy” as it has being itself or
the existent in general as “object”, since it would thus present itself as
a form of Wissen (knowledge) that in knowing “determines” the object.
It is, for Schelling, the only form of philosophical reflection capable of
recognizing the subjectivity of nature (its Urständlichkeit, its full autonomy)
and of assuming it as a way of expression–explication of what exists and
becomes. There can be no determining knowledge (Wissen) of nature just
as there cannot be a knowledge of freedom: clearly we have, or grasp,
full and determined knowledge of nature as a free subject of the being in
general that includes everything (including the subject that would like to
‘philosophically’ talk about it). If this may seem at first to simply fall within
the sphere of the romantic Schwärmerei, a pathetic attempt to confuse the
waters that is sometimes typical of some continental philosophy, one cannot
help but consider how contemporary science itself has in fact radically
questioned the classical structure of rationality (Gargani ) and the
subject–object relationship, demanding new forms and new models.
    A philosophy of nature that presents itself at the same time as a meta-
physics of nature (bringing together the complexity of scientific knowledge)
and as a ‘transcendental’ reflection on the grounding of being in general
is capable of establishing a systematic vision of knowledge that presents
solutions in the ethical field too, in continuity, however, with the oldest
models of the philosophy of nature.
    A contemporary philosophy of nature intertwines with several philo-
sophical disciplines such as metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of mind, and,
of course, ethics, assuming that the crucial issue of any moral theory is
combining “the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an
objective view of that same world, the person and his viewpoint included”
(Nagel : ). In what way can a philosophy of nature provide an answer
to the fundamental questions of ethics without risking any form of reduc-
tionism? Is there room for freedom within a contemporary philosophy of
nature? And what would it entail?
      Emilio Carlo Corriero


References

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