AUTONOMY – From Biological to Cognitive Autonomy: An Enactive Approach to Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
The project at a glance
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Start date:01 Sep 2024
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Duration in months:36
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Funding:Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR)
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Principal Investigator(s):Dietmar HEIDEMANN
About
The project proposes a contemporary interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy of subjective spirit, which in present-day parlance could be defined as his philosophy of mind. The cornerstone of this interpretation is the notion of ‘autonomy.’ From a Kantian perspective, widely shared in contemporary philosophical circles, autonomy is understood as a feature restricted to human agency. Hegel attempted to naturalize autonomy by emphasizing the intrinsically purposive, or ‘agential,’ nature of living organisms. Along these lines, AUTONOMY develops a consistent philosophical alternative to the two forms of ‘naturalism’ that currently dominate our philosophical landscape: ‘scientific’ and ‘liberal’ naturalism. Scientific naturalism holds that human agency can ultimately be reduced to a mechanical product of the ‘realm of laws’ conveyed by the natural sciences; liberal naturalism contends that it is the product of the ‘space of reasons’ that is unique to the human sphere, which is per se irreducible to the mechanistic picture provided by the natural sciences. AUTONOMY attempts to reconcile the scientific accountability of human mindedness with its irreducibility to mechanistic accounts. This is achieved by arguing that mental life is grounded on biological agency, but constitutes at the same time an autonomous realm that is partially independent from it. While the central elements of this idea are part and parcel of many approaches to complex adaptive systems, they are largely overlooked in mainstream philosophical circles.
Organisation and Partners
- Department of Humanities
- Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE)
- Institute of Philosophy
Project team
- Dietmar HEIDEMANN, PI
- Andrea GAMBAROTTO, Project member
- Luca Illetterati, Project member, University of Padua (external)
- Matteo Mossio, Project member, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), Paris (external)
- Carl B. Sachs, Project member, Marymount University (external)