The volume provides a comprehensive exploration and analysis of the relevance of naturalism (and theories of nature) to Classical German Philosophy. It presents new readings from 12 internationally renowned scholars on Kant, Jacobi, Goethe, the Romantic tradition, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx, which highlight the relevance of Classical German Philosophy’s considerations of nature and naturalism for contemporary concerns.

The collection features contributions by  James R. O’Shea, Brigit Sandkaulen, Elizabeth Millán Brusslan, Dalia Nassar, Daniel Breazeale, Philipp Schwab, John Zammito, Johannes-Georg Schülein, Luca Illetterati, Robert B. Pippin, Luca Corti, Thomas Khurana.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Nature and Naturalism: The Relevance of Classical German Philosophy, Luca Corti and Johannes-Georg Schülein

1. Kant’s Regulative Naturalism, James R. O’Shea

2. The Concept of Life in Classical German Philosophy: A Question of Nature or the Lifeworld?, Brigit Sandkaulen

3. Nature and Freedom in Schlegel and Alexander von Humboldt, Elizabeth Millán Brusslan

4. The Challenge of Plants: Goethe, Humboldt, and the Question of Life, Dalia Nassar

5. Beyond Nature? The Place of the Natural World in J.G. Fichte’s Early Wissenschaftslehre, Daniel Breazeale

6. The Fichte-Schelling Debate, or: Six Models for Relating Subjectivity and Nature, Philipp Schwab

7. Schelling and Von der Weltseele, John Zammito

8. The Freedom of Matter: Self-Constitution in Schelling’s ‘Physical Explanation of Idealism’, Johannes-Georg Schülein

9. Beyond a Naturalistic Conception of Nature: Nature and Life in Hegel’s Early Writings, Luca Illetterati

10. The Phenomenology and the Logic of Life: Heidegger and Hegel, Robert B. Pippin

11. The Logical Form of a Living Organism: Hegel, Naturalism, and Biological Autonomy, Luca Corti

12. Genus-Being: On Marx’s Dialectical Naturalism, Thomas Khurana