Second Nature and Recognition more

Italo Testa (University of Parma) Second Nature and Recognition. Hegel and the social space 1 (Draft, published in "Critical Horizons", Vol 10, No 3 (2009), pp. 341-370) 1. Introduction: the background of the question Aim of this paper is to bring into focus the notions of second nature and recognition (Anerkennung) in their reciprocal connection, both historically and theoretically. Let me begin, then, by outlining some premises for the discourse I wish to develop here. 1.1 Recognition revisited A general objective of my study consists in elaborating a renewed vision of the theory of Anerkennung by broaching a distinction between two levels of recognition. 1.1.1 A problem in the theory of recognition The broaching of this distinction is justified by the need to solve a problem that emerges in the theory of recognition, which we can illustrate by clarifying two sides of a dilemma connected with it: 1 Previous drafts and parts of this paper were presented at the 14th International Colloquium Evian, “What is Second Nature? - Reason, History, Institutions” (July 13-19, 2008) and at the Joint International Conference of the Society for European Philosophy and of the Forum For Europe an Philosophy, University of Sussex (September 8-10, 2007). I would like to thank all the participants for their helpful comments. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for his/her very valuable and helpful comments on the paper. 1 - Circularity: recognition appears to presuppose itself. A version of this problem is the one originally noted by Fichte and later reproposed by Dieter Henrich 2, for which if reflexive self-consciousness constitutes itself through the process of recognition then to recognize reflexively I must already have a pre-reflexive familiarity with myself. 3 Thus the recognitive theory of self-consciousness, to avoid falling into a vicious circle, apparently ought to renounce explanation of the self-referential structure of selfconsciousness and admit the primitivity of a notion of subjective self -reference of a pre-reflexive type. 4 - The insufficiency of constructivism: the constructivist models of recognition assume that recognition be a question of attribution, such that the status of what is recognized depends for its being so on the attitudes of the attributor who recognizes this status. If the theory of recognition has to explain the structure of selfconsciousness, then it turns out that the property of being self -conscious is itself a status that depends for its existence on the fact of being recognized through attribution. 5 But a pragmatics of recognition resolved in terms of reciprocal attributions of status is faced with the problem that the act of attributing seems to presuppose the capacity of performing acts of attribution in he who performs it. Such a capacity cannot, in its turn, simply be the product of an attribution but must in 2 3 See Henrich 1970 and 1989. The German word Reflexion indicates in Hegel the logical structure of self-reference. The term is applied by Hegel to natural processes that for an external observer exhibit a form of self-reference; at a higher level it is applied to consciousness, understood as immediate Reflexion (see Enz. § 413), a form of selfreference accompanied in itself by some type of awareness of objects; and to self-consciousness, understood as gedoppelte Reflexion (see PhdG.: 108), a form of self-reference accompanied for itself by self-awareness: hence as Reflexion that makes itself explicit. However, when we speak in our text of „pre-reflexive familiarity‟ and „reflexive self-consciousness‟ we are using the English term „reflexive‟ in a different sense from Hegel's use of the word Reflexion and its adjective reflektiert, indicating with „prereflexive‟ a form of self-reference that functions spontaneously without being accompanied by selfawareness, and with „reflexive‟ a form of self-reference that is accompanied by self-awareness. Note that for Hegel both these forms of experience exhibit at different levels the logical structure of what he calls Reflexion, a term best expressed in English by the noun „reflection‟ and its adjective „reflective.‟ 4 See Frank 1993. 5 See Pippin 2000. 2 some way pre-exist as a property of the individual who exercises it, otherwise this individual would never be capable of beginning and performing even the slightest act of attribution. If, then again, this presupposed capacity were identical with the fully developed capacity of performing acts of recognitive attribution - understood as that through which self-conscious knowing constitutes itself - then the theory of recognition would explain nothing, because it would end up presupposing that which it ought to explain. 1.1.2 Proposal for a theoretical solution of the problem One way of getting out of this impasse, responding to the problem of circularity without, however, falling into a subjectivist theory, consists in my view in admitting the existence of two levels of recognition - a proposition that can also be justified empirically 6: namely, an intrinsically pre-reflexive level, connected with natural functions of identification, and a spiritual level that develops in the process of formation (Bildung) through which the natural functions are reshaped as second-order capacities. This second-order level can become reflexive, despite its necessarily being connected for its functioning to the pursuit of a pre-reflexive form of habitual automatism. Thus the fact that the reflexive recognition of self-consciousness presupposes a primitive form of pre-reflexivity does not mean that we have to abandon the theory of recognition in favor of a subjectively oriented theory , since such a capacity of pre-reflexive self-reference can in its turn be explained in terms of pre-reflexive recognitive capacities that are activated in the natural interaction between living beings. 1.1.3 Historical justification and hermeneutical advantages of the theoretical model 6 See Testa 2001 and 2005. 3 This theoretical model for a solution to the problem of the theory of recognition also enjoys historical support. In my view it can in fact be shown that in Hegel's prephenomenological writings a distinction is at work between two levels of recognition „natural recognition‟ and „spiritual recognition‟ - that operate according to the logic we have illustrated with reference to our theoretical model. 7 In light of this interpretation of the Jena writings it is possible, then, also to propose an unprecedented reading of the theory of „Self-consciousness‟ in the Phenomenology. In the transition from Begierde - understood as appetite or instinctive desire (see Enz. § 426) - to perfected self-consciousness, in fact, Hegel appears to presuppose a theoretical acquisition of his previous writings, setting out with a new language the - ever problematic process of integration between the two levels of recognition. And in this respect the revisited theory of recognition, based on the dialectical relation between the two levels, appears able to make a theoretical contribution also to the definition of the conceptual bases of the notion of Kampf um Anerkennung that Axel Honneth views as central to the task of a reappropriation of Hegel's legacy within contemporary social philosophy. 8 1.2 Understanding the ‘space of reasons’ Now that I have sketched the general theoretical background for the question I intend to tackle, I want to give a preliminary idea of how this question is connected with a broader theme. A specific objective of this paper, in fact, is that of contributing to an adequate understanding of the notion of „space of reasons.‟ Many of us today find this formula of Sellars' to be an interesting point of departure for a reappr opriation of some fruitful motifs of the Hegelian notion of reason within the contemporary constellation. 7 8 For a detailed exposition of this reading of the pre-phenomenological writings see Testa 2002 and 2008. See Honneth 1992. 4 1.2.1 A problem in the theory of the space of reasons It is also true, however, that current interpretations of the space of reasons have drawbacks that continue to render them unsatisfactory with respect to the desiderata that the Hegelian notion of spirit appears to pose for an adequate notion of reason. In this regard we find a theoretical bifurcation that is emblematically expressed by the positions of John McDowell and Robert Brandom. The bifurcation assumes the following form: - McDowell: space of reasons with nature but without social recognition. On one hand McDowell wants to convince us that we are not obliged to understand the logical space of reasons as opposed to the logical space of nature, as long as we admit that the latter be broader than the realm of laws proper to modern science. 9 In this respect for McDowell it is possible to reconcile the normativity of reason with naturalness insofar as we are willing to make room for an extended conception of nature and to re include the Aristotelian and Hegelian notion of second nature within it. Reason can thus be understood as the individual's second nature insofar as it consists in a certain type of reactivity to the environment - a disposition to react to reasons - that organizes our natural way of being. However, this re-naturalization of the space of reasons does not imply its socialization. In fact this move is combined in McDowell with a Platonist and anti-constructivist option, on the basis of which the normative structure both of self-consciousness and of the space of reasons cannot in its turn be explained on the basis of social interactions of a recognitive type but is, so to speak, presupposed to them as some sort of irresolvable givenness. 10 McDowell's position thus appears unsatisfactory with respect to the desiderata posited both by the 9 10 See McDowell 1994. See McDowell 2004. 5 Hegelian theory of Anerkennung and by the Hegelian conception of second nature, which does not regard subjective spirit alone, as in McDowell, but objective spirit as well - i.e., the second nature of social institutions. - Brandom: space of reasons with social recognition but without nature. Brandom's conception of the space of reasons accounts for its social structure insofar as he explains the form and the content of rational normativity as the product of recognitive interactions between individuals. But then again, at least in the first phase of his interpretation of Hegel 11, Brandom elaborated a model of recognition in terms of a normative pragmatics of attribution that appears to lead to a form of social constructivism little inclined to account for the connection between the recognitive attitudes and natural capacities of individuals. In this respect Brandom's theory of recognition appears to move mainly within the social dimension of objective spirit and of its logical relation with absolute spirit, without accounting for the Hegelian connection between subjective spirit and objective spirit, individual capacities and social construction. Then again, Brandom has expressed himself a number of times in favor an interpretation of the space of reasons, which presupposes a clear -cut discontinuity between nature and social normativity and which appears to be unsatisfactory with respect to Hegel's demand to go beyond all the dualisms that paralyze thought. 1.2.2 Strategy for a solution of the problem My own point of departure is that an adequate conception of the space of reasons, to be faithful to the phenomenon it describes and also to satisfy the desiderata of the Hegelian conception, would have to dissolve the bifurcation illustrated above and thus 11 See Brandom 1999. 6 account for both the intrinsic sociality of its normative structure and for the fact that this normative space must not be conceived in opposition to the space of nature 12. Here, the most promising strategy to dissolve the bifurcation appears to consist in developing a conception that connects the theory of recognition and the theory of second nature on a new basis, thus making it possible to arrive at a conception of second nature broader than the merely subjectivistic one developed by McDowell and, at the same time, at a conception of recognition that is thicker than the objectivistic one developed by Brandom. 2. The theory of second nature as a bridge between the two problems Having placed our specific objective of understanding the social space of reasons against the general background of the question of recognition revisited, we can now come to grips with the theme of the relation between second nature and recognition. In fact, the solution to the problem of how to conceive of a space of reasons that is understood both as social and in second-nature terms, and the solution to the problem of the theory or recognition, appear at this point to pass through the same door. Thus the conception of recognition as an interweaving of two levels - natural recognition and spiritual recognition - precisely insofar as it can be read in relation to the question of the relation between first and second nature, can make a contribution to the task of thinking the sociality of the space of reasons. Hence the theory of second nature appears able to play a key role in this strategy. To be able to develop an adequate conception of recognition and, together, of the space of reasons, it thus appears necessary: 12 For an illuminating account, directed towards a different end, of the dialectical relation between Brandom and McDowell, see Macbeth 2008. 7 - to formulate a theory of second nature clearly and coherently; - to present a renewed vision of the theory of recognition in light of the theory of second nature. Both these tasks are still far from having found satisfactory fulfillment. In the first place no full-fledged theory of second nature exists, and also the references to this concept to be found in McDowell and in the authors who have followed him are altogether fragmentary and limited for the most part to references to the authority of Aristotle or of Hegel. In the second place a model of recognition in the light of second nature has yet to be achieved: while its idea may have been sketched, its systematic form remains to be defined. 2.1 Historical justification and hermeneutical advantages of the theoretical model The unsatisfactory character of the conception of second nature circulating in contemporary philosophy of Hegelian inspiration is due, moreover, to the fa ct that such philosophy limits itself to taking up this or that aspect of the concept unilaterally, unconcerned with shedding light on its theoretical consistency, or on its historical development, or on the comprehensive form it assumes in Hegel's thought. It appears, then, that access to a theory of second nature must be prepared through: - (i) An analysis of the concept's structure (§ 3.1.1); - (ii) a historical overview of the concepts regarding the lexical development of the expression (§ 3.1.2); - (iii) an overview of some aspects of the evolution of this notion within the history of thought (§ 3.1.3); 8 - (iv) a systematic interpretation of the implicit and explicit role the concept plays in the evolutive history of Hegel's philosophy (§ 3.1.4); - (v) an overview of the textual passages in which the notion recurs in Hegel's texts (§ 3.1.5). The task of reconstructing the Hegelian conception of second nature and of making its conceptual role explicit is not, however, an end in itself but, from my perspective, makes both a historiographic and a theoretical contribution to the theory of recognition. In fact it is possible, in my view, to recover traces of the connections between the two problematics both in the lexical structure of the two concepts and in the pre-Hegelian history of the concept of second nature. Furthermore, the very evolution of Hegel's thought from the writings of his youth to those of his maturity reveals a strict connection between the problematic of second nature and that of Anerkennung. This connection can be stated in the form of the following argument: - (c) argument of the second-nature embodiment of recognition: recognition can be „real‟ for Hegel only if it is objectified in a second nature that is both subjective and objective (§ 3.3). This argument can then be justified (§ 3.3.1) through an articulate interpretation of the „Self-consciousness‟ section of the Phenomenology and then (§ 3.3.2) through an interpretation of the systematic connection between this text and the section of the Encyclopaedia in which Hegel develops the theory of second nature as habit. Since this second aspect is strategic in the development of our theme, our attention shall be prevalently focused on it. At the end of our investigation we shall attempt to 9 see what conclusions can be drawn from all this for the question of the understanding of social space. To this end we shall show that the argument of embodiment is in the final analysis the keystone for arriving at a conception of second nature that is broader than McDowell's - which is limited to internal second nature - and, at the same time, thicker than Brandom's - whose first model of recognition privileges the level of spiritual recognition and appears incapable of rooting such recognition in individual capacities (i.e., in subjective spirit). 3. Second nature and recognition 3.1 On the theory of second nature 3.1.1 Structure of the concept: spheres of reference The expression „second nature‟ (natura altera, secunda natura, zweite Natur, seconda natura, deuxième nature) is typically used as a predicate, to qualify something, rather than as a noun: thus one says of something that it is second nature, rather than defining second nature as thus and so. 13 Accordingly, in the history of thought habits, customs, characters, the virtues proper to human individuals or determinate forms of life (Bildung, technicality, ethical life, culture, Right, the State) have been characterized as second nature. We can thus distinguish two principal spheres to which the notion can refer, namely: - subjective; - objective. 13 See Rath 1996: 121. 10 The first case refers to an individual's dispositions, capacities and attitudes qualified as second nature, while the second refers to forms of life, social relations and institutions. On this basis we may operate a further distinction between: - internal second nature; - external second nature. 14 Here, the first case refers to the internal constitution of individuals, of the way in which they are made, as the result of a process of development and con struction that nonetheless does not prevent them from acting with a spontaneity analogous to that of the simply instinctual and genetically programmed first-nature processes; while the second case refers to external nature understood as an ensemble of the forms of objectified interactions together with the institutions of the social space in which individuals find themselves operating, presenting an immediacy analogous to that of the first-nature environment. In the history of the notion of second nature the first of the two senses has clearly been prevalent - at least up to the conceptual operation performed by Hegel, who - as we shall attempt to show - makes room for both senses and systematically unifies them in a dialectical conception. Misunderstanding of this decisive aspect of the Hegelian appropriation of second nature determines the peculiarly unilateral character of the current interpretations, which end up by concentrating exclusively on individual internal second nature, as in McDowell's case, and thus losing sight of the notion's socio-dialectical profile, or else on external second nature, insisting on the institutional and objective character of second nature 14 On this distinction, and for a detailed critique of McDowell in this respect see Testa 2007. 11 qua ethical life, but ending up by losing its anchorage in individual capacities and in the causal powers connected with them. 15 3.1.1.1. First and second nature The notion of second nature is delimited, then, by contrast with respect to a correlative notion of „first nature,‟ often not explicitly defined and taken as obvious, but which indicates, at various times: merely animal first nature versus the second nature of man as a cultural animal; the first nature of merely causal processes versus the second nature of rational processes; in a broader interpretation, the first nature of objectified processes that have to be made intelligible insofar as they are subjected to the mere nomological nature of modern science (and that are hence considered methodologically as of themselves without meaning and normative connections) versus the second nature of the processes that come within the domain of normatively structured practical rationality. 16 Beyond these various differences, that which constitutes the analogon of first in second nature, at least as far as internal second nature is concerned, appears for the most part to consist in the traits of vitality, animality, reactivity (disposition to react to environmental stimuli), and spontaneity (autokinesis). Thus for example external second nature, in the authors that theorize its existence 17, is understood for the most part as an inorganic nature, the result of a process of objectification that such philosophers as Hegel and Lukács will see as petrification of ethical life and congealment of spirit. 15 Robert Pippin's institutional conception of the Hegelian notion of freedom is typical of the second direction (see Pippin 2003). 16 The first interpretation of second nature as the logical space of causality is to be found, for example, in Habermas (see Habermas, 1999: 32 ff.; 2005: 155 ff.). McDowell, by contrast, speaks out against the identification between the logical space of natural science (and thus of the first-nature objects that fall within it) and the logical space of causality; he understands first nature as simply the domain of legality, i.e. as nomological nature, not excluding that the notion of causality can regard also the logical space of second nature (see McDowell, 1994: XVIII and 70-73). 17 See McDowell 1994: 84. 12 3.1.2 Some aspects of the lexical development The lexical history of the expression „second nature‟ is worthy of our attention, for its wealth of implications both in general and in reference to our specific theme. 18 Democritus, for instance, maintained in one of his fragments (DK 68 B 33) that education was similar to nature: just as nature has productive force - the capacity of changing something - so education has the capacity of changing man, producing a new nature (physiopoiei) in him. Democritus, then, saw habit as something that, while the product of an educative mediation, nonetheless acts in the individual with the irreflexive immediacy, authority, causal power and necessity of nature. Democritus, however, did not use the term etera physis (other nature), which we find only in Aristotle, to indicate the dyad from which for the Platonists all numbers were produced (Met. A 6, 987 b33): a linguistic use that nevertheless does not directly invest the phenomenon of ethical hexis - of the moral disposition acquired through educative development and the habitual stabilization of natural functions - which is the full and proper domain of reference of internal second nature. With Cicero the naturalness of habit already comes to be indicated as „natura altera (other nature)‟. This expression - which will give rise to the rhetorical topos of consuetudo quasi natura altera (custom is second nature) - is used by Cicero not only to refer to the habits of individuals but also in an objective sense, to indicate for example the natural environment modified by human intervention through agriculture (De natura deorum, 2, 60, 52). Qualified by Galen as „acquired nature (physis epiktetos)‟ (De motu musculorum, 2, 7), it becomes with St. Augustine literally „secunda natura’ (Contra Julianum, 1, 69, 14) - taking on a theological shading extraneous to the Greeks and the Latins, since habit is here understood as what links us to the bad second nature 18 On this history see Funke 1984. 13 we have acquired after the Fall. This expression, along with „natura alia‟ and „natura altera,‟ will then give rise to their equivalents in the principal modern languages. 3.1.3 An aspect of the Idealistic history of the concept of second nature and of its interweaving with Anerkennung: Fichte and the pre-reflexive principles of reciprocal action The interweaving of second nature and the theory of recognition can begin to be appreciated if we dwell on a particular moment of the fortune of second nature in classical German philosophy. In the philosophy of Fichte - the author from whom Hegel will take up the theory of Anerkennung - we in fact find a use of second nature as a category of social acting. Fichte writes in Die Gründzuge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters (1804) that: „Custom consists for us in the principles of reciprocal interaction between men, made habitual and come to be second nature through the entire stage of culture: principles that thus do not wholly emerge in clear consciousness.‟ 19 Second nature, designated with the term „andere Natur‟ - in conformity with the Latin „natura alia / natura altera‟ - is understood here as ethical custom, individual habit produced through the cultural process of education. Furthermore, this internal second nature is also understood - on a par with the Aristotelian dispositions to friendship (philia) (Et. Nich., VI, 13, 1144b9) - as the form that certain individual dispositions to social interaction assume. Ethical custom, precisely insofar as it becomes a second nature for the individual, can in fact function as a „principle of reciprocal action‟ 19 „Sitte […] bedeutet uns […] die angewöhnten und durch den ganzen Stand der Cultur zur anderen Natur gewordenen, und ebendarum in deutlicher Bewußtseyn durchaus nicht vorkommenden Principien der Wechselwirkung der Menschen untereinander‟ (Fichte 1991: 365). 14 between men. Thus social interaction can be instituted and develop only insofar as it takes root in the dispositions of individuals as a second nature with which they are endowed. What is more, let us note that the principles of social interaction that have the form of second nature for Fichte are such that they are not present in „clear consciousness‟ (deutliches Bewußtseyn). These, then, are principles that, while they can be made explicit, usually function while remaining outside the range of reflexive consciousness. Note that also the Fichtean use of the notion of second nature is predicative. Also, that to which second nature is referred is some type of disposition that makes possible and coordinates the interaction between human individuals. With this we have reached the point that interests us: i n fact, the disposition in question can most certainly be identified with the disposition to recognition. Fichte, in fact, in his lessons on the Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794) was already asking himself how the concept of „society (Gesellschaft)‟ was possible - the idea, that is, of a reciprocal relation between rational beings 20 - reaching the conclusion that this concept presupposes that a human being assume the disposition to „recognize (anerkennen)‟ that there are other rational beings besides himself. This, then, will be described in §§ 3-4 of the Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796) as a pre-reflexive disposition to react to the stimulus of the presence of others by activating a recognitive response – „recognizing‟, i.e. „treating’ such a stimulus as an „exhortation (Aufforderung),‟ an „invitation‟. This pre-reflexive disposition to recognize the „exhortation‟ of the other ism in Die Grudlage, what explains the very possibility of reflective practical selfconsciousness and of freedom – which would otherwise only presuppose itself and thus be endangered by circularity (§ 3). Such a disposition, in Die Grundlage already understood as something developed in the process of education, is what Fichte in the later Gründzuge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters (1804) will then sketchily understand as 20 See Fichte 1962. 15 something that has to be made habitual as a custom and thus come to be second nature. 3.1.4 The Hegelian revolution: the explicit role of second nature in Hegel Hegel's theory of second nature remained in a fragmentary state - as, for that matter, did his theory of Anerkennung. Confronted with a variety of implicit and explicit uses of the notion of second nature, we find no textual passages in which Hegel deliberately collects the material accumulated in his various writings within the frame of a unitary theory. However, this does not mean that - making reference principally to the exposition of the notion in Elements of the Philosophy of Right and in the Encyclopaedia - we cannot reconstruct a profile of the Hegelian conception as having distinctive characteristics, marking a break with previous tradition. This operation is, on one hand, a contribution to the interpretation of Hegel; on the other, insofar as we attempt to delineate a full and proper theory, the interpretative reconstruction of the Hegelian conception is carried out in light of the theoretical horizon of contemporary philosophy and thus of a possible systematic contribution of the Hegelian legacy to the solution of present-day dilemmas. Let us, then, preliminarily state the main characteristics of Hegel's theory of second nature. This conception: - attributes to second nature the conceptual structure of „immediate mediation (unmittelbare Vermittlung).‟ Second naturalness is predicated of something that operates with an immediacy, irreflexivity, and spontaneity analogous to that of firstnature processes but that is nevertheless the product of a process of social and cultural mediation; 16 - distinguishes and unifies two senses of second nature as subjective second nature (organic: analyzed in the Encyclopaedia) and objective second nature (inorganic: analyzed in the Philosophy of Right). Second nature thus regards the structure of Geist in that it embraces determinations both of subjective spirit and of objective spirit; - unites the ancient interpretation of physis as autokinesis with the modern mechanistic interpretation, insofar as the living and spontaneous process of objectification of spirit is understood as production of an inorganic second nature, of a petrified spirit, which living individuals have to introject in the educative process as their internal inorganic nature, until they transform the mechanism of habit into their spontaneous way of acting; - is simultaneously descriptive and critical, showing on t he one hand that individual powers and social institutions cannot be developed and exercised unless they assume the characteristics of immediacy, spontaneity and irreflexivity proper to mere natural occurrences, and that at this level they let themselves be described as second nature; but, at the same time, showing that this second naturalness, while operating with necessity in the individual, is „posited‟: it is also the product of a contingent process of social mediation; - has dialectical structure: second nature is such because it is identical to its opposite, reflecting some of its traits, since second nature re-presents a form of constraint and necessity that binds the individual, but, at the same time, is other, because it discloses the possibility of free and critical acting. Let us, then, define the principal characteristics on the basis of which Spirit, as the substance of individuals, acts on them as a second nature: in this way we can begin 17 to understand in what sense normatively structured social space can have the traits of second naturalness. 21 Spiritual substance has the traits of second nature insofar as it: - acts as nature (has causal power over individuals); - presents itself to the individual as mechanism and natural necessity, even though it is the product also of spontaneous processes that imply the possibility of deliberation; - immediately exerts a power and an absolute authority over the individual; - immediately operates in a pre-reflexive way in individuals and on individuals - as a background - even though it is also the product of an intentional and reflexive mediation; - is nevertheless posited, so that its power and authority can be disclosed as the product of a social process, and the destiny with which it manifests itself as a n appearance of necessity. 3.1.5 The explicit theory of Hegelian second nature: a survey of the textual passages At this point we need to survey the Hegelian texts in which the notion of „second nature‟ is explicitly utilized, with particular reference to Elements of the Philosophy of Right and the Encyclopaedia. This will allow us to locate in Hegel's writings the theoretical characteristics of the conception of second nature delineated above. Subsequently, we shall go on to make explicit in terms of seco nd nature some implicit aspects of Hegel's writings ranging from the earliest Jena period to the „Selfconsciousness‟ section of the Phenomenology: this procedure will allow us to broaden our perspective on the problem of zweite Natur and, at the same time, to appraise its connection with Hegel's conceptions of Geist and Anerkennung. 21 On the very idea of „social space‟ in Hegel‟s Phenomenology see Pinkard 1994. 18 3.1.5.1 Objective second nature and ethical life in Elements of the Philosophy of Right In Elements of the Philosophy of Right of 1820 we find the explicit definition of external second nature. Here, according to the predicative use of second nature, it is predicated of ethical life [Sittlichkeit], insofar as ethical life to be such has to objectify itself in social habits of recognitive interaction stabilized through habit and internalized by individuals. In this way second nature presents itself as a determination of objective spirit and helps us to understand that spirit in general is something that is alive, a second level of the naturalness of life. 22 „But if it is simply identical with the actuality of individuals, the ethical, as their general mode of behavior, appears as custom; and the habit of the ethical appears as a second nature which takes the place of the original and purely natural will and is the all-pervading soul, significance, and actuality of individual existence. It is spirit living and present as a world, and only thus does the substance of spirit begin to exist as spirit‟. 23 Following this use Hegel also qualifies the institutions of ethical life, on the basis of the system of right, in terms of second nature. These institutions, in fact, are such that they act upon individuals with the causality of second nature - which Hegel, after the Latin, also calls „andere Natur.‟24 Such institutions in fact present themselves to individuals as an independent and immediately given objective power, albeit produced 22 Hegel will call this second level, this potentiated nature, „a more beautiful nature (eine schönere Natur)‟ (TWA 9: 537, § 376, Zusatz). 23 'Aber in der einfachen Identität mit der Wirklichkeit der Individuen erscheint das Sittliche, als die allgemeine Handlungsweise derselben, als Sitte – die Gewohnheit desselben als eine zweite Natur, die an der Stelle des ersten bloß natürlichen Willens gesetzt und die durchdringende Seele, Bedeutung und Wirklichkeit ihres Daseins ist, der als eine Welt lebendige und vorhandene Geist, dessen Substanz so erst als Geist ist‟ (TWA 7: 301, § 151; Nisbet: 195). 24 „For this habit of [living in] safety has become second nature, and we scarcely stop to think that it is solely the effect of particular institutions‟ (TWA 7: 414, § 268 Zusatz ; Nisbet: 289): 'Dann diese Gewohneit der Sicherheit ist zur andern Natur geworden, und man denkt nicht gerade nach, wie dies erst die Wirkung besonderer Institutionen sei‟. 19 by historical mediation, and act on them with the effect of ensuring the substantial base of the individual habits of interaction that make free acting possible. „The basis of right is the realm of spirit in general and its precise location and point of departure is the will; the will is free, so that freedom constitutes its substance and destiny and the system of right is the realm of actualized freedom, the world of spirit produced from within itself as a second nature‟. 25 Hegel shows, moreover, how the ethical substance of social institutions acts on individuals nearly as nature does, presenting itself to them as a sort of natural necessity that immediately exercises a power and an absolute authority over them. „In relation to the subject, the ethical substance and its laws and powers are [...] an absolute authority and power, infinitely more firmly based than the being of nature‟. 26 3.1.5.2 Subjective second nature and habit in the Encyclopaedia In the Encyclopaedia, in particular in the section dedicated to „Anthropology,‟ the notion of second nature is presented as a determination of subjective spirit, hence in its sense of internal second nature, in the context of the discussion of „habit.‟ „Habit is rightly called a second nature; nature, because it is an immediate being of the soul; a second nature, because it is an immediacy posited by the soul‟ 27 25 'Der Boden des Rechts ist überhaupt das Geistige und seine nähere Stelle und Ausgangspunkt der Wille, welcher frei ist, so daß die Freiheit seine Substanz und Bestimmung ausmacht und das Rechtssystem das Reich der verw irklichten Fre iheit, die Welt des Geistes aus ihm selbst hervorgebracht, als eine zweite Natur, ist‟ (TWA 7: 46, § 4; Nisbet, p 35). 26 'Für das Subjekt haben die sittliche Substanz, ihre Gesetzte und Gewalten […] eine absolute, unendlich festere Autorität und Macht als das Seyn der Natur‟ (TWA 7: 228, § 146; Nisbet: 190). 27 'Die Gewohnheit ist mit Recht eine zweite Natur genannt worden, – Natur, denn sie ist ein unmittelbares Sein der Seele, – eine zweite, denn sie ist eine von der Seele gesetzte Unmittelbarkeit)‟ 20 Here, in the clearest way possible, Hegel shows the logical structure of mediated immediacy as proper to second nature, thus equating first nature with first immediacy and second nature with second immediacy. Although he now considers habit only as a determination of the individual, it is nevertheless clear that in Hegel's overall conception - and this is also the novelty in the history of the reception of second nature - internal second nature cannot exist without external second nature and vice versa. Also in internal second nature, as in the case of ethi cal life, first nature's appearance of necessity is specularly reflected. Habit can function, and ensure the base of the capacities that make us free, only insofar as it assumes the force of an automatic mechanism that appears to act necessarily and to exercise an internal dominion over the individual. „Consequently although, on the one hand, habit makes a man free, yet, on the other hand, it makes him its slave, and though it is not an immediate, first nature dominated by single sensations but rather a second nature posited by soul, yet it is all the same a nature, something posited which takes the shape of immediacy, an ideality of what is simply given, which is still burdened with the form of [mere] being, and consequently something not correspondent to free mind, something merely anthropological‟. 28 (Enz., § 410 A; Wallace/Miller: 141); see the lessons on the philosophy of religion: „Habit, which for us has become a second nature ( Gewohnheit, die uns zur zweiten Natur geworden),‟ (TWA 16: 189). 28 'Obgleich daher der Mensch durch die Gewohnheit einerseits frei wird, so macht ihn dieselbe doch andererseits zu ihrem Skaven und ist eine zwar nicht unmittelbare, erste, von der Einzelheit der Empfindungen beherrschte, vielmehr von der Seele gesetzte, zweite Natur, – aber doch immer eine Natur, ein die Gestalt eines Unmittelbaren annehmendes Gesetztes, eine selber noch mit der Form des Seins behaftete Idealität des Seienden, fo lglich etwas dem freien Geiste Nichtentsprechendes, etwas bloß Anthropologisches’ (Enz., § 410, Zusatz; Wallace/Miller: 144-145). 21 It is important to observe how Hegelian zweite Natur reflects features both of the Greek interpretation of physis and of the modern and mechanistic interpretation of nature. In fact on one hand second nature is predicated of a living individual who acts spontaneously, but on the other such immediacy also has features of the mechanicity proper to the modern interpretation of nature as an objectified process. The process of formation (Bildung) expressed through the education of individuals is, then, understood by Hegel as the sphere that mediates the dialectical relation between external and internal second nature. And it is precisely within this process, as we shall see in more detail, that mediation is performed between the mechanical conception of second nature, understood as inorganic nature of the spirit objectified in social institutions, and the spontaneous conception of the internal second nature of the living individual and of Spirit. In Bildung, in fact, the socially given second nature of institutions is the presupposition and, at the same time, the result of the individual process of internalization of the habits of interaction through which spirit as „second nature of the individual‟ is formed. 29 Hegel explicitly understands the process of formation (Bildung) - whose movement of recognizing constitutes the logical infrastructure - as the transition from merely animal „first nature‟ to spiritual „second nature.‟ „Education is the art of making human beings ethical: it considers them as natural beings and shows them how they can be reborn, and how their original nature can be transformed into a second, spiritual nature so that this spirituality becomes habitual to them‟. 30 29 30 See TWA 17: 146. 'Die Pädagogik ist die Kunst, die Menschen sittlich zu machen: sie betrachtet den Menschen als natürlich, und zeigt den Weg ihn w iederzugebären, seine erste Natur zu einer zweiten geistigen umzuwandeln, so daß dieses Geistige in ihm zur Gewohnheit wird‟ (TWA 7: 301, § 151 Zusatz; Nisbet: 195). 22 It is precisely the dialectical character of such transformation - whose internal tensions are expressed by the struggle for recognition as a permanent dimension of the interindividual formation of spirit - that defines, on one hand, the tragic character of human history, ever on the verge of falling back into the abyss of objectified first nature, particularly in the field of international relations, which for Hegel never come out of the state of nature. But, then again, this dialectical tension between first and second nature also defines the critical space of reason, which has the power of disclosing to itself, but not necessarily of dissolving, its constructions' appearance of necessity. 3.2 A renewed vision of the theory of recognition in light of the theory of second nature 3.2.1 From recognition to second nature Up to now we have attempted to shed light on the notion of „second nature,‟ supplementing our conceptual analysis with a series of considerations based on lexicography and the history of concepts. This approach was designed to provide some reasons for connecting the theme of zweite Natur to that of Anerkennung at different levels. Let us, at this point, state some theoretical conclusions that can be drawn from our previous considerations regarding how Anerkennung has to be conceived, which will serve as guidelines for our interpretation of Hegel's texts. As a first approximation, it appears we can affirm that: - recognition qua attitude hinges on a recognitive disposition; - the disposition to recognition operates in an immediate and pre-reflexive manner; - the disposition to recognition is nevertheless shaped by a social mediation; 23 - the disposition to spiritual recognition is thus conceivable in terms of Aristotelian hexis, i.e., of an acquired disposition, a secondary disposition that is formed on the basis of first-nature recognitive functions; - the disposition to spiritual recognition - to react to determinate stimuli as to requests, claims to recognition - has the form of a second nature (acquired nature), of a mediated immediacy. Such considerations obviously do not rule out the possibility of exercising recognition in a reflexive and aware manner. They do indicate, however, that reflexive forms of recognition always presuppose the existence of other pre-reflexive forms of recognition. Moreover, the more that reflexive forms of recognition are exercised through practice and repetition, the more they function in an irreflexive way, thereby stabilizing themselves in a second nature: if this were not the case no stable huma n interaction would be possible, which means that no social space would be constituted. From this we can draw the further conclusion that: - recognition constitutes the background of social space, the background for which I am disposed, before any belief, to recognize the other as partner in interaction, man, subject, self-conscious being dispositions, - where background indicates the pre-reflexive and ensemble of capacities, abilities, attitudes, proto-intentional practices that allow our reflexive and intentional states to function. 31 These considerations give us some idea of just how composite, stratified and sedimented this recognitive background is, and what difficulties stand in the way of its theoretical understanding. If we reflect on the connectio n between recognitive 31 On the notion of 'background‟ see Searle 1995: 133. 24 disposition and Aristotelian hexis - philia in particular, understood as a disposition to interaction with other living beings - we can pose some important questions on the subject. The disposition to friendship has, in fact, a natural component - the dispositions that belong to children and beasts are natural (Et. Nich., VI, 13, 1144b9) and philia is proper also to many animals - but, at the same time, in man it is an acquired disposition, of a moral type, that presupposes a previous experience of interaction and the possibility of practical deliberation. The Aristotelian idea that there is a merely natural form of philia - proper to beasts and children - lets us glimpse the possibility of distinguishing between two levels of recognition, i.e., the natural recognition of which we are capable simply as living beings, and the acquired recognition that we develop and become capable of exercising insofar as we form certain habits, since we are educated in a determinate form of life. Hence we can make an analytic distinction between two levels of the recognitive phenomenon - which can also constitute two moments of the same act and whose reciprocal relation varies from context to context - namely: - first-nature recognition; - second-nature recognition. 3.3 The argument of the embodiment of Anerkennung and of Spirit 3.3.1 The argument in the Phenomenology A this point we wish to legitimize our reconstruction of Anerkennung in terms of second nature historically by briefly showing that it has a basis in the systematic argument underlying the pages on „Independence and dependence of self- 25 consciousness (Selbständigkeit und Unselbständigkeit des Selbstbewusstsein)‟, developed by Hegel in the sections on „Self-consciousness‟ and „Reason.‟ In fact, Hegel's general argument seems to be in support of his thesis that just as the independence of self-consciousness cannot be achieved without the recognition of its recognitive dependence on other self-consciousnesses, so the autonomy of Reason in general cannot be achieved without the recognition of its dependence on natural and social being. In this respect the sections on Self-consciousness and Reason seem intended to show the failure of any dualistic understanding of the relation between reason and society, reason and history, reason and nature, while simultaneously making a case for the embodiment of reason in individual and social nature: where this embodiment is precisely the process of formation of what we have called internal and external second nature. 32 The „life and death struggle‟ too, which follows the analysis of the pure concept of recognition, follows the same line of argument. In fact the pointe of the analysis consists in showing that the attempt by the self-consciousnesses to assert their own autonomy by annulling any link with natural life is destined to produce a profound distortion. The lesson to be drawn from the life and death struggle is that for the desiring consciousness „life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness (daß ihm das Leben so wesentlich als das reine Selbstbewußtsein ist)‟ (PhdG: 112; Miller: 115). Self-consciousness, while not identical to mere animal life, is not a pure disembodied spirit either. Rather, it tends to develop as potentiated life: it tends to acq uire a second level of - subjective and objective - naturalness in which „comprehended life (aufgefaßtes Leben)‟ 33 expresses both necessity and freedom. Where self- consciousness is not capable of perceiving the second-nature aspect of itself and of 32 33 On this concept of „embodiment‟ see also Russon, 1997: 14. The notion of „comprehended life [aufgefaßtes Leben],‟ understood as potentiated nature - second nature, according to our interpretation - goes back to Hegel's Frankfurt writings: see Hegel 1907: 307. 26 other consciousnesses it is not capable of achieving a perfected recognition: it treats living being as a dead thing, as mere mechanical first nature, and is not capable of recognizing its „universal inorganic nature.‟ On the one hand desiring self- consciousnesses are already part of the movement of recognizing, and thus, in a certain sense, in the mere state of nature already have recognitive capacities, without which they would not be at all capable of coordinating their conflictual interaction. On the other hand the first-nature recognitive capacities they have at their disposal are still minimally developed and in Hegel's design tend to be fulfilled at a higher level. If, in fact, the recognitive capacities and the relations to which they give rise did not come to be embodied in an internal and social second nature, relations between individuals would permanently have the Hobbesian structure of a life and death struggle and could not give rise to any social space. From this standpoint the conceptual link between the theory of Anerkennung and the question of second nature invests the very conceivability of a human social space: if recognition were to be comprehended with the categories of reciprocal interaction alone according to a methodologically individualistic approach - as is the case in many contemporary formulations - then such a model would in no way be capable of accounting for the structure of social space, since it would lack the conceptual resources to understand how it is possible for men to free themselves of recognitive conflict. 3.3.2 Begierde and the second-nature mechanism of habit: on the relation between the Phenomenology and the Encyclopaedia In the development of our argumentation, at this point it is decisive to show the type of correspondence that subsists between the notion of Begierde considered in the Phenomenology and the section of the Encyclopaedia in which Hegel deals most explicitly with the theme of second nature. In this way we think it is possible to justify 27 both theoretically and textually an interpretation of the phenomenological theory of recognition in terms of the dialectic of second nature. Begierde represents a type of animal consciousness, of self-consciousness still immersed and sunken in naturalness, whose structural presup positions Hegel makes explicit in the section of Subjective Spirit dedicated to „Anthropology,‟ and further develops in the successive section, „Phenomenology,‟ which begins with a compendium of the „Consciousness‟ and „Self-consciousness‟ sections of his 1807 work. The „Anthropology‟ section of the Encyclopaedia, in fact, is concerned with immediate subjective spirit, which Hegel understands as „soul or natural spirit (Seele oder Naturgeist)‟ (Enz., § 387). The activities through which the soul develops are „sensibility (Empfindung),‟ „feeling (Gefühl)‟ and „self-feeling (Selbstgefühl).‟ We thus have a consciousness that moves in the state of nature with a pre-reflexive form of self-relation and a practical orientation in the environment. This self -feeling is characterized as a „particular embodiment (ein besondere Verleiblichung)‟ (§ 408) and will later present itself in Hegel's treatment of self-consciousness within the struggle for recognition as the self-feeling of corporeal self-consciousness. 34 The body, seen as a vital manifestation of self-consciousness and its expressive sign, is precisely that which is affected by the further activity of the soul, namely „habit (Gewohnheit).‟ Habit is understood here as a mode of natural existence (§ 409) - since it possesses the nonreflexive immediacy and the spontaneity of natural functions - that is nevertheless the precipitate of an activity through which corporeal dispositions are shaped and modified, through repetition and practice, until they form „aptitudes, o r skills (Geschicklichkeit)‟ that function as „mechanisms of the intelligence (Mechanismus der Intelligenz)‟: a „second nature,‟ as Hegel affirms with indirect 34 „But this immediacy is at the same time the corporeity of self-consciousness, in which as in its sign and tool the latter has its own sense of self, and its being for others, and the means for entering into relation with them.‟ (Enz., § 431; Wallace: 171): 'Aber diese Unmittelbarkeit ist zugleich die Leiblichkeit des Selbstbewußtseins, in welcher es als in seinem Zeichen und Werkzeug sein eignes Selbstgefühl und sein Sein für andere, und seine es mit ihnen vermittelnde Beziehung hat‟. 28 reference to Cicero (De finibus bonorum et malorum, V, 25, 74). Here it is interesting to note that habit as internal second nature is something that for Hegel can already be formed in living organisms that are still immersed in a first-nature environment, devoid of ethical institutions and complex forms of sociality: thus, for example, Hegel understands the upright posture of man as second-nature habit. From this standpoint, as we said, the relation between first and second nature is fluid and is never a clear cut opposition. Then again, it is also clear that for Hegel the distinctive character of the second nature proper to human social space consists precisely in that reciprocal mediation between individual habit and social institutions which is lacking in merely animal forms of life. In the third place it is important to note the strategic meaning of Hegel's statement that „the form of habit applies to all kinds and grades of the activity of Spirit (die Form der Gewohnheit umfaßt alle Arten und Stufen der Tätigkeit des Geistes)‟ (Enz., § 401A; Wallace: 142). In the „Anthropology‟ section, in fact, H egel, while taking his distance from sensualism, nevertheless illustrates in his way a genealogy of spirit based on its natural conditions. Within this reconstruction he shows not only that Spirit emerges from nature, but also that its high levels of development continue to have nature as their condition and therefore do not exist independently of it.35 The theory of habit - and thus the theory of internal second nature - is, indeed, the decisive junction for formulating the conception on the basis of which all properly 35 A reading in this sense has been proposed, regarding the relation between soul and body, also by Michael Wolff: see Wolff 1992. For a different reading of second nature in the context of the systematic relation between Nature and Spirit in the Encyclopedia, see Halbig 2006. Then again, Alfredo Ferrarin, in his remarkable essay on Hegel and Aristotle, reads the Hegelian theory of habit w ithin an interpretation that postulates a clear-cut discontinuity between nature and spirit: the process through which spirit returns to itself from the exteriority of nature is, for him, nothing other than a movement of idealization in which nature must be negated and die if it is to be able to give life to spirit (Ferrarin 2001: 237-238). In this light Ferrarin - for whom the Aristotelian element of the Hegelian conception of spirit is fundamentally derived from a neo-Platonic component - sees the formation of habits as a unilateral process of rupture with the corporeity in which nature ceases to be an external given and becomes an ideal possession of spirit (Ferrarin 2001: 278 ff.). It must, however, be noted that the process of idealization in Hegel is always accompanied - as, indeed, the theory of habit attests - by a complementary movement of embodiment: in this respect, habit is not just the activity that “produces spontaneity in receptivity” (Ferrarin 2001: 280), but is also the moment in which spontaneous activities are embodied in second-nature receptivity. The dualistic readings of the relation between nature and spirit in Hegel spring, in my opinion, precisely from the tendency to neglect this second aspect and to accentuate unilaterally - in the idealist-subjective sense - the moment of idealization. 29 so-called spiritual activities - from upright posture to the higher faculties of consciousness and reflexive self-consciousness - not only presuppose for their content the corporeal constitution of determinate aptitudes but are also accompanie d at all levels by the form of second-nature immediacy. From the standpoint of that which we could call the argument of the necessary embodiment of Spirit, also the cogito implies the body and its habituation and can thus be qualified as having the immedia te form of a second nature for the individual. Habit, understood as „mechanism of self-feeling (Mechanism des Selbstgefühls)‟ (Enz. § 410A), thus provides the basis for the existence of the „I‟ as a thinking being whose constitution is mediated by recognition's movement of duplication. 36 This, in its turn, requires an expressive conception of the body, understood not as mere Körper, a mechanical object, but rather as Leib, the living body that is the means of our expressive self-relation (Enz., § 411). For Hegel, with this it finally becomes possible to reconcile the ancient sense of internal second nature as living spontaneity and the modern sense of external second nature understood as inorganic mechanism 37. 36 „Thinking, too, however free and active in its own pure element it becomes, no less requires habit and familiarity (this impromptuity or form of immediacy), by which it is the property of my single self where I can freely and in all directions range. It is thro ugh this habit that I come to realize my existence as a thinking being. Even here, in this spontaneity of self-centered thought, there is a partnership of soul and body (hence, want of habit and too-long-continued thinking cause headache); habit diminishes this feeling, by making the natural function an immediacy of the soul.‟] (Enz., § 410A; Wallace: 143): 'Das ganz freie, in dem reinen Elemente seiner selbst tätige Denken bedarf ebenfalls der Gewohnheit und Geläufigkeit, dieser Form der Unmittelbarkeit, wodurch es ungehindertes, durchgedrungenes Eigentum meines einzelnen Selbst ist. Erst durch diese Gewohnheit existiere Ich als denkendes für mich. Selbst diese Unmittelbarkeit des denkenden Bei-sich-seins enthält Leiblichkeit (Ungewohnheit und lange Fortsetzung des Denkens macht Kopfweh), die Gewohheit vermindert diese Empfindung, indem sie die natürliche Bestimmung zu einer Unmittelbarkeit der Seele macht‟. 37 The genetic analysis of the evolution of spirit as process in which consciential and social structures emerge from nature is a philosophical reconstruction that Hegel set against different systematic backgrounds in the various phases of his thought: in 1803-04 nature is understood phenomenologically as Anderssein (otherness) of spirit; in 1804-05 Anderssein is understood as the logical essence of nature understood as Außereinandersein (asunderness, separateness); finally, in the Encyclopaedia, spirit and nature will be understood systematically as modes of the Idea - Außersichsein (self-externality) and Fürsichsein (being-for-self). The alternation of these different meta-theoretical conceptions, however, did not modify the Hegelian reconstruction of the natural genesis of spirit. It appears to me, then, that this genealogy does not depend in its internal structure - or in its historical genesis either - on the systematic framework adopted from one time to the next. For this reason the Hegelian reconstruction has, in my opinion, an argumentative potential that lends itself to being re-actualized even in different theoretical contexts, which would continue to be valid even if in the end - contrary to my expectations - the traditional reading of the systematic conception of nature as idea in its otherness should prove correct: 30 4. The social space of second nature revisited At this point we wish to examine some possible consequences of the conception of second nature we of have social attempted space, to reconstruct in in Hegel's to texts for the comprehension particularly relation the post-Sellars interpretation of the space of reasons developed by neo-Hegelianism in the Pittsburgh School. First of all, according to our reading: - the Jena writings, the Phenomenology, the Encyclopaedia and the Elements of the Philosophy of Right converge in the joint argument of the necessary expressive embodiment of Spirit or of the necessary second-nature objectification of recognition. The thesis that habit is the universal form of Spirit requires, in fact, that Spirit have its manifestation in corporeal expressivity. The theory of second nature, in its dual subjective and objective aspect, also requires a dual aspect of embodiment. In fact, it is not only the forms of individual intentionality but also the forms of collective intentionality that manifest themselves in interindividual spiritual relations of a recognitive type that will have to be embodied in habits. If this were not the case, then life and death struggle would be the only possible form of relation between individuals. Spirit will have to be embodied both in the organic body of individuals and in the inorganic body of institutions. But then again, also social and institutional the reading for which, in the final analysis, this conception depends on a spiritualistic ontology that reduces nature to something insubstantial and always already spiritualized. Presenting a nontraditional, alternative account of the meaning of the systematic conception of nature is, unquestionably, a complex task that I cannot carry out here. I do believe, however, that this analysis of the natural genesis of spirit and of second nature, with its valorization of the constitutive value of embodiment (Verleiblichung) for all the moments of spiritual development, can provide at least some reasons for not being willing to take the traditional interpretation for granted. In this direction, moreover, one ought to explore the possibility of extending the recognitive reconstruction of subjective and objective spirit in such a way as to account for absolute spirit in terms of a meta-philosophy of recognition - which, as such, ought, in my opinion, to be reconstructed by valorizing the function of skepticism for a comprehension of the recognitive structure of the absolute as a relation of opposites. 31 bodies - ethical substance - are not something merely artificial but manifest a certain continuity with nature insofar as they present the form of a social second nature, which has the stabilized configuration of the mechanism of habit, sedimented in social practices, and which acts on individuals with a first-nature appearance of necessity. What consequences stem from this approach for the way in which we ought to conceive the relation between reason and social space? Reason comes to be understood in the Hegelian framework as manifestation of spiritual activity, in particular as the perfected manifestation of the relational structure of self- consciousness. Thus: - reason has of itself an interindividual structure, insofar as its content and its form are posited through relations of recognition that institute the relational structure of self-consciousness; - the intersubjective structure of reason is, then, intrinsically social insofar as, on the basis of the embodiment argument, relations of self-recognition and of recognition of others - self-consciousness and its duplication - cannot be phantasmatic and disembodied but must be embodied in individual and i n social and institutional bodies; - the social structure of reason is all the more strengthened by the dialectical mediation between objective and subjective second nature that is characteristic of institutionalized human society, in which institutional s ocial bodies become more and more the external second-nature condition of the formation of the internal second nature of individual spiritual habits; - the social space of reason, Spirit, is not another type of entity added to natural ones, but rather an expressive reconfiguration of the relations subsisting between natural beings. The sociality of reason has, for that matter, a natural genesis, insofar as spiritual recognitive relations have time and again to emerge dialectically, and not 32 without tensions, from natural recognitive relations. Also for Hegel man is - in a sense more complex than Aristotle's but nevertheless in agreement with it - a naturally social animal. Hegel's legacy - even in light of the necessary distance dictated by the passing of time - does not cease to pose certain desiderata with respect to the contemporary demand to rethink the social space of reason, in particular as regards the necessity of not giving rise to an abstract, disembodied vision that postulates a clear -cut discontinuity between nature and spirit. It thus appears necessary to arrive - with respect to the normativistic conception that usually accompanies Sellars' formula of the space of reasons - at a deeper mediation of the relation between the natural component and the normative component of spirit. From this standpoint the demand, noted by John McDowell, to overcome the dualism between a naturalistic conception of knowledge as the exercise of natural capacities and a social conception of knowledge as normative status appears fully compatible with the basic idea of Hegelian argumentation. 38 Nevertheless, this demand cannot be satisfied in the least as long as the notion of second nature is limited - as occurs in McDowell - to the internal second nature of individuals and thus to the organic sense of second nature, and is not extended to inorganic external social nature, since in this way we lose sight of the very mechanism that renders the space of rationality intimately social and confers upon social rules both normative power and causal efficacy over individuals. Neither can the demand be satisfied if - as again occurs in McDowell - the connection between the sociality of space and the recognitive constitution of self-consciousness is not made explicit: in fact, if thi s passage is omitted one cannot but remain bound to a subjective conception of self-consciousness 38 See McDowell 1994: 86. 33 and thus of the space of reason. 39 In this way the space of reasons remains a Platonic normative space but does not become a social space. Robert Brandom has thematized the recognitive and social structure of rationality and its objective dimension in a more convincing manner. 40 Nevertheless, also Brandom fails to satisfy the demand posed by the Hegelian conception insofar as he ends up understanding normativity in radically constructivist terms, thus postulating a clear discontinuity between nature and culture: 41 and this is due in the final analysis to the fact that his reconstruction of the theory of recognition, at least in the first phase of his interpretation of Hegel, fails to grasp the relation between the natural level and the spiritual level of recognition and thus its connection with the question of second nature and of habit. As a result, Brandom tends to equate the structure of recognition with that of normatively structured discursivity, understood as the dimension that separates human creatures form other - natural - creatures, and ends up losing sight of the thickness of the Hegelian notion of Anerkennung, which does have an important dimension in language but cannot be reduced to it. It is not fortuitous that Hegel, in his lessons on the Philosophy of Spirit of 1803-1804, was already intent on showing the limits of discursive language, maintaining that in it there is no „real recognition (reales Anerkennung)‟: both the dialectical process and the normative structure of recognition are thus located for Hegel at a deeper level of discursive exchange. Also the new model of recognition later presented by Brandom 42, broaching a distinction between simple recognition and robust recognition, appears capable of tackling the problems posed by the previous model - which had been developed solely in terms of a normative pragmatics of recognitive attribution - only insofar as it is detached from the discontinutistic vision of the relation between natural dispositions 39 40 Exemplary in this respect is McDowell 2004. On the „objective‟ side of recognition see Brandom 1999. On its „absolute‟, i.e. logical side, see Brandom 2003. 41 See for example Brandom 2000: 26-27 and 33. 42 See Brandom 2004. 34 and secondary cultural dispositions of a normative type, reaffirmed by Brandom with his claim that „self-conscious beings don't have natures, they have histories.‟ 43 If this condition is dropped, the distinction between simple recognition and robust recognition ought - in my view - to be reinterpreted in light of the Hegelian distinction between natural recognition and spiritual recognition: but this task cannot be performed unless one simultaneously elaborates a vision of the relation between first and second nature. The theory of second nature, in this respect, would be that through which the - otherwise unexplained - parenthesis contained in Brandom's claim that human beings are „(partially) self-constituting creatures‟ could be made comprehensible. The partiality of such constitution is due to the fact that we are not simply creatures who „have histories‟ but rather are creatures who have a double edged constitution, both historical and natural, resulti ng from the dialectical and contingent interweaving that operates from time to time between first and second nature, between natural and spiritual recognition. 5. Towards a phenomenology of contemporary social space In conclusion I would like to remark briefly on a question that connects from a different perspective the theme I have discussed with the problem of understanding the social space of reasons. A theory of recognition revisited through a theory of second nature ought to make a contribution not only to the problem of bringing a theoretical model of the social space of reasons into focus but also to the problem of interpreting contemporary social space in this light. Naturally this is a vast undertaking that I can barely hint at here. 43 See Brandom 2004: 47. 35 5.1 A problem in the interpretation of contemporary social space The conception of the social space of reasons of a Hegelian matrix appears to meet with a number of problems in presenting itself as a model for understanding the current situation. Such problems appear to stem from two main causes: - the unavoidable fact of the plurality of forms of ethical life; - exhaustion of the belief that our form of ethical life is the only one that can make a claim to be rational. In the presence of these conditions the virtuous circle between internal second nature and external second nature - their conciliation - that the model demands as a condition of the ethical stabilization of recognitive relations is no longer a fait accompli within the borders of the National State. Nor can we any longer be readily assured that our second-nature habits are good habits. Thus the first-nature anomie of the global space of international relations, which in the Hegelian conception was modeled on the state of nature of a struggle for permanent recognition without ethical stabilization, now appears to invest the very second naturalness of the social space of national communities. 5.2 Post-Hegelian conceptual resources for tackling the problem In light of the problem posed it would appear opportune to begin to reconsider some aspects of the Hegelian theory of national and global social space. We do not believe, however, that this situation means the theory of second nature must be abandoned, even though the hope that it can give rise to a no lon ger revocable stabilization of our form of life has been dashed. In the theory of second nature, in fact, conceptual 36 resources are available that can help us deal with several particular aspects of contemporaneity. In this respect: - the Hegelian discovery of the dialectical character of second nature, radicalized by the school of suspicion and by the critique of ideology (Nietzsche, Lukács, Adorno) in terms of the paradoxicality of the relation between first and second nature 44, can provide a model of epochal diagnosis for the analysis of the phenomena of social fragmentation typical of our time. The revisited theory of recognition is thus also a gateway for these conceptual resources, at least insofar as an interpretation of the relation between the two l evels of recognition in terms of a problematical co-presence rather than of a chronological succession - according to a fresh reading of the Kampf um Anerkennung - appears to be inseparable from that phenomenon of instability of the second nature which rev eals itself in some aspects of contemporary social fragmentation. REFERENCES Adorno, Th.W. (1932), „Die Idee der Naturgeschichte,‟ in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by R. 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