ABSTRACTWhile Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase ‘second nature’ in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures ‘natural consciousness’, ‘natural notion’, and ‘inorganic nature’, in order to (...) elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the ‘official’ version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an ‘unofficial’ version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a ‘second nature’. (shrink)

Hegel frequently identifies ethical life with a “second nature.” This strategy has puzzled those who assume that second nature represents a deficient appearance of ethical life, one that needs to be overcome, supplemented, or constantly challenged. I argue that Hegel identifies ethical life with a second nature because he thinks that a social order only becomes a candidate for ethical life, if it provides a context conducive to the development of what I call “real habits.” First, I show that a (...) criterion for a real habit can be found in Hegel's Anthropology, namely, that of liberation. Next, I explain how the state, as Hegel analyzes it in the Philosophy of Right, provides such an environment by enabling trust toward and within it. I then consider two literary examples of contexts that fail to be similarly supportive—Coates' Between the World and Me and Atwood's Handmaid's Tale—concluding with reasons for thinking that real habits are an integral part of ethical life. (shrink)

Nada más habitual que el hábito. Y, sin embargo, de seguir a Aristóteles, no existirían virtudes entre nosotros, o sea: aptitudes y habilidades que acaban por configurar la existencia humana. En este ensayo se examina el desarrollo dialéctico del hábito en Hegel, desde la Antropología hasta la Eticidad : en el plano individual, desde el estado fetal y el desvarío en el alma sentiente hasta el autosentimiento de sí y el nacimiento del Yo; en el plano colectivo, se atiende más (...) bien a la génesis del hábito y sus fautores: las corporaciones, las instituciones estatales y la opinión pública, hasta desembocar en el extraño estadio del hábito como deshabituación de todo hábito, en el fenómeno de la guerra. Se pone así de relieve el modo en que el hábito es el modo crucial de ser entre la individualidad animal y el cuerpo sociopolítico como aparato mecánico que promete vida y amenaza muerte. (shrink)