Hegel's Paradox

There is a remarkable part in Hegel's "Phänomenologogie des Geistes" which makes me think since years. It is Hegel's notion of the "verkehrte welt", which has two connotations in english, namely "inverted world" and "wrong world". I am no expert in the exegesis of Hegel, so I cannot give this notion a definite meaning, but I at least want to explain why his ideas did puzzle me so much, in the light of theory of science.

Before I will discuss the original text, I will motivate the problem Hegel was concerned with by a number of rather different, most contemporary texts in the philosophy of science and physics.
For now, it will suffice to explain what I mean by "Hegel's Paradox" and what is at stake in the upcoming blog entries on this topic.

In short, in the course of the development of our understanding what the world is about, we eventually will reach the stage that the world is composed of items ("Gegenstände", "Dinge") such as apples and the like. However, by investigating what is specific to these items , by differentiating them into their properties (being white, tasting salty, having a peculiar shape and texture), we might adopt the view that these items are vastly arbitrary combinations of its properties: the item decays into its properties, it is no longer considered to be a unified, monolithical object of our experience.
Instead, after a course of dialectic movementes, one might adopt the scientists attitude not to regard objects, but natural laws as the constituents of nature. Instead of items or its properties it is now the play of forces ("Spiel der Kräfte") which govern reality.
However, to regard the laws to be the "Absolute" is what will turn out to "reverse" the world as it is. Taking theories "at face value" (in modern terminology) leaves us with an inverted world, in which actual sensations and conscous experience is in no means explained - it is an empty world.
Maybe, Hegel also had in mind what Kant said in the Critique of Pure Reason:"Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind" ("Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind) (A 51)

The interesting aspect in Hegel's exposition of the inverted world (and which is not transferable to what Kant said) is that it is not clear at all if there is a distinction between natural laws, formulated as a theory, and what the theory actually speaks about, "the content", which enters the theory as initial conditions or boundary conditions. After all, in Hegel's exposition it is again a dialectic movement, which brings the world back on its feet. Hence the world in terms of concrete objects is wrong, and a world of natural laws. The position Hegel develops next (but which is also only a intermediate position about the "Absolute") thus overcomes both views.

In the entries devoted that topic I will suggest that there are interesting parallels some of the discussions going on in the philosophy of science. Hegel is still up to date: his view might be relevant both for ontology and methodology, and his thoughts are certainly a promising subject for philosophical investigation. I hope, you, the reader, will enjoy this topic as well.