Spirit's Cybernetic Externalization in the Capital System: Positing the Hegelian Presupposition of the Human-Environment Relation

This essay examines how cybernetic concepts in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel offer a rich understanding of spiritual modes of human evolution within capitalism. Where there exists a tendency to view the human-environment (human-capitalist social formation) relation on too conventionally humanistic terms, I suggest that Hegel’s concepts help us to construct, but also to contend with, a transhuman, cybernetic, and objective trend in capitalism’s development, as well as in enabling us to see capitalism’s (and machinic technologies more generally) own role as (autopoietic) agent. Focusing on his concepts of externalization and spiritualization this essay uses Hegel to reflect upon a spiritual, less technocratic cybernetics which finite places human individuals at the forefront of what makes systems resilient, even in acute moments of crisis-ridden, historical transition.