This paper presents Hegel’s criticism of two central ideas of Pyrrhonism: the importance of stating only how things appear and Pyrrhonism as a way of life. After providing a sketch of the main features of Pyrrhonism, the paper lays out and critically evaluates Hegel’s largely unexamined argument against Pyrrhonism in his early 1802 essay on skepticism. Hegel claims that the Pyrrhonist’s appeal to appearance renders Pyrrhonism philosophically vacuous: insofar as Pyrrhonism merely describes the subjective contents of the Pyrrhonist’s mind, it (...) has no philosophical import. Sextus would not accept Hegel’s criticism because the appeal to appearance could express the provisional rather than purely subjective character of Pyrrhonism. The paper proceeds by examining Hegel’s argument in the Phenomenology that skepticism is contradictory on account of conjoining suspension of judgment with acquiescing in appearances as the guide to life. Sextus would reject Hegel’s criticism by insisting on the distinction between judgment and appearance. (shrink)

This paper argues that McDowell wrongly assumes that “terror”, Cavell’s reaction to the radical contingency of our shared modes of knowing or our “attunement”, expresses a skepticism that is antinomically bound to an equally unacceptable dogmatism because Cavell rather regards terror as a mood that reveals the “truth of skepticism”, namely, that there is no conclusive evidence for necessary attunement on pain of a category error, and that a precedent for McDowell’s misunderstanding is Hegel’s argument for necessary attunement in a (...) system of knowing, whose refutation Schelling holds it is the “merit of skepticism” to provide. (shrink)

According to the deliberative view of democracy, the legitimacy of democratic politics is closely tied to whether the use of political power is accompanied by a process of rational deliberation among the citizenry and their representatives. Critics have questioned whether this level of deliberative capacity is even possible among modern citizenries--due to limitations of time, energy, and differential backgrounds--which therefore calls into question the very possibility of this type of democracy. In my dissertation, I counter this line of criticism, arguing (...) that deliberative democrats and their critics have both idealized the wrong kind of citizen deliberation. Citizen deliberation should not be concerned with the indeterminate project of "translating" abstract democratic principles and values into everyday cases of political problem-solving. Instead, deliberation should take the form of analogy, just as we already find it in everyday politics and affairs. When ordinary citizens use analogies, they do not derive decisions from general principles or values, but they still reason nonetheless. Seen from this analogical perspective, deliberative democracy is already a practical reality to a large degree. When an election is on the horizon, a campaign season arises in which debates, forums, and "barstool" dialogues exponentially increase the amount of citizen deliberation. In these settings, citizens can readily be seen to be mapping analogous past candidates, elections, issues, and problems onto those currently on the ballot so as to reason about them. Consequently, analogical reasoning allows citizens to treat the majority rule mechanisms that proliferate in real politics as "deliberative outlets," which is to say, as catalysts of deliberation akin to the "creative outlets" that catalyze self-expression in the arts. While citizens may recognize majority rule mechanisms as catalysts of deliberation, many democratic theorists will hesitate to embrace this vision of the practical reality of deliberative politics. Isn't analogical reasoning too low in rigor to be placed at the heart of the deliberative ideal? I develop two arguments to explain the foundational role analogy plays in deliberation and to counter such critics. First, I draw on the explosion of research on analogical reasoning over the past two decades to show that it is far more rigorous and systematic than many suppose. Second, I argue that to the extent that citizen deliberation is concerned with rational planning, rather than just reasoning in general, analogical reasoning is logically superior. When we reason about what to do, we make plans that incorporate predictions about what is likely to ensue when a given course of action is selected. However, as soon as predictions enter into deliberation, its underlying logic changes as well. The reason for this change in logic is that as our probabilistic reasoning expands, the probability of its conclusions degenerates. Therefore, when assessing probabilities, we no longer should seek decisions derived from long, elegant chains of reasoning that connect our various options to generalities like values and principles. Instead, what we need is "short and sweet," or terse, humble lines of reasoning, which are more congruent with this form of deliberation. Thus, to the extent that democratic deliberation is involved in rational planning, it calls not for the elegant, deductive kind of reasoning idealized by proponents and critics of deliberative democracy alike. Instead, democratic deliberation calls for the "short and sweet," analogical kind of decision-making we associate with ordinary citizens already. After all, as research has shown, analogies are a much preferred and rigorous way by which even experts engage in probabilistic reasoning. By focusing on analogical reasoning, I therefore conclude that the practical reality of deliberative democracy should be recognized in ways that might ordinarily be dismissed. (shrink)

Hegel's philosophy aims at responding to the questions raised by modern scepticism concerning the accessibility of the external world, of other minds, and of one's own mind. A key-role in Hegel's argumentative strategy against modern scepticism is played here by Hegel's theory of recognition. Recognition mediates the constitution of individual self-consciousness and intersubjectivity: self-knowledge is not logically independent of the awareness of other minds. At the same time, recognition institutes the possibility of objective reference to the world. In this way, (...) in Hegel the theory of recognition furnishes a unitary response to the threefold sceptical issue of the accessibility of the external world, of other minds, and of one's own mind. The reference to a common world of public objects is thus possible only thanks to the mediation of recognitive capacities that are naturally possessed and socially articulated, which make possible the triangulation between self, world and others. (shrink)

Resumo: Em nosso artigo, compararemos, a partir do problema do ceticismo, as diferentes compreensões que Hegel tem, em sua juventude e em sua maturidade, do que seja determinação e de como sua concepção de determinação se afastaria ou não da concepção de Espinosa. De fato, como pretendemos mostrar, uma dimensão pouco explorada e, contudo, fundamental para compreender como o Hegel de maturidade pretende distinguir a sua concepção de determinação daquela de Espinosa, é o esforço hegeliano de oferecer uma resposta satisfatória (...) ao ceticismo, por meio da qual a filosofia possa adquirir o estatuto de um conhecimento verdadeiramente seguro e bem fundamentado. Nesse sentido, será fundamental mostrar como a própria concepção hegeliana de determinação passou por mudanças significativas desde seu período de juventude até a sua maturidade, e como isso foi central para a reavaliação que o Hegel de maturidade faz da filosofia de Espinosa e da compreensão que este teria determinação. (shrink)

Hegel’s approach to ancient scepticism is often discussed only in the context of epistemological questions. But it is also of crucial importance for his practical philosophy. Hegel draws on central figures of Pyrrhonian scepticism in order to subject Kant’s antinomies – i. e., Kant’s cosmology – to a fundamental revision. He radicalises Kant’s sceptical method to “self-completing scepticism”. At the same time he gives Kant’s concept of the world a practical twist: In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, world means an inhabited (...) sphere in which powers and counter-powers are in conflict with each other. In doing so, he opens up the tradition of negativist thinking in political philosophy, which ranges from Marx and Adorno to the current theories of radical democracy. When Hegel calls Pyrrhonian skepticism a “negative dialectic”, he thereby marks what he views as a deficit: the inferiority of Pyrrhonian skepticism to speculative philosophy. However, it is precisely the practical dimension of Hegel’s dialectic that suggests that the sceptical motives of his thinking should be given great weight. This can be seen most clearly in Hegel’s concept of Bildung, which defines emancipation processes as the reactivation of open power relations in static conditions of domination. (shrink)

Although, as many scholars have noted, Hegel appears to dismiss common sense, I argue that his claim that speculative philosophy can provide the rational ground for what is implicit in ordinary consciousness amounts to a critical vindication of common sense. Hegel’s attitude to common sense/ordinary consciousness is thus more complex and intriguing than either the longstanding consensus on his dismissal of and disdain for common sense, or the McDowellian attempt to ally Hegel’s position with later-Wittgensteinian philosophical therapy. Hegel’s critique of (...) ordinary consciousness, I conclude, should be read as a nuanced philosophical vindication of common sense. (shrink)

For many reasons mainstream Hegel scholarship has disregarded Hegel's interests in epistemology, hence also his response to scepticism. From the points of view of defenders and critics alike, it seems that 'Hegel' and 'epistemology' have nothing to do with one another. Despite this widespread conviction, Hegel was a very sophisticated epistemologist whose views merit contemporary interest. This article highlights several key features and innovations of Hegel's epistemology-including his anti-Cartesianism, fallibilism, realism (sic) and externalism both about mental content and about justification-by (...) considering his systematic responses to Pyrrhonian, Humean, Cartesian and Kantian scepticism. (shrink)

Resumo O objetivo de meu trabalho é o esclarecimento de quatro características distintivas do sistema hegeliano como projeto de uma filosofia livre de pressuposições. Para tanto, pretendo reconstruir a conexão entre os seguintes traços constitutivos do conceito operativo de Voraussetzungslosigkeit : em primeiro lugar, a imanência do real ao pensar objetivo; em segundo, a integração do ceticismo pirrônico ou antigo ao modo de apresentação científica do pensar; em terceiro lugar, a configuração do elemento lógico em termos de um movimento de (...) circulação de si mesmo; em quarto, a subversão da compreensão ordinária da dupla conceitual "abstrato-concreto". A reconstrução assim oferecida permite argumentar sobre conclusões relevantes para compreender adequadamente a ambição do projeto especulativo de Hegel: em primeiro lugar, a ausência de pressuposições só pode confirmar-se enquanto prova científica por meio da subversão das certezas arraigadas no senso comum; em segundo, a prova da imanência é científica na medida em que mostra o necessário entrelaçamento do aspecto ontológico com o aspecto epistemológico do sistema, tornando-o invulnerável a objeções céticas de tipo radical; em terceiro, o sistema não é de modo algum reduzível à estrutura da Enciclopédia, pois essa é apenas um auxílio didático para a apresentação do sistema, cujo significado verdadeiro pode ser atingido unicamente pela organização cada vez mais concreta dos silogismos da ideia da filosofia.The aim of my article is the clarification of four distinctive characters of Hegel's system as a project of a presuppositionless philosophy. For this purpose, I will reconstruct the connection among the following features of the operative concept of presuppositionlessness: in the first place, the immanence of the real in the objective thinking; in the second place, the integration of pyrrhonian or ancient skepticism into the scientific way of presentation of thinking; in the third place, the configuration of the logical element in terms of an inner circulation; in the fourth place, the subversion of the ordinary understanding of the couple 'abstract-concrete'. This reconstruction allows me to argue for some conclusions relevant for the understanding of the ambitions of the Hegelian speculative project. In the first place, presuppositionlessness can be confirmed as a scientific proof only if the subversion of the commonsensical distinctions between abstract and concrete succeeds. In the second place, the proof of the immanence is scientific insofar as it shows the necessary intertwinement of the ontological aspect with the epistemological aspect of the system, making it invulnerable to radical skeptical objections. In the third place, the system is by no means reducible to the structure of the Encyclopedia, since this is only a didactic support for the presentation of the system, whose true meaning can be attained only by the more and more concrete organization of the syllogisms of the idea of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper considers whether Hegel's master/slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Spirit should be considered as a refutation of solipsism. It focuses on a recent and detailed attempt to argue for this sort of reading that has been proposed by Frederick Beiser ? but it argues that this reading is unconvincing, both in the historical motivations given for it in the work of Jacobi and Fichte, and as an interpretation of the text itself. An alternative reading of the dialectic is (...) proposed, where it is argued that the central problem Hegel is concerned with is not solipsism, but the sociality of freedom. (shrink)

has become an honorific title used by researchers to commend their work, or the particular approach they adopt. Conversely, the work of others is often dismissed on the grounds that it is "uncritical". However, there are important questions about what the term critical means, about what we should be critical of, and about the form that criticism ought to take. These questions are addressed here in relation to both the role of the social researcher itself and that of researchers operating (...) as public intellectuals. It is argued that the distinction between these roles is an important one, and has implications for what can legitimately be criticised, on what grounds, and in what way. In each case, there are proper limits to criticism, albeit different ones. Like anything else, criticism is not always a good thing. Key Words: critical social research • scientific criticism • social criticism • public intellectuals. (shrink)

Outside Ethics brings together some of the most important and provocative works by one of the most creative philosophers writing today. Seeking to expand the scope of contemporary moral and political philosophy, Raymond Geuss here presents essays bound by a shared skepticism about a particular way of thinking about what is important in human life--a way of thinking that, in his view, is characteristic of contemporary Western societies and isolates three broad categories of things as important: subjective individual preferences, knowledge, (...) and restrictions on actions that affect other people. He sets these categories in a wider context and explores various human phenomena--including poetry, art, religion, and certain kinds of history and social criticism--that do not fit easily into these categories. As its title suggests, this book seeks a place outside conventional ethics.Following a brief introduction, Geuss sets out his main concerns with a focus on ethics and politics. He then expands these themes by discussing freedom, virtue, the good life, and happiness. Next he examines Theodor Adorno's views on the relation between suffering and knowledge, the nature of religion, and the role of history in giving us critical distances from existing identities. From here he moves to aesthetic concerns. The volume closes by looking at what it is for a human life to have "gaps"--to be incomplete, radically unsatisfactory, or a failure. (shrink)

O objetivo específico do presente artigo é explicar por que a quarta figura do silogismo do ser aí na doutrina do conceito da Ciência da Lógica de Hegel é denominada “silogismo matemático”. Para esse fim, pretendo proceder em três passos principais. Em primeiro lugar, elucidarei o conceito de silogismo a partir do qual o alcance e o limite do silogismo matemático devem ser avaliados. Em segundo lugar, apresentarei uma tradução e um comentário analítico do texto hegeliano sobre o silogismo matemático, (...) procurando explicitar em que consiste a necessidade de reduzir o silogismo qualitativo ao silogismo quantitativo. Em terceiro lugar, mostrarei que a matemática, com efeito, constitui um âmbito legítimo dentro do qual o silogismo da quarta figura é capaz de gerar conhecimento, mas justamente a delimitação desse âmbito torna necessária a crítica de qualquer formalização matemático-simbólica da lógica dialética. (shrink)

This thesis aims to throw an illuminating light on the as yet neglected concept of nothing in Kant’s system, a concept which is taken into consideration, by Kant, in accordance with the guiding thread of the categories of the understanding. My main argument is that Kant has a fourfold division of nothing and each has a transcendental function in his system. This function is basically a limiting one; setting up negative determinations without which Kant’s system would have never been constituted (...) as it is now. It is shown in the thesis that the concept of nothing is divided basically into four: first, nothing as ens rationis that limits and thereby protects knowledge, secondly nothing as nihil privativum that defines the boundaries of phenomenal reality, thirdly nothing as ens imaginarium that makes possible the unity of experience and finally, nothing as nihil negativum that draws the lines of logical thinking. All make, in the last resort and by being the concepts of the opposite, experience possible. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is an exposition of all four divisions of nothing, the second is the display specifically of the concepts of ens rationis and nihil negativum, and the third is of the concepts of ens imaginarium and nihil privativum. The auxiliary argument of the thesis is that while Hegel makes a strong charge of externality against and thereby severely criticizes the Kantian concept of the thing-in-itself, - the concept of which I propose to be contained under the concept of ens rationis- Kant has equally convincing arguments against such a charge. This is the topic of the fourth and final chapter which has an implicit aim of creating the image of a powerful critical Hegel but on the other hand an equally enduring and war-like Kant. Kant is presented as a philosopher who has powerful responses to institute a balance between himself and his opponent. When Kant’s differing concepts of nothing are taken into account, Hegel’s attack of externality, it is maintained, appears not to have taken into account the full measure of the resources of the Kantian position. Even when it is said that the attack is against one specific concept of the thing-in-itself alone, Kant still seems to have enough resources for toleration and defence indeed. (shrink)

Bernard Lavor and John Kadvany argue that Lakatos’s Hegelian approach to the philosophy of mathematics and science enabled him to overcome all competing philosophies. His use of the approach Hegel developed in his Phenomenology enabled him to show how mathematics and science develop, how they are open-ended, and that they are not subject to rules, even though their rationality may be understood after the fact. Hegel showed Lakatos how to falsify the past to make progress in the present. A critique (...) based on normal standards of fairness and honesty finds this argument an attack on rationality. The similarity of the methods Lakatos used as a Stalinist politician and those he used as a philosopher are pointed out. The Hegelian interpretation of his philosophy is an excuse for his misdeeds. Key Words: Lakatos • Popper • Agassi • research program • historiography. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Imre Lakatos’s account on the relation between the history and the philosophy of science, if properly understood and also if properly modified, can be valuable for the philosophical comprehension of the relation between the history and the philosophy of science. The paper is divided into three main parts. In the first part, I provide a charitable exegesis of the Lakatosian conception of the history of science in order to show that Lakatos’s history cannot be (...) a caricature. In the second part, I describe what I believe are the real problems of Lakatos’s account on a metaphysical and on a methodological level. In order to address these problems, I take advantage of the recent critique of the so-called “confrontation model”. Finally, in the third part, I suggest that a proper modification of Lakatos’s perspective can resolve the aforementioned problems without distorting Lakatos’s central aspiration, which is that the philosophical theories of scientific rationality can be assessed with the help of the history of science without losing their normative content. (shrink)

Traditional epistemological interpretations have portrayed Hegel as offering a coherentist solution to the problem of the criterion in the introduction to The Phenomenology of Spirit. In this paper, I criticize the coherentist interpretation and present an alternative reading that emphasizes the central role of conscious experience in Hegel's argument. In the first part of the paper, I show how the passages commonly used to support the coherentist interpretation ultimately fail to do so and argue that coherence by itself cannot be (...) the lynchpin for an adequate solution to the problem of the criterion. In the second part, I then develop a novel interpretation of Hegel's argument by drawing attention to the fact that Hegel formulates both the problem of the criterion and his solution to it in terms of consciousness. (shrink)

Toisin kuin usein kuvitellaan, Hegel suhtautui järjestelmänsä epistemologiseen perusteluun erittäin vakavasti. Phänomenologie des Geistes’issa hän pyrkii todistamaan absoluuttisen kannan olemassaolon immanentisti ja negatiivisesti: osoittamalla vastustavien kantojen kumoavan itsensä omilla kriteereillään. Nyt suomennetussa teoksensa johdannossa Hegel tekee selväksi immanentin kritiikin välttämättömyyden ja luonnostelee sen metodin.

I present the arguments Hegel puts forward in favor of this rather challenging account of skepticism. In Section 2, I discuss the celebrated conception of “self-fulfilling skepticism” of the Phenomenology of Spirit that is supposed to overcome untrue types of cognition in order to promote “absolute knowing.” In Section 3, I debate Hegel’s more advanced view according to which genuine skepticism must be construed as dialectic.