In her book Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher, Ann Hartle argues that Montaigne’s thought is dialectical in the Hegelian sense. Unlike Hegel’s progressive dialectic, however, Montaigne’s thought is, according to Hartle, circular in that the reconciliation of opposed terms comes not in the form of a newly emergent term, but in a return to the first term, where the meaning of the first is transformed as a result of its dialectical interaction with the second. This analysis motivates Hartle’s claim that (...) Montaigne is not a skeptic at all, let alone a Pyrrhonian skeptic. In this paper, I argue that Hartle’s circular-dialectical interpretation of Montaigne is not only compatible with Pyrrhonism, but is in fact an ideal model for understanding Sextus Empiricus’s skeptical therapy. (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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

A contradição é um conceito central para que se compreenda o desenvolvimento dialético da filosofia de Hegel. Desde a Antiguidade é debatido pelos filósofos se a contradição seria ou não uma anomalia a ser combatida quando se pensa na possibilidade da constituição de um discurso acerca das coisas e qual o seu alcance. No que se refere a Hegel, a contradição não está presente apenas no domínio dos conceitos, mas também na natureza. O que pretendemos aqui é apreender o significado (...) dessa contradição na natureza e do conceito de movimento que dela deriva. Para tanto, primeiro acompanharemos certos aspectos dessa temática no debate de Hegel com alguns autores da Antiguidade e a seguir trataremos da exposição hegeliana do mesmo tema na Filosofia da Natureza da Enciclopédia a partir da dedução do conceito de tempo. The contradiction is a central concept in order to understand the dialectical development of Hegel's philosophy. Since ancient times is debated by philosophers if the contradiction would or wouldn’t be an anomaly to be fought when considering the possibility of setting up a speech about things and what its scope is. With regard to Hegel, the contradiction is not only present in the field of concepts, but also in the nature. What we intend here is to grasp the significance of this contradiction in the nature and the concept of movement derived from it. For this, first we will follow certain aspects of this theme in Hegel’s discussion with some authors of antiquity and then dealing with the hegelian exposition of the same theme in the Philosophy of Nature of the Encyclopaedia from the deduction of the concept of time. (shrink)

This article claims that Hegel’s appropriation of ancient skepticism plays a fundamental role in the formation of Hegelian systematics. This is affirmed both in relation to some methodical aspects, which anticipate some essential characteristics of speculative dialectics, and in view of Hegel’s confrontation with transcendental philosophy, such as the sublation of finite cognition in general. To this end, two gures and functions that skepticism adopts in the early phase of Hegelian thought are reconstructed. The article concludes with a reflection on (...) the general connection between skepticism and system in Hegel’s philosophy, and presents a third form of skepticism: The Phenomenology of Spirit. (shrink)