This thesis is concerned with what I call “the problem of beginning.” This problem expresses the difficulty involved in getting the type of critical, rational thinking proper to philosophical work underway in a manner that is not problematically arbitrary. This amounts to a dilemma between beginning dogmatically by depending upon unexamined presuppositions, and beginning dogmatically with some fundamentally arbitrary assertion. After motivating the problem and explicating it in some detail in the introduction, I identify a number of possible, but unappealing ways to respond. In Chapter 1 I argue that, motivated by his relationship with Pyrrhonism, Hegel is engaging with this same problem at the start of his Science of Logic. I identify a distinctive form of a solution to the problem in Hegel's work which amounts to isolating a beginning which is both presuppositionless and non-arbitrary, or, in his terminology, both immediate and mediated. In Hegel's work I identify two different possible ways in which the form of this solution can be fleshed out. They differ in terms of what they designate as the element of mediation in the beginning. In the first case, this element is stated to be the project of phenomenology, as carried out in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. In the second case, this element is characterised as a project of “consummate scepticism,” but left problematically underdeveloped. In Chapter 2 I present reasons for rejecting the suitability of the former, and in Chapter 3 I attempt to sketch a project of “consummate scepticism” which would be capable of functioning as the element of mediation in a manner capable of producing a working, “Hegelian” solution to the problem of beginning. I draw the thesis to a close by considering both the costs and opportunities which follow from this reconstructed solution, especially concerning the establishment of idealism.

For Hegel, serious, painful disagreement among reasonable individuals is part of the very fabric of our intellectual, moral, and social lives. Disagreement about what matters cannot be eliminated. Traditionally, this kind of interpretation is thought to be incompatible with Hegel’s epistemic and metaphysical ambitions: that reason has absolute power to explain all there is, leaving no significant question without an adequate answer. But if genuine disagreement cannot be eliminated, then at least some significant practical normative questions must remain without fully adequate answers. I develop a novel strategy for reconciling these two fundamental aspects of his approach to practical norms and values in his Philosophy of Right. Through what I call topographic explanations, Hegel takes on the task of explaining why the world is structured in such a way that (a) some significant questions necessarily remain open to painful disagreement, and that (b) the world remains a worthy home for our deepest aspirations.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Nice. / Bibliogr. p. 206-218.

No description available.

Henri Gregoire poses a problem to all scholars who see the French Revolution as an anti-religious event. Most of his fellow 'red priests', those not-so-few who in 1789 asked for some kind of democracy and more rights for the 'damned of the earth', gradually abandoned either their faith or their patriotism. Gregoire, until his death in 1831, always proclaimed the compatibility of Christianity and republic. Not only is his position representative of that of many Catholics at the beginning of the Revolution, it also asks anew the important question of the link between religion and revolution, and gives it an unusual answer. As many philosophes did, Gregoire was speaking in terms of reason, of the Enlightenments, and of natural rights---but nevertheless believed Catholicism was the only good religion. If a good Christian is the best citizen possible, how can one fight for the recognition of the 'natural rights' of the Jews and the freedom of worship for all without being inconsistant?

No description available.

The following study is an attempt to understand the fundamental ethics of Emmanuel Levinas and the phenomenology of G. W. F. Hegel as philosophies of intersubjectivity. In this study we hope to make an important contribution to Levinas scholarship by historically locating Levinas' interpretation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in the twentieth century French-Hegelian tradition. The historical location of Levinas' thought concerning Hegel is important because a French-Hegelian reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit is not a textually accurate portrayal of Hegel's thought. We will argue that a French-Hegelian reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit actually misinterprets the meaning of "teleological" time and "the end of history" in Hegel's text, and that it does so for expressly political purposes. We will argue that Levinas' French-Hegelian misinterpretation affects both his portrayal of Hegel's phenomenology and his own ethical phenomenology. Locating Levinas' Hegel in a French-Hegelian tradition is important for understanding his phenomenology because Levinas negatively situates his own ethical account of intersubjectivity against what he takes Hegel's phenomenology of intersubjectivity to consist in. As a consequence, Levinas goes to great lengths in Otherwise than Being to describe time as "diachronous" in direct contradistinction to what we will argue is a French-Hegelian misreading of "teleological" time in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit . After we establish a proper reading of Hegel's phenomenology of intersubjectivity, and we establish how Levinas misunderstands the Phenomenology of Spirit from a French-Hegelian perspective, we will be able to access the viable similarities that actually inhere between their purportedly "diametrically opposing" phenomenologies of intersubjectivity. These similarities will give us a logical point of contact between the two philosophers in terms of which we can normatively evaluate their respecti

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

El presente trabajo tiene como tema central el concepto de acción en la Filosofía del derecho de Hegel. Buscamos alcanzar dos objetivos. En primer lugar, intentamos presentar de manera articulada y analizada la teoría hegeliana de la acción subjetiva. En segundo lugar, buscamos complementar esta teoría mediante una corrección ética acerca de la actitud moral: sostenemos que el concepto de acción tiene que integrar como constitutiva una consideración subjetiva del bien universal y objetivo. Para llevar a cabo estas tareas, este trabajo está dividido en tres capítulos. En el primer capítulo, exponemos una visión sistemática del concepto de acción en la sección de la Moralidad de la Filosofía del derecho. Nos encargamos de presentar y analizar tesis estructurales para conectar unitariamente las dimensiones del complejo concepto de acción de Hegel. En el segundo capítulo, profundizamos en los derechos que constituyen progresivamente el concepto complejo de acción. Abordamos la diferencia entre la acción y el acto, la relación entre el propósito y la intención, entre la intención y el bienestar, y entre el bienestar y el bien (que corresponde a la actitud propiamente moral). Frente al problema de la conexión interna entre el concepto de acción y de bien, en el tercer capítulo, argumentamos, por un lado, que una comprensión del bien desde el punto de vista de la Moralidad conduce tanto a la imposibilidad de la instanciación del bien en el mundo como a la realización de acciones que son solo arbitrariamente buenas. Por otro lado, una re-comprensión del bien desde el punto de vista de la Eticidad conduce a la tesis de que la normatividad inmanente de las instituciones éticas corresponde a las determinaciones objetivas mediante las cuales el sujeto ético constituye su idea de bienestar subjetivo y a los parámetros de validez intersubjetiva que orientan el reconocimiento efectivo entre los miembros de la Eticidad. Con ello, logramos alcanzar los objetivos planteados. / Tesis

No description available.