L'individuo dell'idea. Riflessione esterna e soggettività filosofica in Hegel

What does it mean to make philosophy a science? And why would it benefit from a privilege fair to the other types of knowledge? The following work deals with the controversial issue of philosophy as science. Its aim is to call into question the Hegelian balance among the three main elements in his philosophy. These three elements are: 1) the objective thinking shaping the whole reality; 2) reality in its widest sense, also including its unconscious forms; 3) the more restricted part of reality thinking itself, whose development leads to a scientific philosophy. This last element is just another name for the objective knowledge of a trans-individual subjectivity. In order to do that, in the introduction we will sketch the most important features of Hegel's metaphysical background, i.e. the Aristotelian tradition of later scholastic and Kant's Criticism. Thanks to a comparison with the Kantian position, in the first chapter we will outline a new interpretation of the Science of Logic, pointing out the role played by the finite thought in the self-development of the pure thinking. So, we will briefly analyse the critiques raised against the Hegelian position by Trendelenburg, Schelling and Marx. What they consider as defective is Hegel's claim of avoiding the limits of finite thinking in the movement of the Concept. What’s more, they make us able to see that the very problem of Hegelian Logic is the notion of externality. In the second chapter we will follow the transformation of the notion of externality in the three spheres of the Logic. We will pay close attention especially to the concept of external reflection, which constitutes the core of the logical structure of finite knowing. So, we will examine the relationship between the pure concept and the finite philosophising subject, together with non philosophical sciences and the history of philosophy. The role played by external reflection is to bridge the gap between the universal and the singular (which is the logical principle of the Individuum). In the third chapter, we will bring into focus the three moments of the concept and those of the method of knowing (both finite and absolute). This will lead us to recognise the problematic position of finite thinking, divided into a finite philosophical knowing and a finite non philosophical knowing. We will find that the clearest expression of this problem is the ambiguous condition of the intellect. In the fourth chapter we will try to solve this ambiguity analysing the Entäuβerung of the absolute idea as nature, together with the theoretical subjective spirit. This is not an arbitrary choice. The Entäuβerung is the first moment where we can find a unity of finite philosophical knowing and absolute knowing. On the other side, the theoretical spirit is the attempt to give a description of the way through which the finite non philosophical knowing comes into existence.