2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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T HE END OF PHILOSOPHY
the paradox—e.g. the possibility of philosophy. The Hegelian solution, instead, is to rein-
terpret the antinomy by substituting a different reading of contradiction fro the classical
one—e.g. by introducing dialectics. 14
More generally, Hegel shows that if the notions of truth and history are taken seriously,
then the very, undeniable fact that philosophy, e.g. the search for truth, might have a history
brings about a paradox that casts a spell on philosophy itself and threatens to destroy its
very possibility. This paradox, it may be worth remembering, arises when the implicit and
deeply a-historical relationship of philosophy with its end is brought to the fore. The first
conclusion to be drawn from it, then, is that unless philosophy takes an explicit stance to-
wards its end, it can never exist, since it bounces from a series of historical temporal opin-
ions to an a-historical truth that mutually converts into one another.
But Hegel’s point can also be read from the conclusion to the premises, or, as the logi-
cians say, by contraposition. Since it is a fact, contrary to the previous alleged conclusion,
that philosophy has existed and does exist (and Hegel would be the last one to contest such
a fact) it follows that it has, always, and more or less explicitly, taken a stance towards its
end. In fact, we might say that what Hegel’s paradox does is to show how philosophy—
Hegel’s philosophy first and foremost, and ours as well insofar as it might share some of
Hegel’s assumptions on truth and history that bear the weight of the paradox—is tied to its
ends. We might even say—but it would be too strong, since such a privilege is shared by
other words—that what the paradox shows is that ‘end’ is the philosophical word par ex-
cellence, since it is impossible to speak about or do philosophy without being drawn into
thinking about the end and the ends, of philosophy and of philosophers. (Anyone existen-
tially minded might want to push this thought a bit further and claim that philosophy, in the
end, has just one concern: the end with a capital E, i.e. “the most extreme possibility”
14. Removing the possibility of self-referential sentences is the classical, Russellian solution to the Liar
paradox as it arises in set-theory. Although other non-Russellian alternatives are in fact possible, the
difference between a logical “dis-solution” and the Hegelian “re-solution” of the antinomy remains unchanged,
insofar as it involves a deeply different treatment of contradiction and a different concept of
“solution.” For a detailed discussion of the Liar paradox see Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, The
Liar (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987) and, more recently, Jon Barwise and Lawrence Moss, Vicious Circles
(Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1996), p. 177-197.