2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

P HILOSOPHY’ S ENDS
This multiplicity of philosophies, this contradiction I want to illuminate
and make intelligible. I want thus to provide an introduction to the relation
of the many philosophies to the one philosophy, and this will make clear at
all events the difference between the history of philosophy and philosophy
itself. (K 62)
Furthermore, it is not an epistemological contradiction between false and real truths, rather
it is a contradiction between different truths that has to be “removed” as soon as the differ-
ent competing truths are considered as parts of a higher totality. The removal, however,
does not mean that their presence has been accidental. Once again, if the development of
philosophy has been faithful to itself then it follows that the different philosophies must all
have been necessary, as Hegel stress immediately:
In this way we will see that this multiplicity of philosophies not only does
no damage to philosophy itself and its possibility, but is and has been downright
necessary for the very existence of philosophy. (ib.)
Hegel’s conclusion is that the real issue confronting both the historian and the philosopher
does not concern at all the presence of false philosophies, the existence of philosophical
“opinions.” The real issue is to understand the contradictory existence of conflicting phi-
losophies that must all be considered true unless the very existence of philosophy in the
general sense is jeopardized. “Thus we will have nothing to do with opinions,” Hegel con-
cludes at the end of the passage previously quoted, “we have to do with philosophical
Ideas.” More accurately, he will have to do with the whole history of philosophy as a system
guided by its own internal goal, and striving to reach it.
At this point in the analysis, we might remark that Hegel has not shown has yet any
characteristics of the end of philosophy. Rather, he has been involved with the features of
the path that would take us there. He has determined that the road towards the end is not
straight: it is not a simple line but a bumpy road marked by contradictions. Second, he has
claimed that the road to the end risks getting out of control and take nowhere unless philos-
ophy finds an internal limit to constraint its course and force to end somewhere. Third, un-
less such a limit is found, philosophy will disappear, possibly in favor of science or religion.
And last but by no means least, he claims that the only way to find a limit is to use philos-
63