History of Logic Seminar Series - Talk: Giuseppe Varnier, "From Formalism to Sceptical Theory of the Logos. On the essence and aim of Hegel's Dialectical logic" (17.12.2025)
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We are pleased to announce the second session of the second annual cycle of the History of Logic Seminar Series. The session will be held on Wednesday, December 17, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. CET. Please note that, for this session, the day of the week and the timeframe differ from the usual.
We will meet in person at the Aliotta Lecture Hall (Department of Humanities, University of Naples) and via Zoom. To have the Zoom link, please subscribe to the HoL mailing list by contacting us at historyofl...@gmail.com.
On this occasion, we will host a talk by Giuseppe Varnier (University of Siena). His talk is titled "From Formalism to Sceptical Theory of the Logos. On the essence and aim of Hegel's Dialectical logic". Here is a short abstract:
In my first part, on the basis of both historical and theoretical characterizations, I try to give an explanation of key Hegelian concepts and operations in contemporary philosophical terms independent of Hegelian jargon. I obtain a satisfying account of the meaning (and systematic function) of key words such as concept, Idea, knowledge (Wissen and Er-kenntnis), system. Even though I do not obtain an independent characterization of the idea of logic, I hopefully succeed in drawing the contours of its role and function. I will stress that logic, in the Hegelian sense, is dialectical in the sense of epistemically and metaphysically destructive and sceptical: logic (and Logic, the textual deployments of Hegel’s logic) is a sort of semantica universalis based on Classical dialectics and the Tropes of the Ancient Sceptics as arguments. In my second part, after recounting contemporary contributions, such as Fulda’s, Marconi’s and Priest’s seminal works, I proceed to show that the very idea of formalizing logic is a nonsense. Hegel was in a sense an Ancient logician. The Logic is a text, not a calculus. It relies on analysis and transformation of non-logical materials without a modern conception of logical systems, of explosion (ex falso quodlibet), and even of a model. In my final part, I will review the advantages and shortcomings of paraconsistent logics in shedding light on logic’s and Logic’s different enterprise. I will discuss the main flaw of formalization projects: the failure to understand that Hegel’s logic has the paramount sceptical function to criticize the objective validity and cognitive import of representations, concepts, inferences, and even syllogisms. But I will conclude suggesting the interesting possibility of more closely Hegel-inspired calculi.
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Kind regards,
Antonio