[Originariamente pubblicato in data 10 marzo 2019]
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...all we need is philosophy
Mese: Marzo 2026
Introduzione
La letteratura francese medievale presenta ancora oggi testi, in particolare esperimenti poetici brevi e dalla cifra stilistica tutt’altro che sublime, che hanno visto attenzione critica minima applicatagli, o che addirittura ancora difettano di una sistemazione critica e di un’edizione. Consapevole di questa realtà filologica, nel novembre 2024 presentai, a conclusione del percorso di laurea triennale in Lettere all’Università degli Studi di Milano, una tesi dal titolo Il dit Du Chevalier Tort: saggio di edizione critica. Il testo in questione, tràdito da quattro manoscritti e diviso in due redazioni, è un esperimento poetico in alessandrini monorimati, di una lunghezza che va dai quaranta ai sessanta versi, a seconda della redazione.
I quattro manoscritti testimoni sono:
- Manoscritto Parigi, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 19152, ff. 70vc-71rb (siglato D);[1]
- Manoscritto Parigi, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 2168, ff. 213vb-214rb (siglato H);
- Manoscritto Parigi, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 25545, ff. 4va-vb (siglato I);
- Manoscritto Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 86, ff. 190r-191r (siglato Z);
Skepticism – Between a Malevolent Use of Language and Positive Philosophical Attitude
Introduction
Skepticism is an ancient philosophical attitude. I have been skeptical about many forms of skepticism and I still am.[1] My argumentation against it was that skepticism is based on a malevolent use of language to prove something clearly paradoxical or contradictory. In a sense, all skeptical philosophy is impossible in the strongest sense of the word ‘impossible’. The grounding of this conclusion is very simple. The skeptics are unable to prove what they want, and they construct arguments whose nature is self-defeating in a very fundamental sense.
However, at the same time, skepticism is an unreplaceable component of all philosophical edifices and, beyond them, all human thinking. Among the best philosophers were deemed skeptical at one point and the accusation was almost invariably right. They were skeptical about something specific, and their arguments were to disprove a portion of the assumed shared beliefs to replace them with something different, being it a reformist or creative endeavor. Here I try to show why both tenets are true: radical skepticism is pointless and yet we need some form of it. Understanding how this is not a contradiction is the topic of this essay.
Skepticism and Its Philosophical Relevance
Skepticism is a philosophical attitude, not a philosophy. As an attitude, it is necessary and it consists in the unwillingness to accept anything as true or given or presumed beforehand. At the same time, this is not the primary objective of classic skepticism, whose goal was aligned with Stoicism and Epicureanism: peace of mind (ataraxia) from the ‘evils’ of the world.[2] We must start from the extreme form of it; that is, skepticism as a philosophy and not just as an attitude: “Sextus presents scepticism as a kind of philosophy, distinguished from others not by the content of its doctrines (there are none), but apparently by its attitude to philosophical problems and theses.”[3] According to this position, there is no solid foundation for any statement and proposition, no matter the origin, cause and formulation. The skeptical argument is the refuse of any possible argument at its extreme.