These tropes thus form an effective weapon against the philosophy of the ordinary understanding, and the Sceptics directed them with great acuteness, sometimes against the common acceptation of things, and sometimes against principles of philosophic reflection. These sceptical tropes, in fact, concern that which is called a dogmatic philosophy—not in the sense of its having a positive content, but as asserting something determinate as the absolute; and in accordance with its nature, such a philosophy must display itself in all these forms. To the Sceptics, the Notion of dogmatic philosophy is in effect that something is asserted as the implicit; it is thus opposed to idealism by the fact of its maintaining that an existence is the absolute. But there is a misunderstanding or a formal understanding in considering that all philosophy that is not Scepticism is Dogmatism. Dogmatism, as the Sceptics quite correctly describe it, consists in the assertion that something determinate, such as ‘I’ or ‘Being,’ ‘Thought’ or ‘Sensation,’ is the truth. In the talk about idealism, to which dogmatism has been opposed, just as many mistakes have been made, and misunderstandings taken place. To the criticism which knows no implicit, nothing absolute, all knowledge of implicit existence as such is held to be dogmatism, while it is the most wanton dogmatism of all, because it maintains that the ‘I,’ the unity of self-consciousness, is opposed to Being, is in and for itself, and that the implicit in the outside world is likewise so, and therefore that the two absolutely cannot come together. By idealism that is likewise held to be dogmatism in which, as is the case in Plato and Spinoza, the absolute has been made the unity of self-consciousness and existence, and not self-consciousness opposed to existence. Speculative philosophy thus, indeed, asserts, but does not assert a determinate; or it cannot express its truth in the simple form of a proposition, although Philosophy is often falsely understood as pre-supposing an original principle from which all others are to be deduced. But though its principle can be given the form of a proposition, to the Idea what pertains to the proposition as such is not essential, and the content is of such a nature that it really abrogates this immediate existence, as we find with the Academicians. As a matter of fact, that which is now called a proposition, absolutely requires a mediation or a ground; for it is an immediate determinate that has another proposition in opposition to it, which last is again of a similar nature, and so on into infinitude. Consequently, each, as being a proposition, is the union of two moments between which there is an inherent difference, and whose union has to be mediated. Now dogmatic philosophy, which has this way of representing one principle in a determinate proposition as a fundamental principle, believes that it is therefore universal, and that the other is in subordination to it. And undoubtedly this is so. But at the same time, this its determinateness rests in the fact that it is only universal; hence such a principle is always conditioned, and consequently contains within it a destructive dialectic.
As against all these dogmatic philosophies, such criticism and idealism not excepted, the sceptical tropes possess the negative capacity of demonstrating that what the former maintain to be the implicit is not really so. For implicitude such as this is a determinate, and cannot resist negativity, its abrogation. To Scepticism is due the honour of having obtained this knowledge of the negative, and of having so definitely thought out the forms of negativity. Scepticism does not operate by bringing forward what is called a difficulty, a possibility of representing the matter otherwise; that would merely indicate some sort of fancy which is contingent as regards this asserted knowledge. Scepticism is not an empiric matter such as this, for it contains a scientific aim, its tropes turn on the Notion, the very essence of determinateness, and are exhaustive as regards the determinate. In these moments Scepticism desires to assert itself, and the Sceptic therein recognizes the fancied greatness of his individuality; these tropes prove a more cultivated dialectic knowledge in the process of argumentation than is found in ordinary logic, the logic of the Stoics, or the canon of Epicurus. These tropes are necessary contradictions into which the understanding falls; even in our time progression into infinitude and pre-supposition (immediate knowledge) are particularly common (supra, p. 363).
Now, speaking generally, this is the method of Scepticism, and it is most important. Because the sceptical conscience demonstrates that in all that is immediately accepted there is nothing secure and absolute, the Sceptics have taken in hand all particular determinations of the individual sciences, and have shown that they are not fixed. The further details of this application to the different sciences do not concern us here: this far-seeing power of abstraction is also requisite in order to recognize these determinations of negation or of opposition everywhere present in all concrete matter, and in all that is thought, and to find in this determinate its limits. Sextus, for example, takes up the individual sciences concretely, thereby demonstrating much capacity for abstraction, and he shows in all their determinations the opposite of themselves. Thus he sets the definitions of mathematics against one another, and that not externally, but as they are in themselves; he lays hold of the fact (adv. Math. III. 20-22) that there is said to be a point, space, line, surface, one, &c. We unquestioningly allow the point to rank as a simple unit in space, according to which it has no dimension; but if it has no dimension, it is not in space, and therefore is no longer a point. On the one hand it is the negation of space, and, on the other, inasmuch as it is the limit of space, it touches space. Thus this negation of space participates in space, itself occupies space, and thus it is in itself null, but at the same time it is also in itself a dialectic. Scepticism has thus also treated of ideas which are, properly speaking, speculative, and demonstrated their importance; for the demonstration of the contradiction in the finite is an essential point in the speculatively philosophic method.
The two formal moments in this sceptical culture are firstly the power of consciousness to go back from itself, and to take as its object the whole that is present, itself and its operation included. The second moment is to grasp the form in which a proposition, with whose content our consciousness is in any way occupied, exists. An undeveloped consciousness, on the other hand, usually knows nothing of what is present in addition to the content. For instance, in the judgment “This thing is one,” attention is paid only to the one and the thing, and not to the circumstance that here something, a determinate, is related to the one. But this relation is the essential, and the form of the determinate; it is that whereby this house which is an individual, makes itself one with the universal that is different from it. It is this logical element, i.e. the essential element, that Scepticism brings to consciousness, and on this it depends; an example of this is number, the one, as the hypothetical basis of arithmetic. Scepticism does not attempt to give the thing, nor does it dispute as to whether it is thus or thus, but whether the thing itself is something; it grasps the essence of what is expressed, and lays hold of the whole principle of the assertion. As to God, for example, the Sceptics do not inquire whether He has such and such qualities, but turn to what is most inward, to what lies at the ground of this conception, and they ask whether this has reality. “Since we do not know the reality of God,” says Sextus (Pyrrh. Hyp. III. c. I, § 4), “we shall not be able to know and perceive His qualities.” Likewise in the preceding books (II. c. 4, sqq.), inquiry is made as to whether the criterion of truth as fixed by the understanding is anything, whether we know the thing in itself, or whether the ‘I’ is to itself the only absolute certainty. This is the way to penetrate to reality.
In these ways the operations of Scepticism are undoubtedly directed against the finite. But however much force these moments of its negative dialectic may have against the properly-speaking dogmatic knowledge of the understanding, its attacks against the true infinite of the speculative Idea are most feeble and unsatisfactory. For this last is in its nature nothing finite or determinate, it has not the one-sided character which pertains to the proposition, for it has the absolute negative in itself; in itself it is round, it contains this determinate and its opposite in their ideality in itself. In so far as this Idea, as the unity of these opposites, is itself again outwardly a determinate, it stands exposed to the power of the negative; indeed its nature and reality is just to move continually on, so that as determinate it again places itself in unity with the determinates opposed to it, and thus organizes itself into a whole whose starting-point again coincides with the final result. This identity is quite different from that of the understanding; the object as concrete in itself, is, at the same time, opposed to itself; but the dialectic solution of this finite and other is likewise already contained in the speculative, without Scepticism having first had to demonstrate this; for the rational, as comprehended, does, as regards the determinate, just what Scepticism tries to do. However, if Scepticism attempts to deal with this properly speculative element, it can in no way lay hold of it, nor make any progress except by doing violence to the speculative itself; thus the method of its procedure against the rational is this, that it makes the latter into a determinate, and always first of all introduces into it a finite thought-determination or idea of relationship to which it adheres, but which is not really in the infinite at all; and then it argues against the same. That is to say it comprehends it falsely and then proceeds to contradict it. Or it first of all gives the infinite the itch in order to be able to scratch it. The Scepticism of modern times, with which for crudity of comprehension and false teaching the old cannot compare, is specially noteworthy in this respect. Even now what is speculative is transformed into something crude; it is possible to remain faithful to the letter, and yet to pervert the whole matter, because the identity of the determinate has been carried over to the speculative. What here appears to be most natural and impartial is to have an investigation made of what the principle of a speculative philosophy is; its essential nature seems to be expressed thereby, and nothing is apparently added or imputed to it, nor does any change appear to be effected in it. Now, here, according to the conception of the non-speculative sciences, it is placed in this dilemma: the principle is either an unproved hypothesis or demands a proof which in turn implies the principle. The proof that is demanded of this principle itself pre-supposes something else, such as the logical laws of proof; these rules of logic are, however, themselves propositions such as required to be proved; and so it goes on into infinitude, if an absolute hypothesis to which another can be opposed is not made (supra, p. 362). But these forms of proposition, of consecutive proof, &c., do not in this form apply to what is speculative (supra, p. 364) as though the proposition were before us here, and the proof were something separate from it there; for in this case the proof comes within the proposition. The Notion is a self-movement, and not, as in a proposition, a desire to rest; nor is it true that the proof brings forward another ground or middle term and is another movement; for it has this movement in itself.
Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. VII., 310-312), for example, thus reaches the speculative Idea regarding reason, which, as the thought of thought, comprehends itself, and is thus in its freedom at home with itself. We saw this (pp. 147-151) with Aristotle. In order to refute this idea, Sextus argues in the following way: “The reason that comprehends is either the whole or it is only a part.” But to know the speculative it is requisite that there should be, besides the ‘either ... or,’ a third; this last is ‘both ... and’ and ‘neither ... nor.’ “If reason as the comprehending is the whole, nothing else remains to be comprehended. If the comprehending reason is, however, only a part which comprehends itself, this part again, as that which comprehends, either is the whole (and in that case again nothing at all remains to be comprehended), or else, supposing what comprehends to be a part in the sense that what is comprehended is the other part, that which comprehends does not comprehend itself,” &c. In the first place, however, it is clear that by arguing thus nothing is shown further than the fact that here Scepticism in the first place brings into the relationship of thought thinking about thought, the very superficial category of the relationship of the whole and the parts, as understood by the ordinary understanding, which last is not found in that Idea, although as regards finite things the whole is simply composed of all the parts, and these parts constitute the whole, the parts and the whole being consequently identical. But the relationship of whole and part is not a relationship of reason to itself, being much too unimportant, and quite unworthy of being brought into the speculative Idea. In the second place Scepticism is wrong in allowing this relationship to hold good immediately, as it does in the ordinary and arid conception, where we make no objection to it. When reflection speaks of a whole, there is for it beyond this nothing else remaining. But the whole is just the being opposed to itself. On the one hand it is as whole simply identical with its parts, and, on the other hand, the parts are identical with the whole, since they together constitute the whole. The self-comprehension of reason is just like the comprehension by the whole of all its parts, if it is taken in its real speculative significance; and only in this sense could this relationship be dealt with here. But in the sense implied by Sextus, that there is nothing except the whole, the two sides, the whole and the parts, remain in mutual, isolated opposition; in the region of speculation the two indeed are different, but they are likewise not different, for the difference is ideal. Outside of the whole there thus undoubtedly remains another, namely itself as the manifold of its parts. The whole argument thus rests upon the fact that a foreign determination is first of all brought within the Idea, and then arguments against the Idea are brought forward, after it has been thus corrupted by the isolation of a one-sided determination unaccompanied by the other moment of the determination. The case is similar when it is said; “Objectivity and subjectivity are different, and thus their unity cannot be expressed.” It is indeed maintained that the words are literally adhered to; but even as contained in these words, the determination is one-sided, and the other also pertains to it. Hence this difference is not what remains good, but what has to be abrogated.
We may perhaps have said enough about the scientific nature of Scepticism, and we have concluded therewith the second section of Greek philosophy. The general point of view adopted by self-consciousness in this second period, the attainment of the freedom of self-consciousness through thought, is common to all these philosophies. In Scepticism we now find that reason has got so far that all that is objective, whether of Being or of the universal, has disappeared for self-consciousness. The abyss of the self-consciousness of pure thought has swallowed up everything, and made entirely clear the basis of thought. It not only has comprehended thought and outside of it a universe in its entirety, but the result, positively expressed, is that self-consciousness itself is reality. External objectivity is not an objective existence nor a universal thought; for it merely is the fact that the individual consciousness exists, and that it is universal. But though for us there is an object, yet this is for it no object, and thus it still has itself the mode of objectivity. Scepticism deduces no result, nor does it express its negation as anything positive. But the positive is in no way different from the simple; or if Scepticism aims at the disappearance of all that is universal, its condition, as immovability of spirit, is itself in fact this universal, simple, self-identical—but a universality (or a Being) which is the universality of the individual consciousness. Sceptical self-consciousness, however, is this divided consciousness to which on the one hand motion is a confusion of its content; it is this movement which annuls for itself all things, in which what is offered to it is quite contingent and indifferent; it acts according to laws which are not held by it to be true, and is a perfectly empiric existence. On another side its simple thought is the immovability of self-identity, but its reality, its unity with itself is something that is perfectly empty, and the actual filling in is any content that one chooses. As this simplicity, and at the same time pure confusion, Scepticism is in fact the wholly self-abrogating contradiction. For in it the mind has got so far as to immerse itself in itself as that which thinks; now it can comprehend itself in the consciousness of its infinitude as the ultimate. In this way Scepticism flourishes in the Roman world, because, as we saw (p. 281), in this external, dead abstraction of the Roman principle (in the principle of Republicanism and imperial Despotism) the spirit has flown from an existence here and now, that could give it no satisfaction, into intellectuality. Then because here the mind can only seek reconciliation and eudæmonism inwardly through cultured thought, and the whole aim of the world is merely the satisfaction of the individual, good can only be brought forth as individual work in each particular case. Under the Roman emperors we certainly find famous men, principally Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius and others; they, however, only considered the satisfaction of their individual selves, and did not attain to the thought of giving rationality to actuality through institutions, laws and constitutions. This solitude of mind within itself is then truly Philosophy; but the thought is abstractly at home with itself as dead rigidity, and as to outward things it is passive. If it moves it only moves while bearing with it a contempt of all distinctions. Scepticism thus belongs to the decay both of Philosophy and of the world.
The stage next reached by self-consciousness is that it receives a consciousness respecting that which it has thus become, or its essential nature becomes its object. Self-consciousness is to itself simple essence; there is for it no longer any other reality than this, which its self-consciousness is. In Scepticism this reality is not yet an object to it, for to it its object is merely confusion. Because it is consciousness, something is for it; in this opposition only the vanishing content is for the sceptical consciousness, without its having been comprehended in its simple permanence. Its truth, however, is its immersion in self-consciousness, and the fact of self-consciousness becoming an object to itself. Thus reality has indeed the form of a universal in existence or in thought, but in this its self-consciousness is really not a foreign thing as it is in Scepticism. In the first place it is not simple as immediate and merely existent, a complete ‘other,’ as when we speak of the soul being simple; for this last is the simple negative that turns back out of movement, out of difference, as the universal, into itself. In the second place this universal power that expresses that “I am at home with myself,” has likewise the significance of the Being, which, as objective reality, has a permanence for consciousness, and does not merely, as with the Sceptics, disappear; for reason in it alone knows how to possess and to find itself. This inwardness of mind at home with itself has built in itself an ideal world, has laid the foundation and groundwork of the intellectual world, of a kingdom of God which has come down into actuality and is in unity with it, and this is the standpoint of the Alexandrian philosophy.