Dr. Agustín Lucas Prestifilippo

Research Project

“The Eternal Irony of the Common. Inner Nature, Sociality, and Normative Violence in Hegel”

The project aims to contribute to ongoing philosophical debates concerning the relationship between the normative frameworks of modern societies and the processes involved in the reproduction of human nature. To this end, my research offers a systematic reconstruction of key ethical and political issues in Hegel’s practical philosophy, engaging in dialogue with contemporary scholars. The central objective is to explore, analyze, and critically discuss Hegel’s notion of the “eternal irony of the common” as a lens through which to examine the complex interplay between the reproduction and transformation of political orders and the processes underpinning the inner nature of individuals. On one hand, the project aligns with scholarship emphasizing the contemporary relevance of Hegel’s philosophy, particularly regarding the role of social participation in theories of rationality. Within this interpretive framework, Hegel’s thought provides a means of transcending the egological focus characteristic of modern philosophy. His conception, rooted in the theory of spirit, posits that in the “spaces of reasons,” actors engage in presenting arguments on matters of significance within specific contexts of social praxis. On the other hand, the project draws attention to another trajectory within Hegelian scholarship—recent studies focusing on his philosophy of nature. These works explore the connections between his anthropological reflections and broader conceptual considerations of life and animality. While Hegel describes the structure of spirit as a mediation between the “I” and the “We,” the *Phenomenology* also addresses what spirit presupposes as its antecedent: the soul or “natural spirit”. Although these two approaches both underscore the significance of Hegel’s philosophy for contemporary thought, their distinct emphases often lead to a lack of mutual engagement, risking the artificial isolation of the problems addressed within Hegel’s broader corpus. This project aims to bridge these domains by exploring the mediating role of Hegel’s reflections on normative violence.