Erika Cipolla

Erika Cipolla

Doctoral Capes PDSE Fellow

Period at the center: November 2024 – April 2025

Research Project: Hegel and pantheism: an analysis from the finite and the absolute in The Science of Logic.

Email: erikazaki@hotmail.com

Website

I have a degree in Tourism with an emphasis on Natural Environments from the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS/Brazil) and a degree in Philosophy from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS/Brazil). I have a master’s degree in Philosophy from UFMS in the area of philosophy teaching. I’m currently in the second year of my PhD at the Philosophy Postgraduate Programme of the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR/Brazil), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Polyana Tidre. My research focuses on the History of Philosophy, but I have considerable interest in the lines of research in Aesthetics and Anthropology.

Research Project

Hegel and pantheism: an analysis from the finite and the absolute in The Science of Logic.

My research aims to encourage new perspectives for reflection, essentially on the categories of the finite and the absolute, based on the revival of these categorical elaborations, especially as presented in the Science of Logic. The study aims to investigate how the problem of finitude is primarily based on the central doubt about its capacity for self-affirmation in the face of the infinite, which could bring Hegel closer to the pantheistic conception. At the same time, inserting the restlessness of difference into the absolute, which would imply the negation of its staticity, would distance it from Spinoza’s substance. The research involves central concepts in Hegel’s philosophy that will need to be analysed from three main perspectives: 1. Hegel’s own work and how these concepts are articulated in his systematic exposition; 2. the way he interprets and mentions Spinoza’s substance and the reliability of this interpretation; 3. how these two perspectives relate to the criticisms levelled at Hegel with regard to a possible pantheism.

The first point of relevance of the research is the work used as the main source of the investigation, the Science of Logic, and its recent translation into Brazilian Portuguese, which was completed in 2018. The aim of the period of study at the University of Potsdam is to access and contribute to spaces for building knowledge, dialogues and broader enquiries, which are linked to themes included in international debates from a critical and current perspective. The second factor to be considered is the dimension of the research problem itself, namely the investigation of these central concepts in Hegel’s work (the finite and the absolute) and how the way they are understood in Hegelian philosophy has theological, but above all epistemological and political implications. These repercussions are part of the object of this research, since the interpretations implied in philosophies critical of Hegel are partly based on the consequences of this conceptual apprehension.

Selected publications

Articles

“A Propedêutica de Hegel e as Diretrizes Educacionais vigentes:aproximações entre a proposta hegeliana e uma experiência com o ensino médio“ (Hegel’s Propaedeutics and the current Educational Guidelines: approximations between the Hegelian proposal and an experience with secondary education), in: I Simpósio sobre Ensino de Filosofia e Idealismo Alemão (I Symposium on Philosophy Teaching and German Idealism). (forthcoming, 2024).

“A ideia de Vida no desenvolvimento da Ideia na Enciclopédia das Ciências Filosóficas de Hegel” (The idea of Life in the development of the Idea in Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Science), in: Coleção abertura: Vol. 1 – O tempo do conceito. Curitiba/Brazil: Platô Editorial, 2024), 131-146.