Christoph Binkelmann: Wissen des Nicht-Wissens

»I know that I know nothing«. This alleged dictum of Socrates stands like no other for a scepticism intimately connected with philosophy. But can a meaningful standpoint be taken at all with a knowing of not-knowing? Christoph Binkelmann answers this question positively in this study. On the basis of five stages in the history of philosophy – beginning with Sextus Empiricus, continuing with Salomon Maimon and Isaac von Sinclair, as well as Friedrich Schlegel and ending with Helmuth Plessner – he develops the position of a critical scepticism, which has hardly been considered in research to date. This undertakes a transcendental justification of not-knowing, which is ultimately practically motivated and amounts to a scepticist ethics.