Abstract
In Hegel’s Phenomenology the image of the struggle between the Master and the Bondsman seems to entail two different points of view about the assumptions concerning the relationship between power and knowledge. On the one hand, it seems that the knowledge of the Master is more advanced, but all the same on the other hand there are reasons to say that it is true the inverse. I consider this issue in relation with the question of the cognitive meaning of emotions. This point will be investigated also with reference to some interesting aspects of non-monotonic reasoning. Hegel’s conception of dialectic is briefly compared with the formal structure of non-monotonic reasoning and induction.