Abstract

This dissertation analyses the history of the philosophical concept of multiplicity. First, I examine Aristotle's many and Kant's manifold. Second, I delimit Hegel's Concept of Multiplicity in opposition to Fichte's 'Absolute I' and Schelling's notion of Indifference. Third, I address the Doctrine of Essence and its specific solution to the problem of multiplicity in a logic of the identity and difference of identity and difference. Fourth, I defend Hegel's Logic against Nietzsche's charge that it is machine-like and totalizing. Fourth, I demonstrate how the dialectic of identity and difference, when rendered multiple, has important implications for a philosophical understanding of self-consciousness, inter-subjectivity, power, reason and truth. Finally, this dissertation articulates a conception of multiplicity qua multiple--and not just