Abstract

In this work, I argue that the narration of natural consciousness's experience in the Phenomenology of Spirit refuses to be superseded, or dialectically mastered, by the atemporal logic of "Absolute Knowing." I begin by revealing the temporal and ontological paradoxes at the heart of the Phenomenology's narration. Then, focusing on Hegel's recollection of the experiences of individual alienation in "Lordship and Bondage" and communal alienation in "Absolute Freedom and Terror," I show that his failure to comprehend conceptually what his own narration reveals representationally is not due to the weakness of his logic, but to the inexpugnable strength of the images of his phenomenological "storytelling." Finally, I argue that Hegel's failure is definitive: the mythic ground of narrative revelation can never be taken by dialectical storm. To try to reduce narration to non-narrative conceptualization, I conclude, is to attack an irreducible means of personal and cultural revelation