Abstract

In this dissertation, the consequences implicit in Hegel's metaphysical strategy of retrospective, phenomenological reconstruction are traced through to their coming to self-consciousness in Nietzsche's central "metafiction" of Zarathustra. ;Hegel leaves a problematic legacy to post-historical philosophers, having achieved comprehensive philosophic wisdom in "absolute knowing;" Nietzsche responds by undermining the authority of the philosopher. Metaphysical questions are reformulated and resolved in narratives self-consciously mediated by irony: they become "metafictions," philosophic imperatives that expressly acknowledge their own createdness and call into question their universality. ;A new interpretation of the Phenomenology is developed in the process of re-thinking this textual history that shows how narrative structures, which Hegel disavows, are skillfully manipulated nevertheless. Careful readings of the sense-certainty, lordship and bondage and absolute knowing dialectics reveal significant connections between the metaphysical scope of Hegel's account and his narrative manner of accounting. The final chapter focuses on Thus Spoke Zarathustra in order to show, through a new interpretation of "eternal return" in light of the problematic character of repetition intrinsic to the narrative structure of metaphysical illumination, how Nietzsche's project should serve philosophy not as a source of doctrine, but as an exemplary experiment in metafiction