Abstract

The main task of the dissertation is to clarify the systematic aims of the Hegelian enterprise and to assess whether Hegel has succeeded in satisfying those aims. Through detailed analyses of specific parts of Hegel's Science of Logic and Encyclopedia Logic, I hope to substantiate the claim that the idea of complete intelligibility or full conceptual determinacy serves as both the chief presupposition and the primary explanatory goal of Hegel's dialectical presentation of the Notion or Concept . My interpretation seeks both to evaluate and to provide an alternative to several contemporary approaches. ;The dissertation develops certain conceptual models which are necessary for a description of the Dialectic as it structures the Hegelian Logic in its entirety. The two primary models are those of linear teleology and circular teleology . I will argue that the Hegelian Dialectic follows the model of circular teleology. However, the model's requirement that categorial reconstruction be strictly self-contained creates a tension between immanent dialectical constitution and external reflection. This difficulty is addressed by utilizing distinctions between operative and thematic concepts and between dialectical "showing" and "saying". ;The notion of completeness or closure ultimately becomes equated by Hegel with the very notions of Method, Dialectic, Science and System. I argue that any reading of the Dialectic as open-ended or as revisable through further categorial development raises severe interpretive dilemmas in regard to the primary logical claims of immanence, systematicity, finality and self-enclosedness. While one might criticize the Hegelian project due to certain irresolvable tensions between the Method's critical and constitutive functions and between the operative moments of mediation and immediacy, I argue that such tensions ought rather to be viewed as systematic constraints or requirements for the articulation and defense of the notion of complete intelligibility