Metaphysics to metafictions : Hegel, Nitzsche, and the end of philosophy / Paul S. Miklowitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miklowitz, Paul S.

Series:

SUNY series in Hegelian studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm.

Metaphysics--History.

Metaphysics.

History.

Physical Description:

xxv, 221 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, [1998]

Summary:

Through close reading and interpretive reflections, Paul Miklowitz examines key dialectics in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit in order to come to terms with the undoing of the Hegelian system of totality inaugurated by Nietzsche. In his interpretation of the Phenomenology, Miklowitz shows how Hegel skillfully manipulates narrative structures, even while disavowing them. Tracing the self-undermining implications latent in Hegel's strategy of retrospective phenomenological reconstruction through to their "coming to self-consciousness" in Nietzsche's central character of Zarathustra, Miklowitz argues that Hegel leaves a problematic legacy to philosophers, claiming to have achieved comprehensive wisdom in "absolute knowing", and that Nietzsche responds by undermining the authority of the philosopher. Thus 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.

In examining Nietzsche's post-apocalyptic and anti-Hegelian perspectivism, Miklowitz focuses on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, offering a new interpretation of "eternal return" in light of the problematic character of repetition intrinsic to the narrative structure of metaphysical illumination: Nietzsche's project, unlike Hegel's metaphysics, proposes to serve philosophy not as a uniquely true source of doctrine, but rather as an exemplary experiment in metafiction.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Language and Truth: The Aufhebung of Immediacy 9

Part I Sense-Certainty and Expression 10

1. Deferral of the Vorrede and the "immediate" beginning 10

2. Critiques of object- and subject-centered philosophical starting points 13

3. The "divine nature of language": Mystery and equivocation 17

Part II On Reading Sense-Certainty 20

1. The Immediacy demanded by the Logic 20

2. "Sensualism" versus the always already linguistic 24

Chapter 2 Self and Other: The Mastery of Mediation 33

Part I Self-Certainty and Mediation 34

1. The place of "Lordship and Bondage" in the structure of the Phenomenology 34

2. The dialectic of Desire: Self as relation 37

3. The dialectic of Lordship and Bondage proper 43

4. Turning the tables on the lord and recuperating the bondsman 47

Part II The Scrutiny of Self-Certainty: Further Mediations 51

1. The fragment on "Love"; commentary by Freud, Solomon, and McTaggart 51

2. Two critical themes: The primacy of thinghood; self-knowledge is self-creation 55

Chapter 3 Absolute Knowing: The End of Philosophy 61

Part I The Absolute from Beginning to End 62

1. Stoicism and Skepticism as retreats into thought 62

2. The internalized duplicity of unhappy consciousness 66

3. Toward the Begriff, the form of absolute synthesis 68

4. The structure of absolute knowing 71

Part II Re-Reading the Absolute: A New Beginning 78

1. The Hegelian fundamentalism of Kojeve 80

2. The materialist critique of Marx 83

Chapter 4 Anticipatory Repetition: Heterodox Spirituality and Hegel's Philosophical Eschatology 87

1. Hegel and Joachim: A fateful syzygy (Lowith) 90

2. Narrativity and Repetition: A textual resurrection (O'Regan and Murray) 93

3. Conclusory transition 100

Chapter 5 Eternal Return: Re-Telling the End 105

Part I After the End of Philosophy: The Perspective of an Aesthetic Attitude 108

1. Nietzsche contra Hegel 108

2. Regression to Vorstellungen: The pervasiveness of metaphor 111

3. No facts, only interpretations: The world is a kind of fiction 114

Part II Discipleship and Eternal Return 116

1. Zarathustra's "going under": Self-knowledge is deception 116

2. The tightrope walker and the motley jester 119

3. Eternal return as shibboleth for discipleship 120

4. Beyond metaphysical solace: Redemption from the spirit of revenge 123

5. Zarathustra's account of eternal return: A tale for adventurers only 126

6. The failure of Zarathustra's disciples: Eternal return as rote repetition 130

7. Closing the circle: Zarathustra's return to solitude 134

Epilogue: From Metaphysics to Metafictions 137.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-209) and index.

ISBN:

0791438775

0791438783

OCLC:

37694257