Abstract

This dissertation concerns itself with establishing what an understanding of tragic wisdom contributes to the comprehension of the Hegelian concept of "Absolute Knowing" in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Particularly, this dissertation addresses how the mediation that human knowing is seen to have in the Oedipus Tyrannus is incorporated into the Hegelian notion of the self-mediation of Geist. As such, Hegel's analysis of tragedy in the Phenomenology is explored as a sort of unconscious absolute, after the question is motivated by showing the presence of Hegelian elements in the central issue of self-knowledge in the Oedipus plays of Sophocles and Aristotle's analysis of tragic character. By means of this analysis a conception of Absolute Knowing is formed which preserves Hegel's absolute moment while rescuing it from the caricatures of a priorism or a sort of religious historicism. This analysis, rather, reveals spirit as the artful presence of intelligence in all truly human activity. This done, a final question is raised regarding the adequacy of this account and the necessity of a specifically philosophical piety is suggested