Abstract

This dissertation examines the contention that philosophy might have recently come to an end and that a decisive use of the concepts of game and play may prove crucial to a successful overcoming or a definitive replacement of Western metaphysics. I show that this double contention is marred by two difficult problems that must be clarified: the possibility of the "end of philosophy" pervades the very definition of philosophy at work in the Western canon, and the concept of play, or a family of concepts related to play, have classically been used in conjunction with the project of "ending philosophy." ;A close reading of the Lectures on the History of Philosophy and of the Phenomenology of Spirit provides ample evidence for the general validity of the Hegelian argument: philosophy must reach an end, in all the variety of meanings of this term , if the discipline is to have any hope to be transformed from a mere love of knowledge into an accomplished Wissenschaft. The second point is established through a broad analysis of both Hegelian philosophy and other traditions that see themselves as non-philosophy, i.e. as replacements of metaphysics : in all cases, a wide recourse to the concept of play is crucial, but ultimately unsuccessful, to either the accomplishment or the overcoming of metaphysics