The aim of the thesis is to investigate Hegel's attempt to resurrect metaphysics in the Phänomenologie des Geistes. Chapter 1 sets forth Hegel's general strategy for the resurrection of metaphysics: to justify knowledge of reality as a whole through epistemology or the critique of knowledge. Chapter 2 then examines why Hegel thinks that the resurrection of metaphysics is necessary after its destruction by the Kantian critique of knowledge. Chapter 3 turns to Hegel's argument for the necessity of a critical justification of metaphysics. It reconstructs his arguments in behalf of the critique of knowledge, and it analyses his polemic against Schelling's postulate of intellectual intuition. The task of chapters 4 and 5 is to explain how Hegel resolves the problems that confront his ambition to justify metaphysics through the critique of knowledge. Chapter 4 considers the objections raised by the meta-critical campaign of Hamanm, Herder, Schulze, Schlogel and Reinhold, and it examines how Hegel attempts to re-establish tho programme of the critique of knowledge after the meta-critique. Chapter 5 discusses the problem of solipsism, and interprets the dialectic of chapters IV and IV.A of the Phänomenologie as Hegel's reply to the solipsist. Finally, chapter 6 is a historical study of Hegel's development toward the Phänomenologie in Jena. It describes the stages by which Hegel came to conceive his programme for the critical resurrection of metaphysics.</p
