Abstract

The writer of the below thought he would do something clever and out of the way. I tried to dissuade him, but without success. I told him that readers would prefer a more sober scholarly approach. I tried to appeal to his other work and his systematic proclivities. Why not try like Schelling to produce a system of freedom? He looked at me queerly. I was a bit taken aback when he burst out laughing in my face, and blurted out: “You must not have read Dostoevski’s Notes from the Underground!” I’m afraid he has spent too much time with the prodigals he has written about. He muttered something almost inaudible about Dostoevski’s double, but I said nothing.If I am not mistaken these pieces have to do with four great and very influential philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche. To help the reader I have put the abbreviation K, H, M and N before each ‘monologue.’ In fact, I am not sure if the writer was mocking me: as if my sober efforts to talk of these four thinkers was being doubled with voices like and unlike; voices as if spoken from within, and yet said to have come from beyond; ego and alter; an odd twin of my scholastic sobriety.