-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 109 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 4 The World is the Mirror of the Self Schleiermacher's notes from 1797/8 show him preoccupied, once more, with Leibniz's philosophy.1 He did not think Leibniz was a good philosopher, however. He wrote "Leibniz was a poor philosopher; from time to time he developed better insights" (KGA I.2, 79). Nevertheless, there is little doubt that Leibniz had a substantive influence on Schleiermacher's thought.2 Schleiermacher continued to be preoccupied with the question of individuality and its relation to the absolute, and Leibniz's philosophy, for which this problem was a central concern, was a natural starting point for Schleiermacher to reflect on these issues. Two points in particular stand out in this regard. First, Schleiermacher's core notion of the feeling of absolute dependence clearly echoes Leibniz. For instance, in his Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz notes "in rigorous metaphysical truth, there is no external cause acting on us except God alone, and he alone communicates himself to us immediately in virtue of our 1 Schleiermacher's sources for his commentary on Leibniz are: Louis Dutens' six volume edition of Leibniz's work (Leibniz: Opera omni, 6 vols.); the two-volume edition of the exchange between Leibniz and Bernouilli (Leibnitii et Bernouilli Commercium philosophicum et mathematicum,) and finally, de Jaucourt's biography of Leibniz, along with the two-volume edition of Leibniz's Theodicée (Leibniz: Essais de Théodicée, Augmentée de l'Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de l'Auteur. On this point, see Günter Meckenstock's historical introduction to the materials in KGA I.2, !!"– !!"#. The contents of the Dutens edition are discussed in Emile Ravier, Bibliographie des Oeuvres de Leibniz, 175–8. 2 As Grove notes, Schleiermacher's 1797/8 study of Leibniz marks a decisive shift. Henceforward we find an a$rmative element in his reception of Leibniz's philosophy. It is during this period that he first studied Leibniz's philosophy directly, that is, through a careful examination of the original sources themselves. Grove, 168. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 110 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 110 Transformation of the Self continual dependence."3 Second, despite the continual influence of the insights reached in Spinozism and the Short Presentation of the Spinozistic System, Schleiermacher remained preoccupied with the problem of individuality. Even if, from an ultimate standpoint, only God is real, and whatever reality creation has derives from the reality of God,4 Schleiermacher acknowledged that fundamental ethical concerns require us to investigate the nature of the individual and the relation of the individual to God and to other human beings. Hence, even when he understood fundamental notions in Leibniz to be inadequate, Schleiermacher significantly revised Leibnizian ideas in light of his earlier conclusions and then adopted them as his own. This is especially true of the theory Schleiermacher develops in his Monologen, a text that appeared in four editions in Schleiermacher's life, in 1800, 1810, 1822, and 1829. In the first part of this chapter I discuss Schleiermacher's grappling with key Leibnizian concerns regarding the relation of both the individual and the world to God. The second, lengthier section explores Schleiermacher's transformation of Leibniz's understanding of the self in light of his appropriation of Kant's analysis of self-consciousness. As we have seen in the previous chapter, Schleiermacher appropriates Kant's critique of rational psychology and a$rms that we have no knowledge of the self as it is in itself. Self-knowledge is only of the empirical self, and this means that the self knows itself only in its relation to that which is di%erent from it and stands outside it. It is, therefore, through the world that 3 Ariew and Garber, 1989, 59; §28 of the Discourse on Metaphysics. As Robert Adams has pointed out to me in correspondence, Schleiermacher could not have had access to Leibniz's Discourse, as it was found in the Royal library in Hannover only in 1846. Nevertheless, the ideas that Leibniz presents in the Discourse are echoed in other writings such as the Monadology, The Principles of Nature and Grace, and A New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances. Schleiermacher's notes on Leibniz show him well acquainted with these texts. The "continual dependence" of creatures on God, as well as the idea that there is no cause acting upon us except God alone, is one of the main ideas put forth in the Monadology, where Leibniz notes that "all created or derivative monads are products, and are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the divinity from moment to moment" (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 219). In this chapter, I sometimes cite the Discourse, since in it Leibniz's ideas are presented especially clearly. When I do so, however, I will also refer to other works by Leibniz containing the same ideas, and which are contained in the six-volume Dutens edition of Leibniz's work. 4 This is the final upshot of Schleiermacher's remark in Spinozism that while all things have substance, there do not exist separate, independent substances. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 111 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 111 the self comes to know itself. However, this Kantian understanding of the self is qualified by Schleiermacher's adoption and transformation of key Leibnizian themes concerning the relations of God to the self, and the self to the world. This section is further subdivided into two other parts. The first develops Schleiermacher's exposition of the freedom of the self in relation to the world. In the second I discuss the significance of Schleiermacher's emphasis on the individual in the Monologen, its relation to his adoption and transformation of Leibnizian themes, and the way in which these ideas allowed him to move beyond Kant's ethics. GOD AND WORLD In his notes on Leibniz, Schleiermacher was concerned with the problem of the relation of the self to God, the finite to the infinite. In what way does God, who is infinite, relate to the finite? Does the relation not imply that God had to limit God-self in order to create? How can God remain infinite if the finite is di%erent from God, and thereby limits God? In §28 of the Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz had noted Thus we have ideas of everything in our soul only by virtue of God's continual action on us, that is to say, because every e%ect expresses its cause, and thus the essence of our soul is a certain expression, imitation or image of the divine essence, thought, and will, and of all the ideas comprised in it. It can then be said that God is our immediate external object and that we see all things by him. For example, when we see the sun and the stars, it is God who has given them to us and who conserves the ideas of them in us, and it is God who determines us really to think of them by his ordinary concourse while our senses are disposed in a certain manner, according to the laws he has established. God is the sun and the light of souls, the light that lights every man that comes into this world, and this is not an opinion new to our times.5 Similar ideas can be found in Leibniz's New System. There Leibniz notes, It is quite true that, speaking with metaphysical rigor, there is no real influence of one created substance on another, and that all things, with all their 5 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 60. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 112 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 112 Transformation of the Self reality, are continually produced by the power [vertu] of God. . . . Therefore, since I was forced to agree that it is not possible for the soul, or any other true substance to receive something from without, except by divine omnipotence, I was led, little by little, to a view that surprised me . . . That is, we must say that God originally created the soul (and any other real unity) in such a way that everything must arise for it from its own depths [fonds], through a perfect spontaneity relative to itself, and yet with a perfect conformity relative to external things.6 From this it follows that all things must be perceived in God; the soul apprehends what is other than itself only in and through its relation to God. This is because (a) the soul does not stand in any real relation to other things, and (b) it only stands in a real relation to God, and it is through this relation that it is "continually produced." If it is to apprehend something other than itself and God, it can do so only through God. The soul's relation to God grounds the very depths [fonds] of the soul, and it is from within these depths that the soul relates to the rest of the creation. Hence, all perception stems from these depths. Commenting on Leibniz's understanding of perception Schleiermacher remarks: "Leibniz denied that perceptions could be discontinuous, although he admitted this of apperception. Where do these then come from? Not from outside. Therefore they either arise naturally-through an act of human will, or supernaturally through an act of God's omnipotence. Thus, we are continually remade as human beings, or we thereby make ourselves" (KGA I.2, 83). For Leibniz, the soul is what it is insofar as it expresses its cause; this is what it means for it to be an e%ect of God. God continually imparts being to the soul, and we are, as Schleiermacher put it, "continually remade." Whatever being the soul has, it has in virtue of its being an e%ect, an expression of God. The mystical depths of these Leibnizian insights were not lost on Schleiermacher.7 In his notes on Leibniz 6 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 143. 7 There is no doubt Leibniz was influenced by mystical literature. In the New System he refers to "the manner of speaking used by a certain person of great spiritual elevation whose piety is renowned." He is very likely referring to St. Teresa of Avila; cf. Discourse on Metaphysics, §32. In a letter from 1696 he wrote, "In [her] writings I once found this lovely thought, that the soul should conceive of things as if there were only God and itself in the world." On this point see Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 64, n. 104. Also significant is that Leibniz cites Nicolas of Cusa in his Principles of Nature 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 113 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 113 he comments, "Without mysticism it is impossible to be consistent, because one cannot trace back one's thought to the unconditioned, and hence one cannot see the inconsistencies" (KGA I.2, 83). But if God is the fullness of reality, and the soul is what it is in virtue of its expressing God's reality, how then do we account for limitation, that is, the finite character of the soul? Schleiermacher's preoccupation with this question is evident in his remark: "Leibniz's philosophy is really highly Manichean and stands completely in need of the devil. God makes only the real, and he (the devil) must make the limitations." Later he reflects that since "eternal truths do not depend upon God's will, but on his understanding, and are its inner objects," this must mean that God, too, has limits (KGA I.2, 84). God cannot, through an act of will, simply establish what the eternal truths are. These are, rather, the inner objects of God's understanding, and God's establishment of the world is constrained by them. Leibniz's idea of the divine fulgurations made a special impression on Schleiermacher, and even as he reflected on these he was preoccupied with the question of how God's infinite power could be communicated to the finite. He quotes from Leibniz's Monadology and notes, "Especially remarkable is proposition 48: 'Thus God alone is the primitive unity or the first [originaire] simple substance; all created or derivative monads are products, and are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the creature, to which it is essential to be limited.' Here is the Leibnizian fullness . . . the confusion of the ideal and the real (creatae aut derivatae) and its incompletion, for here there must be creatures before the monads are generated, and once again there are limitations of God in his fulgurations, which however, hopefully belong to the [divine workings]" (KGA I.2, 85). In defense of Leibniz, it might be argued that on his view it is the receptivity of the creature that limits the e%ect of the fulgurations, or determines how the fulgurations are received. However, as Schleiermacher later argued in his discussion of the divine causality, this causality, which is infinite, is di%erent from finite causality in that it does not act and Grace. There he notes: "It has been said quite nicely that he [God] is like a center that is everywhere, but that his circumference is nowhere, since all is present to him immediately, without any distance from this center" (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 211). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 114 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 114 Transformation of the Self on something pre-existing and di%erent from itself. It is not limited by what is other than it. Rather, it is infinite in that it continuously establishes its e%ect. As a result of this idea, in §38 of The Christian Faith Schleiermacher collapsed the doctrine of creation with that of preservation.8 On such a view, however, we cannot account for the limitation of the e%ect of the fulgurations through the limited receptivity of the creature, for the creature, as limited and as having a determinate receptivity to the divine influence, is itself established by the fulgurations. As such Schleiermacher is right to claim that the fulgurations must themselves be limited, and that "there must be creatures before the monads are generated." A principal concern of Schleiermacher's 1799 book On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is the mystical dimension he discussed in his comments on Leibniz; similar concerns can also be found in his earlier essays on Spinoza. The self 's relation to the unconditioned or absolute is at the heart of all genuine religion. As such all true religion springs from the depths of the self, since in its inmost part the self stands in immediate relation to the absolute. From it springs the "inner fire" that is the source of a living faith having the capacity to transform the self completely, since it has a vital and integral relationship with all the deeper forces of a person's psyche. No thought remains unillumined by it, no desire not redirected by it, and no goal not recast by it. It stands at the heart of all the world's confessions; Schleiermacher notes "If you investigate them at their source and their original components, you will find that all the dead slag was once the glowing outpouring of the inner fire that is contained in all religions . . . "9 However, this inner fire has been 8 As Schleiermacher notes in The Christian Faith, "For the divine causality is only equal in compass to the finite in so far as it is opposite to it in kind, since if it were like it in kind, . . . it too would belong to the sphere of interaction and thus be a part of the totality of the natural order" (CF §51.1, 201–2). In other words, in finite causality something di%erent from the cause is acted upon. This something is passive, receiving the e%ect of the cause. To the extent that it is receptive to the activity of the cause, it is independent of the cause itself, for its receptivity is not due to the workings of the cause. On the other hand, absolute causality admits of no material extrinsic to itself on which it can have an e%ect. Key to the di%erence between finite and absolute causality is the all-comprehensive character of the latter. On this point see my discussion in "Schleiermacher's Christology Revisited: A Reply to his Critics." 9 Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, 99. Future references to Schleiermacher's 1799 edition of the Speeches will be to Crouter's 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 115 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 115 in most places covered over by "the kind of people who best like to dwell only in the dilapidated ruins of the sanctuary and who cannot live even there without disfiguring and damaging it" (OR Crouter, 4). On the other hand, "if the holy fire burned everywhere, fiery prayers would not be needed to beseech it from heaven . . . " (OR Crouter, 8). What is our access to this inner fire? The Speeches already contain the heart of Schleiermacher's insight that our access to it is immediate. Religion, he tells us, is "sensibility and taste for the infinite" (OR Crouter, 23). Its essence is defined as "neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling" (OR Crouter, 22).10 Through religion we are put in touch with the unconditioned absolute, that is, with that which lies beyond the polarities of both self and world, and which is the ground of both. As Richard Crouter has noted, "how best to account for the ground of unity between the human self and the world" was the most pressing concern of post-Kantian idealism.11 Schleiermacher recognized that this was not simply a theoretical problem of interest only to metaphysicians, however. The problem of religion, and hence the problem of the ground of both self and world, stands at the fundamental root from which all human thinking and action spring. Because this root also grounds the unity between both self and world, the ultimate object of religion cannot be known through a concept.12 Our access to this ground is only immediate; it is not an object for consciousness and hence it cannot be grasped through the structures of consciousness, although it can transform them. In 1996 edition of his translation. They will be indicated by "OR Crouter" along with the page reference. 10 Julia Lamm eloquently notes that intuition is "the 'touchstone' (Prüfstein) between ourselves and the world, between the finite world and the infinite universe. It is that point of unity which insures a correspondence and connection between our inner life and external nature, between our spiritual and bodily natures" Lamm, The Living God, 83. 11 See Crouter's introduction to his 1988 edition of the Speeches, 60, as well as Dieter Henrich's "On the Unity of Subjectivity." 12 As Crouter notes, "Reflection necessarily separates. Such an unavoidable separation immediately occurs not only in active reflection (speaking and writing) but also in our innermost reflection . . . To recognize this level of being, which is presupposed in conscious self-awareness, is necessarily to move away from it." Richard Crouter, Friedrich Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism, 199. See also Manfred Frank, "On the Unknowability of the Absolute," in The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism, 55–75, and my discussion in the last chapter of this book on religious pluralism. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 116 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 116 Transformation of the Self the famous second speech Schleiermacher describes the immediacy of the moment in which the soul stands in contact with the absolute: "That first mysterious moment that occurs in every sensory perception, before intuition and feeling have separated, where sense and its objects have, as it were, flowed into one another and become one, before both turn back to their original position-I know how indescribable it is and how quickly it passes away" (OR Crouter, 31). This mysterious moment, Schleiermacher claims, is integral to religion. It is the fleeting instant in which the self intuits the fundamental unity between self and world. This fundamental moment of unity grounds the depths of consciousness and must be presupposed if the duality and interrelation of subject and object is to be possible. It is important to keep in mind, however, that Schleiermacher stands with Kant, and against Fichte and Hegel, in a$rming the unknowability of the "common root"-the fundamental power of the soul grounding both sensibility and understanding. In the introduction of the first Critique Kant had claimed: "All that seems necessary for an introduction or preliminary is that there are two stems of human cognition, which may perhaps arise from a common but to us unknown root, namely sensibility and understanding, through the first of which objects are given to us, but through the second of which they are thought" (KRV &15/ '29). The question of the common root is also the locus of the basic problem of the unity of all reality, that is, of self and world. According to Kant's philosophy, the influences of the world upon us are received through sensibility; through the understanding, which Kant had linked with the spontaneity of the self, the self acts upon the material it has received from the senses. If there is such a common root, both self and world must be given together in a fundamental moment of consciousness. This is the possible Leibnizian moment in Kant's philosophy, to which Schleiermacher is also heir. However, Kant had recognized the mystery under which transcendental consciousness stands, and hence the impossibility of a$rming with certainty the existence of such a root. This is the significance of the "perhaps" in his pregnant remark. The "I" is an "original consciousness" that must be presupposed if the analytic treatment of logical phenomena is to be possible; it does not, however, follow from the conditions of the possibility of logical phenomena. Henrich notes the "peculiar di$culty" 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 117 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 117 that Kant finds himself in, "of not being able to determine in turn this supreme principle of all thought and knowledge."13 He further provides an insightful analysis and defense of why Kant thought this determination was not possible: it is even doubtful whether the problematic idea of a common origin of the faculties can at all be thought through the concepts of substance and power. That point becomes even clearer when one remembers that the common root can only be assumed as the object of some intellectual intuition. For such an intuition, however, the separation of self-consciousness and pre-given being, which first defines the concept of the category, does not apply. It is therefore at least questionable whether the categories of a finite self-consciousness have any meaning at all with reference to an intellectual intuition. To be sure, finite self-consciousness is required to employ the categories when attempting to grasp the very concept of the unity of the cognitive faculties. But at the same time it knows that it employs the categories only analogically, and that therefore the idea of the common root merely indicates an "empty space."14 Recall that for Kant, a concept is always a representation of a representation, that is, it a mark through which several representations (whether they be intuitions or concepts) can be thought together under one representation. This is what makes our thought discursive. Only through intuition is a representation directly related to an object. For finite beings such as ourselves, intuitions are always given through sensation.15 An intellectual intuition, then, would be a representation relating directly to an individual, not given to us through 13 Henrich, "On the Unity of Subjectivity," 37. 14 Ibid. 35–6. 15 Kant's discussion is worth quoting at length: "Now we cannot partake of intuition independently of sensibility. The understanding is therefore not a faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other kind of cognition than through concepts. Thus the cognition of every, at least human, understanding is a cognition through concepts, not intuitive but discursive. All intuitions, as sensible, rest on a%ections, concepts therefore on functions. By a function, however, I understand the unity of the action of ordering di%erent representations under a common one. Concepts are therefore grounded on the spontaneity of thinking, as sensible intuitions are grounded on the receptivity of impressions. Now the understanding can make no other use of these concepts than that of judging by means of them. Since no representation pertains to the object immediately except intuition alone, a concept is thus never immediately related to an object, but is always related to some other representation of it (whether that be an intuition or itself already a concept). Judgment is therefore the mediate cognition of an object, hence the representation of a representation of it" (KRV, &68/'93). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 118 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 118 Transformation of the Self sensation but through the spontaneity of thought. But if our concepts are always representations of representations, some determinations of an individual thing must stand outside of our concept of it, and the individual cannot be grasped completely by the concept.16 This is related to why we cannot think the common root, for to think it would mean for us to cognize, in one thought, the ground of all the determinations of self and world, that is, the ground of both what is thought and what lies outside of thought, namely, what is given in sensation. Schleiermacher sided with Kant, against Fichte and Hegel, in a$rming that mind cannot completely penetrate the world. Were it to be able to do so, the mind that cognizes reality must also be identical with the origin of reality. The problem of the knowability of the common root therefore becomes-at one and the same time- the problem of the thing in itself, which Kant a$rmed must remain unknown and unknowable. In the Speeches Schleiermacher a$rms All intuition proceeds from the influence of the intuited on the one who intuits, from an original and independent action of the former, which is then grasped, apprehended, and conceived by the latter according to one's own nature. If the emanations of light-which happen completely without your e%orts-did not a%ect your sense, if the smallest parts of the body, the tips of your fingers, were not mechanically or chemically a%ected, if the pressure of weight did not reveal to you an opposition and a limit to your power, you would intuit nothing and perceive nothing, and what you thus intuit and perceive is not the nature of things, but their action upon you. (OR 24–5) What is apprehended is not the thing in itself, but rather, the thing in its relation to us, that is, how it a%ects us. Things, according to Schleiermacher, stand in genuine community and interaction with one another. Insofar as we know things through their interaction with us, what is known is the outer of things, how they stand in relation with other things, and not the inner, that is, what the things are in themselves. What we perceive is not the "nature of things," but rather "their action" on us. 16 On these and related points see my essay, "Schleiermacher Between Kant and Leibniz: Predication and Ontology," 59–77. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 119 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 119 Along with Kant, Schleiermacher a$rms the impossibility of absolute knowledge. This is why in the 1814/15 lectures on Dialektik he claimed that, with respect to knowledge, "beginning in the middle is unavoidable."17 He further claimed that "just as the idea of the Godhead is the transcendental terminus a quo, and the principle of the possibility of knowledge as such, so the idea of the world is the transcendental terminus ad quem and the principle of the possibility of knowledge in its becoming." This understanding of the world as the terminus ad quem implies that "we can say of the idea of the world that the whole history of our knowledge is an approximation to it."18 Complete knowledge stands as an ideal that can only be approached asymptotically. The absolute, as the locus of the unity of the ideal and the real, transcends the self: it is the transcendental terminus a quo that is a condition of the possibility of knowledge. For Schleiermacher this ground of unity between self and world, spontaneity and receptivity, however, stands outside the self and cannot be thought.19 Schleiermacher is thereby in fundamental disagreement with Leibniz, for whom the self, along with all its experiences of the world, was completely determined through the complete concept of the individual. As such, for Leibniz the world, and everything the individual is to experience, is contained in each monad. These monads "have no windows through which something can enter or leave."20 For Schleiermacher, on the other hand, it must be said that the world stands outside the self, and that the self genuinely interacts with other selves. The locus of this interaction is the ground of self and world, and it is what Schleiermacher would call the "Whence of our receptive and active existence" in §4.3 of The Christian Faith.21 17 Friedrich Schleiermacher, Dialektik (1814/15), Einleitung zur Dialektik (1833), 105. 18 Ibid. 70. 19 Wolfgang Kasprzik puts it quite nicely: "Können wir diesen Grund denken? Nein, denn nichts, was wir denken können, kann der Grund der Stetigkeit unseres Bewusstseins in allen Übergangen sein. Der Grund muss den Zusammenhang als Ganzen bestimmen, so dass wir uns bei jedem Übergang in diesem Zusammenhang von dem Woher dieser Bestimmtheit des Zusammenhangs abhängig fühlen ((O 290 ), vgl. *+ I 27f., §4.3)." Wolfgang Kasprzik, "Monaden mit Fenstern? Zur Konzeption der Individualität in Schleiermacher's Dialektik," 120. 20 Philosophical Essays, 214. 21 A related idea can be found in Kant's Inaugural Dissertation, 2: 410. There is an analogy between space, grounding the interaction of physical substances, and 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 120 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 120 Transformation of the Self The idea of the common root thereby indicates an "empty space" made possible by God, which in turn conditions the possibility of transitions in consciousness.22 SELF AND WORLD Schleiermacher's Monologen, first appearing in 1800, can be fruitfully understood in terms of his encounter with, and critique of, Leibniz. Schleiermacher adopts key Leibnizian notions, but transforms them God, who is the ground of the metaphysical community. Space is the "phenomenal omnipresence" of God; as Franks put it, it is "the derivative expression of the absolute ground." Franks, All or Nothing, 35. Here too, the absolute ground conditions the possibility of the relation between substances. 22 This is one of the most profound and di$cult problems in the metaphysics of the self and its relation to the world, and stands at the heart of one of Kant's most fundamental di%erences with Leibniz. In his chapter "Metaphysical Foundations: A Look at Schleiermacher's Dialectic," Manfred Frank notes the following: "Schleiermacher understands the feeling of Being as the 'ground of the soul.' This expression comes from Baumgarten, but Schleiermacher changes its function. In the second speech of On Religion, he speaks of a 'ground-feeling (Grundgefühl) of infinite and living nature.' As in his later writings, 'immediate self-consciousness' has two dimensions: an inner-temporal psychic phenomenon and a supra-temporal (the manifestation of the transcendent unity). In the early writings, feeling already has the character of a unity that exists before, or better founds the synthetic 'grasping-together' of individuals. It is furthermore not 'thinking in another.' This means it is not grounded in a conscious turning to a second object, in the manner of a reflection. Rather, it rests in itself. The remaining 'concepts' and 'modes,' such as willing and thinking (as Schleiermacher notes in terms that resemble those of Spinoza) 'inhere' in it. If the opposite were true, how the di%erent concepts and modes transition from one to the next would be unintelligible. This transition presupposes a qualitative identity between the terminus a quibus and the terminus ad quos. Like Eberhard, Schleiermacher thought of the river of the soul's life and the arising transitions between types of representation as continuous. Consequently, thinking and sensing are fundamentally one and the same, although each accords with the changing predominance of one determination over the other." He notes further that Schleiermacher contradicts "Kant's dualism, which drives an unbridgeable wedge between not only sense and thought, but also thinking and willing." In Frank, "Metaphysical Foundations," 27. For such a dualism to be consistently denied, however, one must return to the Leibnizian conception of the monads as windowless. On such a view what is "outside" the self cannot a%ect it, and di%erent selves cannot genuinely interact. Once the monads have windows, one cannot consistently hold to seamless transitions between the moments of spontaneity and receptivity occurring within consciousness itself. The transitions can only occur at the ground of the unity of the soul, which is completely unknowable, and which is also the locus of interaction between self and world. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 121 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 121 in light of Kant's critique of rational psychology, explored in the previous chapter. The result is Schleiermacher's unique understanding of subjectivity and metaphysics of the self. Two important clues reveal Schleiermacher's play on key Leibnizian doctrines. The title of this work, the Monologen, serves to remind the reader of Leibniz's Monadology. More important still is his fundamental inversion of a key Leibnizian metaphor standing at the heart of the Monologen: for Leibniz, the soul is the mirror of the world.23 For Schleiermacher, however, the world is the mirror of the soul. In what follows I discuss Leibniz's understanding of self and world and Schleiermacher's engagement and transformation of it. Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics contains a succinct explanation of his understanding of substance and its relation to his notion of the complete concept. In §8 he notes: "the nature of an individual substance is to have a notion so complete that it is su$cient to contain and to allow us to deduce from it all the predicates of the subject to which this notion is attributed."24 Elsewhere he tells us "a complete concept is the mark [nota] of a singular substance."25 Later in §8 of the Discourse, he clarifies what he means through the following example: "Thus when we consider carefully the connection of things, we can say that from all time in Alexander's soul there are vestiges of everything that has happened to him and marks of everything that will happen to him and even traces of everything that happens in the universe, even though God alone could recognize them all."26 At any 23 In §83 of the Monadology, Leibniz notes: "Among other di%erences which exist between ordinary souls and minds, some of which I have already noted, there are also the following: that souls, in general, are living mirrors or images of the universe of creatures, but that minds are also images of the divinity itself, or of the author of nature, capable of knowing the system of the universe, and imitating something of it through their schematic representations [échantillons architectoniques] of it, each mind being like a little divinity in its own realm" Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 223. 24 Ibid. 41. 25 The English translation of this passage is from Donald Rutherford's Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, 110; the passage is originally found in Eduard Bodemann, Die Leibniz-Handschriften der Königlichen Ö!entlichen Bibliothek zu Hanover, LH IV 7C, 'l. 111–14. 26 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 41. Similar ideas are expressed in Leibniz's New System and his Principles of Nature and Grace. I have already cited the New System, where Leibniz remarks that "God originally created the soul (and every other real unity) in such a way that everything must arise from it from its own depths [fonds] . . . " (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 143). In the Principles of Nature and Grace Leibniz 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 122 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 122 Transformation of the Self given moment, the essence of the existing soul contains traces of its past and seeds of its future; all the soul's commerce and relations with the rest of creation, past, present, and future, are already given with this essence. Hence the soul can be likened to a compact disk containing the information of a whole life, and the light of consciousness a kind of laser illuminating the present. Leibniz's theory of independent substance drives his notion of the complete concept. Contrary to Descartes, who defined substance as an ens a se, that is, in terms of the independence of its existence, Leibniz and the Wol$ans who followed him conceived of substance as an ens per se.27 The Cartesian definition of substance was a driving factor in Spinoza's conclusion that there is only one substance, that is, only one independently existing thing. For Leibniz, on the other hand, who wanted to avoid Spinozism and preserve the distinct reality of the soul,28 a substance is what it is in virtue of its intrinsic properties. As such, there can be many di%erent substances having distinct sets of intrinsic properties. Intrinsic properties are properties that a thing has independently of anything else, and they are to be contrasted with a substance's relational properties. A relational property, on the other hand, requires two substances in relation with one another for its instantiation. For example, that there is a certain distance between me and the chair across from me is a relational property that we normally think cannot be instantiated unless we assume both my own existence claims: "For everything is ordered in things once and for all, with as much order and agreement as possible, since supreme wisdom and goodness can only act with perfect harmony: the present is pregnant with the future; the future can be read in the past; the distant is expressed in the proximate. One could know the beauty of the universe in each soul, if one could unfold all its folds, which only open perceptibly with time" (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 211). The concept through which God creates such complete individuals is the complete concept. 27 On this point see Franks All or Nothing, 109. 28 In his comments on Spinoza's philosophy, Leibniz notes the following: "it is a mockery to call souls immortal because ideas are eternal, as if the soul of a globe is to be called eternal because the idea of a spherical body is eternal. The soul is not an idea, but the source of innumerable ideas. For over and above a present idea, the soul has something active, that is, the production of new ideas. But, according to Spinoza, at any given moment, a soul will be di%erent, since, when the body changes, the idea of the body is di%erent. Hence, we shouldn't be surprised if he takes creatures for vanishing modifications. Therefore, the soul is something vital, that is, something that contains active force" (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 277). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 123 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 123 and that of the chair. Leibniz's philosophy sought to explain all (what seem to be) relational properties in terms of intrinsic properties. On Leibniz's understanding of substance, even if nothing existed outside of me, I would still perceive the chair. It is likely that Leibniz's attempt to explain all so-called relational properties in terms of intrinsic properties (hence the windowless character of the monads) has to do with his attempt to avoid Spinozism. For if the windows are open, then things stand in mutual interaction with each other. This implies, however, that all the properties a thing exhibits or expresses are what they are in virtue of that thing's standing in relation to other things. This includes a thing's spatial, temporal, and causal properties. They are all relational properties. Kant had already noted this in his 1755 Nova Delucidatio: "All substances, in so far as they are connected with each other in the same space, reciprocally interact with each other, and thus they are dependent on each other in respect of their determinations."29 The principle makes its way to Kant's first Critique as the third analogy of experience: "All substances, insofar as they can be perceived in space as simultaneous, are in thoroughgoing interaction" (A211/B256). One might still posit intrinsic properties, but as such, they would never appear. Kant arrives at this conclusion as well: a substance cannot determine another substance "by means of that which belongs to it internally."30 This is because the way its power manifests itself always also presupposes the particular character of that which will receive the e%ect. It could then simply be a matter of Occam's razor to dispense with intrinsic properties.31 Leibniz may have suspected that to open the windows would lead to Spinozism, and for this reason he insisted on the complete isolation of the 29 Immanuel Kant, Nova Delucidatio 1:415. 30 Ibid. 31 Franks puts the matter succinctly: "It has been argued that no intrinsic properties of finite things can explain any of their spatial, temporal, or causal properties. But then which e%ects of finite things can be explained by their intrinsic properties? It would seem that intrinsic properties do not explain any other properties of finite things. Rather, the assumption that finite things have intrinsic properties is introduced solely to explain the fact that finite things have non-intrinsic properties. But why is this necessary? It is necessary only if finite things are substances. But what grounds that assumption? Thanks to B1 [God is all-su$cient], an absolute cause is already available to explain everything else. So what warrant is there for introducing intrinsic properties that do no explanatory work that is not already being done?" Franks All or Nothing, 122. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 124 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 124 Transformation of the Self monads from each other.32 Kant, too, had recognized the problem. Appearances are all mere relations. His solution, however, di%ered from that of Leibniz: space and time, through which the appearances are ordered and stand in relation to one another, are not features of things in themselves. Were they features of things in themselves, he argued, the result would be Spinozism. Now for Leibniz, this independence of substance has the following implications. First, excepting its relation to God, the being of a substance does not depend on anything outside of itself. Second, if substance is truly independent, it must itself be the source of all its modifications. As such, it contains within itself its own entelechy. This principle, along with the first, is what leads Leibniz to conceive of his monads as "windowless," that is, they cannot be a%ected from without. Leibniz notes, "[From] the notion of an individual substance it also follows in metaphysical rigor that all the operations of substances, both actions and passions, are spontaneous, and that with the exception of the dependence of creatures on God, no real influx from one to the other is intelligible. For whatever happens to each one of them would flow from its nature and its notion even if the rest were supposed to be absent."33 Third, a substance persists throughout its changes. Fourth, substance is a true or per se unity, that is, all of its attributes should be derivable from a fundamental principle that articulates its essence. The third and fourth conditions of substance are intrinsically interwoven, since insofar as substance is a per se unity, it can be said to persist through all its modifications. Lastly, substances are uniquely identifiable. Given this characterization of substance, Leibniz's understanding of the complete concept is uniquely suited to articulate the nature of the intrinsic connection of a substance's attributes to its essence. If substance is truly independent (the monads are windowless), all of its changes must flow from its 32 In Leibniz's New System, he notes: "we should rather say that we are determined only in appearance, and that, in rigorous metaphysical language, we have a perfect independence relative to the influence of every other creature. This also throws a marvelous light on the immortality of our soul and the always uniform conservation of our individual being, which is perfectly well regulated by its own nature and protected from external accidents, appearances to the contrary not withstanding" (Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 144). 33 Leibniz, A Specimen of Discoveries about Marvellous Secrets, in Philosophical Writings, 79. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 125 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 125 own spontaneous action. The complete concept expresses the unique essence of individual substance from which all of its modifications flow, since God creates through it. As Rutherford notes, "a complete concept is an appropriate way to conceive of God's knowledge of a being, which is, by its nature, a spontaneous source of change."34 In Leibniz's system, the notion of a complete concept is inherently bound up with his notion of substance. It is Leibniz's commitment to independent substance that leads him to the notion of the complete concept. The consequences for Leibniz's understanding of the creation of substances in terms of their complete concept is then worked out in §9: Moreover, every substance is like a complete world and like a mirror of God or of the whole universe, which each one expresses in its own way, somewhat as the same city is variously represented depending upon the di%erent positions from which it is viewed. Thus the universe is in some way multiplied as many times as there are substances, and the glory of God is likewise multiplied by as many entirely di%erent representations of his work. It can even be said that every substance bears in some way the character of God's infinite wisdom and omnipotence and imitates him as much as it is capable. For it expresses, however confusedly, everything that happens in the universe, whether past, present, or future-this has some resemblance to an infinite perception or knowledge. And since all other substances in turn express this substance and accommodate themselves to it, one can say that it extends its power over all the others, in imitation of the creator's omnipotence.35 Each monad "expresses" all of the other monads and is "like a mirror of God or of the whole universe." It does so in virtue of the internal principle through which it was created, namely, its essence. This means, further, that each monad expresses all other monads in virtue of its intrinsic properties. Monads do not relate directly to one another, they "have no windows through which something can enter or leave."36 They are, rather, "harmonized" with one another by God, and it is in virtue of this pre-established harmony that each monad must accommodate itself to other monads. In the Monadology 34 Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, 139. 35 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 42. The same points are also made in §§51, 57, and 83 of the Monadology. 36 Ibid. 214. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 126 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 126 Transformation of the Self Leibniz notes that "this interconnection or accommodation of all created things to each other, and each to all the others, brings it about that each simple substance has relations that express all the others, and, consequently, that each simple substance is a perpetual, living mirror of the universe."37 Two things stand out in this regard. First, as already noted, all of the soul's actions and experiences, according to Leibniz, are already "written," so to speak, into its essence; they are given to it at the moment of its creation. The monads are active forms or entelechies, each with its own drive to play out its life, but it is only really in active relation to God. Now this doctrine can have pernicious ethical consequences. At its heart is a kind of metaphysical and ethical solipsism, since the self is never really in interaction with other selves and cannot be in any way transformed through this interaction. For Leibniz, the self never changes in response to another self. It is very likely this point that led Schleiermacher to aver that Leibniz was a bad philosopher. If we look at the Monologen, we find Schleiermacher taking over some of the central metaphors of Leibniz's philosophy and inverting them. According to Schleiermacher, at the heart of the self is consciousness, through which the self both stands in relation to the infinite and eternal and also opens out into the world. Yet no longer is the soul the mirror of the world, but, rather, the world is the mirror of the soul. The inversion of Leibniz's metaphor is reflective of the fact that Schleiermacher understands consciousness as essentially given to itself in its world. Schleiermacher begins the first section of the Monologen entitled "Reflection" in the following way: "Even the outer world with its most eternal laws and its most fleeting appearances reflects back to us, like a magic mirror, the highest and innermost dimension of our being [Wesen] in a thousand tender and sublime allegories" (KGA I.3, 6; 10).38 And later he continues 37 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 220; Monadology §56. 38 This is Brent Sockness' translation of this passage. Large chunks of his translation of the Monologen can be found in his article "Schleiermacher and the Ethics of Authenticity: the Monologen of 1800." The translated passage can be found on page 490. A complete English translation of the Monologen can be found in Horace Leland Friess, Schleiermacher's Soliloquies. Subsequent references to the Monologen will be to the first edition of 1800 found in Schleiermacher Kritischegesammtausgabe: Schriften aus der Berliner Zeit 1800–1802. References are shown parenthetically in the text as KGA I.3, with page numbers following. Reference to the pagination of the Friess 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 127 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 127 What they call world, is for me the human, what they call human is for me the world. For them the world is always primary, and spirit is only a humble guest upon it, uncertain about its place and powers. For me spirit is the first and only thing; for what I recognize as world is spirit's most beautiful work, its self-created mirror. (KGA I.3, 9; 16)39 In understanding these passages it is important to recall Schleiermacher's echo of Kant's critique of rational psychology in Spinozism, discussed in the previous chapter. There Schleiermacher had noted that "the consciousness, which is the sole ratio cognoscendi of selfconsciousness, relates itself only to the outer of the thing, not to its inner. . . . " (KGA I.1, 540). The self is conscious of itself in and through its relation to the manifold of its representations, through which it both apprehends and "constructs" the empirical world. All these representations are relational; they are the representations of a self that stands in relation to the world and apprehends the world from a particular standpoint. We can perceive only the outer of consciousness, that is, the "succession of representations and sensations" (KGA I.3, 6; 11). And it is in the outer that the self sees itself reflected, as if in a magic mirror. This stands at the heart of the non-Fichtean character of the ideas Schleiermacher puts forward in the Monologen.40 For translation will follow after a semicolon. I have often significantly altered the Friess translation; when necessary passages have been completely retranslated. 39 I made a few small changes to the translation found in Sockness (2004), 490–1. 40 Although when the book first came out anonymously some mistook it for the work of a disciple of Fichte, Schleiermacher's intent in writing the Monologen was not to produce another bit of Fichtean philosophy. It is true that even today there are those who read the Monologen in light of Fichte; see, for instance, Ulrich Barth, "Der ethische Individualitätsgedanke beim frühen Schleiermacher." Peter Grove also makes a good case for significant Fichtean influences on Schleiermacher in Deutungen des Subjekts, 157–248. Nevertheless, while it is true that (a) there is no doubt that Schleiermacher was quite engaged with Fichte's thought, and (b) that Schleiermacher made use of certain Fichtean formulations (for instance in his Notes on Ethics he notes that "through every cognition a personal existence is posited" (43)), it is significant that Schleiermacher himself frequently expressed his distaste for the Fichtean philosophy. In a letter to the Monologen's publisher Johann Carl Philipp Spener, he a$rms that the "Monologen contains something di%erent than, say, what every Fichtean tends to put forward" (KGA V/3:321). And writing in 1803 from Stolpe, he criticized Fichte for separating philosophy and life, and expressed suspicion at Fichte's arrival at an entire system through a single starting point (Aus Schleiermachers Leben. In Briefen #", 94%). While there are certain influences, the divergences from Fichte's thought are more 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 128 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 128 Transformation of the Self Schleiermacher's self-consciousness really does open out into the world, a world that it shares with other selves and which results from the interaction of spiritual beings. Hence there genuinely exist "outer contact points, wherein the energies of the self meet with external things" (KGA I.3, 7; 11). That the world impinges upon us in certain ways, and that our representations must be brought to a unity in accordance with certain laws, is not a matter under our control. Even our emotions may not be fully under our control: To necessity belong also the rising and falling tides of emotion, the train of images that passes before us, and everything that changes in our soul with time. Such images and feelings are a token that the spirit and the world have met in harmony, ever renewing the kiss of friendship between them in a di%erent manner. The Dance of Hours thus proceeds, melodious and harmonious, according to a necessary rhythm. But Freedom plays the melody, selects the key, and all subtle modulations are her work. For these proceed from an inner determination and from the individual's unique disposition. (KGA I.3, 10; 18) Nevertheless, while the self knows itself in its world, the point of the first monologue is to avoid both a slavish empiricism, where the self mistakes itself for what is outer (instead of recognizing the outer as its mere reflection) as well as to eschew the Leibnizian notion of an inner essence of the soul through which the whole course of life has been determined at the outset. Against the latter, Schleiermacher's remark concerning those who "think some hidden hand pulls the thread of their lives along, drawing it sometimes more loosely, sometimes more tightly together" (KGA I.3, 6; 11)41 may be an oblique reference. Against the empiricist who recognizes only the outer, and who is blind to the inner transcendental unity that holds together the outer impressions Schleiermacher a$rms: Freedom seems to him nothing but an illusion, spread like a veil over a hidden and uncomprehended necessity. Moreover, such an empiricist, whose action and thought look outward, sees everything as finite and particular. He cannot imagine himself as other than a sum of fleeting appearances, important still; I discuss these here and in Chapter 6. Some of the divergences are also discussed by Giovanni Moretto, "The Problem of the Religious in the Philosophical Perspectives of Fichte and Schleiermacher" 47–73. 41 Sockness, "Schleiermacher and the Ethics of Authenticity," 489. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 129 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 129 each of which supplants and cancels the other, so that it is impossible to conceive them as a whole. A complete picture of his being thus eludes him in a thousand contradictions . . . But within the spirit all is one, each action is but supplementary to another, in each the other also is preserved. . . . Each of my acts reveals the whole of my being, undivided, each of its manifestations goes with the rest . . . (KGA I.3, 12; 21) Such an empiricist, focused only on the outer, knows only the empirical self, and as such thinks of herself as determined by outside forces through inexorable causal necessity. "Whoever sees and recognizes only the outward spectacle of life instead of the spiritual activity that secretly stirs his inmost being . . . may never set foot within the sacred precincts of freedom, even though he thinks he has attained self-consciousness. For in the image he constructs of himself, this very self becomes something external, like all else, and everything in such an image is determined by external circumstances" (KGA I.3, 9; 15). FREEDOM AND INNER REVELATION Moreover, the empiricist cannot account for the unity of the self. All that s/he sees is the fleeting appearances that stand outside and alongside one another in the river of the soul's life. S/he cannot account for their principle of unity. What the empiricist fails to take into consideration is the transcendental unity of consciousness, which is not itself determined by any sensation, representation, or emotion. It is this transcendental unity, according to Schleiermacher, which is the source of the unity of a whole life. All the psychic forces of the self are grounded in it. This unity is free in relation to the world, for it is not a moment in the self 's consciousness of the world and cannot be determined by the play of previous impressions. The transcendental unity does not contain within itself, or ground, what is other than the self (and this is the key point at which Schleiermacher stands at odds with Fichte), but it does determine the way in which the impressions of the world are received. Hence Schleiermacher notes that "All those feelings that seem to be forced upon me by the material world are in reality my own free doing; nothing is a mere e%ect of that world 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 130 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 130 Transformation of the Self upon me" (KGA I.3, 10; 17).42 This is Schleiermacher's doctrine of the preponderant synthesis: even the way that we receive impressions from the world is conditioned by our spontaneity. To give an example from ethical life: the loveless actions of another can be received either as an a%ront or as a sign of the impoverished life of the other, and therefore as a call for help that must be met in the spirit of forgiveness. One is receptive to the world and to others, but the light in which those actions are received is the province of human freedom. As such, the self is free in relation to the world; as Schleiermacher puts it, insofar as the self is free, it "plays the melody, selects the key, and all subtle modulations are her work. For these proceed from an inner determination and from the individual's unique disposition" (KGA I.3, 10; 18). The manner in which the impressions of the world are received (and even the way that the individual's imagination works to understand them) is not determined by what is outside the self. Rather an inner principle of the self is at work. As noted in the previous chapter, in Reflexion 5653 Kant had observed, "the concept of freedom is already by itself necessarily connected with the concept of substance with respect to the intelligible, because the substance must be the ultimate subject of its actions and cannot itself be the mode of action of another substance."43 Schleiermacher no doubt recognized this connection in the Monologen; here a significant change has taken place in Schleiermacher's thought. In the Monologen the self is not a mere modification, a moment in which a play of outside forces come together. This is likely the way that Schleiermacher thought of the self in Spinozism, and this determinism was also a significant factor in his earlier ethical work. 42 Schleiermacher recognized that the passage as written could be misinterpreted in terms of a Fichtean idealism, and in later editions changed it to read as follows: "Thus for me the earth is the stage of my own free activity, and in every feeling, however much the outer world may seem to force it upon me, in those feelings too wherein I sense the kinship of material existence with universal being, there is free, inner action on my part." These changes serve to highlight the fact that Schleiermacher recognizes that the self receives genuine influences from the world. At issue, however, is how they are interpreted, and hence, received. What is given to the self is never simply the sheer, formless stu% of receptivity. Rather, what is given is received through the powers and dispositions of the self, and hence in some way is received as already interpreted. If the self is changed-and hence too its powers and dispositions-what it receives will be di%erent as well. 43 Kants gesammelte Schriften, vol. 18, 311. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 131 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 131 Here, however, the self must be considered as a substance insofar as it is free in the way that it receives and responds to what stands outside of it. Two things are important in this regard. First, the freedom that Schleiermacher speaks of in the Monologen is not the freedom of the self over against the Infinite and Eternal. Rather, God is the source of whatever freedom the self may possess in relation to the world. The self as substance is established and preserved in its being by God; as regards this point there are traces of Leibniz in Schleiermacher's thought. And because the soul is directly receptive to the divine influence, it is not a mere turnspit, reacting mechanically to outside influences. The transcendental light of consciousness that opens out into the world is a light preserved in its being in and through spirit's relation to the infinite and absolute. Schleiermacher describes the transcendental self as a "point" which "cuts a line" but which is "not part of that line."44 This point is "truly and more immediately related to the Infinite than to the line, and anywhere along the line you can place such a point." It is itself "no moment of . . . temporal existence;" in it one becomes conscious of one's "relations to the Infinite and Eternal" (KGA I.3, 7; 12). The soul is genuinely-although not absolutely-free in its relation to the world. However, all genuine freedom, all creativity, all the productive workings of the imagination and inspiration result from the psychic powers of the self being enlivened by the light of God, who stands at the ground of the soul. Schleiermacher a$rms that in freedom the spirit "discovers its creative nature, the light of God begins to shine . . . banishing far hence the mists in which enslaved humanity strays in error" (KGA I.3, 11; 19). The transcendental self is not compelled to receive or imagine what comes to it from the outside world in any fully determinate way (although this does not mean that what the self receives is completely indeterminate, either). The successive series of apprehensions, 44 In understanding the transcendental self as distinct from the manifold of its representations, and hence as "outside" of the temporal continuum of the individual's self-understanding of itself as in relation to its world, Schleiermacher is working with important elements of the Kantian understanding of the transcendental self that he worked through in his discussion of the self in Spinozism. Recall that for Kant, from a transcendental perspective, "time is in me," and hence that the transcendental self stands outside of time. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 132 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 132 Transformation of the Self the fleeting representations and sensations that are the stu% of selfconscious life do not of themselves completely determine how these disparate elements of consciousness will be knit together through the imagination. And while there are rules for coming to know that must be observed if inter-subjective knowledge is to be possible, there is yet great room for the play of the imagination. The transcendental freedom of the self in its relation to the world is made possible by the "light that lights every man that comes into the world," as Leibniz had put it. This, no doubt, was one of the insights of Leibniz's philosophy that Schleiermacher found congenial. It is no surprise that Schleiermacher, like Leibniz, was so taken with the gospel of John. Second, Schleiermacher does not here propose that we are absolutely free. Our freedom is curtailed by the material stu% of the world as well as by the freedom of other human selves. "The infinitely great and ponderous mass of corporeal stu%," Schleiermacher writes, "is but the great common body of humanity. It belongs to us just as the single body belongs to the individual; it is possible only through humanity, and is given to humanity for it to rule and to announce itself through it" (KGA I.3, 9–10; 16–17). How are we to understand this material stu%? Given what Schleiermacher says explicitly, it must be something like the unconscious product of spiritual beings as they interrelate with one another. In the following remarkable passage Schleiermacher a$rms that the only reality is that of the community of spiritual beings and what they jointly produce: I deem worthy to be called world only the eternal community of spirits, their influence on one another, their mutual reflections, the high harmony of freedom. Only the infinite totality of spirits sets the finite and particular over against me. Only this reality do I allow to change and mold the surface of my being, to work on me. Here, and here alone, is the province of necessity. My activity itself is free, not so my workings in the world, for those obey eternal laws. Freedom finds its limit in another freedom, and whatever happens freely bears the marks of limitation and community. Yes, holy Freedom, you are first overall! You live in me, and in all. Necessity is posited outside us; it is the determinate tone of the beautiful clash of freedoms, which announces its being. I behold nothing but freedom within myself. What is necessary is not my doing; it is its reflection, the appearance of the world that I help fashion 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 133 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 133 in holy community with others. To it belong the works I build on common ground with others; they are my contribution to the creation expressing our inner thoughts. (KGA I.3, 10; 17–18) Significantly, Schleiermacher a$rms that selves are in genuine communion with one another. Free interactions with other spiritual beings "transform and shape the surface" of a person's being. This is a very di%erent picture from that o%ered by Leibniz with his windowless monads that never freely interact with one another. Schleiermacher's understanding a%ords a much more fruitful basis for an understanding of both religion and human ethical development. For Schleiermacher the community of others is of genuine importance for moral and spiritual progress. From the actual existence of other selves stems "necessity," that is, the curtailment of human freedom by what is genuinely other than the self. An infinite number of spiritual beings restrict the freedom through which the self can express itself. The self is thereby receptive to a world of others that stands outside of it.45 However, there is a crucial moment of freedom even in the self 's receptivity to what is other than the self. To a degree, the self determines how impressions from the outside are received, how they are interpreted through the work of the imagination, and how the self will, as a consequence, react to the world and to other selves. It is important to note, however, that already in the Monologen, Schleiermacher recognizes the socially constructed dimension of that which is received from outside the self. This social construction of the world is something to which the self contributes; however, it is a joint e%ort, and the result, too, is jointly determined. The world that appears is one that "I help fashion in holy community with others;" it is a "creation expressing our inner thoughts" (KGA I.3, 10; 17). Hence the world is the reflection of the collective exercise of the freedom of human selves. The self knows itself in this world, for along with others it expresses itself into this world. Without the world, which is the joint product of the expression of free spirits, the self cannot find itself reflected in what is other than itself, and hence, cannot come to 45 In contrasting Schleiermacher's philosophy with that of Fichte, Günter Meckenstock correctly notes "Schleiermacher's moral individual is thoroughly related to community." Meckenstock, "Schleiermacher's Auseinandersetzung mit Fichte," 35. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 134 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 134 Transformation of the Self know itself. It cannot become self-conscious, for self-consciousness presupposes a duality between subject and object, and it implies that the subject can make itself its own object. Objectification of the self also implies the self 's understanding of itself as related to others in the world. This is the "outer" self, that is, the empirical self without which the self cannot come to know itself. To be sure, apart from it the self might have a certain experience of itself in immediate apperception. And this immediate apperception is that "inner" dimension of the self 's experience of itself that Schleiermacher urges the reader to attend to, lest s/he make the mistake of identifying herself completely with the empirical, outer self. He notes that "the conclusion from the outer to the inner" is but a "wavering conjecture" and hence urges us to build what is "immediately certain" (KGA I.3, 15; 27). However, these immediately certain inner realities are expressed into the world held in common by spiritual beings, and without the world, which is the common expression of human freedom, and which is also its reflection, there can be no self -consciousness. It is important to note that here, too, we already find the seeds of Schleiermacher's preoccupation with language, which plays a key role in his ethics. Language is that through which the world is socially constructed, and through it the world becomes the common expression of free beings in communication with one another. Through language rules are given for the unification of perceptions and the integration of experience, and through its e$cacy experience is always already, to a large degree, interpreted. Furthermore, because of the social dimension of the world in which the self expresses itself and finds itself, the self comes to know itself in its relation to the socially constructed world. Hence the "outer" empirical self is also, to a great degree, socially constructed. This stands at the heart of Schleiermacher's identification of sin as social. While the root of sin lies in the obstruction of consciousness of the infinite and eternal, this obstruction is a blocking of the expression of this God-consciousness towards the community of spiritual subjects. Hence social constructions of the self and of others can serve to block it, especially when individuals are encouraged to make the mistake of completely identifying themselves with these outer relations, rather than recognizing the outer as an opportunity for the expression of the divine light at the ground of the soul. All outer experience, and even the "unity of the transient stream 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 135 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 135 of consciousness" is of little value if it is not recognized as the sign of "something of higher ethical value" (KGA I.3, 18; 31). In the third discourse on the world, Schleiermacher laments the fact that most persons identify themselves with purely outer things. Persons have "a sense only for outer communion with the world of sense," and they measure everything in its terms. They are interested only in "increase in outward possessions or in knowledge, protection and aid against fate or misfortune, stronger alliances to keep rivals in check" (KGA I.3, 34; 59–60). The "great battle around the holy standard of humanity" (KGA I.3, 37; 65) revolves around language, for it is through language that persons come to know both self and other as they stand in relation to one another. However, at present language is in the service of the world; it "has exact symbols and fine abundance for everything thought and felt in the world's sense" and hence is "the clearest mirror of the times, a work of art in which its spirit is revealed." As such, language becomes one of the principle vehicles through which the self is entangled in what is purely outer: "Before it has yet found itself, the spirit belongs to the world through language, and must first slowly extricate itself from its entanglement." And even when the individual has had a glimpse of what is at the heart of reality, language, routinely used to express only the value of tangible things, becomes an impediment to the communication of higher truths. Words can introduce "errors and corruptions" and language can be treacherous, "isolating and imprisoning its victims" in the common idiom, so that the individual who has at last "penetrated through to truth . . . cannot communicate" what s/he has discovered (KGA I.3, 37; 64). INDIVIDUALITY Most striking in Schleiermacher's Monologen is its stress on the individual. In light of his critique of Leibniz's monads and his defense of Spinoza in Spinozism and in the Short Presentation of the Spinozistic System, this emphasis is surprising. Echoing many of the arguments of Spinozism, in the Short Presentation he writes: Were each individual in the world of sense to correspond to one in the intelligible world, then we must be in a position to increase the number of 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 136 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 136 Transformation of the Self things in themselves. This would be from the side of the extended things. The next transition from the world of sense to the intelligible world is alone the human being. Is it then certain that a noumenon stands at the ground of each consciousness? Does not this claim also belong to the paralogisms of reason? To me at least it seems that it has the same relation to the thinking things as to what is extended: the individuating consciousness concerns receptivity and relates itself only to the appearances. Exactly that which certainly depends on it most closely, that which really exists in us, namely reason, individuates us least of all, and its consideration all the sooner leads us back from the illusion of individuality. If one has no reason to a$rm a plurality of noumena-and we should not say anything about it other than that which necessarily relates itself to appearances-then it is already a presumption when we express ourselves in any other way than: the noumenon, the world as noumenon. Even so little, however, does it presume to go further and to claim, with Spinoza, a positive unity and infinity. Yet, of this, which was alien to the critical idealism, it could know nothing. Thereby the great question remains to be discussed: what is the origin of the idea of the individual, and with what does it have to do? (KGA I.1, 574) In the Short Presentation Schleiermacher enumerates only two aspects of the self. The first is the self in the aspect of its outer relations to the world. This is the empirical self, the self as it appears. This empirical self is individuated in virtue of its position in relation to other things. Insofar as the empirical self is fully determined by the nexus of the outer appearances in which it has a place, "the individuating consciousness concerns receptivity and relates itself only to the appearances." In his early work On Freedom, Schleiermacher had already recognized that if we think of the self only as such a point for the unification of di%erent forces,46 the "agency" of the agent "dissolves into infinitely many infinitesimally small external forces that leave us with nothing to think of as firmly active in the subject" (KGA I.1, 257; 42–3). Furthermore, according to Kant's ethics, to which Schleiermacher is surely making reference here, the desires that emerge directly from the self 's existence as an individual, embodied self are those of the lower faculty of desire, and as such are desires conditioned by self 's causal history. On the other hand, 46 In the Short Presentation, Schleiermacher had also described the individual as "nothing other than the cohesion, the identical unity of powers of a certain mass at a point" (KGA I.1, 574). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 137 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 137 Schleiermacher points out, "that which really exists in us, namely reason, individuates us least of all, and its consideration all the sooner leads us back from the illusion of individuality." Insofar as reason is the province of the universality of thought, it cannot be the source of individuality. No doubt referring to this past system of belief, Schleiermacher notes "for a long time, I too, was content with the mere discovery of reason" (KGA I.3, 17; 30). By the time he writes the Monologen however, something has changed. He no longer thinks that ethical reasoning deals with only two aspects of the self, namely, sensuous desires and the laws of universal reason. Beyond the discovery of reason there is yet a higher understanding of what the self is. This "higher" self is the seat of individuality. If the person attains consciousness of universal humanity, scorning the unworthy particularity of the sensuous animal life, and bows down before duty, it is still not possible for her to penetrate the higher individuality of development and morality, or to see and understand nature, which chooses freedom for itself. Most hold themselves in an undetermined, wavering middle, and really represent humanity only in rough elements, simply because they have not grasped the thought of a higher existence. (KGA I.3, 18; 30–1) The discovery of this higher level of individuality, however, does not eliminate the need to adhere to universal moral laws. Schleiermacher makes this clear when he notes that while earlier he had thought that "there is but a single right way of acting in every situation" (KGA I.3, 17; 30) he now recognizes that there are a "thousand ways of acting di%erently, in a di%erent sense and spirit, without o%ending against the law of humanity" (KGA I.3, 19; 33). What, then, does the discovery of individuality amount to for Schleiermacher, and how does it contribute to a deepened understanding of morality? In the second monologue Schleiermacher a$rms that the vision of "humanity within oneself" is the "inner and necessary tie between doing and seeing" (KGA I.3, 16; 28). In transcendental selfconsciousness the self stands in immediate relation to the Infinite and Eternal; this stands at the heart of Schleiermacher's vision of the inner, higher self. However, since this immediate relation grounds the core of all human beings, it is still unclear how this is going to 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 138 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 138 Transformation of the Self individuate persons. Schleiermacher insists that each person is "uniquely fashioned," (KGA I.3, 17; 30) and that each person "is meant to represent humanity" in his or her own way, "combining its elements uniquely, so that it may reveal itself in every way . . . " (KGA I.3, 18; 31). He provides the key to his view of what constitutes individuality only in passing: it is given in a person's limitations.47 Hence he links coming to understand the "unique in his activity" with becoming conscious of "each action and limitation as the consequences of that free action" (KGA I.3, 18; 32). Later he notes that in order to find the "most characteristic e%orts of one's nature," one might find what is "unique by virtue of its limitations" (KGA I.3, 19; 32–3). It is as if each individual is a window through which the divine light is refracted and expressed, yet only partially. Di%erent persons are capable of refracting and expressing it di%erently, and some are not yet even conscious that this is the source of their true being. Hence they identify themselves with externals only. Two important points follow from this. First, each person o%ers a unique perspective on the world. S/he views the world from a particular point of view that is not exactly the same as anyone else's. Each person's specificity-the way that they refract the divine light- is reflected in the mirror of how they have imagined other selves, the world as the common arena of their interaction, and their place in 47 This idea is certainly also due to the influence of Leibniz. We have already seen that in his notes on Leibniz he mentions the idea of limitation and muses that limitation must come from the devil. In his book Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, Robert Adams explores this issue in the context of his discussion of the relation of Leibniz to Spinoza. Adams argues that the mature Leibniz conceived of creatures as distinct from God in virtue of their limitations: "It is not hard to see how Leibniz might have thought the powers of creatures distinct from God's power. For the powers of creatures have limitations." On the other hand, "no limited perfection can be ascribed" to the ens perfectissimum. It is because there is a distinction of powers that there must be a distinction of subjects; the distinction of subjects "flows from the distinction of powers" (132). While the mature Leibniz a$rmed that the reality of creatures is a limitation of the reality of God, he nevertheless claimed that the creatures are not "in" God but are distinct from God. In his paper entitled "On the Abstract and the Concrete," from about 1688 he notes "the reality of creatures is not that very reality that in God is absolute, but a limited reality for that is of the essence of the creature" (", 1603=+- #", 7), 99–100, cited in Adams). Adams is right to conclude "Here the thought seems very clear that the limited and the absolute or unlimited reality are di%erent, indeed incompatible, attributes and hence are not present in the same subject, so that the creatures are not 'in' God after all" (133). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 139 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 139 it. To be sure, there are contact points between any given individual's outlook on the world and that of others. But each outlook is unique. In this regard, Schleiermacher's grasp of individuality echoes Leibniz's notion that "every substance is like a complete world and like a mirror of God or the whole universe."48 However, for Schleiermacher, the self receives the divine influence and actively expresses it out into the world. Only in and through its expression does the self achieve consciousness of its relation to the infinite and eternal. Important, too, in this regard, is what Schleiermacher had learned from Kant's critique of rational psychology. While the self immediately apperceives itself, it can only know its own "outer," that is, how it stands in relation to what is other than itself. To be sure, the self also stands in immediate relation to the absolute and has an immediate experience of itself in apperception. But insofar as this relation is immediate, it cannot be conceptualized and made an object of knowledge. Instead, reception of the divine influence is refracted in its expression out into the world and can be grasped there; the world, as such, becomes the mirror of the self. This expression is limited in di%ering degrees to the extent that the self confuses itself with the world. Insofar as it does so, it understands itself as a mere product of the world and as determined by it. This constitutes the lower, purely sensuous dimension of human being.49 Moreover, the socially constructed world can also be an impediment to the expression of the divine influence. This happens insofar as the individual first comes to self-knowledge in and through social relations with worldly persons, as well as through language, in which expression of these social relations has been imbedded. The powers and dispositions of the self have a determinative influence on how the world is received and interpreted. Insofar as the self stands in communion with the whole world, it reflects the whole world from its own point of view. This idea, too, can be traced back to Leibniz, although at the hands of Schleiermacher it has been significantly transformed. According to Leibniz, each monad expresses the whole universe in its own way "somewhat as the same city is variously represented depending upon the di%erent positions from which it is 48 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, 42. 49 In the second monologue, Schleiermacher speaks of the "unworthy particularity of a sensuous animal life" (KGA I:3, 18; 30); the sensuous is a "culpably limited kind of external personality" (KGA I:3, 19; 32). 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 140 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 140 Transformation of the Self viewed."50 However, it does so in virtue of how it was created from the outset, and not because it stands in any real relation to other spiritual substances in its own right. For Schleiermacher, on the other hand, each self reflects the whole world in so far as it stands in genuine community with all beings. Hence Schleiermacher a$rms that ". . . everyone feels the influence of others as part of his own life; by the ingenious mechanism of this community the slightest movement of each individual is conducted like an electric spark, through a long chain of a thousand links, greatly amplifying its final e%ect; all are, as it were, members of a great organism . . . (KGA I.3, 29; 52)." In regard to himself, Schleiermacher notes ". . . whatever I embrace will bear my mark. Whatever part of humanity's infinite realm I have apprehended will be in equal measure uniquely transformed and taken up into my being" (KGA I.3, 24; 42). Friess eloquently summarizes Schleiermacher's position in his introduction to the Soliloquies: "By receiving the universe into his soul, he becomes, as it were, the soul of a second universe where . . . his individuality enters into the life of all. The universe itself acquires a kind of infinity through being thus received in individual souls, as if it were reflected and reflected again in an infinite series of di%erent mirrors" (xlix). This insight into the individual character of each person is the starting point for the ethical theory of the Monologen. The particular position of each person, his or her perspective on the world, must be taken into account if human beings are to negotiate "the determinate tone of the beautiful clash of freedoms" (KGA I.3, 10; 17); each must strive to understand the particular place from which the other views the world. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone is exactly the same, and that universal rules are su$cient to guide the specificity of the actions called for in each situation. To be sure, because each individual has the capacity to reflect the divine, each is of infinite value. But because each stands in a di%erent situation, to disregard both a person's outer circumstances as well as their general approach to the world is to do her a grave disservice. To love a person is love her "in the measure that I find and understand this individuality" (KGA I.3, 26; 46). Hence right action calls for sensitivity to the other's situation: "The highest condition of individual 50 Leibniz, Philosophical Essays 42. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 141 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 141 perfection in a determined field is a general sensitiveness" (KGA I.3, 22; 38). This "sensitiveness" cannot occur apart from love, which recognizes the infinite worth of the other and strives to understand his or her point of view. Schleiermacher insightfully notes that "without love the very first attempt at self-formation would prove shattering because of the terrifying disproportion between giving and receiving; the mind would be forced to some extreme one-sidedness, and he who made the attempt in this fashion would either be wholly broken or else sink to the vulgar level" (KGA I.3, 22; 38–9). The giving and receiving of goods such as knowledge, culture and property, which go to constitute how a person comes to an understanding of herself and her place in the world, is fraught with danger. Those who have power in virtue of their possession of such goods can lord it over those who do not. The giving or withholding of those things through which the other comes to recognize him or herself as a valuable member of the human community can become an opportunity for the advancement of egoism in all its forms, where one person or group asserts superiority over others and refuses to recognize their intrinsic worth. Even giving can be an opportunity for the advancement of egoism, in particular when the person who is in power, and who demonstrates this power through the gift, comes to identify herself with this role. When human interchange occurs without love, all are impoverished. Only when both giving and receiving is a free interchange in which both parties recognize the infinite worth of the other is "brokenness" and "vulgarity" avoided. Hence there is "no development without love." Moreover, "without individual development there is no perfection in love; each supplements the other, both increase indivisibly" (KGA I.3, 22; 39). Perfection in love can begin to develop only when each recognizes the perspectival character of all knowledge and of all individual apprehensions of the world. Schleiermacher a$rms, "I happily allow each other view to take its place beside my own; my mind peacefully completes the task of interpreting each and penetrating its standpoint" (KGA I.3; 23; 41). Only when the limited character of one's own knowledge and standpoint is acknowledged, along with an acknowledgement of the standpoints of others, is true moral development possible. In all action, attention must be paid to the particular situation of the other and, hence, to how one's own action will be received by the other. This is the key to moral growth, 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 142 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 142 Transformation of the Self which occurs only through the gradual and mutual interpenetration of standpoints. Key to a development of sensitivity to the other's standpoint is the moral imagination. Without it, loving action is almost impossible. "Imagination," notes Schleiermacher, "alone can free the spirit and place it far beyond any power and limitation" (KGA I.3, 48; 81). It is in virtue of imagination that "I can put myself in the position of any other person I notice" (KGA I.3, 48–9; 82). To be sure, one of the principle flaws in Schleiermacher's book is its excessive overestimation of the powers of the imagination. Schleiermacher even a$rms that to live with another in imagination is as good as living with another in reality. No doubt, the imagination is integral to moral judgment, and without it one could not even begin to understand the other su$ciently for appropriate action. But the book also ignores the perils of the imagination, which can easily misconstrue the other and his or her motivations, imagining the most nefarious schemes and terrifying outcomes. The standpoint of each individual is multivalent. Schleiermacher notes that the person that seeks to develop him or herself "belongs to more than one world . . . Like a comet, the cultured individual traverses many systems and encircles many a sun" (KGA I.3, 26– 7; 47). Persons are capable of expressing many facets of humanity. Each of these facets, however, will resonate with some individuals, but not with others. In such a way, one expresses di%erent facets of the self to di%erent persons. Schleiermacher notes the wisdom of those who advise, "so much will that one understand you, there is another who will understand something else; you may embrace that one with a certain kind of love, but hold back from the other one" (KGA I.3, 26; 47). Furthermore, at one point a person will grow closer to this one; later that friendship might fade, and the individual grows closer to another. Throughout the phases of life the self changes, and throughout those changes di%erent aspects of the self are revealed to di%erent individuals. Yet Schleiermacher insists that this limitation must be transcended. This can happen in perfect friendship, where through steadfast loyalty to one another over time, the particular standpoints of two finite individuals are perfectly interpenetrated: "Where is the beautiful ideal of the perfect union, the friendship that 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 143 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 143 is at once complete on both sides? Only when, in equal measure, both love and sensitiveness have grown almost beyond all measure. But then they are perfected at once through love, and the hour strikes- oh, for us it strikes much sooner!-to give up finite existence, and to return out of the world to the bosom of the infinite" (KGA I.3, 27; 48). The limitations of individuality are overcome in perfect love, in which there is no mine or yours, but only the infinite character of reflected love. The same theme is repeated in his meditation upon death in the fourth monologue. The perfection of the self means the death of the individual: "such a one must also perish for whom this balance is destroyed in a di%erent way, who, having arrived at the goal of perfecting his individuality, surrounded by the riches of the world, no longer has anything to do. A completely perfect being is a god. It could not endure the burden of life, and no longer has a place in the human world" (KGA I.3, 51–2; 87). In this remarkable meditation upon the meaning of death, Schleiermacher a$rms the significance of the other for self-knowledge and development: I can well say that death will never part my friends from me, for I take up their lives in mine, and their influence upon me never ceases. But it is I myself who slowly perish in their death. The life of friendship is a beautiful sequence of harmonizing chords, to a keynote that dies out when the friend passes away. Of course, within oneself re-echoing tones are heard without cease for a long while and the music is carried on; but the accompanying harmony of him, of which I was the keynote, has died away, and it was this that gave me my key, just as I gave him his. What I produced in him is no more, and a part of life is thereby lost. Every creature that loves another kills something in that other through its death, and he who loses many of his friends is finally slain himself at their hands, since cut o% from influencing those who were his world, his spirit is driven inward and forced to consume itself. (KGA I.3, 51; 86–7) Without the other, there is no knowledge of the self. The person expresses him or herself to the other, and the self as thus expressed is reflected back to the self in the self-consciousness of the other. Loss of the other is therefore a loss of oneself. This once again picks up the theme developed in the last chapter, that the self has no knowledge of the inner self. Only as expressed and reflected in the self-consciousness of the other does the self arrive at this knowledge; hence, what can be known is the outer, the self in its relations to 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 144 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 144 Transformation of the Self others and its influence upon them. This theme is also one that Schleiermacher shares with Hegel, especially as developed in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. In Schleiermacher's hands, however, the idea grounds Schleiermacher's emphasis on the importance of the historical arena for moral development, where human persons act and react upon one another. This idea, furthermore, lies at the heart of Schleiermacher's claim that only in relation to a historical individual with a perfect God-consciousness can human beings achieve moral perfection. For only such a one who expresses the divine love perfectly knows the essence of all rational beings as their capacity to express the divine love. Such a one reflects this essence back to them so that they can thereby know themselves as beings that express the divine love; they thereby achieve the consciousness of God in doing so. On the basis of conclusions to which he comes through reflection upon Kant's critique of rational psychology, namely, his a$rmation of our lack of knowledge of the inner self, Schleiermacher arrives at the insight that it is only in relation to the other that we can arrive at self-understanding and realization of the God-consciousness. None of this is so much a refutation of Kant's ethics as a moving beyond him. Along with Kant, Schleiermacher rea$rms the importance of universal ethical laws that cannot be abrogated. His ethics of individuality does not give the individual license to do as he pleases; he stands in agreement with Kant that all moral beings are of infinite worth and cannot be treated as mere means. However, Schleiermacher goes beyond Kant in three important ways. First, in emphasizing the connection of each human being to the infinite and eternal in the immediate self-consciousness, Schleiermacher connects the source of each person's ultimate value with that element in selfconsciousness that interpenetrates all aspects of a person's psyche, both rational and emotive. Kant, on the other hand, derived the moral law from the universality of reason, but was then unable to explain how reason could become a motive power for the will. Schleiermacher solves the problem through his understanding of the immediate self-consciousness influencing both reason and desire. Although still somewhat undeveloped, the idea is certainly already present in On Religion and the Monologen. Unlike Kant, Schleiermacher was not stymied by the philosopher's stone. 05-Marina-c04 OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 145 of 145 March 6, 2008 11:38 The World is the Mirror of the Self 145 Second, Schleiermacher's adoption and inversion of key Leibnizian doctrines helped him to understand the significance of individuality for moral action. It is not enough to a$rm the universal moral law; right judgment and right action requires one to take into account the individual circumstances, limitations, and capacities of the other in relating to him or her. Each individual has a unique perspective from which s/he understands both herself and the world. The mutual interpenetration of subjectivities requires the use of the imagination in order to understand the other's perspective; only love makes possible sensitivity to the other's standpoint. Self-development occurs by breaking through limitations of the self through sympathetically entering further into the situation of the other. Third, and most importantly, Schleiermacher's understanding of the conditions of the possibility of self-knowledge allowed him to move significantly beyond Kant's ethical theory. For Kant, personification of the moral ideal (Christ) is not necessary for moral development. In his Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, Kant had argued that having the moral ideal of perfection in one's reason is enough to make moral action possible. However, Schleiermacher came to understand that self-knowledge, and therefore moral development, is only possible in relation to the other, through which the self comes to know itself. This idea grounds Schleiermacher's later claim in The Christian Faith that it is only in relation to Jesus Christ, who expresses the God-consciousness perfectly, that both ethical and religious perfection is possible for human beings.