Thesis advisor: John Sallis / This dissertation is an attempt to describe parallels and convergences between the work of Martin Heidegger and that of the poet and philosopher of the Jena Romantic period Friedrich von Hardenberg, known also as Novalis. The fact that little attention has been given to the consideration of their relationship is undoubtedly owing to the fact that there is no sustained address to the work of the Jena Romantics in Heidegger's writing. However, the question of their relation merits reflection because of the insistence with which, albeit in a marginal way, Heidegger returns again and again in his work to fragments of Novalis. These fragments often seem to operate in Heidegger's lectures as something like stepping-stones, or guide-posts that mark a particular turn in the direction of the argument. Following one such quotation, Heidegger remarks that he "does not want to provoke and argument over the authority of this witness." However, it is indeed as "witness," and also in a certain sense as "authority" that Novalis is more often than not introduced. The question, then, is: what kind of authority? And to what is this authority called upon to bear witness? This question is rendered more substantial by the fact that these curious and marginal appearances of the Jena Romantic poet and philosopher take place in Heidegger's work over a period of forty years, from 1916 to 1959. More intriguing still, though, is that - when viewed together - these appearances attest to a strong ambivalence on Heidegger's part. On the one hand, a fragment of Novalis might be presented as an extraordinary "flash of insight" that presages unforeseen directions in philosophical thinking. On the other hand, these insights are also sometimes subject to summary judgment, dismissed by virtue of a broad and rather sweeping association with Hegel. Thus, it might be said that a kind of mystery hovers around this presence, a sense of both attraction and resistance. Following one such moment, indeed, and after having quoted Novalis' Monologue in its entirety, Heidegger writes: "Much remains dark and confusing in this monologue of λόγος, especially as he thinks in another direction and speaks in another language than the one attempted in these lectures." Still more than marking points of convergence, then, this project is dedicated to an attempt to shed light on this "dark and confusing" difference. To that end, the first part of the essay will engage Novalis' own extraordinary philosophical project; a project that involves an endeavor not merely to ponder the relations between philosophy and poetry, but to effect a complete elision of their distinction, and to offer to them thereby the thought of an entirely new meeting-ground. The essay will trace out the philosophical origins of this endeavor, and try to show how the thinking engendered in those origins flourishes to produce a unique conception of the relations between the natural world and the language we use to describe it. The second part of the essay will, by contrast, engage Heidegger, in an attempt to mark a terrain in which aspects of his work can be seen to come into close proximity with the thought of the Jena Romantics, often in quite unexpected and unpredictable ways. These considerations will operate along two axes. On the one hand, an address is made to question of pain in Heidegger's work, in order to show the continuity, but also to describe the philosophical orientation and historical genesis of this thematic. Secondly, the very distinctive manner of writing and thinking that belongs to Heidegger's work of the late 1930's is addressed in light of this thematic. It will be shown that it is in these texts, and most especially in the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), that Heidegger's processes of writing offer the most striking parallels to modes of thinking that unfold in the orbit of Jena Romanticism. Finally, though, what is hazarded in this essay is not by any means a "Romantic" reading of Heidegger, and still less a "Heideggerean" reading of Novalis, but rather an endeavor to show how, and to what extent, the thinking of both Heidegger and Novalis converge in taking their orientation, in very different ways, from the historical appropriation of a decisive moment in Greek thought, namely one particular thought that belongs to the fragments of Heraclitus. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101149 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Hanly, Peter Charles |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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