PROPOSITIO1 [IV 179]
The question is asked by one who in his ignorance does not even know what provided the occasion for his questioning in this way.2
4Can the truth be learned? With this question we shall begin. It was a Socratic question or became that by way of the Socratic question whether virtue can be taught—for virtue in turn was defined as insight (see Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Euthydemus).5 Insofar as the truth is to be learned, it of course must be assumed not to be—consequently, because it is to be learned, it is sought. Here we encounter the difficulty that Socrates calls attention to in the Meno (80, near the end) as a “pugnacious proposition”: a person cannot possibly seek what he knows, and, just as impossibly, he cannot seek what he does not know, for what he knows he cannot seek, since he knows it, and what he does not know he cannot seek, because, after all, he does not even know what he is supposed to seek.6 Socrates thinks through the difficulty by means [of the principle] that all learning and seeking are but recollecting.7 Thus the ignorant person merely needs to be reminded [IV 180] in order, by himself, to call to mind what he knows. The truth is not introduced into him but was in him. Socrates elaborates on this idea,8 and in it the Greek pathos is in fact concentrated, since it becomes a demonstration for the immortality of the soul—retrogressively, please note—or a demonstration for the pre-existence of the soul.*9
In view of this, it is manifest with what wonderful consistency Socrates remained true to himself and artistically exemplified what he had understood. He was and continued to be a midwife, not because he “did not have the positive,”** but because he perceived that this relation is the highest relation a human being can have to another. And in that he is indeed forever right, for even if a divine point of departure is ever given, this remains the true relation between one human being and another, if one reflects upon the absolute and does not dally with the accidental but with all one’s heart [IV 181] renounces understanding the half-measures that seem to be the inclination of men and the secret of the system. Socrates, however, was a midwife examined by the god13 himself. The work he carried out was a divine commission (see Plato’s Apology),14 even though he struck people as an eccentric (άτοπώτατος, Theaetetus, 149), and the divine intention, as Socrates also understood it, was that the god forbade him to give birth (μαιεύεσθαί με ὁ θεὸς ἀναγκάζει, γεννα̃ν δὲ ἀπεκώλυσεν [the god constrains me to serve as a midwife, but has debarred me from giving birth], Theaetetus, 150 c), because between one human being and another μαιεύεσθαι [to deliver] is the highest; giving birth indeed belongs to the god.15
Viewed Socratically, any point of departure in time is eo ipso something accidental, a vanishing point, an occasion. Nor is the teacher anything more, and if he gives of himself and his erudition in any other way, he does not give but takes away. Then he is not even the other’s friend, much less his teacher. This is the profundity of Socratic thinking, this his noble, thoroughgoing humanity, which does not exclusively and conceitedly cultivate the company of brilliant minds but feels just as kin to a tanner, and for that reason he soon “became convinced that the study of nature is not man’s concern and therefore began to philosophize about the ethical in workshops and in the market-place” (Diogenes Laertius, II, V, 21)16 but philosophized just as absolutely with whomever he spoke. With half-thoughts, with higgling and haggling, with claiming and disclaiming, as if the individual to a certain degree owed something to another person but then again to a certain degree did not, with vague words that explain everything except what is meant by this “to a certain degree”—with all such things one does not go beyond Socrates or reach the concept of revelation, either, but simply remains in empty talk. In the Socratic view, every human being is himself the midpoint, and the whole world focuses only on him because his self-knowledge is God-knowledge.17 Moreover, this is how Socrates understood himself, and in his view this is how every human being must understand himself, and by virtue of that understanding he must understand his relation to the single individual, always with equal humility and with equal pride. For that purpose, Socrates had the courage and self-collectedness to be sufficient unto himself, but in his relations to others he also had the courage and self-collectedness to be merely an occasion even for the most stupid person. What rare magnanimity—rare in our day, when the pastor is little more than the deacon, when every second person is an authority, while all these distinctions and all this [IV 182] considerable authority are mediated18 in a common lunacy and in a commune naufragium [common shipwreck], because, since no human being has ever truly been an authority or has benefited anyone else by being that or has ever really managed successfully to carry his dependent along, there is better success in another way, for it never fails that one fool going his way takes several others along with him.
If this is the case with regard to learning the truth, then the fact that I have learned from Socrates or from Prodicus19 or from a maidservant can concern me only historically or—to the extent that I am a Plato in my enthusiasm—poetically. But this enthusiasm, even though it is beautiful, even though I wish for myself and for everyone else this εύϰαταφορία εἰς πάθος [disposition to passion],20 which only the Stoic could warn against, although I do not have the Socratic magnanimity and the Socratic self-denial to think its nothingness—this enthusiasm, Socrates would say, is still but an illusion, indeed, a muddiness of mind in which earthly distinction ferments almost grossly. Neither can the fact that the teaching of Socrates or of Prodicus was this or that have anything but historical interest for me, because the truth in which I rest was in me and emerged from me. Not even Socrates would have been capable of giving it to me, no more than the coachman is capable of pulling the horse’s load, even though he may help the horse do it by means of the whip.* [IV 183] My relation to Socrates and Prodicus cannot concern me with regard to my eternal happiness, for this is given retrogressively in the possession of the truth that I had from the beginning without knowing it. If I were to imagine myself meeting Socrates, Prodicus, or the maidservant in another life, there again none of them would be more than an occasion, as Socrates intrepidly expresses it by saying that even in the underworld he would only ask questions,22 for the ultimate idea in all questioning is that the person asked must himself possess the truth and acquire it by himself. The temporal point of departure is a nothing, because in the same moment I discover that I have known the truth from eternity without knowing it, in the same instant that moment is hidden in the eternal,23 assimilated into it in such a way that I, so to speak, still cannot find it even if I were to look for it, because there is no Here and no There, but only an ubique et nusquam [everywhere and nowhere].
If the situation is to be different, then the moment24 in time must have such decisive significance that for no moment will I be able to forget it, neither in time nor in eternity, because the eternal, previously nonexistent, came into existence [blev til]25 in that moment. With this presupposition, let us now examine the relations involved in the question: Can the truth be learned?
We begin with the Socratic difficulty: How is one able to seek the truth, since it is indeed equally impossible whether one has it or one does not. The Socratic line of thought in effect annulled the disjunction, since it appeared that basically every human being possesses the truth. That was his explanation. We have seen what resulted with regard to the moment. Now if the moment is to acquire decisive significance, then the seeker up until that moment must not have possessed the truth, not even in the form of ignorance, for in that case the moment becomes merely the moment of occasion; indeed, he must not even be a seeker. This is the way we have to state the difficulty if we do not want to explain it Socratically. Consequently, he has to be defined as being outside the truth (not coming toward it like a proselyte, but [IV 184] going away from it) or as untruth. He is, then, untruth. But how, then, is he to be reminded, or what would be the use of reminding him of what he has not known and consequently cannot call to mind?
If the teacher is to be the occasion that reminds the learner, he cannot assist him to recollect that he actually does know the truth, for the learner is indeed untruth. That for which the teacher can become the occasion of his recollecting is that he is untruth. But by this calling to mind, the learner is definitely excluded from the truth, even more than when he was ignorant of being untruth. Consequently, in this way, precisely by reminding him, the teacher thrusts the learner away, except that by being turned in upon himself in this manner the learner does not discover that he previously knew the truth but discovers his untruth. To this act of consciousness, the Socratic principle applies: the teacher is only an occasion, whoever he may be, even if he is a god, because I can discover my own untruth only by myself, because only when I discover it is it discovered,26 not before, even though the whole world knew it. (Under the assumed presupposition about the moment, this becomes the one and only analogy to the Socratic.)
Now, if the learner is to obtain the truth, the teacher must bring it to him, but not only that. Along with it, he must provide him with the condition for understanding it, for if the learner were himself the condition for understanding the truth, then he merely needs to recollect, because the condition for understanding the truth is like being able to ask about it—the condition and the question contain the conditioned and the answer. (If this is not the case, then the moment is to be understood only Socratically.)
But the one who not only gives the learner the truth but provides the condition is not a teacher. Ultimately, all instruction depends upon the presence of the condition; if it is lacking, then a teacher is capable of nothing, because in the second case, the teacher, before beginning to teach, must transform, not reform, the learner. But no human being is capable of doing this; if it is to take place, it must be done by the god himself.
Now, inasmuch as the learner exists [er til], he is indeed created, and, accordingly, God must have given him the condition for understanding the truth (for otherwise he previously would have been merely animal, and that teacher who gave him the condition along with the truth would make him a human being for the first time). But insofar as the [IV 185] moment is to have decisive significance (and if this is not assumed, then we do in fact remain with the Socratic), he must lack the condition, consequently be deprived of it. This cannot have been due to an act of the god (for this is a contradiction) or to an accident (for it is a contradiction that something inferior would be able to vanquish something superior); it must therefore have been due to himself.27 If he could have lost the condition in such a way that it was not due to himself, and if he could be in this state of loss without its being due to himself, then he would have possessed the condition only accidentally, which is a contradiction, since the condition for the truth is an essential condition. The untruth, then, is not merely outside the truth but is polemical against the truth, which is expressed by saying that he himself has forfeited and is forfeiting the condition.
28The teacher, then, is the god himself, who, acting as the occasion, prompts the learner to be reminded that he is untruth and is that through his own fault. But this state—to be untruth and to be that through one’s own fault—what can we call it? Let us call it sin.29
The teacher, then, is the god, who gives the condition and gives the truth. Now, what should we call such a teacher, for we surely do agree that we have gone far beyond the definition of a teacher. 30Inasmuch as the learner is in untruth but is that by his own act (and, according to what has already been said, there is no other way he can be that), he might seem to be free, for to be on one’s own certainly is freedom.31 And yet he is indeed unfree and bound and excluded, because to be free from the truth is indeed to be excluded, and to be excluded by oneself is indeed to be bound. But since he is bound by himself, can he not work himself loose or free himself, for that which binds me should also be able to set me free at will, and since that is himself, he should certainly be able to do it. But first of all he must will it. But just suppose that he was very profoundly reminded of that for which that teacher became the occasion (and this must never be forgotten) of his recollecting—just suppose that he willed it. In that case (if by willing it he could do it by himself), his having been bound would become a bygone state, one that in the moment of liberation would vanish without a trace—and the moment would not gain decisive significance. [IV 186] He would be unaware that he had bound himself and now set himself free.*
Considered in this way, the moment acquires no decisive significance, and yet this was what we wanted to assume as the hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, then, he will [IV 187] not be able to set himself free. (And this is truly just the way it is, for he uses the power of freedom in the service of unfreedom, since he is indeed freely in it, and in this way the combined power of unfreedom grows and makes him the slave of sin.)35
What, then, should we call such a teacher who gives him the condition again and along with it the truth? Let us call him a savior, for he does indeed save the learner from unfreedom, saves him from himself. Let us call him a deliverer, for he does indeed deliver the person who had imprisoned himself, and no one is so dreadfully imprisoned, and no captivity is so impossible to break out of as that in which the individual holds himself captive! And yet, even this does not say enough, for by his unfreedom he had indeed become guilty of something, and if that teacher gives him the condition and the truth, then he is, of course, a reconciler who takes away the wrath that lay over the incurred guilt.
A teacher such as that, the learner will never be able to forget, because in that very moment he would sink down into himself again, just as the person did who once possessed the condition and then, by forgetting that God is, sank into unfreedom. If they were to meet in another life, that teacher would again be able to give the condition to the person who had not received it,36 but he would be quite different for the person who had once received it. After all, the condition was something entrusted, and therefore the receiver was always responsible for an accounting. But a teacher such as that—what should we call him? A teacher certainly can evaluate the learner with respect to whether or not he is making progress, but he cannot pass judgment on him, for he must be Socratic enough to perceive that he cannot give the learner what is essential. That teacher, then, is actually not a teacher but is a judge. Even when the learner has most fully put on the condition and then, by doing so, has become immersed in the truth, he still can never forget that teacher or allow him to disappear Socratically, which still is far more profound than all unseasonable punctiliousness and deluded fanaticism—indeed, it is the highest if that other is not truth.
[IV 188] And, now, the moment. A moment such as this is unique. To be sure, it is short and temporal, as the moment is; it is passing, as the moment is, past, as the moment is in the next moment, and yet it is decisive, and yet it is filled with the eternal. A moment such as this must have a special name. Let us call it: the fullness of time.37
When the learner is untruth (and otherwise we go back to the Socratic) but is nevertheless a human being, and he now receives the condition and the truth, he does not, of course, become a human being for the first time, for he already was that; but he becomes a different person, not in the jesting sense—as if he became someone else of the same quality as before—but he becomes a person of a different quality or, as we can also call it, a new person.
Inasmuch as he was untruth, he was continually in the process of departing from the truth; as a result of receiving the condition in the moment, his course took the opposite direction, or he was turned around. Let us call this change conversion, even though this is a word hitherto unused; but we choose it precisely in order to avoid confusion, for it seems to be created for the very change of which we speak.
Inasmuch as he was in untruth through his own fault, this conversion cannot take place without its being assimilated into his consciousness or without his becoming aware that it was through his own fault, and with this consciousness he takes leave of his former state. But how does one take leave without feeling sorrowful? Yet this sorrow is, of course, over his having been so long in the former state. Let us call such sorrow repentance, for what else is repentance,39 which does indeed look back, but nevertheless in such a way that precisely thereby it quickens its pace toward what lies ahead!40
Inasmuch as he was in untruth and now along with the condition receives the truth, a change takes place in him like the change from “not to be” to “to be.” But this transition from “not to be” to “to be” is indeed the transition of birth. But the person who already is cannot be born, and yet he is born. Let us call this transition rebirth, by which he enters the world a second time just as at birth—an individual human being who as yet knows nothing about the world into which he is born, whether it is inhabited, whether there are other human beings in it, for presumably we can be baptized en masse but can never be reborn en masse. Just as the person [IV 189] who by Socratic midwifery gave birth to himself and in so doing forgot everything else in the world and in a more profound sense owed no human being anything, so also the one who is born again owes no human being anything, but owes that divine teacher everything. And just as the other one, because of himself, forgot the whole world, so he in turn, because of this teacher, must forget himself.
41If, then, the moment is to have decisive significance—and if not, we speak only Socratically, no matter what we say, even though we use many and strange words, even though in our failure to understand ourselves we suppose we have gone beyond that simple wise man who uncompromisingly distinguished between the god, man, and himself, more uncompromisingly than Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus42—then the break has occurred, and the person can no longer come back and will find no pleasure in recollecting what remembrance wants to bring him in recollection, and even less will he by his own power be capable of drawing the god over to his side again.
But is what has been elaborated here thinkable? We shall not be in a hurry with the answer, for someone who because of prolonged pondering never comes up with an answer is not the only one who fails to answer—so too the one who admittedly manifests a marvelous quickness in answering but not the desirable slowness in considering the difficulty before explaining it. Before we answer, we shall ask who ought to answer the question. This matter of being born—is it thinkable? Well, why not? But who is supposed to think it—one who is born or one who is not born? The latter, of course, is unreasonable and cannot occur to anyone, for this notion certainly cannot occur to one who is born. When one who is born thinks of himself as born, he of course is thinking of this transition from “not to be” to “to be.” The situation must be the same with rebirth. Or is the matter made more difficult by this—that the non-being preceding the rebirth has more being than the non-being that precedes birth? But [IV 190] who, then, is supposed to think this? It must, of course, be one who is reborn, for it would be unreasonable to think that one who is not reborn should do it, and would it not be ludicrous if this were to occur to one who is not reborn?
If a person originally possesses the condition to understand the truth, he thinks that, since he himself is, God is.43 If he is in untruth, then he must of course think this about himself, and recollection will be unable to help him to think anything but this. Whether or not he is to go any further, the moment must decide (although it already was active in making him perceive that he is untruth). If he does not understand this, then he is to be referred to Socrates, even though his opinion that he has gone much further will cause that wise man a great deal of trouble, as did those who became so exasperated with him when he took away some foolish notion from them (ἐπειδάν τινα λη̃ϱον αὐτω̃ν άφαιϱω̃μαι) that they positively wanted to bite him (see Theaetetus, 151).44
—In the moment, a person becomes aware that he was born, for his previous state, to which he is not to appeal, was indeed one of “not to be.” In the moment, he becomes aware of the rebirth, for his previous state was indeed one of “not to be.” If his previous state had been one of “to be,” then under no circumstances would the moment have acquired decisive significance for him, as explained above. 45Whereas the Greek pathos focuses on recollection, the pathos of our project focuses on the moment, and no wonder, for is it not an exceedingly pathos-filled matter to come into existence from the state of “not to be”?
46This, as you see, is my project! But perhaps someone will say, “This is the most ludicrous of all projects, or, rather, you are the most ludicrous of all project-cranks, for even if someone comes up with a foolish scheme, there is always at least the truth that he is the one who came up with the scheme. But you, on the other hand, are behaving like a vagabond who charges a fee for showing an area that everyone can see. You are like the man who in the afternoon exhibited for a fee a ram that in the forenoon anyone could see free of charge, grazing in the open pasture.” —“Maybe so. I hide my face in shame. [IV 191] But, supposing that I am that ludicrous, then let me put things right again with a new project. Admittedly, gunpowder was invented centuries ago; so it would be ludicrous of me to pretend that I had invented it. But would it also be ludicrous for me to assume that someone had invented it? Now I am going to be so courteous as to assume that you are the one who has invented my project—more courtesy you cannot expect. Or, if you deny this, will you then also deny that someone has invented it, that is, some human being? In that case, I am just as close to having invented it as any other person. Therefore you are not angry with me because I falsely attribute to myself something that belongs to another human being, but you are angry with me because I falsely attribute to myself something that belongs to no human being, and you are just as angry when I mendaciously want to attribute the invention to you. Is it not curious that something like this exists, about which everyone who knows it also knows that he has not invented it, and that this ‘Go to the next house’47 does not halt and cannot be halted, even though one were to go to everybody? Yet this oddity enthralls me exceedingly, for it tests the correctness of the hypothesis and demonstrates it. It would indeed be unreasonable to require a person to find out all by himself that he does not exist. But this transition is precisely the transition of the rebirth from not existing [at være til] to existing. Whether he understands it later certainly makes no difference, for simply because someone knows how to use gunpowder, knows how to analyze it into its components, does not mean that he invented it. So go ahead and be angry with me and with any other human being who pretends to have invented it, but you do not for that reason need to be angry with the idea.”
* If the thought is thought absolutely—that is, so that the various states of pre-existence are not considered—this Greek idea is repeated in ancient and modern speculation:10 an eternal creating, an eternal emanating from the Father, an eternal becoming of the deity, an eternal self-sacrifice, a past resurrection, a judgment over and done with. All these ideas are that Greek idea of recollection, although this is not always noticed, because they have been arrived at by going further. If the idea is analyzed in a tallying of the various states of pre-existence, then the eternal “pre’s” of that approximating thinking are similar to the eternal “post’s” of the corresponding approximation. 11The contradiction of existence [Tilværelse] is explained by positing a “pre” as needed (by virtue of a prior state, the individual has arrived at his present, otherwise unexplainable state) or by positing a “post” as needed (on another planet the individual will be better situated, and in consideration of that, his present state is not unexplainable).
** As it is said in our age,12 in which one has “the positive” more or less in the way a polytheist would make light of monotheism’s negativity, because polytheism, of course, has many gods, the monotheist but one. The philosophers have many ideas—all valid up to a point. Socrates has but one, which is absolute.
* I cite one passage in Clitophon merely as a remark by a third party, since this dialogue is considered to be spurious. Clitophon laments that, with respect to virtue, Socrates is only encouraging (προτετραμμένος),21 so that from the moment he has adequately recommended virtue in general, he leaves everyone on his own. Clitophon believes that this conduct must have its basis either in Socrates’ not knowing more or in his not wanting to communicate more. (See para. 410.)
* We shall take our time—after all, there is no need to hurry. By going slowly, one sometimes does indeed fail to reach the goal, but by going too fast, one sometimes passes it.32 We shall discuss this somewhat in Greek fashion. If a child who has received the gift of a little money—enough to be able to buy either a good book, for example, or one toy, for both cost the same—buys the toy, can he use the same money to buy the book? By no means, for now the money has been spent. But he may go to the bookseller and ask him if he will exchange the book for the toy. Suppose the bookseller answers: My dear child, your toy is worthless; it is certainly true that when you still had the money you could have bought the book just as well as the toy, but the awkward thing about a toy is that once it is purchased it has lost all value. Would not the child think: This is very strange indeed. And so it was also once, when man could buy freedom and unfreedom for the same price, and this price was the free choice of the soul and the surrender of the choice. He chose unfreedom, but if he then were to approach the god and ask whether he could make an exchange, the answer presumably would be: Undeniably there was a time when you could have bought what you wanted, but the curious thing about unfreedom is that once it is purchased it has no value whatsoever, even though one pays the same price for it. I wonder if such a person would not say: This is very strange indeed. Or if two hostile armies faced each other, and there came a knight whom both sides invited to join; but he chose the one side, was defeated and taken prisoner. As prisoner he was brought before the conqueror and was foolish enough to offer him his services on the conditions originally offered. I wonder if the conqueror would not say to him: My dear fellow, you are my prisoner now; true enough, at one time you could have chosen differently, but now everything is changed. Would this not be strange indeed! If it were otherwise, if the moment did not have decisive significance, then the child, after all, must indeed have bought the book and merely have been ignorant of it, mistakenly thinking that he had bought the toy; the prisoner, after all, must have fought on the other side, but had not been seen because of the fog, and had really sided with the one whose prisoner he now imagined himself to be. —“The depraved person and the virtuous person presumably do not have power over their moral condition, but in the beginning they did have the power to become the one or the other, just as the person who throws a stone has power over it before he throws it but not when he has [IV 187] thrown it” (Aristotle).33 Otherwise the throwing would become an illusion, and the person throwing, despite all his throwing, would keep the stone in his hand, since the stone, like the skeptics’ “flying arrow,”34 did not fly.