I. Novalis, advocate and critic of Kant’s philosophy

When in 1797 Novalis concludes his “Kant-Studien”¹ (^{NS 2: 385-394}) by saying that “The whole Kantian method - the whole Kantian manner of philosophizing (…) is a maximum in its kind” (id.: 392)², the poet only seems to reaffirm the words of many of his contemporaries, who, regardless of their position towards Kant’s philosophy, would agree with such a praise³.

To those authors, as to Novalis, Kant’s philosophy was of incontrovertible importance⁴. According to Schelling, for instance, Kant had founded “a new mode of observation” (^{AS 3: 15}) “by radically inverting the representation according to which the subject is passively receptive and tranquil, whereas the object is effective” (id.) - an inversion, Schelling concludes, “which would extend to all branches of knowledge as if by means of an electrical effect” (ibid.)⁵. For a similar reason, Hölderlin too would consider Kant “the Moses” (StA 6.1: 304) of the German nation⁶. J. I. Baggesen, in turn, would compare Kant’s endeavor with that of Copernicus, and deem it a “hysteron proteron” (B 2: 175)⁷: for, according to the Danish poet, Kant’s philosophy was, even prior to its fulfilment, the pinnacle avant la lettre of its kind and of its procedure. And, likewise, Novalis’ previous position with regard to Kant does not seem to differ in the least from that of his peers; Novalis who, in his “Kant-Studien”, and not unrelated to Baggesen’s words, would even comment that “astronomy once thought the earth as fix and the sky as rotating around it” (^{NS 2: 391}), whereas philosophy “had once thought the I as mobile and rotating around objects” (id.) - until at last the “revolutionaries of both sciences”, not by chance Kant and Copernicus, “inverted” (ibid.) such erroneous perspectives and consolidated them in their present state.

However, just as other young idealists, Novalis’ stance towards Kant’s philosophy is not just one of profound reverence, rather also one of discord; and curiously enough, in Novalis’ case, discord with regard to that which seems to be the cause of reverence. For, let it be noted, Novalis’ aforementioned citation is in fact longer, and not all in it is tacit accord. It reads as follows: “The whole Kantian method - the whole Kantian manner of philosophizing is one-sided, and one could perhaps, not with injustice, deem it scholasticism. Indeed, it is a maximum in its kind - one of the most singular phenomena of the human spirit” (^{NS 2: 392}).

As such, the objective of the present article is to comment, as thoroughly as possible, on the citation above; in light of it, to ascertain to what extent Novalis praises, and yet opposes Kant’s philosophy, and to what extent this simultaneous opposition and praise seem to be intertwined, and even intimately inter-dependent, in the spirit of Kant’s young readers; and finally, to propose a possible (anthropological) Kantian reply to the objections raised: one which, if seen from the perspective of the problem of the absolute, might partially exonerate Kant from such accusations and draw Kant and his young idealist readers nearer than expected.

II. Novalis’ reading of Kant’s a priori

Let us then proceed to comment on Novalis’s appreciation of Kant’s endeavor and, if possible, to simultaneously see the uniqueness of Novalis’s views as well as the epochal contours of such an appreciation.

Kant’s method - here, the a priori - is for Novalis symbolic of a whole kind, or manner of philosophizing, and is also its maximum. It is, according to Novalis, who was aware of the polemic between Kant and the super-naturalist theologians of Tübingen⁸, who was a former student of Reinhold⁹ and by then a critic of Fichte¹⁰; it is, for Novalis - we were saying - the symbol of a kind of philosophizing according to principles - a philosophy by principles -, which then existed precisely as a maximum of its kind, namely, as the mainstream philosophical procedure, and with which Novalis disagreed. However, for Novalis, as for other young idealists, what was especially questionable in Kant’s enterprise was not the general aim of such a manner of philosophizing, but the theoretical vectors which presided over the latter. These were: 1) a regulative, non-constitutive, strictly rational process, according to which one departs from apodictically certain, and hence absolute principles - in a word, from the absolute - towards the empirical¹¹; 2) the infallibly systematical method of such a process, according to which the parts must unequivocally correspond with principles, and principles must be necessarily reproduced in the parts - in short, as in a system of systems, or an uninterrupted circle which always rotates over itself, thus proving its own absoluteness. And lastly, as a consequence, 3) the impossibility that reflection leaves such an unbreakable circle: which meant on the one hand that the reflection departing from absolute principles can only be referred back to absolute principles; on the other hand, and as a result of this, that the absolute already resides in us, and that a gradual process, even an infinite one, towards the absolute, herein taken as an ideal, is impossible - which, to Novalis, was the final proof of a method which is indeed the maximum of its kind, but also the maximum of the one-sidedness of its kind. For, unlike the “Ancient philosophers”, Novalis adds, “Kant posits the solid, tranquil, legislating force a priori in us” (^{NS 2: 391}) - and the mere thought of this is in itself a commendable maximum of its kind: a maximum in the possible philosophical systematization of the human spirit. But, through this, the I departs from itself in order to reach itself, it departs from the absolute in order to verify and prove that very absolute - and this from philosophy, and through philosophy - which to Novalis was an error, an error from which springs his discord towards Kant.

Hence, to sum up Novalis’ worries with Kant’s method, as they are alluded to in his “Kant-Studien”, they are basically two:

first, the fact that philosophy, once ruled by such an inescapable circularity, now holds the nefarious power of carving its own image - but not to expand, rather only to restrict that image. For critique is no mere philosophy. According to Novalis, “The critique already contains the transcendental point of view of the system - it is already beyond the system. It is philosophy of philosophy” (^{NS 2: 387}). In a word, critique is something as a second potency of philosophizing, one which takes philosophy as its own exclusive object and takes it upon itself to homogenize the procedure, the language, the design of philosophy itself. And, as such, upon speaking, that is, upon philosophizing, philosophy, if critical, is for Novalis but speaking of itself, of its own form, thus shaping itself upon so speaking, and by so speaking: which is surely “one of the most singular phenomena of the human spirit” (id. 392), but, Novalis stresses, a maximum of the one-sidedness of the a priori.

Lastly, especially problematic for Novalis and for other young idealists, was the fact that, once confined to such an exiguous, such an apodictic and regulative figure, philosophy only tended to even further cloister itself, and hence to become more and more philosophical, which certainly rendered it, as well as the I, less and less receptive to other congeneric fields of knowledge which are nonetheless necessary to its healthy subsistence and progress- such as aesthetics, or poetry. The solution, no doubt, would be to oppose this dimension of Kant’s theory; namely, by rejecting the claims of Kant’s critique towards rendering philosophy absolutely systematical and attaining the absolute through philosophy; a reservation which would result in the contrary assertion, namely, the impossibility of a philosophy by principles, and the subsequent need for an infinite progression or approximation, always possible, but always ultimately impossible, to the absolute.

III. Philosophy’s double incapacity to attain the absolute. The Novalian solution of poetry

A more complete description of the previous current of thought, given its necessary detail, would prove too lengthy for the occasion. Be as it may, the aim is not to see whether Novalis’, or anyone else’s claims, are just or not. The important thing is that this brings to light a question relevant not only for Kant, but also for Novalis, as well as the explanation of the latter’s simultaneous discord and praise of the former. Namely, the problem was to ascertain the reach of philosophy - in this case, of Kant’s a priori - in thinking the absolute; and, according to the feasibility or unfeasibility of this, philosophy’s necessity to isolate itself, or unite efforts, thus rejecting, or accepting, other fields of knowledge and their languages - in this case, poetry - towards a possible cognition of the absolute.

Novalis’ view of this problem, namely, the relation between philosophy and the absolute, is linear. According to the young poet, philosophy is not capable of attaining the absolute, because, even in its essence, in its language, in its intrinsic way of constructing and relating itself with the world - in a word, in its humanity - everything in philosophy betrays the fact that it does not possess the elasticity, the amplitude necessary for such a task. The reason for this, Novalis suggests, is clear: the course of philosophy is circular, and if it is circular, then the absolute can only be in the two axes which confer rotation to the circle: namely, a maximum, a maximum progression in knowledge, as well as a minimum, that is, a maximum return to the origin of knowledge; in other words, in total-knowledge, or in total insipience, or absence of knowledge. Now, if one thinks that both extreme axes are the extremities of philosophy’s range, in such a way that with philosophy arises man’s first cognition (Axis 1), and with it perishes man’s last cognition (Axis 2) -as Novalis, Schelling, Hölderlin thought¹²-, then philosophy can never be permitted to progress towards total-knowledge, nor to return to zero-knowledge, without thereby respectively returning to a zero degree of knowledge, or progressing towards a full degree of knowledge: for progressing towards the end (Axis 2) also means returning to the origin (Axis 1), and returning to the origin (Axis 1) already means progressing towards the end (Axis 2) - for both are absolute, as well as absolutely and uninterruptedly circular. This means that the human being is only granted to progress in order to return, to return in order to progress, therefore never reaching the absolute - hence Novalis’ need for an infinite approximation to the absolute.¹³

Now what this vision questions is precisely the two movements of Kant’s a priori, and its insufficiencies (Sections II and III of this article) - which Novalis previously described as being in a circle. For, indeed, philosophy as such is not granted the experience of the absolute; and this, we have seen above. But the a priori, let it be reiterated, is no mere philosophy, rather for Novalis it is philosophy on philosophy; and because, according to the poet, its design is not to expand the knowledge of philosophy, rather to restrict the internal mechanisms of philosophy, the language of philosophy, philosophy itself, to a necessary extent, then for Novalis such a restriction can only mean an extreme potentiation of philosophy - but, inversely, also an accentuation of its natural incapacity to think the absolute, as seen above. The reason for this is simple. By acting, as philosophy, upon the philosophizing itself and upon its first concepts, and by attempting to return, through philosophy, to the origin of human knowledge - as is the case with the a priori -, the critique, quite conversely, only succeeds in separating the I even further from its true knowledge, which, if sought for at the origin, is at the end, and if sought for at the end, is at the origin. Hence, if, according to Novalis, Kant’s a priori is the maximum extreme of a progression which is return, and vice-versa, and the knowledge thereby obtained is this zero-degree, but also a total-degree of human knowledge, then, according to Novalis, it is as if to the natural incapacity of philosophy, there had to be added a second, more artificial, but also more harmful incapacity: namely, a second discursivity of philosophy, the a priori, which, because it cannot but be… philosophy, not only has to undergo the same errors of philosophy, but rather accentuates such errors, thereby constituting for Novalis an even greater proof of philosophy’s inability to attain the absolute.

In short - Novalis would conclude - the solution for philosophy’s double and irremediable incapacity in relation to the absolute would have to come from a different quadrant, and in the shape of a different discourse, namely, other than that of philosophy. Indeed, philosophy could even be part of the solution, but not on its own. Philosophy, says Novalis, needs poetry. But it does not merely need poetry’s infinite elasticity and expressiveness. Instead, it is philosophy’s natural destination to veritably become poetry, to assume the more enlivening and yet less (traditionally) humanized traits of poetry: “Sciences must all be poetized” (^{NS 1: 662}). This is why, to Kant’s statement according to which “Philosophy needs a science which determines the possibility, the fundamental propositions and the reach of all a priori cognitions” (AA 3: 30), which is transcribed in the “Kant-Studien” (^{NS 2: 390}), Novalis himself replies by saying that this is not to be attained through “philosophizing”, rather through the act of “handling sciences scientifically and poetically” (id.). This “firmament” of philosophy - the need for philosophy to render itself poetical, is philosophy’s only aim, and therefore philosophy’s only possibility of ever coming to know the absolute.

IV. Kant’s possible (anthropological) reply

Up until now, we have not given voice to Kant, and what we have so far experienced from the method of the great philosopher, of its apparent merits and vices, we have done so through Novalis’ words. This, however, is not without good reason. For the “Kant-Studien” were left unpublished by Novalis - and hence, Kant could not have known them. Furthermore, Novalis wrote such fragments under the form of mere annotations - something which, even if published as such, could hardly have seized Kant’s attention.

However, it is our conviction that even though Kant could not, nor perhaps would have wanted to reply to Novalis’ reservations, certain moments in the corpus of his work nonetheless offer indications as to what such a reply could have been - had it been formulated as such. We shall now try to reconstruct such indications under one such form, so as to be able to provide a full image of the debate around the question of the absolute; not, of course, to use them against Novalis, or in favor of Kant; for, let it be noted, if Kant would never come to know Novalis’ remarks, Novalis too, by the time of his “Kant-Studien” (1797), could not yet have knowledge of the two focusing points of Kant’s work where, in our view, this reply could arise: the Anthropology in a Pragmatic Point of View, published one year later, in 1798, and the Lectures on Anthropology, ministered by Kant between 1772 and 1796, but published only after the demise of both authors. But this much we will say: had Novalis known Kant’s anthropological work, and he might even have maintained his discord towards the latter’s critical work; but he would surely acquiesce that, grosso modo, his opposing arguments would then be rendered somewhat inappropriate in relation to Kant’s real opinion on the matter.

Hence, the question is: what is the role of anthropology amidst the problem of the absolute, which is apparently so unrelated to it? What decisive role might anthropology play in relation to philosophy and poetry, and their now united, now separate quest for the absolute; that is, in relation to the a priori, to a philosophy by principles and its subsequent separation from other domains and from poetry, or to the contrary of this, and its subsequent approximation to poetry, as was Novalis’ wish?

Kant himself would answer these questions in the Proemia and Prolegomena to his lectures on the new science of man; and this, by describing the relation of his pragmatic anthropology, as a field of knowledge, with other scientific domains. Namely, anthropology is the study of the relation between the I as human being (Ich als Mensch) and the I as soul (Ich als Seele) (AA 25.1: 13) - that is, something like an antechamber, a pre-philosophy of the I (world-I), prior to a real philosophy of the I (I-soul). Anthropology, so says Kant, is the pro positu corporis, not the transcendental study of Man; it studies that which in human beings, and in their relation with the world, is not a priori, rather “natural” (id.: 8) in them; it is the doctrine of “each trait of humanity (id.: 244), the “source of all human actions” (ibid.), and it aims at observing human beings, and their behavior, so as to extract from them the best idea of a “prudent use in life” (id.: 472) of such cognitions and traits. In a word: pragmatic anthropology departs from phenomena so as to find laws, principles for them: “To observe human beings and their behavior, to bring their phenomena under rules, is the aim of anthropology” (AA 25.2: 733); and hence it is the propaedeutic of all sciences (see AA 10: 145), and particularly of philosophy, inasmuch as it gives philosophy, under the form of such principles, much of its knowledge: “It [anthropology] lays in our hands the subjective principles of all sciences.” (AA 25.2: 734-735).

Now, if we recall Novalis’ reservations, these underscored the greatness, and yet the narrowness of Kant’s critical method. According to the poet, Kant’s philosophical method was indeed the “maximum of its kind”, maximum meaning however not only supreme questioning, through absolute principles, of the rational nature of man, but also the fact that such a priori principles resulted in a philosophy wherein the I only rotated upon itself, describing the circle of one’s own reflection to and fro, between innate principles and the pre-defined result of those principles. This was, in a word, Novalis’ position as to Kant’s a priori. But if one looks at Kant’s previous conception of anthropology, and its relation with philosophy, one may now see that such fields of knowledge with which we have been dealing had, in Kant’s spirit, a whole different disposition than that which was known to Novalis. Namely, the circle of the I is not confined to the absolute principles and its repercussion in phenomena, or to the philosophical expression which philosophy thereby assumes - the critique -, and much less does it start with absolute principles, or end with phenomena, as was Novalis’ opinion. Quite on the contrary, this circle was far ampler, and had nothing restrictive, or vicious, about it. For, as it seems, it starts not with absolute principles, but rather with the phenomena from whence anthropology itself, as the propaedeutic of all sciences, departs; and since, according to Kant, the knowledge of pragmatic anthropology is set to seek and to progress towards laws which may rule over it, and which are the laws of human nature, of human faculties, of the different characters, of behavioral traits, of the actions of men - in a word, of human existence - then those very laws or principles which rule over human reason are not beginning and end, rather an intermediate state, though a nuclear one, in the circle of Kant’s understanding of man. Namely, philosophy, the critique are born where anthropological knowledge ends, and anthropological knowledge reappears once the critique duly applies its principles upon the phenomena: “The ground of pragmatic knowledge is the knowledge of the world, where one can make use of all theoretical cognitions” (AA 25.1: 469). For such absolute principles must also be proved, that is, they must once again re-extend over phenomena, over human life, just as once these phenomena led to principles; otherwise, were it not for such a reciprocity, and one such system of thought would be… no system at all.

This, we think, leads to a triple conclusion:

V. Kant’s concept of poetry. Its benefits to philosophy and relation with the absolute

Finally, in light of these three conclusions, we would add that the previous differences, now almost affinities between Kant and Novalis, still have a further, final development, and that the repercussions of this final development go straight to the core of Novalis’ refutation of Kant - namely, with regard to the possible, or impossible representation of the absolute by philosophy and the suggested contribution of poetry towards this aim.

As is known, even prior to the genesis of his critical endeavor, the topic of the necessary restrictions, or the natural claims of philosophy in relation to the ideal, or the absolute, was always an omnipresent theme in Kant’s spirit¹⁵, as it would be later for Novalis. For both Kant and Novalis believed in the importance of this topic; and even though Novalis saw in it philosophy’s impossibility of experiencing the absolute, and Kant precisely this very possibility, that did not prevent them both from believing that philosophy, human rational thinking, the superior faculties of the spirit - in a word, the reflecting I - had very natural, for very human insufficiencies, and that, precisely due to such weaknesses, philosophy should not part, rather unite, in favor of its own progression, with other knowledges. Now, what Novalis did not know, nor could he know, was that this was the opinion, not just of Kant the philosopher, but especially of Kant the anthropologist: but even further, that precisely in the field of anthropology, which opens to that of philosophy, that same Kant elects, among other human cognitions and discourses, that of poetry - as did Novalis - as the main factor of stimulation of philosophical discourse in general.

To explain this, we shall resort to a well-known Kantian image, akin to the topic of the absolute: that of the theory of representation, dealt with in the Lectures on Anthropology, and then resumed in Kant’s critical work. Here, it is Kant’s view that cognitions, or human representations, compose a vast field, a map (see AA 25.2: 868) - the totality of which being, of course, the absolute knowledge of the human spirit. Among the latter, certain cognitions are rational, and therefore clear; they need only this or that faculty of the spirit, and depend on philosophy - its study, its observation - not to fall into obscurity. But these illuminated points, which are the basis of philosophy, and of all human knowledge, are but a minority in the map of the representations of the human soul (id.). Quite conversely, it is the remaining unknown, obscure representations which are in far superior number (ibid.). This means that if, on the one hand, the obscure representations are that which separates man from absolute knowledge, on the other hand, because they are the embryo of clear ones (see ibid.), they are also that which links man and the absolute, that is, man’s only hope to attain the absolute. For, as sensible, non-intellectualized representations, obscure representations contain an obscure truth, and it is they that give rise to new human cognitions. And since, according to Kant, from them arose not only all present knowledge, but in them is prepared all possible future knowledge (see id.: 869) - in a word, the absolute - then this means that precisely in this hiatus between what is known and what is unknown to us, between what we see and what we do not see, unfolds to Kant the whole progress of knowledge and human philosophy, and also the possible or impossible attainment of the absolute.

Now, precisely because this task of the absolute, the aforementioned circle, is long - but, quite contrary to Novalis - attainable, Kant states that it is the philosopher’s task to discern this very special potentiality of representations, and progress towards a total enlightenment of the human being, thereby bringing the latter, as well as the former, to clarity (see AA 25.2: 871). But be it by the invisible action of Providence, or by natural human insufficiency, such an occasion in which an obscure representation is revealed is very special and rare (see id.: 1221). So special, Kant adds, that neither the philosopher, nor the strictly rational man are prepared for it, and both the critique and the a priori are here of little help. Here, instead, a “happy relation” (AA 5: 317), not at all rational, between the powers of the mind, is required¹⁶; and so here, the philosopher must discern the need for a whole different disposition, not only of Man’s powers, both superior and inferior, but of Man’s spirit as a whole: namely, a very specific disposition, or re-disposition of the faculties, to which concur sensibility, memory, the faculty of imagination, wit and genius, but also the understanding and reason, herein in a singular play with one another¹⁷; and a re-disposition of the spirit, now open to the infinite, and very beneficial potentialities of obscurity, of unconsciousness, even of irrationality, brought about by this very game. This game, Kant asserts, thereby inadvertently joining his voice to that of Novalis, is that of poetry: the root of all inventions, mother of all creations of the spirit and driving force of human discursivity and knowledge. And hence, the philosopher’s task is here to heed to the poet, so that philosophy may once again be one with poetry; for only in poetry is the source and the final product of such a singular re-disposition of the human spirit, which it simultaneously reflects and creates; only in poetry is the capacity to extract from apparent obscurity, from apparent ignorance, from phenomena, truths - principles - of human knowledge, which must be presented to the understanding under different colors, and accepted by the latter for his and for philosophy’s own sake¹⁸; and, in turn, only philosophy has the ability to understand such benefits, and ascribe the new representations, as well as poetry, due path and utility towards an ever growing human knowledge. In a word, only in both, and their cooperation, is for Kant the possibility to attain the absolute - to progress in the “firmament” (NS) of philosophy, across the whole extension of human knowledge.