Philosophizing to elevate the self
Novalis (1772-1801) was a German Romantic philosopher and poet. His real name was Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg. He studied law, and then worked in the fields of geology and mineralogy. He was also very interested in other scientific fields such as biology and chemistry, but especially in philosophy. His philosophy was greatly influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and is often written as collections of fragments. Its mission is to educate humanity towards a higher state of being that integrates all knowledge and nature. Novalis died before the age of 29 from tuberculosis.

The following passages are adapted from Novalis’ collection of short fragments “Logological Fragment I,” published in English in his Philosophical Writings. In this collection he makes observations on philosophy, poetry and art, religion, language, nature and human nature, and reflects on how they are connected to each other.
       Novalis distinguishes between two aspects of the human being: First, the real self – the way I am as a matter of fact. Second, the ideal or higher self, which I can sometimes feel acting in me. Philosophy is a conversation with the higher self, in an effort to elevate ourselves towards it.
 

 
7. When we begin to reflect on philosophy, then philosophy seems to us to be everything, like God, and like love. It is a mystical, very powerful, and penetrating idea, which drives us without stop inward, in all directions. The decision to do philosophy – to seek philosophy - is the act of self-liberation, the push toward ourselves.

20. […] A person feels as if he is in some kind of conversation, and as if some kind of unknown spiritual being makes him think the most evident thoughts. This being must be a higher being, because it communicates with him in a way that is not possible for a material being. The higher self has the same relation to the human being as the human being to nature, or the wise person to a child. The human being yearns to be the equal of this higher being […] This fact cannot be demonstrated. Everyone must experience it for himself. It is a higher fact which can be experienced only by the higher person. But people should strive to create it in themselves.

     This kind of knowledge, which arises in this way, is the higher theory of knowledge. [...] The practical part of this theory consists of educating the self toward being able to communicate with the higher being. The theoretical part consists of explaining the characteristics of true communication.

 

   
21. Doing philosophy is a conversation with yourself, a conversation of the kind that is mentioned above - an actual revelation of the self, the arousal of the real self through the ideal self (higher self). Doing philosophy is the foundation of all other revelations. The decision to do philosophy is a challenge to the real self to reflect, to awaken, and to be spirit. Without philosophy there is no true morality, and without morality there is no philosophy.

24. The poem of understanding is philosophy. It is the greatest motivation that the understanding gives itself about itself – a union of the understanding and the imagination. Without philosophy, a person remains divided in his most essential powers. He is two people – one who has understanding, and one who is a poet. Without philosophy, a poet is incomplete. Without philosophy, a thinker – or a judge – is incomplete.

The violence of philosophy
Maria Zambrano (1904-1991) was a Spanish philosopher whose philosophy was highly poetic. She studied with the philosopher Ortega y Gasset, then taught philosophy at the University of Madrid. She was involved in the Spanish Civil War, and when Franco rose to power she went to exile in Mexico and other locations in America. After World War II she moved to Paris and other European cities, and in 1984 returned to live in Spain, where she received awards and recognitions.

Maria Zambrano’s philosophy is poetic not only in style but also in content: She believes that poetics is necessary in order to understand the deeper aspects of human existence. Her work can therefore described as poetic philosophy.
        The following passages are adapted from Zambrano’s essay “Thought and Poetry,” which appeared in her book Philosophy and Poetry (published in 1939). In this essay, she investigates the commonalities and differences between poetry and philosophical thought. Agreeing with Aristotle that philosophy starts with wonder, she argues that philosophy and poetry have a common root: they both start with “admiración” (in Spanish: admiration, but also amazement or wonder) – towards the things which appear around us.
        However, here their ways split: Poetry remains in admiration, while philosophy interrupts the admiration, pulls itself back, and searches for something hidden, invisible: the unifying idea that is hidden behind the appearances. Zambrano considers this interruption violence. She compares it to the force that pulls the philosopher away from the shadows in Plato’s cave.
    

What is the root, within us, of thought and poetry?
[…]
If thought was born only from admiration (admiración), as certain venerable texts tell us (Aristotle), then it would be hard to explain how thought takes the shape of systematic philosophy.
[…]
However, in another venerable text we find another root from which philosophy is born: the passage in Book 7 of The Republic, in which Plato presents his Myth of the Cave. There, the force that gives birth to philosophy is violence. And indeed, admiration (admiración) and violence together, like contrary forces that do not destroy each other, can explain this first philosophical moment, the moment in which we find a duality and, perhaps, the original conflict of philosophy: First an ecstatic astonishment at things, and immediately afterwards a violation of this amazement in order to liberate oneself from those things. One might say that thought regards its object as no more than a pretext, and that thought immediately negates its primitive astonishment – and perhaps betrays it, when it quickly jumps to other areas, and thus disrupts its nascent ecstasy. Philosophy is an ecstasy that fails because of a disruption. What is the force that disrupts it? Why that violence, the hurry, the impulse to release itself?

And now we can see more clearly the condition of philosophy: admiration (admiración), astonishment in front of the immediate, in order to violently pull itself away from it and jump to another thing – to a thing which one must search for and pursue, which does not give itself to us, which does not offer its presence. And here begins the difficult road, the methodical effort to capture something which we do not have, and which we need to have…
[…]
No, not everyone followed the hard road of truth, and they remained fixed to the present and the immediate, to that which offers its presence and gives its shape, to that which trembles in its nearness. They did not experience any violence, or perhaps not this kind of violence. They did not jump to seek the ideal, and were not disposed to struggle to climb the hill that leads from the simple encounter with the immediate towards the permanent, self-identical Idea. Faithful to things, faithful to their primitive ecstatic admiration (admiración), they never wanted to disrupt it. They could not, because that thing was already within them, and was imprinted in their interior. The poet had already within himself what the philosopher pursued – in a certain sense, yes, in quite a different manner.
[…]
What is this sweet and restless possessor that calms and that is not enough? We know that it was called poetry – and who knows what other forgotten names? And from then on, the world would divide, split into two roads. The road of philosophy, where the philosopher was driven by violent love for what he was looking for, abandoned the surface of the world, the generous immediacy of life […] The primary astonishment has been converted into persistent interrogation. The inquisition of the intellect has begun its own martyrdom, and also of life.
       The other road is the road of the poet. The poet did not renounce and did not search, because he had. He already had what appeared before him, before his eyes, before his ears and touch. He had what he saw and heard, what he touched, but also what appeared in his dreams…
[…]
The road of philosophy is clearer and more secure. Philosophy has triumphed in the area of understanding, because it conquered something solid, something so true, compact and independent that it is an absolute, something that does not rest on anything and that everything rests on it. The roughness of the road and the ascetic renunciation have been largely compensated.