 
                         20060423.00

     I awoke this morning with the phrase "I wake to sleep"
on my mind, I couldn't remember the rest of the line; but
readily discovered proof of the verity both of it and its
converse, in that on waking I promptly fell asleep and
dreamt.  I dreamt I had gone back to Simeon Maxwell's office,
(Dr. Maxwell is a fully automated assembly-line surgeon about
whom I have read.) to Dr. Maxwell's office to which for a
reason inapparent to me, I happened to have a key, seeking to
retrieve a tan attache case which I had left there and which
contained both patient records and other notes of mine.  I
had succeeded in penetrating to Dr Maxwell's private office,
but for some reason, - perhaps the absentmindedness of old
age, had neglected to retrieve my prize; and when, realizing
my failure I tried to retrace my steps, the locks which had
previously been compliant, were now intransigent to my key;
predictably I was soon intercepted by a bevy of officious
women who guarded Dr Maxwell's domain. They wanted to know
who I was, why I was here, what I was doing.  Their dresses
were uniforms, with color-coded scarves to indicate the
function of the "team" to which they each belonged, performed
in this medical palace. "What team are you on?" they askeds,
and found it inconceivable that I was teamless.  After some
negotiation, their captain agreed to bring me my papers and
to release me into a waking world.

     But again I waked to sleep, or more accurately to day
dream, and stood with Matthew Arnold and his love on the
cliffs of Dover, wondering what it might have been that had
transformed the sea of troubles against which Hamlet was
reluctant to take up arms, or for that matter, das Meer des
Irrtums, (the ocean of error) from which Goethe (Faust I) had
despaired of ever emerging, into a Sea of Faith. I wondered
whether Matthew Arnold had played hookey the day they studied
the 95 Wittenberg Theses at Rugby, or whether he had, - well,
just waked to sleep. I was sufficiently awake to consider
whether a "Sea of Faith" was not rather a Catholic notion,
replete with too many sharks in clerical costume for me to
want to take a swim.

     And then of course: "Ah, love, let us be true to one
another" might have been straight out of one of DaPonte's
Mozart operas, might have been what Ferrando said to
Fiordiligi when he was deceptively seducing her; could also
have been what Leonore (Beethoven's Fidelio) said to
Florestan when Pizzaro dragged him off to his secret prison.
But notably, Leonore had to become a transvestite to set
Florestan free. That was the sacrifice she had to make to "be
true" to him. Is there a more demeaning and degrading species
of deception?

     Was Matthew Arnold deceiving himself, was he
(un)consciously deceiving his "love" when he promised her
that mutual fidelity that the refuge of the lovers' embrace,
would ultimately offer protection from the blind armies
warring in the night.  Or did Rilke have the final word on
this topic?

O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt -, wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,
sanft enttaeuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen
muehsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?
Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.
Weisst du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Raeumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht dass die Voegel
die erweiterte Luft fuehlen mit innigerm Flug.
                                   1. Duineser Elegie
           ==============================

Oh, but the night, the night when wind as from elsewhere
tears at the face -, to whom does not night remain, longed for,
gently disappointing, laboriously confronting
the single heart. Is night for lovers less burdensome?
Alas, they but conceal with each other their fate.
Haven't you learned yet? Throw to the winds that we breathe
the emptiness in your arms. Perhaps the birds
will perceive the expanded space with more intimate flight.
          ===============================

     And speaking about deception: According to Kant it is a
violation of the highest moral law, the Categorical
Imperative, to deceive a would-be murderer regarding the
where-abouts of his intended prey.  If this be so, how can
you trust a man who for sixteen years spends at least some of
his intelligence to devise artifices for deceiving potential
burglars about the unoccupancy of an obscenely elegant
mansion that sits like a baronial castle in a landscape of
poverty.

     Maybe only German philosophy will do it, being an
especially quaint species of deception, where (bad) poetry
masquerades as verbal mathematics, as logic. When (in
response to your report of returning to the library the book
on German philosophy) I reviewed in my mind, what I
remembered about this topic, it occurred to me that the
distinguishing feature of this tradition, what makes it
difficult, but what also makes it powerful, is its poetic
quality, its relationship to words, to language. Admittedly
the distinction between English, French, German and Italian
philosophical traditions is artificial and questionable.
Subject to this disclaimer, it occurs to me that of the four
languages, German was the youngest, the least mature, and
therefore the most plastic and pliable. And it is this
characteristic of the language which informs the logic of
Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Husserl and Heidegger;
notably not Nietzsche or Kierkegaard; and I'll have to reread
Schopenhauer before venturing an opinion. In the German
academic tradition, only unintelligible authors are accepted
as genuibe philosophers. Those who can write, Schopenhauer,
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are drummed out of the fraternity
of spiritualists for being "superficial".

     Preliminary to these conjectures, I reread Leibniz'
Monadologie, a short work, which I already have on my hard
disk drive, which I can read in an hour or two, and having
been published in French, seems to belie my theory. But I
would argue the contrary, that while Leibniz wrote in French,
he thought in German. I should test this hypothesis by
comparing the respective texts. The version which I read was
a 17th century contemporary translation.

     The challenge to the 17th century intellect was to
reconcile established notions of deity with the burgeoning of
modern science. Locke did so by ignoring God, describing a
world in which God has no function, but then diplomatically
placating disappointed believers by paying inconsequential
lip-service to tradition. Descartes also described a world in
which God has no function, but, more sensitive than Locke,
understood that such a world was incomplete, riddled with
inconsistency and incongruity; and required the introduction
of Deus ex machina to make the world plausible.  Leibniz'
linguistic heritage enabled him to take the poet's approach,
and to revise the meaning of words and phrases to make
plausible the required conclusion, i.e. the integration of
deity into the scientific scheme. That is the significance of
the apparently monstrous logical incongruity of Leibniz'
"Monads".  I interpret Kant's Vernunft, Verstand, und
Anschauung (Reason, Understanding and Intuition) and Hegels
Geist (Spirit) as similar tours de force which extracted from
the language by torture the confession which the philosopher-
poet wanted to hear.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
