the individual.”
“I guess you could say so.”
“In the same way that a baby is born into a language, it is also born into
its historical background. And nobody has a ‘free’ relationship to that kind of
background. He who does not find his place within the state is therefore an
unhistorical person. This idea, you may recall, was also central for the great
Athenian philosophers. Just as the state is unthinkable without citizens,
citizens are unthinkable without the state.”
“Obviously.”
“According to Hegel, the state is ‘more’ than the individual citizen. It is
moreover more than the sum of its citizens. So Hegel says one cannot ‘resign
from society.’ Anyone who simply shrugs their shoulders at the society they
live in and wants to ‘find their soul/ will therefore be ridiculed.”
“I don’t know whether I wholly agree, but okay.”
“According to Hegel, it is not the individual that finds itself, it is the world
spirit.”
“The world spirit finds itself?”
“Hegel said that the world spirit returns to itself in three stages. By that
he means that it becomes conscious of itself in three stages.”
“Which are?”
“The world spirit first becomes conscious of itself in the individual. Hegel
calls this subjective spirit. It reaches a higher consciousness in the family, civil
society, and the state. Hegel calls this objective spirit because it appears in
interaction between people. But there is a third stage ...”
“And that is ... ?”
“The world spirit reaches the highest form of self-realization in absolute
spirit. And this absolute spirit is art, religion, and philosophy. And of these,
philosophy is the highest form of knowledge because in philosophy, the world
spirit reflects on its own impact on history. So the world spirit first meets itself
in philosophy. You could say, perhaps, that philosophy is the mirror of the
world spirit.”
“This is so mysterious that I need to have time to think it over. But I liked
the last bit you said.”
“What, that philosophy is the mirror of the world spirit?”
“Yes, that was beautiful. Do you think it has anything to do with the brass
mirror?”
“Since you ask, yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I assume the brass mirror has some special significance since it is
constantly cropping up.”
“You must have an idea what that significance is?”
“I haven’t. I merely said that it wouldn’t keep coming up unless it had a
special significance for Hilde and her father. What that significance is only
Hilde knows.”
“Was that romantic irony?”
“A hopeless question, Sophie.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not us working with these things. We are only hapless
victims of that irony. If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of
paper, you can’t ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.”