Absolute Signification and Ontological Inconsistency in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann

Summary

“Der ächte philosophische Akt ist Selbsttödtung, dies ist der reale Anfang aller Philosophie, dahin geht alles Bedürfniß des philosophischen Jüngers, und nur dieser Akt entspricht allen Bedingungen und Merkmalen der transcendendalen Handlung.”

[The true philosophical act is the putting to death of the self, this is the real beginning of all philosophy, and every need of the philosophical disciple goes in this direction, and only this act corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of the transcendental attitude.]

These words, written by Novalis, declare that philosophy begins in an act of self-destruction, or more precisely formulated: all properly philosophical acts aim to destroy the self. This demand is not as mysterious as it might seem. A self, by definition, is differentiated and limited, and thus represents one of the most palpable impediments to that which romantic philosophy seeks, namely, the absolute, das Unbedingte, that which is without condition and without limit. A truly philosophical act must efface the horizon of limitations and differences that constitutes selfhood: Selbsttödtung, self-annihilation. The proper name for this act is not suicide, but transcendence.

And yet: what is suicide other than the most extreme and literal form of self-extinction? E. T. A. Hoffmann would have been able to read the fragment cited above in Schlegel and Tieck's edition of Novalis's collected works. In light of this fragment, it is worth considering whether or not Hoffmann's most celebrated Nachtstück (Night Piece), Der Sandmann—which culminates in a spectacular act of self-destruction, Selbsttödtung—is much more than a story about childhood trauma, abuse, irony, or the tragic frustrations of a mediocre poet. Rather, Der Sandmann, as an aesthetic document, indexes a distinctly philosophical problem, namely, the phenomenal movements and operations associated with a conception of the absolute that exists beyond all instances of differential signification attached to a limited self. Seen from this perspective, the central problem of Der Sandmann is less psychological than ontological: it concerns not the pathological psyche of a problematic individual, but the order of beings as a whole.