Skepticism, Happiness, and Reason

On the Status of Philosophy and the “Sublimation of Thought” in Goethe’s Faust and the Second Wittgenstein

Abstract

This article aims to draw a comparative parallel between the philosophical notion of the 'sublimation of logic', which pertains to the philosophy of the second Wittgenstein, and the literary illustrations of this notion found in the narrative of Faust. The analogy is drawn from Wittgenstein's own suggestions when he incorporates passages and speeches from Faust into texts from his works. This comparison reveals a specific status of human reason and philosophy itself: the status that nothing should be sought somewhere behind phenomena—a status that stems from Goethe's morphological thought. This status also serves as a critique of the homogeneous status of philosophy and reason in the West, where an essence resides behind every phenomenon and to this essence philosophy would have privileged access, whether through reason or even through the rational use of language. The notion of the 'sublimation of logic' refers specifically to this privileged aspect that language receives through rational philosophical logic, a privilege of an ontological metaphysical order.