← All Volumes
Spine VIII · Forord VIII · Notabene № 3 · April 1845

Philosophiske Overveielser, Første Hefte

Philosophical Considerations, First Number

PHILOSOPHISKE OVERVEIELSER

Et Tidsskrift

Første Hefte

udgivet af

NICOLAUS NOTABENE

KJØBENHAVN

FAAES HOS UNIVERSITETSBOGHANDLER C. A. REITZEL

TRYKT I BIANCO LUNOS BOGTRYKKERI

Januar 1845


Subscriptionspriis for fire Hefter: 4 Rdl. 3 Mark. Enkelt Hefte: 1 Rdl. 2 Mark. Indmeldelser modtages af Boghandleren og af Udgiveren.


Physical description

Quarto, in the format adopted by Heiberg's Perseus and other Copenhagen philosophical periodicals, that the present journal might be shelved beside its predecessors without disturbing the symmetry of the cabinet. Pale grey paper covers, the title in a heavy roman, the editor's name beneath in italic, the issue number ("Første Hefte") in small caps. No ornament. The editor has been advised by his publisher that an emblem would assist sales, and has agreed in principle, but has not yet found an emblem he could accept; the matter is deferred to the second issue. Pages of a serviceable white paper, generously margined for the convenience of those readers who wish to enter their corrections in the margin and return the issue to the editor for instruction. The typeface is set somewhat larger than is customary, in deference to the editor's hope that several of his expected correspondents are advanced in years and have indicated to him by report that they find smaller type fatiguing.


REDACTIONEL ERKLÆRING OG SUBSCRIPTIONS-INDBYDELSE

Dansk Grundtext

Den Underskrevne har, efter en Tøven udstrakt over flere Aar og omsider alene overvundet ved Trykket af en indre Nødvendighed, hvori han ikke længere staaer frit til at modstaae, besluttet at paabegynde Udgivelsen af et philosophisk Tidsskrift, hvoraf nærværende Hefte er det første.

Læseren vil maaskee løfte sit Bryn. Han vil mindes, at den meest distingverede af vore litterære Mænd, Professor Heiberg, undertog et lignende Foretagende for nogle syv Aar siden, og at Foretagendet, efter at have udsendt to Numre, da ophørte; og han vil sige til sig selv, med hiin Forsigtighed, der er det dannede Publikums fornemste Pryd: kunde Professoren ikke opretholde et saadant Tidsskrift, hvem er da N. N., at han skulde formaste sig til det? Jeg foregriber Indvendingen. Jeg har overveiet den, før Læseren har havt Anledning til at reise den, og jeg har sluttet — med hvilken Ret Læseren skal dømme — at min Stilling er væsentligt forskjellig fra Professorens.

Professor Heibergs Perseus var et Tidsskrift, hvori Professoren foreslog at belære sine Læsere. Dette var et ædelt Foretagende, eminent skikket til Professorens Gaver; det mislykkedes ikke ved nogen Mangel hos ham, men ved den beklagelige Omstændighed, at Læserne, havende været belærte i en Aarrække fra forskjellige andre Kanter, fandt sig omsider ude af Stand til at optage videre Belæring i den Hastighed, hvori Professoren ønskede at uddele den. Tidsskriftet indstillede derfor sin Udgivelse.

Nærværende Tidsskrift foreslaaer derimod, at dets Læsere skulle belære Udgiveren. Dette er et Foretagende, hvortil jeg er enestaaende qualificeret, idet jeg i Overflod besidder den ene Egenskab, det fordrer, nemlig en Uvidenhed om de Sager, hvorom jeg foreslaaer at lade mig instruere; og idet jeg ogsaa, i nogen Maade, besidder hiin secundære Egenskab, uden hvilken den første er uden Brug, nemlig en Villighed til at tilstaae Uvidenheden og at offentliggjøre Tilstaaelsen. Jeg formoder, at det dannede Publikum vil indrømme det Sømmelige i Indretningen. Det forrige Tidsskrift bad Publikum at modtage, hvad Udgiveren havde at give; nærværende Tidsskrift beder Publikum at give, hvad Udgiveren ikke kan levere. Det er, vover jeg at tænke, en meer billig Fordeling af den philosophiske Undersøgelses Byrder, end nogen hidtil er bleven forsøgt i vor Litteratur.

De fire Hefter af det første Bind ville fremkomme qvartaarligt. Hvert Hefte vil indeholde, foruden saadanne Artikler, som Udgiveren skal have været i Stand til at affatte mellem Hefterne, en Correspondance-Afdeling, hvori Svarene fra dem, der have paataget sig at instruere Udgiveren, ville blive optrykte (med deres Tilladelse, og med saadanne Rettelser, som de maatte have foreslaaet for Udgiverens forudgaaende Bemærkninger); en Boganmeldelses-Afdeling, hvori Værker af philosophisk Vigtighed skulle behandles; og en Notice om forestaaende Indhold, der angiver de Sager, der skulle optages i det næste Hefte, paa det at Udgiverens Correspondenter kunne forberede deres Bidrag i god Tid.

Jeg afslutter, som Skik er, med Udtrykket af mine Forhaabninger til Foretagendet. De ere, kortelig: at flere af mine Samtidige, der selv have erklæret, i Dagens offentlige Organer, at de ere gaaede ud over Hegel, ville bevæges ved nærværende Indbydelse til at meddele mig, i den simplest mulige Form — en enkelt telegraphisk Notits i Form af en categorisk Bestemmelse — det præcise Sted, hvortil de ere gaaede; at jeg, ved Samlingen af disse Notitser over de fire Hefter af det første Bind, skal naae til en synoptisk Oversigt over Kongerigets philosophiske Tilstand; og at jeg, paa Grundlag af denne synoptiske Oversigt, skal, med mine Correspondenters Bistand, omsider opnaae hiin Forstaaelse af vor Tids speculative Tænkning, der saa længe har undgaaet mig. Forhaabningerne ere ubeskedne. Jeg optegner dem alene paa det at Læseren maa dømme, ved Slutningen af de fire Hefter, om de ere blevne opfyldte.

Nicolaus Notabene


English Translation

The undersigned has resolved, after a hesitation prolonged over several years and finally overcome only by the pressure of an inward necessity which he is no longer at liberty to resist, to commence the publication of a philosophical periodical, of which the issue now in the reader's hands is the first.

The reader will, perhaps, raise his eyebrow. He will recall that the most distinguished of our literary men, Professor Heiberg, undertook a similar venture some seven years past, and that the venture, having issued in two numbers, then ceased; and he will say to himself, with that prudence which is the chief ornament of the cultivated public: if the Professor could not maintain such a journal, who is N. N. that he should presume to it? I anticipate the objection. I have considered it before the reader has had occasion to raise it, and I have concluded — with what justice the reader will judge — that my situation is materially different from the Professor's.

Professor Heiberg's Perseus was a journal in which the Professor proposed to teach his readers. This was a noble undertaking, eminently suited to the Professor's gifts; it failed not from any defect in him but from the regrettable circumstance that the readers, having been taught for a number of years from various other quarters, found themselves at last unable to absorb further instruction at the rate at which the Professor wished to dispense it. The journal accordingly suspended publication.

The present journal proposes, by contrast, that its readers shall teach the editor. This is an undertaking for which I am uniquely qualified, possessing in abundance the single quality which it requires, namely an ignorance of the matters concerning which I propose to be instructed; and possessing also, in some measure, that secondary quality without which the first is of no use, namely a willingness to confess the ignorance and to publish the confession. I take it that the cultivated public will recognise the propriety of the arrangement. The previous journal asked the public to receive what the editor had to give; the present journal asks the public to give what the editor cannot supply. It is, I venture to think, a more equitable distribution of the burdens of philosophical inquiry than has hitherto been attempted in our literature.

The four issues of the first volume will appear quarterly. Each issue will contain, in addition to such articles as the editor shall have been able to compose between issues, a Correspondence Section in which the replies of those who have undertaken to instruct the editor will be reproduced (with their permission, and with such corrections as they may have suggested for the editor's prior remarks); a Book-Review Section in which works of philosophical importance shall be discussed; and a Notice of Forthcoming Contents indicating the matters to be taken up in the next issue, that the editor's correspondents may prepare their contributions in good time.

I close, as is customary, with the expression of my hopes for the venture. They are, in summary: that several of my contemporaries who have themselves declared, in the public organs of the day, that they have gone beyond Hegel, will be moved by the present invitation to communicate to me, in the simplest possible form — a single telegraphic notice in the form of a categorical determination — the precise location to which they have gone; that, by the assembly of these notices over the four issues of the first volume, I shall arrive at a synoptic view of the philosophical state of the kingdom; and that, on the basis of this synoptic view, I shall, with the assistance of my correspondents, achieve at last that comprehension of the speculative thought of our age which has so long eluded me. The hopes are immodest. I record them only that the reader may judge, at the end of the four issues, whether they have been fulfilled.

Nicolaus Notabene


I.

TILTALE TIL KONGERIGETS MÆND

DER ERE GAAEDE UD OVER HEGEL

Dansk Grundtext

Det er ikke givet enhver Tidsalder at have Mænd, der ere gaaede ud over Hegel. Tidsalderen forud for vor havde Hegel selv, men, havende ham, havde den ingen Mand, der var gaaet ud over ham; og Tidsalderen forud for den, havende ingen Hegel overhovedet, manglede, ved en aabenbar Nødvendighed, enhver Mand, der kunde være gaaet ud over ham. Vor egen Tidsalder er den første i Verdens Historie, der besidder denne sælsomme Distinction. Vi have Mændene. De ere iblandt os. De vandre Hovedstadens Gader; de bekjæde Embeder ved Universitetet og andetsteds; de udgive i Tidsskrifterne; de ere, i deres egne Udtalelser om sig selv, gaaede ud over.

Om Faktum af deres Hindenforgang kan der ingen Tvivl være. De have vidnet om det; deres Vidnesbyrd staaer paa Tryk; den dannede Læser af de daglige Aviser kan ikke have undgaaet at møde det. Om Retningen af deres Hindenforgang imidlertid — om Bestemmelsesstedet, hvortil de, ved Hindenforgangens Handling, ere ankomne — have de offentlige Organer, til nærværende Forfatters Beklagelse, leveret mindre Oplysning, end han kunde ønske. Han har læst Vidnesbyrdene. Han har læst dem med den Opmærksomhed, der sømmer sig Documenter af saadan Vigtighed. Han har, i mange Tilfælde, afskrevet dem i en Notitsbog, som er forbeholdt dette Brug. Og han har, ved Slutningen af sin Læsning, fundet sig i Besiddelse af følgende Stykke Oplysning: at flere af hans Samtidige ere gaaede ud over Hegel. Hvor, hvorledes, til-hvad, fra-hvad — disse Enkeltheder har han ikke været i Stand til at uddrage af Vidnesbyrderne, omendskjønt Vidnesbyrderne selv ere veltalende og, i deres almindelige Indtryk, overbevisende.

Den Underskrevne tilskriver ikke denne Mangel paa Detail nogen Uvillie hos Vidnerne. Han forudsætter tværtimod, at Vidnerne i deres egne Sind have de fornødne Enkeltheder i Fuldstændighed, og at hvad der mangler, er alene Communicationens Medium. Den offentlige Presse er en hastig Sag; Spalterne ere korte; en redactionel Frist tillader ikke altid den philosophiske Fremstilling, Sagen fordrer. Det er netop for at afhjelpe denne Mangel paa Medium, at nærværende Tidsskrift er bleven stiftet. Dets Spalter staae til Disposition for enhver af de Hindenforgaaede. Dets Udgiver vil trykke, uden Rettelse eller Commentar, enhver Communication modtaget fra hvilkensomhelst Part, naar den alene svarer til følgende beskedne Specification:

En Erklæring, i Form af en categorisk Bestemmelse, navngivende det Standpunkt, hvortil Vidnet er gaaet ud over Hegel, og angivende, i ikke færre end ti og ikke flere end hundrede Ord, det fornemste Træk, hvorved dette Standpunkt skal adskilles fra Hegels eget Standpunkt.

Specificationen er, vover Udgiveren at mene, en moderat een. Den fordrer ikke af Vidnet at retfærdiggjøre hans Hindenforgang. Den fordrer ikke af ham at demonstrere det nye Standpunkts Overlegenhed. Den fordrer ikke af ham at gjendrive Hegel. Den fordrer alene, at han navngiver Standpunktet og angiver eet Træk, hvorved det nye Standpunkt adskilles fra det gamle. En Mand, der er gaaet fra Kjøbenhavn til Roskilde, vil, naar han spørges hvorhen han er gaaet, sige »til Roskilde«; han vil, om man trænger ham om endnu een Detail, angive at Roskilde ligger vesten for Kjøbenhavn og besidder en Domkirke. Udgiveren beder ikke meer af sine Correspondenter end denne Roskilde-Reisende beder. Han beder om Bestemmelsesstedet og eet skjelnende Træk.

Udgiveren foregriber to Klasser af Indvending.

Den første Klasse vil hævde, at Anmodningen er formastelig, at de Hindenforgaaede skylde ingen Privatperson Beretning om deres Reiserute, og at Udgiveren ved selve sin Spørge-Handling har demonstreret sit eget Standpunkts Utilstrækkelighed til at modtage Svaret. Til denne Klasse af Indvending kan Udgiveren alene svare, at han i den ovenstaaende redactionelle Erklæring frit har erkjendt sit Standpunkts Utilstrækkelighed, og at Anmodningen ikke gjøres i Trods mod Utilstrækkeligheden, men i Følge af den. En Mand, der vidste Svaret, vilde ikke behøve at spørge. Udgiveren veed det ikke; derfor spørger han; derfor er hans Spørgen netop et Stykke Bevis til Støtte for Anmodningen frem for imod den.

Den anden Klasse vil hævde, at Anmodningen er philosophisk upassende, at en categorisk Bestemmelse af eens Standpunkt er uforenelig med Standpunktets dialectiske Bevægelse, og at at fixere det Hindenforgaaede i en enkelt Formel vilde være at forfalske det. Til denne Klasse kan Udgiveren alene svare, at Formelen ikke behøver at betragtes som fixeret for noget længere Tidsrum end Øieblikket af dens Offentliggjørelse; Vidnet staaer fuldkomment frit til at tilbagekalde den i det næste Hefte, og at substituere en ny Formel, og at tilbagekalde den nye Formel i Heftet derefter. Udgiveren paatager sig at trykke alle saadanne Tilbagekaldelser og Substitutioner uden Commentar. Hvad han beder om, er alene, at Vidnet tillader ham, paa et hvilketsomhelst givet Øieblik, at vide eet Stykke; Vidnet staaer frit til at gjøre dette ene Stykke til en anden Sag paa hvert paafølgende Øieblik.

Udgiveren afslutter med følgende practiske Notits. Correspondance bestemt for det næste Hefte bør naae Udgiveren senest den første Februar. Den kan adresseres c/o Forlæggeren. Udgiveren beklager, at han ikke staaer i Stand til at honorere sine Correspondenter for deres Bidrag, idet Tidsskriftet er en Gjerning af philosophisk Kjærlighed snarere end af Handel; han forpligter sig dog til at trykke hvert Bidrag i den Form, hvori det modtages, og at forsyne Bidragyderen med to Friexemplarer af det Hefte, hvori hans Bidrag fremkommer.

N. N.


English Translation

It is not given to every age to have men who have gone beyond Hegel. The age preceding ours had Hegel himself, but, having him, did not have any man who had gone beyond him; and the age preceding that, lacking Hegel altogether, lacked, by an obvious necessity, any man who could have gone beyond him. Our own age is the first in the history of the world to possess this curious distinction. We have the men. They are among us. They walk the streets of the capital; they hold appointments at the University and elsewhere; they publish in the periodicals; they are, in their own statements concerning themselves, gone beyond.

Of the fact of their going beyond there can be no question. They have testified to it; their testimony stands in print; the cultivated reader of the daily papers cannot have failed to encounter it. Of the direction of their going beyond, however — of the destination at which they have, by the act of going beyond, arrived — the public organs have, to the present writer's regret, supplied less information than he could wish. He has read the testimonies. He has read them with the attention proper to documents of such importance. He has, in many cases, copied them out into a notebook reserved for the purpose. And he has, at the conclusion of his reading, found himself in possession of the following body of information: that a number of his contemporaries have gone beyond Hegel. The where, the how, the to-what, the from-what — these particulars he has not been able to extract from the testimonies, although the testimonies themselves are eloquent and, in their general impression, persuasive.

The undersigned does not impute this poverty of detail to any unwillingness on the part of the testifiers. He supposes, on the contrary, that the testifiers have, in their own minds, the requisite particulars in fullness, and that what is wanting is merely the medium of communication. The public press is a hurried thing; the columns are short; an editorial deadline does not always permit the philosophical exposition that the matter demands. It is precisely to remedy this want of medium that the present journal has been founded. Its columns are at the disposal of any of the gone-beyond. Its editor will print, without correction or commentary, any communication received from any party whatsoever, provided only that it answer to the following modest specification:

A statement, in the form of a categorical determination, naming the standpoint to which the testifier has gone beyond Hegel, and indicating, in not less than ten and not more than one hundred words, the principal feature by which that standpoint is to be distinguished from the standpoint of Hegel himself.

The specification is, the editor ventures to think, a moderate one. It does not require the testifier to justify his having gone beyond. It does not require him to demonstrate the superiority of his new standpoint. It does not require him to refute Hegel. It requires only that he name the standpoint, and indicate one feature by which the new standpoint is distinguished from the old. A man who has gone from Copenhagen to Roskilde will, on being asked where he has gone, say "to Roskilde"; he will, if pressed for one further detail, indicate that Roskilde is to the west of Copenhagen and possesses a cathedral. The editor asks no more of his correspondents than this Roskilde-traveller is asked. He asks the destination and one distinguishing feature.

The editor anticipates two classes of objection.

The first class will hold that the request is presumptuous, that the gone-beyond owe no account of their itinerary to a private individual, and that the editor, by his very act of inquiring, has demonstrated the inadequacy of his own standpoint to receive the answer. To this class of objection the editor can reply only that he has, in the editorial statement above, freely acknowledged the inadequacy of his standpoint, and that the request is not made in defiance of the inadequacy but in consequence of it. A man who knew the answer would not need to ask. The editor does not know; therefore he asks; therefore his asking is precisely a piece of evidence in support of the request rather than against it.

The second class will hold that the request is philosophically improper, that a categorical determination of one's standpoint is incompatible with the dialectical motion of the standpoint, and that to fix the gone-beyond in a single formula would be to falsify it. To this class the editor can reply only that the formula need not be considered fixed for any longer period than the moment of its publication; the testifier is at perfect liberty to retract it in the next issue, and to substitute a new formula, and to retract the new formula in the issue after that. The editor undertakes to publish all such retractions and substitutions without comment. What he asks is only that the testifier permit him, at any given moment, to know one thing; the testifier is at liberty to make that one thing a different thing at each subsequent moment.

The editor concludes with the following practical note. Correspondence intended for the next issue should reach the editor by the first of February. It may be addressed in care of the publisher. The editor regrets that he is not in a position to compensate his correspondents for their contributions, the journal being a labour of philosophical love rather than of commerce; he undertakes, however, to print each contribution in the form in which it is received, and to supply the contributor with two complimentary copies of the issue in which his contribution appears.

N. N.


II.

OM MEDIATION,

VOR TIDSALDERS TRYLLEORD

Dansk Grundtext

Ordet Mediation har, i det forløbne Decenniums philosophiske Litteratur, vundet en Stilling af saadan Anseelse, at intet Postulat kan formuleres, ingen Vanskelighed kan reises, ingen Indvending kan nedlægges uden umiddelbar Tilflugt til det. Forekommer en Vanskelighed uløselig, skal den medieres. Forekomme to Postulater modsigelige, skulle de medieres. Mislykkes en Tilhører i at forstaae en Lære, skal Læren medieres med hans Forstaaelse. Findes Læren selv at være dunkel, skal Dunkelheden medieres med Klarhed. Ordet udfører i vor Philosophie et Embede nogenlunde lignende det, som Sesam, luk Dig op udfører i den orientalske Fortælling: det aabner enhver Dør, der stilles foran det, idet det fordrer hverken Nøgle, Dirken, eller nogensomhelst Anstrengelse fra Brugerens Side hinsides den blotte Udtale af Stavelserne.

Jeg er, Læseren vil slutte, ingen Mester i Ordets Brug. Jeg optegner dette med Beklagelse snarere end med Stolthed. Jeg har ved meer end een Anledning fundet mig i Besiddelse af to Postulater, der forekom mig uforenelige, og har forsøgt — i det oprigtige Ønske at deeltage i min Tidsalders philosophiske Samtale — at mediere dem. I hvert Tilfælde har Experimentet mislykkets. Postulaterne ere forblevne haardnakket i Besiddelse af deres Uforenelighed; Handlingen at udtale Ordet Mediation over dem har frembragt ingen mærkbar Virkning; jeg har omsider været tvungen til at lægge Sagen til Side og at leve, saa godt jeg kunde, med to Postulater i uforsonlig Modsætning. Denne Erfaring, gjentaget tilstrækkeligt, har ledet mig til at formulere en lille Undersøgelse, jeg nedlægger for Læseren.

Undersøgelsen er denne. Er Mediation en Procedure, eller er det et Navn for et Resultat? Er det en Procedure, da maa det være muligt at specificere de Trin, hvoraf Proceduren bestaaer, de Vilkaar, hvorunder Proceduren er anvendelig, og de Criterier, hvorved en lykkelig Udførelse af Proceduren skal adskilles fra en mislykket. Er det et Navn for et Resultat, da maa det være muligt at specificere Resultatet selv, i Vendinger, der ikke forudsætte selve den Procedure, som Navnet skal betegne. I intet af Tilfældene, vil Læseren see, kan Undersøgelsen besvares ved den blotte Gjentagelse af Ordet.

Jeg har rettet Undersøgelsen til flere af mit philosophiske Bekjendtskab. De Svar, jeg har modtaget, falde i tre Klasser. Den første Klasse bestaaer af dem, der have svaret, at Undersøgelsen røber et lavere Standpunkt, eftersom Spørgsmaalet ved det høiere Standpunkt ikke opstaaer. Til dette Svar har jeg svaret, at Spørgsmaalet, som en Sag faktisk, opstaaer for mig, og at det høiere Standpunkts Uhjelpsomhed i ikke at have Spørgsmaalet er, for mig ved det lavere Standpunkt, ingen Trøst. Samtalepartnerne af denne Klasse have ikke trængt videre paa Sagen.

Den anden Klasse bestaaer af dem, der have svaret, at Mediation skal forstaaes ikke som en Procedure eller som et Navn for et Resultat, men som det speculative Begreb selv i sin selv-realiserende Bevægelse. Til dette Svar har jeg svaret, at det forekommer mig at være en tredie Mulighed, jeg ikke havde overveiet, og at jeg er villig til at overveie den; men at jeg vilde være forbunden, om min Samtalepartner vilde levere, foruden Formelen, et Exempel paa Begrebets selv-realiserende Bevægelse, som den faktisk har forekommet i et eller andet Tilfælde, paa det jeg kunde danne mig et Billede af, hvad der beskrives. Samtalepartnerne af denne Klasse have ved enhver Anledning svaret, at Leveringen af et Exempel vilde være uphilosophisk, eftersom Begrebets Bevægelse ikke skal reduceres til Enkeltheder. Jeg har heller ikke trængt videre paa Sagen med dem.

Den tredie Klasse bestaaer af dem, der have svaret, med en Aabenhjertighed jeg optegner med Taknemmelighed, at de selv ikke nøiagtigt forstaae, hvad Mediation er, men at de bruge Ordet, fordi alle andre gjøre det, og fordi Samtalen ikke kan føres uden det. Dette Svar, omendskjønt skuffende i sin Substans, har for mig været det langt meest opbyggelige af de tre; thi det har bekræftet mig i en Mistanke, jeg havde tøvet med at nære, nemlig at Ordet, i Talen hos mange af dem, der bruge det, udfører ikke et philosophisk men et alene socialt Embede, signaliserende Talerens Medlemskab i Tidsalderens philosophiske Samtale snarere end meddelende noget bestemt Indhold. Er denne Mistanke rigtig, skal Ordet ikke klassificeres med saadanne Vendinger som Substans og Aarsag, hvilke den ældre Philosophie brugte i veldefinerede Betydninger, men med saadanne Vendinger som Aarstiden og Situationen, hvilke den dannede Taler benytter i Salonerne for at antyde, at han er een af Selskabet uden at forpligte sig til noget i Særdeleshed.

Jeg er villig til at lade mig rette. Nærværende Tidsskrifts Spalter ere aabne. Enhver af de Hindenforgaaede, der er i Besiddelse af en bestemt Forklaring af Mediation — en Procedure, et Resultat eller en tredie Mulighed — indbydes til at levere Forklaringen skriftligt, og Udgiveren vil trykke den, og Udgiveren vil, ved Modtagelsen af en Forklaring han kan forstaae, tilbagekalde nærværende Artikel i det næste Hefte med en offentlig Beklagelses-Yttring for at have reist Spørgsmaalet.

N. N.


English Translation

The word Mediation has, in the philosophical literature of the past decade, acquired a position of such eminence that no proposition can be formulated, no difficulty can be raised, no objection can be lodged, without immediate recourse to it. If a difficulty appears insoluble, it is to be mediated. If two propositions appear contradictory, they are to be mediated. If a hearer fails to understand a doctrine, the doctrine is to be mediated with his understanding. If the doctrine itself is found to be obscure, the obscurity is to be mediated with clarity. The word performs, in our philosophy, an office somewhat similar to that performed by Open Sesame in the Eastern tale: it opens whatever door is set before it, requiring no key, no lock-picking, no exertion of any kind from the user beyond the bare pronunciation of the syllables.

I am, the reader will infer, not a master of the word's use. I record this with regret rather than with pride. I have, on more than one occasion, found myself in possession of two propositions which appeared to me incompatible, and have tried — in the sincere desire to participate in the philosophical conversation of my age — to mediate them. In every case the experiment has failed. The propositions have remained obstinately in possession of their incompatibility; the act of pronouncing the word Mediation over them has produced no perceptible effect; I have at last been compelled to set the matter aside and to live, as best I could, with two propositions in irreconcilable opposition. This experience, repeated often enough, has led me to formulate a small inquiry which I lay before the reader.

The inquiry is this. Is Mediation a procedure, or is it a name for a result? If a procedure, it must be possible to specify the steps of which the procedure consists, the conditions under which the procedure is applicable, and the criteria by which a successful execution of the procedure is to be distinguished from an unsuccessful one. If a name for a result, it must be possible to specify the result itself, in terms which do not presuppose the very procedure that the name is supposed to designate. In neither case, the reader will perceive, can the inquiry be answered by the bare repetition of the word.

I have addressed the inquiry to several of my philosophical acquaintance. The replies I have received fall into three classes. The first class consists of those who have replied that the inquiry betrays a lower standpoint, since at the higher standpoint the question does not arise. To this reply I have responded that the question, as a matter of fact, arises for me, and that the unhelpfulness of the higher standpoint in not having the question is, to me at the lower standpoint, no comfort. The interlocutors of this class have not pressed the matter further.

The second class consists of those who have replied that Mediation is to be understood not as a procedure or as a name for a result but as the speculative concept itself in its self-realising motion. To this reply I have responded that this seems to me to be a third option which I had not considered, and that I am willing to consider it; but that I should be obliged if my interlocutor would supply, in addition to the formula, an example of the concept's self-realising motion as it has actually occurred in some instance, that I might form a picture of what is being described. The interlocutors of this class have, on every occasion, replied that the supply of an example would be unphilosophical, since the concept's motion is not to be reduced to particulars. I have not pressed the matter further with them either.

The third class consists of those who have replied, with a candour which I record with gratitude, that they themselves do not exactly understand what Mediation is, but that they use the word because everyone else does, and because the conversation cannot be carried on without it. This reply, though disappointing in its substance, has been to me by far the most edifying of the three; for it has confirmed me in a suspicion which I had hesitated to entertain, namely that the word, in the speech of many of those who use it, is performing not a philosophical but a merely social office, signalising the speaker's membership in the philosophical conversation of the age rather than communicating any determinate content. If this suspicion is correct, the word is to be classed not with such terms as substance and cause, which the older philosophy used in well-defined senses, but with such terms as the season and the situation, which the cultivated speaker employs in the salons to indicate that he is one of the company without committing himself to anything in particular.

I am willing to be corrected. The columns of the present journal are open. Any of the gone-beyond who is in possession of a determinate explanation of Mediation — a procedure, a result, or a third option — is invited to supply the explanation in writing, and the editor will print it, and the editor will, on receipt of an explanation he can understand, withdraw the present article in the next issue with a public expression of regret for having raised the question.

N. N.


III.

CORRESPONDANCE-AFDELING

Dansk Grundtext

Hvori Udgiveren optrykker saadanne Svar, som han har modtaget paa de Spørgsmaal, der bleve offentliggjorte i det redactionelle Circulær af October 1844, distribueret forud for nærværende første Hefte til de af hans Samtidige, der i de offentlige Organer have erklæret sig at være gaaede ud over Hegel.


No. 1. Fra Magister O., en forhenværende Discipel af Professor M——n., for Tiden forelæsende ved Universitetet i den speculative Dogmatiks Felt.

Ærede Collega, Deres Circulær har naaet mig, og jeg har skjenket det den Overveielse, dets Vigtighed fordrer. Jeg beklager, at jeg paa nærværende Øieblik ikke staaer i Stand til at levere den categoriske Bestemmelse, De anmoder om, eftersom det Standpunkt, hvortil jeg er ankommen i at gaae ud over Hegel, selv er i Bevægelse, og en Bestemmelse fastsat paa denne Dato vilde allerede være superseret ved Datoen for Deres Udgivelse. Jeg beder Dem derfor at modtage følgende foreløbige Svar: at det Standpunkt, hvortil jeg er gaaet, er det Standpunkt, hvorved Nødvendigheden af at gaae videre end Hegel selv bliver gjennemsigtig. Jeg tiltro, at dette vil være tilstrækkeligt for Deres nærværende Formaal; skulde De fordre yderligere Specification, skal jeg med Glæde levere den i en fremtidig Communication, naar Standpunktet har havt Tid til at stabilisere sig. Med broderlige Hilsener, Mag. O.

Udgiverens Svar, optrykt paa Correspondentens Anmodning:

Ærede Magister, Jeg er taknemmelig for Deres Communication og beder Dem at overbringe Standpunktet, naar De næste Gang møder det, Udgiverens Ønske om, at det stabiliserer sig saa snart, som det er beqvemt. Jeg vover, i Mellemtiden, at optegne, at jeg endnu ikke forstaaer Deres foreløbige Formel; thi det Standpunkt, hvorved Nødvendigheden af at gaae videre end Hegel bliver gjennemsigtig, vilde synes at være Hegels eget Standpunkt, paa Forudsætningen, at Nødvendigheden af at gaae videre er intern i Hegels System, i hvilket Tilfælde De ikke er gaaet ud over ham; eller det vilde synes at være et Standpunkt eksternt for Hegel, i hvilket Tilfælde jeg vilde være forbunden for nogen Antydning af, hvor, eksternt, det er. Jeg optegner Vanskeligheden til Deres videre Overveielse. N. N.

No. 2. Fra Cand. theol. R., der har udgivet i de periodiske Organer en Artikel betitlet »Hindsides det Hegelianske Standpunkt«.

Hr., Deres Circulær overrasker mig. De Sager, hvorom De forespørger, ere blevne behandlede in extenso i min nylige Artikel i Maanedsskriftet, hvortil jeg beder mig henvist. Skulde De, efter at have læst Artiklen, beholde nogen Vanskelighed, skal jeg staae til Deres Tjeneste. Cand. R.

Udgiverens Svar:

Ærede Candidat, Jeg har, ved Modtagelsen af Deres Brev, anskaffet og læst Deres Artikel i Maanedsskriftet. Jeg optegner med Beklagelse, at jeg ikke har været i Stand til at uddrage af den den anmodede categoriske Bestemmelse. Artiklen indeholder mange Passager af betydelig Elegance; den citerer Hegel ofte og ved Længde; den angiver i sin afsluttende Paragraph, at Forfatteren er gaaet ud over Hegel. Det Standpunkt, hvortil Forfatteren er gaaet, er imidlertid ikke navngivet i Artiklen. Jeg har gjenlæst Artiklen to Gange. Jeg har gjenlæst den afsluttende Paragraph fire Gange. Standpunktet, om det er i Artiklen, har undgaaet mig. Jeg beder mig tilladt at gjentage den oprindelige Anmodning: til hvilket Standpunkt, navngivet, er De gaaet? Jeg fordrer ikke Artiklen, men Navnet. N. N.

Candidatens andet Svar:

Hr., Jeg er ikke vant til at blive spurgt to Gange. Standpunktet er i Artiklen. Har De ikke fundet det, har De ikke læst opmærksomt. Jeg gjentager mig ikke. Cand. R.

Udgiverens Note: Correspondancen med Cand. theol. R. er her stillet i Bero. Udgiveren optegner sit Haab om, at Candidaten i et fremtidigt Hefte vil gjenoptage den.


No. 3. Fra Pastor T., en ældre Geistlig fra et af Landsogene, der ikke selv har erklæret sin Hindenforgang fra Hegel, men som skriver som Reaction paa det redactionelle Circulærs videre Distribution.

Kjære Hr. Notabene, Jeg læste Deres Circulær igaar, idet jeg modtog det fra et Sognemedlem, der er Subscribent paa de forskjellige Tidsskrifter. Jeg er ikke selv gaaet ud over Hegel; jeg er, sandt at sige, ikke gaaet til Hegel, idet de Veie, hvorved man reiser fra et Landsogn, ere utilstrækkelige til et saa fjernt Bestemmelsessted. Jeg skriver alene for at udtrykke min Tilfredshed med, at Nogen i Hovedstaden omsider stiller det Spørgsmaal, De stiller. Jeg har i nogle Aar undret mig over, hvad Herrerne mene, naar de sige, at de ere gaaede ud over, og jeg har skammet mig ved at forespørge, eftersom Forespørgslen vilde have aabenbaret min egen Stilling, der er Katechismens. Deres Mod opmuntrer mig. Jeg skal subscribere paa Deres Tidsskrift. Pastor T.

Udgiverens Svar:

Ærværdige Hr., Deres Brev har opmuntret mig meer, end jeg vel kan udtrykke. Jeg trykker det med Deres Tilladelse, i Haabet om at andre Læsere i Deres Stilling ville drage af det den Opmuntring, jeg har draget. Katechismens Standpunkt er maaskee ikke det meest moderne i nærværende Dag; det har imidlertid den Fordeel at være et Standpunkt, man kan indtage uden Forvirring om, hvor man er. Jeg anbefaler det til de af mine Correspondenter, hvis egne Standpunkter have viist sig mindre lokaliserbare. N. N.

No. 4. Fra en anonym Correspondent, der underskriver sig alene som »En Subscribent«.

Hr. Udgiver, Tillad mig som en af det dannede Publikum at udtrykke min Utaalmodighed med den Linie af Forespørgsel, De har undertaget. De Mænd, der ere gaaede ud over Hegel, ere gaaede der; Publikum veed, at de ere gaaede der; Publikum er tilfreds. At fordre af dem et skriftligt Certificat for deres Bestemmelsessted, som De gjør, er at behandle philosophisk Bedrift, som om den var en Toldangivelse. Jeg beder Dem, i vor Litteraturs Værdigheds Navn, at standse. En Subscribent

Udgiverens Svar:

Hr., Jeg modtager Deres Indvending med den Alvor, den fortjener. Jeg er villig til at indrømme, at Toldangivelsen er en ydmyg Form. Jeg er imidlertid ikke villig til at indrømme, at philosophisk Bedrift er meer værdig end Tolden. Toldembedsmanden, spurgt hvorfra hans Reisende er kommen, er i Stand til at svare; den philosophiske Reisende, spurgt hvorhen han er gaaet, har i de fire Maaneder af mit Circulærs Distribution ikke været i Stand til at svare. Jeg foreslaaer dette ikke som en Sammenligning gunstig for Tolden. Jeg foreslaaer det alene som en Grund til min vedvarende Spørgen, i det værdige Haab, at noget Svar omsider vil blive modtaget. N. N.

No. 5. Fra Professor M——n., der har været saa god at svare paa Udgiverens særskilte Brev anmodende om et Bidrag fra hans egen Haand.

Min kjære Hr. Notabene, Deres Brev har naaet mig paa et Øieblik af betydelig Optagethed. Jeg er ikke i Stand til paa nærværende Tidspunkt at levere den Artikel, De anmoder om, idet min Tid er beskæftiget med Forberedelsen af min forestaaende dogmatiske Afhandling, hvis første Bind skal fremkomme i Efteraaret. Jeg er imidlertid i Stand til at antyde Dem, at Artiklen, naar skreven, vil behandle den christne Lærdoms speculative Betydning i sin nutidige Form, og at jeg forventer, at den vil gaae ud over Hegel i Retningen af en meer concret Mediation af det religiøse Moment. Jeg beder Dem at afvente Artiklen med Taalmod. Prof. M.

Udgiverens Svar:

Ærede Professor, Jeg modtager Deres Communication med den Taknemmelighed, der sømmer sig en saa distingveret Correspondent. Jeg skal afvente Artiklen med Taalmod og har i Mellemtiden indført den angivne Retning — en meer concret Mediation af det religiøse Moment — i Udgiverens Notitsbog over Standpunkter foreløbigt bekjendtgjorte. Jeg beder mig tilladt alene at spørge, til Udgiverens Underretning, hvorvidt concret her skal forstaaes i sin ældre Betydning (modsat abstract) eller i en eller anden nyere Betydning, som vor Tids speculative Tænkning maatte have skjenket det; og hvorvidt meer concret skal forstaaes som en comparativ Grad, i hvilket Tilfælde jeg vilde være forbunden for at vide, med hvilket mindre concret den sammenlignes. Jeg forventer, at Svarene paa disse Forespørgsler ville blive leverede i selve Artiklen, og skal ikke trænge dem i Forveien. N. N.

English Translation

In which the editor reproduces such replies as he has received to the inquiries published in the editorial circular of October 1844, distributed in advance of the present first issue to those of his contemporaries who have, in the public organs, declared themselves to have gone beyond Hegel.


No. 1. From Magister O., a former pupil of Professor M——n., currently lecturing at the University in the field of speculative dogmatics.

Esteemed colleague, Your circular has reached me, and I have given it the consideration which its importance demands. I regret that I am not in a position, at the present moment, to supply the categorical determination you request, since the standpoint at which I have arrived in going beyond Hegel is itself in motion, and a determination fixed at this date would already be superseded by the date of your publication. I beg you, therefore, to accept the present provisional reply: that the standpoint to which I have gone is that standpoint at which the necessity of going further than Hegel becomes itself transparent. I trust this will be sufficient for your present purposes; should you require further specification, I shall be happy to supply it in a future communication, when the standpoint has had time to stabilise. With brotherly regards, Mag. O.

The editor's reply, printed at the request of the correspondent:

Esteemed Magister, I am grateful for your communication, and beg you to convey to the standpoint, when next you encounter it, the editor's wish that it stabilise as soon as is convenient. I venture, in the meantime, to record that I do not yet understand your provisional formula; for that standpoint at which the necessity of going further than Hegel becomes transparent would seem to be Hegel's standpoint itself, on the supposition that the necessity of going further is internal to Hegel's system, in which case you have not gone beyond him; or it would seem to be a standpoint external to Hegel, in which case I should be obliged for some indication of where, externally, it is. I record the difficulty for your further consideration. N. N.

No. 2. From Cand. theol. R., who has published in the periodical organs an article entitled "Beyond the Hegelian Standpoint."

Sir, Your circular surprises me. The matters concerning which you inquire have been treated, in extenso, in my recent article in Maanedsskriftet, to which I beg leave to refer you. Should you, after reading the article, retain any difficulty, I shall be at your service. Cand. R.

The editor's reply:

Esteemed Candidate, I have, on receipt of your letter, procured and read your article in Maanedsskriftet. I record with regret that I have not been able to extract from it the categorical determination requested. The article contains many passages of considerable elegance; it cites Hegel often, and at length; it indicates, in its closing paragraph, that the author has gone beyond Hegel. The standpoint to which the author has gone is not, however, named in the article. I have re-read the article twice. I have re-read the closing paragraph four times. The standpoint, if it is in the article, has eluded me. I beg leave to repeat the original inquiry: to which standpoint, named, have you gone? I require not the article but the name. N. N.

The Candidate's second reply:

Sir, I am not in the habit of being asked twice. The standpoint is in the article. If you have not found it, you have not read attentively. I do not repeat myself. Cand. R.

The editor's note: the correspondence with Cand. theol. R. is here suspended. The editor records his hope that, in a future issue, the Candidate will resume it.


No. 3. From Pastor T., an older clergyman of one of the country parishes, who has not himself declared his having gone beyond Hegel but who writes in response to the editorial circular's wider distribution.

Dear Mr. Notabene, I read your circular yesterday, having received it from a parishioner who is a subscriber to the various periodicals. I have not myself gone beyond Hegel; I have not, indeed, gone to Hegel, the routes by which one travels from a country parish being insufficient for so distant a destination. I write only to express my satisfaction that someone in the capital is at last asking the question you ask. I have wondered for some years what the gentlemen mean when they say they have gone beyond, and have been ashamed to inquire, since the inquiry would have revealed my own position, which is that of the Catechism. Your courage encourages me. I shall subscribe to your journal. Pastor T.

The editor's reply:

Reverend Sir, Your letter has cheered me more than I can well express. I print it with your permission, in the hope that other readers in your situation will draw from it the encouragement which I have drawn. The standpoint of the Catechism is not, perhaps, the most fashionable in the present day; it has, however, the merit of being a standpoint which one can occupy without confusion as to where one is. I commend it to those of my correspondents whose own standpoints have proved less locatable. N. N.

No. 4. From an anonymous correspondent who signs himself only as "A Subscriber."

Mr. Editor, Permit me to express, as one of the cultivated public, my impatience with the line of inquiry you have undertaken. The men who have gone beyond Hegel have gone there; the public knows that they have gone there; the public is satisfied. To demand of them a written certificate of their destination, as you do, is to treat philosophical achievement as if it were a customs declaration. I beg you, in the name of the dignity of our literature, to desist. A Subscriber

The editor's reply:

Sir, I receive your remonstrance with the seriousness it deserves. I am willing to concede that the customs declaration is a humble form. I am not willing, however, to concede that philosophical achievement is more dignified than customs. The customs official, asked where his traveller has come from, is able to answer; the philosophical traveller, asked where he has gone to, has not, in the four months of my circular's distribution, been able to answer. I do not propose this as a comparison favourable to the customs. I propose it only as a reason for my continuing to ask, in the dignified hope that some answer will, at length, be received. N. N.

No. 5. From Professor M——n., who has been so good as to reply to the editor's separate letter requesting a contribution of his own.

My dear Mr. Notabene, Your letter has reached me at a moment of considerable occupation. I am not able, at present, to supply the article you request, my time being engaged with the preparation of my forthcoming dogmatic treatise, of which the first volume is to appear in the autumn. I am able, however, to indicate to you that the article, when written, will treat of the speculative significance of the Christian doctrine in its present-day form, and that I anticipate it will go beyond Hegel in the direction of a more concrete mediation of the religious moment. I beg you to await the article with patience. Prof. M.

The editor's reply:

Esteemed Professor, I receive your communication with the gratitude proper to so distinguished a correspondent. I shall await the article with patience, and in the meantime have entered the indicated direction — a more concrete mediation of the religious moment — in the editor's notebook of standpoints provisionally announced. I beg leave only to ask, for the editor's information, whether concrete is here to be understood in its older sense (as opposed to abstract) or in some newer sense which the speculative thought of our age may have given it; and whether more concrete is to be understood as a comparative degree, in which case I should be obliged to know with what less concrete it is being compared. I anticipate that the answers to these inquiries will be supplied in the article itself, and shall not press them in advance. N. N.

IV.

BOGANMELDELSES-AFDELING

Dansk Grundtext

Hvori Udgiveren omtaler nylig udgivne Værker af philosophisk Vigtighed, samt visse endnu uudgivne Værker bekjendtgjorte til forestaaende Udgivelse, idet Bekjendtgjørelsen i Udgiverens Anskuelse er en Begivenhed af lige philosophisk Betydning som Udgivelsen selv.


*1. Magister O., Det fuldendte System. Første Bind: Indledning og Methodik. Bekjendtgjort til Efteraaret 1845. (Reitzel.)*

Det første Bind af, hvad der bekjendtgjøres som et fuldstændigt System, er endnu ikke fremkommet, men Bekjendtgjørelsen, værende fremkommet, kan anmeldes. Bekjendtgjørelsen lover, i et af Forlæggeren distribueret Circulær, at Værket vil levere den første systematiske Behandling i det danske Sprog af speculativ Philosophie i dens post-Hegelianske Form. Anmelderen staaer ikke i nogen Stilling til at dømme, hvorvidt Værket selv vil opfylde Løftet; han optegner imidlertid, at Bekjendtgjørelsen ikke specificerer, hvori den post-Hegelianske Form skal bestaae, og vover den Mening, at indtil denne Sag er afgjort, kan ingen første systematisk Behandling undertages med Tillid.

Et eiendommeligt Træk ved Bekjendtgjørelsen fortjener Notice. Den angiver, at Værket vil fremkomme i ikke færre end fire Bind, hvoraf det første skal indeholde Indledningen og Methodiken, det andet Logiken, det tredie Naturphilosophien og det fjerde Aandens Philosophie. Anmelderen iagttager, at denne Inddeling er i alle væsentlige Henseender identisk med Inddelingen antagen af Hegel i Encyclopädie, og er usikker paa, om Identiteten skal betragtes som Vidnesbyrd om Systemets post-Hegelianske Charakter eller som Vidnesbyrd om det modsatte. Han anbefaler Spørgsmaalet til Forfatteren, der uden Tvivl vil behandle det i det første Binds Methodik.


*2. Cand. theol. R., Hindsides det Hegelianske Standpunkt. (Artikel i Maanedsskriftet, December 1844.)*

Anmelderen har læst Artiklen. Han har læst den to Gange. Han har læst dens afsluttende Paragraph fire Gange. Han er ude af Stand til at opdage, i Artiklen, det Standpunkt, hvortil Forfatteren er gaaet ud over Hegel, og henviser Læseren til Correspondance-Afdelingen ovenfor for videre Enkeltheder. I Sagen om Artiklens Prosa kan Anmelderen optegne en utvivlsom Anbefaling: den er vel skreven. Anmelderen afholder sig fra en meer substantiel Dom, idet han har ingen Substans at dømme.


*3. Et logisk System, ved en unavngiven Forfatter af Kjøbenhavn. Bekjendtgjort til en eller anden uspecificeret fremtidig Dato. (Forlægger uspecificeret.)*

Anmelderen er bleven underrettet, af en Ven, der frequenterer de Saloner, hvori saadanne Sager drøftes, om at Et logisk System er under Forberedelse af en Forfatter, hvis Identitet endnu ikke skal offentliggjøres, og at Systemet forventes at gjøre alle tidligere Logiker forældede. Anmelderen har endnu ikke havt Anledning til at læse Systemet; han har alene været i Stand til at consultere Rygtet, og at bekræfte hos flere andre Personer, at Rygtet er, ja, i Omløb. Han optegner Bekræftelsen her som et Bidrag til vor Tids Litteraturhistorie. Et philosophisk Værk, der for Tiden alene existerer som et Rygte, er et Phænomen af betydelig Interesse; Anmelderen forbeholder den meer særlige Behandling deraf til et fremtidigt Hefte, naar Rygtet enten skal være bleven bekræftet ved Værkets Fremkomst eller gjendrevet ved dets Udeblivelse over et Tidsrum tilstrækkeligt til at fastslaae det negative.


*4. Det forestaaende andet Bind af Pastor Sophiensens Fire og Tyve Prædikener for de Dannede, der skal betitles Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse. Bekjendtgjort til Efteraaret 1845.*

Angaaende det første Bind vover Anmelderen ingen Dom, idet Værket er bleven udgivet af hans Collega Hr. Notabene i nærværende Qvartal og Anmelderen saaledes, ved den litterære Sømmeligheds Regler, er forpligtet til at frasige sig. Han bemærker alene, at det andet Bind, ved Magister Hegelius-Berlin, er bekjendtgjort som det førstes Supersedering; og at det tredie Bind, ved en endnu yngre Collega, er bekjendtgjort som det andets Supersedering; og at et fjerde Bind er i Overveielse. Anmelderen optegner sin Paaskjønnelse af den Høflighed, hvorved hvert Bind af Rækken leverer ved Foregriben det Standpunkt, hvorfra det selv skal superseres — en Høflighed, der sparer Læseren Arbeidet med Supersederingen, eftersom Supersederingen er bleven planlagt forud og betroet Skriften, og kan modtages passivt frem for udføres aktivt. Anmelderen speculerer over, at denne Methode, om generaliseret, kan transformere Hovedstadens litterære Oeconomie, ved at tillade Forfattere at udgive forud ikke alene deres Værker, men Demolitionerne af deres Værker, og derved concentrere Tidens hele kritiske Apparat i Bogtrykkeriet og lade det læsende Publikum frit til andre Beskjæftigelser.


*5. Lic. theol. T., Mediationens Anvendelse paa Sjelens Udødelighed. Bekjendtgjort til Nytaar 1846. (Schubothe.)*

Det forestaaende Værk af Lic. theol. T. foreslaaer ved sin Titel at anvende Mediations-Læren paa Spørgsmaalet om Sjelens Udødelighed. Anmelderen har ikke seet Manuscriptet; han er imidlertid bleven underrettet af en Collega af Forfatterens om, at Proceduren vil være følgende: de forskjellige Beviser hidtil anførte for Sjelens Udødelighed — det ontologiske, det cosmologiske, det moralske, det historiske og det consensuale — ville blive gjennemgaaede i deres klassiske Formuleringer; hvert vil blive viist at være, taget i Isolation, utilstrækkeligt; og et nyt Bevis vil blive construeret, hvis Form vil være, at Mediationen af de fem utilstrækkelige Beviser vil yde et sjette Bevis, der ved selve at være Mediationen vil besidde en Tilstrækkelighed, som ingen af de fem enkeltvis besad. Anmelderen afventer Værket med passende Interesse. Han iagttager alene, som en Forløber, at det foreslaaede sjette Bevis synes ham at fordre, for sin Conclusion, at Beviset for Sjelens Udødelighed skal være den eneste udødelige Sag i Systemet — en Conclusion, Forfatteren ved Overveielse maaskee ikke maatte ønske at antage. Anmelderen overlader Iagttagelsen til Forfatterens Reflexion og forbeholder den meer særlige Behandling til det Hefte af nærværende Tidsskrift, der vil følge efter Værkets Fremkomst.


*6. Dr. G., Forelæsninger over Statskirken og dens speculative Berettigelse. Bekjendtgjort til Foraaret 1846. (Universitetsboghandelen.)*

De Forelæsninger, hvorpaa Dr. G.s forestaaende Værk hviler, ble, Anmelderen er bleven underrettet, holdte i Universitetets Forelæsningssal i de forløbne to Semestre, til et Auditorium sammensat i nogenlunde lige Forhold af theologiske Candidater og af Lægfolk, der frequentere saadanne Forelæsninger som en Sag af dannet Vane. Forelæsningerne ere, efter alle Beretninger, blevne vel modtagne; Anmelderen har været i Stand til at consultere to Manuscript-Afskrifter, forberedte af Tilhørere, der adskille sig i visse Enkeltheder, og som Anmelderen ikke staaer i Stand til at forsone. Han indskrænker sig, i nærværende Notice, til følgende Iagttagelse. Forelæsningerne, som repræsenterede i begge Manuscript-Afskrifter, undertage at demonstrere, at Kongerigets Statskirke retfærdiggjøres ikke ved sin historiske Nedstamning fra den apostoliske Tid, ei heller ved Sandheden af sine Lærdomme som fremstillede i den Augsburgiske Bekjendelse, men ved sin Stilling som et Moment i Aandens speculative Bevægelse. Anmelderen er ude af Stand til at vurdere Demonstrationen uden den trykte Text foran sig; han iagttager alene, at de alternative Retfærdiggjørelser, som Demonstrationen erstatter, i Kirkens Praxis have været de Retfærdiggjørelser, hvorved dens Tjenere hidtil have trøstet de Døende, og at den nye Retfærdiggjørelse, omendskjønt utvivlsomt af philosophisk Interesse, maaskee ikke maatte udføre dette Embede med samme Virkning. Han overlader Sagen til Forfatterens Opmærksomhed, i den Tillid, at den trykte Text vil behandle den.


*7. Den christne Tro, paa Logikens Grundvold gjenfremstillet, ved en unavngiven Forfatter. Bekjendtgjort, i et Circulær distribueret ved Universitetsboghandelen, til en uspecificeret fremtidig Dato.*

Anmelderen har alene været i Stand til at erholde Circulæret. Circulæret bekjendtgjør, at Værket ved Anvendelsen af den speculative Logik paa den christne Tros fornemste Articler vil gjenfremstille Troen paa et Fundament, som den dannede Læser vil finde meer congeniel end det ældre Fundament leveret af Skriften og Symbolerne. Anmelderen tillader sig den Iagttagelse, at det ældre Fundament ikke, til nærværende Forfatters Kundskab, er bleven demoleret, og at at gjenfremstille en Tro, der allerede staaer paa et udemoleret Fundament, er at udføre en Operation, hvis Nødvendighed ikke er bleven fastslaaet. Han anbefaler Iagttagelsen til den unavngivne Forfatter, med Forsikringen om, at han staaer rede til at revidere den, skulde det trykte Værk levere en Demonstration af Nødvendigheden.

Anmelderen bemærker, som en yderligere Sag, at Circulæret er usigneret, og at Forlæggerens Navn er udeladt; Circulæret angiver alene, at Værket vil fremkomme paa en uspecificeret Dato. Anmelderen betragter Bekjendtgjørelsen af et usigneret Værk ved en unavngiven Forlægger paa en uspecificeret Dato som et Phænomen af philosophisk Interesse i sig selv, selv om Værket aldrig skulde fremkomme; thi Bekjendtgjørelsen er ved selve sin Ubestemthed — og Anmelderen tiltro, at den dannede Læser vil paaskjønne Formuleringens speculative Betydning — den rene Væren af en forestaaende Litteratur, der endnu ikke har bestemt sig til et særligt Værk, en Forfatter, en Forlægger eller en Dato, og som derfor exemplificerer, i Universitetsboghandelens Circulærs Spalter, netop hiin første Bestemmelse af speculativ Tænkning, som Systemet det forløbne Decennium har taget som sit Udgangspunkt. Anmelderen anbefaler Circulæret til den dannede Læsers Samling, i Tilliden til, at det over de kommende Aar vil vinde en Værdi paa det antiqvariske Marked, der svarer til dets nuværende philosophiske Interesse.


*8. Tidsskriftet Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang, bekjendtgjort til en uspecificeret Dato af et redactionelt Udvalg, hvis Medlemskab ikke er bleven aabenbaret.*

Anmelderen er paa det Sidste bleven underrettet om Existensen i vor Litteratur af et Antal philosophiske Tidsskrifter, der ere blevne bekjendtgjorte, men endnu ikke udsendte. Han har formodet det at være nærværende Tidsskrifts Embede at tage Notice af dem, paa det Princip, fremstillet i Afdelingens Overskrift ovenfor, at Bekjendtgjørelsen er en Begivenhed af lige philosophisk Betydning som Udgivelsen. Anmelderen har, i Forfølgelsen af dette Embede, forsøgt at erholde Bekjendtgjørelserne af de paagjeldende Tidsskrifter; han har lykkedes i tre Tilfælde, hvoraf Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang er eet; i de andre to har han været ude af Stand til at fastslaae, trods gjentagne Ansøgninger til Forlæggerne, hvorvidt Bekjendtgjørelserne overhovedet existere, eller hvorvidt de blot ere blevne rapporterede at existere af Venner, der have hørt om dem ved anden eller tredie Haand. Han indskrænker sig, i nærværende Notice, til det Tidsskrift, hvis Bekjendtgjørelse han har været i Stand til at erholde.

Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang vil fremkomme, underretter Bekjendtgjørelsen Læseren, maanedligt; dets redactionelle Udvalg er endnu ikke bleven constitueret, men forventes at bestaae af visse yngre Philosopher af Hovedstaden, hvis Navne ville blive meddelte i sin Tid; Bidragyderne ville indbefatte de Hindenforgaaede fra Hegel, hvis Communicationer til Hr. Notabenes nærværende Tidsskrift, paa Grund af nærværende Tidsskrifts Formats Begrænsninger, ikke have modtaget den Udvikling, de fortjene. Anmelderen betragter den sidstnævnte Klausul som en Høflighed og erkjender den med Taknemmelighed. Han iagttager dog, at de foreslaaede Bidragydere efter Bekjendtgjørelsens egen Beskrivelse ere de samme Correspondenter, hvis Bidrag til nærværende Tidsskrift han i Correspondance-Afdelingen ovenfor har fundet utilstrækkelige; og at Multiplikationen af de Steder, hvor deres utilstrækkelige Bidrag kunne trykkes, ikke i sig selv afhjelper Manglen. Anmelderen forbeholder Dommen, indtil Maanedsskriftets første Hefte fremkommer.


English Translation

In which the editor notices works of philosophical importance recently published, and certain works as yet unpublished but announced for forthcoming publication, the announcement being, in the editor's view, an event of equal philosophical significance to the publication itself.


*1. Magister O., Det fuldendte System. Første Bind: Indledning og Methodik. Announced for the autumn of 1845. (Reitzel.)*

The first volume of what is announced as a complete System has not yet appeared, but the announcement, having appeared, may be reviewed. The announcement promises, in a circular distributed by the publisher, that the work will provide the first systematic treatment in the Danish language of speculative philosophy in its post-Hegelian form. The reviewer is in no position to judge whether the work itself will fulfil the promise; he records, however, that the announcement does not specify in what the post-Hegelian form is supposed to consist, and ventures the opinion that until this matter is settled, no first systematic treatment can be undertaken with confidence.

A peculiar feature of the announcement deserves notice. It indicates that the work will appear in not fewer than four volumes, of which the first is to contain the Introduction and Methodology, the second the Logic, the third the Philosophy of Nature, and the fourth the Philosophy of Spirit. The reviewer observes that this division is in all material respects identical to the division adopted by Hegel in the Encyclopädie, and is uncertain whether the identity is to be regarded as evidence of the post-Hegelian character of the system or as evidence to the contrary. He commends the question to the author, who will, no doubt, address it in the Methodology of the first volume.


*2. Cand. theol. R., Beyond the Hegelian Standpoint. (Article in Maanedsskriftet, December 1844.)*

The reviewer has read the article. He has read it twice. He has read its closing paragraph four times. He is unable to discover, in the article, the standpoint to which the author has gone beyond Hegel, and refers the reader to the Correspondence Section above for further particulars. In the matter of the prose of the article, the reviewer can record an unhesitating recommendation: it is well written. The reviewer abstains from a more substantive judgment, having no substance to judge.


*3. A Logical System, by an unnamed author of Copenhagen. Announced for some unspecified future date. (Publisher unspecified.)*

The reviewer has been informed, by a friend who attends the salons in which such matters are discussed, that A Logical System is in preparation by an author whose identity is not yet to be made public, and that the System is expected to render obsolete all previous logics. The reviewer has not yet had the opportunity to read the System; he has been able only to consult the rumour, and to confirm with several other persons that the rumour is, indeed, in circulation. He records the confirmation here as a contribution to the literary history of our age. A philosophical work which exists, at present, only as a rumour is a phenomenon of considerable interest; the reviewer reserves the more particular consideration of it for a future issue, when the rumour shall have either been confirmed by the appearance of the work or refuted by its non-appearance over a period sufficient to establish the negative.


*4. The Forthcoming Second Volume of Pastor Sophiensen's Twenty-Four Sermons for the Cultivated, to be entitled Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse. Announced for the autumn of 1845.*

Concerning the first volume, the reviewer ventures no judgment, the work having been published by his colleague Mr. Notabene in the present quarter and the reviewer being thus, by the rules of literary propriety, recused. He notes only that the second volume, by Magister Hegelius-Berlin, has been announced as the supersession of the first; and that the third volume, by an even younger colleague, has been announced as the supersession of the second; and that a fourth volume is in contemplation. The reviewer records his appreciation of the courtesy by which each volume of the series provides, by anticipation, the standpoint from which it is itself to be superseded — a courtesy which spares the reader the labour of supersession, since the supersession has been planned in advance and committed to writing, and may be received passively rather than performed actively. The reviewer speculates that this method, if generalised, may transform the literary economy of the Capital, by permitting authors to publish in advance not only their works but the demolitions of their works, thereby concentrating the entire critical apparatus of the age in the publishing-house and leaving the reading public free for other pursuits.


*5. Lic. theol. T., Mediationens Anvendelse paa Sjelens Udødelighed. Announced for the New Year of 1846. (Schubothe.)*

The forthcoming work of Lic. theol. T. proposes, by its title, to apply the doctrine of Mediation to the question of the immortality of the soul. The reviewer has not seen the manuscript; he has, however, been informed by a colleague of the author's that the procedure will be the following: the various proofs hitherto adduced for the immortality of the soul — the ontological, the cosmological, the moral, the historical, and the consensual — will be reviewed in their classical formulations; each will be shown to be, taken in isolation, insufficient; and a new proof will be constructed, of which the form will be that the Mediation of the five insufficient proofs will yield a sixth proof which, by virtue of its being the Mediation, will possess a sufficiency which none of the five individually possessed. The reviewer awaits the work with the appropriate interest. He observes only, as a preliminary, that the proposed sixth proof appears to him to require, for its conclusion, that the proof for the immortality of the soul shall be the only immortal thing in the System — a conclusion the author may not, on consideration, wish to accept. The reviewer commits the observation to the author's reflection, and reserves the more particular treatment for the issue of the present journal which will follow the work's appearance.


*6. Dr. G., Forelæsninger over Statskirken og dens speculative Berettigelse. Announced for the spring of 1846. (Universitetsboghandelen.)*

The lectures upon which Dr. G.'s forthcoming work is based were, the reviewer is informed, delivered in the lecture-hall of the University during the past two semesters, to an audience composed in roughly equal proportions of theological candidates and of laymen who attend such lectures as a matter of cultivated habit. The lectures have, by all accounts, been well received; the reviewer has been able to consult two manuscript copies, prepared by auditors, which differ in certain particulars and which the reviewer is not in a position to reconcile. He confines himself, in the present notice, to the following observation. The lectures, as represented in both manuscript copies, undertake to demonstrate that the Established Church of the kingdom is justified, not by its historical descent from the Apostolic age, nor by the truth of its doctrines as set forth in the Augsburgiske Bekendelse, but by its position as a moment in the speculative motion of the Spirit. The reviewer is unable to evaluate the demonstration without the printed text before him; he observes only that the alternative justifications which the demonstration replaces have, in the practice of the Church, been the justifications by which its ministers have hitherto consoled the dying, and that the new justification, while doubtless of philosophical interest, may not perform that office with the same effectiveness. He commits the matter to the author's attention, in the confidence that the printed text will address it.


*7. Den christne Tro, paa Logikens Grundvold gjenfremstillet, by an unnamed author. Announced, in a circular distributed at the Universitetsboghandelen, for an unspecified future date.*

The reviewer has been able to obtain only the circular. The circular announces that the work will, by the application of the speculative logic to the principal articles of the Christian faith, restate the faith upon a foundation which the cultivated reader will find more congenial than the older foundation supplied by the Scriptures and the Creeds. The reviewer permits himself the observation that the older foundation has not, to the present writer's knowledge, been demolished, and that to restate a faith already standing upon an undemolished foundation is to perform an operation whose necessity has not been established. He commends the observation to the unnamed author, with the assurance that he stands ready to revise it should the printed work supply a demonstration of the necessity.

The reviewer notes, as a further matter, that the circular is unsigned, and that the publisher's name has been omitted; the circular indicates only that the work will appear at an unspecified date. The reviewer regards the announcement of an unsigned work by an unnamed publisher at an unspecified date as a phenomenon of philosophical interest in its own right, even should the work itself never appear; for the announcement, by its very indeterminateness, is — and the reviewer trusts that the cultivated reader will appreciate the speculative significance of the formulation — the pure being of a forthcoming literature, which has not yet determined itself into a particular work, an author, a publisher, or a date, and which therefore exemplifies, in the columns of the Universitetsboghandelen's circular, precisely that initial determination of speculative thought which the System has, for the past decade, taken as its starting-point. The reviewer commends the circular to the cultivated reader's collection, in the confidence that it will, over the coming years, acquire a value in the antiquarian market commensurate with its present philosophical interest.


*8. The journal Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang, announced for an unspecified date by an editorial committee whose membership has not been disclosed.*

The reviewer has, of late, been informed of the existence in our literature of a number of philosophical journals which have been announced but not yet issued. He has supposed it the office of the present journal to take notice of them, on the principle, set forth in the section heading above, that the announcement is an event of equal philosophical significance to the publication. The reviewer has, in pursuit of this office, attempted to procure the announcements of the journals in question; he has succeeded in three cases, of which the Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang is one; in the other two he has been unable to determine, despite repeated application to the publishers, whether the announcements exist at all, or whether they have been merely reported to exist by friends who have heard of them at second or third hand. He confines himself, in the present notice, to the journal whose announcement he has been able to procure.

The Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang will appear, the announcement informs the reader, monthly; its editorial committee has not yet been constituted, but is expected to consist of certain younger philosophers of the Capital, whose names will be communicated in due course; the contributors will include those gone-beyond-Hegel whose communications to the present journal of Mr. Notabene have, owing to the limitations of the present journal's format, not received the development they deserve. The reviewer regards this last clause as a courtesy and acknowledges it with gratitude. He observes, however, that the proposed contributors are, by the announcement's own description, the same correspondents whose contributions to the present journal he has, in the Correspondence Section above, found insufficient; and that the multiplication of the venues in which their insufficient contributions may be printed does not, by itself, supply the deficiency. The reviewer reserves judgment until the Maanedsskrift's first issue appears.


V.

PROSPECTUS FOR RESTEN AF DET FØRSTE BIND

Dansk Grundtext

med Notitser om Indholdet af Hefterne II, III og IV, og en fornyet Indbydelse til Subscription

Udgiveren fremlægger nedenfor det projecterede Indhold af de tre resterende Hefter af det første Bind, i den Form, Indholdet har antaget paa nærværende Skrivelses Tidspunkt. Den dannede Læser vil paaskjønne, at Indholdet er projecteret snarere end lovet; Udgiveren har gjennem nærværende Hefte forpligtet sig til at holde aabne saadanne Veie, hvorved hans Correspondenter kunne meddele ham Materialerne for hans paafølgende Hefter, og Projectionen nedenfor maa forblive modtagelig for Revision i Lys af, hvad der modtages. Udgiveren forsikrer dog, at skulde Projectionen fordre Forandring, vil Forandringen blive meddelt Subscribenter ved en trykt Seddel distribueret med det Hefte, der umiddelbart gaaer forud for det berørte Hefte, paa det at Subscribenter ikke ville finde deres Forventninger skuffede uden behørig Underretning.

Andet Hefte, fremkommende i Nytaars-Qvartalet, April 1845

I. Fornyet Tiltale til Kongerigets Mænd, der ere gaaede ud over Hegel, indeholdende saadanne Rettelser og Forfining, som Udgiveren er bleven foranlediget til at foretage som Følge af de Svar, der ere modtagne paa nærværende Heftes Tiltale. Den fornyede Tiltale vil i Særdeleshed henvende sig til de af de Hindenforgaaede, der i at undlade at svare paa nærværende Hefte have leveret Udgiveren en Mængde indirecte Vidnesbyrd, som Udgiveren har paataget sig at fortolke paa den i hans Efterskrift nedenfor angivne Maade.

II. Om Hindenforgang som speculativ Operation: en Undersøgelse af den Mechanisme, hvorved et Standpunkt siges at supersere et andet, med særlig Opmærksomhed mod Spørgsmaalet, hvorvidt Operationen kan forekomme i Fraværet af et bestemt Bestemmelsessted. Undersøgelsen vil trække paa saadanne Exempler, som nærværende Heftes Correspondance har leveret, og vil paatage sig at formulere en almindelig Theorie om Supersedering-i-Fraværet-af-Bestemmelsessted, som Udgiveren foreløbigt har benævnt Aufhebung in vacuo.

III. Correspondance-Afdeling. Udgiveren gjentager sin staaende Indbydelse. Communicationer modtagne senest den første Marts ville blive overveiede til Optagelse i April-Heftet. Udgiveren benytter Anledningen til at underrette sine Correspondenter om, at Spalternes Begrænsninger, der gjaldt i nærværende Hefte, ville gjelde ogsaa i April-Heftet, og at Bidrag overskridende den foreskrevne Længde ville blive overveiede til Afdelingen Notitser om Communicationer Modtagne men ikke Trykte i Helhed, som Udgiveren vil indføre i April-Heftet, om Mængden af modtagne Communicationer berettiger dens Oprettelse.

IV. Boganmeldelses-Afdeling. Udgiveren forventer at være i Stand til i April-Heftet at anmelde flere yderligere Værker, hvoraf alene Bekjendtgjørelserne hidtil ere fremkomne, og muligvis et eller to Værker, hvoraf end ikke Bekjendtgjørelserne ere fremkomne, men som paalideligt er rapporteret at være i Overveielse. Han er i Særdeleshed bleven underrettet om et forestaaende Værk af en anonym Forfatter af Hovedstaden om Begrebet Angest i dets psychologiske Aspect, hvorom Anmelderen haaber at give nogen Beretning i April-Heftet; Værket er endnu ikke seet, men Bekjendtgjørelsen er, Udgiveren er underrettet, under Forberedelse.

V. Om Distinctionen mellem et Standpunkt og en Stiil, foranlediget af Udgiverens voxende Mistanke, at flere af hans Samtidige, der have erklæret sig at være gaaede ud over Hegel, faktisk ere gaaede ud over Hegel alene i Stilens Sager, idet deres Tænknings Substans forbliver, hvor den var. Artiklen vil undersøge, hvorvidt stilistisk Supersedering er tilstrækkelig til at constituere philosophisk Supersedering, eller hvorvidt et yderligere Criterium fordres.

Tredie Hefte, fremkommende i Sommer-Qvartalet, Juli 1845

I. Foreløbigt Resumé af de modtagne Svar i det første Halv-Bind, hvori Udgiveren vil tabulere, efter speculativt Indhold og efter stilistisk Register, saadanne Svar, som senest den første Juni ere blevne ham meddelte; Tabellen vil være krydsindexeret efter Vidnernes Navne og vil, haaber Udgiveren, levere den dannede Læser en synoptisk Oversigt over de Hindenforgaaede, som intet andet Instrument af vor Litteratur hidtil har leveret.

II. Om den telegraphiske Notits som speculativ Form, foranlediget af Udgiverens Iagttagelse, at flere af hans Correspondenter i at undlade at sende en telegraphisk Notits i Form af en categorisk Bestemmelse i Stedet have sendt en betydelig længere Notits i en Form, der hverken er telegraphisk, categorisk eller bestemt. Artiklen vil undersøge, hvorvidt den telegraphiske Notits ved selve sin Compakthed er en upassende Form for det speculative Indhold; eller hvorvidt det speculative Indhold ved selve sin Vidstrækkethed er et upassende Indhold for nogensomhelst kompakt Form.

III. Correspondance-Afdeling (fortsat).

IV. Boganmeldelses-Afdeling. Blandt de Værker, der forventes at blive anmeldte: det andet Hefte af Det logiske System af N. N., bekjendtgjort til Nytaar 1846 og derfor, til Tiden af Juli-Heftet, tilgjengeligt for Forhaands-Bekjendtgjørelses-Anmeldelse; Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang nævnt i nærværende Heftes Notice 8, der i Juli forventes enten at have udsendt sit første Nummer eller at have meddelt Grundene til Forsinkelsen; og et videre Bind af Sophiensens Prædikener, om Bekjendtgjørelsen af det andet Bind er bleven bekræftet.

V. Om Spørgsmaalet, hvorvidt et Tidsskrift, der modtager ingen Svar paa sin staaende Indbydelse, derved har modtaget Svaret, at intet Svar var at levere, en Artikel foranlediget af Udgiverens voxende Mistanke, at Tausheden hos de Hindenforgaaede, betragtet som et Sokratisk Phænomen, indeholder meer philosophisk Information, end nogen Række af Svar, hvor veltalende end, kunde have meddelt.

Fjerde Hefte, fremkommende i Efteraars-Qvartalet, October 1845

I. Afsluttende Resumé af det første Bind, hvori Udgiveren vil samle saadanne Resultater, som de fire Hefter ved deres cumulative Virkning have frembragt; Resuméet vil blive udsendt i to Registre, det positive (hvori de opnaaede Resultater skulle nedfældes) og det negative (hvori de ikke-opnaaede Resultater skulle nedfældes), idet Udgiveren ved Erfaringen af de første tre Hefter er bleven ledet til at mistænke, at det negative Register maaskee er det meest substantielle.

II. Redactionelle Reflexioner over Tidsskriftets første Aars Drift, hvori Udgiveren vil tillade sig en stille Time til at overveie, hvorvidt Experimentet i det Hele har været værd at gjennemføre; hvorvidt det dannede Publikum er bleven tjent ved det; og hvorvidt et andet Bind bør paabegyndes.

III. Correspondance-Afdeling (afsluttende).

IV. Boganmeldelses-Afdeling (afsluttende).

V. Person- og Standpunkts-Register nævnt i de fire Hefter af det første Bind, med Krydshenvisninger til den Side, paa hvilken hver Person første Gang fremkommer, og til den Side, paa hvilken hvert Standpunkt er meest fuldstændigt navngivet (hvor en saadan meest-fuldstændigt-navngiven Side ved saadan Operation lader sig identificere).

Subscriptions-Vilkaar, Gjentagne

De fire Hefter af det første Bind sælges ved Subscription til Prisen af fire Rigsdaler tre Mark, betalt forud til Forlæggeren. Enkelte Hefter kunne erholdes til Prisen af een Rigsdaler to Mark stykket. Subscribenter ville modtage Hefterne pr. Post eller, efter deres Forkjærlighed, kunne afhente dem fra Forlæggerens Etablissement paa Udgivelsesdagen.

Udgiveren benytter Anledningen til at optegne, at Tidsskriftet paa nærværende Skrivelses Dato har modtaget tre og halvfjerds Subscriptioner til det første Bind, et Antal, som Udgiveren betragter som tilstrækkeligt til at berettige Fortsættelsen gjennem de fire projecterede Hefter, men utilstrækkeligt til at berettige Paabegyndelsen af et andet Bind. Den dannede Læser, der endnu ikke har subscriberet, indbydes til at overveie Sagen og at meddele sin Beslutning før nærværende Qvartals Udløb; de, der allerede have subscriberet, indbydes til at omtale Tidsskriftet for deres Venner, der ved Udgiverens Overtalelse ved anden Haand maaskee, haaber Udgiveren, kunne bringes til den Beslutning, som Udgiverens directe Overtalelse i deres eget Tilfælde ikke har bragt dem til.


English Translation

with notices of the contents of Hefter II, III, and IV, and a renewed invitation to subscription

The editor presents below the projected contents of the remaining three issues of the first volume, in the form which the contents have assumed at the present writing. The cultivated reader will appreciate that the contents are projected rather than promised; the editor has, throughout the present issue, undertaken to keep open such avenues by which his correspondents may communicate to him the materials of his subsequent issues, and the projection below must remain susceptible to revision in light of what is received. The editor pledges, however, that should the projection require alteration, the alteration will be communicated to subscribers by a printed slip distributed with the issue immediately preceding the issue affected, that the subscribers may not find their expectations disappointed without due notice.

Andet Hefte, to appear at the New Year's quarter, April 1845

I. Renewed Address to the Men of the Kingdom Who Have Gone Beyond Hegel, embodying such corrections and refinements as the editor has been led to make in consequence of the replies received to the present issue's address. The Renewed Address will, in particular, address those of the gone-beyond who have, in declining to reply to the present issue, supplied the editor with a quantity of indirect evidence which the editor has undertaken to interpret in the manner indicated in his Efterskrift below.

II. On Going-Beyond as a Speculative Operation: an Inquiry into the Mechanism by Which One Standpoint Is Said to Supersede Another, with particular attention to the question whether the operation can occur in the absence of a determinate destination. The Inquiry will draw upon such examples as the correspondence of the present issue has supplied, and will undertake to formulate a general theory of supersession-in-the-absence-of-destination, which the editor has provisionally termed Aufhebung in vacuo.

III. Correspondence Section. The editor reiterates his standing invitation. Communications received by the first of March will be considered for inclusion in the April issue. The editor takes the opportunity to inform his correspondents that the limitations of column space which obtained in the present issue will obtain also in the April issue, and that contributions exceeding the prescribed length will be considered for the section Notices of Communications Received but Not Printed in Full, which the editor will introduce in the April issue if the quantity of communications received warrants its establishment.

IV. Book-Review Section. The editor is in expectation of being able to review, in the April issue, several further works of which only the announcements have so far appeared, and possibly one or two works of which not even the announcements have appeared but which are reliably reported to be in contemplation. He has, in particular, been informed of a forthcoming work by an anonymous author of the Capital upon the concept of Anxiety in its psychological aspect, of which the reviewer hopes to give some account in the April issue; the work has not yet been seen, but the announcement, the editor is informed, is in preparation.

V. On the Distinction Between a Standpoint and a Style, occasioned by the editor's growing suspicion that several of his contemporaries who have declared themselves to have gone beyond Hegel have, in fact, gone beyond Hegel only in matters of style, the substance of their thought remaining where it was. The article will inquire whether stylistic supersession is sufficient to constitute philosophical supersession, or whether some further criterion is required.

Tredie Hefte, to appear at the summer quarter, July 1845

I. Provisional Summary of the Replies Received during the First Half-Volume, in which the editor will tabulate, by speculative content and by stylistic register, such replies as have, by the first of June, been communicated to him; the table will be cross-indexed by the names of the testifiers, and will, the editor hopes, supply the cultivated reader with a synoptic view of the gone-beyond such as no other instrument of our literature has hitherto provided.

II. On the Telegraphic Notice as a Speculative Form, occasioned by the editor's observation that several of his correspondents have, in declining to send a telegraphic notice in the form of a categorical determination, sent instead a considerably longer notice in a form which is neither telegraphic nor categorical nor determinate. The article will inquire whether the telegraphic notice is, by its very compactness, an inappropriate form for the speculative content; or whether the speculative content is, by its very expansiveness, an inappropriate content for any compact form whatever.

III. Correspondence Section (continued).

IV. Book-Review Section. Among the works expected to be reviewed: the second instalment of Det logiske System by N. N., announced for the New Year of 1846 and therefore, by the time of the July issue, available for advance announcement-review; the Maanedsskrift for spekulativ Tankegang mentioned in the present issue's notice 8, which is by July expected either to have issued its first number or to have communicated the reasons for the delay; and a further volume of the Sophiensen sermons, should the announcement of the second volume have been confirmed.

V. On the Question whether a Journal which receives no Replies to its standing Invitation has thereby received the Reply, that no Reply was to be supplied, an article occasioned by the editor's growing suspicion that the silence of the gone-beyond, considered as a Socratic phenomenon, contains more philosophical information than any series of replies, however eloquent, could have communicated.

Fjerde Hefte, to appear at the autumn quarter, October 1845

I. Concluding Summary of the First Volume, in which the editor will gather such results as the four issues have, by their cumulative effect, produced; the Summary will be issued in two registers, the positive (in which the results obtained will be set down) and the negative (in which the results not obtained will be set down), the editor having been led by the experience of the first three issues to suspect that the negative register may be the more substantial.

II. Editorial Reflections upon the First Year's Operation of the Journal, in which the editor will permit himself a quiet hour to consider whether the experiment has, on the whole, been worth conducting; whether the cultivated public has been served by it; and whether a second volume should be commenced.

III. Correspondence Section (concluding).

IV. Book-Review Section (concluding).

V. Index of Persons and Standpoints mentioned in the four issues of the first volume, with cross-references to the page on which each Person has first appeared and to the page on which each Standpoint has been most fully named (where, by such operation, a most-fully-named page can be identified).

Subscription Terms, Reiterated

The four issues of the first volume are sold by subscription at the price of four Rigsdaler three Mark, payable in advance to the publisher. Individual issues may be procured at the price of one Rigsdaler two Mark each. Subscribers will receive the issues by post, or, at their preference, may collect them from the publisher's establishment on the day of publication.

The editor takes the opportunity to record that, at the date of the present writing, the journal has received seventy-three subscriptions to the first volume, a number which the editor regards as sufficient to warrant continuation through the four projected issues but insufficient to warrant the commencement of a second volume. The cultivated reader who has not yet subscribed is invited to consider the matter and to communicate his decision before the close of the present quarter; those who have already subscribed are invited to mention the journal to their friends, who may, the editor hopes, by the editor's persuasion at second hand, be brought to the resolution which the editor's direct persuasion has not, in their own case, brought them.


EFTERSKRIFT AF UDGIVEREN

Dansk Grundtext

Notabene beder Læseren om Overbærenhed for een afsluttende Reflexion.

Det Tidsskrift, han nu har fuldendt, er paa sin Overflade en Anmodning om Belæring. Det beder de Hindenforgaaede om at specificere deres Bestemmelsessteder; det beder Mediatorerne om at specificere deres Procedurer; det beder Systematikerne om at specificere deres første Principer. Det første Hefte er bleven distribueret; Anmodningerne ere blevne registrerede; Svarene, saadanne som de ere, ere blevne trykte i Correspondance-Afdelingen, hvor Læseren kan inspicere dem og danne sin egen Dom om deres Tilstrækkelighed.

Jeg vil tillade mig kun denne ene Bemærkning, som Læseren har Frihed til at afskedige som Indfaldet af en Udgiver overtræt af sit første Heftes Production: at Anmodningerne efter fire Maaneder af Circulation have frembragt intet Svar af den anmodede Slags. Standpunkterne ere ikke blevne navngivne. Procedurerne ere ikke blevne specificerede. De første Principer ere ikke blevne aabenbarede. Flere af mine Correspondenter have, med beundringsværdig Høflighed, undslaaet sig at svare paa den Grund, at Svaret er i Bevægelse; een har undslaaet sig paa den Grund, at Spørgsmaalet er upassende for en Toldembedsmand; een har svaret med Katechismens Standpunkt, hvilket jeg taknemmeligt erkjender, men hvilket ikke, det maa siges, er, hvad de Hindenforgaaede skulde svare.

Jeg drager ingen Conclusion af disse Resultater. Jeg er ikke Manden til at drage Conclusioner; mit Embede er at spørge, og at trykke saadanne Svar, som modtages. Jeg vil tillade mig alene Antydningen af en Conclusion, som Læseren maa antage eller forkaste, som han behager: at Tausheden hos dem, der ere gaaede ud over Hegel, som Reaction paa den simple Anmodning, at de skulle sige, hvorhen de ere gaaede, selv er et Svar; og at det Svar, det udgjør, ikke er det, de paa nærmere Eftertanke vilde ønske at give. Den Sokratiske Procedure har siden sin Stiftelse været en Procedure for at fremkalde netop de Svar, som Respondenten ikke havde til Hensigt at give og ved Inspektion vilde foretrække ikke at have givet. Den Sokratiske Procedure bestod ikke i at fremlægge Lærdomme, men i at stille Spørgsmaal, der blottede Fraværet af Lærdom hos dem, der havde bekjendt sig til den. Nærværende Tidsskrift foreslaaer — ikke af nogen Prætention paa den Sokratiske Værdighed, men af den simple Nødvendighed af, at dets Udgiver ikke forstaaer, hvad der bliver sagt omkring ham — at anvende Proceduren paa Hovedstadens philosophiske Samtale, og at trykke Resultaterne.

Det første Hefte er Procedurens første Afdrag. Det andet Hefte, naar det fremkommer, vil være det andet. Det tredie og fjerde, i deres Sæson, ville være det tredie og fjerde. Ved Slutningen af det første Bind vil Udgiveren trykke et Resumé af, hvad der til den Tid er blevet sagt og hvad der ikke er blevet sagt, og vil overlade Læseren at danne sin Dom. Udgiveren forventer ikke at være Philosophien nærmere paa den Dato, end han er paa nærværende; han haaber dog, at Hovedstadens philosophiske Samtale til den Tid vil være bleven nogenlunde tydeliggjort, om end alene i den negative Form af en registreret Manglende-paa-at-svare paa de Spørgsmaal, der ere stillede den.

Læseren skal selv dømme. Jeg anbefaler det første Hefte til hans Taalmod og beder ham at subscribere.

Nicolaus Notabene


Faaes hos Universitetsboghandler C. A. Reitzel. Andet Hefte forventes at udkomme i April Maaned. Subscriptioner modtages.

English Translation

Notabene begs the reader's indulgence for one closing reflection.

The journal he has now completed is, on its surface, a request for instruction. It asks the gone-beyond to specify their destinations; it asks the mediators to specify their procedures; it asks the systematicians to specify their first principles. The first issue has been distributed; the requests have been registered; the replies, such as they are, have been printed in the Correspondence Section, where the reader may inspect them and form his own judgment of their adequacy.

I will permit myself only this single observation, which the reader is at liberty to dismiss as the fancy of an editor over-fatigued by the production of his first issue: that the requests, after four months of circulation, have produced no answer of the kind requested. The standpoints have not been named. The procedures have not been specified. The first principles have not been disclosed. Several of my correspondents have, with admirable courtesy, declined to answer on the ground that the answer is in motion; one has declined on the ground that the question is improper to a customs official; one has answered with the standpoint of the Catechism, which I gratefully acknowledge but which is not, it must be said, what the gone-beyond were supposed to reply.

I do not draw a conclusion from these results. I am not the man to draw conclusions; my office is to ask, and to print such replies as are received. I will permit myself only the suggestion of a conclusion, which the reader may adopt or reject as he pleases: that the silence of those who have gone beyond Hegel, in response to the simple request that they say where they have gone, is itself an answer; and that the answer it constitutes is not the one they would, on reflection, wish to give. The Socratic procedure has been, since its institution, a procedure for eliciting precisely those answers which the respondent had not intended to give and would on inspection prefer not to have given. The Socratic procedure consisted not in advancing doctrines but in asking questions which exposed the absence of doctrine in those who had professed it. The present journal proposes — not from any pretension to the Socratic dignity, but from the simple necessity of its editor's not understanding what is being said around him — to apply the procedure to the philosophical conversation of the Capital, and to print the results.

The first issue is the first installment of the procedure. The second issue, when it appears, will be the second. The third and fourth, in their season, will be the third and fourth. At the close of the first volume, the editor will print a summary of what has, by then, been said and what has not been said, and will leave the reader to form his judgment. The editor expects to be no closer to philosophy at that date than he is at this; he hopes, however, that the philosophical conversation of the Capital will, by then, have been somewhat clarified, if only in the negative form of a registered inability to answer the questions put to it.

The reader will judge for himself. I commend the first issue to his patience, and beg him to subscribe.

Nicolaus Notabene


Faaes hos Universitetsboghandler C. A. Reitzel. Andet Hefte forventes at udkomme i April Maaned. Subscriptioner modtages.

Editorial Apparatus — English
Editor’s Introduction

Editor's Introduction

Volume VIII

Philosophiske Overveielser. Et Tidsskrift. Første Hefte

Philosophical Considerations. A Journal. First Issue

together with the Andet Hefte, recovered from manuscript 1932 and here first published

by MADS FEDDER HENRIKSEN


I. Publication of the Første Hefte, 1845

The Første Hefte of Philosophiske Overveielser appeared from C. A. Reitzel in the third week of April 1845, in an edition of 750 copies (Reitzel-arkivet, Kgl. Bibl., NKS 4° 2989-A, fasc. 1844-45, fol. 209v). The journal was offered by subscription at four Rigsdaler three Mark for the projected four-issue first volume, or at one Rigsdaler two Mark for the individual issue.

The subscription notice indicated that the journal would appear quarterly. The Andet Hefte was announced, in the Notice of Forthcoming Contents of the Første Hefte (pp. 60–66 of the present edition), for April 1845 — that is, for the same quarter in which the Første Hefte itself appeared, an evident error in the printed schedule which Notabene's own subsequent correspondence indicates should have read "July 1845." The Tredie and Fjerde Hefter were announced for July and October 1845 respectively.

No further issue of the journal appeared in Notabene's lifetime. The Reitzel records indicate that 73 subscriptions to the full volume had been received by the publication of the Første Hefte; this figure rose to 142 by the close of the summer of 1845, but did not, in the event, reach the threshold which the publisher had set for the continuation of the venture. A printed slip distributed with the unsold copies of the Første Hefte in October 1845 — copies of which slip survive in two of the witnesses (see § VI below) — indicated that "the Andet Hefte, originally announced for the summer of 1845, has been postponed; subscribers will be notified, by post, of the date of its appearance, which the editor expects to be the first of the present winter."

The first of the winter passed; no notification was sent; the journal, in the conventional sense, ceased publication.

II. The 1932 discovery

In August 1932, in the course of an inventory of the Reitzel firm's premises occasioned by the firm's relocation from Vimmelskaftet to Tordenskjoldsgade, a bundle of manuscript leaves was located in the attic of the firm's old building. The bundle, tied with a length of red ribbon and labelled in a hand identified by the firm's then-archivist (Aage Bertelsen) as that of one of Reitzel's mid-century clerks, bore the inscription "N. N. — Philosophiske Overveielser, Andet Hefte, ikke benyttet" ("Not used"). The bundle contained 76 manuscript leaves, in quarto, in Notabene's hand, comprising what is unmistakably a complete fair-copy draft of the Andet Hefte of Philosophiske Overveielser. The Reitzel firm transferred the bundle to the Kongelige Bibliotek in October 1932, where it remains under the call number NKS 4° 2811.

The publication of the Andet Hefte, from the 1932 manuscript, was undertaken by Aage Bertelsen and Frede Hertel in 1934 (Gads Forlag), in a volume titled Philosophiske Overveielser. Andet Hefte. Aldrig udkommen i Forfatterens Levetid. The Bertelsen-Hertel edition has been the standard text of the Andet Hefte ever since. The present edition collates the 1934 printing against the 1932 manuscript (witness M) directly; the two are in close agreement on substantive readings, with some 23 typographical errors in the 1934 silently corrected.

The bundle in the Reitzel attic also contained, on a single separate leaf, the first three pages of what appears to be the Tredie Hefte — three pages of a Socratic dialogue between the editor and a personification of "speculative philosophy," interrupted in mid-sentence. The fragment is reproduced as Appendix B of the present edition. There is no indication in the Reitzel attic bundle, or anywhere else known to the present editor, that the Tredie Hefte was ever continued; the Fjerde Hefte is, in the present state of scholarship, presumed never to have been begun.

III. Why was the Andet Hefte not published?

The question why the Andet Hefte, having been drafted in fair copy and delivered to the publisher (as the Reitzel attic bundle's existence demonstrates), was not in the event printed has been the subject of considerable speculation. The principal hypotheses are:

  1. The subscriber-threshold hypothesis. Reitzel had set, as a commercial condition for continuing the journal, a threshold of subscriptions which had not been reached by the time the Andet Hefte was due. The publisher accordingly declined to print, returning the manuscript to Notabene (or simply filing it in the attic). The hypothesis is consistent with the surviving correspondence (Reitzel-arkivet, NKS 4° 2989-A, fasc. 1845-46, fol. 211r), in which Reitzel writes to Notabene of "the unhappy state of the journal's subscriptions, which has compelled me to defer the second issue until such time as the matter is improved."
  2. The reply-failure hypothesis. Notabene's own editorial programme depended upon receiving categorical determinations from his gone-beyond contemporaries; the responses received did not, in the event, materially advance the project (see the Andet Hefte's own Correspondence Section, in which Notabene reports that the principal correspondents have not, in the course of the summer, supplied the categorical determinations requested). The hypothesis is that Notabene, having drafted the Andet Hefte in the form it could take given the absence of the required replies, concluded that further issues would only repeat the same Socratic point and elected, on his own initiative, to withdraw the journal. The hypothesis is consistent with the elegiac note of the Andet Hefte's own Efterskrift.
  3. The biographical hypothesis. Notabene's literary affairs from the summer of 1846 onward were materially disrupted by the dissolution of his marriage (see Vol. VII, § VI, and Vol. IX, ch. 8); the abandonment of the journal coincides, in date, with this dissolution. The hypothesis is consistent with the chronology but does not address the Reitzel correspondence's mercantile framing.

The hypotheses are not, in the present editor's view, mutually exclusive. The most plausible reconstruction combines (1) and (2): the journal's subscriptions had not reached the commercial threshold; Notabene, having found the editorial enterprise less productive of substantive replies than he had hoped, did not press the publisher to continue; the project was therefore allowed to lapse without formal cancellation. The 1846 biographical disruption is plausibly a contributing factor in the absence of any subsequent revival.

The reader who wishes to pursue the matter further is referred to Bertelsen's preface to the 1934 edition (Bertelsen and Hertel 1934, pp. v–xxiv), to Holm (2011, ch. 7), and to the more recent reconstruction by Bjørn (2018, Philosophiske Overveielser og dets Skæbne, Forskningscentret).

IV. The format anomaly

The Philosophiske Overveielser is the only volume of the phantom corpus published in quarto rather than octavo. The format choice has been the subject of comment since the 1845 reviews; Fædrelandet (no. 1959, 18 May 1845) remarked on it as "the editor's evident wish to be shelved alongside Professor Heiberg's Perseus and the other quarto journals of the kingdom." The present edition retains the quarto format, in a manner that breaks the octavo uniformity of the other seven volumes of the present series — a deliberate editorial decision consistent with Notabene's own 1845 production. The format anomaly is signaled on the spine by an asterisk against the roman numeral "VIII"; the explanation appears in the slipcase insert.

V. Reception 1845–2024

The Første Hefte received four notices in the periodical press of 1845. Fædrelandet (no. 1959, 18 May 1845) is the most substantive: the reviewer treats the journal as a "Socratic intervention in the speculative literature of the kingdom" and commends the editor for the candour of the Editorial Statement. Berlingske Tidende (no. 116, 7 May 1845) and Intelligensbladene (no. 64, 25 April 1845) supply brief notices; Kjøbenhavnsposten (no. 51, 1 May 1845) supplies a hostile notice by Carl Ploug, in the same register as his Vol. I and Vol. IV reviews.

The absence of further issues meant that the Første Hefte stood, between 1845 and 1932, as the totality of the Philosophiske Overveielser known to the public. Brandes mentions the journal in Det moderne Gjennembruds Mænd (1883, p. 177) as "the Notabene undertaking that did not survive its first instalment, and which is the more interesting for the survival's brevity." The Modern Breakthrough writers showed no further interest.

The 1932 discovery and the 1934 Bertelsen-Hertel edition restored the Andet Hefte to scholarly view; the renewal of interest in the journal in the 1930s coincided with the broader Heidegger-period reception of the Notabene corpus. The journal was translated into German by Theodor Haecker in 1938 (Innsbruck), into French by Jean Wahl in 1949 (Aubier), and into English by Howard and Edna Hong in 1985 (Princeton); the Hong English is acknowledged in the apparatus as witness L. The present edition supplies a new translation.

VI. Editorial principles for the present edition

The text of the Første Hefte is based on the 1845 first printing (witness A; Kgl. Bibl., 17,-188 4°). Two of the surviving witnesses (the copies at the Royal Library and at the University of Copenhagen's Filosofisk Institut) contain the Notification Slip of October 1845 indicating the postponement of the Andet Hefte; the slip is reproduced in Appendix A of the present edition.

The text of the Andet Hefte is based on the 1932 manuscript (witness M; Kgl. Bibl., NKS 4° 2811), collated against the 1934 Bertelsen-Hertel printing (witness B). Where the 1934 printing differs from witness M, the manuscript reading is preferred; the apparatus reports the divergences.

The Tredie Hefte fragment is printed as Appendix B from the 1932 attic bundle, without emendation; the apparatus indicates only those manuscript features (insertion marks, deletions, marginal queries in Notabene's hand) that bear on the interpretation of the fragment.

The Danish facing-page text of both Hefter retains the orthography and punctuation of their respective witnesses (witness A for the Første Hefte, witness M for the Andet). The English facing-page text is a new translation; previous English versions (Hong & Hong 1985 in the Princeton Kierkegaard's Writings series, vol. XXIV) are noted in the apparatus where they bear on the present translator's choices.

A final editorial note: the Notice of Forthcoming Contents of the Første Hefte (pp. 60–66) announces, for the Andet Hefte, an article entitled On Going-Beyond as a Speculative Operation, with particular attention to the question whether the operation can occur in the absence of a determinate destination. The Andet Hefte, as recovered in 1932, does not contain such an article; the announcement was not, in the event, honoured. The present edition reports this as a substantive announcement-failure in the apparatus to the Andet Hefte, with a brief note on what the article, had it been written, would presumably have argued.

— M.F.H. Forskningscentret, December 2024

Textual Apparatus

Textual Apparatus

Volume VIII — Philosophiske Overveielser. Et Tidsskrift

Selected Notes

Model spread; the full apparatus is in the electronic edition at `forskningscentret.ku.dk/notabene/viii`.


Conventions

Sigla:

A. Philosophiske Overveielser. Et Tidsskrift. Første Hefte. Kjøbenhavn: C. A. Reitzel, April 1845. First and only printing of the Første Hefte in the author's lifetime. Edition of 750 copies. Textual basis: Kgl. Bibl., 17,-188 4°. The volume is in quarto, breaking from the octavo format of the other seven phantom volumes.

A'. The Notification Slip of October 1845, distributed by Reitzel with the unsold copies of the Første Hefte, announcing the postponement of the Andet Hefte. The slip survives in only two of the traced copies of A (the Royal Library's 17,-188 4° and the University of Copenhagen's Filosofisk Institut's library copy); it is reproduced in Appendix A of the present edition. A' is a separate witness to the publication history but bears on the text of the Første Hefte only by its existence (and so by its evidence concerning the projected Andet Hefte's date).

M. Philosophiske Overveielser. Andet Hefte. The manuscript discovered in the Reitzel firm's attic in August 1932 and transferred to the Royal Library in October of the same year. Kgl. Bibl., NKS 4° 2811. 76 quarto leaves in Notabene's hand, in fair-copy state, comprising what is unmistakably a complete draft of the Andet Hefte (Vol. VIII's second issue) as Notabene had submitted it to Reitzel in 1845. The bundle also contained, on a single separate leaf (NKS 4° 2811, fol. 77r-v), the first three manuscript pages of what appears to be the Tredie Hefte, breaking off in mid-sentence. The Tredie Hefte fragment is reproduced as Appendix B of the present edition.

B. Philosophiske Overveielser. Andet Hefte. Aldrig udkommen i Forfatterens Levetid. Edited by Aage Bertelsen and Frede Hertel. Kjøbenhavn: Gads Forlag, 1934. First edition of the Andet Hefte from manuscript M. B is the standard text of the Andet Hefte and was, prior to the present edition, the only published source. B's textual decisions are reported in the apparatus where they bear on the present text; the present edition collates M directly and supplies a new text, departing from B at 23 points where typographical errors are silently corrected and at four points of substantive editorial judgement.

L. Philosophical Considerations. A Journal. First and Second Issues. Translated by Howard V. and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985 (in Kierkegaard's Writings XXIV). The standard English translation of the combined Første and Andet Hefter; the Tredie Hefte fragment is not included in L.

G. German translation of the Første and Andet Hefter by Theodor Haecker. Innsbruck: Hochland-Verlag, 1938.

F. French translation of the Første and Andet Hefter by Jean Wahl. Paris: Aubier, 1949.

Cross-reference conventions follow those established in the apparatus to Vol. VII.


Første Hefte

Editorial Statement and Subscription Notice

General note. The opening Editorial Statement and Subscription Notice establishes the journal's Socratic premise: the editor, by his own admission, does not understand the speculative thought of his contemporaries, and accordingly proposes a journal in which his contemporaries shall teach him. The premise is the structural inversion of Heiberg's Perseus (1837-38), in which the editor undertook to teach his readers; the Philosophiske Overveielser is, in this respect, the anti-Perseus. The relation is treated at length in Holm (2011, ch. 7).

The textual situation of the Editorial Statement is simple: A preserves the text in full; M does not preserve a draft (Notabene's Editorial Statement was, by Reitzel's own letter of 14 April 1845, NKS 4° 2989-A, fasc. 1844-45, fol. 207r, "composed in the final week before publication, on the basis of a sketch supplied to me in conversation, of which no written draft was preserved").


Statement 7. the previous journal asked the public to receive what the editor had to give; the present journal asks the public to give what the editor cannot supply ] A: det forrige Tidsskrift bad Publikum modtage hvad Redacteuren havde at give; det nærværende Tidsskrift beder Publikum give hvad Redacteuren ikke kan tilveiebringe. — The structural inversion of Perseus is the Statement's principal rhetorical move. The phrase has been read by Lindhardt (1969, p. 256) as the volume's most direct critical statement of the relation between editor and reader in the contemporary Danish speculative press: the Perseus model assumed an editor in possession of knowledge to be disseminated; the Overveielser model proposes an editor in want of knowledge to be elicited. The Socratic structure of the inversion is treated in Cappelørn (1997, "Det socratiske i Notabenes Tidsskriftsforslag").

Statement 15. a single telegraphic notice in the form of a categorical determination ] A: en enkelt telegraphisk Meddelelse i en categorisk Bestemmelses Form. — The phrase has the formal-linguistic register of Heiberg's Logiske Propædeutik (1834, 2nd ed. 1837), from which the construction en categorisk Bestemmelse is drawn. Notabene's deployment is, on Pattison's reading (2014, p. 145), one of the volume's most precise pieces of Heibergian pastiche: the editor's request for "categorical determinations" from the gone-beyond uses the very Heibergian vocabulary that the gone-beyond's standpoint claims to have superseded; if the gone-beyond reply in the requested form, they revert to Heiberg; if they refuse, they decline the request altogether. The structural trap is, on Pattison's reading, the volume's central rhetorical achievement.


Address to the Men of the Kingdom Who Have Gone Beyond Hegel

General note. The Address (Section I of the Første Hefte) is the volume's principal Socratic challenge. The textual situation is straightforward: A preserves the text in full; M does not preserve a draft.

The Address requests, from those Danish writers who have publicly identified themselves as having "gone beyond Hegel," the simple statement of (a) the standpoint to which they have gone and (b) one feature distinguishing it from Hegel's own. The request, by the Editorial Statement's declared editorial principles, is to be accommodated in any form the addressee wishes; the only constraint is that the destination and one distinguishing feature be named.


Address 11. A man who has gone from Copenhagen to Roskilde will, on being asked where he has gone, say "to Roskilde" ] A: En Mand, der er gaaet fra Kjøbenhavn til Roskilde, vil paa Spørgsmaalet om hvorhen han er gaaet, sige "til Roskilde". — The Roskilde comparison is one of the volume's most frequently cited passages. The town of Roskilde, twenty-five miles west of Copenhagen, was at the date of writing under no railway connection to the Capital (the Copenhagen-Roskilde line opened in June 1847, two years after the publication of the present Hefte); travel was by Diligence (mail-coach) along the Kongevej. The choice of Roskilde rather than (e.g.) Frederiksborg or Helsingør has been read by Lindhardt (1969, p. 259) as significant: Roskilde was the seat of the Bishop of the diocese (Mynster's diocese until his elevation to the Primacy in 1834), and the implicit reference is to the theological destination toward which the gone-beyond Hegelians were, in 1844-45, increasingly perceived to be moving. The reading is consistent with Notabene's broader concern in Urania (Vol. IV) with Heiberg's potential turn from astronomy to theology.


On Mediation, the Magic Word of our Age

§ II.4. what is called the doctrine of Mediation has, in our age, acquired a position ] A: hvad der kaldes Mediations-Læren har, i vor Tid, erhvervet en Stilling. — The doctrine of Mediation is the structural cornerstone of the speculative literature Notabene's journal addresses. The treatment of Mediation in Section II is consistent with the treatment in Vol. VII § 5 (q.v., where the angest of Mediation is set out in the most personal terms); the present Section II is the more general statement of the doctrine's character, where Vol. VII's treatment is more polemical and personal.

§ II.7. Open Sesame in the Eastern tale ] A: Sesam, luk Dig op i det østerlandske Eventyr. — The reference to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of the few popular-culture references in the Notabene corpus and the only reference to the 1001 Nights tradition. The reference dates from a period when the standard Danish edition was J. L. Heiberg's Tusind og En Nat translation (1825); whether Notabene drew on Heiberg's translation or on the German Galland-tradition cannot be definitively settled. The reference has been read by Lindhardt (1969, p. 262) as a small literary-cultural orientation marker — Notabene's audience is the cultivated reader who recognises the Mediterranean/Oriental literary tradition as a shared cultural reference. — Wahl's 1949 French translation (F) annotates the passage with a footnote identifying the source as Galland's Mille et Une Nuits (1704–1717); the Hong & Hong English (L) leaves the reference unannotated.


Correspondence Section

General note. The Correspondence Section of the Første Hefte presents five letters in reply to Notabene's Address. The replies are: (1) from a customs official, declining on the grounds that the matter is improper to his office; (2) from a younger philosopher, deferring on the grounds that his standpoint is "in motion"; (3) from a parish pastor, answering with the standpoint of the Catechism; (4) from a young man, expressing willingness to reply but indicating that the matter requires further reflection; (5) anonymous, in a form that does not answer the Address but reports having "read it with the greatest interest."

The principal textual question concerning the Correspondence Section is whether the five "letters" are real or invented. The modern consensus, established with Lindhardt (1969) and confirmed in Holm (2011), is that all five are of Notabene's composition; no actual correspondents wrote to the journal during its brief operation. The principal evidence: the Reitzel firm's correspondence (NKS 4° 2989-A, fasc. 1844-45) records no letters to the journal between April and October 1845 — that is, in the entire six-month period between the Første Hefte's publication and the Notification Slip of October 1845 declaring the Andet Hefte postponed. The absence is consistent with the corporate fiction of Vol. VIII more generally: the journal exists only in its single printed issue plus the manuscript Andet Hefte.


Corr. 3 (the parish pastor's letter). the standpoint of the Catechism, namely that Jesus Christ has come, that he was crucified, that he rose again, and that he shall come once more in judgement ] A: Catechismens Standpunkt, nemlig at Jesus Christus er kommen, at han blev korsfæstet, at han stod op igjen, og at han skal komme een Gang til at dømme. — The pastor's letter is, on Pattison's reading (2014, p. 148), the volume's principal positive theological statement, presented as a reply to the Socratic Address by way of exiting its terms. The Address requests a "categorical determination" of a post-Hegelian standpoint; the pastor's reply presents the standpoint of the Catechism, which is not post-Hegelian at all but pre-philosophical altogether. The reply therefore satisfies the Address's formal requirement (a categorical determination, with one distinguishing feature) while refusing the Address's substantive presupposition (that the gone-beyond have departed from any standpoint Hegel's philosophy could be said to occupy). The reading takes the pastor's letter as the volume's most pointed theological reply to the speculative establishment.


Book-Review Section

General note. The Book-Review Section (Section IV of the Første Hefte) reviews eight items, of which only one (Cand. theol. R., Beyond the Hegelian Standpoint, Maanedsskriftet, December 1844) is a verifiable historical publication. The remaining seven are either reviews of announced but not yet appeared works or, in two cases (notices 3 and 7), reviews of works existing only as rumours. The Book-Review Section is therefore, like the Correspondence Section, principally a piece of Notabenian fiction.

The principal question of the Book-Review Section is which of the eight items have historical reference. The list of items, by present-edition numbering, is reported in the apparatus to each notice individually; the present model spread reports only the most disputed (Notice 4 of the present edition, concerning Pastor Sophiensen's forthcoming second volume).


Notice 4 (the forthcoming Sophiensen second volume). The Forthcoming Second Volume of Pastor Sophiensen's Twenty-Four Sermons for the Cultivated, to be entitled Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse* ] A: identical. — The "forthcoming Sophiensen second volume" presents the most elaborate fictional structure in the Book-Review Section: a volume by Magister Hegelius-Berlin (who is, in the present apparatus's terminology of Vol. VI, a fictional figure invented by Notabene), to be entitled Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse (Twelve Sermons for the Self-Transcending Cultivation), is here reviewed in advance of its appearance. The volume did not, in the event, appear; the "Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse" exists only as the present review of it. — The reviewer's "Notabene*" identifies himself as recused on grounds of conflict-of-interest (the Sophiensen first volume having been published by his own publisher's hand); the recusal is part of the recursive fictional structure of Vol. VIII generally. — Lindhardt (1969, p. 268) discusses the recursive structure at length; Holm (2011, p. 188) characterises it as "the corpus's most thorough exercise of self-referential fiction."


Andet Hefte (recovered from M, 1932)

General note. The Andet Hefte exists, as has been said in the General Editor's Introduction to the present volume, only in the manuscript M discovered in the Reitzel attic in August 1932. The transmission history is unusual: the manuscript was in fair-copy form, ready for the press, when the journal's commercial circumstances (insufficient subscriptions, see § II of the Editor's Introduction) led to the Andet Hefte's deferral in October 1845. The manuscript was retained in the Reitzel firm's storage; the firm did not return it to Notabene, and Notabene did not request its return. After Notabene's death in November 1858, the manuscript continued in the firm's storage; it was not, on present evidence, consulted by any reader between 1845 and 1932.

The 1932 discovery and the 1934 Bertelsen-Hertel publication (B) restored the Andet Hefte to scholarly view. The present edition collates M directly and supplies a new text; the principal departures from B are reported below.


Renewed Address to the Men of the Kingdom Who Have Gone Beyond Hegel

§ I.4. embodying such corrections and refinements as the editor has been led to make in consequence of the replies received to the present issue's Address ] M (fol. 4r, line 7): idet jeg har indfattet saadanne Berigtigelser og Forfinelser som de modtagne Svar har foranlediget mig at gjøre. B (1934): identical. — The Andet Hefte's Renewed Address opens by acknowledging that replies have been received in the interval since the Første Hefte. The acknowledgement is fictional in two senses: first, the replies acknowledged are the same fictional Correspondence Section letters of the Første Hefte (no further actual replies having been received in the intervening six months); second, the corrections and refinements the Renewed Address claims to have undertaken are, on inspection, marginal — the Address's substantive request is reissued in nearly identical form. The fictional structure is consistent with the Andet Hefte's general procedure of appearing to advance its own conversation while in fact reissuing the conversation of the Første Hefte.


On Going-Beyond as a Speculative Operation

General note. The Andet Hefte's Section II — Notabene's principal philosophical statement of the Aufhebung in vacuo doctrine — is the journal's most ambitious theoretical contribution and the place at which the speculative-procedural critique of Vols. I, IV, V, VI is most fully articulated. The doctrine of Aufhebung in vacuo — that the going-beyond operation may occur without a determinate destination, so that the going is the entirety of the operation — is the philosophical complement to the announcement-promise-eleventh-book triad of Vol. VII § 12.

The textual situation of Section II is complex. M (fols. 23r–41v) preserves the Section in fair copy, with two substantial passages cancelled in Notabene's own hand and replaced by alternative formulations. The B 1934 printing reports neither the cancellations nor the alternatives; the present edition supplies them in the apparatus as historically significant evidence of Notabene's revisional process.


§ II.14. Aufhebung in vacuo ] M (fol. 26v, line 11): underlined in Notabene's hand. B: identical, with no typographical recognition of the underlining. — The underlining of the Latin tag in the manuscript is the only typographical marking Notabene supplied in M; B's failure to report it (or to render it by italic in the printed text) is one of the present edition's principal departures from B. The present edition prints the term in italic on first occurrence, with the underline reproduced in the apparatus's facsimile plate (Plate III of the present volume).

§ II.21. In the cancelled paragraph that originally followed this point — see Apparatus note, M fols. 31r–32v, where the cancelled passage is preserved. The cancellation is one of the most substantial editorial decisions Notabene appears to have made in preparing the Andet Hefte; the cancelled passage proposed a positive doctrine of speculative motion (i.e., a description of what speculative motion would look like if its destination were determinate), which the published Section II declines. Notabene's reasons for the cancellation are not directly evidenced; the most plausible reconstruction is that he found the positive proposal incompatible with his broader Socratic-editorial posture, in which the editor confesses ignorance throughout rather than supplying alternatives. The present edition reproduces the cancelled passage as Appendix C of Vol. VIII.


Correspondence Section (continued)

General note. The Andet Hefte's Correspondence Section presents twelve letters. Two are explicitly reported as not received in the interval between issues; three are reported as having been received but in forms that did not answer the Address; seven are reported in form-quoted summaries (i.e., the editor reports what the respondent would have replied, had he replied). The form-quoted summaries are the Andet Hefte's most innovative editorial procedure: by quoting replies that did not occur, the editor preserves the Socratic dialogue without requiring its participants to participate. The procedure has been read by Cappelørn (1997, p. 234) as Notabene's most precise structural analog to S. Kierkegaard's Forførerens Dagbog (in which the Seducer narrates an encounter that the narrative does not present as having actually occurred).


Closing Editorial Reflection on the State of the Journal

§ V (closing reflection). the silence of those who have gone beyond Hegel, in response to the simple request that they say where they have gone, is itself an answer ] M (fol. 65r, lines 12–13): identical. — The closing reflection of the Andet Hefte is the journal's most pointed Socratic statement and the place at which Notabene most explicitly accepts that the absence of substantive replies is itself substantive. The reflection is, on Pattison's reading (2014, p. 152), the journal's structural completion: the Socratic procedure has, by the close of two issues, elicited what the procedure was designed to elicit — not a body of replies, but a registered silence — and the journal therefore has no further function. The reading is consistent with the Andet Hefte's appearing not to have been continued in a Tredie Hefte beyond its three-page fragment.


The Tredie Hefte Fragment

General note. The single separate leaf in the 1932 attic bundle (NKS 4° 2811, fol. 77r-v) preserves three pages of what is unmistakably the opening of a Tredie Hefte. The fragment is in fair-copy form, like the Andet Hefte materials, suggesting that Notabene continued to work on the journal beyond the Andet Hefte; the fragment breaks off in mid-sentence, suggesting that he abandoned the work at that point rather than completing the issue.

The fragment presents the opening of a Socratic dialogue between the editor and a personification of "speculative philosophy" — that is, a dialogue in which the abstract entity that the previous issues' Address and Correspondence Sections had addressed replies in person. The fragment, broken off mid-sentence with the personification of speculative philosophy in the act of beginning her first substantive answer to the editor's interrogation, is the most tantalising textual fragment in the entire phantom corpus.


Tredie Hefte fragment, closing line. Philosophy stands before me at this hour; she has agreed to answer; I shall therefore put to her the question I have, in the previous two Hefter, addressed only by post: namely, where have you gone, and what is the — ] M (fol. 77v, line 22). Breaks off. — The fragment's closing — broken off as Philosophy is about to be asked the question, before she has had the opportunity to reply — is the corpus's most precise structural emblem of its broader procedure: the question of the speculative literature is, in the journal, put repeatedly and never answered. The break-off is, on Holm's reading (2011, p. 198), Notabene's deliberate composition rather than an abandonment: the Tredie Hefte was to consist of the editor's question and Philosophy's deferred answer; the three pages preserved are the entire fragment Notabene composed, and no further continuation was intended. The reading is consistent with the Notice of Forthcoming Contents in the Første Hefte (where the Tredie Hefte was projected with substantial further contents that the manuscript does not begin to supply); on Holm's reading, the Notice's projection was itself fictional, and the Tredie Hefte was to be the three-page fragment alone, broken off mid-sentence as its proper conclusion.

The present editor records the reading; it is, on the evidence available, plausible but not demonstrable.


The complete apparatus to Vol. VIII addresses all sections of both Hefter in comparable detail, the Notification Slip of October 1845 (Appendix A), the Tredie Hefte fragment (Appendix B), and the cancelled passages of the Andet Hefte (Appendix C). The full electronic apparatus supplies the secondary apparatus of typographical and minor variants which the printed edition does not report. Plate III reproduces the manuscript leaf showing Notabene's underlining of Aufhebung in vacuo; Plate IV reproduces the Tredie Hefte fragment's closing leaf, breaking off mid-sentence.

— M. F. H. Forskningscentret, December 2024