Life in Balance, Life in Amplitude
(1939)
In the process of modem philosophical thought, insofar as Man is
concerned, two typical and different attitudes have clearly crysrallized.
In these two attitudes there exists not only a different opinion about the
essence of human being, hut also about the role of philosophy in life.
Although both of the types we are discussing are comprehensive titles
for a great diversity of motivations and directions, prominent traits are
shared that justify their aggregation.The first of these, which gravitates
around the moral thinking that gut the namc of humanist ideology,
comprehends Man as heing essentially founded harmoniously; Man is
called to happiness and a balance of all his forces. The process of
history is at times slow and at other times faster and more energetic,
but always tends as if by law towards that natural human aim of balance
and harmony, for which everything is prepared and oriented in human
nature. Man is a being that has not yet found the natural balance
that is intrinsic to the life of all other living beings, namely a fixed form
in which life runs its course. However, according to this orientation,
this is just a provisional sirnation in life-there will come a time when
human life will be so refined and organized thal there will not be
anything essentially unsteady and uncertain in this Ufe, so that it will
function ever more complex and artificial than the life of other creatures,
but with certainty. straightforwardness. and accuracy. Oppositc to
this. the second type of philosophy of Man views him as a being that
essentially cannot be encapsulated, can never be closed Into a definitive
form of life. On the contrary, Man appears to he most human and in
his highest human function where the seemingly Rxed form of life is
scattercd and where everything problematic, unsteady and extreme.
which is hidden under the surface of normal Living, is recovered.
Behind these two views stand two different attitudes towards life.
The first type of philosophy is an expression of the common, of the
Life in Balance, Life in Ampliiude
leveling out of the everyday. The everyday with its normality, in which
nothing substantial happens, in which there are no radical incisions,
and when in the end the grayness of life triumphs over everything-this
is the character of the understanding that we encounter
here. Not that it would he a boring or bored philosophy; on the contrary
it is very optimistic and sees life clearly, positively, and practically.
But thcre exists in it - openly or secretly - a resistance to everything
"not normal", extreme or sweeping, too constructive or inquisitive,
fantastic or risky, that is contained in the nature of life and tempts it
down dangerous paths. This philosophy holds on to the drab light of
the usual day and places its "day view" against the "night view" of the
experimentation of his opponent. Is it not quite clear that life has its
own particular aims and rules, and that it is not necessary or cvcn
possible to penetrate deeper than what the everyday offers? Is it not
clear that above all it is necessary to "cultiver son jardin"?' is it nor
easy for people with common sense to agree about what is significant
and practical, and leave to the madmen and the fantasists of this world
thcir insignificant domain that ir far from life? Life is a serious matter,
but essentially simple. Let's live rationally, i.e., on the basis of deliberation,
on thc basis of all of our forces and powerr. and we will reach
the best that Man can ever possibly attain: harmony, balance, and bliss
to that degree to which natural pains and losses allow Man. Those
cases where life has not yet achieved harmony are due to the influence
of mental, and mainly intellectual defects that are possible to gct nd
of through education, and to the influence of improper social institutions
that are possible to get rid of through a rationally guided swial
process.
It is clear that this view corresponds to something very essential,
some kind of fundamental need of our spirit. The task of rationally
designed human coexistence seems to be easy in principle. It is difficult
to understand why cractly people understand each other so little.
The means and ends of human life seem to be so obvious. From the
primitive hedonism of some of the panics in the epic poem of Cilgamesh,
from the Indian and Chinese moral materialism or utilitarianism
to the delicately refined modem systems of social evolution or social
correction, this obviousness remains unchanged in the eyes of the rep'
Ct. Voltaire, Cmdide,ch. XXX. Ed.
33
resentatives of the view that is so often given the title of Enlightenment.
In every person there is the inclination to think this way. This
inclination becomes permanent especially in those with strongly rational
characters and in enthusiasts of action when action is understood
as a technical problem. But this also empowers the poetically and morally
enthusiastic characters precisely with its promise of universal
harmony, justice. and happiness.
Yet there is something very unfavorable that argues against the theses
of this philosophy. How is it that our human reality corresponds so
terribly little to this philosophy and that always when Man attempts to
implement it in reality, he usually must return for a long time to the
thoughts and goals that he opposed in the beginning, against which he
went to fight? How is it that thoughts seemingly so obvious lead in
concrete situations to their opposites, that that which in these thoughts
inspires future happiness, leads to tragedy, and that which wants to
create a new life with serious meaning, so easily covers up laxity and
moral decay?
Of course, to such a burning question the thinkers of this orientation
have an answer ready at hand. Or rather, they have a whole range of
answers that, in cuncrero, differ from each other, but what they have in
common is that the author's intention and the author's system does not
bear any blame for failure; reality had not yet reached the level that
would allow the theory to be applied, or reality will soon catch up with
the unfulfilled promises. They argue long and convincingly, they know
howposrfesrurn to diagnose in such detail all the causes and motifs and
incorporate them again and again into their schemes that were not able
to predict events. hut curiously enough they easily know how to absorb
them so that the shaken trust rises again and resorts to new plans, new
hopes in which the old hopes are revived. Condorcet, in the middle of
the revolutionary terror. in which he himself would soon drown, devises
his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Pmgress of the Human
M i d with his perspectives on infinite perfection, on the infinite development
of all positive abilities of the spirit by which Man heightens
his understanding of nature and the possibilities of ruling over it. In the
midst of the storm, in which the subsequent generation saw the catasJean
Antoine Nicolas dc Caritat, Marquis de Condorcer(1743-1794. Esquisse
d'un rohleou hisrorique desprogres de i'esprir humoin. Paris 1795 Ed.
trophe of Enlightennlent thought, he tried to fool himself, to forget
himself in a dry phantasmagoric future that would correspond more to
the demands of thought. Many social reformers, Saint-Simon for
example, go from catastrophe to catastrophe retaining the structure of
their optimism and continue to fill in new persons and conditions into
it. How many times have so many Saint-Simonistes shed their skin (not
mentioning the newer and more relevant people), especially Enfantin,
SO as to correct the continuous catastrophes and salvage the most essential
aspects in which they experience the core of their own being.
And in their humiliation, in this test to reach the roots of being, these
figures take on a dimension for us that they had been missing so far,
which was foreign to them and is only now imposed. They take on
painful depths, they are something more than they admit to theniselves,
their enthusiasm obtains depth only now. That. which those who suffered
with dignity did not see with the eye of the spirit that they trusted
with the whole truthfulness of the soul. became obvious to them only
through the hard oppressing blows of reality thal willingly or not they
had to respect.
For truly here the paths separate. Either Man is a finite,closed entity
with a fixed form of life, and thus in principle history is a finished
process, the searching for balance is justified as an aspiration for the
aim of human society, all failures of our social, communal endeavors
are only imperfections of a bad calculation that will finally somewhere
come out right: or Man is essentially not something like that, he essentially
cannot achieve balance and closure apart from by degradation, by
not acknowledging himself. Fichte said, that our philosophy depends
on how we are.' Pico de la Mirandola in his famous speech on human
dignity' stated that God gave Man the freedom to choose and design
the form of life he likes. However, the freedom of Man consists above
all in the possibility to be or not be something more than Man seems to
be. There exists a profound philosophical experience that Socrates and
Plato imparted to all subsequent philosophical meditations. This is the
chorismos, the divide between that which is and that which only seems
J. G. Fichte, "Ers~eEinleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre" (17971, in: Gesamtousgobe
der Boyerischen Akodemie d',r Wirrrrtrrhojien. V o l I. 4: W e r k
1794-1796, E. Lauth, Stuttgart - Bad Cannstadtl 1970. p. 195. Ed.
G.Pico della Mirandola. De horninis di~nitorr(1486). Hamburg 1990. Ed
to be, although this seeming originally concealed being and more
strongly imposed itself than being did. Plato interpreted this difference
as the divide between that which is understandable through reason and
that which is accessible through the senses; for far-ranging speculative
reasons, it is not possible to agree with Plato here. But the divide, the
chorismos, is here and is manfested in a series of phenomena that are
not of themselves proof. but that moves us closer to understanding
I
what it is about.
The first such phenomenon is drawn from history. History is not
renewed so much by changing its material, but rather that the form of
t
life of Man changes within it. Other aims, other sentiments, other
interests. other realities continually appear in history. By rebound,...~-~- .
some of these immensely sensitive and changeable dimensions even
have an impact on that which is the most fixed and constant in life: on
the natural givenness of the human vital needs and on the natural
surroundings that now speaks to us in symbolic speech and suggests
another world.
It is possible to draw the second from the comprehension of history.
Even the remote mental achievements and forms are accessible to our
study, and although we may often be mistaken which is human, we
might not always be able to disengage ourselves from ourselves and
hence we may distoa our object of study, we still very often succeed
in truly penetrating into a foreign world. into dimensions so far hidden
from us, and then it is like our eyes are opened: "in the secret [...I
a new heaven is opened up, the sun of your day projects a shadow in
a new direction".'
Another hint grows out of observation of oneself. Our life is not
played out on level ground, but rather in various depths; each depth has
its own conception of the others and knows about its own relation to
the level ground of the average calm of life. Our mental development
is not, figuratively speaking, a mere change of the objects in our living
space. but rather movement from room to room, during which horizons
into the indefinite open up from all sides.
A further hint is in the analysis of culture. Its creation was not and
is not a mere attitude of indulgence and utility towards the richness of
human life, but rather the fascination by the whole of the world always
0.Bierina, Cos. in: Rurr. Prha 1901. Ed.
Life in Balance, Life in Amplitude
lives in human life, (a more detailed analysis would be needed to show
this), and this by a different way for each of the different cultural
powers like science. philosophy, art, vita activa, and religion. This
relation to the whole, this fascination with the whole-how else to
construe this than as an essential relation of Man to that which is most
universal, most comprehensive, elevated above everything limited and
finite? What is finite itself can certainly never experience the infinite,
the suprafinite and have a rapport with it.
So now perhaps it is possible to state at least ceRain indices that
prepare the ground for a philosophy of amplitude. What does this philosophy
mean? First of all. it is necessary to clarify what I understand
to be a life in amplitude. I do not mean by this the mere inrensiry of
life; a life in balance can be full of enthusiasm and pretend to be
mysticism, of which we have so many examples from utopian socialism.
For instance, the Saint-Simon sect provides tons of examples: its
adherents talk about God, future life, metempsychosis. they mixed
a foggy metaphysics with theories about free love and the first projects
about economic planning, and they took it as especially important that
they were considered to a religious formation; and yet they could not
dupe the provident eye of Carlyle who exposed their "religion" to be
political propaganda. Amplitude is where Man leaves behind him the
everyday level of the usual life of enchantment, the level of sober
untruth that veils vision before the true heights and true dangers of our
existence-there towards which Man heads with a calm expression
and before which our timid finitude flees.
What does this necessary, diligent, reasonable everyday finitude
want. what does it wish for? Nothing less than a guarantee of itself,
a guarantee of a happy ending, a guarantee of the reasonable and practical
purposefulness of living. Even though I will not be myself. my
life will remain in the work I have done, passed down to those who
follow. Mulraquepars mei vitabit Libitin~m.~The life of the individual
and the society must have a kind of fixed center that it can be leaned
upon. It is possible to close one's eyes to the nothingness that will
someday embrace us completely, and give oneself over to the frenzy of
work and activity. It is possible to have friends and opponents. to play
an immense game with the lives of thousands and flip the switches of
Q. Horatius Flaccus. Exegimonumenrum, in: Carmina, ttI, 30, b-7. Ed.
Living in Problemoriciry
history. It is possible to believe and hope that behind it all stands
a benevolent force that sets all of the deficiencies of life right; one
Russian philosopher formulated it recently that life made sense only
then when it lasts long enough to be able to become worthy to be lived
so that its subject can take it upon himself with dignity.
The timid finitude closes its eyes before the fact that life is bordered
by two chasms, between which there exists a minute enclave of calm
like a brief pause, which only makes sense in relation to that which is
not a pause. The contingent person with his contingent aims has to
become eternal, has to be victorious in the competition of history-this
also is a "philosophy of history" that corresponds to this standpoint.
Already in advance he experiences the satisfaction of the victory that
will never be real for him, and in this way he projects himself so far
beyond himself, far outside of himself. This self-elongation, self-projection
seems to be something reasonable and obvious: it makes possible
organized and noble work thar then gives one the impression that
he is the lord over his own history, that he fights for ideas, that he lives
in his empirical life a kind of divine drama, in which empirical Man is
only the surface layer of a more profound divine life.
Furthermore, the average life yearns to be spared the shaking that we
seemingly encounter contingently, which signifies a test, loss, pain,
which in the program of practical life that is arranged according to
plans and aims for successes, signifies sheer deficit. It yearns for life
to be arranged as practical as possible, with excluding most of these
deficits. This average life does not doubt thar its apparent satisfaction
is the real fullness of life. It seeks to elude that which, in spite of all
official optimism, it grasps as its inner deficit which awaits the time
that the stream of life would reach the next vortex when the deficit
becomes a real catastrophe. Life knows about its inner weakness and
its first reaction is to elude its consequences.
The philosophy of amplitude is one that is conscious that life must
in each moment bear the entire weight of the world and accepts this
duty. The philosopher does not want to look for and construct artificial
paradises that transform the human future, and does not want to awake
banal hopes. He attempts to make the world easy by a different
method.
He starts from the view that the life in amplitude is a fact. We experience
the life in amplitude when we extricate ourselves from the life
in enclave and go, as Jaspers says, to the boundaries of our existence.
Lifh in Buluncs Lifh in Arnpli,ude
(This advancing to the boundaries as a thought inspiring the modem
philosophy of existence is correct and positive. However, the carrying
out of this thought in existential philosophy, e.g., in Jaspers, is not
positive enough-it is too hesitant.)
The boundaries, to which Man is constricted, are of two types. On
the one hand, there is physical weakness and Man's limitation of will,
manifesting in physical pain, misery, disease, oppression, guilt, and
death. This always possible and, in this possibility, constantly present
deficit is not contingent for Man. If these possibilities did not exist,
Man would not be what he is in his essence. The ability to suffer is
positive. This exists also in animals, but Man suffers more and deeper.
This greater suffering comes from a higher consciousness. The higher
consciousness is a second, inner boundary that is inside us deeper than
we ourselves are: that overcoming of the moment, that advancing to the
universal horizon, which lives in us and allows us to encounter reality,
which we deal with and that never completely fulfills us. The unified
structure of the experienced world is something different than a collection
of physical and mental realities. And this structure is the reason
why the more we hope and the clearer we see life, consequently also
the more we suffer.
Living in amplitude means a test of oneself and aprotest. In amplitude,
Man is tested by exposing himself to the extreme possibilities that
are mere abstract, distant possibilities for the common life, and protests
against those that are usual and obvious. Strangeness and peculiarity,
however, are not the motives here since the pursuit of them is something
so common. Man reaches amplitude under the fascinating impression of
the boundaries that encirclehis life. He must face these boundaries, if he
searches for truth. If we want truth, we are not allowed to look for it only
in the shallows, we are not allowed to be fascinated by the calm of ordinary
harmony; we must let grow in ourselves the uncomfortable, the irreconcilable,
the mysterious, before which the common life closes its
eyes and crosses over to the order of the day.
The existence in amplitude often gives to the usual consciousness
the impression of unnaturalness, disease, spasms, which the healthy,
normal person cannot handle. Of course, there are various types of
such a life: Socrates does not give the impression of being spasmodic,
and yet his life rose to heights practically unattainable; in Pascal there
is not only the vehemence of the attacker and heroic defender, but also
a mystical calmness. But Kierkegaard, with his eternal reflection, with
his tense dialectic gives the impression of inhuman ice; Nietzsche the
impression of convulsion; Dostojevsky the impression of ongoing crisis.
All of them are in some way inaccessible; we feel them protrude
from our warm surroundings into the icy vacuum. To endure this position.
to truly undergo it. is a strange phenomenon that is difficult to
understand; we truly see that they often completely bum up rather than
abandoning this position and descending-and in this position they
protest vigorously against the all too human illusions, against the na-
6ve paradises of the huddled. "harmonic" souls, against those life drrams
in the calm, untroubled tracks of employment, work, usual obligations.
utility, harmony. and happiness. They also look for their
paradise, hut it is not a paradise of closed. but rather open eyes.
By taking off into amplitude. they employ the freedom inherent to
Man. Only by doing this, they make the potential freedom real, since
only by acting can they attain that which Man mly is. and thus that
which he rruly can be. That is how they realize the chorismos, the
chasm between the two orientations of humanity, between the path of
all matter and the narrow path of the spirit.
For the spirit is not. as so often it is supposed by those who depict it
in a too convenient way; living from the ready-made. It is not the mere
occupation with the sublime or immaterial, but rather it is a relation to
the world, living from comprehending the world as a whole, as attained
in amplitude. This is an universal interpretation, coming from a light
ignited not intellectually, but from the life of the spirit striking againht
the hard stones of our borders.
He. who takes such a possibility upon himself, is free in a profound
sense. He frees himself of the mere seeming that nailr us to deep
weaknesses, to futiIe hopes. The awoken freedom revealed what seemed
to be as seeming and in accepting the danger acquired only now
its full safety, acquired for Man a life out of his own routs, out of his
own foundation. Because in this, in the struggle for freedom, in the
struggle with himself, Man took possession of himself, of the deepest
that he has in himself or that he is able reach. In this spark [his new life
appears to him.
Already from the time of Rohde,' it has been well known that the
Greek epos - which formulated a bright world of Olynlpic gods and
' Erwin Rahde (t845-1898), Gerrn,,n clr~c.~ir.alphilolo~isl.See also E. Rahindependent,
courageous, free people - was an act of liberation from
the dark power of the chthonic myth; more recen~lyBaumler made an
attempt to show Greek tragedy in a similar light.RBut also Greek philosophy,
with its principle of participation in ideas. of the getting under
control of heing hy means of idea, is essentially a way to endure when
coming face to face with the panic of myth and the shallowness of
popular religion. Christianity meant and means a descent into the sphere
of pain and guilt, at the retrieval of their meaning-and again here
a new world spreads out in front of our eyes. This all is only a crude
illustration of what we want to say here: in real amplttude Man does
not only get under control his external, but also his internal boundaries.
There does not exisl any true spiritual activity arising only from the
sphere of ideas. Our internal border, the world that lives within us, does
not cause us pain. However. pain. brought under control and endured
in amplitude, teaches us to discover the world and shows us that we are
free in interpreting its meaning.
Pain casts or can cast us into that dimension that is not closed to us.
lo the dimension of our own depth, which cannot be plundered. For this
discovering of the inner, altered light, it is possible even to love pain.
which is so much deeper and greater than the inebriation from power
and success. The essence of humanity is not to feel fulfilled by finiteness.
But power, success, and "mundane" greatness are finite things.
Crude souls can speak about spiritual imitations of mundane successes.
about the sour grapes of the world. But he who has been transformed
by pain, no longer has a yearning for the vulgar bliss and tough power
of the day, as long as he does not fall down to an entirely different level.
He praises that which hindered him from succumbing to the common
emptiness and aimlessness that is called the desire for power and happiness.
Therefore. all of the true lovers of the eternal and infinite are
above all those who have gone through adversity and pain. We take
adversity here in its literal meaning of opposing the spontaneous huddling
of human nature, going against our illusions, against our beloved
fears, fed by secret wishes, against our superstitions.
de. Psyche. Seelenkzclr und Un.srrrblickkt~;lsgluuhrdrr Grirchm, Vol. 1-11. Frelburg
im B. 1890-1894. Ed.
Qtfred Baumkr, "Preface" in: F. Nietrsche. Dzr Geburr der Trogi~dir,Stuttgart
1955.Ed.
Living in Problemo~icir~
The philosophy of amplitude follows the whole play of human
experiences, standpoints, and life attitudes, it warns against the usual
illusions and inspires the love for the eternal-this love alive in
this philosophy.
Ideology and Life in the Idea
In the period between the two wars, there was much debate about how
Man has become more problematic for himself than ever before. During
this period, the contemporary understanding of Man had broken
apart, and out of this different "ideas of Man" had allegedly emerged.
Thus, theory has been marked by disunity, while at the same time
a deeper crisis has been played out inpraxis. It is evident that from the
First World War up to today one of these ideas of Man is still in crisis;
i.e., the idea of Man which can be called specifically modern, which
has its roots in Enlightenment thought on nature and human nature. and
out of which humankind's programs and ideals have successively
emerged since 1715 until today.
When discussing concept and idea, we need lo distinguish specifically
between the two. The concept of Man is a theory about him,
a theory that stands alongside other theories; it is a theory. as it does
not engage us. As such a concept can become myth or ideology, which
do engage, which accommodate these tendencies. needs, and forces
that lay dormant within us to lead, direct, and draw them together for
the needs of social action.
However, ideology - although it engages, conceptually grasps. and
binds us - seizes Man extemallv. like certain forces in the overall,.
complex of forces. Forces such as what is required to achieve a certain
social aim that is solely valuable and valid; so that everything else, not
the least of which is the will and activity of the individual. acquires its
significance from this aim alone. An idea is something distinct from
this: an idea must be embodied, and this embodiment in life concerns
our innermost personal core and can never be indifferent towards this
inner core. An idea appeals to us, not so that we put ourselves "at the
service of the Idea", but rather to be in the Idea, to exist in the Idea.