Poster: Anonymous
Subject: Re: Where do we place Hermann Hesse? |
Nicely put. However, I think I would place Hesse as more of a writer and educator. Yes, he is definitely capable of philosophy and of entertaining some of the deepest questions concerning the human condition. His strength is found in his ardent invitation to philosophy by employing the literary tools of irony and contradiction. For example, by dividing the contemplative life and the public life (Knect being the incarnation of the former and Designori being the ideal of the latter in The Glass Bead Game), Hesse provokes the reader into entertaining the philosophical question of theory and practice - namely, can they co-exist - a question spawned by the greatest thinkers we have hitherto known. Hesse is a masterful writer and educator, but he refrains from making a definitive position on the nature of man; and, thus, refrains from philosophy properly understood.
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