The point at which spirit decides to exit language and enter into "real life" is only determined by the act of positing a particular stage of spiritual development as the beyond - "yonderstone" instead of cornerstone, in the Joycean style.
Up to that point, that is to say "in the past," myself appears as spirit, objective and external to me, with its internal divisions which I know to be true due to memory. And at present there are at least four divisions, although there ought to be, or rather, there is bound to be more both anterior and posterior to this list.
Up to that point, that is to say "in the past," myself appears as spirit, objective and external to me, with its internal divisions which I know to be true due to memory. And at present there are at least four divisions, although there ought to be, or rather, there is bound to be more both anterior and posterior to this list.
1. The Vocational Stage
Spirit knows the nullity of its own existence. Without it, the world will run its course, for it has always done so. From certain perspectives of ancient philosophy, this was the most tranquilizing perspective, and it was the cornerstone of an ethics, not necessarily Stoicism. But this perspective is based on the neglect of the presence of spirit. For such a presence, if the world is indeed existent in itself, is itself an enigma which cannot be solved by the bare assertion that it is not required for the world to be the way it is, has been and will be. Spirit thus looks for a "vocation," a way to step forth in the world and assert its own necessity in the process of things. This will to include itself - for here, it knows not yet that it is already included - is the ground of the vocational stage.
2. The Moral Stage
The search for the absolute vocation, and the failure therein, gives spirit the realization that it is indeed already the world. In fact, the whole world turns on itself. It was, is, and will be up to spirit alone to constitute the world. By returning out of the null world into its own omnipotence, spirit thus comes to feel the full force of all the implications of its primacy over the world. The responsibility is terrible, and spirit is now looking for a way to free itself from the burden of choosing everything for itself. In this state, spirit searches for a basis, a principle, upon which its place in the world is defined. It thereby aims to reclaim the world, not solely as its own possession, but as the chain of events which originally appeared to be autonomous, in itself, existing beyond the death of spirit. This search, and the various attempts to actualize what is found in this search (which are in fact only the moments of this search itself,) this is the moral stage.
3. The Aesthetic Stage
The universal power of spirit over the world, however, turns out to be an exaggeration. Or rather, through its attempt to universalize its own presence, its beliefs and principles, spirit comes to encounter another which resists this universalization. These systems, institutions, and material obstacles confronts spirit, and the world is given back to spirit once more, only this time as an other which is sharply distinguished from spirit itself. Compared to the first stage, the world now appears as the negative of spirit, and spirit also knows itself to be the negative of the world. Spirit now seeks to find a style of negation, a certain way of negotiating or relating to the world which immanently threatens to nullify the spiritual side of things. This is the aesthetic stage.
4. The Family Stage
The resistance from the other is also the recognition by the other. In being resisted, yet in surviving such resistances repeatedly, spirit comes to see the nullity of this negotiation itself. It does not matter how far or how little spirit pushes its own boundaries against the world. The quantitative difference does not turn into anything qualitative, but rather merely perpetuates the struggle to the point where everything becomes habitual. The need to introduce a more fundamental kind of negation arises. The only agent capable of such negativity is the other, or the family member. By relating to the absolutely free agent, wholly like itself, as its own kin and kindred spirit, spirit throws itself into a new contradiction, whereby a new struggle emerges. The other cannot be domesticated as the world has been, but at the same time, this other is not wholly other, it is attempting to do the same for spirit. Here, quantitative difference matters, for spirit knows that the degree to which it yields to the other is also the degree to which it kills itself. But the family member is at the same time spirit itself. Therefore, by being dominated by the other, spirit reclaims itself, and in fact it merely steps forth into a new existence, while asserting the higher standpoint of a universal spirit, the "I." This is the family stage.
The family stage is typically portrayed as the moment when spirit finally steps forth into life. Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a prime example. But to posit this last stage as the yonderstone of art is an arbitrary act. Indeed, Joyce is only able to justify this act by basing it in the myth of Daedalus, but this myth is something external to the concept of family, and as such it is not a justification of the ending of the Portrait at all. In this respect, Oe, who did choose to pursue the family as the new terrain of literature, is working beyond the confines of the early Joyce. The later Joyce also attempts to bring the family into prose, although not in the manner in which Oe or Tolstoy did, that is to say, directly and universally. But this is not really a legitimate critique of Joyce. In any case, the family stage is not the beyond of philosophy and literature. But that is where I stand right now, which is only a contingent fact.
