Goethe’s Conscience

Abstract

Any student or reader of the works by Rainer Nägele knows his insistence on what he calls surface reading. Those who have had the privilege of sitting in his classes will also know his reactions to metaphors of depth, hidden meanings, and truths to be uncovered: They do not belong to the practice of reading. Reading is to discover the textual connections that are out in the open and on the surface; it is about the “carpet of truth,” as one of his essays famously ends,2 and about a “reading of correspondences.”3 The following reading is inspired by Rainer Nägele’s work. I would like to suggest how conscience, or in German das Gewissen, can be found as operating on the surface rather than as a deep interior faculty. Conscience might not be governed by deep-seated feelings of right and wrong, but might instead be structured at least partly by almost mechanical linguistic maneuvers and associations. With the help of Rainer Nägele, this is what my reading of Goethe will allow us to consider. Structuring this reading of conscience and of conscience in Goethe, especially in Faust, are the subsequent arguments: 1. Conscience is not a “deep” or “interiorized” faculty of the mind concerned with good and evil. Rather, it comes about if someone fails to have a response. Bad conscience results if one cannot or does not want to rebuff an accusation with a response, be it even a bad excuse. Hence, it is one’s task to develop mechanisms of replying to accusations to defend oneself and immunize oneself against attacks. 2. Nevertheless, one cannot or should not shield oneself entirely and has to remain available. Otherwise, one would become limited to mere presence and unreachable by the demands of others. The following notes are brief and go only a few steps in the direction of these arguments. My hope is that readers will be able to use this sketch as a starting point for their own thoughts.