Ancsel Éva: Éthos, knowing, history (Budapest, 1996)
Part II - Chapter One. On the éthos of knowing
This conception of experience perhaps does not even only pertain to the recognition of life truths. After all, Khun maintains that discovery in the sciences—including the specialized sciences—“can emerge only to the extent that his anticipations about nature and his instruments prove wrong.”3S He even conjectures that knowledge seeks a way of making failure more conspicuous and perhaps more prompting. I have been speaking about the possibility of suffering becoming a source of knowing. However, there is also a sort of knowing that of necessity turns into suffering. When we say of a Mihály Vörösmarty or of an Attila József that they lost their reasons, we might refer to a final state of enlightenment, of knowing too sharply. Admittedly, Attila József once wrote in a letter that God must love him very much, because “everything is bad, but in me it does not remain bad if it turns into pain.”36 Attila József felt privileged in this pain, a pain that did not allow the bad to remain bad in him. However, we must also realize that—precisely because of the aforesaid—the majority of people are suspicious of those suffering in the manner of Attila József. This is why Kafka is right in writing that “Unglücklich-sein ... war vielleicht der Spruch, mit dem Kain das Zeichnen aufgedrückt worden ist Es bedeutet den Verlust des Gleichschrittes mit der Welt, es bedeutet, dass der, welcher das Zeichen trägt, die Welt zerschlagen hat und, unfähig sie wieder lebend aufzurichten, durch ihre Trümmer gejagt wird.” And to this he adds that “Unglücklich ist er allerdings nicht, denn Unglück ist eine Angelegenheit des Lebens und dieses hat er beseitigt, aber er sieht es mit überhellen Augen.”37 35 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago, Chicago & London, 1962, p. 95. 34 Márta Vágó, József Attila (Attila József), Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1975, p. 141. 37 Franz Kafka, Brief an Felice [Stempel: Zürau, Post Flöhau — 16. X. 17], In: F. Kafka, Gesammelte Werke, Briefe an Felice, S. Fischer Verlag, 1967, p. 758. 167