"During the Finnish-Russian War of 1939, the Finns caught a Russian spy behind their own lines. It was an obvious case. The spy confessed and was to be immediately executed. He knew that he would be shot at dawn, knew it as well as anything can be known. Therefore, he appeared stoically in court. He knew the outcome. There was not the shadow of a doubt. The court scene was a theatre, a bureaucratic performance, demanded in every community founded on the rule of law, but ridiculously superfluous in his case. And still the stage does not leave him entirely untouched. Against his own will he gradually gets involved in the proceedings. When finally the death sentence is pronounced, he collapses completely. What on earth had happened? He knew the outcome with absolute certainty. We should want to say the spy knows about his imminent death now, in a new and terrifying way. He has suddenly obtained an insight, a knowledge which penetrates him, goes through bones and marrow and violently shakes up the total personality structure into its deepest and darkest labyrinths. This difference, this change in the attitude of the accused is what according to a heart-philosophical suggestion for language, may be described as "an increased integration of the spy's knowledge of his imminent death." By the same token we should probably all answer the heart-philosopher's demand for facing up to our fate by saying: “Sure I know I am going to die! All men are mortal you know," and all that. When confronted with a questionnaire asking: Are you going to die?—we should, most likely without exceptions, all cross the box for “yes," and not for a moment consider “no," “I don't know,” or “refuse to answer.” But this question remains: Do we know about our death the way the spy knew it before or after the death sentence was pronounced. Unfortunately this "integration” (or "interiorizing," "internalization,” “empathizing”) of knowledge cannot be taught in any ordinary sense of teaching. The educator should have to resort to poetry and drama in order to break through the barrier of everyday prose, platitudinal small-talk and superficial chatter. And only if this is didactically possible shall I ever see myself as I am."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English