The more clearly mathematics demonstrate that the total elimination of the problem of representation – which is boasted by every proper didactic system – is the sign of genuine knowledge, the more conclusively does it reveal its renunciation of that area of truth towards which language is directed. The methodological element in philosophical projects is not simply part of their didactic mechanism. This means quite simply that they possess a certain esoteric quality which they are unable to discard, forbidden to deny, and which they vaunt at their own peril.

What sense, in fact, would there be to an inspired philosophy, unless it were possible to find something like a Muse of philosophy, unless it were possible to find an expression which, like the song of that most ancient of muses the Thebans called the Sphinx, would shatter to pieces in the very moment it unveiled its truth.