 In Novalis’s view, true philosophical insight, addressing issues of legitimacy as well as the question of meaning (or, in Kantian language, the regulative ideas of reason), provides a deepened self-understanding that guides our practice and orientation in the world. The fragment strengthens this dimension of philosophy in that it fosters critical distance and independent thinking. Such an intellectual stance, in turn, is a condition of possibility for genuine intersubjectivity, ultimately also for the republican ideals that Novalis is promoting. Before we get that far, however, we need to look, in more detail, at Novalis’s engagement with the ideals of the Enlightenment and the philosophy of German Idealism.