Volume 15, Tome II: Kierkegaard's Concepts: Classicism to Enthusiasm (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) [1 ed.] 9781472428394, 1472428390

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Classicism
Comic/Comedy
Common Man
Communication/Indirect Communication
Communion
Concept
Concrete/Abstract
Confession
Conscience
Consciousness
Contemporaneity
Contingency/Possibility
Contradiction
Corrective
Courage
Creation
Crisis
Crowd/Public
Culture/Education
Dance
Death
Decision/Resolve
Defiance
Demonic
Desire
Despair
Dialectic
Dialogue
Dogma/Doctrine
Double movement
Double-Reflection
Dreams
Duty
Dying To/Renunciation
Earnestness
Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon
Enthusiasm

Citation preview

KIERkEGAARD’S CONcEPTS TOME II: CLASSIcISM TO ENTHUSIASM

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 15, Tome II

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources is a publication of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre

General Editor JON STEWART Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Editorial Board FINN GREDAL JENSEN KATALIN NUN PETER ŠAjDA Advisory Board LEE c. BARRETT MARÍA j. BINETTI ISTVÁN CZAkÓ HEIkO ScHULZ cURTIS L. THOMPSON

Kierkegaard’s Concepts Tome II: Classicism to Enthusiasm

Edited by STEVEN M. EMMANUEL, WILLIAM McDONALD AND JON STEWART

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2014 Steven M Emmanuel, . William McDonald, Jon Stewart and the contributors Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald and Jon Stewart have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Library of Congress Control Number: 2013946604 ISBN 9781472428394 (hbk) Cover design by Katalin Nun

Contents

List of Contributors List of Abbreviations

ix xiii

Classicism Nassim Bravo Jordán1 Comic/Comedy Oscar Parcero Oubinha5 Common Man Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal11 Communication/Indirect Communication Jamie Turnbull17 Communion David Coe25 Concept Stine Zink Kaasgaard29 Concrete/Abstract Steven M. Emmanuel35 Confession David Coe43 Conscience Curtis L. Thompson47 Consciousness Patrick Stokes55 Contemporaneity Leo Stan61

vi

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

Contingency/Possibility Gabriel Ferreira da Silva67 Contradiction Jakub Marek73 Corrective J. Michael Tilley81 Courage Lauren Greenspan87 Creation Curtis L. Thompson93 Crisis Charles Cahill101 Crowd/Public Leo Stan107 Culture/Education Gabriel Guedes Rossatti115 Dance Curtis L. Thompson121 Death Adam Buben129 Decision/Resolve Narve Strand135 Defiance David Lappano139 Demonic William McDonald147 Desire Nathaniel Kramer153 Despair William McDonald159

Contents

vii

Dialectic Alejandro Cavallazzi Sánchez165 Dialogue Irina Kruchinina171 Dogma/Doctrine Lee C. Barrett179 Double Movement Roe Fremstedal187 Double-Reflection Wojciech Kaftański195 Dreams Anne Nielsen199 Duty Azucena Palavicini Sánchez207 Dying To/Renunciation Adam Buben213 Earnestness John J. Davenport219 Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon Kyle A. Roberts229 Enthusiasm Carson Webb235

This page intentionally left blank

List of Contributors Lee C. Barrett, Lancaster Theological Seminary, 555 W. James St., Lancaster, PA 17603, USA. Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal, Philosophisches Seminar der Christian-AlbrechtsUniversität zu Kiel, Leibnizstraße 6, 24118 Kiel, Germany. Nassim Bravo Jordán, Universidad Iberoamericana, Prolongción Paseo de la Reforma 880, Lomas de Santa Fe, 01210, Mexico City, Mexico. Adam Buben, Philosophy Department, Northern Arizona University, 800 Humphreys St., P.O. Box 6011, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6011, USA. Charles Cahill, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Department of History, 3211 Mosse Humanities Building, 455 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706-1483, USA. Alejandro Cavallazzi Sánchez, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Prolongación Paseo de la Reforma 880, Lomas de Santa Fe, Mexico, C.P. 01219, Distrito Federal, Mexico. David Coe, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105, USA. John J. Davenport, Fordham University, Department of Philosophy, Collins Hall 125, 441 East Fordham Rd., Bronx, New York, NY 10458-5198, USA. Steven M. Emmanuel, Department of Philosophy, Virginia Wesleyan College, Norfolk, VA 23502, USA. Gabriel Ferreira da Silva, Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS, PPG –Filosofia, Av. Unisinos, 950, Bairro Cristo Rei, São Leopoldo/RS – Brazil, CEP 93.022-000. Roe Fremstedal, University of Tromsø, Department of Philosophy, 9037 Tromsø, Norway. Lauren Greenspan, Duke Divinity School, 407 Chapel Drive, Durham, NC 27707, USA.

x

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

Gabriel Guedes Rossatti, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – UFSC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Campus Universitário – Trindade – CEP 88.040-970 – Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Wojciech Kaftański, Australian Catholic University, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Locked Bag 4115 DC, Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Melbourne, Australia. Nathaniel Kramer, Brigham Young University, Department of Humanities, Classics, Comparative Literature, 3008 JFSB, Provo, UT 84602, USA. Irina Kruchinina, Lomonosov Moscow State University, GSP–1, Leninskie Gory, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation. David Lappano, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, Pusey Street, Oxford OX1 2LB, UK. Jakub Marek, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, U Kříže 8, 158 00 Praha 5 Jinonice, Czech Republic. William McDonald, School of Humanities, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. Anne Nielsen, Aarhus University, Institut for Kultur og Samfund, Systematisk Teologi, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 3, bygning 1453, lokale 321, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Azucena Palavicini Sánchez, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Faculdad de Filosofía y Letras, Programa de Maestría y Doctorado en Filosofía, Circuito Interior s/n Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City D.F., 04510, Mexico. Oscar Parcero Oubinha, Universidade de Vigo, Facultade de Ciencias da Educación, Campus A Xunqueira s/n, Pontevedra, Spain. Kyle A. Roberts, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, MN 55112, USA. Leo Stan, Department of Humanities, York University, 262 Vanier College, 4700 Keele St., Toronto ON, M3J 1P3, Canada. Patrick Stokes, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood VIC 3125, Australia. Narve Strand, Lillehammer University College, Faculty of Social Sciences, Post Box 952, 2604 Lillehammer, Norway. Curtis L. Thompson, Thiel College, 75 College Avenue, Greenville, PA 16125, USA.

List of Contributors

xi

J. Michael Tilley, Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, 1510 St. Olaf Ave., Northfield, MN 55056, USA. Jamie Turnbull, Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, 1510 St. Olaf Ave., Northfield, MN 55056, USA. Carson Webb, Department of Religion, Syracuse University, 501 Hall of Languages, Syracuse, NY 13244-1170, USA. Stine Zink Kaasgaard, Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Farvergade 27 D, 1463 Copenhagen K, Denmark.

This page intentionally left blank

List of Abbreviations Danish Abbreviations B&A Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1953–54. Bl.art. S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død, udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by Rasmus Nielsen, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1857. EP

Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer, vols. 1–9, ed. by H.P. Barfod and Hermann Gottsched, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1869–81.

Pap. Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. I to XI–3, ed. by Peter Andreas Heiberg, Victor Kuhr and Einer Torsting, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. I to XI–3, by Niels Thulstrup, vols. XII to XIII supplementary volumes, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, vols. XIV to XVI index by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1968–78. SKS Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, vols. K1–K28, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, Alastair McKinnon and Finn Hauberg Mortensen, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag 1997–2013. Samlede Værker, vols. I–XIV, ed. by A.B. Drachmann, Johan Ludvig SV1 Heiberg and H.O. Lange, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1901–06. English Abbreviations AN Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998. AR On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1955. ASKB The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by H.P. Rohde, Copenhagen: The Royal Library 1967.

xiv

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

BA The Book on Adler, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998. C

The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

CA The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980. CD Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997. CI The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989. CIC

The Concept of Irony, trans. with an Introduction and Notes by Lee M. Capel, London: Collins 1966.

COR The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982. CUP1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982. CUP2 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982. CUPH Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2009. EO1 Either/Or, Part I, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1987. EO2 Either/Or, Part II, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1987. EOP Either/Or, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1992. EPW Early Polemical Writings, among others: From the Papers of One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars, trans. by Julia Watkin, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990. EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

List of Abbreviations

xv

FSE For Self-Examination, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990. FT Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983. FTP Fear and Trembling, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1985. JC Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985. JFY Judge for Yourself!, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990. JP Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vols. 1–6, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk (vol. 7, Index and Composite Collation), Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press 1967–78. KAC Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1944. KJN Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press 2007ff. LD Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik Rosenmeier, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978. LR A Literary Review, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 2001. M The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998. P Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997. PC Practice in Christianity, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991. PF Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.

xvi

PJ

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1996.

PLR Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require, trans. by William McDonald, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press 1989. PLS Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1941. PV The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998. PVL The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an Author, trans. by Walter Lowrie, New York and London: Oxford University Press 1939. R Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983. SBL Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989. SLW Stages on Life’s Way, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1988. SUD The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980. SUDP The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Alastair Hannay, London and New York: Penguin Books 1989. TA Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978. TD Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1993. UD Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1993. WA

Without Authority including The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air, Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion

List of Abbreviations

xvii

on Fridays, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997. WL Works of Love, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1995. WS Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

This page intentionally left blank

Classicism Nassim Bravo Jordán

Classicism (Klassicisme—noun; klassisk—adjective) Derived from the French classicisme, the Danish word makes reference to a predilection for classical antiquity and its spirit. It refers also to an artistic style that tries to imitate classical antiquity. In its adjectival form, the term refers generally to the ancient Greek and Roman world, especially its literature and art, which were considered by the humanists to represent the highest model of achievement.1 The word “classicism” is not mentioned as such in Kierkegaard’s works. He normally uses its adjectival form, “the classical” (det Klassiske/det Classiske), or refers to antiquity (det Antike), which is usually understood to be a synonym. These terms are most frequently found in Either/Or, published in 1843 under the pseudonym “Victor Eremita,” followed by The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard’s dissertation of 1841. However, the most in-depth discussions about the concept of classicism and the classical occur in Kierkegaard’s loose papers from 1836. During this period Kierkegaard became increasingly interested in German Romanticism and tried to outline the features of this movement by contrasting it with its opposite, namely, classicism. Thus Kierkegaard took on the task of defining the classical. As noted earlier, the classical is commonly associated with antiquity, and more specifically Greece. It is important to underscore this link. Later on Kierkegaard would even use the term “Greekness” (Græcitet) as a synonym for “classical,” particularly in The Concept of Irony and Either/Or. The classic, therefore, corresponds to something that possesses this Greek quality, which consists basically of three main features: necessity, unity, and serenity. These characteristics are in radical opposition to Romanticism.2 (1) Necessity. The classical necessity is understood in opposition to the engagement of Romanticism with possibility. Classicism is associated with the determinate nature of the present tense, whereas the Romantic is aorist.3 The latter is an ambiguous tense that can refer both to the past and to the future (the possible), but not to the present. This represents the Romantic tendency to look for an ideal that is beyond given actuality. Contrariwise, the classical spirit disapproves of this

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 10, column 517. 2 Cf. SKS 27, 137, Papir 149 / JP 3, 3804. 3 Cf. SKS 27, 130, Papir 128:2 / JP 1, 17. 1

2

Nassim Bravo Jordán

type of endeavor because it claims that the ideal can be found within actuality.4 In this sense, and according to the aforementioned metaphor of tense, the classical is always present, inasmuch as perfection is already attained in contemporary reality. For the Greek spirit, the conventions and traditions of the time were the sole and unquestionable source of truth and sense—given actuality is intrinsically perfect and self-explanatory, that is, it has a necessary and determinate nature. Accordingly, the classical does not require miracles5 or allegories6 to express its ideal, because, strictly speaking, it has no ideal (the ideal is the actual).7 (2) Unity. The opposite of classical unity is the incompatibility and separation in Romanticism of ideality and actuality. As we have already seen, in antiquity the perfect and the highest occur in actuality, so there is unity and even identification between the ideal and the actual: “Classical antiquity is the division of the ideal into the actual without a remainder.”8 A consequence of this is the continuity of the classical spirit with the established order, an “adaptation to whatever the conventional structure of a particular time indicates as appropriate for a contemporary.”9 Romanticism, on the other hand, is commonly at odds with the established order, which is negated because it cannot fulfill the Romantic ideal. The classical is an organic, finite, and determinate whole, a unity, in contrast to the Romantic infinity that is a “flowing over all boundaries.”10 From an artistic point of view, the main traits of classicism are the “singularity, unity, and simplicity of the great, of the sublime,”11 whereas Romantic art is associated with diversity and multiplicity. (3) Serenity. In classical unity there is harmony among the parts of the whole, and as a result we find a sense of serenity. The contrary is Romantic restlessness. One finds “quiet” and “security” in reading a classic. Romanticism, on the other hand, “is something like watching a man write with hands which tremble so much that one fears the pen will run away from him any moment into some grotesque stroke.”12 Artistically, the classical is related to the steadfastness and serenity of sculpture.13 Indeed, even classical sculptures that depict a restless situation (“for example, Laocoön crushed by serpents”14) appear to be serene. Finally, Kierkegaard argues that classical antiquity, along with its “harmonious unity,” was historically destroyed by Socratic irony.15 With this Socrates introduced

Cf. SKS 27, 163, Papir 224 / JP 1, 852. Cf. SKS 27, 142, Papir 167 / JP 3, 3809. 6 Cf. SKS 18, 81, FF:29 / KJN 2, 74. 7 Cf. SKS 27, 163, Papir 224 / JP 1, 852. 8 SKS 27, 130, Papir 127 / JP 1, 16. 9 SKS 27, 163, Papir 224 / JP 1, 852. 10 SKS 27, 162, Papir 219 / JP 3, 3796. 11 SKS 17, 61, BB:1 / KJN 1, 55. 12 SKS 17, 45, AA:27 / KJN 1, 39. 13 Cf. SKS 27, 139, Papir 154:1 / JP 3, 3805. 14 SKS 27, 139, Papir 156 / JP 3, 3806. 15 Cf. SKS 1, 257 / CI, 213. 4 5

Classicism

3

the principle of subjectivity, which ultimately undermined the objective foundations of the classical in ancient Greece. See also Actuality; Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Art; Contingency/Possibility; Epic; Finitude/ Infinity; Irony; Necessity; Romanticism.

This page intentionally left blank

Comic/Comedy Oscar Parcero Oubinha

Comic (det Komiske—adjectival noun); Comedy (Komedie—noun) Formerly written det Comiske and Comœdie, or Komødie, among other variations, in Kierkegaard’s writings we normally find these words spelled with a “c” (Comik, comisk, Comiske, Comedie), and only very seldom with a “k” (Komiske, komisk, Komedie). From the Latin comoedia (Greek κωμῳδία), it refers to the genre of drama of amusing character and with no catastrophic ending. In this sense it is the direct opposite of tragedy.1 Most of the diverse occurrences of these words are concentrated in a few works: The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, The Concept of Anxiety and, above all, Stages on Life’s Way and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Nearly half the allusions to the comic occur in these two latter works, and this is due to the fact that a direct discussion of the topic takes place in them. We should also mention a draft written on the occasion of the Corsair affair that deals with the notion of “comic writing.” Kierkegaard makes heterogeneous use of “the comic” and “comedy.” A first glance at the various entries on the topic reveals a multifaceted and, moreover, apparently inconsistent use of these terms, oscillating between penetrating reflections and allusions of no account, between vivid eulogy and explicit disapproval. This heterogeneity would easily lead us to suspect that Kierkegaard did not have a definite, univocal understanding of “the comic,” and thus we would be forced simply to list the various connotations it acquires in his works. But the equivocal use of the words does not indicate the lack of a fixed conception of an unimportant question. In fact, there is in Kierkegaard a definite understanding of the comic that grants a coherent reading of his diversified use of the term. Before proceeding to the analysis of this conception, a preliminary explanatory remark should be made: in Kierkegaard, “the comic” functions primarily as an “umbrella term” that comprises other concepts more precisely defined, such as irony and humor. This helps explain the confusingly varied connotations it acquires, and also why a more attentive analysis is required in order to grasp that coherent reading underneath the heterogeneity of uses. When it comes to unravelling Kierkegaard’s conception of the comic, Johannes Climacus’ Concluding Unscientific Postscript has to be the point of departure. More

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 10, columns 1070–1, 1076.

1

6

Oscar Parcero Oubinha

precisely, we should begin with a lengthy footnote in which the concept is discussed,2 the point of departure for the discussion being Aristotle’s definition of the comic, which Climacus rejects for “lacking reflection.”3 Aristotle understands the comic as “a something,” but Climacus argues that it is rather a relation or, more specifically, “the misrelation of contradiction.”4 This is not a minor objection, but a decisive turning point in the conception of the comic: for Kierkegaard, the comic is not an aesthetic category but a philosophical one.5 Hence there are very few allusions we can find to “comedy” or “the comic” as mere dramatic/aesthetic categories. We have mentioned that comedy is the opposite of tragedy, and precisely this opposition constitutes the framework in which Kierkegaard develops his philosophical understanding of the comic. Johannes Climacus writes: The matter is very simple. The comic is present in every stage of life (except that the position is different), because where there is life there is contradiction, and wherever there is contradiction, the comic is present. The tragic and the comic are the same inasmuch as both are contradiction, but the tragic is suffering contradiction, and the comic is painless contradiction.6

The connection between the comic and contradiction is well documented throughout Kierkegaard’s writings.7 Climacus is but one pseudonym—albeit the most significant—who makes the allegation. Another example worth mentioning occurs in Stages on Life’s Way. In “In Vino Veritas,” Constantin Constantius agrees with the relation when he openly declares: “The two go hand in hand. The basis of the comic is always in the category of contradiction,”8 and later on he insists that “the comic has eternity’s prescriptive right to consist in contradiction.”9 “Wherever there is contradiction, there is the comic,”10 concludes Constantius, anticipating Climacus quite manifestly. This is no doubt a peculiar and revealing text. It could be considered the most direct approach to the comic in Kierkegaard’s work, and yet Climacus seems to underestimate the relevance of the discussion, first by moving it to a footnote, and second by circumscribing it within an account of practical examples, thus avoiding a lengthy theoretical analysis, and third by including a “comical” final comment that informs the reader he may leave the note unread, since “there is enough of the comic everywhere and at any time if only one has an eye for it” (SKS 7, 471 / CUP1, 518). Far from an underestimation, however, the footnote is a fundamental performative presentation that displays the whole dimension of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the comic, both theoretical and practical. 3 SKS 7, 466 / CUP1, 514. 4 Ibid. 5 It therefore expresses a truth of its own. Cf. SKS 1, 195 / CI, 145; SKS 14, 87 / COR, 47. 6 SKS 7, 465–6 / CUP1, 513–14. See also SKS 6, 40, 434 / SLW, 36, 472. 7 SKS 4, 453 / CA, 154; SKS 6, 37, 43–6 / SLW, 33, 40–3; SKS 7, 322 / CUP1, 353; SKS 8, 83 / TA, 87; SKS 12, 64 / PC, 52; SKS 18, 227, JJ:276 / KJN 2, 208–9; SKS 18, 282, JJ:429 / KJN 2, 260–1; Pap. VII–1 B 55, 237 / COR, Supplement, 189. 8 SKS 6, 37 / SLW, 33. 9 SKS 6, 43 / SLW, 40. 10 SKS 6, 45 / SLW, 42. 2

Comic/Comedy

7

A second point of interest in Climacus’ definition above has to do with the omnipresence of the comic. As long as contradiction is present everywhere in life— as Kierkegaard argues repeatedly—the comic will accordingly always be traceable. Existence itself is comic;11 contradiction is inherent in human nature, and so is the comic. According to this conception, each time we encounter a “painless contradiction” we will have a comic situation.12 “The matter is very simple,” indeed. But the fact that contradictions can take place in different ways means that we will find a variety of instances of “the comic.” The essential distinction to be made is the one that discriminates between an “improper mode of the comic” and the “truly comic.”13 The aforementioned ubiquity of the phenomenon forces the individual to deal with it one way or another, and this translates into the following primary alternative: either to perceive the comic or to become comic oneself, by trying to be “earnest” and reject it altogether.14 What Kierkegaard calls a low form of the comic has to do with the external fact of falling into a contradiction. Anti-Climacus offers a clear example: “When a man stands and says the right thing, and consequently has understood it, and then when he acts he does the wrong thing, and thus shows that he has not understood it—yes, this is exceedingly comic.”15 The comic is in this sense equivalent to ludicrousness: something that by means of incongruity provokes a comical effect in the observer. Conversely, a superior form of the comic takes place internally in the individual: one can be “protected by the comic against the comic.”16 This is what Quidam implies when he affirms that “[he has] perceived the comic from the very beginning, and precisely for that reason [he] can never in all eternity become comic”17—the same idea that later in the same work Frater Taciturnus reinforces, this time in the paradigmatic person of Socrates: “Poetry cannot comprehend him as comic, because his having by himself considered all the comic aspects proves that he is not comic.”18 The idea of a superior form of the comic is therefore linked to a certain conception of an inner maturity, which includes the comic as an essential part of true ethical seriousness.19 The lack of such maturity, on the contrary, will always lead to the poor version of the phenomenon when this is no more than the “comic pitifulness”20 of a blatant contradiction. Together with these antagonistic conceptions, Kierkegaard speaks of a corresponding alternative when he discusses the use that can be made of the comic. Thus one can use “the authentic comic,” based on the “true conception,” or “misuse” See SKS 7, 90–1 / CUP1, 92. See for example SKS 7, 38, 48–9, 58–60, 89, 116 / CUP1, 31, 43, 54–6, 90, 120. 13 SKS 7, 90 / CUP1, 90–1. 14 SKS 4, 449 / CA, 149–50. 15 SKS 11, 204 / SUD, 91. 16 SKS 7, 474 / CUP1, 522. 17 SKS 6, 341 / SLW, 367–8. 18 SKS 6, 388 / SLW, 419. Cf. SKS 18, 263, JJ:371 / KJN 2, 242. 19 SKS 7, 256 / CUP1, 281. 20 Cf. SKS 13, 287 / M, 230. 11

12

8

Oscar Parcero Oubinha

it, when following a “warped conception.”21 The “authentic comic” is obviously associated with the development of the aforementioned ethical maturity, whereas the “misuse” of a “warped conception” leads away from it. It is in this sense that Kierkegaard talks about the “ethical responsibility” of one’s use of the comic.22 This basic division of lower and superior forms of the comic can be easily made into a slightly more structured classification by just taking into account the well-known arrangement of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious spheres, since “the different existence-stages rank according to their relation to the comic in proportion to their having the comic inside or outside themselves.”23 When the comic takes place outside the individual, we are in the aesthetic. This is basically equivalent to ludicrousness, as it has been explained. There are plenty of examples in Kierkegaard’s works. “Everyone who becomes earnest at the wrong place is eo ipso comical,”24 declares Vigilius Haufniensis. The speculative professor and the pastor of bourgeois Christendom are the typical exemplars of ludicrous contradictions between what one says and what one actually does.25 We could also mention the literary figure of Don Quixote, which Kierkegaard refers to repeatedly as an exemplar of such comic incongruity.26 But Kierkegaard does not merely point out cases of this low form of the comic as some kind of pastime. Aesthetically understood, the comic has a more important role in his work: the “power of the comic”27 is capable of “consuming”28 any given actuality just by means of revealing it as ludicrous. Showing something as comic is equivalent to annihilating it.29 The best example we can find is, again, Johannes Climacus, who resorts to the comic in order to deal with metaphysics.30 He does not struggle philosophically to demolish the reasoning of speculative philosophy by means of a sagacious counterargument; instead, he simply unveils the comic contradictions that such reasoning involves. Allegedly, this allows him efficiently to put an end to speculative philosophy, rather than perpetuate it, which is what the counterargument would eventually do. That is why he argues in his concluding work that “the comic conception is always the concluding one,” which, incidentally, he exemplifies with Don Quixote.31 The relation between the comic and the ethical could be characterized in terms of assistance. The ethical requires a commitment with one’s inner being, not merely with outer appearance, and, according to Kierkegaard, there will always be a misrelation between these two. To take care of it, the ethicist places the comic “in Pap. VII–1 B 55, 227–9 / COR, Supplement, 179–81. Pap. VI B 70. Cf. SKS 7, 471 / CUP1, 519. 23 SKS 7, 472 / CUP1, 520. 24 SKS 4, 449 / CA, 150. 25 See for example SKS 7, 42, 49, 58–60 / CUP1, 35, 43, 54–6. 26 SKS 7, 42; 179 / CUP1, 35, 195; SKS 23, 201, NB17:59 / JP 4, 3568. 27 SKS 7, 130 / CUP1, 140. 28 SKS 7, 114 / CUP1, 118. 29 Cf. SKS 8, 46 / TA, 46. 30 SKS 7, 119 / CUP1, 124. Cf. SKS 19, 375, Not12:7 / JP 4, 4834. 31 SKS 7, 42 / CUP1, 35. 21 22

Comic/Comedy

9

between in order to be able more inwardly to hold fast the ethical within himself.”32 In other words, he anticipates internally the comic experience to avoid falling into comic contradictions. Ethically understood, the comic is thus the sign of maturity we referred to above. A true ethical life cannot be conceived without the inner protection of the comic. And if the speculative professor, the pastor of bourgeois Christendom or the literary Don Quixote were typical examples of the aesthetically comic, the paradigmatic figure of Socrates embodies as no other its ethical dimension.33 Finally, the comic is also necessarily present in religious existence. It is true, as Kierkegaard strives to make clear, that the comic could never claim its part in the religious, since the conditio sine qua non of contradiction is not present there any more.34 However, a religious individual will still have to confront his inwardness with the external actuality. And this is where the comic steps in, providing the “deception” needed in order to keep the “secret” of a true religious inwardness.35 “If I know nothing else, I do know that the comic ought to be used to keep order in the sphere of the religious,”36 proclaims Quidam. A more detailed presentation of the role the comic plays in providing religiousness with the protective “secret” can be found in the pages devoted to Lessing in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Climacus expresses his admiration for the German because “he understood, and knew how to maintain, that the religious pertained to Lessing and Lessing alone.”37 And he could do so by virtue of the comic.38 This is made particularly clear in the analysis of the well-known dispute between Jacobi and Lessing in relation to the former’s claim for a “leap of faith.” Lessing’s reply to Jacobi consisted in “jesting dialectically (with Greek elation)”39 with him, by which he was able to reject the aesthetically comic discourse on the leap of faith while preserving the possibility of a real leap of faith. Besides the different versions of the comic within the three existence spheres, we should also draw attention to the presence it has in between them as well. It is well known that the particular comic phenomena of irony and humor are assigned the role of boundaries between the aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages.40 The concluding nature of the comic referred to earlier underlies this assignation; and this not only reinforces the ubiquity of the phenomenon but also expands the scope of the “philosophical interpretation” that makes the comic an essential part of Kierkegaard’s work. Last (and also least), we should say a word on “comedy,” a term marginal in relation to “the comic,” insofar as it does not properly involve the aforementioned philosophical dimension. Few entries on “comedy” are found, and in many of them SKS 7, 458 / CUP1, 505. See for example SKS 1, 182 / CI, 130–1; SKS 6, 388 / SLW, 419. 34 Cf. SKS 7, 475, 419 / CUP1, 522–3, 461–2. 35 Cf. SKS 6, 232 / SLW, 248; SKS 7, 442 / CUP1, 487. 36 SKS 6, 242 / SLW, 259. 37 SKS 7, 67 / CUP1, 65. 38 Cf. SKS 7, 72, 399 / CUP1, 71, 439. 39 SKS 7, 101 / CUP1, 104. 40 See for example SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501–2. 32 33

10

Oscar Parcero Oubinha

the term is simply equivalent to “the comic.”41 Some occasional observations on the dramatic genre as such can be traced as well, but these hardly constitute valuable insights that require an attentive analysis.42 In sum, Kierkegaard regards the comic not as a mere aesthetic category but as a philosophical one. This turns the phenomenon into an essential element within the whole of his work. The comic expresses the misrelation of contradiction that is present in every stage of life. Therefore, the comic is always present as well, either internally as a constitutive part of an ethical-religious existence, or externally as the ludicrous outcome whenever one ignores the comic. Consequently, there is an ethical responsibility in the use of the comic. See also Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Contradiction; Dialectic; Earnestness; Humor; Irony; Parody; Rhetoric; Satire; Stages; Theater/Drama; Tragic, the/Tragedy; Vaudeville/ Farce.

41 See SKS 4, 174 / FT, 84; SKS 7, 193, 358, 382 / CUP1, 211, 393, 419; SKS 6, 313–14 / SLW, 337; SKS 13, 178 / M, 134; SKS 13, 310 / M, 254. 42 Among these, we could mention a couple of comments on the New and Old Comedy (SKS 2, 148, 240 / EO1, 149, 247; SKS 3, 30 / EO2, 21) or some isolated yet significant reflections on the relation between comedy and metaphysics that, in any case, send us back to the investigation on “the comic” (SKS 19, 375–7, Not12:7–12. / KJN 3, 373–5).

Common Man Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal

Common Man (den menige Mand—noun phrase) To regard Kierkegaard as a misanthropic loner with contempt for the common man is to be trapped by the lopsided depiction of him in the Corsair’s caricatures. It is as inadequate as associating him with the elitist bourgeoisie or interpreting his deprecation of the public as a cultivated conceit. On the contrary, throughout his life Kierkegaard regarded himself as belonging to the common people, and the common man plays a central role in his understanding of true Christianity. Nevertheless, the common man in Kierkegaard’s writings has many names and many features. As the crowd (Mængde), the common man turns into a monster, the phantom of abstraction: Publikum (the public).1 As the passionate poor, however, he could be a role model for the over-reflective nineteenth century. Moreover, as the simple man (den Eenfoldige), he is depicted as the successor of Jesus’ disciples and the hope for the future of Christianity. I. The Age of the Common Man and the Rise of Mass Media Denmark in the nineteenth century witnessed a fundamental political change: its absolute monarchy was transformed into a constitutional monarchy. The revolutionary events of 1848-49 were the “constitutional acknowledgement of the long-term rise of the peasantry and the common man.”2 Kierkegaard, however, remained skeptical. He feared that the hype around political representation would lead to a neglect of the individual’s existential responsibility—and for this responsibility, a far more exigent freedom was necessary than the newly won political liberties. Kierkegaard preferred the established order, which he, due to the linkage of state and church, called “established Christendom,” and into which he wanted to “breathe…a little more inwardness.”3 This meant neither that he wanted to keep social classes separated, nor that he was unaware of the dismal situation of the poor. On the contrary, as Kierkegaard repeatedly stressed in his journals:

SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. Bruce H. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, Bloomington and Indianapolis: University Press 1990, p. 12. 3 Pap. X–5 B 40, 258 / PC, Supplement, 301. 1 2

12

Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal I wanted to live with the simple man. It gratified me immeasurably to be concerned, friendly, kind, and attentive to that social class which simply is forgotten in the so-called “Christian state.”…For everyone clutches at the higher and the more distinguished relativities in society—and when people reach that point, who cares about the common man of the land?4

Kierkegaard’s sympathy for the common people, probably also due to his father’s peasant origins, continued throughout his life. It did not even waver when the socalled Corsair affair in 1846 turned him into a public laughing stock in Copenhagen, ridiculing his physical appearance, habits, and his fondness for meddling with the poor.5 Apart from the jabs at his appearance, Kierkegaard was irritated at the fact that his interest in the common man was interpreted as the condescending attitude of a bored dandy: “Distinguished is exactly what I did not want to be; I have incurred the disfavor of the distinguished class by the entire manner in which I have lived, simply because it was my custom to associate with everyone. Then, suddenly, the mob is incited against me, and I am denounced for being elitist.”6 As Jørgen Bukdahl shows, the fact that the common man suddenly was laughing at Kierkegaard was a “continuing source of his greatest pain.”7 In his journals, Kierkegaard writes: “And then to have this forbidden to me, to have it regarded as ridiculously overplaying the part, and that I cannot ever do anything more for the common man, because for him I exist as a sort of half-loony.”8 The defamation in the press was accompanied by mockery and harassment on the streets. Kierkegaard, however, considered himself a victim of the public (Publikum), not of the common man. He did not regard the lurid public as intrinsically related to the lower class: everyone can dissolve himself or herself in mass emotion and mass behavior. Everyone is potentially Publikum—one turns into Publikum “during the hours when he is a nobody, because during the hours in which he is the specific person he is, he does not belong to the public.”9 In Kierkegaard’s view, the common man is the easy victim of the monetary greed of the daily press, which, as he sarcastically points out, “is working for the well-being of the simple classes!”10 Also in his published works, Kierkegaard clearly distinguishes between the common man and the Publikum. In particular, A Literary Review of Two Ages elaborates on the difference between the common man as folk with concrete needs and the abstract Publikum that results from a hyper-reflective society.11 In Kierkegaard’s concept of Publikum, individuals are collective spectators rather than SKS 22, 250, NB12:178 / JP 6, 6498. After being provoked by Kierkegaard’s critique and the unveiling of one of its pseudonymous authors, the satiric journal the Corsair published a series of caricatures; see for instance The Corsair Affair, ed. by Robert L. Perkins, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 1990 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 13). 6 SKS 20, 320, NB4:71 / KJN 4, 321. 7 Jørgen Bukdahl, Søren Kierkegaard and the Common Man, trans. and ed. by Bruce H. Kirmmse, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 2001, p. 101. 8 SKS 22, 284, NB13:20 / JP 6, 6504. 9 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 93. 10 SKS 21, 147, NB8:6 / JP 6, 6270. 11 Cf. SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90. 4 5

Common Man

13

individual agents of existence.12 Instead of passionately relating to their particular individual opportunities and drawing conclusions for their practical life, people in the nineteenth century are caught up in a form of social competitiveness that culminates in a public leveling of all individual differences—which is fostered by the daily press and expressed in the idea of equality. Thus, people have become oblivious to their existential task, which is to act as individuals upon individual decisions. To put it in Kierkegaard’s terms: Publikum is one of the nineteenth century’s most prevalent sicknesses that in principle can infect everyone. The common man, however, is in possession of an antidote: passion. II. Poor, Passionate, and “essentially cultivated” Passion is the main criterion Kierkegaard applies when evaluating an epoch in A Literary Review. In spite of its cruelties, he praises the eighteenth century, the “revolutionary age,” as cultivated: “The age of revolution is essentially passionate and therefore essentially has culture. In other words, the tension and resilience of the inner being are the measure of essential culture.”13 Moreover, he even regards the eighteenth century as more cultivated than his age, because in the nineteenth century passion has been overcome by reflection. Squelching every passionate conviction and impulse to act in an endless regress of argument and counterargument, reflection leads to an atrophy of the “tension…of the inner being.” Thus, despite its ostensible cultural bloom, Kierkegaard diagnoses late Golden Age Denmark as decadent. Its superficial cultural achievements must not be mistaken for true cultivation. Essential cultivation (Dannelse), Kierkegaard stresses, is a passionate attitude towards oneself and others. Although absent in the political and cultural elite of the nineteenth century, passion, and thus essential cultivation, can still be seen in the common people: “A maidservant genuinely in love is essentially cultured; a peasant with his mind passionately and powerfully made up is essentially cultured.”14 With this praise of the common people who have not been initiated into the “dangers of refinement,”15 Kierkegaard takes a firm stand against Denmark’s elite humanistic-religious culture represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Jakob Peter Mynster, who claim cultivation and education to be the necessary conditions for political participation and true religiosity.16 According to Mynster, in Kierkegaard’s polemical paraphrase, “the Christian is: cultivation [Dannelse].” Kierkegaard vehemently rejects this view: See George Pattison, “The Present Age. The Age of the City,” in his Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002, pp. 50–71. 13 SKS 8, 60 / TA, 61. 14 SKS 8, 60 / TA, 612. 15 SKS 21, 119, NB7:81 / JP 1, 1016. 16 Johan Ludvig Heiberg, in a work On the Significance of Philosophy in the Present Age, even suggests viewing humanity (Menneskehed) as a representative system, where the upper house consists of the highest representatives of humanity, whereas the “cultivated” part of the crowd is in the lower house—and its uncultivated part is excluded from representation at all. Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning for den nuværende Tid, in Prosaiske 12

14

Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal

what Mynster regards as cultivation is just a sophistication of taste.17 Moreover, it is contrary to true Christianity, because it leads to hubris, not to charity and compassion. Therefore, according to Kierkegaard, the nineteenth century essentially lacks primitiveness.18 III. The Simple Man and Christianity Due to their primitive, but passionate approach to Christianity, the common people meet the demands of true Christianity more than cultivated people do. They accept its paradoxical features, like the God-Man and the forgiveness of sins, which cultivated Christendom (Christenhed) tries to deal with speculatively. Although Kierkegaard also elaborates on the purgative power of logically consistent reflection and the defeat of the intellect,19 he suggests that, in the end, there is no difference between faith gained immediately through passion and faith mediated by thought. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus sets up a fictive dialogue between a literate person and the common man: If, for example, the simple wise person spoke with a simple person [en Eenfoldig] about the forgiveness of sins, the simple person would most likely say, “But I still cannot comprehend the divine mercy that can forgive sins; the more intensely I believe it, the less I am able to understand it.” …But the simple wise person will most likely say, “It is the same with me. You know I have had the opportunity to be able to devote much time to research and reflection, and yet the summa summarum of all this is at most that I comprehend that it cannot be otherwise, and that this must be incomprehensible. Look, this difference [between us] certainly cannot distress you or make you think wistfully about your own more laborious circumstances in life…as if I had some advantage over you.”20

Since the result is the same, there is absolutely no reason for intellectual conceit. Due to the existential task of becoming responsible individuals before God, Climacus votes for a radical equality. The difference between the uneducated and the educated Skrifter vols. 1–11, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1861–62, vol. 1, pp. 381–460, especially pp. 394–5. Cf. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, pp. 141–5. 17 SKS 24, 89, NB21:143. 18 Cf. Arne Grøn, “Dannelse og karakter,” in Kritisk forum for praktisk teologi, no. 58, 1994, pp. 19–35, especially pp. 24–6. 19 Reflection is an ambiguous concept in Kierkegaard’s writings. Kierkegaard only condemns complacent, diplomatic reflection but appreciates logically consistent reflection, because it highlights the Christian paradoxes and calls forth the decision to leap into faith: “the task cannot be to reflect upon Christianity but can only be to intensify by means of reflection the pathos with which one continues to be a Christian.” SKS 5, 551 / CUP1, 607. Cf. Immediacy and Reflection in Kierkegaard’s Thought, ed. by Paul Cruysberghs, Johan Taels, and Karl Verstrynge, Leuven: Leuven University Press 2003; Daniel W. Conway, “Modest Expectations: Kierkegaard’s Reflections on the Present Age,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 1999, pp. 21–49, p. 33 and p. 34; Bruce H. Kirmmse, “Apocalypse Then: Kierkegaard’s A Literary Review,” in his Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, pp. 182–203, p. 193. 20 SKS 7, 208 / CUP1, 228.

Common Man

15

is just a “little evanescent difference that the simple person knows the essential and the wise person little by little comes to know that he knows it or comes to know that he does not know it—but what they know is the same.”21 Kierkegaard did not participate in the nineteenth century’s popular religious movements against the established church. He was, however, familiar with the awakening movements and the church-political actions of Jacob Christian Lindberg and the more successful N.F.S. Grundtvig. Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard took his young son to the Sunday evening gatherings of the Moravian congregation, and Lindberg, a revolutionary preacher of the common people, was a frequent guest at Kierkegaard’s family home on Nytorv. Kierkegaard’s silent admiration of Lindberg led to a biased critique of Grundtvig in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard and Grundtvig shared a similar view on the status quo of their society. Kierkegaard, however, disapproved of Grundtvig’s theatrical approach and his idealization of the common people by categories like “folkiness” (Folkelighed ).22 Grundtvig had been advocating a renewed Christianity, whose institutions would correspond to the demands of a democratic culture. But true Christianity, in Kierkegaard’s view, was that of the passionate individual and not of a political party or a religious movement.23 Kierkegaard does not idealize the common people. He perceives their simplicity and passion as ambiguous, since it exposes them to manipulation and impulsive action. This is, however, intrinsically related to original Christianity: Jesus, who sought his disciples among the common people,24 was first adored by the crowd of the common people and then later sacrificed by them in exchange for Barabbas. “Of all horrible contrasts,” Kierkegaard says, “this is the most horrible—that the crowd shouted: Let Barabbas live! So far was Christ from getting justice in the world!”25 Kierkegaard also interprets his own painful experience with the lurid crowd during the Corsair affair in line with Christ’s suffering: “Yet truly, without it I would have completely missed one side of Christianity. To undertake a high-minded action out of love for others and to see it rewarded in this way….”26 Despite his public harassment, Kierkegaard never abandoned the common people. In September 1855, near the end of his life, he wrote: SKS 7, 149 / CUP1, 160. Cf. Bukdahl, “The Shadow of Jacob Christian Lindberg,” in his Kierkegaard and the Common Man, pp. 19–26. 23 When Kierkegaard finally enters the arena of church politics in 1854 with The Moment and a series of unrelenting articles in the newspaper Fædrelandet, it is due to bishop Hans Lassen Martensen’s appraisal of his predecessor Jakob Peter Mynster as “a witness to the truth.” Thus, Kierkegaard’s affront against the established order was socio-politically motivated, as he explains to the common man: “this does not involve you. However, if you wish it, the book can help you to become aware of this matter of contemporaneity.” SKS 13, 348 / M, 290. Cf. Bukdahl, “The Moment and the Common Man,” in his Kierkegaard and the Common Man, pp. 111–30. 24 Cf. SKS 21, 119, NB7:81 / JP 1, 1016. 25 SKS 20, 277, NB3:67 / JP 3, 2930. 26 SKS 23, 47, NB15:69. Translation by Kirmmse, in Bukdahl, Kierkegaard and the Common Man, p. 108. 21 22

16

Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal You common man! The Christianity of the New Testament is something indefinitely high, but please note that it is not high in such a way that it pertains to differences among people with regard to talents etc. No, it is for all….You common man! I have not segregated my life from yours, you know that; I have lived on the street, am known by all….So if I belong to anyone, I must belong to you, you common man….27

See also Crowd/Public; Culture/Education; Leveling; Press/Journalism.



27

SKS 13, 410 / M, Supplement, 346.

Communication/Indirect Communication Jamie Turnbull

Communication (Meddelelse—noun) From the verb meddele, which is composed of med (“with”) and dele (“share”), the lexical meaning of the Danish noun Meddelelse refers primarily to the transmission of written or verbal information, but may also indicate the process whereby a particular property or power is transferred from one person or object to another.1 The closely related concepts of communication, indirect communication, and the maieutic are amongst the most complicated in Kierkegaard’s work. Many of Kierkegaard’s texts can be said to treat the subject of communication, for example Either/Or and Fear and Trembling. For the purposes of this article I shall focus on communication as it is related to Kierkegaard’s methodological considerations, in which it is more intimately connected to indirect communication and maieutics. While Kierkegaard’s reflections on indirect communication are unified by common concerns and considerations, there are also important respects in which they differ. The first explicit appearance of indirect communication in Kierkegaard’s authorship is in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, although the methodological reflections found there are anticipated in Philosophical Fragments. Within the Postscript the majority of the passages on indirect communication are found in Part II, Section I, Chapter II, “Possible and Actual Theses by Lessing,” and the Appendix to Section II, Chapter II, “A Glance at a Contemporary Effort in Danish Literature.”2 After the Postscript Kierkegaard drafted a series of lectures on the subject of communication and maieutics.3 These lectures were never finished, let alone delivered, yet they provide an important resource for understanding Kierkegaard’s methodology. While indirect communication makes a small appearance in Works of Love, it is more explicitly treated in Practice in Christianity, specifically in the section “The Categories of Offense, That Is, of Essential Offense.”4 Finally, indirect communication is a theme of the autobiographical work The Point of View for My Work as an Author, particularly in the first chapter “The Esthetic Writing.”5

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, columns 1163–8. 2 SKS 7, 72, 228 / CUP1, 72, 251. 3 Pap. VIII–2 B 79 / JP 2, 648. 4 SKS 12, 128 / PC, 123. 5 SKS 16, 23 / PV, 41. 1

18

Jamie Turnbull

In considering indirect communication it is important to bear in mind that it is one half of a distinction Kierkegaard draws between direct and indirect communication. Kierkegaard has relatively little to say about direct communication. Perhaps the best way to understand this distinction is to situate it against the background of Kierkegaard’s debate with the “speculative thinker,” or the “Hegelians.”6 Here Kierkegaard’s work can be said to be informed by the debates that accompanied the reception of Hegel’s thought in Denmark, to which he himself makes reference: the debate about mediation and rationalism versus supernaturalism.7 As Kierkegaard outlines the issue, the question is whether the nature of Christ can be mediated by human reason, with the result that a direct, immediate, and cognitive relation can be said to obtain between humanity and divinity.8 Much of Kierkegaard’s work can be said to be concerned with charting the negative consequences he takes to follow from such a relation (that is, the naturalization of the supernatural, the misrepresentation of Christianity as a version of paganism, and the demise of dogmatic concepts such as faith and grace).9 In this respect Kierkegaard’s concern with indirect communication and maieutics stems from his claim, contra the “speculative thinker,” that a direct, immediate, and cognitive relation between humanity and divinity is impossible. In contrast to his “speculative” or Hegelian adversary, Kierkegaard seeks to maintain that the only relations that can obtain between humanity and divinity are indirect relations, with the humanity of Christ as intermediary. It follows that one human being cannot communicate what it is to be a Christian, or to have faith, to another.10 The divine or supernatural essence of Christianity (life in Christ) can only be indirectly communicated via reference to the absolute paradox of Christ’s claim to be God. For Kierkegaard, only by responding to the absolute paradox with faith, and thereby receiving the gift of grace, does one enter into a relationship to the transcendent God and fulfill the end of one’s own theological nature qua Christian. In this respect, the project of indirect communication is simply a logical consequence of Kierkegaard’s reaction to the attempt to apply a logic of mediation to dogmatics, and the question of whether the divine essence of Christianity can be naturalized to human reason.11 The above conception of indirect communication is the predominant one in Kierkegaard’s works since it can be said to inform his treatment in all of the above sources. Throughout his works Kierkegaard continually and repeatedly attributes the necessity of indirect communication to the nature of God as transcendent, and so to Christ as an absolute paradox, and the relations that human beings can and cannot stand in vis-à-vis him. Kierkegaard’s conceptions of indirect communication and maieutics can also, of course, be said to differ through the course of his authorship. Let us consider some of Kierkegaard’s different depictions in order to cast the differences between them 8 9 6 7



10 11

SKS 7, 30, 58, 111 / CUP1, 23, 54, 115. SKS 7, 277 / CUP1, 305. SKS 4, 249–50 / PF, 44–6; SKS 7, 341, 345 / CUP1, 375, 379. SKS 4, 297–8 / PF, 95–6; SKS 7, 315–16, 333–5, 187 / CUP1, 345, 367–8, 204. SKS 7, 75–6 / CUP1, 74–5. SKS 7, 364–6 / CUP1, 400–2.

Communication/Indirect Communication

19

into sharper relief. The maieutic and indirect communication have an important and complex role to play in Fragments in part because the figure of Socrates plays such a complex and ambivalent role in that text. As Kierkegaard admits, Socrates is used in Fragments both to stand proxy for a speculative and pagan position and to serve a more positive role.12 Just how we understand Socrates’ maieutics in Fragments depends, therefore, on the particular role we take him to be playing. As a representative of the claim Kierkegaard attributes to the speculative thinker, namely, that truth lies immanently in human nature, Socrates’ maieutics can be said to consist in asking questions in order to remind the recipient of what he already knows.13 In this respect Socrates’ treatment of the slave boy in Plato’s Meno might function as a model for the negative role Socrates is made to play. Discerning the more positive role Socrates qua communicator plays in Fragments is not quite as straightforward, for it depends on appreciating the complex and subtle logic of that text. In holding Socrates to the recollection thesis, he is used by Kierkegaard to represent a Hegelian speculative position.14 An important part of Fragments consists in contrasting the Socratic hypothesis with the non-Socratic hypothesis that truth is not latent within human nature but brought by a transcendent and divine teacher, who must also provide the condition for human beings to grasp the truth as such. A clue to the more positive role of maieutics in Fragments can be seen in the claim that the relation Socrates seeks to adopt to others expresses the highest for human beings, even if the Socratic hypothesis is false and the nonSocratic true.15 The reason for this, it appears, is that “the report” of the divine teacher’s coming clears an important middle ground in the distinction between the Socratic and non-Socratic hypotheses, and opens the way for human beings to play the role of Christian Socrates.16 The reason for this, as Kierkegaard makes clear, is that if the non-Socratic hypothesis is true, then human beings are in possession of the truth (“the report” of the Christian message as an absolute paradox).17 This is a truth that can be communicated from one human being to another (via language, history, and culture), yet which did not originate in human nature. Moreover despite the fact that postIncarnation human beings are in possession of this truth, they lack the condition to understand it as such. Hence, while human beings are in possession of the Christian truth, it cannot be naturalized to their cognitive and linguistic capacities, but remains dependent upon coming into relation with a transcendent God. Christian communication, as Kierkegaard presents it in Fragments, defies categorization in terms of either the Socratic or non-Socratic hypotheses, but occupies an important non-mediatory middle ground between them. With this appreciation of the logic of Christian communication in Fragments in place, we can understand the positive role Socratic maieutics has to play, albeit 14 15 16 17 12 13

SKS 7, 188 / CUP1, 206. SKS 4, 9 / PF, 9. SKS 7, 188 / CUP1, 206. SKS 4, 219 / PF, 10. SKS 4, 297 / PF, 100. SKS 4, 18 / PF, 15.

Jamie Turnbull

20

in an essentially Christian guise. For the role of the Christian Socrates is to tease out the absolute paradox: a truth latent within, but which did not originate in, human nature—a truth, moreover, that is in danger of being misrepresented as relatively paradoxical, or tautological, by the speculative thinker, thus foreclosing the individual from being able to come into a relation of faith and grace with a transcendent God. The purpose of this teasing out is to get human beings to respond to the absolute paradox in faith, so as to receive God’s grace: the condition for understanding the truth qua truth. For this reason the stance Socrates adopts toward human beings, of drawing out a truth latent within their nature, remains valid even if the Socratic hypothesis is false and the non-Socratic true. Despite the ambivalent use of Socrates by Kierkegaard, in his more positive presentation he functions as a kind of theological John the Baptist. Socrates apparently anticipates what will be true of relations among human beings, and how they will have to communicate with each other, post-Incarnation. The above concern with indirect communication, qua Christian maieutics, continues into the Postscript. In Kierkegaard’s presentation of Gotthold Lessing as an indirect communicator, for instance, he is concerned with the relations that Lessing understood to pertain to human beings and to divinity respectively.18 For Kierkegaard’s expression of gratitude to Lessing pertains to something in which the knotty difficulty is precisely that one cannot come to admire him directly or by one’s admiration come into an immediate relation to him, for his merit consists precisely in having prevented this: he closed himself off in the isolation of subjectivity, did not allow himself to be tricked into becoming worldhistorical or systematic with regards to the religious, but he understood, and knew how to maintain, that the religious pertained to Lessing and Lessing alone, just as it pertains to every human being in the same way, understood that he had infinitely to do with God, but nothing, nothing to do directly with any human being.19

Kierkegaard’s veneration of Lessing as an indirect communicator thus stems from Lessing’s apparent denial that direct relations between human beings with respect to “the religious” are possible, along with his emphasis on the essentially first-personal nature of the Christian God-relationship. In his consideration of Lessing as an exemplary indirect communicator, Kierkegaard can even be said to have found a figure latently present in Fragments, that of the Christian Socrates. What is new with respect to indirect communication in the Postscript’s treatment of Lessing is an emphasis on his ambiguous mode of presentation.20 Lessing is venerated for employing a style of presentation which allows him to pose an issue, while occluding the recipient from being able to determine his views about it.21 This ambiguity is a theme to which Kierkegaard returns in both Practice in Christianity and The Point of View.

SKS 7, 66–7 / CUP1, 65. Ibid., my emphasis. 20 SKS 7, 69–70 / CUP1, 68. 21 SKS 7, 66 / CUP1, 65. 18 19

Communication/Indirect Communication

21

The other main figure around which the Postscript’s consideration of indirect communication revolves is, of course, Socrates. While Socrates’ views with respect to communicating about divinity appear to anticipate Kierkegaard’s own, Kierkegaard is also concerned to stress that there must be an absolute difference between them. Socrates’ conception of divinity, and specifically his private relation to his daimon, prefigures Kierkegaard’s stress on the essentially first person relation of faith and grace to a transcendent God. Yet Socrates, as a pagan, lacks both a conception of the nature of divinity as absolutely paradoxical, and the consciousness of sin (which Kierkegaard portrays as dependent upon the revelation of the Incarnation).22 Kierkegaard’s consideration of Socrates as an indirect communicator is, again, ambivalent. Socrates prefigures and acts as a model for indirect communication, yet strictly speaking he cannot be considered an indirect communicator at all. For Kierkegaard is clear that for Socrates there is no absolute distinction, or break, between humanity and divinity: no division in human nature between our objective existence as natural creatures, and our being able to become subjective in relation to a transcendent divinity.23 Yet in the absence of the break in human nature afforded by the Incarnation, and the consciousness of sin, there is nothing to negate the possibility of direct relations between human beings and the divine; and so to condition the necessity of indirect relations between human beings. There is thus an absolute difference between the communicative possibilities that hold for a post-Incarnation figure like Lessing, and a pagan such as Socrates. While Socrates’ maieutic method functions as a model for Christian communication, in the end there can be no analogy between it and what holds true of the absolutely different.24 A concern with what can be true for Socrates with regard to ethical and religious communication, and what can be true post-Incarnation, also permeates the lectures. In the notes to the lectures Kierkegaard begins to develop a conception of indirect communication as involving deception (a notion he later develops in relation to an account of his authorship as a whole in The Point of View).25 While Plato, through the figure of Socrates, lies in the background to the lectures, Kierkegaard also develops a conception of indirect communication in an Aristotelian vein.26 Indirect communication is here held to function so as to aid one in realizing one’s nature qua human, albeit with the proviso that the telos of human nature lies in coming into relation with a transcendent God.27 The lectures, and the notes to them, attempt to situate the difference between direct and indirect communication in terms of a general distinction between science and art, and an associated distinction between a communication of knowledge and a communication of capability.28 The latter considerations are noticeably absent from the reflections on indirect communication that appear in Kierkegaard’s later works, which call into question 24 25 26 27 28 22 23

SKS 4, 251–2 / PF, 47; SKS 7, 531 / CUP1, 584. SKS 7, 221, 517 / CUP1, 243, 569. SKS 7, 503, 515–16 / CUP1, 553, 567. Pap. VIII–2 B 89 / JP 2, 649. Pap. VIII–2 B 82 / JP 2, 649. Pap. VIII–2 B 88 / JP 2, 649. Pap. VIII–2 B 89 / JP 2, 649.

Jamie Turnbull

22

the significance he earlier attached to them. The focus of the treatment of indirect communication in Practice, as in the Postscript and the lectures, is how we stand with respect to Christ qua man and qua God.29 Whereas previously indirect communication was presented as a consequence of the Incarnation as an absolute paradox, Practice furnishes us with an account of Christ as an indirect communicator. In this way, Kierkegaard picks up on the theme of indirect communication as employing ambiguity, first mentioned in the treatment of Lessing in the Postscript, to depict Christ as a “sign of contradiction.”30 In terms of the portrait of Christ as communicator found in Practice, as a man Christ can directly communicate to us but as a God he cannot.31 The only relation we can stand in vis-à-vis Christ qua God is one mediated by, but not reducible to, his existence as a fellow human being. Practice thus extends the theme of indirect communication as deception found in the lectures, for Christ is divinity incognito. Of all the treatments of Kierkegaard’s methodology, Practice is perhaps most explicit with regard to the relation between indirect communication and the rest of his thought. For Practice depicts indirect communication as part and parcel of Kierkegaard’s defense of a transcendent and supernatural basis for Christianity, against what he takes to be Hegelian theological naturalism. The role indirect communication is held to play in this defense of Christian faith from philosophical reason is neatly captured by the penultimate subtitle of the relevant section of Practice: “To Deny Direct Communication is to Require Faith.”32 For indirect communication is intended to defend a supernatural conception of divinity, faith, and Christianity from corruption and misrepresentation by the forces of secular rationalism. While many elements of the above treatments reappear in The Point of View, it can also be said to constitute a radical departure from the other considerations of indirect communication. The reason for this is that in the above texts indirect communication is related to a particular utterance, text, or figure, while The Point of View characterizes it as a strategy describing Kierkegaard’s entire authorship.33 Kierkegaard takes up the theme of ambiguity found in the Postscript and Practice, claiming that his authorship might initially seem to make different interpretations possible. In this way, Kierkegaard also develops the notion of indirect communication as deception found in the lectures, and revisited in Practice, into an account of his authorship as a deceptive movement from the aesthetic to the religious.34 In outlining the relationship between his activity as an author and his personal existence, Kierkegaard notoriously describes visiting the theater for five or ten minutes of an evening.35 The purpose of this, apparently, was to give the impression that he was an aesthetic author and so could not be engaged in a religious project.

31 32 33 34 35 29 30

SKS 12, 128 / PC, 123. SKS 12, 129 / PC, 124. SKS 12, 129–32 / PC, 124–7. SKS 12, 143 / PC, 140. SKS 16, 25–6 / PV, 43–4. SKS 16, 35 / PV, 53. SKS 16, 42 / PV, 61.

Communication/Indirect Communication

23

I have tried to indicate how one central conception informs the different treatments of indirect communication and the maieutic as they appear throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship. However, as we have also seen, various characterizations of indirect communication can be found (for example, as involving ambiguity, deception, and knowledge versus capability). Some of Kierkegaard’s portrayals of indirect communication extend across different texts (such as those surrounding ambiguity and deception), while others appear but once (the distinction between knowledge and capability in the lectures). Kierkegaard’s different accounts can be said to be united in their defense of a transcendent God, and a supernatural realm of faith and grace, against the claims of the speculative, Hegelian, thinker. If direct cognitive relations hold between humanity and divinity, the consequences for Kierkegaard are theological naturalism and secularization. Against this background, Kierkegaard’s denial that such relations are possible, and his subsequent strategy of indirect communication, are an integral part of his attempt to ensure that Christianity remains on a transcendent and supernatural basis. See also Allegory; Ambiguity; Authorship; Contemporaneity; Imitation; Inwardness/ Inward Deepening; Mediation/Sublation; Objectivity/Subjectivity; Offense; Reason; Recollection; Truth.

This page intentionally left blank

Communion David Coe

Communion (Altergang—noun) From the Latin altaria (in plural; singular forms altare, altar, altarium are also attested), English derived altar and Danish alter, referring to the table in Christian churches from which the bread and wine of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is distributed. From the Old Norse gangr, Old English gang, and German Gang, the Danish word gang refers to the motion of going. Hence, Altergang is the act of going to the altar to receive the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, also known as Communion.1 The majority of Kierkegaard’s references to Communion occur in three places: (1) Christian Discourses contains seven Discourses at the Communion on Fridays; (2) Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays; and (3) Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays. The latter two are collected in Without Authority in the Hongs’ English edition. The concept of Communion is also briefly touched upon in Works of Love and Practice in Christianity. All of the above are signed works of Kierkegaard, except for the very last, which is by Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard’s ideal Christian pseudonym. Throughout these works, Kierkegaard reverently exhorts his hearer to commune with Christ through the sacrament of Communion: “Come here, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”2 Bertel Thorvaldsen’s open-armed altar statue of Christ in Copenhagen’s Vor Frue Kirke (Church of Our Lady) appears to portray these comforting words from Matthew 11:28. Kierkegaard regularly reminded his fellow parishioners at Vor Frue Kirke of this comforting image as they came forward for Communion on Fridays. Communion comes as an invitation of rest from Christ to the burdened. Significantly, all of Kierkegaard’s discourses on Communion are for the event of this sacrament on Fridays, not Sundays. Kierkegaard had a special place in his heart for the communicants who came on Friday. Those who come on Sunday, the Lord’s day, are commanded and prescribed to do so and may come out of either duty or habit or going along with the crowd.3 But those who freely take the time to come on Friday do so out of personal and private longing. Kierkegaard lauded this longing as required of those who would worthily partake of Communion: Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 1, column 491. 2 SKS 12, 285 / WA, 169. 3 SKS 10, 289 / CD, 270. 1

David Coe

26

Would it not also be the most terrible contrast to the sacred account of how the instituter longed with all his heart for this meal, would it not be the most terrible contrast if it were possible for someone, by force of habit or because it was the custom, or perhaps motivated by quite incidental circumstances, in short, if someone went to the holy meal of the Lord’s Supper without heartfelt longing!4

This heartfelt longing is the desire to be unburdened of sin.5 Before Communion, communicants regularly went to confess their sins to the pastor. Kierkegaard championed this tradition: “Why do you not go directly to the Communion table? Oh, even if it were not prescribed by sacred tradition, would not you yourself feel the need to go along this path to the Communion table! The confession does not want to burden you with the guilt of faithlessness; on the contrary, it wants to help you, through confession, to lay aside the burden.”6 For Kierkegaard, the disquieting consciousness of sin is a prerequisite for Communion.7 “Just as something that builds up is always terrifying at first, and just as all true love is always unrest at first, and just as love of God is always sorrow at first, similarly, what seems disturbing is not always disturbing, what truly is quieting is always disquieting at first.”8 Kierkegaard disquieted his audience: “At the Communion table it is you who are in the debt of sin, you who are separated from God by sin, you who are so infinitely far away.”9 Kierkegaard hoped his discourses for Friday Communion would have this preparatory effect: “May God, then, bless this disquieting discourse so that it might have disquieted you only for the good, that you, quieted, might be aware at the Communion table that you are receiving the gracious forgiveness of all your sins.”10 For Kierkegaard, kneeling in confession at the Communion table, a symbol for standing far off, one is at the same time closest to God.11 Kierkegaard compares Communion to the tax collector of Luke 18 who first prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” but then “went home to his house justified.”12 Confessing the negativity of one’s sins, one is prepared for the positivity of Communion— Communion with Christ. Communion is the communication of Christ’s death for the sins of the whole world in the reception of his body and blood, where Christ gives himself as a refuge for the sinner.13 It is “an eternal pledge that by his suffering and death he did put himself in your place, so that you, behind him saved, the judgment past, may enter life.”14 Communion pledges that the communicant’s sins are forgiven.15 Kierkegaard 6 7 8 9 4 5

12 13 14 15 10 11

SKS 10, 266 / CD, 252. SKS 10, 288 / CD, 269. SKS 10, 307 / CD, 287. SKS 12, 159 / PC, 155. SKS 12, 292 / WA, 176. SKS 10, 323 / CD, 299. SKS 12, 292 / WA, 177. SKS 11, 369 / WA, 133. SKS 11, 264 / WA, 128. SKS 12, 301 / WA, 186. SKS 11, 259 / WA, 124. SKS 11, 279 / WA, 143.

Communion

27

emphasizes that this pledge is the presence and work of Christ, not the pastor. When the pastor speaks the words of consecration, “This is my body,” it is the voice of Christ the communicant is to hear.16 When the communicant receives the blessing, it is Christ who supports him, not the pastor.17 Kierkegaard’s belief in Communion is Lutheran, especially as it gives the true body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism, the text historically used for Lutheran catechesis, asks the question, “What is the Sacrament of the Altar? Answer: It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.”18 Kierkegaard pushes his hearers to receive Communion as more than a doctrine: “It is not a doctrine he communicates to you—no, he gives you himself.”19 “In and with the visible sign, he gives you himself as a cover over your sins.”20 Kierkegaard empathizes with the communicant’s temptation to not believe one is forgiven at Communion, thereby retaining one’s sins. But he encourages the communicant to take Communion literally and, there, cast all his or her sins away.21 In the midst of the communicant’s subjectivity of longing for forgiveness, confessing one’s sins, and believing one is forgiven, Kierkegaard emphasizes that the communicant is actually capable of nothing.22 “If at the Communion table you want to be capable of the least little thing yourself, even merely to step forward yourself, you confuse everything, you prevent the reconciliation, make the satisfaction impossible.”23 The whole subjective activity of Communion is a gift of God. The longing,24 the going,25 even the confessing,26 are gifts from God. Christ is the ultimate subject of Communion. “If he did not know you, then you would receive Holy Communion in vain.”27 “You must have God’s help to believe that in the Lord’s Supper you receive the gracious forgiveness of your sins.”28 “You cannot be Christ’s co-worker in connection with the reconciliation, not in the remotest way. You are totally in debt; he is totally the satisfaction.”29 The communicant comes to Communion with heartfelt longing for the forgiveness of sins. After receiving forgiveness in Christ, Kierkegaard exhorts his hearer to depart

SKS 10, 290 / CD, 271. SKS 10, 325 / CD, 300. 18 The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. by Charles Arand et al., ed. by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2000, p. 362. 19 SKS 12, 301 / WA, 187. 20 SKS 12, 301 / WA, 188. 21 SKS 12, 286 / WA, 170. 22 SKS 10, 323 / CD, 298. 23 SKS 10, 323 / CD, 299. 24 SKS 10, 265 / CD, 251. 25 SKS 10, 324 / CD, 299. 26 Ibid. 27 SKS 10, 291 / CD, 273. 28 SKS 9, 374 / WL, 379. 29 SKS 10, 291 / CD, 273. 16 17

David Coe

28

the Communion table with intensified longing for Christ.30 “The task is to remain at the Communion table when you leave the Communion table.”31 In one discourse, he anthropomorphizes the Communion table, imagining the table is following the communicant out of the church after Communion.32 Like the sacrament of baptism, Communion is not to be treated as an opus operatum whereby the communicant proves his or her forgiveness merely by having tangibly received Communion. Kierkegaard’s final word from his discourses at the Friday Communions exhorts his hearers to leave Communion in continual communion with Christ: It is not only in memory of him, it is not only as a pledge that you have communion with him, but it is the communion, this communion that you are to strive to preserve in your daily life by more and more living yourself out of yourself and living yourself into him, in his love, which hides a multitude of sins.33

See also Atonement/Reconciliation; Baptism; Christ; Confession; Edifying Discourse/ Deliberation/Sermon; Faith; Forgiveness; Grace; Protestantism/Reformation; Sin.

32 33 30 31

SKS 10, 275 / CD, 261. SKS 10, 292 / CD, 274. SKS 10, 291 / CD, 273. SKS 12, 302 / WA, 188.

Concept Stine Zink Kaasgaard

Concept (Begreb—noun; begribe—verb) From the Middle Low German begripen, meaning to grab onto or grasp, the lexical meaning of this term is fourfold: firstly, as spatial extension (for example, the city has a large Begreb); secondly, as something given in an abbreviated form (for example, to give one’s opinion in a short form); thirdly, to be in the process of doing something. Here a distinction is made between more or less awareness of being in the midst of, and thus it can be an army in the midst of an attack (awareness) or the sun in the midst of rising (presumably no awareness); fourthly, as an idea or conception or a group of such, also as an image pertaining to consciousness or awareness.1 This fourth meaning of concept is by far the most complex and is again divided into four sub-definitions: (1) Having an idea, understanding or opinion of something; (2) A group of ideas of what is central to certain kinds of things, properties, actions, etc. This relates to the idea that most words do not refer to one single thing but to a group of things or an abstraction or generalization of such; (3) An idea of something impalpable, unreal, abstract, for example, logic is the science of pure concepts and abstract ideas; (4) Understanding, one’s ability to comprehend, intelligence. This last group of meanings makes up the majority of the instances of how Kierkegaard uses “concept” in his work. Whenever this is not the case, Begreb is sometimes translated into English with other words than “concept,” which is also the case when it is used to express “opinion.”2 The word “concept” appears most frequently in The Concept of Anxiety, followed by The Concept of Irony, and, with less frequency, in the first part of Either/Or.3 Two of these works were published pseudonymously; the first mentioned was published under the name Vigilius Haufniensis (the vigilant Copenhagener) in 1844. The latter, Either/Or, was published under the name Victor Eremita (the victorious hermit) in 1843, the first part of which is ascribed to an unnamed character called “A.” It is interesting to note that “concept” as a noun is not mentioned even once in the second part of Either/Or. The Concept of Irony, published under Kierkegaard’s own name in 1841, was his dissertation from the University of Copenhagen. With the Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 2, columns 146–9. 2 Cf. SKS 10, 149 / CD, 45. 3 Thanks to Alastair McKinnon and the SKS online search function by Karsten Kynde for making this information available. 1

30

Stine Zink Kaasgaard

exception of the second part of Either/Or, the word “concept” appears in most of Kierkegaard’s other published works to a greater or lesser extent, and is used in a great variety of ways. As will be noted, of course, “concept” forms a part of the titles in both The Concept of Irony and The Concept of Anxiety. In both cases, however, the concept at the center of attention is that of irony and anxiety respectively, and not the concept of “concept” as such. Nonetheless, the treatment given to a concept more specifically might be hoped to show us something about the way in which “concept” more generally is to be understood in the works of Kierkegaard and those of his pseudonyms. At the outset a distinction must be made between Kierkegaard’s use of concepts in general, and his use of the particular concept of “concept.” In keeping with the aim of this volume, the following discussion will mainly address Kierkegaard’s use of the particular concept of “concept.” However, when considering the use of “concept” in Kierkegaard, it is almost inevitable to make note of the way in which Kierkegaard uses concepts more generally, and the fact that this in itself is indeed one of the great challenges in reading his works. Kierkegaard does not abide by a strict nomenclature. Rather, he has an extraordinary manner of keeping concepts fluid, so that it becomes very hard to grasp his thought by means of conventional conceptual analysis. One problem is that Kierkegaard does not say much that is not later disqualified or at least qualified in a different way; another is that the whole problem of trying to fixate on the particular in the universal, or more precisely, perhaps, not to do that, is at the heart of his struggle.4 A concept, in one sense of the word, is a kind of reduction of something which is really much more complex, but a reduction which is somehow at the same time inevitable and necessary to thinking5 (in order that we, as humans, may come to understand or have a grasp of anything at all). The difficulty perhaps lies in not slipping into seeing the reduction as if it were the complete picture, and to understanding the qualitative difference, as Kierkegaard sometimes refers to it, between one conception and another.6 The qualitative difference is what gives concepts their relevance to existing human beings. We may here think of Kierkegaard’s concept of the leap.7 There can be for him, qualitatively speaking, a radical break between one conception and another,8 though the immediate modifications that the concept undergoes may seem to the reader minimal and even hard to grasp. As mentioned above, however, the use made of “concept” in Kierkegaard’s works varies greatly, and it appears in as many different ways as the initial definition given here suggests. One thing which must be considered is whether or not Kierkegaard adheres to a Hegelian, or more generally speculative, manner of understanding concepts. SKS 18, 274–5, JJ:404 / KJN 2, 253–4 and SKS 18, 275, JJ:405 / KJN 2, 254. Ibid. 6 Cf. SKS 11, 203 / SUD, 89. In this case the reference is to the concept of sin in relation to Christianity, and the idea that it is decisive how such a concept is conceived of, whence we may talk of a qualitative difference, which indeed Anti-Climacus does. 7 Which is also used in connection with “concept,” for example, at SKS 4, 379–80 / CA, 77. 8 Cf. SKS 4, 381 / CA, 77. 4 5

Concept

31

Speculative thought holds that a concept must always also contain its opposite, that is, at the same time contain the concept and its negation since a concept gains its meaning from being opposed to something else. The qualification of a concept comes about through mediation, that is, the sublation of a concept by way of two opposites, which are preserved in the new concept.9 This must be seen as a challenge to the traditional Aristotelian laws of logic, concerning the law of excluded middle and the law of identity which claim that something can only either be one way or another but never include two opposites at the same time. The thing to keep in mind here is that there is a juggling act involved in understanding these ideas in their proper context. Insofar as they are strictly speculative, they do not relate to existence and hence cannot inform our thoughts in this respect. However, as a way of understanding our manner of developing concepts, it cannot be kept apart from existence all together, given that we relate to existence in different ways also through the use and acquisition of concepts. The question of how concepts relate to reality is age-old and has also been discussed, especially in the Middle Ages, in connection with universals. While Kierkegaard in most instances quite overtly opposes himself to Hegel’s speculative ideas,10 it is not quite clear that he does not himself approach the analysis of concepts in this manner. When Kierkegaard therefore talks of the importance of not forgetting the intermediate terms (Mellembestemmelserne), it is hard to see exactly how he imagines this to be different from that of mediation (the Hegelian term). Kierkegaard writes on various occasions that the intermediate terms must not be forgotten.11 Without them a concept is easily brought to being either just an empty shell or an object of misunderstanding.12 Hence there are certain aspects of what it means to have a grasp of something that cannot simply be left out without risking the partial or complete loss of the concept. A very clear example of this can be found in The Concept of Anxiety, where Vigilius Haufniensis is talking about the possibility of sin in relation to children.13 He states that in order not to skip the intermediate terms, whereby one would annul the concept of sin (and a number of other central Christian concepts), it is crucial to recognize that the possibilities of sin and innocence are present at the same time (“that the child, whatever its circumstance was, can become both guilty and innocent”). If this possibility is not latent, then the concept of sin is lost. What seems to show itself in such instances, and quite generally throughout Kierkegaard’s treatment of different concepts, is that there is always a dialectical movement in the qualifications of concepts, and this, it would seem, has a strong source of inspiration in Hegelian

G.W.F. Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic, Part One of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. by Theodore F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris, Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett 1991, § 32. 10 Cf. SKS 4, 288 / PF, 91 and SKS 7, 111 / CUP1, 93. I give a few examples here, but it is not something for which one has to look hard. 11 Cf. SKS 4, 345n., 379 / CA, 39–40n., 76 and SKS 1, 346 / CI, 316. 12 SKS 2, 139 / EO1, 139. 13 Cf. SKS 4, 379 / CA, 75–6. 9

32

Stine Zink Kaasgaard

thought. At the very least, the influence on Kierkegaard of the prevalent ideas of his day must not be forgotten when we consider his use of “concept” in the authorship. Meanwhile, “concept” is not so much a concept of concern in its own right in Kierkegaard’s writings, and hence has no, or at least only a somewhat indirect, place of its own. Although the endeavor here should be that of writing on “concept” strictly speaking, it is clear that Kierkegaard’s use of “concept” is oftentimes tied to a more particular concept. This is the case in the works already mentioned, such as The Concept of Irony and The Concept of Anxiety, but also within these works, and in many others, specific concepts are discussed at length: for example, the tragic or tragic guilt in the first part of Either/Or,14 the concepts of sin, innocence, and temptation15 in The Concept of Anxiety, the concepts of guilt and punishment16 in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the concept of neighbor in Works of Love,17 the concept of “sickness unto death” in the work of the same name,18 the distinction between Christian, human, and temporal concepts in The Moment,19 and many more. In these instances “concept,” of course, is related to specific concepts. However, even when “concept” is used as a more or less specific qualification of a way of grasping something, it does not close in upon itself.20 Because “concept” is intertwined with existence, with the paradox of moving between ideality and actuality; because it is living human beings who have a need to grasp things, this concept describes a process that must be open in the same sense in which life is. Hence, while concepts help us grasp things, our grasp also needs to be able to incorporate change,21 and it must be able to contain previous ideas.22 In a manner of speaking, conceptualization is at the same time settling and unsettling. When Kierkegaard therefore deals with a seemingly endless string of concepts, the difficulty is, on the one hand, to recognize the often small adjustments made to our conception of a given matter, and to accept the openness. A concept contains its own history23 and its possibility, but in a sense it also has a core without which all meaning is lost. An example of the above is given in Either/Or, in the chapter entitled “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic in Modern Drama,” where A discusses the concept of the tragic. A argues that the tragic, the essentially tragic, has an element of guilt and an element of innocence in it.24 Although these are qualified in different ways in ancient and modern tragedy, or qualified as standing in different relations to sorrow and pain, there are elements without which there can be no concept of the tragic at all. The dialectical moment here is given between being guilty and yet not being guilty. The qualification of the concept moves between these two. If the SKS 2, 139–62 / EO1, 139–64. SKS 4, 332–56 / CA, 25–51. 16 SKS 7, 227–31 / CUP1, 537–42. 17 Cf. SKS 9, 51 / WL, 44. Love of one’s neighbor is one of the primary subjects of this entire work, but here it is specifically referred to as a concept. 18 SKS 11, 134 / SUD, 17. 19 SKS 13, 305, 236, 149, 147 / M, 248, 185–6, 108, 105 respectively. 20 Cf. SKS 11, 109 / WL, 105. 21 Cf. SKS 2, 150 / EO1, 151. 22 SKS 1, 284 / CI, 245. 23 Ibid. 24 SKS 2, 150 / EO1, 151. 14 15

Concept

33

individual in question is either entirely guilty or entirely innocent, then there is no tragic subject,25 and therefore no tragic concept. Thus, something very similar is in play here as in the example given above. Although Kierkegaard does not make the distinction himself, three primary uses of “concept,” understood as being a concept for someone, may be distilled from his writings. One frequent use of “concept” is in the sense of “opinion.”26 In this sense “concept” relates to the basic meaning of the word: to grasp or to hold onto. To have a grasp of something in a certain manner is to accept a particular way of holding something as true. When one is of a certain opinion this may either represent a view somewhat unique to the individual in question, and hence have a subjective connotation,27 or it may relate to a common way of understanding something, in which case it may be understood as an expression of communality and conformity, that is, being in accordance with the standard conception.28 The imagery invoked in the definition of “concept”: holding on, having a grasp of, may be said to be essential to the term in all its uses. An example of the first use of “concept” may be found in the first part of Stages on Life’s Way: “Johannes considered this to be a good word in the proper place, for in his opinion [Begreb] there was only one who was able to arrange a banquet, and that was the tablecloth that spreads itself and sets everything out if one merely says: Spread yourself.”29 The sense of opinion is here reinforced by the base subject matter. An opinion pertaining to the individual, expressed as a concept, can also be qualified as a belief, as something that has an impact on the individual’s understanding of life. An example of this would be in the second half of Stages on Life’s Way where it is said, “But in turn the religious person has another conception [Begreb] of what awakens fear, and his compassion is therefore in another quarter.”30 Here Begreb leans more towards conviction, and therefore assumes a role in which a person’s stance in life can be dramatically altered, compared to that of the nonbeliever in this case. Having a grasp in this sense then comes to mean that one is holding, not just a concept, but a way of life unique to the individual who is able to alter his or her concepts according to that which is higher and in a sense entirely free of conceptual generalization, namely, the Christian God. Hence, the different ways in which concepts are ascribed to “someone” may be seen as follows: the particular, singular, individual concept31 (often as opinion, but also as life-view); the common, universal, or the human concept, as it is sometimes called (for example, menneskelige (human),32 borgerlige (bourgeois),33 almindelige (common)34 Begreber); and the Ibid. Cf. SKS 10, 93 / CD, 86 (Begreb is here translated as “notion”) and SKS 2, 98 / EO1, 94. 27 Cf. SKS 4, 313 / CA, 7 or SKS 7, 10 / CUP1, 6. 28 Cf. SKS 7, 492 / CUP1, 541, and SKS 9, 203 / WL, 204 (“concept” has here been translated as “world view”). 29 SKS 6, 28 / SLW, 22. 30 SKS 6, 425 / SLW, 461. 31 Cf. SKS 1, 191 / CI, 141; SKS 5, 295 / EUD, 191; SKS 11, 81 / WA, 77–8. 32 Cf. SKS 13, 90–1 / FSE, 70 (“concept” has here been translated as “notion”). 33 Cf. SKS 7, 492 / CUP1, 541 (borgelige has been translated as “civil”). 34 Cf. SKS 6, 422 / SLW, 458 (almindelige has been translated as “universal”). 25 26

Stine Zink Kaasgaard

34

concept of God,35 which is also said not to be a concept because it does not eliminate the particular, as our concepts almost inevitably do. In The Sickness unto Death Anti-Climacus puts it like this: His [God’s] concept is not like man’s, beneath which the single individual lies as that which cannot be merged in the concept; his concept embraces everything, and in another sense he has no concept. God does not avail himself of an abridgment; he comprehends (comprehendit) actuality itself, all its particulars; for him the single individual does not lie beneath the concept.36

So, unlike human beings who must fit things under concepts in order to be able to grasp them, God conceives of the whole of reality at the same time. Human conception always somehow blurs actuality by forcing it to some form of ideality. The tension of human concepts is also hinted at more directly, since the particular is said to be, in human terms, that which does not fit under the concept. Before each other we are somehow measured by the universal and for not fitting into a given concept of how we ought to be. Before God, however, we are always these particular individuals and will be judged as such.37 Sometimes the concept of “concept” is mentioned in relation to different existential spheres.38 Kierkegaard refers to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious, as different ways in which concepts are qualified. So while a concept might be said to pertain either to the individual, the plurality of people (or the individual as part of the universal conception), or God, the way in which one can conceive of a concept may be qualified or understood on different planes or in different spheres. Religious concepts are, of course, a category of their own in Kierkegaard’s works, but they should be mentioned here, because they shed light on the difference between divine and human concepts. What comes to qualify the individual before God is said by the pseudonym H.H. in Two Ethical-Religious Essays to be the concepts of the particular individual. A man’s concept of truth, of guilt, and of responsibility will eventually determine his responsibility before God.39 This is said to be the case even though the man, who has been killed by people who do not regard themselves as guilty, holds a concept of guilt different from that of his persecutors. Hence, concepts, when these can be said to be determining for our life-view, entail a great responsibility for the individual, which cannot simply be dismissed by reference to a common conception. There is something soothingly ironic about the fact that Kierkegaard, who was a master of concepts, is so hard to understand when it comes to the meaning of a concept. See also Actuality; Dialectic; Identity/Difference; Mediation/Sublation; Qualitative Difference; Speculation; Religious/Religiousness.

SKS 11, 232–3 / SUD, 212. Ibid. 37 SKS 11, 81–2 / WA, 77. 38 SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476. 39 SKS 11, 81 / WA, 77–8. 35 36

Concrete/Abstract Steven M. Emmanuel

Concrete (concret—adjective) / Abstract (abstrakt—adjective) The Danish word konkret (in Kierkegaard’s spelling, concret) is from the Latin concretus and primarily denotes that which is determinate or real, especially in the sense of having material or physical form.1 By contrast, the word abstrakt, from the Latin abstractus, commonly denotes that which exists merely as an idea or as an object for theoretical consideration.2 In the philosophical vocabulary of the modern period, “the abstract” (German, das Abstrakte) is commonly understood to indicate a concept or universal that has been derived or “abstracted” from perceptible, concrete reality—although in Kant’s usage “an intellectual concept abstracts from everything sensuous, it is not abstracted from sensuous things.”3 In Hegel’s philosophy, the terms “concrete” and “abstract” are not used to distinguish between the material (objects of experience) and the ideal (objects of thought). Rather, “abstract” refers to the incompleteness of a thing when considered apart from the whole to which it belongs. Both universals and particulars may be regarded as abstract in this sense. By contrast, “concrete” refers to the unity of things in their interconnectedness and wholeness. Hegel’s dialectical method describes a progression from the abstract to the concrete, culminating in the Absolute Idea: the all-encompassing, concrete universal, which expresses the whole of reality. As descriptive terms, abstrakt and concret occur throughout Kierkegaard’s writings. Often, they are used in the context of his critical engagement with Hegelian thought. Despite their ubiquity, however, it may be noted that these terms figure prominently in the pseudonymous authorship, particularly in Either/Or and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, where they are used to elucidate the dialectical stages of existence. Among the signed works, the terms are used to make key points in The Concept of Irony and in A Literary Review of Two Ages, where Kierkegaard formulates his critique of the press and “the public.” Kierkegaard typically uses the word “concrete” to indicate the (historical) actuality of a thing, in the sense of its having come into existence. However, an idea may admit of varying degrees of concreteness, depending on the extent to which it is Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1918–56, vol. 10, column 5. 2 Ibid., vol. 1, column 92. 3 Immanuel Kant, Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, trans. by William J. Eckoff, Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing 2004, p. 53. 1

Steven M. Emmanuel

36

given expression in a medium that has historical-temporal dimensions. For example a moral or religious idea may be given concrete expression in an individual’s life. By contrast, “abstract” is typically used to indicate objects of pure thought, universals, anything that lacks content or historical-temporal context, or exists only as an ideal or formal possibility. In The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard characterizes the dialectical method of Socrates as a process of abstraction, in that it progressively empties language of any concrete referential content. This can be seen, for example, in Socrates’ discussion of love in Plato’s Symposium, where Love is disengaged more and more from the accidental concretion in which it appeared in the previous speeches and taken back to its most abstract definitions, wherein it appears not as love of this or that or for this or that, but as love for something it does not have, that is, as desire, longing….The desiring and the longing are the negative in love, that is, the immanent negativity….This definition is also the most abstract, or rather it is the abstract itself, not in the ontological sense but in the sense of what lacks content.4

The Socratic method thus moves from the concrete to the abstract: “He starts with the concrete and arrives at the most abstract and there, where the investigation should begin, he stops.”5 Kierkegaard goes on to show that Hegel’s understanding of Socratic irony is based on a misinterpretation of this dialectical method. According to Hegel, the greatness of Socratic irony lies in the fact that “it seeks to make abstract conceptions concrete and developed.”6 But this gets things backwards. The problem, Kierkegaard explains, is that Hegel conflates the Socratic and Platonic forms of irony, with the result that both become, in Hegel’s words, “more a manner of conversation, sociable pleasantry, and not that pure negation, not the negative attitude.”7 Hegel misses the historical significance of Socratic irony, the aim of which was not “to make the abstract concrete, but to let the abstract become visible through the immediately concrete.”8 More specifically, Socrates consciously employed irony in order to undermine Greek culture: “His conduct toward it was at all times ironic; he was ignorant and knew nothing but was continually seeking information from others; yet as he let the existing go on existing, it foundered.”9 To the extent that he uncompromisingly maintained this abstract neutrality in the ironic stance of ignorance, his position was “infinite absolute negativity.”10 Nevertheless, it was not “actuality in general that he negated; it was the given actuality at a particular time…and what his irony was demanding was the actuality of subjectivity”11 in his interlocutors. In this way, Socratic irony signaled the beginning of subjectivity and 6 7 8 9 4 5



10 11

SKS 1, 106–7 / CI, 45–6. SKS 1, 107 / CI, 46. SKS 1, 304 / CI, 266. SKS 1, 304–5 / CI, 267. SKS 1, 304 / CI, 267. SKS 1, 302 / CI, 264. SKS 1, 307 / CI, 271. SKS 1, 307–8 / CI, 271.

Concrete/Abstract

37

the movement toward concrete moral and religious development, even though he himself did not realize this development but instead “became a sacrifice.”12 In Either/Or, Part One (“The Immediate Erotic Stages or The Musical-Erotic”), the pseudonym A observes that “[t]he more abstract and thus the more impoverished the idea is, the more abstract and thus the more impoverished the medium is.”13 The most abstract idea of all is “the sensuous in its elemental originality,”14 which can be expressed only through the medium of music. Music “articulates not the particular but the universal in all its universality, and yet it articulates this universality not in the abstraction of reflection but in the concretion of immediacy.”15 Although music embodies a kind of lyrical power, this does not rest in a concrete instant but rather unfolds in a fleeting succession of instants, and therefore cannot be captured in the media of the plastic and visual arts, such as sculpture and painting. Although music has an element of time (tempo, duration), it “cannot express the historical within time,”16 because every musical note vanishes in the very performance of it, continually disengaging itself from its sensuous immediacy.17 Strictly speaking, music “exists only when it is being performed.”18 By contrast, language is “the most concrete of all media,”19 precisely because it is “permeated by the historical.”20 For this reason, works of art that are created in the medium of language (for example, the epic poetry of Homer) bear repetition in a way that works created in abstract media do not. Indeed, the more abstract the medium, “the greater is the probability that no repetition can be imagined….On the other hand, the more concrete and thus the richer the idea and likewise the medium, the greater is the probability of a repetition.”21 Mozart’s Don Giovanni represents the perfect unity of abstract idea and abstract medium. The idea of seduction as the relentless, unreflective movement from one conquest to the next is “intrinsically altogether musical, and if any other composer were to compete with Mozart, there would be nothing for him to do except to compose Don Giovanni all over again.”22 The inadequacy of a purely aesthetic approach to love is discussed in “The Esthetic Validity of Marriage” (Either/Or, Part Two), where Judge William observes that “Romantic love continually remains abstract in itself, and if it can find no outer history, death is already lying in wait for it, because its eternity is illusory.”23 This is so because the romantic lover focuses on the abstract ideal of “first love,”24 SKS 1, 308 / CI, 271. SKS 2, 62 / EO1, 54. 14 SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 56. 15 SKS 2, 99–100 / EO1, 95. 16 SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 57. 17 Ibid. 18 SKS 2, 75 / EO1, 68. 19 SKS 2, 62 / EO1, 55. 20 Ibid. 21 SKS 2, 62 / EO1, 54. 22 SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 57. Cf. Either/Or, Part Two, where Judge William discusses repetition in connection with the concept of “first love” (SKS 3, 47–6 / EO2, 40–2). 23 SKS 3, 136 / EO2, 138. 24 SKS 3, 99 / EO2, 97. 12 13

Steven M. Emmanuel

38

which he desires to experience again and again. Unlike marital love, which requires commitment and responsibility, and thereby acquires an inner history, “first love” lacks the historical.25 The purely aesthetic pursuit of love leads to nothing more than a succession of meaningless romantic liaisons, thereby forestalling the possibility of authentic self-development. Judge William attempts to persuade the aesthete that the ethical relationship of marriage does not abolish but rather preserves and elevates “first love.” The requirements for ethical existence are explored more fully in “The Balance Between the Esthetic and the Ethical in the Development of the Personality.” Operating with the Hegelian understanding of ethics as an expression of universal social norms, Judge William contends that it is “every person’s duty to marry.”26 But the ethical as the universal is abstract in the sense that it exists outside the individual in the form of a law.27 The task for the existing individual is to become the universal: “Not until the individual himself is the universal, not until then can the ethical be actualized.”28 The person who makes the ethical decision to marry thereby gives concrete expression to the universal in his life: “He makes himself the universal human being not by taking off [afføre] his concretion, for then he becomes a complete non-entity, but by putting it on [iføre] and interpenetrating it with the universal.”29 When a person is aesthetically in love, the focus is on the accidental features that make him and his experiences unique in the world. But when the person “who lives ethically marries, he actualizes the universal. That is why he is no hater of the concrete…inasmuch as he sees in love a revelation of the universally human.”30 In this sense, the person who lives ethically always has himself as his task: “His self in its immediacy is defined by accidental characteristics; the task is to work the accidental and universal together into a whole.”31 In choosing to marry, one chooses to become a concrete personality, a concrete self. But like any ethical choice, this cannot be made once and for all.32 Not until a person in his choice has…totally interpenetrated himself so that every movement he makes is accompanied by a consciousness of responsibility for himself— not until then has a person chosen himself ethically…not until then is he concrete, not until then is he in his total isolation in absolute continuity with the actuality to which he belongs33

The person who has chosen ethically “possesses himself defined in his entire concretion.”34 He is at once a personal and a social and civic self, “not an abstract self SKS 3, 99 / EO2, 96. SKS 3, 285 / EO2, 302. 27 SKS 3, 243 / EO2, 255. 28 SKS 3, 244 / EO2, 255. 29 SKS 3, 244 / EO2, 256. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 SKS 3, 221 / EO2, 231. 33 SKS 3, 237 / EO2, 248. 34 SKS 3, 249 / EO2, 262. 25 26

Concrete/Abstract

39

that fits everywhere and therefore nowhere but…a concrete self in living interaction with these specific surroundings, these life conditions, this order of things.”35 In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard’s philosophical pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, takes critical aim at Hegelian speculative philosophy. The problem, as Climacus sees it, is that the speculative thinker abstracts from the actuality of historical existence: “Precisely because abstract thinking is sub specie aeterni, it disregards the concrete, the temporal, the becoming of existence, and the difficult situation of the existing person because of his being composed of the eternal and the temporal situated in existence.”36 Whereas an existing human being has his or her actuality in holding these contradictory elements together, the speculative philosopher is “a fantastic creature who lives in the pure being of abstraction.”37 In Hegel’s logical system, particulars and universals are not absolutely separated, but stand in a part–whole relation to each other. The only true concrete is the Idea, the universal that contains all its particular instances. When viewed in isolation, particulars are incomplete, and therefore the corresponding conceptions we have of them involve contradictions. However, all these contradictions are gradually overcome in the dialectical advance toward the Absolute Idea, in so far as our finite conceptions of things become more and more complete when viewed in the context of the whole. According to Climacus’ interpretation, this process abstracts from the actuality of the particular and thereby removes the difficulty (that is, the contradiction) involved in “joining this definite something and the ideality of thinking by willing to think it.”38 Viewed from the perspective of eternity, “everything is and nothing originates.”39 In existence, however, everything is in the process of becoming, and “where the eternal relates itself as the future to the person in a process of becoming— there the absolute disjunction belongs.”40 Thus, Climacus observes that Hegel “is perfectly and absolutely right in maintaining that, looked at eternally, sub specie aeterni, there is no aut/aut [exclusive disjunction] in the language of abstraction, in pure thought…since abstraction, after all, simply removes the contradiction.”41 Yet he does not “take the trouble to explain what is meant by the masquerade of getting contradiction, movement, transition, etc. into logic.”42 Against speculative “abstraction,” Climacus declares that thought and being (in the sense of historical existence) are fundamentally incommensurable, and that speculation simply looks away from the contradictions inherent in the concrete historical situation, in which an existing individual is forced to choose between mutually exclusive alternatives (for example, to marry or not to marry). In fact, the “dubiousness of abstraction manifests itself precisely in connection with all

SKS 3, 250 / EO2, 262. SKS 7, 274 / CUP1, 301. 37 SKS 7, 275 / CUP1, 302. 38 Ibid. 39 SKS 7, 279 / CUP1, 307. 40 Ibid. 41 SKS 7, 277–8 / CUP1, 305. 42 Ibid. 35 36

40

Steven M. Emmanuel

existential questions, from which abstraction removes the difficulty by omitting it and then boasts of having explained everything.”43 In the Postscript, “abstract and “concrete” are used to describe two contrasting modes of thought: “What is abstract thinking? It is thinking where there is no thinker. It ignores everything but thought, and in its own medium only thought is. Existence is not thoughtless, but in existence thought is in an alien medium.”44 “Concrete thinking,” by contrast, involves “a thinker and a specific something (in the sense of particularity) that is being thought, where existence gives the existing thinker thought, time, and space.”45 The abstract thinker and the concrete thinker correspond to the “objective thinker” and “subjective thinker.” As an objective thinker, the speculative philosopher wishes to remain in the realm of abstraction, pure thought. By contrast, the subjective thinker’s task is “to understand himself in existence. True enough, abstract thinking does indeed speak about contradiction…although by disregarding existence and existing it cancels difficulty and contradiction.”46 The subjective thinker exists and at the same time is a thinking person. Such a thinker does not abstract from but rather lives within existence and contradiction, and in thinking about existence always bears in mind that he or she is an existing person.47 Climacus summarizes the dialectical progression of the existential stages as follows. The aesthete, who lives in the abstraction of immediacy, finds no contradiction in existing. The ethical individual discovers contradiction, but only in the form of self-assertion (that is, choosing to be a concrete self). In “Religiousness A,” the individual experiences contradiction as suffering in self-annihilation, but by “ethically accentuating existing, [“Religiousness A”] hinders the existing person in abstractly remaining in immanence, or in becoming abstract by wanting to remain in immanence.”48 However, the paradoxical-religious finally “breaks with immanence and makes existing the absolute contradiction.”49 The “existence-contradiction” of Christianity lies precisely in the fact that the possibility of an eternal happiness must be decided “here in time by a relation to something historical.”50 The paradox embodied in the God-man (the eternal existing in time) cannot be mediated by thought,51 but must be existentially appropriated in the inwardness of subjectivity. Because speculative thought is both abstract and objective, it “completely disregards existing and inwardness, and, since Christianity indeed paradoxically accentuates existing, it is the greatest possible misunderstanding of Christianity.”52 SKS 7, 275 / CUP1, 302. SKS 7, 303 / CUP1, 332. 45 Ibid. 46 SKS 7, 321 / CUP1, 351. 47 Ibid. 48 SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572–3. 49 SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 573. 50 SKS 7, 346 / CUP1, 380. 51 SKS 7, 341 / CUP1, 375. 52 SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572. 43 44

Concrete/Abstract

41

In A Literary Review of Two Ages, the theme of abstraction plays a prominent role in Kierkegaard’s highly critical assessment of the present age, which he characterizes as “a sensible, reflecting age, devoid of passion, flaring up in superficial, short-lived enthusiasm and prudentially relaxing in indolence.”53 In a passionless and reflective age, envy establishes itself as a “negatively unifying principle,”54 which takes the form of “leveling.”55 Leveling is a “quiet, mathematical, abstract enterprise that avoids all agitation”56 by thwarting any expression of individuality and impeding the cultivation of inwardness necessary for moral and spiritual growth. In order for this leveling to take place, “a phantom must first be raised, the spirit of leveling, a monstrous abstraction, an all-encompassing something that is nothing, a mirage—and this phantom is the public.”57 Leveling is the result of a collective social behavior that seeks safety and comfort in the anonymity of conformity.58 Thus, while individuals may contribute to it, leveling is “an abstract power and is abstraction’s victory over individuals.”59 In modern times this is facilitated and amplified by the press, which itself is an abstraction, “for a newspaper, a periodical, is not a political concretion and is an individual only in an abstract sense.”60 The press serves as a platform for public opinion, which is an abstract and impersonal expression of ideas. Public opinion not only acts as a powerful solvent against independent thought but also provides a safe haven for those who want to avoid any personal responsibility for what they think: “In adopting the same opinion as these or those particular persons, one knows that they will be subject to the same danger as oneself, that they will go astray with one if the opinion is in error, etc.”61 The phantom public, supported by the press, is at once “the most dangerous of all powers and the most meaningless.”62 It is dangerous because it leads to a general demoralization and depersonalization of society. As Kierkegaard explains in The Point of View for My Work as an Author, the daily press “contributes enormously to demoralization”63 by encouraging abstract, impersonal communication, irresponsibility, and anonymity, which is “the highest expression for abstraction.”64 In this environment, speech is gradually reduced to something characterless and superficial, an abstract chattering about anything and everything.65 Indeed,

SKS 8, 66 / TA, 68. SKS 8, 78 / TA, 81. 55 SKS 8, 80 / TA, 84. 56 Ibid. 57 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90. 58 SKS 8, 87 / TA, 92. 59 SKS 8, 81 / TA, 84. 60 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. 61 SKS 8, 87 / TA, 92. 62 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. 63 SKS 16, 38 / PV, 57. 64 Ibid. 65 SKS 8, 98 / TA, 103. 53 54

42

Steven M. Emmanuel comments become so objective, their range so all-encompassing, that eventually it makes no difference at all who says them….And eventually human speech will become just like the public: pure abstraction—there will no longer be someone who speaks, but an objective reflection will gradually deposit a kind of atmosphere, an abstract noise that will render human speech superfluous, just as machines make workers superfluous.66

The depersonalization of human discourse undermines the possibility of authentic authorship,67 as well as the possibility of meaningful conversation.68 All is not lost, however. For while this “hopeless abstraction of leveling”69 represents the power of evil, “God permits it and wants to cooperate with individuals, that is, with each one individually, and draw the highest out of it.”70 If the individual is not crushed by the weight of public opinion and the pressure to conform, “he will be educated by this very abstraction and this abstract discipline…to be satisfied in the highest religious sense with himself and his relationship to God, will be educated to make up his own mind instead of agreeing with the public, which annihilates all the relative concretions of individuality, to find rest within himself, at ease before God….”71 See also Actuality; Being/Becoming; Contradiction; Crowd/Public; Exception/ Universal; Leveling; Metaphysics; Press/Journalism; Speculation/Science/ Scholarship.

SKS 8, 98–9 / TA, 104. SKS 8, 97 / TA, 103. Cf. The Point of View, where Kierkegaard laments that the author has been reduced to “an impersonal something that, by means of printing, addresses itself abstractly to thousands upon thousands, but itself is unseen, unknown, living as secretly, as anonymously, as impersonally as possible…” (SKS 16, 38 / PV, 57). 68 SKS 8, 98 / TA, 103. 69 SKS 8, 103 / TA, 109. 70 Ibid. 71 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92. 66 67

Confession David Coe

Confession (Skriftemaal—noun; skrifte—verb) From the Old Danish skriftamal, Old Norse skriptamál. Its simplest lexical meaning in Danish is the disclosure of sins one has committed. Privately, it refers to the confession of sins to a priest/confessor. Publicly, it refers to the confession of sins by the pastor on the church’s behalf. Confession, preceding absolution, the ecclesiastical declaration of forgiveness of sins, is especially practiced as preparation for Communion.1 The concept of confession occurs almost exclusively in Kierkegaard’s signed discourses. The first discourse in Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions is entitled “On the Occasion of a Confession.” The first discourse in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits is entitled the same. Kierkegaard frequently references confession in three places: (1) Christian Discourses contains seven “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays”; (2) Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays; and (3) Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays. The latter two are collected in Without Authority in the Hongs’ English edition. The concept of confession is also briefly touched on in Practice in Christianity by Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard’s idealChristian pseudonym. Throughout these works, Kierkegaard commends confession as the prerequisite for communion with Christ. Kierkegaard’s 1845 discourse, “On the Occasion of a Confession,” characterizes confession as follows: “The confessor seeks God in the confession of sins, and the confession is the road and is a biding place on the road of salvation, where one pauses and collects one’s thoughts.”2 Confession requires bearing in mind the dialectic that “without purity no human being can see God and without becoming a sinner no human being can come to know him.”3 “The purest of heart is precisely the one most willing to comprehend his own guilt most deeply.”4 The rest of the discourse sets the mood for an authentic confession to occur, requiring stillness, earnestness, honesty, sorrow, and being alone before God, “alone with the Holy One, who knows everything.”5 The confessor should not confess his sins while regarding Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 19, columns 864–9. 2 SKS 5, 396 / TD, 15. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 SKS 5, 407 / TD, 27. 1

David Coe

44

others’ sins. Two distracting diversions can occur. (1) If he understands his sin as sin in general (e.g., that all people are sinners)6 or (2) if he compares his sin with the sins of others,7 he lackadaisically lessens his own guilt and distracts himself from the magnitude of his own sin. Kierkegaard’s discourse helps his hearer prepare for confession by awakening his need for forgiveness. For when someone needs forgiveness, “no Croesus who possesses everything, and no philanthropist who feeds the hungry possesses anything as great or has anything as great to give away or anything as needful to give away as the person whose forgiveness someone else needs.”8 “An Occasional Discourse” from 1847, also entitled “On the Occasion of a Confession,” augments and extends the points made in 1845, again existentially preparing the reader for confession, “the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation.”9 Again, the confessor confesses his sins alone before God as a single individual: “The number of confessors does not create a kind of company any more than ‘the number of the dead creates a kind of company.’ ”10 Confession requires an earnest relation to time. Indolent persons, whether young or old, believe they have plenty of time to repent, but a truly repentant person, whether young or old, relates to time always as if it is the eleventh hour. “When regret wakes up troubled, be it in the youth or in the old man, it always wakes up at the eleventh hour. It does not have much time at its disposal, because it is indeed the eleventh hour; it does not deceive with a false notion of a long life, because it is indeed the eleventh hour.”11 And yet, repentance is not impatience. “Sudden repentance wants to collect all the bitterness of sorrow in one draft—and then be off. It wants to get away from the guilt, away from every reminder of it, fortifying itself with the delusion that it is for the sake of not being delayed in the good; it wants the guilt to be completely forgotten with the passage of time—and this again is impatience.”12 Instead, repentance is a “quiet daily concern.”13 “Of repentance it must be said that, if it is forgotten, then its strength was nothing but immaturity, but the longer and more deeply it is preserved, the better it becomes.”14 In the discourse, Kierkegaard also stresses in confessing to God, “the Omniscient One does not find out anything about the confessing person, but instead the person confessing finds out something about himself.”15 Just as prayer does not change God, but changes the one who prays, the same goes for confession. Briefly, in the short discourse entitled “The Joy of It: That Hardship Does Not Take Away But Procures Hope” in Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard counsels that hardship can procure confession. “Imagine a really hardened criminal whom the court is unable to get to confess either by sagacity or by kind words but from 8 9 6 7

12 13 14 15 10 11

SKS 5, 409 / TD, 29. SKS 5, 410 / TD, 31. SKS 5, 395 / TD, 13. SKS 8, 131 / UD, 19. SKS 8, 247 / UD, 150. SKS 8, 130 / UD, 15. SKS 8, 132 / UD, 17. SKS 8, 133 / UD, 18. SKS 8, 134 / UD, 19. SKS 8, 137 / UD, 22.

Confession

45

whom a confession is extracted by means of the rack. Eternity’s hope is in a person’s innermost being in the same way. The natural man goes reluctantly, very reluctantly, to confession.”16 Before the sacrament of Communion, communicants regularly went to confess their sins to the pastor. Hence, Kierkegaard writes much about confession in his many “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays.” Because Friday Communion was volitional and not obligatory, unlike Sunday Communion, the setting of the Friday service corroborated Kierkegaard’s view that confession is primarily a private act before God. Even the confession of sin to the pastor is ultimately a confession to God. “It is true that in the confessional it is the pastor who preaches; but the true preacher is still the secret-sharer in your inner being.”17 Kierkegaard championed the tradition of going to confession prior to Communion: Devout listeners, you are gathered here today to renew your pledge of faithfulness, but what path are you taking to your decision? It is through confession. Is this not a detour? Why do you not go directly to the Communion table? Oh, even if it were not prescribed by sacred tradition, would not you yourself feel the need to go along this path to the Communion table!18

For Kierkegaard, the disquieting confession of sin is a prerequisite for Communion.19 “Just as something that builds up is always terrifying at first, and just as all true love is always unrest at first, and just as love of God is always sorrow at first, similarly, what seems disturbing is not always disturbing, what truly is quieting is always disquieting at first.”20 For Kierkegaard, when one kneels in confession at the Communion table—a symbol for standing far off—one is at the same time closest to God.21 In his Communion discourses, Kierkegaard lauds as prototypes the confessing tax collector and the woman who was a sinner, in comparison to the Pharisee, who presumptuously thanked God “that he was not like other men.”22 The tax collector beats his breast and confesses, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,”23 and goes home justified. In confessing her sins, the woman who was a sinner confesses she loves her Savior more than her sin.24 In confessing the negativity of one’s sins, one is prepared for the positivity of Communion—Communion with Christ. Confession is not ultimately meant to be a burden; “on the contrary, it wants to help you, through confession, to lay aside the burden.”25 Anti-Climacus concludes part one of Practice in Christianity this way: “ ‘And what does all this mean?’ It means that each individual in quiet inwardness before 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 16 17

SKS 10, 122 / CD, 112. SKS 12, 297 / WA, 183. SKS 10, 307 / CD, 287. SKS 12, 159 / PC, 155. SKS 12, 292 / WA, 176. SKS 11, 269 / WA, 133. SKS 11, 265 / WA, 129. SKS 11, 264 / WA, 128. SKS 11, 279 / WA, 143. SKS 10, 307 / CD, 287.

David Coe

46

God is to humble himself under what it means in the strictest sense to be a Christian, is to confess honestly before God where he is so that he still might worthily accept the grace that is offered to every imperfect person—that is, to everyone.”26 See also Atonement/Reconciliation; Christ; Communion; Conscience; Earnestness; Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon; Faith; Forgiveness; Grace; Mood/Emotion/ Feeling; Repentance; Sin.



26

SKS 12, 79 / PC, 67.

Conscience Curtis L. Thompson

Conscience (Samvittighed—noun) The Danish word for “conscience,” Samvittighed, corresponds to the Latin conscientia and the Greek συνείδησις. As in the English, the word denotes a person’s firm, constant consciousness of good and evil, which according to the Christian view is established within a person by God; the soul’s feeling of unrest (and sometimes sin and guilt) that follows from not following one’s conscience; or one who functions as a conscience for others by having an awakening influence on them.1 The concept of the conscience is situated at the heart of Kierkegaard’s thinking. It is a correlational notion that holds together two realities—the divine and the human. We can probe Kierkegaard’s understanding of conscience by considering (1) God and the single individual, (2) eternity and temporality, and (3) the anguished conscience and the atonement. I. God and the Single Individual The conscience for Kierkegaard is the fundamental connection between God and human beings. In an entry from 1846 we find what is very close to an ontological or metaphysical statement about the conscience as grounded in that divine coknowledge in which the human being participates: Really it is conscience that constitutes a personality; personality is an individual determinateness established by being known by God in the possibility of conscience. For conscience may lie dormant, but what constitutes it is its possibility. Otherwise the determinateness would be a transitory element. Not even consciousness of the determinateness, self-consciousness, is the constituting factor, insofar as this is only the relationship in which the determinateness relates to itself; whereas God’s co-knowledge is the fixing, the securing.2

Conscience is a kind of co-knowledge shared with God. We see here the influence of Meister Eckhart, who, in interpreting “in your light we see light” (Psalm 36:9), Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 18, columns 697–702. 2 SKS 18, 279–80, JJ:420 / KJN 2, 258. 1

48

Curtis L. Thompson

had written that God’s eye and my eye are one and the same.3 Kierkegaard, similarly, wrote in his journal in 1847: “In [my] conscience God has found me out, and now it is impossible for me to forget that this eye sees me. God’s having seen me made me and makes me see God.”4 Religious relationship is a possibility because of the structuring of the relatedness of God to the human being provided by the conscience. This structuring manifests itself as an inner voice that functions as an essential criterion for the human.5 The God who speaks and measures has the power in conscience: even if human beings hold all the power in the world, God holds it in the conscience, as God says, “Do exactly as you want, just let it look as though it was you who have power—how matters stand remains a secret between you and me.”6 The conscience as a relational reality is dynamic. Through it God speaks, and God’s voice, the inner voice, sets forth a question, for the conscience is a question.7 And the one who asks also listens. The God who speaks and listens is intimately connected to the human being. In his last-published discourse (the second of Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays), Kierkegaard endorses Luther’s claim that every person has a preacher within him or her, declaring that “it is also certain that deep within every human being there is a secret-sharer who is present just as scrupulously everywhere—the conscience.”8 It is impossible to flee from this secretsharer that resides in one’s inner being. The relationship of conscience brings utter transparency of the human being before God.9 Kierkegaard notes that God wants to enter the world and cannot do so without the cooperation of human beings: “if God is going to enter in, it has to be per the single individual.”10 Of course, since the world discounts God, it interprets a God-fearing relationship as merely a person filled with fear or self-love.11 In the God-relationship God gives the orders by whispering in the conscience to “be concerned only about me,” “do my will,” “know that our relationship is the highest,” “have no regard for your contemporaries”—and then life will become complicated, full of suffering, and all the more inward.12 Of his published works, Kierkegaard gives his richest treatment of the conscience in Works of Love. There we see developed the fully relational character of the conscience in connection to 1 Timothy 1:5 in the chapter entitled “Love is a Matter of Conscience.” Reaffirmed here is the thought that the God-relationship Hans Lassen Martensen, Meister Eckart. Et Bidrag til at oplyse Middelalderens Mystik, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1840, p. 36. (English translation: Meister Eckhart: A Study in Speculative Theology, in Between Hegel and Kierkegaard: Hans L. Martensen’s Philosophy of Religion, trans. by Curtis L. Thompson and David J. Kangas, Atlanta: Scholars Press 1997, p. 174.) 4 SKS 20, 160, NB2:50 / KJN 4, 158. 5 SKS 8, 46, 54 / TA, 46, 55. 6 SKS 18, 291, JJ:453 / KJN 2, 269. 7 SKS 19, 241, Not8:48 / KJN 3, 235. 8 SKS 12, 296 / WA, 182. 9 SKS 11, 235 / SUD, 124. 10 SKS 24, 129, NB22:44 / JP 2, 1960. 11 SKS 20, 207, NB2:166 / KJN 4, 206. 12 SKS 21, 298, NB9:20 / KJN 5, 216–17. 3

Conscience

49

is the conscience.13 God educates us through the conscience, as in it God looks at a person and that person must look at God.14 Conscience is a primary source of change. Christianity’s victory over the world is due to infinity making everything completely new by making every human relationship between person and person a relationship of conscience; because of the way Christianity breathes the divine into the human race, it can be called a nation of kings.15 In the internal world of spirit the miracle of Christianity makes everyone a king: in the external world only the king rules according to conscience, but “Christianity quietly makes infinity’s change,” which is inward, allowing everyone to be a king who rules in relationships according to conscience, and this transforms all relationships into relationships of love.16 This happens quietly and secretly because it happens inwardly; Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and the Christian is “a stranger in the world because it [the essentially Christian] belongs to the inner being”: “What else is Christianity but inwardness!”17 In this way it runs counter to Christendom, which in accommodating the world does not want to hear about the criterion of the God-relation or conscience. Worldly Christendom reverses religion’s movement, wanting outwardness where Christianity wants inwardness, and inwardness where Christianity wants outwardness.18 The conscience is the differentiating factor within humanity: it sets human beings apart from one another. It is the Archimedean point outside the world by means of which a person can move heaven and earth.19 The common expression for the relationship of conscience is “the single individual”: thus Christianity’s essential view of the human race is “to view all these countless ones separately, individually as the single individual.”20 In The Concept of Anxiety we learn that the conscience narrows the self down to its singularity, but at the same time it expands the self: “Thus the more definitely conscience is developed in a person the more expanded he is, even though in other respects he closes himself off from the world.”21 This closure means that silence, deep inward silence before God, is a further feature of the life grounded in conscience. In the preface to Judge for Yourself! we read that what it means to be the single individual is to have and to will to have a conscience.22 In “An Open Letter” written in January, 1851 and published later, Kierkegaard contends that “the single individual” was the focus of his entire authorship.23 This notion is relevant to the apostle. Solitariness figures significantly into the life of the apostle, for the apostle is a solitary human being. This rules out party solidarity, for each apostle consults not the latest polls but rather God and his conscience.24 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 13 14

SKS 9, 144 / WL, 143. SKS 9, 370 / WL, 377. SKS 9, 137–8 / WL, 135–6. SKS 9, 138–9 / WL, 136–7. SKS 9, 139–40 / WL, 137–8. SKS 9, 147 / WL, 146. SKS 20, 107–8, NB:171 / KJN 4, 485–6. SKS 9, 140 / WL, 138. SKS 4, 434–5 / CA, 134. SKS 16, 149 / JFY, 91. SKS 24, 112, 114 / COR, 53, 56. SKS 24, 114 / COR, 57.

50

Curtis L. Thompson

The apostle is the exception, but the need for singularity and solitariness applies no less to every human. In the God-human relation the language of human response is action: “Conscience…can be represented only through action by a solitary person and in character, by action.”25 II. Eternity and Temporality The conscience is also reflected upon by Kierkegaard in terms of the tension between eternity and temporality. The human being accesses the eternal through the possibilities of the future. With this accessing is introduced the battle between eternity and temporality as the human is called to bring the eternal into the moment. A rather robust discussion of the eternal is set forth in Kierkegaard’s Part One of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Eternity requires that every human being acquire a conscience, which amounts to living as a single individual and giving an account of oneself before God.26 In the infinite silence and infinite space of eternity the individual is alone with his or her conscience, whose singular voice is eternity’s means of accounting: “What else is it [this accounting] than that in eternity…the conscience speaks only with the single individual about whether he as an individual has done good or evil, and about his not wanting to be an individual while he lived!”27 Negotiating one’s way in the world is threatening to the health of one’s conscience because the world wants to abolish this pesky reality that “is one of life’s greatest inconveniences”: “the law of the world is consciencelessness.”28 Furthermore, there is a pronounced impracticality about having a conscience.29 Therefore, the conscience in eternity is nothing like the conscience in temporality or the life in time, where the restlessness, noise, crush, crowd, and jungle of evasions deafens it, and its solitary voice is easily outvoted by the majority.30 In eternity the conscience must be heard by the single individual because it is the only voice heard, as “the single individual has become the eternal echo of this voice” that offers its witness on behalf of the good as over against evil.31 Standing alone by means of the conscience leads to the heroic.32 A stark eternal/temporal difference lies in the fact that the numerical is a huge factor in the human’s life in time whereas eternity does not count. In temporality, “one cowardly gives in to numbers—and untruth usually is numbers; truth is content with being a unity.”33 The story is different with eternity, where “the conscience keeps close watch on the single individual”: “In eternity you will look around in vain for the crowd; you will listen in vain to hear where the uproar and the throng are so 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 25 26

SKS 24, 115 / COR, 58. SKS 8, 228 / UD, 128–9. SKS 8, 228 / UD, 128. SKS 24, 296, NB24:119 / JP 2, 2040. Pap. XI–3 B 134 / M, Supplement, 545. SKS 8, 228 / UD, 128–9. SKS 8, 228–9 / UD, 129. SKS 23, 193, NB17:44 / JP 2, 71. SKS 8, 231 / UD, 132.

Conscience

51

that you, too, can run there; in eternity you also will be abandoned by the crowd.”34 Those with authentic authority in society always appeal to conscience instead of to understanding or profundity, because therein is the province of what is genuinely important.35 By way of the voice of eternity the conscience emphasizes that becoming a responsible human being means taking individual ownership of one’s judgments and not seeking escape from accountability in the majority, the crowd, the many, the mass: eternity encircles the single individual and sets that person apart with his or her conscience.36 Daring to be an individual has eternal consequences. In eternity there are plenty of rooms, and these are needed because exactly one delightful room of eternal happiness is required for every conscience that exists in every person, giving each one the awareness of being a single individual, which is the basic consciousness in a human being because it is the person’s eternal consciousness.37 The human being—who through the impact of his or her eternal consciousness is struggling in the battle between eternity and temporality—faces issues that become a “matter of conscience.” These issues carry an import that must necessarily be acknowledged by the conscientious person. Only what one risks everything for is a matter of conscience.38 The single individual must determine what is a matter of conscience. It is nothing that can be turned over to a party, a balloting process,39 or the many. One cannot merely engage in conversation and introduce the discussion by raising the question about whether or not the issue should be pursued. No, that the issue is to be faced is not open to discussion; the person who has a matter of conscience expresses that the issue must be dealt with.40 Here the existential is the genuinely expressive, as one lets one’s life express that in relationship to the religious life one has ventured everything—and in this case we clearly have a matter of conscience.41 The distinguishing mark of having a matter of conscience is that one does not seek earthly help or avoid dangers or seek the most convenient way; instead, one “seeks dangers, creates difficulties for himself, discovers the most difficult way.”42 III. The Anguished Conscience and the Atonement The conscience is a criterion that from the aesthetic viewpoint might be said to make life more interesting in disclosing a bad conscience,43 but from the ethical viewpoint Ibid. SKS 20, 254, NB3:17, 17a, 17b / KJN 4, 253. 36 SKS 8, 232 / UD, 132–3. 37 SKS 8, 233 / UD, 134. 38 SKS 24, 217, NB23:24 / JP 1, 686. 39 SKS 24, 224, NB23:36 / JP 6, 6728. 40 SKS 24, 213, NB23:19 / JP 4, 4936. For example, Kierkegaard regards his dealing with Regine Olsen as finally being a matter of conscience. See SKS 22, 226–9, NB12:138, 138a, 138b / JP 6, 6488. 41 SKS 24, 217, NB23:24 / JP 1, 686. 42 SKS 25, 406–7, NB30:29 / JP 1, 688. 43 SKS 2, 294 / EO1, 304. 34 35

52

Curtis L. Thompson

leaves guilt and sin in its wake. On this matter it is easy for us human beings to maintain an impersonal objectivity; in fact, we obtain this capacity for inauthenticity by way of hereditary sin, since this is nothing other than a lack of conscience.44 The structure of relatedness to God, though, does not return void. Eternity’s accounting leads to a report of guilt written by the individual with invisible ink and “becomes clearly legible only when it is held up to the light in eternity while eternity is auditing the conscience.”45 Sin, writes Kierkegaard in his notebooks in the early 1840s, is “the pact of an evil conscience with the devil” and the evil conscience has a tremendous memory.46 The guilty conscience that is evil and sin-crushed47 leads to the experience of remorse, which “is hidden, a hidden pregnancy of which a bad conscience is the father.”48 This remorseful, guilty conscience Kierkegaard often refers to as the “anguished conscience.” Without this experience the deepest religious realities lose their import. However, this does not mean that it easily gains purchase in modernity. The culture of the day, he notes in words that continue to speak to our context, has no time for this troubled or unhappy conscience, seeing it as a silly, immature, morbid fancy that calls for diversion as its cure.49 And yet, the anguished or burdened conscience is the portal through which one must pass to move into Christianity.50 Kierkegaard knew that the conscience closed one off from others in heightening the sense of personal responsibility in the individual but at the same time expanded the self.51 He also knew that negative freedom or freedom from that leaves one unbound or unconstrained by the other is not the whole story when it comes to being set free; as Hegel had recognized, there is a positive freedom, a freedom for, that does not require shedding all negative freedom: “When the individual by being in his other is in his own, then for the first time he is in truth (i.e., positively free) free, affirmatively free.”52 The human being is a creature who has physical limits and moral or spiritual limits, and these bounds or constraints invite “one to follow the moral immediacy of conscience—and then begins the religious.”53 As the conscience grows in its anguish it desperately desires forgiveness: “Would that there were a forgiveness, a forgiveness that does not increase my sense of guilt but truly takes the guilt from me, also the consciousness of it. Would that there were oblivion!”54 Where can peace, reconciliation, at-one-ment, atonement be found? Kierkegaard, who trusts in the God of possibilities, identifies the answer: in the Good News. The Gospel declares that “the Savior opens his arms and specifically to this fugitive who wants to flee from the consciousness of his sin” says redeemingly, “Come here to 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 44 45

SKS 13, 63 / FSE, 40. SKS 11, 235 / SUD, 124. SKS 27, 283, Papir 295 / JP 4, 4005. SKS 24, 55–6, NB21:84 / JP 6, 6686. SKS 18, 246–7, JJ:334 / KJN 2, 228. SKS 16, 247–8 / JFY, 202. SKS 22, 99, NB11:166 / JP 1, 201–2. SKS 4, 434–5 / CA, 134. SKS 1, 270 / CI, 228. SKS 27, 358, Papir 340:14 / JP 2, 1348. SKS 12, 298 / WA, 184.

Conscience

53

me.”55 And Jesus the Christ embraces the person with the anguished conscience and in love gives that person himself as a hiding place, so that, through this hiding place, comfort might be had.56 Luther and the Reformation have driven home the centrality of the anguished conscience together with the message of the consoling God: “The anguished conscience understands Christianity.”57 Kierkegaard thinks Luther was right to teach that “it is through a revelation that a human being must learn how deeply he lies in sin, that the anguished conscience is not something that comes in the course of nature, like being hungry.”58 Yet, with Luther’s discovery “that Christianity exists to soothe and reassure,” he altered Christianity: Luther’s anguished conscience needed a cure, and it was found in soothing and reassuring anguished consciences; but this particular need at a particular time was transformed into the normative,” and Christianity was converted in its totality to this soothing.59 It becomes clear to Kierkegaard over the years that Luther is a part of the prevailing confusion of mistaking the particular need of Luther and his times for what Christianity as a whole has to offer. “In Christendom an attempt has been made to eliminate conscience by introducing atonement as understood in the following sense: since God has atoned, you may now really enjoy life, with the result that the greatest possible relapse occurs.”60 Human beings have been weakened by the prevalent doctrine of grace that refuses to allow the slightest degree of rigor in things religious.61 Becoming whole entails not just forgiveness but also dying to the world and living a life of imitation after the pattern of Christ, and this means being engaged in suffering.62 Atonement actualizes divine love that embraces, and it empowers one to embrace that love and give expression to it in relation to others. The Christian life brings joy, but it is a joy that comes in and through suffering on behalf of what one is called to do in and through the conscience. We conclude with the judgment that in a number of ways Kierkegaard can be regarded as the conscience of Golden Age Denmark and also of the contemporary world. See also Anxiety; Archimedean Point; Atonement/Reconciliation; Authority; Despair; Duty; Ethics; Evil; Good; Guilt; Personality; Repentance; Self; Spirit; Time/Temporality/Eternity.

Ibid. SKS 12, 300–1 / WA, 187. 57 SKS 20, 69, NB:79 / KJN 4, 68. 58 Ibid. 59 SKS 25, 399–401, NB30:22 / JP 3, 2550. 60 SKS 24, 467, NB25:46 / JP 1, 534. 61 SKS 25, 69–70, NB26:66 / JP 2, 1486. 62 SKS 25, 71–4, NB26:68, 68a, 68b / JP 4, 4690. 55 56

This page intentionally left blank

Consciousness Patrick Stokes

Consciousness (Bevidsthed—noun; bevidst—adjective) As with the English “consciousness” (ultimately derived from the Latin con-, “together,” and scire, “to know”), the Danish term has at vide, “to know,” at its root. As the etymology suggests, consciousness is understood as a state of knowing awareness. The term is used both of a form of global awareness (“he regained consciousness”) and also of awareness directed towards specific intentional objects (“consciousness of...”). In its modern sense, the term is actually a fairly recent arrival in European languages and does not appear to be attested in Danish until the nineteenth century,1 following the explicit thematization of Bewusstheit in German thought. German discussions of Bewusstheit clearly have considerable influence on Kierkegaard’s understanding of consciousness: Hegel’s discussion of the “unhappy consciousness” plays a clear role in Part One of Either/Or, for instance, and Kierkegaard’s magisterial thesis The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates frequently uses Bevidsthed in its discussions of major figures in German thought. Yet Kierkegaard is also careful, throughout his career, to avoid pan-subjective idealist entities such as “Absolute Consciousness” and “Pure SelfConsciousness” and instead invokes consciousness as an inherently first-personal, agent-bound, reflexive subjective state. While Kierkegaard uses Bevidsthed often throughout his authorship, the term mostly appears tied to specific intentional objects, for example, Evighedens Bevidsthed (“consciousness of eternity”), Syndens Bevidsthed (“consciousness of sin”), or Skyld-Bevidsthed (“guilt-consciousness”). In these cases Bevidsthed might be thought of as a mere synonym for “awareness of” or “possessing knowledge of,” without any greater philosophical significance. Yet Kierkegaard sometimes discusses consciousness per se in ways that make it clear that it is consciousness as a subjective state, rather than simply knowledge-possession, that is at issue. In The Concept of Anxiety, for example, Vigilius Haufniensis uses Bevidsthed in ways that emphasize the irreducibly personal character of consciousness, which resists expression in intersubjectively accessible, conceptual (and therefore public) terms:

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 2, columns 586–7.

1

Patrick Stokes

56

The most concrete content that consciousness can have is consciousness of itself, of the individual himself—not the pure self-consciousness, but the self-consciousness that is so concrete that no author, not even the one with the greatest power of description, not the one with the greatest powers of representation, has ever been able to describe such a single self-consciousness, although every single human being is such a one.2

Consciousness, for Haufniensis, plays an analogous role to subjectivity in Climacus’ Concluding Unscientific Postscript: an essentially self-reflexive and ultimately private (or, at least, capable of supporting the privacy of inwardness) perspective upon the objective world. And just as subjectivity is essential for inwardness, so Anti-Climacus declares, in The Sickness unto Death, that consciousness is a basic condition for the attainment of will and of selfhood: Generally speaking, consciousness—that is, self-consciousness—is decisive with regard to the self. The more consciousness, the more self; the more consciousness, the more will; the more will, the more self. A person who has no will at all is also not a self; but the more will he has, the more self-consciousness he has also.3

It might seem trivial to claim that consciousness is necessary for the exercise of will and the attainment of selfhood—it would be hard to do these things while asleep!—yet Anti-Climacus actually makes some surprising claims here, which go considerably further than Haufniensis. The conflation of consciousness with selfconsciousness is particularly important: it suggests that self-consciousness is not simply consciousness directed towards a specific object (that is, oneself) but rather that consciousness per se is self-consciousness. All consciousness, whatever its intentional object at a given time, has itself as an implicit, usually non-thematized object. The further implication in this passage that consciousness is a matter of degree, and that it is therefore possible to be less conscious, is also highly significant. In the context of the developmental ontology of selfhood laid out in The Sickness unto Death, taking together the identification of consciousness with self-consciousness and the description of consciousness as scalar would imply that consciousness is a state that humans must seek to achieve. Despite the centrality of consciousness to his work, Kierkegaard’s only sustained discussion of the concept occurs in the unfinished second part of the abandoned work Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est. This work presents itself as the young Climacus’ inquiry into the nature of doubt, and specifically into the transcendental question “What must the nature of existence be in order for doubt to be possible?”4 Doubt is here presented not as a problem for philosophical thought, but a personal and existential problem, a problem that every thinker, rather than abstract thought, must confront and attempt to overcome. As doubt turns out to be an experiential rather than purely logical problem, Climacus is driven to look for the grounds of possibility of doubt not in the structure of reason, but in the structure

4 2 3

SKS 4, 443 / CA, 143. SKS 11, 145 / SUD, 29. SKS 15, 53 / JC, 166.

Consciousness

57

of consciousness (or “consciousness as it is in itself, as that which explains every specific consciousness, yet without being itself a specific consciousness”).5 Anticipating Anti-Climacus’ conflation of consciousness with self-consciousness, Climacus draws a sharp distinction between what we might call mere sentience, which lower animals and infants both have, and consciousness proper. This distinction is not, we are told, one for which modern philosophy, despite its preoccupation with consciousness, had yet found the right language: much of its talk of consciousness would be better replaced with the terms “sense perception” or “experience,” “for in consciousness there is more.”6 Neither nonhuman animals, nor even young children, qualify as conscious in the sense in which Climacus wants to use the term,7 yet they clearly have sense perception, memory, and an ability to interact purposefully with their environment. These forms of sentience are obviously rather complex, but they are also, according to Climacus, nonetheless too “immediate” to count as instances of consciousness. Immediacy is understood in Johannes Climacus as one of the constitutive elements of consciousness—or better, part of the structure from which consciousness emerges when it relates to itself in a certain way. In this context immediacy seems to refer to something like the unconceptualized “stuff” of the world: raw sense data, or however else we might want to describe the pre-conceptual “given” of experience. Yet Climacus also insists that there is no “before” in consciousness, at least not in temporal terms. If consciousness could “remain in immediacy,” then “there would be no consciousness at all.”8 By the time experience has become conscious, the immediate content of experience has already been mediated through the conceptualization that is essential to consciousness. Hence it is “captious” to ask “Which came first, immediacy or mediacy?”9 Immediacy can only be posited conceptually after the fact, not experienced directly. This is a model of experience with obvious Kantian debts, though it also has resonances with the work of contemporary philosophers such as John McDowell. Climacus explicitly identifies the mediating, conceptualizing activity of consciousness with the operation of language. Being conceptually (if not temporally) prior to the mediating activity of language, immediacy lacks distinctions such as “true” and “untrue,” and as such it can be characterized as a state of indeterminateness in which we can say that everything is both true and untrue—the distinction simply fails to mean anything when applied to the content of immediacy.10 Concepts like truth and untruth—and, accordingly, the possibility of doubt—only arise when immediacy is brought into contact with mediacy, or as Climacus also expresses this dichotomy, when reality (corresponding to immediacy, the given “stuff” of experience) is brought into collision with ideality (corresponding to the mediating potential of conceptualization): “Ideality and reality therefore collide—in what medium? In SKS 15, 54 / JC, 166–7. SKS 15, 56 / JC, 169. 7 SKS 15, 54 / JC, 167; Pap. IV B 14:3 / JC, 252. 8 SKS 15, 55 / JC, 167. 9 Ibid. 10 SKS 15, 54–5 / JC, 167. 5 6

58

Patrick Stokes

time? That is indeed an impossibility. In eternity? That is indeed an impossibility. In what then? In consciousness—there is the contradiction.”11 Consciousness is thus not to be understood as a reified entity (like a mind or soul) so much as a space in which the raw stuff of the world comes into contact with the conceptualizing activity of language. Yet language, being composed of necessarily generalizing concepts, can never fully capture the non-conceptual, wholly particular content of experience. Hence “the moment I make a statement about reality, contradiction is present, for what I say is ideality”12 rather than reality. This does not mean that words fail to refer, but rather that words are not the things they refer to, and can never exhaustively express them. There is always an element of disjunction between existence and the terms we use to conceptualize it. Consciousness is thus the medium in which these dual elements are brought together. In that respect consciousness mirrors the structure of reflection, which Climacus views as the process which brings opposing elements together and thereby brings them into relation. The terms involved in reflection are, therefore, “always dichotomous”; in reflection, entities like the physical and the mental, the ideal and the real, the true and untrue “touch each other in such a way that a relation becomes possible.”13 Consciousness is not reflection, however, but is rather the actuality of reflection: “Reflection is the possibility of the relation; consciousness is the relation, the first form of which is contradiction.”14 In other words, consciousness is the actualization of a relation between two elements that in reflection remains merely potential. This relation is, at its origin, one of contradiction (because ideality is not reality, language is not actuality, and so forth), and this makes consciousness always problematic for the conscious subject. Our consciousness of the world has contradiction at its very heart. This basis in contradiction takes consciousness beyond the dichotomous structure of reflection: in making consciousness problematic for itself, it implicitly adds itself as a third element to the dichotomy of reflection: “As soon as I become two, I am eo ipso three.”15 Hence consciousness is always trichotomous, a fact which Climacus sees as built into natural language as well.16 The conscious self is a “third” element in consciousness, something over and above the elements of ideality and reality whose “collision” actualizes reflection. Yet this “third” element is not simply another element, but is rather that which “places the two in relation to each other.”17 The third is therefore understood as an active principle within the conceptualizing activity of consciousness, not simply another element like the oppositional components of reflection. It is this trichotomous nature of consciousness that makes doubt possible, for it is only on the basis of consciousness that the relation between ideality and reality (such as the relation of truth or untruth that holds between a statement and the state of affairs it SKS 15, 58 / JC, 171. SKS 15, 55 / JC, 168. 13 SKS 15, 56 / JC, 169. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 SKS 15, 57 / JC, 169. 11

12

Consciousness

59

represents) becomes a problem for someone. This is captured in Climacus’ identification of consciousness with “interestedness”: “Reflection is the possibility of the relation. This can also be stated as follows: Reflection is disinterested. Consciousness, however, is the relation and thereby is interest, a duality that is perfectly and with pregnant double meaning expressed in the word interest (interesse [being between]).”18 The use of interesse here is crucial: the Danish term allows Kierkegaard to play upon its Latin roots, “between-being” or “being-in-between.” The third term in consciousness is not a sort of indifferent spectator, watching the play of ideality and reality from above, as it were, but has its existence and finds itself within that interplay, always caught up in the contradiction at the center of consciousness and so always concerned with its own relationship thereto. Consciousness thus always implicitly refers back to the experiencer, the subject who is having the present experience and is therefore implicated in the uncertainty that is built into its very structure. Whereas the dichotomous terms of reflection can be thought by anyone, the contradiction inherent in consciousness points to my position as conscious subject and makes my relation to what I contemplate problematic. In consciousness, the problems of reflection become uniquely my problems. We can see now why such an experience is impossible in the immediacy of the infant or animal, who (at least on Climacus’ account) lack a sense of themselves as implicated within consciousness. Because their sentience lacks an implicit, reflexive awareness of the experiencer, it does not count as consciousness in the sense in which Climacus, and arguably Anti-Climacus as well, want to use the term. Kierkegaard nowhere explains how infants progress from sentience to consciousness, but Johannes Climacus allows us to at least infer that language acquisition, and with it a greater awareness of our problematic situation as beings caught between linguistic ideality and raw material reality, is central to the process. Moreover, if we understand interestedness as the subjective, affective correlate of this implicit self-awareness, we can understand Anti-Climacus’ claim that consciousness is a matter of degree: we can become more interested in what we contemplate, more attuned to how we are affected, implicated and obligated by what we consider in our conscious thought; and equally—as Kierkegaard avers again and again—we all too often attempt to become disinterested (and thus less conscious in Climacus’ sense). Like selfhood, consciousness in this sense is not an automatic given for (neurologically unimpaired) humans, but rather a state to be achieved. We are enjoined to become conscious, to become interested, just as, for Anti-Climacus, we are enjoined to become selves. Hence consciousness, despite the short and incomplete treatment Kierkegaard gives it, turns out to be highly important in understanding Kierkegaard’s broader understanding of subjectivity. In addition, the trichotomous character of consciousness, and its identification of the conscious subject with a “third” element that finds itself between opposing elements, is echoed in the trichotomous structure of selfhood laid out in The Sickness unto Death. See also Immediacy/Reflection; Language; Objectivity/Subjectivity; Self/Spirit/ Personality. 18



SKS 15, 57 / JC, 170.

This page intentionally left blank

Contemporaneity Leo Stan

Contemporaneity (Samtid—noun; Samtidighed—noun) Related to the Old Norse word, samtíða, the Danish nouns Samtid and Samtidighed essentially denote the chronological simultaneity or co-presence of events, persons, or objects. Both terms unambiguously refer to the present moment, while in a secondary sense they designate the (larger or smaller) community of humans that belong to a certain time period.1 The most important of Kierkegaard’s published reflections on contemporaneity are found in Johannes Climacus’ Philosophical Fragments (with some distant echoes in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript) and in Anti-Climacus’ Practice in Christianity. The last substantial meditation appeared on September 11, 1855, bearing the provocative title, “What You Do in Contemporaneity Is Decisive.”2 Throughout the journals the issue acquires greater prominence, especially after 1849 when it surfaces quite regularly in Kierkegaard’s mind. The generic context and theoretical substratum of contemporaneity is overwhelmingly Christological. More specifically, it is tied to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity in terms of the universal duty to imitate Christ. However, there is also an existential component which is rather marginal, though no less momentous in the overall picture. It is this secondary sense, briefly developed by Climacus in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which we will clarify first. The Climacan argument states that a proper understanding of human existence entails giving comparable due to all the capacities or faculties of interiority. However, Climacus observes that in modernity we witness the eradication of this holistic perspective on our actual being by means of the absolutization of reason and objectivity, instituted by speculative systems of thought and the emergent scientific paradigm.3 Thus, Climacus notes, by “the positing of the scientific-scholarly process rather than existential contemporaneity…havoc is wrought with life.”4 To counteract this tendency, therefore, our “task is equality, contemporaneity.”5 More specifically, Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 18, columns 689–90. 2 SKS 13, 345–50 / M, 287–92. 3 SKS 7, 318 / CUP1, 347–8: “Scientific scholarship orders the elements of subjectivity within a knowledge about them, and this knowledge is the highest, and all knowledge is an annulment of, a removal from existence.” See also SKS 7, 314–18 / CUP1, 343–7. 4 SKS 7, 318 / CUP1, 348. 5 Ibid. 1

62

Leo Stan

we are individually called to endeavor to interiorize such immaterial values as truth, beauty, and goodness, and in the process to conjoin—that is, to render contemporary—consciousness or reflection, thinking, feeling, memory, imagination, and volition.6 More importantly, Climacus holds that religion in particular possesses this capacity for existential integration.7 The same pseudonym introduces the reader to the crux of the relation between religion—that is, Christianity—and contemporaneity in Philosophical Fragments. The context of his discussion is the possibility of a non-Socratic model of truth, which accentuates the absurd encounter between time and the eternal in the moment; the divine character of the teacher; and the existential erroneousness in which humans find themselves prior to the revelation of truth.8 Climacus’ main concern here is whether immediate contemporaneity with the divine giver of truth (that is, Jesus Christ), and so with the moment of revelation, makes it easier for someone to become a believer.9 His answer is negative. Specifically, he argues that the direct contemporaneity with Christ represents a mere occasion (a) “to acquire historical knowledge”10 about Christ; (b) “to concentrate Socratically upon [oneself], whereby that contemporaneity vanishes as a nothing in comparison with the eternal [one] discovers within [oneself]”;11 or (c) “to receive from the god the condition [for apprehending the truth] and now to see the glory with the eyes of faith.”12 To that Climacus adds the crucial point according to which there is a decisive difference between the mere eyewitness to Christ’s missionary activity and the authentic contemporary with Christ, which all future believers can become even centuries after the death of their teacher.13 Consequently, Climacus reasons further, “there is not and cannot be any question of a follower at second hand.”14 The true believer instantly becomes a follower who, by virtue of faith in “the historical fact that the god has been in human form,”15 ultimately cannot be differentiated from any of Jesus’ direct converts. By implication, the latter’s report comes to be a mere “occasion,”16 whereas the decision to believe— and thereby to become the teacher’s contemporary—belongs solely to the individual and is derived from “the condition he himself receives from the god.”17 With that in mind, Climacus goes as far as to claim, “[even] if the contemporary generation had not left anything behind except these words, ‘We have believed that in such and such a year the god appeared in the humble form of a servant, lived and taught among SKS 7, 317–18 / CUP1, 346–8. See also SKS 7, 350–1 / CUP1, 385–6. SKS 7, 318–19 / CUP1, 348. SKS 4, 230–40 / PF, 23–34. SKS 4, 303 / PF, 106–7. 10 SKS 4, 270 / PF, 69. 11 SKS 4, 270 / PF, 70. 12 Ibid. 13 SKS 4, 270–1 / PF, 70–1. 14 SKS 4, 299 / PF, 102. And that is why “[the] follower at second hand is indeed a noncontemporary…” (Pap. V B 18 / JP 1, 690). 15 SKS 4, 300 / PF, 103. 16 SKS 4, 301 / PF, 104. 17 Ibid. 8 9 6 7

Contemporaneity

63

us, and then died’—this is more than enough.”18 So, what Jesus’ contemporary could do for anyone who comes later is to confess one’s own faith and coevally to warn that such assurance is “foolishness to the understanding and an offense to the human heart.”19 In this way, it is up to every subsequent follower either to embrace that belief oneself—and thus to obliterate the temporal gap separating one from the teacher’s epoch20—or to remain offended. Still, the specifics of the so-called disciple at second hand are somewhat sketchy in Philosophical Fragments. They are more elaborately addressed by Climacus’ purported opponent, Anti-Climacus, in Practice in Christianity. In this limited sense, the continuity and complementarity between the two pseudonymous authors are undeniable. Anti-Climacus brings to the fore the individualizing capacity21 and agonistic nature of becoming contemporary with Christ, together with a novel, albeit insufficiently developed, philosophy of time. To start with the last issue, for AntiClimacus, the past becomes actual once the single individual makes it essential for himself.22 Similarly, religiousness as such is predicated on an ideal content that must be freely internalized. But what complicates matters is that in the case of Christianity, ideality is indistinguishable from a historical event when “an extremely unhistorical person”23 took on the form of a mere servant.24 From here Anti-Climacus infers that “[in] relation to the absolute, there is only one time, the present.”25 In this present, the Christian believer is expected to reintroduce into contemporaneity an historical past which is and remains paradoxical, as well as perennially offensive to reason.26 That can be done only through faith because, in trying to come to terms with the offense of the God-man, faith does justice to both the historicity and transcendence of Christ. In short, “since Christ is the absolute…in relation to him there is only one situation, the situation of contemporaneity; the three, the seven, the fifteen, the seventeen, the eighteen hundred years make no difference at all; they do not change him, but neither do they reveal who he was, for who he is is revealed only to faith.”27 At this juncture, it should be pointed out that the concept of contemporaneity with Christ is contingent upon a particular notion which Anti-Climacus mentions only in passing, namely, sacred or eternal history. Anti-Climacus equates this with SKS 4, 300 / PF, 104. SKS 4, 299 / PF, 102. 20 SKS 23, 77, NB15:110 / JP 3, 3610. 21 SKS 22, 377–8, NB14:57 / JP 5, 4549. 22 SKS 12, 75–6 / PC, 63–4. 23 SKS 12, 75 / PC, 63. 24 SKS 21, 308, NB10:101 / JP 2, 1851. 25 SKS 12, 75 / PC, 63. 26 SKS 25, 283, NB28:92 / JP 1, 696: An unconditional impression of the unconditional “begins with every generation—and with the New Testament.” 27 SKS 12, 75 / PC, 63. See also SKS 22, 172, NB12:54 / JP 3, 2500; SKS 25, 66–8, NB26:62 / JP 3, 3579; SKS 22, 109, NB11:180 / JP 3, 2868. For the delicate balance between Christ as prototype to be actualized in one’s contemporaneity and as Atoner (and bestower of grace) to be believed in, see SKS 21, 12, NB6:3 / JP 1, 692; SKS 21, 284–5, NB10:54 / JP 1, 693; SKS 23, 26–7, NB15:32 / JP 2, 1862; SKS 23, 403–5, NB20:23 / JP 2, 1867. 18 19

64

Leo Stan

Christ’s mundane life as a whole, which, he says, “stands alone by itself, outside history,”28 and makes possible an “eternal contemporaneity,”29 as it were, with the object of imitation. Be that as it may, what is clear is that anyone can become contemporary with Jesus’ historical existence, more exactly, with the savior’s abasement, inner turmoil, outer persecution, and crucifixion. In this context, we are reminded that the Godman’s resplendent glory was never directly perceptible during his worldly journey since, had it been so, the very idea of offense would have lacked all sense.30 AntiClimacus writes: Directly there was nothing to be seen except a lowly human being who by signs and wonders and by claiming to be God continually constituted the possibility of offense—a lowly human being who thus expressed (1) what God understands by compassion… and (2) what God understands by human misery…which in both cases…is something everyone in every generation to the end of time must learn for himself from the beginning, beginning at exactly the same point as every contemporary with Christ and practicing it in the situation of contemporaneity.31

In short, “Christ’s life here on earth is the paradigm,”32 and our task is to strive to become the exemplar’s contemporaries by being willing unconditionally to endure all things for his sake.33 Conceived in this sense, contemporaneity represents the sole criterion for evaluating the authenticity of the individual’s religious existence and the extent to which the disciple spiritually resembles his or her teacher. Otherwise put, contemporaneity entails a full existential commitment and, implicitly, the unending willingness to suffer for the truth.34 When becoming contemporary with the exemplar, it is imitation rather than admiration, or personal appropriation rather than detached speculation, by which the aspiring believer should live. To conclude, contemporaneity is undergirded by the postulation of an absolute soteriological equality or equivalence between Christ’s first disciples and every SKS 12, 76 / PC, 64. Ibid. 30 SKS 12, 111–14 / PC, 102–5; SKS 21, 162–3, NB8:38 / JP 6, 6275. Perhaps that is why Kierkegaard remarks that for the immediate contemporaries Christ’s miracles, which are a possibly palpable confirmation of his divine status, can be an impediment to faith. See SKS 22, 283–4, NB13:18 / JP 1, 347; SKS 24, 91–2, NB21:149 / JP 3, 2722. 31 SKS 12, 77 / PC, 65–6. 32 SKS 12, 115 / PC, 107. 33 SKS 12, 75 / PC, 63: “in the situation of contemporaneity that to become a Christian (to be transformed into likeness with God) is, humanly speaking, an even greater torment and misery and pain than the greatest human torment, and in addition a crime in the eyes of one’s contemporaries.” For the high existential onus of aspiring to become Christ’s contemporary, see SKS 12, 64–5, 234 / PC, 52–3, 241; SKS 23, 256–7, NB18:4 / JP 4, 4798; SKS 24, 133, NB22:55 / JP 2, 1793; SKS 24, 153, NB22:91 / JP 2, 1888; SKS 26, 154, NB32:51 / JP 4, 4984; SKS 18, 236, JJ:307 / JP 2, 1291; SKS 22, 390, NB14:78 / JP 1, 694; SKS 24, 124–5, NB22:39 / JP 1, 695; SKS 25, 301–2, NB29:10 / JP 1, 697; SKS 22, 377–8, NB14:57 / JP 4, 4549; SKS 23, 338, NB19:14 / JP 2, 1864; SKS 25, 284, NB28:95 / JP 2, 1927. 34 SKS 12, 173–5 / PC, 171–2; SKS 24, 514–15, NB25:101 / JP 3, 3578. 28 29

Contemporaneity

65

subsequent follower. Thus understood, the reconciliation with God after the revelation of sin is both equally difficult, given the tremendous ordeals of all authentic followers, and equally accessible, given the universality of the condition to recognize and follow the truth. On the other side, contemporaneity with the redemptive paragon of faith is incompatible with any expression of worldly triumphalism. This aspect reinforces Kierkegaard’s emphasis on ecclesia militans and the strong pathoscentered undercurrents of his fideism. Finally, from the perspective of temporality, contemporaneity in the realm of religion entails the primacy of presence, which throws an ambiguous light on Vigilius Haufniensis’ insistence on futurity as the privileged tense of religious devotion. See also Appropriation; Asceticism; Christ; Communication/Indirect Communication; Dying to/Renunciation; Existence; Faith; Grace; History; Humility; Imitation; Martyrdom; Miracles; the Moment; Monasticism; Offense; Paradox; Repetition; Redoubling; Sacrifice; Scriptures; Speculation/Science/Scholarship; Striving; Suffering; Teacher; Time; Truth; Witness; World/Worldliness.

This page intentionally left blank

Contingency/Possibility Gabriel Ferreira da Silva

Contingency (Tilfældighed—noun); Possibility (Mulighed—noun) Corresponding to the German Zufall, the Danish Tilfældighed is the noun derived from the adjective tilfældig, which means the quality of what happens by chance or hazard. Due to its close relationship with the concept of possibility, the concept of contingency must be understood together with it.1 The Danish noun for possibility, Mulighed, is derived from the adjective mulig, which is also related to the verb maatte (Old Danish mughe, cf. German mögen). Mulighed primarily means the quality of what can become or happen. As Molbech notes, the form muelig (with an “e”) as well as the words derived from it was still in use in the nineteenth century.2 The occurrence of the variant Muelighed(en) in Kierkegaard’s work is found only in The Concept of Anxiety and Repetition. The most frequent occurrence of the term Mulighed is in Stages on Life’s Way (published by Hilarius Bogbinder), followed by the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (signed by Johannes Climacus), and then by Sickness unto Death (by Anti-Climacus). However, The Concept of Anxiety (by Vigilius Haufniensis), the second volume of Either/Or (edited by Victor Eremita) and Philosophical Fragments (also by Johannes Climacus) are also classical loci for Kierkegaard’s discussion of the concept of possibility. The main occurrences of Tilfældighed are generally in the same works. Although all the Kierkegaardian uses of the concept of possibility are linked to a common basic theoretical understanding, it plays a role in three dimensions that, again, are interconnected: (1) logical/ontological; (2) ethical; and (3) psychological/ontological. I. Logical/Ontological Possibility In the main lines, Kierkegaard follows the traditional Aristotelian view of possibility (dynamis) as a modal category, which he knew mainly from Wilhelm Gottlieb

Cf. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 468–70, where tilfælde is given as a synonym of mulighed. For Tilfældighed see Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 23, columns 1270–1. 2 Christian Molbech, Dansk Ordbog, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 57. 1

68

Gabriel Ferreira da Silva

Tennemann’s Geschichte der Philosophie.3 Of anything we can say what it is (in terms of its defining attributes), and how it is or its mode of being—that is, possibly, actually, or necessarily. This difference is expressed by Climacus, in Philosophical Fragments, using the classical terms, as the distinction between “essence” (Væsen) and “being” (Væren).4 Logically speaking, possibility can be defined as the status of something non-actual whose coming into existence does not imply a contradiction between its attributes. However, still in an Aristotelian framework, Kierkegaard also understands possibility in an ontological way—in the sense of potentiality—and for this reason it is closely linked with “movement.” By making this link, “coming into existence” is seen as the change “suffered” by the possible in becoming actual. In Climacus’ words: “But such a being that nevertheless is a non-being is possibility, and a being that is being is indeed actual being or actuality, and the change of coming into existence is the transition from possibility to actuality,”5 where “non-being” means the group of something’s attributes with some sort of non-actual being and “a being that is being” means something actually existing. With regards to actuality, its difference from possibility lies in the mode of being: “Possibility and actuality are not different in essence but in being.”6 For this reason, possibility is explained, in Philosophical Fragments, in radical contrast to necessity, because the necessary, as containing being in itself—in its what—could not become. Precisely because of this understanding of possibility in terms of its absolute separation from necessity and its connection to freedom or free cause, Climacus criticizes the Aristotelian view that “possible” can be predicated of “necessity.”7 Here lies the small but important distinction between the Kierkegaardian understanding of contingency and possibility. In general terms, Kierkegaard’s definition of contingency follows the main conceptual marks of the concept of possibility as the feature of what becomes by chance or freedom and, for this reason, is opposed to necessity: “Everything that becomes historical is contingent, inasmuch as precisely by coming into existence, by becoming historical, it has its element of contingency, inasmuch as contingency is precisely the one factor in all coming into existence.”8 However, given Kierkegaard’s radical dissociation, on the one hand, between the possible and the necessary and, on the other hand, between the possible and the actual, the notion of contingency is slightly affected: it covers not only possibility, but also all non-necessary actual beings. Thus, contingency, by its connection with becoming, “is an essential part of the actual.”9 As shown above, the modal difference between possibility and actuality in “being” is also used by Kierkegaard to describe the gap existing between the realms of existence and thought. The Kierkegaardian view of a deep opposition This work appears in the auction catalogue as ASKB 815–826. See Aristotle, De Interpretatione, XI. 4 Cf. SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 See Aristotle, De Interpretatione, 22b 13–34. 8 SKS 7, 96 / CUP1, 98. 9 SKS 4, 317 / CA, 10. 3

Contingency/Possibility

69

between the pair possibility/actuality shows him committed to a position that holds a radical heterogeneity between those two realms that, notwithstanding, are bound together in the existing subject that is, at the same time, existing and thinking.10 In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, possibility is therefore also defined as the distinctive sign of the realm of thought, imagination, and abstraction. Thought turns every actuality into possibility: “Only by annulling actuality can abstraction grasp it, but to annul it is precisely to change it into possibility.”11 The possible has only a potential existence or what Kierkegaard calls a “concept-existence” or “idealexistence.”12 In fact, another formula used by Kierkegaard for this type of existence of the potential is another of his definitions of the possible: “thought actuality.”13 Thus, Kierkegaard notes the consequence of this radical distinction when he asserts that “[t]o conclude existence from thinking is, then, a contradiction, because thinking does just the opposite and takes existence away from the actual and thinks it by annulling it, by transposing it into possibility.”14 II. Ethical Possibility According to the understanding of possibility both as a category of modal logic and as ontological potentiality, the concept plays a key role in Kierkegaard’s thesis regarding the development of subjectivity and action. One can say that Kierkegaard understands his theory of human action and decision as grounded in the movement from possibility to actuality (Virkelighed) by freedom, since “[a]ll coming into existence occurs in freedom, not by way of necessity.”15 This is what emerges also in the Postscript in the section called “Possibility Superior to Actuality; Actuality Superior to Possibility; Poetic and Intellectual Ideality; Ethical Ideality,” in which possibility is described as the ethical ideality that must be actualized by the inner action that reduplicates it in an individual’s life and, only then, changes and gives form to the self: “The actuality is not the external action but an interiority in which the individual annuls possibility and identifies himself with what is thought in order to exist in it.”16 That is why “[f]rom the ethical point of view, actuality is superior to possibility. The ethical specifically wants to annihilate the disinterestedness of possibility by making existing the infinite interest.”17 In the same way that, logically, actuality annihilates possibility,18 ethically, the actual movement of appropriation annihilates the disinterestedness of possible ideality. These are, in the main, the same distinctive marks of the ethical approach to the concept of possibility contained in Stages on the Life’s Way and in the second Cf. SKS 7, 287–8 / CUP1, 316. SKS 7, 286–7 / CUP1, 314. 12 SKS 22, 434–5, NB14:150 / JP 1, 1057: “Begrebs-Existents ɔ: Idealitets Existents.” 13 SKS 23, 72, NB15:103 / JP 1, 1059: “tænkt Virkelighed ɔ: er Mulighed.” 14 SKS 7, 289 / CUP1, 317. See also SKS 7, 286–7 / CUP1, 314–15. 15 SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75. 16 SKS 7, 310 / CUP1, 339. 17 SKS 7, 291 / CUP1, 320. 18 See SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 10 11

70

Gabriel Ferreira da Silva

volume of Either/Or. Accordingly here, through Judge William, Kierkegaard presents possibility as indeterminacy and openness—connected again with the idea of contingency—on the background of a decision that withdraws, by choice, the individual from the realm of aesthetic abstraction. An individual thus chooses himself as a complex specific concretion and therefore chooses himself in his continuity. This concretion is the individual’s actuality, but since he chooses it according to his freedom, it may also be said that it is his possibility or, in order not to use such an aesthetic expression, it is his task. In other words, the person who lives aesthetically sees only possibilities everywhere; for him these make up the content of future time, whereas the person who lives ethically sees tasks everywhere.19 In this context, the different existential approaches affect the understanding of possibility—as empty open possibilities or as tasks—which is one of the main differences between the existential stages of the aesthetic and the ethical; in the former case, possibility has the meaning of pure indeterminacy experienced by thought and imagination, and in the latter case possibility acquires a meaning closely identified with the opportunity for concretion or self-construction/actuality. III. Psychological/Ontological Possibility If possibility is the condition that allows every type of ethical thought, and the ethical/ existential decision is understood as strictly connected with the construction of subjectivity, then the concept of possibility is also a basic component of Kierkegaard’s psychology. This can be seen particularly in The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death. There, possibility is an essential component of existential experience, since it means openness and indeterminacy. In this respect, the possible is again very closely identified with the contingent and equally opposed to the necessary. Because of this, it is comprehended as the ground or condition of anxiety within the scope of the notion of freedom: “whereas anxiety is freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility.”20 The idea of existential openness, provided by freedom as possibility, is also the sign of infinitude and the heaviest category: “Whoever is educated by anxiety is educated by possibility, and only he who is educated by possibility is educated according to his infinitude. Therefore possibility is the weightiest of all categories.”21 In The Sickness unto Death the concept of possibility is combined in a psychological and ontological description of human being. Described inter alia as a synthesis of freedom and necessity,22 human being has possibility as one of its own components; even freedom is dialectically defined in terms of necessity and possibility.23 In this sense, as despair can be seen as a polarization to one extreme of the pairs of constitutive notions, Kierkegaard describes some types of despair SKS 3, 240 / EO2, 251. See also SKS 7, 353 / CUP1, 387. SKS 4, 348 / CA, 42. 21 SKS 4, 455 / CA, 156. 22 See SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13. 23 See SKS 11, 145 / SUD, 29. 19 20

Contingency/Possibility

71

in terms of possibility—both by its absence and by its excess: “A self that has no possibility is in despair, and likewise a self that has no necessity.”24 Here possibility is defined as potentiality in which the human being can lose himself by being an “abstract possibility.”25 Actuality, on the other hand, is “the unity of possibility and necessity.”26 Finally, even the openness and contingency of God’s will are also described, in The Sickness unto Death, in terms of possibility and as a condition of prayer. For prayer to make sense, there must be a God, a self, and possibility—or a self and possibility in a pregnant sense, because the being of God means that everything is possible, or that everything is possible means the being of God. Only he whose being has been so shaken that he has become spirit by understanding that everything is possible, only he has anything to do with God. That God’s will is the possible makes me able to pray; if there is nothing but necessity, man is essentially as inarticulate as the animals.27 Thus, although the notions of possibility and contingency have many shared aspects and differences within various conceptual contexts, Kierkegaard’s use of these ideas always remains closely tied to the idea of openness, in contrast to actuality and necessity. Notwithstanding, the main feature of the Kierkegaardian use of these notions lies precisely in his existential application of it. See also Actuality; Decision/Resolve; Existence; Freedom; Imagination; Logic; Necessity.

SKS 11, 151 / SUD, 35. Ibid. 26 See SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 36. 27 SKS 11, 156 / SUD, 40–1. 24 25

This page intentionally left blank

Contradiction Jakub Marek

Contradiction (Modsigelse—noun; modsige—verb) The term is of early modern Danish origin, from Old Danish mod seyels. The lexical meaning of modsige (Modsigelse) in Danish is to contradict (contradiction), to object (objection), to protest (protest), also to contradict itself (self-contradiction, Selvmodsigelse). In philosophy, the law or principle of contradiction (Modsigelsens Grundsætning, also Kontradictionsprincippet) states that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same aspect.1 I. The concept of contradiction plays a prominent role in Kierkegaard’s thought. From the publication of Either/Or onwards, the notion of contradiction or of disjunction2— of an either/or (enten – eller, also in its Latin form aut – aut)—remains one of Kierkegaard’s main categories. He explicitly deals with the philosophical and logical principle (law) of contradiction3 and defends it vigorously in the sphere of freedom and ethical choice. The most important and most sustained discussion of the problem of contradiction and the law of contradiction is offered in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.

This article was supported by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Institutional Support for Long-term Development of Research Organizations, Charles University, Faculty of Humanities 2012. 1 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 273–5. For the definition of the principle of contradiction cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1005b 19. 2 Kierkegaard’s word of choice in A Literary Review of Two Ages, also used in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Cf. SKS 7, 93–4, 280, 320, 381 / CUP1, 95, 307, 350, 419. 3 As Contradictionsprincip in Climacus’ Philosophical Fragments (SKS 4, 304 / PF, 108–9) and Postscript (SKS 7, 383–4 / CUP1, 421), often also as Modsigelsens Grundsætning, e.g. in Either/Or, Part Two (cf. SKS 3, 166–7 / EO2, 170–1), in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (SKS 7, 277–8 and passim / CUP1, 304–5, and passim), in the posthumously published Book on Adler (SKS 15, 170 / BA, 48) and elsewhere.

74

Jakub Marek

II. The law of contradiction, the second of the three laws of classical logic,4 states that, provided there are two contradictory judgments about the same subject at the same time and regarding the same aspect or in the same respect, then they cannot both be true or both false. Subject S cannot at the same time have property P and not have it; in other words, it cannot simultaneously be P and also not-P.5 This principle had been challenged by many philosophers and logicians, most prominently by G.W.F. Hegel. In his Science of Logic Hegel claims to have overcome this principle by introducing a dialectical understanding of the contradiction. Instead of working with Aristotle’s contradictory pair of “P and not-P,” which in Hegel’s view differ absolutely one from another (der absolute Unterschied), Hegel turns to such contrary pairs in which the two terms stand in opposition (Gegensatz), for example, “warm/cold,” “north/ south,” and argues that two such contradictory terms allow for positing a third, synthetic term.6 This famous feature of Hegel’s philosophical system had become a controversial matter in Kierkegaard’s contemporary Danish intellectual circles, and Kierkegaard not only followed but also entered this discussion in defense of the law of contradiction against speculative logic.7 Kierkegaard’s trademark catch phrase “either/or” stresses the contradictoriness of life choices and of making important decisions. These either one has or does not have—there is no in-between, no mediation. Vigilius Haufniensis, the pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety, complains that “the age of making distinctions is past. It has been vanquished by the system.”8 Kierkegaard observes in A Literary Review of Two Ages that the “existential expression of nullifying the principle of contradiction is to be in contradiction to oneself,” since to nullify the principle of contradiction is to be devoid of the passion, which “leads the individual resolutely to make up his mind.”9 This passion “is transformed into the extensity of prudence and reflection,” in which one stands for nothing and therefore is “nothing at all.”10 In yet another formulation, Johannes Climacus suggests that “the deviation of speculative thought…might be located far deeper in the orientation of the whole age—most likely in this, that because of much knowledge people have entirely forgotten what it means to exist and what inwardness is.”11 The age of leveling all distinctions, the cancelling of the law of contradiction, gave birth to a fantastic being, or a phantom.12 This fantastic being of abstraction Along with the law of identity and the law of excluded middle. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 3–6; XI, 5–6 (1005a–1011a; 1061a–1063b). 6 For example, the term “warm” is the contradictory term (negation) of “cold,” yet, in their synthesis, we arrive at the concept of “temperature.” Cf. G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik II, in Werke, vols. 1–20, ed. by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1969–71, vol. 6, pp. 46–80. 7 Cf. SKS 7, 277–8 / CUP1, 304–5; SKS 22, 325–8, NB13:86 / KJN 6, 330–2. 8 SKS, 4, 310 / CA, 3. 9 SKS 8, 92 / TA, 97. 10 Ibid. 11 SKS 7, 220 / CUP1, 242. 12 SKS 7, 317–18 / CUP1, 347. 4 5

Contradiction

75

has forgotten that “existing is a prodigious contradiction.”13 Human existence is contradictory and the fundamental contradictions cannot be mediated, cancelled, or nullified. It is this cleft that Anti-Climacus names the sickness unto death—existence is a “tormenting contradiction” (qvalfulde Modsigelse)14 of not being able to reach full self-affirmation;15 in existence one confronts the ideal image of oneself, of what one wants oneself to be, with one’s actuality.16 One’s “self” is the “contradiction of positing the universal as the particular.”17 One wants to become oneself, which is the same as to get rid of the self one is and to recreate oneself.18 Eventually AntiClimacus understands the fundamental existential contradiction as a struggle with the eternal in man: “Thus, the eternal in a person can be demonstrated by the fact that despair cannot consume his self, that precisely this is the torment of contradiction in despair. If there were nothing eternal in a man, he could not despair at all; if despair could consume his self, then there would be no despair at all.”19 To exist means to be aware of the fundamental contradiction and not to evade it by abstracting from existence. III. Contradiction becomes Kierkegaard’s main anthropological (psychological)20 category: the human being is a synthesis of contradictory elements (for example, body/soul). As a synthesis, the human being has a trichotomous structure21—there are the two contradictory elements (body/soul), and there is the third in which they are grounded,22 the true human self or the spirit.23 It is, then, the standpoint of the self, of the spirit, which sees the contradictions in one’s existence, and these contradictions cannot be seen from the disinterested standpoint of a fantastical being of pure thought. The contradiction has two24 dominant formulations: (a) The synthesis of body and soul is posited as contradictory in sexuality.25 He explains, “The sexual is the expression for the prodigious Widerspruch [contradiction] that the immortal spirit SKS 7, 320 / CUP1, 350. See also SKS 2, 65 / EO1, 58; SKS 5, 23 / EUD, 14. SKS 11, 134 / SUD, 18. 15 Cf. SKS 4, 68 / R, 200. 16 Johannes Climacus in the unfinished Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est asserts that consciousness is precisely the contradiction of ideality and reality, and contradiction is the form in which all consciousness is founded: SKS 15, 55–8 / JC, 168–70. Cf. SKS 4, 177 / FT, 87. 17 SKS 4, 381 / CA, 78; cf. SKS 4, 335 / CA, 28. 18 Cf. SKS 11, 133–6 / SUD, 17–20. 19 SKS 11, 136 / SUD, 21. 20 Cf. SKS 4, 317–31 / CA, 9–24. 21 Cf. SKS 15, 56 / JC, 169. 22 Cf. SKS 4, 388 / CA, 85. 23 Cf. SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43, SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13. 24 In the upbuilding discourse “To Gain One’s Soul in Patience,” Kierkegaard also mentions the contradiction of the external and eternal in the soul (SKS 5, 165, 170–1 / EUD, 166, 172). 25 SKS 4, 354 / CA, 49. 13 14

76

Jakub Marek

is determined as genus. This contradiction expresses itself in the profound Scham [modesty] that conceals this contradiction and does not dare to understand it.”26 From the standpoint of the spirit, the human being is composed of two contradictory elements—body and soul. (b) Another prominent contradiction is that of the temporal and eternal: in the upbuilding discourses, Kierkegaard suggests that the soul (which is this time the synthetic standpoint) is itself a contradiction of the temporal and the eternal. The individual relates both to the eternal and to the temporal in his existence, and there is no “either/or” in this relating, thinking about the contradiction—he relates to both of the contradictory elements. Yet, as Kierkegaard argues, this contradiction is also freedom, and in freedom one can as much lose as gain one’s soul.27 From the standpoint of freedom and of the future, there is the essential either/or. One either gains one’s soul or not. In The Concept of Anxiety, Haufniensis reformulates this synthesis as the synthesis of temporal/eternal grounded in the moment (Øieblik) and understands it as just another expression of the first synthesis (body/soul, spirit).28 Once again, freedom is grounded in this contradictoriness.29 IV. As we have seen, Kierkegaard employs two different perspectives: the first is the viewpoint of being, of thought, and from this viewpoint there is no law of contradiction.30 Kierkegaard’s defense of the principle of contradiction does not apply to this sphere of thought. According to him, Hegel is “perfectly and absolutely right” that there is no “either/or” in pure thought and pure being.31 In this “medium of imagination” one can be both good and evil.32 But, from the second viewpoint, it is the higher and more profound position which sees the dualities of life,33 that is, in the sphere of freedom, there is “either/or,” because one cannot become both good and evil, but must decide either to do good or to do evil.34 Objectively the question is only about categories of thought; subjectively, about inwardness….From the objective view, there is no infinite decision, and thus it is objectively correct that the distinction between good and evil is cancelled, along with the principle of contradiction, and thereby also the infinite distinction between truth and falsehood. Only in subjectivity is there decision, whereas wanting to become objective is untruth.35 SKS 4, 373 / CA, 69. Cf. SKS 5, 163, 165–6 / EUD 163–4, 166–7. 28 Cf. SKS 4, 288, 392 / CA, 85, 88. 29 Cf. SKS 4, 354–5 / CA, 49: “entangled freedom.” 30 Cf. SKS 7, 383 / CUP1, 420–1, SKS 3, 169 / EO2, 173, also the “objective vs. subjective” in the Postscript. 31 SKS 7, 277–8 / CUP1, 305. 32 SKS 7, 277–80, 383 / CUP1, 304–7, 420–1. Cf. SKS 9, 249–50 / WL, 250. 33 SKS 18, 202, JJ:194 / JP 1, 704. 34 Cf. SKS 7, 383 / CUP1, 420–1. 35 SKS 7, 186 / CUP1, 203. 26 27

Contradiction

77

The fundamental contradiction then becomes the existential task—one must “crack” the contradiction by choosing “an actual Either/Or.”36 It is through an “either/or” that one can move forward by choosing to make the true decision and get rid of indifference37—by choosing the absolute, which is to choose oneself.38 The task is to become oneself through the choices, and, as such, it is a (historical) movement of existence.39 There is no movement in abstraction, but existence is this movement, existence is this becoming.40 Through choices one moves in time and identifies oneself with the decisions one makes. It is exactly in the principle of contradiction where the choices are grounded,41 and through these decisions one obtains one’s ethical actuality.42 V. In the depth of human existence there is fundamental contradiction. Kierkegaard aims at pointing out the contradictoriness of existence, at drawing attention to this difficulty.43 As early as his doctoral thesis, The Concept of Irony, we see Kierkegaard’s conviction about human life’s profound contradictoriness; but there is also evidence of his view on the immediate state of human existence which lacks deeper reflection and, as a result, also any awareness of the contradictions.44 Later Climacus will reiterate: “Immediacy is good fortune, because in immediacy there is no contradiction; the immediate person, viewed essentially, is fortunate, and the lifeview of immediacy is good fortune.”45 In immediacy, contradiction only comes from the external world as misfortune, and contradiction is something else which comes from outside.46 At this stage, the individual is unaware of any true contradiction. Yet Kierkegaard’s aesthetic characters, for example, the aesthete A from Either/Or, experience contradictions, such as in the form of melancholy or depression.47 Nonetheless, it does not follow that they reach the ethical standpoint. On the existential level, aesthete A seems, according to Judge William, to be following the teachings of modern philosophy that the principle of contradiction has been cancelled.48 This means that he is not capable or willing to make true commitments, SKS 3, 160 / EO2, 162. Cf. SKS 3, 163 / EO2, 166. Cf. SKS 3, 164–6 / EO2, 168–9. 38 Cf. SKS 3, 205 / EO2, 214. 39 SKS 4, 335 / CA, 28–9. 40 SKS 7, 80–1, 281 / CUP1, 80–1, 308–9. 41 SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 215–16. 42 SKS 7, 288 / CUP1, 316. Cf. SKS 7, 181 / CUP1, 197–8; SKS 18, 161, JJ:68 / JP 1, 703. 43 Cf. SKS 7, 348 / CUP1, 383. 44 Cf. SKS 1, 249 / CI, 204. 45 SKS 7, 394 / CUP1, 433. 46 Cf. SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572. 47 Cf. SKS 2, 82–4 / EO1, 76–8; SKS 4, 51 / R, 180. 48 Cf. SKS 3, 166–7 / EO2, 170–1. 36 37

78

Jakub Marek

and he avoids making decisions.49 Kierkegaard portrays doubt as the hallmark of this existential “distress,”50 and at its most developed stage this is the standpoint of despair.51 In despair, one will not take a stance: one lacks the passion, the existential interestedness.52 VI. Reaching the ethical existential standpoint does not, however, save one from contradictions. As Johannes Climacus argues in the Postscript,53 the ethical standpoint expresses a contradiction in attempting to reach full self-assertion, but one cannot do so unless one can get rid of oneself—one cannot realize the infinite ethical ideal in one’s existence. The still deeper standpoint of religiousness (religiousness A) understands this movement as self-annihilation, which, once again, is a failed attempt at undoing one’s actuality. One cannot reach full identity with oneself, but only experience the more profound contradictoriness: It is not difficult to perceive that in a certain sense the principle of identity is higher, is the basis of the principle of contradiction. But the principle of identity is only the boundary; it is like the blue mountains, like the line which the artist calls the base line— the drawing is the main thing. Therefore, identity is a lower view than contradiction, which is more concrete. Identity is the terminus a quo [point from which] but not ad quem [to which] for existence. An existing person can maxime arrive at and continually arrive at identity by abstracting from existence.54

The existential movement is directed towards contradiction, not away from it in favor of an imagined, abstract identity. The various different expressions of the fundamental contradictoriness of human existence can all be traced back to one formulation: existence is a profound contradiction between ideality, the being of an idea, and nothingness. “Existing is a somewhat intermediate state like that, something that is suitable for an intermediate being such as a human being is.”55 The existential movement was an attempt at deciding and realizing one’s possibilities—of choosing “either/or.” Yet, as Climacus extensively argues, the possibilities always remain the same, they are the ever present possibilities, only that they gradually become more dialectically developed, 56 and, as

Cf. SKS 5, 131 / EUD, 127. SKS 5, 131 / EUD, 127. 51 SKS 3, 187–9 / EO2, 193–5. 52 Cf. SKS 15, 170 / BA, 48; SKS 8, 64 / TA, 66. The same is expressed by Climacus’ “infinite [passionate] interestedness in one’s own eternal happiness” (SKS 7, 31 / CUP1, 24) or “a person’s passion in relation to an eternal happiness” (SKS 7, 350 / CUP1, 385). 53 Cf. SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572–3. 54 SKS 7, 383 / CUP1, 421. Cf. SKS 18, 161, JJ:68 / JP 1, 703; SKS 18, 223, JJ:261 / JP 1, 705. 55 SKS 7, 301 / CUP1, 329. 56 Cf. SKS 7, 122 / CUP1, 130. 49 50

Contradiction

79

a whole, they form the sphere of immanence.57 One cannot get rid of one’s immanent possibilities,58 and one cannot by oneself realize these possibilities and make them one’s actuality. There is no disjunction in immanence, and immanence is the sphere of thought.59 “Either/or” belongs in the sphere of freedom, and, as becomes clear, this freedom is not the freedom of choosing in the sphere of immanence—there is only the freedom of faith and transcendence, of breaking with the sphere of immanence, breaking with one’s understanding and thinking.60 VII. Kierkegaard expresses this break with reason as the absurd and the paradoxical: “This contradiction is the absurd, which can only be believed.”61 Christianity is the paradoxical religiousness,62 the religiousness of great contradictions.63 Firstly, it comes with the “contradiction that the god has existed in human form.”64 It is, “despite all the assurances of modern philosophy,” difficult to think through the paradox,65 and all the attempts at comprehending (let alone explaining)66 the paradox are selfcontradictory,67 since the paradox can only be the object of faith.68 “Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and objective uncertainty. If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith, but because I cannot do this, I must have faith.”69 Sin also lies in the category of contradiction and is properly an object only for faith,70 whereas reason would dismiss it as contradictory.71 “This is the good health of faith that resolves contradictions. The contradiction here is that, humanly speaking, downfall is certain, but that there is possibility nonetheless.”72 In conclusion, we have seen that Kierkegaard defends the principle of contradiction as the basis of ethical choice. The contradiction of “either/or,” of choosing between existential alternatives, has no meaning in abstract thinking about possibilities, but it is the most important category when regarded as a decision about one’s future in the category of becoming. In the sphere of immanence one cannot, however, effectively realize one’s possibilities—reach a full self-affirmation—and Cf. SKS 4, 317–31, 354 / CA, 9–24, 50. Cf. SKS 6, 295 / SLW, 317. 59 SKS 7, 93–4 / CUP1, 95. 60 Cf. SKS 7, 269, 517, 520 / CUP1, 295, 569, 572–3. 61 SKS 7, 194 / CUP1, 211. 62 E.g. SKS 7, 486 / CUP1, 534. 63 SKS 17, 21, AA:12 / JP 5, 5092. 64 SKS 7, 44 / CUP1, 38. Cf. SKS 7, 81 / CUP1, 82. 65 SKS 2, 194 / EO1, 198. 66 SKS 7, 200 / CUP1, 220. 67 SKS 11, 210 / SUD, 98. 68 SKS 4, 264 / PF, 62. 69 SKS 7, 187 / CUP1, 204. 70 SKS 4, 322–4 / CA, 14–17. 71 Cf. SKS 4, 142–3 / FT, 48–9. 72 SKS 11, 155 / SUD, 40. 57 58

80

Jakub Marek

the contradictoriness of one’s existence cannot be cancelled. Only Christianity, as the paradoxical religiousness, resolves the contradictions through faith. See also Absurd; Actuality; Ethics; Faith; Freedom; Immanence/Transcendence; Logic; Paradox; Speculation/Science/Scholarship.

Corrective J. Michael Tilley

Corrective (Correctiv—noun) The English word “corrective,” like the Danish, derives from the Latin correctivus. Its lexical meaning in Danish is a work or activity that makes something better or right.1 The modern Danish spelling is korrektiv, but Kierkegaard prefers the form Correctiv. Though he sometimes uses more traditional Danish words that are translated as “corrective” (e.g., Berigtigelse), Kierkegaard reserves the Latin variant as a technical term. I. The concept of the corrective is an important one for Kierkegaard, and he employs it throughout much of his authorship. It illumines both his relationship to many of his contemporaries and his understanding of a variety of different subjects. The concept of corrective is prominent in Kierkegaard’s characterization of his own project in both published and unpublished writings. The technical use of the term first occurs in 1844 and the final use is in February 1855, well into the attack on Christendom.2 The concept is most fully developed in a number of journal and notebook entries from 1849 to ’50, and it is perhaps one of the most important concepts for understanding Kierkegaard’s self-representation of his prior and subsequent work. Although the term plays a prominent role in Kierkegaard’s thought, there have been relatively few systematic studies of its use.3 Most often, the concept is just taken to mean that Kierkegaard simply emphasizes the opposite of the prevailing tendencies of his culture.4 However, Kierkegaard’s use of the concept is more Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 11, column 136. 2 SKS 18, 217, JJ:239 / JP 3, 3299. SKS 14, 173 / M, 41–2. This passage uses the more traditional Danish word interchangeably with its Latin counterpart. 3 The best treatments of it up to this point are Elsebet Jegstrup’s dissertation: Kierkegaard on Citizenship and Character, Chicago: Loyola University 1992, pp. 185–204; and Marie Mikulova Thulstrup, “The Concept of ‘Corrective’ in Kierkegaard’s Thought,” Liber Academiæ Kierkegaardiensis, ed. by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulova Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1982, pp. 85–93. 4 Per Lønning and Joel Rasmussen both seem to use the concept this way—Lønning in an article on the concept and Rasmussen as a passing reference. See Per Lønning, “Kierkegaard’s 1

82

J. Michael Tilley

complicated and diverse than these caricatures suggest. He uses the concept of the corrective in three related ways: as a philosophical corrective, as an existentialcorrective, and as a corrective to the established order. The last of these uses is the most important, and it encompasses the other two. The corrective in this sense refers to a counterbalance to the established order. This use of the concept expresses the essence of what it means to be a corrective, and both of the other characterizations, presented below, fall within the scope of this use. First, Kierkegaard refers to his own work as an intellectual or theoretical corrective to speculation and idealism. He claims that his own contextual approach, in which one “will not begin with nothing or without any presuppositions,” is a “necessary corrective” to “German philosophy.”5 Despite the explicit reference to German philosophy, Kierkegaard is most likely identifying Hans Lassen Martensen, a Danish philosopher and theologian who was influential in the popularizing of Hegelian philosophy in Denmark, as the target of his criticism.6 In another passage, Kierkegaard presents Socratic ignorance as “what the speculation of our time needs as a corrective.”7 The final reference to a philosophical corrective is when he mentions that Martensen would prefer to “ignore the corrective [Kierkegaard],” rather than engage with his arguments.8 In each of these three references, Kierkegaard is identifying implicitly or explicitly Martensen’s views as the object of his correction.9 Second, Kierkegaard describes his “task” as an “existential-corrective.” He provides the existential-corrective “by poetically presenting the ideals…” which in turn incites “people about the established order,” while at the same time “criticizing all the false reformers and the opposition.”10 It does not appear that this use of ‘Corrective’—A Corrective to Kierkegaardians?” Liber Academiæ Kierkegaardiensis, pp. 105–19. See Joel Rasmussen, “The Pitiful Prototype,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2007, p. 274. Rasmussen suggests that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on suffering and martyrdom is a “corrective” to the “easy grace” of nineteenth-century Denmark. 5 SKS 18, 217, JJ:239 / JP 3, 3299. 6 Most of Kierkegaard’s knowledge of the German philosophical tradition is from Martensen’s lectures on the topic. Furthermore, Martensen played a significant role in the Danish debate about beginning philosophy with “no presuppositions.” For both of these reasons, there is strong evidence that Kierkegaard was referencing Martensen directly when he claims that it “begins with nothing” and indirectly when he describes “German philosophy,” since a great deal of Kierkegaard’s knowledge of the German tradition comes through Martensen. Cf. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, New York: Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 490–1. Although Martensen was influential in the initial development of Hegelian thought in Denmark, he was not an uncritical sycophant. Particularly after Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity and Strauss’ On Christian Doctrine were published, Martensen began to distance himself from Hegelian philosophy. Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, pp. 61–2. 7 SKS 22, 224, NB12:134 / JP 3, 3567. 8 Pap. X–6 B 121 / JP 6, 6574. 9 Kierkegaard’s relation with Martensen is particularly important for understanding the nature of the corrective. I will return to their relationship when I discuss the first feature of the concept of the corrective. 10 SKS 24, 212, NB23:15 / JP 1, 708. Kierkegaard also uses the term “existentialcorrective” in his “Open Letter” to Rudelbach. SKS 14, 114 / COR, 56.

Corrective

83

the concept is distinct from the general way of using the term, even though the terminology is different. Both of these further uses of the concept—the philosophical corrective and the existential-corrective—are subsets of the larger concept of the corrective in general. Kierkegaard’s philosophical corrective shows the deficiencies of established scholars and professors, and his existential-corrective is explicitly described as a response to the established order. In further elaborating the concept, I will focus on this more general use of the term. II. There are three primary features of Kierkegaard’s concept of the corrective: first, it is aimed at reforming the whole; second, it is one-sided; and third, it cannot become normative. All three of these features are essential for understanding Kierkegaard’s use of the concept. I will now describe each of these three features, and will illustrate them by describing the way Kierkegaard reacted to some of his contemporaries. In particular, Kierkegaard’s indirect criticism of Martensen will illustrate how a critique can reform the whole by being expertly one-sided. A. Reforming the Whole The most important feature of the corrective is that it subtly alters the functioning and understanding of the whole, thus bringing about the possibility of genuine reform. Kierkegaard says that the corrective will “cast a humorous-edifying warmth over the whole”11 and that it will incite “people about the established order.”12 Kierkegaard uses a series of metaphors to illuminate the way in which the corrective alters the whole for the better. The first metaphor compares the corrective to a skilled cook adding a little dash of cinnamon. The cook realizes that the dish needs just a little bit of cinnamon even though the ordinary person is unable to taste it. The cook knows how this slight addition will make the whole dish tastier. The second metaphor concerns the painter who adds a little red to a painting that has many colors. The red is introduced in small quantities and only in particular places, such that people hardly notice any red in the overall painting. In both cases, there must be a little bit of cinnamon or a little bit of red that vanishes in the whole. The corrective is designed to contribute to the overall structure and design of the whole without being the focal point.13 Kierkegaard does not mean, however, that the corrective is aimed at moving the established order toward some happy medium ground. Rather, it is a dynamic structure meant to advance the whole. To illustrate this idea, we can add one more analogy to Kierkegaard’s own: the corrective is like a fugue. In a fugue, a voice or musical pattern is in tension with another concurrent pattern, and this tension is used in order to bring out key aspects of the whole. The concurrent pattern or dissident voice alone is not able to produce the proper aesthetic experience, but when the two patterns are played together 13 11

12

SKS 18, 217, JJ:239 / JP 3, 3299. SKS 24, 212, NB23:15 / JP 1, 708. SKS 25, 51–2, NB26:47 / JP 1, 709.

84

J. Michael Tilley

the impact and style of both are accented. This metaphor is particularly appealing because it shows that the tension between the corrective and the established order is resolved neither by dismissing one or the other, nor by mitigating the force of the corrective to make it more palatable to the established order. Rather, the whole is most improved when the corrective is presented forcefully and articulately, and when the established order is strong enough to withstand the assault. The idea is not to resolve the tension but to insist on it all the more for the benefit of all.14 The aim of the tension is so that others “might stand firm, willing only one thing—the good,” and as such, it is the “very opposite of attacking.”15 B. One-Sidedness Furthermore, the corrective is to be one-sided. However, its one-sidedness does not entail that it ignores the opposing position. It must be expertly one-sided such that any appropriation of it, failure to consider it, or attack on it will change the totality. The corrective must be presented in such a way that any response to it results in the appropriate change to the whole. It follows that the one who uses the corrective must know the established order well, and it “must study the weak sides…scrupulously and penetratingly.”16 The corrective is presented as a criticism of these deficiencies with an eye toward altering the whole. The corrective must be deployed in such a way and in a particular setting such that any of the possible responses—appropriation, silence, or attack—will accomplish its purposes. Kierkegaard means precisely this when he claims that the corrective is supposed to be expertly one-sided with a deep awareness of the flaws and problems in the position it is correcting. The one-sidedness of the corrective, however, is problematic if it is severed from its historical context—that is, if it is severed from that which it is correcting. Thus, the third essential characteristic of the corrective is that it cannot become normative. C. Not Becoming Normative Kierkegaard developed his concept of the corrective in order to express his selfunderstanding of his own work, and his fear was that his corrective would become normative. That is, he did not intend for it to be universally accepted on its own. The entire purpose of the Kierkegaardian corrective is as a defense of the established order. It is like a medicine that weakens the body temporarily but ultimately makes it stronger: “the corrective should not be used by one who wants to be a corrective also, but by one…[who] would say…I have wanted to be corrected.”17 Kierkegaard As an aside, the concept of a fugue was prominent throughout Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie. Heidegger explicitly describes the entire work as a “fugue” in Sections 81 and 82. Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy, trans. by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1999, pp. 117–19. 15 SKS 13, 26 / PV, 18. 16 SKS 22, 194–5, NB12:97 / JP 6, 6467. 17 Pap. X–6 B 121 / JP 6, 6574. 14

Corrective

85

expresses this feature of the corrective in a number of entries, and it occurs most prominently in his criticism of Lutheranism and the People’s Church of Denmark. The problem with Luther, says Kierkegaard, is that he allowed himself to be made “into a paradigm.”18 His work was essentially a corrective that was “made into the normative…[which is] confusing in another generation (where that for which it was a corrective does not exist).”19 Kierkegaard even claims that a confusing corrective degenerates ultimately into that which it was supposed to correct by means of subsequent reactions against it. For example, Luther intended to recover authentic Christianity, but instead he produced “the most refined kind of secularism and paganism,”20 that is, nineteenth-century bourgeois Christianity. In another passage, Kierkegaard asserts that one who wants “to change the corrective into a doctrine” misunderstands its nature.21 The goal is not to bring a new doctrine into the world or to organize a party.22 Rather, one presents “ideals” which not only “incite people about the established order” but also criticize “all the false reformers and the opposition… whom only ideals can halt.”23 To organize a party or promote a new doctrine changes the corrective from a constraint into a standard that strives for universal adoption. However, a genuine corrective is an external critique designed to produce internal change and reform (though it may also result in external changes). It is in this respect that the corrective is understood as a defense of the established order. Kierkegaard’s own polemics against Danish Lutheranism and the People’s Church illustrates the proper use of the corrective. In The Point of View for My Work as an Author Kierkegaard wrote, “I have never been or been alone with the ‘opposition’ that wants to do away with ‘government’ but have always provided what is called a corrective.”24 He is not only critical of the established order, but he also criticizes the critics of the established order. Both his enemy and his enemy’s enemies were his enemies. In cases where Kierkegaard understands his work as a corrective, he uses this model of presentation. He presents a criticism of the standard view while at the same time distancing himself from other critics. This approach is important for understanding Kierkegaard’s relationship to his contemporaries as well as his views on various themes and subjects. Nevertheless, in order to understand whether a particular argument employed by Kierkegaard is a corrective, it is essential to examine whether it bears the marks of these three essential features. The primary challenge for scholars concerning Kierkegaard’s employment of the corrective is that it makes it difficult to determine Kierkegaard’s actual positions on issues. An interpreter may well argue that those positions he or she finds unpalatable in Kierkegaard are merely “correctives” and in turn reject Kierkegaard’s actual views. For example, an evangelical Christian may interpret SKS 23, 367–8, NB19:57 / JP 3, 2522. SKS 25, 279, NB28:82 / JP 1, 711. This entry is also significant because it was written some time in 1854 either just prior to the “truth-witness” eulogy or just after. 20 SKS 25, 279, NB28:82 / JP 1, 711. 21 Pap. X–6 B 121 / JP 6, 6574. 22 SKS 25, 239–40, NB28:32 / JP 2, 2046. 23 SKS 24, 212, NB23:15 / JP 1, 708. 24 SKS 13, 26 / PV, 18. 18 19

86

J. Michael Tilley

Kierkegaard as a proto-evangelical Christian, thereby dismissing Kierkegaard’s critique of Christianity, or a person who believes in participatory democracy may interpret Kierkegaard as a democrat whose criticisms of democracy are merely ironic correctives of the political conservatives of his day. In spite of this risk, it is important not to dismiss the significance of the concept for Kierkegaard. The concept of the corrective has a distinct logic and structure that cuts against its common abuses. The structure must address the three features of the corrective articulated above: it must aim at reforming the established order, be expertly one-sided, and it must not become normative. If one of Kierkegaard’s positions or arguments is to be understood as a corrective, then it will have this structure. The first two conditions are relatively easy to meet given Kierkegaard’s polemical style. Kierkegaard often presented one-sided appraisals of situations or positions for the sake of some higher end, but the third feature of the corrective is the most significant. As we have noted already, Kierkegaard (or his pseudonyms) will often criticize those reformers who have set themselves against the established authorities even when Kierkegaard’s actual argument is similar in many respects to that of the reformers. If Kierkegaard uses this particular tactic, then it is likely to be the case that the argument in question is being presented as a corrective. This standard is useful because it shows that not all of Kierkegaard’s arguments are best understood as a corrective, and it gives us criteria for evaluating whether or not a particular argument should be understood as an instance of the corrective. This interpretation of the concept of the corrective shows the problem with the pervasive, yet mistaken, view that a Kierkegaardian corrective merely militates against an established view or position. See also Crowd/Public; Moment; Society; Witness.

Courage Lauren Greenspan

Courage (Mod—noun) From the Old Norse móðr, the lexical meaning of the Danish Mod is characterized by a mental state of spiritual strength and firmness, so as to acknowledge and not shy away from the prospect of danger, the anger of others, or disapproval.1 It is important to note that Kierkegaard also uses the word Frimodighed (translated by Hong as “bold confidence”), which is similar but not identical to Mod. Whereas courage comes from God in the face of danger, bold confidence is the assurance that one does not have to face such dangers alone. The term “courage” takes on a number of spiritual and psychological meanings in the Kierkegaardian canon, depending on where it is contextually situated. Kierkegaard’s most explicit treatment of the concept of courage can be found in the third discourse of his Four Upbuilding Discourses from 1844 entitled “Against Cowardliness,” in which he compares and contrasts worldly notions of bravery and heroism with the courage requisite for religious life. From 1843 to 1844, Kierkegaard published three additional series of discourses, many of which make reference to courage. All of these works were signed “Søren Kierkegaard” and are now compiled in the Hongs’ collection Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Another signed work which investigates the concept of courage is Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, particularly in the following sections: “A Person Must Will the Good in Truth,” “How Can the Burden Be Light?,” and “A Person Always Suffers as Guilty.” A noteworthy feature of these texts is Kierkegaard’s use of wordplay to reveal the orthographic similarities between courage (Mod ) and other words in the Danish language. For example, he links the concepts of courage with resistance in writing, “Or does not showing courage [Mod ] require instead that there be resistance [Modstand ] (as the language itself seems to suggest), such as when the courageous one looks danger in the face.”2 Going further, Kierkegaard observes that the term courage (Mod ) is the lexical root for other virtues, such as, high-mindedness (Høimod ) and patience (Taalmod ), as is evident when he writes: There is in the language a marvelous word that also fits readily in many a connection but never intensely in any conception except with the good. It is the word courage [Mod ]; wherever there is good, courage is also present there; whatever happens to the Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 197–213. 2 SKS 8, 219 / UD, 118. 1

Lauren Greenspan

88

good, courage is always on the side of good….There is courage [Mod ], which bravely defies dangers; there is high-mindedness [Høimod ], which profoundly lifts itself above grievances; there is patience [Taalmod ], which patiently bears sufferings; but the gentle courage [sagte Mod ] that carries the heavy burden lightly is still the most wonderful compound.3

The concept of courage is not limited to the signed authorship. Kierkegaard’s first pseudonymous text Either/Or, compiled by the fictional editor Victor Eremita, presents characters with varying interpretations of courage that often reflect their respective life-views. For example, the clever aesthete A—true to his detached and contrarian nature—writes, “I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything.”4 Conversely, A’s companion Judge William, attempting to reform his wayward friend, speaks of courage as a virtue requisite for aesthetic “transformation” into the ethical-religious sphere.5 The concept is also discussed in Judge William’s letter entitled the “Esthetic Validity of Marriage,” in which courage and patience are compared with respect to time: “Courage can be concentrated very well in the moment; patience cannot, precisely because patience contends against time.”6 Later we will make a distinction between religious courage and heroic courage in Kierkegaard’s authorship. It is evident from Judge William’s letter that he is speaking of heroic courage in this passage, since this connection between courage and the moment is preceded by the remark that conquering heroes of kingdoms and countries can be portrayed “very well in the moment.”7 In Fear and Trembling the pseudonymous author Johannes de silentio connects courage with the concept of faith, writing, “I do not have faith; this courage I lack.”8 The young man of Kierkegaard’s Repetition is deficient in courage as well, admitting to his “Silent Confidant” that, “I lack the courage to confess my weakness in your presence, if I ever did, I would be the chief of cowards, because I would think that I had lost everything.”9 Earlier in the text, the work’s pseudonymous author Constantin Constantius insists that it “takes courage” to will repetition as well as to “understand that life is a repetition.”10 The significance of courage becomes all the more apparent in Constantin’s additional proclamation that, “He who will merely hope is cowardly…he who wills repetition is a man, and the more emphatically he is able to realize it, the more profound a human being he is.”11 Kierkegaard further differentiates the various manifestations of courage in the discourses compiled in English under the title Without Authority. In the 1849 essay “Does a Human Being Have the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth?” Kierkegaard, by way of the pseudonym H.H., discusses the difference SKS 8, 340 / UD, 239–40. SKS 2, 32 / EO1, 23. 5 SKS 3, 136 / EO2, 137. 6 SKS 3, 134 / EO2, 135. 7 Ibid. 8 SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34. 9 SKS 4, 59 / R, 189. 10 SKS 4, 10 / R, 132. 11 Ibid. 3 4

Courage

89

between ordinary courage in the face of martyrdom—the courage simply to face being put to death for what one believes in—and a higher state, one which “with the courage to let oneself be put to death, with the ataraxia to grasp that profound irony, lovingly [is] concerned for the others, for those who, if one is to be put to death, must become guilty of putting one to death.”12 This courage is the courage that, while letting oneself be put to death, “in fear and trembling [is] concerned about one’s responsibility.”13 This is a courage that transcends the need for courage to overcome dangers that affect one’s self and is concerned also for the dangers affecting others—even those very people who are putting one to death. Later in the authorship, Kierkegaard, via the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, introduces The Sickness unto Death with the concept of courage: As a Christian, he gained a courage that the natural man does not know, and he gained this courage by learning to fear something even more horrifying. This is the way a person always gains courage; when he fears a greater danger he always has the courage to face a lesser one; when he is exceedingly afraid of one danger, it is as if the other did not exist at all. But the most appalling danger that the Christian has learned to know is “the sickness unto death.”14

In this passage, Anti-Climacus distinguishes between two types of courage: the courage of the natural man and the courage gained “by learning to fear something even more horrifying.” The courage of the natural man does not know the courage gained by facing the horrifying, and it is precisely this kind of courage that helps a Christian face “the sickness unto death,” as the “most appalling danger.” In comparison to this sickness, the Christian is emboldened to face the lesser dangers of existence. Just as Kierkegaard’s pseudonym in Fear and Trembling makes a distinction between the tragic hero and the knight of faith, so too can we distinguish between the types of courage requisite for each figure. For our purposes here the first form of courage will be termed “heroic courage,” while the second will be “religious courage.” That religious courage is qualitatively different from heroic courage is certain. Indeed, like many aspects of Kierkegaard’s canon, the two encompass different modes of existence, with religious courage pertaining only to the passion of faith. In Kierkegaard’s words: “A pathos-filled transition can be achieved by everyone if he wills it, because the transition to the infinite, which consists in pathos, takes only courage.”15 Heroic courage, on the other hand, remains in the finite, facing only finite dangers as opposed to the infinite danger of spiritual trials. Here we see that both heroic courage and religious courage presuppose danger and a resolution to overcome said danger. The dangers that necessitate religious courage include, but are not limited to, the dangers of “fortune and welfare,” the “soul,” “sin,” and “death.”16 In his early writings, Kierkegaard separates the dangers SKS 11, 74 / WA, 69. Ibid. 14 SKS 11, 125 / SUD, 8–9. 15 SKS 19, 386, Not13:8 / JP 3, 2339. 16 SKS 5, 339 / EUD, 350–1. 12 13

90

Lauren Greenspan

of the spiritual battlefield—as spacious as the wide world—from the dangers of physical battlefields, noting that “It is a proud thing to concentrate all the threatening dangers and terrors in one place, to charge forth where the enemy’s hosts are most numerous.”17 Whereas spiritual danger occurs at each moment—in the monotony of one’s day-to-day existence—the danger of the second fits traditional notions of battle: a threat typically concentrated in a certain span of time against an identifiable adversary. In other words, it takes heroic courage to face the finite dangers of the world and religious courage to mark the whole world as a danger with infinite consequence. Both heroic courage and religious courage encounter life-threatening dangers. With respect to the former, it seems obvious that individuals display heroic courage in life-threatening situations: a knight on a dangerous quest, a soldier in battle— surely our imaginations can add to the list. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard’s pseudonym points toward the heroic courage of Tobias and the danger he faced when marrying Sarah, a bride whose previous seven grooms were killed on their wedding night by an infernal spirit.18 In the same text, Agamemnon’s heroic courage puts another’s life at stake, as is evident in the sacrifice of his beautiful daughter Iphigenia: “The tragic hero demonstrates his ethical courage in that he himself… announces Iphigenia’s fate to her….His heroic deed requires courage, but part of this courage is that he does not avoid any argument.”19 Fear and Trembling juxtaposes Agamemnon’s ethical-heroic courage with Abraham’s demonstration of faith in the binding of Isaac, forcing Johannes de silentio to confess: “I do not have the courage…to act as Abraham did.”20 Clearly in this case Abraham’s courage—as the knight of faith—is religious as opposed to heroic. Confronted with Abraham’s faith, Johannes de silentio writes: “I know very well that even though I advance toward it courageously, my courage is still not the courage of faith and is not something to be compared with it. I cannot make the movement of faith, I cannot close my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd.”21 Elsewhere in his authorship, Kierkegaard characterizes this movement of faith as the requisite courage for one to die to the world in an act of self-sacrifice, as is apparent in Kierkegaard’s own self-reflection: “It is appalling just to think of how the person who actually presents Christianity must die to the world, die to being human in the ordinary sense. For my part, I feel infinitely far from it. I love being human, do not have the courage to be spirit to that extent.”22 The Sickness unto Death explains precisely how one acquires the courage to lose one’s self in this way: “The despair that is the thoroughfare to faith comes also through the aid of the eternal; through the aid of the eternal the self has the courage to lose itself in order to win itself.”23 Over and against his former self-reflection on self-sacrifice Ibid. SKS 4, 192 / FT, 103. 19 SKS 4, 176 / FT, 87. 20 SKS 4, 209 / FT, 120. 21 SKS 4, 129 / FT, 33–4. 22 SKS 23, 271, NB18:33 / JP 6, 6616. 23 SKS 11, 182 / SUD, 67. 17 18

Courage

91

and courage, Kierkegaard (tentatively) claims religious courage in another journal entry: “I believe I might have the courage to lose my life in order to make room for the extraordinary.”24 Cowardliness stands in the way of religious courage. According to Kierkegaard, cowardliness manifests itself in both heroic and religious courage, because it identifies a lack of resolution in the face of danger—physical or otherwise. The concept of religious courage, understood in terms of faith, has the added dimension of openly living out what one professes to believe. Returning to our discussion of the lexical link between courage and other virtues, it can be said that religious courage directs faith to the highest good in order to receive everything as a good and perfect gift from above.25 Such good gifts are not limited to accumulated blessings or virtues but include existence itself, which is given by God. It is for this reason that an individual with religious courage will receive everything—including the virtue of courage—as a gift acquired by faith. Religious courage, therefore, is a resolution to exist before God as the giver of life, perfection, and goodness. Individuals who possess religious courage, according to Kierkegaard, do so not by virtue of the fact that they raised their existence to the highest good, but precisely by lowering themselves in utter dependence on God. Here we find the importance of humility with respect to the excellence of religious courage. Just as cowardliness stands in the way of religious courage, so, too, pride interferes with humility. The dialectical tension between pride and humility runs parallel to Kierkegaard’s discussion of cowardliness and courage, leading him to write in an edifying discourse, “Pride and cowardliness are one and the same.”26 Pride, like cowardliness, stands in the way of religious courage and resolution in the face of an ever-present, spiritual danger. “Cowardliness,” he asserts, “merely wants to prevent the decision of resolution; therefore it gives its conduct a grand name.”27 Heroic courage, then, must be understood as a pride-ridden struggle against finite battles, hindering one from engaging the only true struggle of Christianity. Indeed, such courage recognizes only the dangers of the world, of bodily harm and death. In consequence, an individual with heroic courage draws from his own strength, instead of humbly relying on God to provide strength and courage. Kierkegaard’s account of religious courage, therefore, is typified in one’s resolution to exist before God. This requires the decisive condition of submitting to and depending on a faith that offers no certainty. To be sure, the condition itself must be understood as a good and perfect gift, as well as the courage to venture forth in perpetual striving toward God, the giver of all gifts. True courage has both religious and moral consequences in that the courageous individual responds immediately and wholeheartedly to the task of earnestly living before God. And as it is impossible to wholly attain this good—bound as one is to temporality and sin—true courage surrenders to this fact yet boldly continues striving. Perhaps this cycle of striving and falling short helps to explain Constantin Constantius’ previous comment that it 26 27 24 25

SKS 24, 267, NB23:126 / JP 6, 6740. SKS 5, 52 / EUD, 44. SKS 5, 341 / EUD, 354. SKS 5, 344 / EUD, 357.

92

Lauren Greenspan

takes courage to will repetition, in that courage is required constantly to begin all over again.28 In light of this repeated pattern of resolution and failure, Kierkegaard emphasizes, yet again, the essential connection between true courage and humility, asserting, “There is all the difference of heaven and hell between the proud courage which dares presume to dread everything and the humble courage which dares to hope everything.”29 In summary, Kierkegaard’s understanding of the concept of courage is intimately linked to the resolution of faith, in which an individual humbly strives against physical and spiritual dangers. Avoiding the snares of pride and cowardliness, such an individual actively surrenders to God, the provider of all good gifts including courage itself. See also Decision/Resolve; Faith; Humility; Striving.

SKS 23, 30, NB15:42 / JP 2, 1136: “So it is also with conversion in the stricter sense: faith in the possibility of the new, absolute beginning, for otherwise it remains essentially the past. It is this infinite intensiveness in faith’s anticipation, which has the confident courage to believe it, to transform the past into the completely forgotten—and now to believe absolutely in the beginning.” 29 SKS 27, 241, Papir 265 / JP 2, 1664. 28

Creation Curtis L. Thompson

Creation (Skabelse—noun) The Danish word Skabelse (creation, making) and its related forms Skabning (creature, creation) and skabe (to create, form, make) are all relevant to unpacking the meaning of “creation” in Kierkegaard. The focus in using these words can fall on God’s activity by which the creation came into being (Genesis 1); the physical shape or exterior appearance of things or living individual beings; the totality of all created things or the notion of the world; the way human beings have been created by God, with an essence or nature, and the way God in Christ can bring about a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17); and the more general production or creation coming into being through creative action, whether human or divine.1 Kierkegaard, the enigmatic Dane, stands between the concepts he has articulated in his discourse and the meaning of those concepts as garnered by his interpreters. This is especially the case with the concept of creation. Significant complexity enters into interpreting this concept because we have access to Kierkegaard’s understanding of it only through his authorship, which is itself the creation of his creativity. All the meanings of his creation form the backdrop for probing more particular meanings of the concept of creation in Kierkegaard’s discourse. The first part of this article treats creation and God, and the second part discusses creation and the human. Because of their second-hand nature, Kierkegaard’s “Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures” will be left unaddressed despite the interesting thoughts on creation they include.2 I. Creation and God On June 4, 1838 Kierkegaard entered into his journal the words, “When God had created the world….”3 The meanings of that statement for him at that time and over the next many years were surely multiple. The verb “created” is in the past tense, and statements made elsewhere by him seem to indicate that Kierkegaard, incredibly, believed that God had created the world 6,000 years ago.4 He contends at numerous points in his writings that God created out of nothing. He has his pseudonym Vigilius Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 19, columns 102–26. 2 SKS 19, 305–67, Not11:1–39 / CI, 333–412. 3 SKS 17, 255, DD:114 / KJN 1, 246. 4 See for example SKS 5, 242 / EUD, 243. 1

94

Curtis L. Thompson

Haufniensis “dismiss the fixed idea that it [the creation narrative in Genesis] is a myth.”5 At the same time, Kierkegaard clearly did not want to lock the meaning of God’s creating back in the past at the beginning of time with no relation to the existence of human beings. More than a literal biblical interpretation is at work when Vigilius points out that “[t]he myth allows something that is inward to take place outwardly”;6 this approaches the currently more widespread view that myth is an account of what never happened but is always true, that affirming the fiction of reality does not rule out affirming the reality expressed in fiction. Kierkegaard understood the claim that God has created the world as referring as well to the ongoing creating that God continues to do. “It is so impossible for the world to exist without God that if God could forget it, it would instantly cease to exist.”7 The life in everything issues from the heart of God, and if God withdraws God’s breath the creature dies.8 Creatio ex nihilo or God creating out of nothing has often been interpreted by theologians as an action at the beginning of time. It has also been interpreted as affirming creatio continua or God’s continuing creation. In Repetition Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Constantin Constantius suggests that God’s creation itself is characterized by repetition: “If God himself had not willed repetition, the world would not have come into existence. Either he would have followed the superficial plans of hope or he would have retracted everything and preserved it in recollection. This he did not do. Therefore, the world continues, and it continues because it is a repetition.”9 In A Literary Review of Two Ages Kierkegaard asks: “Is God, with whom the poet is compared when he is called creative, less admirable in sustaining than in creating? So also with that author’s continued creation.”10 An author, like God, surely expresses creativeness, but this expressed creativeness is guided by a consistent lifeview that gives to the creator’s distinctive originality an intrinsic faithfulness taking on the character of repetition. Continuing the analogy between God and an author, one can also gain insight into creatio ex nihilo by Kierkegaard’s explanation that the “occasion” is highly significant for every literary work, for it “is what really determines its true esthetic value”: the occasion is generative in the negative sense, not the positive. A creation is a production out of nothing, but the occasion is the nothing that lets everything come forth. The whole wealth of thought, the fullness of the idea, can be present, and still the occasion is lacking. Nothing new, then, comes through the occasion, but through the occasion everything comes forth.11

The positive generative content of God’s repetitive or sustaining activity in a particular moment comes forth out of nothing, that is, out of the negative generative factor that is the concrete occasion prompting the creative divine response that brings the needed 7 8 9 5 6



10 11

SKS 4, 351 / CA, 46. SKS 4, 352 / CA, 47. SKS 18, 87, FF:59 / KJN 2, 80. SKS 8, 373 / UD, 277. SKS 4, 10–11 / R, 133. SKS 8, 17 / TA, 14. SKS 2, 230 / EO1, 236.

Creation

95

sustenance. Furthermore, the fact that God has created and sustains this world means that it is a relative good that should be appreciated but not worshiped. One ought to guard oneself against both “ascetic fanaticism” which as a matter of course hates the world and annihilates it, and “carnal fanaticism” which acknowledges nothing that transcends the physical: needed is the right proportion between rigor and leniency, between striving—that allows the mind to be transformed so that the spiritual is affirmed along with the earthly—and being happy, that is, able to engage in life’s joys.12 The God of continuing creation, writes Kierkegaard, is changeless, omnipotent, and omnipresent. This omnipotent one created the visible world, making God invisible: God “put on the visible world as a garment,”13 changing it as one changes a garment, yet remaining unchanged. In the sensate world and in the world of events, God is omnipresent or everywhere present at every moment, “[w]hen a sparrow dies and when the Savior of the human race is born.”14 This God at every moment “holds all actuality as possibility in his omnipotent hand, at every moment has everything in readiness, changes everything in an instant”—while remaining unchanged.15 About this God pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus writes: “God does not think, he creates; God does not exist [existere], he is eternal. A human being thinks and exists, and existence [Existents] separates thinking and being, holds them apart from each other in succession.”16 The Creator God as eternal does not exist in the sense of standing out from Being, but this God is rather that reality who creatively empowers all existing beings to be sustained. God’s creation results in a multiplicity, a multitude or great number of beings whose diversity might be said to comprise a kaleidoscope of being. The meaning of the phrase “the multiplicity of creation” is relative to the one using it. The natural scientist who has had the opportunity to experience and appreciate many of the nuances of nature has a much richer understanding of the phrase than does the parochial person who has had little interest in getting to know nature.17 However, the phrase “the multiplicity of creation” prompts “us to think of the countless hosts of generations, the innumerable swarms of living creatures that cannot be numbered because no number is large enough, and because there is no moment when one can begin to count, since countless numbers are born every moment.”18 The richness of nature’s diverse community owes its existence to the God who creates and satisfies all things, as expressed in a prayer included in Kierkegaard’s journal: the creation looks to the gentle hand of God to satisfy all living things with blessing, knowing that no bounty can satisfy if it has not been blessed by God, and no gift from God is so small that it cannot become bounteous with God’s blessing.19 The Creator God supplies all beings with what they need to be satisfied. SKS 22, 385–6, NB14:67 / JP 2, 1399. SKS 13, 330 / M, 271. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 SKS 7, 303 / CUP1, 332. 17 SKS 9, 280–1 / WL, 282–3. 18 SKS 5, 72 / EUD, 62. 19 SKS 19, 206, Not7:2 / KJN 3, 202. 12 13

96

Curtis L. Thompson

II. Creation and the Human In 1838 Kierkegaard noted: “That God could create beings who are free in relation to himself is the cross that philosophy could not bear but upon which it has remained hanging.”20 This thought is developed further in a particularly provocative journal entry of 1846 that speaks of God’s omnipotence in relation to God’s goodness and God’s creative work of making human beings free and independent; omnipotence is required for this act of making free, which is regarded as absolutely the greatest thing that can be done for a being.21 Omnipotence, which is usually thought of as making something dependent, is here thought of as making free by its ability “to retreat into itself again in such a way as to allow that which owes its existence to omnipotence to be independent.”22 The beautiful goodness of omnipotence is this capacity to “take itself back while it gives away.”23 Kierkegaard extols this divine power that can produce the totality of the visible world and take hold of that world powerfully, while at the same time making itself so light in producing the most fragile thing of all, a being that has been established as independent and free. No, the view that understands power as being “greater and greater in proportion to its capacity to compel and to create dependence,” must yield to the higher view of Socrates, who “understood it better: the art of power consists precisely in the capacity to make free.”24 Creation out of nothing expresses the truth that my independent, free existence is not of my own making but comes as a gift from the omnipotent God, to whom I owe absolutely everything.25 Some of these thoughts are included and extended in Christian Discourses and Works of Love.26 Christianity understands God’s creation of the world as an expression of God’s goodness. Even Plato, in the Timeaus, “derives the origin of the world from the goodness of God, who did not know envy but wished to make the world like himself as much as possible.”27 This concern for God’s goodness differentiates the Christian view from the Gnostic: the whole of Gnosticism was highly abstract, “which is why they could not really arrive at a Creation that filled time and space but had to regard the Creation as identical with the Fall.”28 The Fall introduces sin, and “by coming into the world, sin acquired significance for the whole creation.”29 Vigilius Haufniensis, pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety, labels the effect of sin in nonhuman existence “objective anxiety,” which is that anxiety in creation that “is not brought forth by creation but by the fact that creation is placed in an entirely different light because of Adam’s sin.”30 In the Fall, “sensuousness becomes SKS 18, 103, FF:149 / KJN 2, 95. SKS 20, 57–8, NB:69 / KJN 4, 56–7. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 SKS 10, 138–40 / CD, 127–9. SKS 9, 274–7 / WL, 276–9. 27 SKS 1, 221n. / CI, 173n. 28 SKS 17, 257, DD:122 / KJN 1, 248. 29 SKS 4, 362 / CA, 57. 30 SKS 4, 362–3 / CA, 57–8. 20 21

Creation

97

sinfulness,” “but what it becomes is not what it first was.”31 The discussion labors to affirm the goodness of God and creation by making room for human freedom and distinguishing actual, qualitative guilt from inherited, quantitative guilt. The eager longing of creation (Romans 8:19) marks a lack and a connection: the longing marks “a trembling of complicity over creation”32 as the creation is in misrelation because of freedom’s abuse by humanity; and yet, also, because of the relation to its Maker the creation’s longing bears testimony to God’s creative activity and to a deep awareness that reality’s rightful destination is for it to reside in the divine.33 The Fall leads to consideration of redemption. The theological distinction between creation and redemption takes on an important role in Kierkegaard’s thinking about creation in its relation to the human. This is evident in a passage in which he considers marveling and revealing as these apply to “the holy places” as differentiated from God’s works in the world of nature. God is surely manifest “out there” in God’s external works, but in the holy places “he is known as he has revealed himself as he wants to be known by the Christian.”34 He writes: Everyone, marveling, can see the signs by which God’s greatness in nature is known…. But the sign of God’s greatness in showing mercy is only for faith; this sign is indeed the sacrament. God’s greatness in nature is manifest, but God’s greatness in showing mercy is a mystery, which must be believed. Precisely because it is not directly manifest to everyone, precisely for that reason it is, and is called, the revealed. God’s greatness in nature promptly awakens astonishment and then adoration. God’s greatness in showing mercy is first an occasion for offense and then is for faith.35

Marveling over God’s works of creation is to be distinguished from faith’s appropriation of God’s revelatory or redemptive acts of showing mercy. Redemption represents an advance over creation. In Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard’s Johannes Climacus notes that Socrates, in advancing his physico-teleological demonstration for the existence of God, “constantly presupposes that the God exists, and on this presupposition he seeks to infuse nature with the idea of fitness and purposiveness.”36 “The God” here mentioned refers to God’s revelation in time, and the producing of this reality in Christianity’s order of redemption differs significantly from the order of creation presupposed by Socrates. In Works of Love the distinction is played out a little differently. God’s forgetting that is God’s forgiving is presented as being the opposite of hoping and of creating: To hope is in thinking to give being; to forget is in thinking to take away being from that which nevertheless exists, to blot it out. Scripture teaches that faith pertains to the unseen, but it also says that faith is the constancy of what is hoped for. This is why what is hoped for, just like the unseen, is something that does not exist, to which hope in thinking indeed gives existence. Forgetting, when God does it in relation to sin, is the 33 34 35 36 31 32

SKS 4, 363 / CA, 58–9. SKS 4, 362 / CA, 58. SKS 4, 362–3 / CA, 57–8. SKS 10, 312–13 / CD, 291. SKS 10, 313 / CD, 291. SKS 4, 249 / PF, 44.

98

Curtis L. Thompson opposite of creating, since to create is to bring forth from nothing, and to forget is to take back into nothing.37

God’s creation brings forth the creature out of nothing, and God’s redemption takes back its sin into nothing. Similarly, God creates out of nothing, but even more wonderful, God creates saints out of sinners.38 “God has entered into nothing in order that we might cease to be nothing.”39 We find the creation–redemption tension also present in two journal entries from the late 1830s. The first states, “When God had created the whole world he looked upon it and: Indeed, it was very good, when Christ died on the cross the word was ‘It is finished.’ ”40 The second propounds that “Christ’s appearance in the spiritual world is what Creation was in the physical.”41 Finally, on this theme we note again the parallel between God and the poet, artist, or author. Authors are criticized for introducing themselves into their work, but this is precisely what God does in Christ, and this is Christianity: “Creation is really fulfilled only when God has included himself in it. Before Christ God was included, of course, in the creation but as an invisible mark, something like the watermark in paper. But in the Incarnation creation is fulfilled by God’s including himself in it.”42 Kierkegaard understands the human being as a creative co-worker of God. “Happy the person who saw the world in all its perfection when everything was still very good; happy the person who with God was witness to the glory of creation. More blessed the soul that was God’s co-worker in love.”43 The co-worker is the coruler. The human’s highest destiny is to be the ruler of creation: For the human to be able to rule, “there must be an order of the world,” “there must be a law within him,” and so the human “seeks to assure himself of a coherence in everything, and as the ruler of creation he approaches it, as it were, with a question, extorts an explanation from it, demands a testimony.”44 The human who is destined to be lord over is at the same time destined to be servant: “The person who reflects on life with any earnestness at all readily perceives that he is not the lord in such a way that he is not also a servant,” that is, one who has “the courage to assume the responsibility of the master by submitting to the obligation of a servant,” who has “the humility to be willing to obey in order to learn how to rule and at times is willing to rule only insofar as he himself obeys.”45 “A human being’s exalted destiny” is “to be God’s coworker,”46 but discerning this vocation does not take place without the human being arriving at life’s deeper meaning in the form of an ultimate concern: “Not until the SKS 9, 293 / WL, 296. See also SKS 9, 292 / WL, 295. SKS 18, 104, FF:154a / KJN 2, 96. And see the explanatory note at SKS K18, 149 / KJN 2, 421. On the nothing as non-being that is present in being that is estranged from its essence, see the note in SKS 4, 385 / CA, 82–4. 39 SKS 1, 347 / CI, 316. 40 SKS 17, 222, DD:11 / KJN 1, 214. 41 SKS 18, 27, EE:63 / KJN 2, 23. 42 SKS 22, 177, NB12:63 / JP 2, 1391. 43 SKS 5, 72 / EUD, 62. 44 SKS 5, 91 / EUD, 84. 45 SKS 5, 92 / EUD, 85. 46 SKS 5, 92 / EUD, 86. 37 38

Creation

99

moment when there awakens in his soul a concern about what meaning the world has for him and he for the world, about what meaning everything within him by which he himself belongs to the world has for him and he therein for the world—only then does the inner being announce its presence in this concern.”47 This concern craves a different type of knowledge that explains the meaning of everything “by explaining it in the God who holds everything together in his eternal wisdom and who assigned man to be lord of creation by his becoming God’s servant and explained himself to him by making him his co-worker,” thus confirming him in his inner being and calling the individual to transform this knowledge into an action.48 Of course, all the deeds of God are good, and the Creator works to perfect the good deed of the human being functioning creatively as God’s co-worker (Philippians 1:6).49 We have seen that the rich reservoir of creative thoughts that constitutes Kierkegaard’s authorship and “creation” includes particular ideas and statements on the concept of creation. The interpretation of the more definite concept of creation offered here has drawn on the thought-world of his larger creation, which would be quick to point out the less-than-vital nature of such a project. See also Calling; Conscience; Freedom; Genius; God; Governance/Providence; History; Hope; Law; Myth; Nature; Pantheism; Poetry; Revelation.

49 47 48

SKS 5, 93 / EUD, 86. SKS 5, 93–4 / EUD, 86–7. SKS 17, 222, DD:11.a / KJN 1, 214.

This page intentionally left blank

Crisis Charles Cahill

Crisis (Krise, Crise—noun) Like the English “crisis,” the Danish word Krise derives from the Greek κρίσις. Originally a medical term, by the twentieth century it came to be used mostly outside of medicine. Its lexical meaning in Danish is a testing or trial and can carry with it the sense of a critique. It can also refer to a decisive moment or event, after which a situation will forever be changed, for example, the crisis when a patient’s fever will either break in the next twenty-four hours or the patient will die. Although Danish used the spelling Krise and Crise interchangeably, the form with a “k” used in modern Danish was rare before the beginning of the nineteenth century.1 Additionally, neither form appears in the 1833 edition of Molbech’s Dansk Ordbog, a copy of which Kierkegaard owned and whose author he respected as an authority on the Danish language.2 Kierkegaard used both Krise and Crise in his works. Due to the lack of a standardized orthography, this type of spelling variance was normal at the time. Over the course of his authorship, however, Kierkegaard shifted rather decisively from Krise to Crise. Kierkegaard used Krise almost without exception in his writings prior to and including Stages on Life’s Way, while after that point he switched to the slightly more common Crise. In addition to this orthographic shift there is also a definitional evolution of the term coinciding with Kierkegaard’s transition from his aesthetic-ethical into his religious authorship. While occurring only once in Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and The Concept of Anxiety, crisis occurs twenty-three times in Stages on Life’s Way. Following Stages, usage of the term drops back to its pre-1845 rate: three times in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, twice in A Literary Review of Two Ages, four times in The Book on Adler, and twice in The Sickness unto Death. Kierkegaard’s final mention of the term can be found in the title of his 1848 article, “The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress.” Oddly, however, the term “crisis” never actually appears in the text of that article. Finally, Kierkegaard never once used the term in his extended attack on the Danish State Church in The Moment.

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 11, columns 405–6. 2 SKS 20, 98, NB:146 / KJN 4, 98. 1

102

Charles Cahill

In Stages, Kierkegaard invested crisis with openness and possibility. He associated it numerous times not only with falling in and out of love,3 but also with important decisions and transitions into a higher sphere (religion or pathos).4 It is never presented in a purely negative light, but indicates a moment of great transformation instead.5 Put differently, crisis refers to the possibility for a transition or transformation: one can also be faced with a crisis and fail to make the transition. As an example of such a failure, he mentions Goethe’s inability to regain childhood’s pious faith. “A period comes later in his life,” Kierkegaard observes of Goethe, “when the impression of this piety almost overwhelms him. This is the crisis....”6 Yet when faced with this crisis, Goethe “backs out, separates it and himself, [and] avoids contact.”7 Kierkegaard viewed Stages as his personal crisis in this sense. He had accomplished “the Christian movement,” as he would later describe it, for he had worked his way through complexity (via his aesthetic authorship) back to “the simple.”8 A Literary Review of Two Ages offers the only example of a text in which Kierkegaard used both spellings of the term “crisis.” Using Krise in the introduction, Kierkegaard referred only to the lack of such in an author who “has passed through into a second maturity.”9 Krise, according to Kierkegaard, is only associated with the “first maturity.”10 Following this mention of Krise in the introduction, Kierkegaard switches to Crise for the body of the text. Both subsequent occurrences of crisis in A Literary Review are purely negative and offer no possibilities for the type of transformation Kierkegaard had previously associated with the term.11 In “The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress” his only work to include “Crisis” (Krise) in the title, Kierkegaard never actually used the term in the text. Originally published as four articles in the Danish newspaper The Fatherland, “The Crisis” focuses primarily on the difficulties faced by an actress as she ages. The actress under consideration, although remaining nameless in the article, was the famous Danish actress Johanne Luise Heiberg (1812–90). Heiberg had become a darling of the Danish theater at the age of 16 with her portrayal of Shakespeare’s Juliet. Eleven years later, now 37 years old, Heiberg had once again taken up the role of Juliet. Kierkegaard made Heiberg’s successful second run as Juliet the subject of his final consideration of “the Crisis.” According to Kierkegaard, a crisis occurs in the life of an actress when time passes and she attempts to return to a role from her childhood. The passing of time eliminates an aspect of what made the young actress so successful. “Time has asserted its rights,”12 and possibility has been exchanged for actuality; no longer SKS 6, 98, 385 / SLW, 103, 415. SKS 6, 143 / SLW, 152. SKS 6, 198 / SLW, 211. SKS 6, 143 / SLW, 152. SKS 6, 143 / SLW, 153. SKS 13, 13 / PV, 7. SKS 8, 19 / TA, 15. 10 Ibid. 11 SKS 8, 58, 82 / TA, 58, 86. 12 SKS 14, 106 / C, 322–3. 5 6 7 8 9 3 4

Crisis

103

can the actress relate to Juliet immediately but rather must do so “purely ideally.”13 In order to resist the power of time, she must undergo what Kierkegaard describes as a “metamorphosis.” This metamorphosis occurs as the actress uses the dialectic of time to reveal her own internal dialectic and thus her essential relationship to the idea. This crisis demands much from the actress. As Kierkegaard admitted, such a metamorphosis happens only very rarely.14 What then is “the Crisis?” The crisis clearly relates to time, and the fact that we, as finite creatures, are subject to it. Elsewhere Kierkegaard described coming to faith as becoming progressively simpler and more innocent, resisting, in effect, the power of time.15 In Stages Kierkegaard describes “the crisis” as “the difficult and… assigned task to preserve and regain childhood’s pious faith.”16 Kierkegaard found a rich analogy to this task in theater, where subjective individuals must repeatedly find their own way to relate to an external idea, namely, the idea of their character. In this example, the actress has changed over the two decades since she first portrayed Juliet, but the idea of Juliet has not changed. Just like the actress facing her crisis, each individual faces the crisis of relating to an unchanging God as finite, everchanging beings. The heuristic richness of this analogy notwithstanding, Kierkegaard wrestled for months with the question of whether he should publish one more pseudonymousaesthetic work. By 1848, Kierkegaard was preparing for his attack on Christendom and, seemingly, had left his pseudonymous authorship behind. Ultimately he decided to do so in order to prove that he “was not an aesthetic author who in the course of time grew older and for that reason became religious.”17 Instead, by publishing “The Crisis” as a companion piece to Christian Discourses (1848), which was to be his final religious work, Kierkegaard proved that he had resisted “the power of the years” just like the actress in his article.18 As with the simultaneous publication of Either/Or and Two Upbuilding Discourses at the beginning of his career, in 1848 he published an aesthetic article alongside his final religious work. Following Stages, Kierkegaard stopped investing crisis with the same sense of neutral openness. It no longer refers to a possible transition or transformation and carries a negative valence instead. Kierkegaard now uses crises to refer to a range of emotions/states of being: being so confused that one feels drunk,19 senses a desperate career disaster,20 and separation from God. Further, it is associated with pain, sickness, and torment. Kierkegaard described the “crises of Christianity” that are so important for the individual Christian in his journey. In his famously gloomy view of the Christian journey on earth, crises can thus play a redeeming role. Indeed, in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus mentions a “religious person in 15 16 17 18 19 20 13 14

SKS 14, 105 / C, 319–20. SKS 14, 93–5, 104–7 / C, 305–7, 319–325. SKS 13, 13 / PV, 7. SKS 6, 143 / SLW, 152–3. SKS 21, 56 / PV, 30. SKS 14, 107 / C, 324. SKS 24, 175, NB22:140 / JP 2, 2034. SKS 8, 58 / TA, 58.

104

Charles Cahill

the crisis of sickness, but this sickness is not unto death.”21 Instead, he will soon “be strengthened by the very same conception that destroyed him, by the conception of God.”22 Although negative in every earthly sense, from a spiritual viewpoint, crises can bring one closer to God. Kierkegaard thus begins offering a more expansive definition of crisis than had been the case in his earlier texts. In one of his journals, Kierkegaard described “Christianity’s view” of one’s lifespan as “the critical time, the crisis, when the decision is made whether you are Christian or not and thereby, again, your situation for an eternity is determined.”23 The entirety of one’s earthly existence, then, can be described as the crisis. Elsewhere he wrote that life is full of “crises and tensions.”24 In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard described how the “condition of man, regarded as spirit, is always critical.”25 When discussing physical health, argued Kierkegaard, “we speak of a crisis in relation to sickness but not in relation to health.”26 Spiritually speaking, though, “both health and sickness are critical.”27 From a Christian point of view, then, crisis is a constant fact of life and not a onetime occurrence. One final distinction in the evolution of Kierkegaard’s concept of crisis concerns who or what can experience them. Initially it was only the individual who could experience a crisis. It is the individual who must embrace the transition, make the decision and resist time. Before Stages Kierkegaard never used crisis in reference to entire countries, peoples or abstract entities like the economy. Afterward, however, he could refer to a business crisis as well as the crisis of Christianity as a whole. Moreover, when mentioning the economic upheaval of 1848—in which he lost much of his wealth—Kierkegaard described it not only as an economic disaster (PengeOmveltning)28 but also as an economic crisis (Penge-Crisen).29 Crisis, then, begins to shade into other terms Kierkegaard used such as “catastrophe” or “disaster.” The English editions of Kierkegaard’s works use “crisis” to translate each of these terms.30 Kierkegaard initially used crisis to refer to a moment or decision invested with immense possibility and significance. In one way or another, the individual will forever be changed depending on his or her response to crisis. Primarily it indicated the possibility of a major transition from the aesthetic/ethical sphere into the higher religious sphere. Stages on Life’s Way was Kierkegaard’s crisis in this sense. Thereafter, Kierkegaard associated crisis with negative or trying circumstances. Although there is only one crisis in becoming a Christian, there are many crises of the Christian life. Because Kierkegaard viewed suffering in the Christian life to be SKS 7, 442 / CUP1, 488. Ibid. 23 SKS 27, 650, Papir 547 / JP 4, 4815. 24 SKS 15, 279 / BA, 127. 25 SKS 11, 141 / SUD, 25. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 SKS 24, 351, NB24:54 / JP 6, 6762. 29 SKS 21, 320, NB10:123 / KJN 5, 331; SKS 23, 285, NB18:51 / JP 6, 6623. 30 Cf. SKS 15, 255 / BA, 98; SKS 24, 351, NB24:54 / JP 6, 6762. 21 22

Crisis

105

absolutely necessary, he believed that the purely negative experience of crisis could be redemptive when experienced as a Christian. See also Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Authorship; Choice; Decision/Resolve; Dialectic; Leap; Moment; Stages; Theater/Drama; Transition; Trial/Test/Tribulation; Vaudeville/ Farce.

This page intentionally left blank

Crowd/Public Leo Stan

The Crowd (Mængde, Masse, Opløb, Hob, Vrimlen—nouns); the Public (Publikum— noun) Few are the themes that Kierkegaard has been unabashedly consistent about throughout his entire oeuvre. The passionate rebuttal of the crowd in all of its embodiments, including the public, is by far the most cogent. From the first volume of Either/Or1 to the very last journalistic piece in 1855,2 Kierkegaard proved tireless in acerbically attacking the collective in all its forms. His anti-collectivist assaults are to some degree contextual insofar as they envisage the modern advent of the mass man onto the scene of history. Nonetheless, Kierkegaard’s unambiguous rejection has more profound roots, which emanate from the soteriological crux of Christian spirituality. In other words, the monstrosity of crowds is not a specifically modern phenomenon; the collective monster is at work from the dawn of Christianity as one can see in the brutal end of Jesus Christ.3 That is why Kierkegaard’s pugnacious individualism cannot be separated from the theological—that is, creationistic, salvific, and personalist—foundation and postulates of his thought. Kierkegaard’s ruthless verdicts on both the mob and the public have an unmistakable genealogical nature. His main interest concerns the reasons why and the ways in which crowds come into being, what exactly motivates the individual to join others in vast swarms from the beginning of Christian recorded history until modern times. In what follows, this peculiar genealogy will be pursued thematically rather than chronologically. Also, it should be mentioned that Kierkegaard’s reflections on these issues, albeit scattered throughout his entire corpus, are most prominent in the second half of his activity—especially, after the publication of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript—and mainly in the signed authorship. To start with, the least harmful reason why people congregate in undifferentiated masses is mere foolishness or light-mindedness.4 Secondly, Kierkegaard argues, the mob mentality can arise from intersubjective, though existentially void, comparisons, which are the best way to avoid or procrastinate over encountering the divine

SKS 2, 278 / EO1, 288. SKS 13, 408 / M, 344. 3 See for instance SKS 21, 357–8, NB10:191 / JP 6, 6389. 4 SKS 8, 231–2 / UD, 132–3. See also SKS 24, 371–2, NB24:84 / JP 4, 4285, where partaking of a crowd is considered a possible sign of weakness. 1 2

108

Leo Stan

face-to-face.5 This attitude is very tempting because mobs are based on arbitrary similarities, whereby the individual takes refuge in likeness with others,6 instead of acting on his or her transcendently grounded distinctiveness from them. The next feature is abstraction, which follows directly from the lack of differentiation among individuals in a mob. Kierkegaard observes first that crowds emerge because some believe certain ideals or goals can be attained only in a collective, visible setting.7 In this way, one acquires an unmistakable pride given by merely being part of a multitude and enjoys the perverse pleasure of having become a mere number.8 The faceless, collectivistic crux of any mob whatsoever can be glimpsed particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century when, according to Kierkegaard, we witness a true dictatorship of multitudes that stifles any personal authenticity, be it religious or not.9 The modern mob seems fatally attracted to the “mathematical equality,”10 whereby a large gathering is mystically unified into one self, as it were. In essence, however, masses are predicated on a deceptive personal identity in lieu of the singularity attained before the one and only God.11 A similar drive towards the concocted and the unreal is confirmed by the crowd’s irresistible attraction to incontrovertible certainties, lofty speculations, and putatively objective statements.12 The major consequence of all this is the drastic impairment of the individual’s effort to fulfill one’s religious duties and reach salvation.13 That happens also because first there exists a profound affinity between existential untruth, on the one hand, and the abstract and the numerical, on the other;14 and second because the redemptive truth relates itself only to the living, irrevocable singularity of every person.15 The two attributes that follow from the crowd’s abstraction are amorphousness and anonymity. Concerning the former, Kierkegaard simply states that the mob is determined by a characterless homogeneity,16 which induces in all its members an ethical or existential somnambulism. More exactly, neither the mob nor the individuals within it have any clear, definite knowledge of their identity or their 5 SKS 7, 496 / CUP1, 546–7; SKS 8, 249 / UD, 152–3; SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 26, 257–8, NB33:15 / JP 3, 2986. 6 SKS 11, 149 / SUD, 33–4. 7 SKS 26, 129, NB32:16.a / JP 4, 4912. 8 SKS 8, 227, 233 / UD, 127, 134; SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 16, 87n. / PV, 107n. 9 SKS 16, 48–9 / PV, 68–9; SKS 7, 325–6 / CUP1, 355–6; SKS 8, 418 / UD, 327; SKS 20, 257, NB3:27 / JP 3, 3727; SKS 22, 188–9, NB12:82 / JP 4, 4893. See also Pap. VII–2 B 235 / BA, 25; SKS 22, 141–2, NB11:233 / JP 6, 6444; SKS 20, 319–20, NB4:69 / JP 4, 4128. 10 SKS 8, 81 / TA, 85. Kierkegaard also speaks of the “inorganic” quality of the mass. See SKS 24, 390, NB24:113. 11 SKS 11, 142–3 / SUD, 26–7. 12 SKS 7, 459–60, 141, 73 / CUP1, 507, 151, 73. 13 SKS 15, 110–11 / BA, 25; SKS 22, 188–9, NB12:82 / JP 4, 4893. 14 SKS 4, 260 / PF, 57–8; SKS 11, 149 / SUD, 33–4; SKS 13, 135–6 / M, 97; SKS 25, 397, NB30:19 / JP 2, 2056; SKS 26, 135–6, NB32:25 / JP 4, 4913. 15 SKS 11, 149–51 / SUD, 33–5. 16 SKS 5, 410 / TD, 31.

Crowd/Public

109

intentions and the means to achieve them.17 What governs the crowd is a fundamental agitated confusion that, incidentally, makes possible its endless manipulability.18 As regards anonymity, Kierkegaard derives it from the individual’s inclination towards self-oblivion. Thus, while surrounded “by hordes of men, absorbed in all sorts of secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world—such a person forgets himself, forgets his name divinely understood, does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too hazardous to be himself and far easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, a mass man.”19 In the midst of a crowd, one takes oneself to be an impersonal third party, thereby blissfully forgetting that individuality should be gained religiously and through lifelong personal efforts.20 From here it is easy to realize the radical leveling and the enervation of human interiority, which are performed by any amorphous collective. Again, modernity is paramount in this regard, given that its soft “rabble-barbarism”21 surfaces through the human addiction to “ease and comfort.”22 Even more transparent is the mass man’s cowardice23 and constant flight from responsibility. We have already said that people tend to crowd together primarily in order to shun the burden of spiritual separation.24 Despite their purported force, crowds represent the most detestable means to keep oneself away from the numerous dangers of a true religious commitment. For example, in the crowd the fear of God is replaced by the seemingly fearsome reality of amassed others: “the single individual becomes afraid of the more or of the many, who in turn, each one out of fear of people and forgetting God, stick together and form the crowd, which renounces the nobility of eternity that is granted to each and every one—to be an individual.”25 So inasmuch as God primarily summons the single individual, since “distinctiveness is not mine but is God’s gift by which he gives being to me,”26 the true believer will qualitatively differ from his or her Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 230; SKS 10, 51 / CD, 40; SKS 6, 437 / SLW, 474. For the mob’s disorderliness see SKS 1, 21 / EPW, 65; SKS 18, 258, JJ:357 / JP 5, 5824; SKS 22, 305, NB13:50 / JP 1, 187; SKS 4, 519 / P, 58–9. 18 SKS 21, 300–1, NB10:85 / JP 6, 6368. 19 SKS 11, 149 / SUD, 33–4. See also SKS 11, 10 / WA, 3; SKS 23, 108–9, NB16:22 / JP 4, 4178. 20 SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 26, 42–3, NB31:57 / JP 2, 1647; SKS 26, 103, NB31:139 / JP 4, 4483. 21 Pap. VII–1 B 123 / TA, Supplement, 136. See also SKS 16, 44–7, / PV, 63–7. 22 Pap. VII–1 B 123 / TA, Supplement, 136. 23 SKS 7, 325–6 / CUP1, 355–6; SKS 5, 341–2 / EUD, 354–5; SKS 8, 417–9 / UD, 326–7; SKS 16, 45–6 / PV, 64–5; SKS 20, 257, NB3:27 / JP 3, 3727. 24 SKS 8, 227–8, 249 / UD, 127–8, 152–3; SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 26, 391–2, NB35:31 / JP 3, 3007. 25 SKS 8, 418–19 / UD, 327. See also SKS 8, 209, 235 / UD, 105–6, 136–7; SKS 10, 51 / CD, 40. 26 SKS 9, 270 / WL, 271. See also SKS 8, 227–8, 231 / UD, 127–8, 132; SKS 10, 290–1 / CD, 272; SKS 26, 341, NB34:30 / JP 2, 1451; SKS 24, 32, NB21:34 / JP 2, 2030; SKS 25, 397–8, NB30:19 / JP 2, 2056; SKS 25, 423–6, NB30:50 / JP 2, 2970; SKS 25, 440–1, NB30:67 / JP 4, 5044. 17

110

Leo Stan

collectivized fellows.27 Even more, regardless of their size and number, divine transcendence will always remain impervious to shapeless collectivities and the timorous selves therein.28 The pusillanimity of crowds can also be guessed from their stern imperviousness to such categories as guilt and sin. Kierkegaard warns that the very idea of sin “does not gather men together in a common idea, into an association, into a partnership,”29 but rather “it splits men up into single individuals and holds each individual fast as a sinner.”30 Hence, the Christian “teaching about sin—that you and I are sinners— …unconditionally splits up ‘the crowd.’ ”31 With that in mind, the human herd becomes highly condemnable due to the impossibility of repentance within its ranks.32 Further, in Kierkegaard’s eyes, there is no such thing as collective guilt.33 It would then be preposterous “to consider the crowd as guilty and the individuals as innocent in the sense that I, although a human being, dared to say that the crowd sinned against me, but the individuals did not—they were merely in error.”34 In fact, the amassed individual is furthest away from having personal conscience or being aware of the individuality of sin.35 It is for no other reason that, when confronted with authentic repentance, the mass man advises the penitent to be more indulgent with one’s faults and sins.36 That said, one can discern a hubristic37 or even nihilistic dimension in the mob’s tendencies to quash both existential authenticity and religious self-becoming. Johannes Climacus clearly rebuts the crowd as unethical, since the “ethical deals with individual human beings and…with each individual,”38 while the throng exists solely by virtue of anonymity and formlessness. Climacus also hints at the mob’s profuse adroitness in luring those who try to stay out of it back into its depersonalizing Eden. Specifically, mobs resort to sly adulation, thereby cunningly flattering one’s innate vanity.39

SKS 13, 187–8, 234 / M, 143–4, 184; SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 25, 491–3, NB30:136 / JP 3, 2974. 28 SKS 27, 638–9 / JP 3, 3737; SKS 16, 205 / JFY, 156; Pap. IX B 24 / BA, Supplement, 317. 29 SKS 11, 231n. / SUD, 120n. 30 Ibid. See also SKS 5, 409–10 / TD, 30–1. 31 SKS 11, 233 / SUD, 121. 32 SKS 13, 17 / PV, 10–1. 33 SKS 11, 233–5 / SUD, 122–4; SKS 8, 228–9 / UD, 128–9. See also SKS 8, 90–1 / TA, 95; SKS 23, 114–15, NB16:32 / JP 2, 1531. 34 SKS 11, 80 / WA, 76. 35 SKS 7, 481–2 / CUP1, 529–30; SKS 8, 380–1 / UD, 285. 36 SKS 7, 487 / CUP1, 536. For an illustration of this exculpating attitude on the occasion of Christ’s crucifixion see SKS 11, 80 / WA, 76. 37 SKS 26, 404, NB35:48 / JP 2, 1956. 38 SKS 7, 291–2 / CUP1, 320. See also SKS 7, 133–4, 316–17 / CUP1, 142–3, 346. 39 SKS 7, 10–12 / CUP1, 6–8; SKS 8, 101 / TA, 107; SKS 9, 270–1 / WL, 272; Pap. IX B 24 / BA, 319; SKS 16, 43 / PV, 63; SKS 6, 448–9 / SLW, 487–8; SKS 18, 286–7, JJ:438 / JP 1, 930. 27

Crowd/Public

111

And yet, mobs can be threatening in much more serious ways. Kierkegaard admits that masses are not strangers to coercion. For, though driven by fear and cowardice, they not only crave power;40 they also do not hesitate to threaten, ostracize, and even eliminate the disobedient and anyone who rebels against them.41 We said that mobs desperately wish to protect themselves against any vigorous manifestation of spiritual individualism.42 The means to realize that goal are not commendable; they consist of public scorn, hatred, mockery, violence, or outright murder.43 Indeed, the crowd has every interest to protect itself against (if not plainly deride) the authority of the eternal truth.44 Even more, the throng seems determined by the raw, external, and somewhat mechanical force customarily exuded by animals in whose species individuals count only numerically, and never in and of themselves.45 An immense capacity for noise is another (bestial) characteristic of the mob,46 which goes directly against the virtue of silence and all the other ineffable qualities of spirit.47 Once again, Kierkegaard reassures his reader that before the absolute the mob is powerless and insignificant.48 Moreover, aside from humor, irony, plus an ethics of infinite selfresponsibility and self-consistent acts, the fearful faith in God is the most efficient way to overcome it.49 Abstraction, leveling anonymity, irresponsibility, and apostasy are the features that the public shares with the crowd. Kierkegaard begins by saying that Publikum prospers in “a sedentary reflective age devoid of passion,”50 the “indolent laxity”51 of which allows “more and more individuals…to be nobodies in order to become SKS 11, 110 / WA, 107; SKS 17, 206, CC:17 / JP 5, 5186. SKS 11, 234–5 / SUD, 123; SKS 8, 87–8 / TA, 92; SKS 13, 378 / M, 316; Pap. VII–1 B 125:2 / TA, Supplement, 138–9; Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 229–30; SKS 21, 357–8, NB10:191 / JP 6, 6389. 42 SKS 26, 128–9, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911; SKS 24, 385, NB24:105 / JP 2, 1904; SKS 25, 400, NB30:22 / JP 3, 2550. 43 SKS 5, 361–2 / EUD, 377–8; SKS 16, 45–7 / PV, 65–6; SKS 13, 313 / M, 257; SKS 20, 401, NB5:69 / JP 6, 6168; Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 229–30; SKS 9, 169–70, 270–1 / WL, 168–9, 272–3; SKS 11, 110 / WA, 107; Pap. IX B 20 / BA, Supplement, 234; SKS 8, 426–7 / UD, 336; SKS 21, 357, NB10:191 / JP 6, 6389; SKS 22, 141–2, NB11:233 / JP 6, 6444; Pap. XI–3 B 136 / M, Supplement, 554; SKS 25, 423–6, NB30:50 / JP 3, 2970. 44 SKS 11, 110 / WA, 107; SKS 7, 68–9, 194 / CUP1, 67, 212; SKS 8, 226–7 / UD, 126–7; Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 230–1; SKS 24, 253, NB23:91 / JP 3, 2960. 45 SKS 26, 257–8, NB33:15 / JP 3, 2986; Pap. VII–2 B 235n. / BA, 149–50n.; SKS 9, 169–70 / WL, 168–9; SKS 8, 287 / UD, 190; SKS 21, 357, NB10:191 / JP 6, 6389; SKS 23, 108–9, NB16:22 / JP 4, 4178; SKS 25, 249, NB28:42 / JP 4, 4295; SKS 25, 423–6, NB30:50 / JP 3, 2970; SKS 26, 23–4, NB31:30 / JP 1, 83. 46 SKS 8, 227 / UD, 127; SKS 24, 363, NB24:68 / JP 3, 3521; SKS 7, 10 / CUP1, 6. 47 SKS 10, 289 / CD, 269–70; SKS 5, 410 / TD, 31; SKS 8, 92–4 / TA, 97–9. 48 SKS 8, 231 / UD, 132; SKS 20, 257, NB3:27 / JP 3, 3727; SKS 25, 423–6, NB30:50 / JP 3, 2970; SKS 26, 282, NB33:41 / JP 3, 2992. 49 SKS 7, 497 / CUP1, 547; SKS 7, 291–2 / CUP1, 320; SKS 15, 249 / BA 92; SKS 8, 234–6 / UD, 136–7; SKS 16, 49 / PV, 69. See also SKS 16, 47–8 / PV, 67–8. 50 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90. See also SKS 16, 45–6 / PV, 64–5. See also SKS 25, 347, NB29:88 / JP 6, 6873. 51 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 94. See also Pap. VII–1 B 118 / TA, Supplement, 132–3. 40 41

112

Leo Stan

the public, that abstract aggregate ridiculously formed by the participant’s becoming a third party.”52 Kierkegaard deems the public “sluggish,”53 “negatively domineering,”54 and continuously “looking for variety.”55 In fact, the public longs for “the sensate titillation of laughter”56 which is usually procured by the degrading treatment of all dissenters.57 Namely, as long as it represents the “public opinion… interested in what is utterly private,”58 the public revels in an impersonal sort of cynicism by envisioning personally offensive or denigrating diversions. Similarly to the human throng, Publikum is abstract,59 anti-individualistic,60 and anonymous61 in nature. Of course, it essentially depends on the quantitative or the numerical62 and remains irreparably impersonal. “The public,” Kierkegaard astutely observes, “is a corps, outnumbering all the people together, but this corps can never be called up for inspection; indeed, it cannot even have so much as a single representative, because it is itself an abstraction.”63 Furthermore, the public turns everything in its way into something abstract by dint of its constitutive leveling capacity.64 Obviously, personal or communal accountability is not a virtue encouraged by the public. Kierkegaard states that, in contrast to a “generation, a nation, a general assembly, a community, a man,”65 the public does not have the “responsibility to be something”;66 it cannot ever “know shame for fickleness and disloyalty.”67 Perhaps, it is on this very ground that, whenever a government strives to take the public seriously, its politics become a mere irrational pastime.68 Because one of Publikum’s principal aims is to distrust the individual’s “private particularity,”69 and because the latter is a pivotal element in spiritual self-becoming, the clash with religiousness becomes inevitable. The argument here is unambiguous. In general, the public opinion envisages trifles or superfluous issues,70 whereas the SKS 8, 89 / TA, 94. See also SKS 26, 129, NB32:16 / JP 4, 4911. SKS 8, 89 / TA, 94. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 See SKS 8, 90–1 / TA, 95. 58 SKS 8, 95 / TA, 100. 59 SKS 8, 86, 88–9 / TA, 90, 92–3; Pap. VII–1 B 125:2 / TA, Supplement, 139; Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 229. 60 Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 229–30; SKS 13, 17 / PV, 10; Pap. X–5 B 208 / PV, Supplement, 265–6. 61 Pap. VII–1 B 125:2 / TA, Supplement, 139. 62 SKS 13, 17n. / PV, 10n.; SKS 13, 263 / M, 209; SKS 26, 257–8, NB33:15 / JP 3, 2986. 63 SKS 8, 87 / TA, 91. 64 SKS 8, 90–1 / TA, 95; Pap. VII–1 B 123 / TA, Supplement, 135–8; SKS 26, 257–8, NB33:15 / JP 3, 2986. 65 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Pap. IX B 24 / WA, Supplement, 229–31. 69 SKS 7, 571 / CUP1, 628. See also SKS 8, 191–2 / UD, 86. 70 SKS 8, 24 / TA, 21; Pap. VII–2 B 235 / BA, Supplement, 237. 52 53

Crowd/Public

113

self’s only earnest task is to embody a religious singularity. And since Publikum, due to its abstract core, constantly assaults the individual and everything related to its uniqueness, religion can be considered the public enemy par excellence.71 Kierkegaard evokes in this sense the hostile reactions against an individual subjected to a spiritual trial72 or against the endeavors of the genuine Christian to fulfill his or her heteronymous tasks.73 At a certain point, Kierkegaard uses his own example to point out the significant harm that the public is capable of inflicting on those who oppose its ways.74 Needless to say, on Kierkegaard’s judgment, improvement in one’s religious behavior could never be mediated by the public milieu, not even when the latter is willing to make concessions to Christianity.75 The most salient feature of the public—which differentiates it from the crowd— lies in its spectral quality or quasi-invisibility. Kierkegaard refers to Publikum as a “ghostliness,”76 “a mirage,”77 “a monstrous nonentity,”78 “a phantom that does not allow any personal approach,”79 “a kind of colossal something, an abstract void and vacuum that is all and nothing,”80 and a phantasm adroitly deployed by contemporary sophists.81 Further, when the public and the press join hands, the latter also becomes spectral.82 As such, Publikum is marked by a void identity. “A people,” Kierkegaard clarifies, “an assembly, a person can change in such a way that one may say: they are no longer the same; but the public can become the very opposite and is still the same—the public.”83 Moreover, the public “creates no [interpersonal] situation and no community.”84 Its ghostly abstraction is far more important to its survival. In sum, the “public is all and nothing, the most dangerous of all powers and the most meaningless;”85 or, more precisely, it is “the cruel abstraction by which individuals will be religiously educated—or be destroyed.”86 To conclude, the crowd and the public are interpreted primarily as two sides of the same spiritual malady, namely, the cowardly avoidance of becoming a single

SKS 13, 374–5 / M, 312–3; SKS 11, 110 / WA, 107. SKS 13, 47–9 / FSE, 19–20. 73 SKS 9, 79–80 / WL, 72–3. 74 SKS 16, 44–9 / PV, 63–9; SKS 13, 374–5, 407 / M, 312–13, 343; Pap. XI–3 B 82 / M, Supplement, 495–6; Pap. XI–2 A 411 / JP 6, 6964; Pap. XI–3 B 155 / M, Supplement, 584–5; Pap. XI–3 B 89 / M, Supplement, 503; SKS 21, 357, NB10:191 / JP 6, 6389; SKS 22, 141–2, NB11:233 / JP 6, 6444; SKS 22, 250–1, NB12:178 / JP 6, 6498. 75 SKS 13, 47–9 / FSE, 19–20. 76 Pap. VII–1 B 125:2 / TA, Supplement, 139. 77 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90. 78 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 91. 79 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92. 80 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 93. 81 Pap. VII–2 B 235 / BA, 147. 82 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90; SKS 26, 257–8, NB33:15 / JP 3, 2986. 83 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92. 84 SKS 8, 87 / TA, 91. 85 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. See also SKS 16, 47–8 / PV, 67–8. 86 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. 71 72

114

Leo Stan

individual (Enkelte) before God.87 Thus, they can be safely viewed as epiphenomena of human sinfulness, especially granted their apostatic and self-idolatrous attitude. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that, while searching for possible ways in which the sweeping force of collectives may be resisted, Kierkegaard deems Christian fideism the most efficient.88 See also Concrete/Abstract; Individual; Leveling; Politics; the Press/Journalism; Sin; State.



87 88

SKS 8, 227–8, 418–19 / UD, 127–8, 327; SKS 25, 440–1, NB30:67 / JP 4, 5044. SKS 8, 88 / TA, 92; SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93; Pap. VII–1 B 125:2 / TA, Supplement, 139.

Culture/Education Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

Culture/Education (Dannelse—noun; danne—verb) The verb at danne is derived from Older New Danish dan, meaning peculiar, characteristic, arranged; from Middle Low German dan, the preterite participle of don, to do, passes into German as tun and into English as do. The lexical meaning in Danish of the verb at danne is to produce or compose a whole, to generate, to depict or represent (in pictures), to give an account, to create something,1 whereas the noun Dannelse in its contemporary connotation refers to a general knowledge of specific cultural domains such as art, language, literature, music, and history, connected either with an advanced development of the mind or with a cultivated way of life. Indeed, Molbech specifically mentions one of the meanings of Dannelse as “the higher development of the gifts of the soul and (its) proficiencies, culture.”2 Bildung, the German word which has as its root either the Old High German bildunge or Middle High German bildunga, both meaning creation, portrait, or figure,3 actually sprang from either mystical theology or the speculative philosophy of nature,4 and, indeed, once absorbed by the field of philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century, it ended up consolidating itself as the German concept for culture and/or education, thus also becoming the source from which Dannelse took much of its content. The concepts of Dannelse or Bildung have always been difficult to define, for both are by nature polysemic concepts and as such can mean or point to quite a number of different or interrelated ideas—or themes—such as the process of education or cultivation, also known in Danish as Opdragelse, as well as its final product or result, that is, culture. Furthermore, in the work of Kierkegaard the concept may often gain a more concrete, if not sociological interpretation, coming to designate the cultured or the cultivated ones (de Dannede), that is, the members of the coteries against whom he waged war. Thus, the concept of Dannelse may appear in the work of Kierkegaard through implication, that is, through the use of Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, columns 485–94. 2 Christian Molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855, vol. 1, p. 159. 3 Duden, Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, Mannheim, et al.: Dudenverlag 2007, p. 306. 4 Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. by Joachim Ritter et al., vols. 1–13, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1971–2007, Band 1: A–C, p. 921. 1

116

Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

some synonym or word related to its constellation, rather than explicitly. Indeed, the concepts of Bildung or Dannelse have a very long history, having their archetype in the Greek notion of παιδεία. The Greeks understood that concept as the formation or education of the individual based on an organic relationship between the parts (the individuals) and the whole (the polis, that is, the city-state); παιδεία, thus, was conceived as “the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature.”5 This concept of education would later be taken up by the Romans, who added Stoic, Epicurean and, later, Christian overtones to it, and coined the concept of humanitas as a substitute for the concept of παιδεία. Consequently it was under such a generalization that the idea of education as an all-round, humanistic process, which aimed at the humanization of human beings—humanus—denoted for Cicero and his contemporaries the individual who was outwardly friendly and mild towards his or her family and friends, and inwardly mastered his or her bodily passions, qualities by means of which one distanced oneself from animals. This concept was consolidated throughout Western Europe in the centuries following the demise of the Roman Empire, giving birth, much later, to the modern complex of cultivation, culture, and civilization. Finally, in the eighteenth century, as greater attention to the process of education arose as part of Enlightenment philosophies, such preoccupations coalesced in Germany under the concept of Bildung, which took shape after an encounter of the abovementioned traditions of education with the more modern strands of Pietism, Romanticism and idealism. Under this formulation, two of its staunchest supporters were Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It should also be noted that the German Romantics in particular transformed the concept of Bildung into a critical weapon to be used in the “culture wars” they waged against the so-called “philistines,” a use which would pretty much seal the fortune of the concept throughout Western Europe for the rest of the nineteenth century. Dannelse, in its turn, became a central concept of the so-called Golden Age of Denmark, apparently after being introduced, as a translation of its German source, around 1800 through the writings of Knud Lyne Rahbek (1760–1830).6 In the work of Kierkegaard, the most frequent occurrence of the noun Dannelse is in Either/Or, followed by the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and then The Concept of Irony. More particularly, in Either/Or it appears four times in the first volume, the one containing the aesthete’s papers, and nine times in the second volume, the one containing Judge William’s replies to the former. Kierkegaard’s attachment to Goethe comes to the fore particularly through his use of the concept of Dannelse as it appears in the latter, whereas in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript it seems to acquire a more critical connotation, one which would more or less remain the same until the end of his production, being used there to refer to the “superfluity

Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, vol. 1, Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens, trans. by Gilbert Highet, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1967, p. xxiii. 6 Cf. Carl Henrik Koch, “Om dannelse—et begrebsmæssigt pout-pourri,” in At komme til sig selv. 15 portrætter af danske dannelsestænkere, ed. by Joakim Garff, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag 2009, pp. 17–18. 5

Culture/Education

117

of knowledge”7 so characteristic of the passionless age Kierkegaard depicts in A Literary Review of Two Ages. Such a shift, indeed, seems to reveal the increasingly critical or intransigent attitude Kierkegaard adopted towards Dannelse throughout his writings: from a “romantic” position Kierkegaard shifted to a position of enmity towards that category. In any case, his treatment of Dannelse is not immune to some hesitations or tensions propitiated, one rightly supposes, by the very semantic fluctuation or vagueness inherent in the concept itself. In this sense, there seem to be three main meanings of Dannelse in his works: (1) Dannelse conceived as a culturalcritical weapon, that is, as Bildung after the German Romantic acceptation of the term; (2) Dannelse conceived as an existential self-relation, that is, as the process of self-formation or self-constitution built on the encounter of Christian with Stoic and Epicurean ideas, values and spiritual exercises whose goal is the constitution of a human individual; and (3) Dannelse conceived as an impediment, on account of its excess, to the realization of Christianity. The latter conception is often inseparable from Kierkegaard’s critique of the religious and cultural institutions, which constituted the so-called “establishment.” I shall now explicate each meaning separately. I. Dannelse as Bildung, as a Romantic-Conservative Cultural-Critical Weapon German Romanticism, as mentioned above, transformed the concept of Bildung into a cultural-critical weapon, which served to depreciate bourgeois mentality and its purported lack of culture and, as such, it served mainly conservative purposes. In this sense, Kierkegaard himself was not immune to such ideals, which constitute in one way or another the background of his polemic against Hans Christian Andersen as developed in From the Papers of One Still Living, which was written as a literary review of Andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler. Despite the absence of the word Dannelse (or for that matter Bildung) in that text, the main complaint Kierkegaard raises against Andersen presupposes such categories. His criticism is based on the idea that the latter “is characterized rather as a possibility of a personality…who, in order to become a personality, needs a strong life-development.”8 Andersen is described by Kierkegaard as an “unconscious poetic power,”9 who produced, instead of a solidly composed work with “the consolidating total survey (a life-view)”10 as its foundation, only “factory products.”11 That is, Kierkegaard harshly criticized Andersen for lacking the necessary skills, education, and culture—in a word, Dannelse—so fundamental to the crystallization of a mature and competent literary personality. Indeed, a similar acceptation of Dannelse as a cultural-critical weapon of conservative overtones is also presupposed later, in The Book on Adler, in the qualitative differentiation Kierkegaard proposes between essential and premise Cf. SKS 7, 232 / CUP1, 256. SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 70. 9 SKS 1, 39n. / EPW, 84n. 10 SKS 1, 38 / EPW, 83. 11 SKS 1, 44 / EPW, 88. 7 8

118

Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

authors, the former being a kind of writer that “definitely knows who he is, what he wants; from first to last he takes care to understand himself in his life-view,”12 whereas the latter do “not really know themselves where they are tending,”13 for the “premise-author has neither time nor patience to think it through more definitely.”14 In other words, there are, according to Kierkegaard, on the one hand “those improperly called authors, who are the majority and so numerous that the whole class is named after them,”15 and on the other, the author who conceives of his work as an ethical task, and sets himself up as a “teacher”16 within the literary field and communicates essential, serious, earnest or cultivated thoughts. Once again, the presupposition that enables such a differentiation is, without being named as such, Bildung in its most romantic acceptation. II. Dannelse as an Existential Self-Relation The second acceptation of Dannelse present in the work of Kierkegaard implies the process of appropriation through which one becomes what one is or, keeping in mind the spirit of his works, what one rather should be. In other words, implicit in his use of the term is the idea that all human beings have, as their task, to choose or to accept themselves so that they can be said to exist in a deeper, properly human sense. Dannelse, in this sense, thus presupposes some sort of ontological distinction between mere being and existing, and as such it implies both the process of selfrealization, which is based on the actualization of human potentialities, as well as its final result—the full-fledged personality, also called character by Kierkegaard. Such a conception of Dannelse runs through the entire corpus of his production and is the most fundamental acceptation of the term, as well as the most difficult to grasp. Apart from being of a more abstract nature, it is generally denoted implicitly rather than explicitly and, in this sense, it tends to appear through its related constellation of concepts rather than through a direct, objective, or explicit approach. Indeed, such an acceptation is already presupposed in his criticism of Andersen, for Kierkegaard’s definition of “life-view” is precisely “the transubstantiation of experience,”17 achieved through the right relation that one should have both with oneself and with one’s surrounding world.18 Later, in The Concept of Irony, this idea is translated into a “poetical” language, according to which “it is indeed one thing to compose oneself poetically; it is something else to be composed poetically.”19 By the expression “to compose oneself poetically” Kierkegaard addresses the modern assumption of total immanent self-formation, sought in the aesthetic life-view, whereas by the expression “to be composed poetically” he addresses both the ethical SKS 15, 99 / BA, 13. SKS 15, 96 / BA, 10. 14 SKS 15, 97 / BA, 11. 15 SKS 15, 100n. / BA, 14n. 16 SKS 15, 101 / BA, 15. 17 SKS 1, 32 / EPW, 76. 18 Cf. SKS 1, 44–5 / EPW, 89. 19 SKS 1, 316 / CI, 280. 12 13

Culture/Education

119

life-view and the religious one. In any case, both expressions refer to the idea that personality or character involves a process of shaping or formation through which one’s self becomes gradually humanized through the choices one makes concerning one’s own existence. More fundamentally, though, such choices have to do with the stance the individual adopts towards God, who enables the individual’s openness towards receiving one’s self as a gift. It is in this sense, then, that the following definition of Dannelse is to be understood: “What then is education [Dannelse]? I believed it is the course the individual goes through in order to catch up with himself, and the person who will not go through this course is not much helped by being born in the most enlightened age.”20 III. Dannelse as Affectation or Kierkegaard against the Coteries of the Cultivated The last main acceptation of Dannelse in the works of Kierkegaard is related to the social-political-religious synthesis that constituted the establishment in Golden Age Denmark. In other words, Kierkegaard also treated under the concept of Dannelse—or rather increasingly attacked as his career unfolded—the triumvirate that determined the amalgam of taste, faith, and knowledge in the Denmark of his day: the University (which is represented for Kierkegaard in the person of Hans Lassen Martensen); the Established Church (represented in the person of Jakob Peter Mynster); and the Royal Theater (represented in the person of Johan Ludvig Heiberg). In this sense, then, Dannelse refers to “refined culture” or “affectation” and is associated with the concept of an artificially cultivated “beautiful soul.” Indeed, Kierkegaard mentions in The Point of View for My Work as an Author “the enormous multitude of Christians, all the novel readers male and female, the aesthetically educated [de æsthetisk Dannede], beautiful souls [skjønne Aander]”21—in sum, the general Christian-cultural climate founded in the above-mentioned institutions and persons, not to mention their coteries, and according to which all were Christians as a matter of fact. Such an inherently polemical acceptation of Dannelse has as its point of departure the criticisms Kierkegaard started to raise against the complacency of contemporary culture from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript onwards, even though his polemics specifically against Heiberg dated from earlier. In any case, in the aforementioned work one sees an intensification of critical tone as he embarked on the attack on the confusion of spheres between scholarship and Christianity or, as he polemically put it, the situation in which “pastors turn their clerical robes inside out so that they might almost look like professors’ gowns.”22 Indeed, Kierkegaard believed that when such a compromise between church, state, and culturaleducational institutions took place, then “a perfume-saturated and systematically accommodated and soirée-participating scholarliness, whose whole secret is halfmeasures and the truth to a certain degree”23 ended up distorting Christianity, and as 22 23 20

21

SKS 4, 140 / FT, 46. SKS 16, 71 / PV, 92. SKS 7, 167 / CUP1, 181. SKS 7, 267–8 / CUP1, 294.

Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

120

such decisively promoted “our sensible and soft sagaciously refined Christendom.”24 Thus, this acceptation of Dannelse as a refined, affected, officially generic or watered down Christian culture implies that “[c]ulture [Cultur] and education [Dannelse] and sensibleness and social life work toward making people, in the religious sense, absentminded, spiritually abstracted.”25 Therefore “the more culture [Dannelse] and knowledge, the more difficult to become a Christian.”26 Consequently, Dannelse becomes an essential component of Christendom. To summarize: on account of the very polysemy inherent in the concept of Dannelse, its meaning in the work of Kierkegaard takes shape in three particular and non-exclusive ways, namely, (1) Dannelse understood as literary culture, that is, as a cultural-critical weapon as used by Romantic writers in their diatribes against the bourgeois mentality; (2) Dannelse understood as culture, education, or formation and, in this sense, implying an existential process of self-relation or self-constitution; and (3) Dannelse understood as the refined official culture, if not ideology, promoted by the establishment with the intention of making life easier, safer, and more comfortable and which, according to Kierkegaard, had the effect of being an impediment to Christianity. See also Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Authorship; Chatter; Christendom; Church; Crowd/ Public; Leveling; Life-View; Novel; Speculation/Science/Scholarship; Worldliness/ Secularism.

26 24 25

SKS 15, 264 / BA, 109. SKS 15, 265 / BA, 109. SKS 7, 349 / CUP1, 383.

Dance Curtis L. Thompson

Dance (Dans—noun; danse—verb) The Danish word Dans comes from the Old French dance, and the Ordbog over det danske Sprog identifies four meanings for it. First, it can refer generally to social amusement and artistic performance, to an individually executed performance, or to the many particular forms of dance movements following certain rules. Second, it can refer to movement that reminds one of dance, or to joy, to giving oneself over to merriment. Third, dance can refer to a party or celebration at which there is dancing. Fourth, it can refer to a piece of music to which one dances. Furthermore, the Ordbog over det danske Sprog cites three biblical passages featuring dancing: 1 Samuel 18:6 states that the women came out with song and dance to meet King Saul; in the parable of the prodigal son one reads that when the elder son approached the home, he heard music and dance (Luke 15:25); and Psalm 30:12 declares, “You have turned my mourning into dancing.”1 We could mention here another famous biblical verse on dance, 2 Samuel 6:14, where it proclaims, “David danced before the Lord with all his might.” Kierkegaard states in his journals, “I dance to the glory of the god.”2 Another journal entry mentions practicing and developing dance steps.3 Dance was part of his world. He was writing during the glory days of Romantic ballet (from the 1830s to the 1880s), as the Royal Danish Ballet under the leadership of August Bournonville (1828–79) was a cutting-edge company, well ahead of dance in Germany: “Ballet in Copenhagen at the time was a polished and refined art, presided over by strict dancing masters who drilled dancers to develop technical prowess.”4 Kierkegaard had given thought to the multidimensional activity of dance and employed dance as a figure for representing areas of life he was analyzing. Nowhere in his corpus did he provide a sustained treatment of dance, but incidental references to dance and especially to the metaphor of the dancer are sprinkled around his writings. Essential elements of dance are movement, the body, rhythm, passion, and responsiveness. This article examines Kierkegaard’s treatment of dance in terms of it being responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, columns 501–3. 2 SKS 26, 200, NB32:112 / JP 6, 6919. 3 SKS 23, 139, NB16:65 / JP 6, 6591. 4 Kimerer L. LaMothe, Between Dancing and Writing: The Practice of Religious Studies, New York: Fordham University Press 2004, p. 91. 1

122

Curtis L. Thompson

I. Responsive Dance is responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. When dancing with another, the quality of the dance depends on how keenly each dancer is responding to the other. Good dancing requires nimble responsiveness. In “The Seducer’s Diary” the seducer uses the concept of dance to express that his relationship with Cordelia is like dancing with another dancer who is invisible, where he is the invisible one.5 The relationship is a charade in that the deceitfulness renders it a disingenuous relationship. Thus the image of the single dancer works well since it is only feigning genuine involvement. In the last letter from the young man in Constantin Constantius’ Repetition, he joyously reports that, due to the feminine generosity of a woman who has forgotten him completely, he has gotten himself back, with a newfound sense of belonging to the idea, abandoning everything when the idea calls.6 He offers his praise, which includes “three cheers for the dance in the vortex of the infinite.”7 The young man’s praising of the dance in the vortex of the infinite celebrates how life’s dance is a response to the infinite encountered in and through life’s whirlpool of activities. A deliberation on love’s abiding character in Works of Love makes use of dance imagery. In this context the following claims have been made: that love is a relationship among three—the lover, the loved one(s), and love itself; that the one who is truly loving will not cease to love, and that the one who ceases to love was never loving; that the loving one who abides belongs thereby to the future, the eternal, and this carries with it an emancipation from the knowledge of the past, as the lover “knows no past” but “is only waiting for the future.”8 Then come four sentences on dance: “Does the dance end because one of the dancers has gone away? In a certain sense it does. But if the other remains standing in the position that expresses bowing toward the one who is not seen, and if you know nothing about the past, you will say, ‘The dance will surely begin just as soon as the other one, who is awaited, comes.’ ”9 The single dancer is oriented toward the future, awaiting the arrival of her partner, and that the missing one has not been in the picture for years does not come into play because the lover is freed from knowledge of the past in waiting strictly for the future. One drowns the past in the oblivion of eternity by abiding in love.10 In that same work’s deliberation on “The Work of Love in Recollecting One Who Is Dead,” the point is made that “if you want to ascertain what love there is in you or in another person, then pay attention to how he relates himself to one who is dead.”11 The lover being observed is in a relationship with another, making it difficult to identify the love of the one over against that of the other. This prompts a dancing image: “If you could manage to see someone shadowboxing in dead earnest, or if you could prevail upon a dancer to dance solo the dance he customarily dances with SKS 2, 396 / EO1, 380. SKS 4, 141–3 / R, 220–1. SKS 4, 144 / R, 221–2. SKS 9, 108–16 / WL, 301–7. SKS 9, 116 / WL, 307. 10 Ibid. 11 SKS 9, 159 / WL, 347. 7 8 9 5 6

Dance

123

another, you would be able to observe his motions best, better than if he were boxing with another actual person or if he were dancing with another actual person.”12 In relating oneself to a person who is dead, the relationship is reduced to the one, since the dead one is no actuality; so in this situation the dead one “is only the occasion that continually discloses what resides in the one living.”13 Here living one’s love can be quite clearly ascertained. Another instance of Kierkegaard’s use of dance imagery as an expression of responsiveness is in a journal entry from 1851 in which he reflects on his relationship to the movement of the day, noting that, on the one hand, he is very close to the movement, most likely meaning that his whole grand project is to bring about change in the sense of furthering existential inwardness, inward deepening; on the other hand, he is farther away from the movement than anybody, if by the movement is meant organizing to bring about external changes. Dance imagery helps Kierkegaard differentiate himself from Bishop Mynster, whom he sees as being somewhat involved in the movement. Mynster’s involvement is like that of the old matron who consents to dance, while Kierkegaard’s utter non-involvement is represented by his refusal to dance. Kierkegaard writes: “I literally will not dance any more than, if you please, an invalid dances. If people wish to put this interpretation on it, I do not object, but it is literally true: I will not dance.”14 Refusing to dance is refusing to join the movement to bring external change. The refusal-to-dance theme as expressing non-involvement is also used by Johannes Climacus in the preface to Philosophical Fragments. This comes in contending that he ought not be asked about his opinion, because having an opinion presupposes having a level of normalcy in life which Johannes does not possess: “In the world of spirit, this is my case, for I have trained myself and am training myself always to be able to dance lightly in the service of thought, as far as possible to the honor of the god and for my enjoyment, renouncing domestic bliss and civic esteem, the communio bonorum [community of goods] and the concordance of joys that go with having an opinion.”15 Johannes cannot offer an opinion, because he has only got life and its corollary, death, which is his dancing partner: “All I have is my life, which I promptly stake every time a difficulty appears. Then it is easy to dance, for the thought of death is a good dancing partner, my dancing partner.”16 The case is otherwise, though, when asked his opinion about that which concerns others; he wants no such invitations: “Every human being is too heavy for me, and therefore I plead, per deos obsecro [I swear by the gods]: Let no one invite me, for I do not dance.”17 Johannes does not dance the game of offering his opinion about that which is beyond the province of his own life; he, the dialectician, does dance lightly in the service of thought, but rendering opinions concerning others might carry him too far

SKS 9, 159–60 / WL, 347. SKS 9, 160 / WL, 347. 14 SKS 24, 231–2, NB23:51 / JP 6, 6731. 15 SKS 4, 4 / PF, 7. 16 SKS 4, 4 / PF, 8. 17 Ibid. 12 13

Curtis L. Thompson

124

into the “heavy,” flesh-and-blood arena of other human beings, an arena wherein he does not dance. II. Passionate Dance is responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. The dance generally originates as a response to a situation in life, and the response is marked by passion. The dancer, too, responds to the particular realities at hand. In Repetition a dancer is introduced into a discussion about depression. The claim is made that one can often learn much about depressed people from their subordinates because they are quicker to open up to servants, maids, and the like. A depressed dancer managed to deceive everyone, except for his older, down-and-out barber: “Concern about the barber’s indigence prompted the dancer to let his melancholy burst forth, and this barber knew what no one else ever suspected.”18 Kierkegaard’s Constantin Constantius settles on a dancer for his example. This reference serves well as an example of passion, for the dancer’s outburst of melancholy surely is an expression of intense passion. Full of pathos-filled activity, dance is a good vehicle for expressing life’s passion. In considering the musical erotic in the first volume of Either/Or, we find dance imagery used in the account of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, whose life centers on the full, passionate “force of the sensuous, which is born in anxiety,” which is “precisely the demonic zest for life”; Mozart conveys Giovanni’s developing life “in the dancing strains of the violin, in which he lightly, fleetingly speeds on over the abyss,” dancing over it in jubilation.19 In “The Seducer’s Diary” we read of the victim of seduction who “was continually agitated in a dreadful witches’ dance of the most varied moods as she alternately reproached herself, forgave him, and in turn reproached him.”20 Dancing comes into play in seducing because both involve significant passion. Thus the seducer confesses: “For the sake of the first girl, I learned to dance; for the sake of the little dancer I learned to speak French.”21 The seducer’s affairs have a definite reality for him. He plays continuously with the interesting, always checking out a new angle for progressing in the seduction as dictated by the obstructive responses coming forth from the victim. Always, though, the seducer’s creative moves arouse the victim’s womanliness until “almost supernatural heights” are reached and the passionate dance prevails as “she belongs to me with a world of passion.”22 Passion is proportional to the ideal to which one aspires. Kierkegaard writes of a dance company in a market town that has one extraordinary leaper who is regarded as queer, crazy, and laughable by the other ordinary leapers who do not want to acknowledge an object of admiration or level of ideality that is not at the same time 20 21 22 18 19

SKS 4, 18 / R, 139. SKS 2, 131 / EO1, 129–30. SKS 2, 296–7 / EO1, 307. SKS 2, 335 / EO1, 346. SKS 2, 336 / EO1, 346.

Dance

125

a bit of self-admiration.23 This theme comes to bear as well on coming to grips with the “mess of Christendom” at hand in his day, which leads Kierkegaard to bring out the dance artillery. He writes that regarding a “grunting, prosperous bourgeois” as the earnest Christian is really as ridiculous as regarding the Round Tower (a solid stout structure in Copenhagen) “as an eighteen-year-old dancer.”24 His day’s Christendom lacks passion because it lacks inwardness and conscience: “Remove the anguished conscience, and you may as well close the churches and turn them into dance halls.”25 It has been said that great dancers are not great because of their technique but because of their passion, and Kierkegaard thinks this applies as well to Christians, who are not benchwarmers but take part in the dance.26 III. Rhythmic Dance is responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. There is rhythm to dialectic. The pseudonym Johannes de silentio identifies the dialectic of faith as “the finest and the most extraordinary of all” because of its elevation, which leaves him outside its highest movement: I can make the mighty trampoline leap whereby I cross over into infinity; my back is like a tightrope dancer’s, twisted in my childhood, and therefore it is easy for me. One, two, three—I can walk upside down in existence, but I cannot make the next movement, for the marvelous I cannot do—I can only be amazed at it.27

Life’s rhythm allows dance imagery to be used in expressing the dialectical ebb and flow, the yes and no of life in general and human existence in particular. During his 1843 visit to Berlin, Kierkegaard’s reflections on life’s rhythm produced the book Repetition, in which his pseudonymous narrator, Constantin Constantius, checks out the possibility of repetition by revisiting a location to observe a dancer whose performance he had previously seen.28 Evaluations of dance form a part in understanding repetition. Life’s rhythm brings us into different interests and concerns as our needs vary. In Repetition we read that one’s passion sometimes calls for unusual actions such as learning to dance and engaging in an entrechat (a jump in which a ballet dancer repeatedly crosses the legs and sometimes beats them together).29 Dance also can apply to the rhythm of thinking. In the Postscript Johannes Climacus raises the question of whether it makes any difference to the truth of a SKS 20, 375–6, NB5:11 / KJN 4, 375–6. SKS 26, 200, NB32:112 / JP 6, 6919. 25 SKS 20, 69, NB:79 / JP 3, 2461. 26 SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41. 27 SKS 4, 131 / FT, 36. 28 Heidi Gilpin, “Lifelessness in Movement, or How do the Dead Move? Tracing Displacement and Disappearance for Movement Performance,” in Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture, and Power, ed. by Susan Leigh Foster, New York: Routledge 1996, pp. 106–28. 29 SKS 4, 33–4 / R, 158. 23 24

126

Curtis L. Thompson

proposition a person is reciting if he happens to be standing in a droll dancing pose while doing the reciting.30 In the same book Johannes uses a reference to “Hopsasa,” which is a lively dance rhythm, a polka, in speaking of making a leap to a higher understanding of the paradox of the Christ.31 IV. Bodily Dance is responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. Dance is bodily and sensual. Kierkegaard sees dance as closely connected to music, and in discoursing on the musical-demonic, Either/Or speaks of “the absolute relation between the sensuous in its elemental originality and the musical.”32 Its claim that religious fervor has always been suspicious of music could safely be extended to dance, as could the charge that “the more rigorous the religiousness, the more music [and dance?] is given up and words are emphasized”; and a passage in fact makes the link between music and dance: “We Presbyterians regard the organ as the devil’s bagpipe, with which he lulls to sleep the earnestness of contemplation, just as dance deadens good intentions.”33 The point is made that music (and dance?) is not the devil’s work even if it often possesses demonic power. In an undated 1847 journal entry Kierkegaard reluctantly states that in his work he has: striven to comply with the beautiful rule that we never must detect on a dancer that he is panting. We are convinced that, in their judging, people do not follow this rule, because if they do not see him pant or hear him groan they have no idea at all that he is dancing. If someone groans over a little book, he is thought to be working hard; and if someone does the most arduous work as if it were a jest, they consider it a jest and think that he is a careless worker.34

Kierkegaard here, of course, is referring to himself as one whose arduous work has been considered by many as a jest. Vigilius Haufniensis uses comical imagery including dance to characterize the pious person who is not at ease with his piety because he lacks the requisite inwardness: Just as “a bowlegged man wanting “to act as a dancing master but is unable to execute a single step,” is comical, so too is the religious person who tries to softly beat time religiously by himself but blunders and comes off badly with his glances to heaven and folded hands because the religious relationship is missing within him.35 An especially rich journal entry of October 11, 1837 finds Kierkegaard corroborating the claim “that the genius of the genuinely sensuous life is musical” by “noting that in folk legend, the demonic is essentially musical” and dance is music 32 33 34 35 30 31

SKS 7, 239–40 / CUP1, 264. SKS 7, 516 / CUP1, 568. SKS 2, 78 / EO1, 72. SKS 2, 78–9 / EO1, 72–3. Pap. VIII–2 B 73, 133–4 / WL, Supplement, 457. SKS 4, 441 / CA, 141.

Dance

127

made visible and held as in a visual medium.36 The commentary to this entry gives extensive background including material from Irische Elfenmärchen of the Brothers Grimm and other works influencing Kierkegaard’s articulations on dance in relation to folk legend and fairy tales, such as the Zeeland musical piece, “The Fairy King Song,” about which it was said “that it could make everyone, young and old, indeed even lifeless things, dance.”37 V. Movement Dance is responsive, passionate, rhythmic bodily movement. The most basic characteristic of dance is that it involves movement, which applies to Kierkegaard’s work in many ways. In the second volume of Either/Or, imagery of dance as having an assigned place (on the island of Rhodes) is taken from Aesop to assist in underscoring the duty-bound nature of marriage.38 Fear and Trembling includes a number of references to dance. Johannes de silentio describes faith’s movement as continually needing to be made by virtue of the absurd, but in such a way that the finite is not lost but gained in its entirety, so that “after having made the movements of infinity, it makes the movements of finitude.”39 Language of dance befits the movement of the knight of faith: “It is supposed to be the most difficult feat for a ballet dancer to leap into a specific posture in such a way that he never once strains for the posture but in the very leap assumes the posture. Perhaps there is no ballet dancer who can do it—but this knight does it….The knights of infinity are ballet dancers and have elevation.”40 Essential in faith’s movement is spirit, but Johannes de silentio thinks there is little interest in spirit, because people want to skirt the journey and pass immediately to the goal, whether in faith, education, or dance. One does not learn to dance by promptly starting out with the quadrille.41 A quadrille is a somewhat complex square dance for four couples, consisting of five parts or movements, each complete in itself; therefore, it is not the place to start in learning to dance. Education, too, entails individuals going through the steps involved in getting to know themselves. Faith, finally, calls for two movements. The first movement is infinite resignation, in which “I become conscious of my eternal validity, and only then can one speak of grasping existence by virtue of faith.”42 In loving God above all else, faith’s first movement gives allegiance to the infinite. Faith’s second movement, the leap, brings the person beyond infinite resignation to a simultaneous trust that he or she will be given the desired object, so that the relativizing of the finite, temporal object in the first movement is matched by the complete embrace of it in faith’s second movement.43 The explosive departing and returning movement SKS 17, 244, DD:69 / KJN 1, 235, SKS K17, 244 / KJN 1, 519–20. 38 SKS 3, 68 / EO2, 63. 39 SKS 4, 132–3 / FT, 37–8. 40 SKS 4, 135 / FT, 41. 41 SKS 4, 140 / FT, 46. 42 Ibid. 43 SKS 4, 142 / FT, 47–8. 36 37

128

Curtis L. Thompson

of the dancing leap—which involves leaving the ground off one foot, hovering in the air, and then landing on the other foot—is like the twofold movement of the knight of faith who in a singular act both departs to affirm the infinite and returns to embrace the finite.44 A final critical feature of movement for Kierkegaard that we can mention was his walking. He expresses his thoughts on walking to his sister-in-law Henriette Kierkegaard (his brother Peter’s wife) in a letter of 1847. His advice to her includes counsel on walking that can lead one into good thoughts, out of bad thoughts, and into well-being, health, and salvation.45 The message is one that is today maybe even more relevant than it was in the 1840s. Kierkegaard’s life and thought were characterized by the metaphor of dance in a way that has been surpassed by few others. See also Being/Becoming; Dialectic; Leap; Movement/Motion; Music; Passion/ Pathos; Theater/Drama; Vaudeville/Farce.

LaMothe, Between Dancing and Writing, pp. 92–3. SKS 28, 59–61, Brev 36 / LD, 214–15, Letter 150.

44 45

Death Adam Buben

Death (Død—noun; dø—verb) From the Old Danish døth, Old Norse dauðr, English derived death. Its lexical meaning in Danish is the end of living beings (especially humans) and of life’s functions. Death is often personified, used to describe something’s appearance, and found in reference to various causes of demise. Theologically, it is related to sin (e.g., the wages of sin) and the overcoming of sin (e.g., Christ’s death redeems). It also comes up in various sayings, proverbs, and curses.1 Death appears frequently throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, both pseudonymous and signed, and it is important to identify several different, but perhaps not always unrelated, ways in which he uses the language of death and dying. In The Sickness unto Death, for example, the imagery of death is used to describe the “spiritual wretchedness” and distance from God known as despair.2 In other late writings, such as Christian Discourses, For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourself!, “dying to” or renouncing selfish worldly interests, plans, desires, understanding, and even temporality is the prescription for recovering from the sickness unto death.3 There is also the way death often comes up in connection with Kierkegaard’s discussions of the afterlife, for example, in the early upbuilding discourses, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Christian Discourses. And all of this is in addition to his treatments of martyrdom and suicide in works such as Two Ethical-Religious Essays, The Sickness unto Death, and Practice in Christianity. Because all of these issues related to death are treated in some way or another as separate Kierkegaardian concepts elsewhere in this volume, I mention them only for the purposes of clarifying what is not to be discussed here. With such parameters established, what remains to be explained is Kierkegaard’s use of death proper, that is, his less metaphorical use of the language of death and dying as connected to human mortality itself. Although references to death can be found throughout his work, the most thorough discussions of death proper are located in his “middle writings”—the works of 1845–1847—which often deal with the impact that death can have on life. While much of the language of death in Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 4, columns 4–21. 2 SKS 11, 118 / SUD, 6. 3 Cf. SKS 7, 418–28 / CUP1, 460–72; SKS 7, 508 / CUP1, 559; SKS 7, 542–3 / CUP1, 597–8. 1

130

Adam Buben

writings after this period is dedicated to extended considerations of martyrdom, despair, and dying to the world, several earlier writings anticipate the treatments of death found between the discourse entitled “At a Graveside” and Works of Love. The earliest inklings of Kierkegaard’s views on death appear in his first published book—a review of Hans Christian Andersen’s Only a Fiddler—entitled From the Papers of One Still Living. In criticizing Andersen’s inability to express a consistent “life-view” in his writing, Kierkegaard states, “the life-view proper commences first…at the hour of one’s death.”4 What he seems to mean by this is that rather than consisting of the simple sum of worldly experiences or ideas that one has had, a proper view of one’s life is the sort of retroactive or “backward” understanding of oneself from the perspective of death that is able to show a consistency to the self despite the distracting variety of such experiences.5 Kierkegaard accuses Andersen of trying to grasp personalities while caught up in the bustle of life, which is difficult and maybe impossible to do, instead of adopting the settled perspective from which it might be possible to take in what a life is all about. In both his dissertation, The Concept of Irony, and the six sets of upbuilding discourses that were published in conjunction with the various early pseudonymous works (1843–44), Kierkegaard begins to fill out this understanding of death’s relevance to life. In the former, he does so through a detailed examination of death’s “retrospective”6 view of life described in some of Plato’s dialogues; and in the latter, he does so by suggesting a more personal and religious notion of death. Although these texts are rich in discussion of other death-related issues, most notably the afterlife, Kierkegaard also mentions, but does not yet discuss in great detail, death’s equality, the certainty of death, the uncertainty it causes, and the atemporal urgency or anxiety that arises when thinking properly about this uncertainty.7 These will all be key topics in “At a Graveside.” Among the pseudonymous works, Either/Or offers occasional quips about death that attempt to show how it saps the meaning from life when viewed from an aesthetic perspective;8 and in The Concept of Anxiety one can find a long footnote about death in Vigilius Haufniensis’ discussion of “the moment.” Here he both anticipates “At a Graveside” in considering what can be learned about life from the impending “everything is over,” and suggests that there might be degrees of death and the anxiety related to it.9 Not only is Haufniensis implying that physical passing away is somehow distinct from meaningful death, but he is also pointing out that unless humanity and its mortality are understood properly, human existence risks having no more meaning than that of animals—whose births and deaths seem relatively insignificant.10 SKS 1, 33 / EPW, 77. SKS 1, 31–4 / EPW, 76–8. SKS 1, 124 / CI, 64. SKS 5, 188–91 / EUD, 184–6; SKS 5, 267 / EUD, 272; SKS 5, 274 / EUD, 280. For example, SKS 2, 27–52 / EO1, 19–43; SKS 2, 213–23 / EO1, 219–30. SKS 4, 395 / CA, 92–3. Cf. SKS 4, 350 / CA, 45. 10 For examples of interesting metaphorical uses of death in the early pseudonymous writings, see SKS 2, 137 / EO1, 137; SKS 4, 217 / PF, 8; SKS 6, 36, 55–7 / SL, 31, 53–5; and SKS 4, 52–3 / R, 181–2. 6 7 8 9 4 5

Death

131

Although clearly not far from his mind early on, between 1845 and 1847 death becomes a major theme in Kierkegaard’s work. The final discourse from Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, “At a Graveside,” is by far his most extensive consideration of the topic. Here Kierkegaard explains that “the thought of death gives the earnest person the right momentum in life and the right goal toward which he directs his momentum.”11 But how exactly does an “earnest” (alvorlig) person approach death and realize the proper momentum and goal? To begin with, the earnest individual must focus primarily on his or her own death. Rather than treating death simply as “the human condition,” Kierkegaard believes that its most important lessons cannot be had unless “you are thinking it as your lot.”12 Failure to focus on one’s own death can lead one into a “mood” (Stemning) of objectivity, where one might often think about death in general terms, but rarely in the way that can have any meaningful impact on one’s life. Kierkegaard also states that “death is indefinable—the only certainty, and the only thing about which nothing is certain.”13 While one’s death will certainly come, it is uncertain when it will happen or what, if anything, it might mean for the one who has died. Failure to be mindful of the certainty of death might lead to a mood of excessive sorrow at the loss of a loved one. Shocked by an unexpected death, an individual might become so distraught that they are unable to address their responsibilities adequately.14 In genuinely focusing on the certainty of death, no one can find any death so unexpected that it can cause obstructive distress. In the case of failure to keep the uncertainty of death in mind, Kierkegaard claims that one might fall into a mood of procrastination in which one believes, for any number of reasons (youth, health, etc.), that death need not concern the living just yet.15 When one truly realizes that death could happen at any moment and in any way, the thought of death cannot be so easily put off until tomorrow. Kierkegaard continues on to discuss having appropriate fear: “earnestness does not scowl but is reconciled with life and knows how to fear death.”16 Without such knowledge, it seems there are two ways one might fear death inappropriately. The first is the insufficient fear of death, which might lead an individual to fear life more than death. Without its foreboding character, one might be quick to choose death as an escape when facing life’s difficulties. On the other hand, with an excessive fear of death, one might be unwilling to risk one’s life in the ways that are necessary for dealing with the responsibilities of existing.17 By existing in the tension between fearing death and living life—maintaining death’s full frightening nature while simultaneously pressing forward into what needs be done18—one might be able to SKS 5, 453 / TD, 83. SKS 5, 444, 446 / TD, 73, 75. 13 SKS 5, 460 / TD, 91. 14 SKS 5, 446 / TD, 75. 15 SKS 5, 449–51 / TD, 79–80; SKS 5, 460 / TD, 91. 16 SKS 5, 457 / TD, 88. 17 SKS 5, 451–7 / TD, 81–8. 18 SKS 5, 454 / TD, 84: “Let death keep its power…but let life also keep the right to work while it is day.” 11

12

132

Adam Buben

realize the life that Kierkegaard envisions when he recommends the earnest thought of death. Pointing out that “death itself produces a scarcity of time for the dying,”19 Kierkegaard believes that the earnest individual—the one who keeps in mind the aspects of thinking about death described above and thereby grasps his or her own precarious position—will feel a profound sense of urgency. This urgency is the momentum, the “retroactive power in life”20 that invigorates it by seeping backwards into existence from an impending death. With no time to waste, one learns not to spend it on “vain pursuits,” or “accidental” (or “incidental”) matters,21 which demand obvious worldly results. Results take time, and as Kierkegaard makes clear, time cannot be guaranteed. Instead, he thinks that one should embrace one’s temporal uncertainty and emphasize concerns that do not require a specific amount of time. These non-time-dependent concerns are not about what one accomplishes in the external world, but about how, internally, one does whatever one is doing.22 By cultivating interest in how one goes about whatever one takes on, thinking of death helps undermine the worldly focus upon results that are at best only happy accidents. While more could surely be said in connection with “At a Graveside,” Kierkegaard’s treatment of death is hardly exhausted by this short discourse. The Concluding Unscientific Postscript is unique among the key texts from this middle period in both its breadth of scope and its pseudonymous authorship. Johannes Climacus offers an account, from an outsider’s perspective, of “climbing” the steps involved in becoming a Christian. Along the way he takes numerous detours into topics that might initially seem only loosely related to his primary purpose. Among such detours is a short reflection on death and immortality in the context of the alleged difficulty of becoming subjective.23 The consideration of death reiterates several claims in “At a Graveside” about issues such as the certainty and the uncertainty of death, but Climacus’ main interest is in a further refinement of appropriating the thought of death.24 In a slight redirection, Climacus suggests that by determining how an individual relates to death, it is possible to detect how developed this individual is subjectively. But like the graveside discourse, he ultimately maintains that the certain uncertainty of death, thought subjectively (and constantly), will manifest itself in the lives of those who think it, not just in their words, but in their actions and attitudes as well.25 Following the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard’s unshielded Christianity begins to come to the fore as his work turns in a new direction. Much of what is said about death in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits comes in the first discourse, commonly known as “Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing.” Here one

21 22 23 24 25 19 20

SKS 5, 453 / TD, 84. SKS 5, 466 / TD, 99. SKS 5, 446 / TD, 75; SKS 5, 464 / TD, 96. SKS 5, 464 / TD, 96. SKS 7, 153–63 / CUP1, 165–77; SKS 7, 184–5 / CUP1, 201–2. SKS 7, 154–5 / CUP1, 166–7. SKS 7, 157–8 / CUP1, 169–70.

Death

133

can see both the foundations of using the dead to help cultivate self-understanding,26 an idea that rises to prominence in Works of Love, and also a further development of the lessons of urgency described in “At a Graveside.” In fact, Kierkegaard’s discussion of the ever-present “eleventh hour” in “Purity of Heart” uses much of the same rhetoric to point out that death permeates life from beginning to end27 and undermines ordinary temporal sensibilities of what is essential by discrediting the notion that we still have some time left.28 Unlike “At a Graveside” though, this discourse provides a little more description of precisely what we are to do in the dire situation of the eleventh hour—we are to take responsibility for our guilty past in regret and move freely into the future with repentance before God. This merging of one’s temporal, guilty self with what Kierkegaard calls “repentance in the sense of freedom with the stamp of eternity”29 can only happen in the urgency of the eleventh hour. In other words, fearful and humble repentance in the face of impending doom can give eternal significance to one’s otherwise unremarkable worldly existence by liberating one’s actions from the shackles of purely temporal meaning.30 The bulk of the discussion of death found in Works of Love takes place in a short discourse entitled “The Work of Love in Recollecting One Who Is Dead.” Like other considerations of death from this period, there is a moment here in which Kierkegaard revisits one of the themes from “At a Graveside”—earnestness in this case. And just as he does in “Purity of Heart,” Kierkegaard adds a further condition that, although not entirely absent, may not be especially clear in the graveside discourse. He declares, “to the earnestness of death belongs that remarkable capacity for awakening, this resonance of a profound mockery that, detached from the thought of the eternal, is an empty, often brazen, jest, but together with the thought of the eternal is just what it should be.”31 Although this passage does not make explicit what “the eternal” is, the overall character of the book and other claims made on the very same page suggest that Kierkegaard is referring to a relationship with the Christian God. His point is that thinking of death must be done for the purpose of grasping one’s relationship with God if it is to have any more value than not thinking of death at all. Without the eternal aspect of the God-relationship, thinking of death is just another worldly, temporal activity. Since the alleged earnestness of death is really only superficial without this relationship, it seems that Kierkegaard is now openly “Christianizing” the contents of “At a Graveside.” In accord with his now openly Christian treatment of death, Kierkegaard’s primary goal in the discourse on the deceased is to describe Christian love for the dead. Ultimately he is less concerned about specific practices such as burial, cemetery visitation, and speaking of loved ones long gone, than he is about using love for the dead to teach oneself how to love the living properly. Kierkegaard states:

28 29 30 31

26 27

SKS 8, 164–5 / UD, 54–5. Cf. also SKS 8, 298–9 / UD, 202–3; SKS 11, 32 / WA, 28; SKS 11, 44–5 / WA, 40–1. SKS 8, 129–31 / UD, 14–16. SKS 8, 131 / UD, 16. SKS 8, 130–1 / UD, 15–16; SKS 8, 248–9 / UD, 152–3. SKS 9, 347 / WL, 353.

Adam Buben

134

the work of love in recollecting one who is dead is thus a work of the most unselfish, the freest, the most faithful love. Therefore go out and practice it; recollect the one who is dead and just in this way learn to love the living unselfishly, freely, faithfully. In the relationship to one who is dead, you have the criterion by which you can test yourself.32

Most important among the various ways that death comes up in Works of Love is in the idea that loving the dead helps individuals overcome their selfish worldly love for others. This latter sense is the preferential love of particular people, such as family and friends, over the rest of humanity. Kierkegaard explains that this sort of love is contrary to proper Christian love, which is meant for all of humankind, even one’s enemies.33 Because the dead can be absolutely nothing for the living, there is nothing about the dead that one can prefer; thus, loving the dead is practice for loving non-preferentially, or unselfishly.34 The upshot of Kierkegaard’s major discussions of death is that the impending termination of one’s existence has an important role to play in structuring life and not just a nihilistic effect. Furthermore, Kierkegaard believes that death plays this role most convincingly in a Christian production. As evidenced by his frequent emphasis on the power of death to demonstrate the frivolity and contingency of ordinary life in the world, it is clear that his interest in death proper is closely tied to the renunciation or “dying to” that is also constantly considered throughout his work, most notably—and Christianly—in his later writings. See also Anxiety; Certainty; Despair; Dying to/Renunciation; Earnestness; Immortality; Life-View; Martyrdom/Persecution; Suicide; Time/Temporality/ Eternity.

34 32 33

SKS 9, 351 / WL, 358. SKS 9, 27 / WL, 19. SKS 9, 343–51 / WL, 349–58.

Decision/Resolve Narve Strand

Decision/Resolve (Afgjørelse/Beslutning—nouns; afgjøre/beslutte—verbs) The Danish verbs afgjøre (modern spelling afgøre) and beslutte have overlapping definitions. The former means to decide, determine, or settle something. The latter, especially when used in the phrase at beslutte sig, means to make up one’s mind or arrive at a decision. In this sense, it signals (like afgjøre) the end of a process of deliberation. However, beslutte also conveys the idea of resolve, which points to an ongoing commitment to think and act in a certain way. The word “decision” appears most often in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Philosophical Fragments (under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus), followed by A Literary Review of Two Ages and Works and Love (under Kierkegaard’s own name). The term “resolve” likewise appears most frequently in Climacus’ writings, followed by Either/Or, and then Stages on Life’s Way. Some salient remarks can also be found in the notebooks. Kierkegaard, for the most part, stays close to and builds upon the ordinary meanings of these words. While they are not the subject of long reflection like “love,” say, or “irony,” Kierkegaard does give them an existential coloring that sets them off sharply from speculative thinking as a whole (see 1). His non-cognitivism is further brought out by linking “decision” and “resolve” to the notions of (2) “will,” (3) decisionism, (4) “the moment,” and (5) “the stages.” (1) Existential vs. Cognitive. Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge both the distinct and overlapping meanings of the terms “decision” and “resolve.” He stakes out a semantic range for these concepts that he then contrasts sharply against both systematic speculation and thought in general. This range may be summarized as follows. “Decision” (a) refers primarily to real or essential (væsentlig) decision, which is related to the eternal and is therefore absolute;1 (b) happens in time,2 in the medium of existence, and is rooted in subjectivity, rather than in systematic speculation, public debate, voting, deliberation, or reflection;3 (c) requires a leap4 SKS 7, 39, 43, 96, 350 / CUP1, 33, 37, 98, 384. SKS 7, 93 / CUP1, 95. 3 SKS 7, 39, 112, 121, 178, 186, 202–3, 311, 443 / CUP1, 33, 115–16, 129, 194, 203, 221–2, 341, 488; SKS 8, 66–7 / TA, 68; SKS 23, 246, NB17:106; SKS 24, 239–40, NB23:63 / JP 4, 4203. 4 SKS 7, 100, 347 / CUP1, 102, 381. 1 2

136

Narve Strand

in the moment;5 (d) is passionate, qualitative, and involves the will;6 (e) is required for faith.7 “Resolve” (a) is also understood chiefly in relation to the eternal and is absolute as well;8 (b) is found in subjectivity or individuality and is opposed to speculation, deliberation, and reflection, being that which begins and stops all human thinking;9 (c) is related to the moment;10 (d) involves the will;11 (e) is required for faith.12 “Resolve” can also mean (f) power, firmness, single-mindedness.13 This scheme raises some key questions. Both “decision” and “resolve” are closely tied to the will. But how exactly do they fit with this concept and why the stark dichotomy between will and reason? Second, how do we reconcile their eternal form with their taking place in time, and how is this tied to faith again? (2) The Will. Decision and resolve are clearly voluntary in nature and, as we have seen, tied to willing. Generally speaking, “decision” is more about choosing or settling an issue; “resolve” is more about firm commitment and staying power. Kierkegaard is not all that interested in the physiological and psychological aspects of the will. Instead, he focuses narrowly on one specific thing: existential orientation or choice. What this means is that decision and resolve, properly understood, are not about psychological or bodily states, but rather about choosing an orientation, that is, a way of seeing and relating to one’s life as a whole, and then sticking by this choice.14 (3) Decisionism. Kierkegaard’s take on the will, and by extension decision and resolve, is voluntarist. He strongly denies that either is an expression or epiphenomenon of the human intellect or practical reason. It is the will that moves and actualizes the understanding, not the other way around. And since decision has less to do with plural choice and more about going for a broader existential orientation in life, there is also less scope for concrete deliberation. For Kierkegaard, it seems, there are no real ethical problems calling for practical reason or prudence.15 Finally, in an existential-religious sense, careful reflection is actually a way of dodging decision—being irresolute.16 A good case could be made then for human reason not playing a positive, integral role in the Kierkegaardian corpus at all. Real choices always involve a leap. Seen in this light, Kierkegaard is a decisionist. (4) The Moment. True decision and resolve, as we have seen, are eternal and absolute but also happen in time. This is really only a problem if we think the human being is self-sufficient in all things involving truth, or that there is no way to unify SKS 4, 260–2, 306 / PF, 57–61, 111. SKS 7, 48, 94, 280, 311, 347–8 / CUP1, 42, 95, 307–8, 341, 381. 7 SKS 7, 24, 545 / CUP1, 15, 601. 8 SKS 7, 450 / CUP1, 497. 9 SKS 7, 41, 109–10, 112, 174, 450 / CUP1, 35, 112–13, 116, 189, 497. 10 SKS 4, 232 / PF, 24–5. 11 SKS 3, 64 / EO2, 58–9; SKS 7, 127 / CUP1, 136. 12 SKS 7, 174, 450 / CUP1, 189, 497. 13 SKS 7, 319, 420 / CUP1, 349, 462–3. Cf. SKS 20, 212, NB2:178 / KJN 4, 211; SKS 21, 121, NB7:87 / JP 1, 962; SKS 24, 289, NB23:172 / JP 2, 1269. 14 Cf. SKS 3, 165–6 / EO2, 169; SKS 18, 223, JJ:261 / KJN 2, 205. 15 For example, SKS 23, 336–7, NB19:12 / JP 3, 2874. 16 SKS 3, 166 / EO2, 169; SKS 10, 95–8 / CD, 88–90. 5 6

Decision/Resolve

137

time and eternity. Kierkegaard, along with his pseudonyms, rejects both assumptions. As a freely operating cause and a self-relation the will is both spontaneous and free, but as relational it is always limited by something beyond itself. Though the self is a synthesis of freedom and necessity, this synthesis is, paradoxically, never achieved by the self in isolation.17 Something outside the individual’s own thought and will must give the criterion (truth-condition) for real, existential choice and resolve to happen, or at least force the individual to engage in the first place.18 Only in the moment, in the unity of time and eternity, are true decisions made and resolve demonstrated.19 This is why true decision and resolution are never quite up to the individual alone. (5) The Stages. The lowest form of choice is aesthetic. That is, in the aesthetic stage of life the individual is focused only on choosing between different options in concrete situations, and on inventing and trying out different life-projects or selfimages. This is because the aesthete only imagines he or she is self-sufficient and absolute. Such a person is a mere observer of life, lost in plurality.20 The next form of choice is ethical, which is more engaged. The ethical individual realizes she is a relational being, tied to others, and tries to act on this insight in a responsible way.21 This is bound to fail, however, since she is still trying to unify freedom and necessity in herself—in her own thought and will (moral autonomy).22 Neither in its aesthetic nor ethical form is the existential nature of choice acknowledged or resolve truly demonstrated. Only when human self-sufficiency is given up does the individual become open to eternity, the absolute (God).23 Only when the eternal condition (truth-criterion) has been given in time by God is the individual able to make a leap of faith in the moment.24 Only when the individual is helped by God to will the eternal is resolve actually achieved.25 For Kierkegaard, decision or resolve in its true, existential form is religious—that is, Christian. To sum up, decision and resolve involve making a determination, with the only real difference between them being that decision is about making a choice, while resolve is about sticking by it. Kierkegaard has an existentialist take on this: decision and resolve are more about an individual’s choosing and committing to a total way of looking at and relating to life than to concrete or situational choice. As the motivating element in all thought and action, decision and resolve are tied to the will, essentially cut loose from systematic speculation and public deliberation—indeed, from human reason as a whole. True decision or resolve has a religious, Christian form; it is a leap of faith in the moment, empowered and sustained by God. See also Existence/Existential; Immediacy/Reflection; Leap; Moment; Politics; Reason; Religious/Religiousness; Stages; Time/Temporality/Eternity; Voting; Will. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18

Cf. SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14. Cf. SKS 4, 258–71 / PF, 55–71. Cf. SKS 4, 242–53 / PF, 37–48. Cf. SKS 3, 163–4 / EO2, 166–7. Cf. SKS 3, 163–4 / EO2, 166–7; SKS 7, 290–3 / CUP1, 318–21. Cf. SKS 23, 45–6, NB15:66 / JP 1, 188. Cf. SKS 4, 140–7 / FT, 45–53; SKS 7, 477ff.; 505–10 / CUP1, 525ff.; 555–61. Cf. SKS 4, 161–2 / FT, 69; SKS 7, 97 / CUP1, 98–9. Cf. SKS 8, 123, 157, 169, 182; 184ff., 227–37 / UD 7, 46, 60, 74, 76ff., 127–39.

This page intentionally left blank

Defiance David Lappano

Defiance (Trods, Trodsighed—nouns; trodse—verb; trodsig—adjective) Trods derives from the Old Modern Danish and Middle Low German trotz or tratz. It is most commonly used in Danish as a preposition: “despite” or “in spite of.” However, in the noun, verb, and adjective forms, Trods signifies defiance, stubbornness, and perverse obstinacy. Sometimes, especially when it is followed by paa, Trods can mean trusting, steadfast faith.1 Ferrall and Repp’s dictionary translates Trods as defiance and contumacy.2 Defiance is typically used with reference to an individual psychological and subjective attitude. Defiance (Trods) appears most often in The Sickness unto Death, with a subsection dedicated to the concept.3 It appears with limited explanation throughout the upbuilding discourses of 1843 and 1844, as well as receiving some treatment in The Concept of Anxiety. Beyond these three texts defiance is peppered throughout the entire authorship, from The Concept of Irony to installments of The Moment. Though not appearing in every text, the concept is employed in pseudonymous and signed works, and it appears in most genres of Kierkegaard’s writing (including the journals), with the notable exception of the short polemical writings of his student years. I. Kierkegaard’s Usage of Defiance In Kierkegaard’s writings defiance is regularly accompanied by another noun or qualifying adjective. Most often defiance is juxtaposed with the concepts of pride (Stolthed) or weakness (Svaghed).4 These two concepts provide the dialectical or double meaning inherent in Kierkegaard’s usage of defiance. The possibility of defiance emerges for a person only after a certain level of self-reflection. Defiance Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 24, columns 552–7. 2 J.S. Ferrall and Thorl. Gudm. Repp, Danish–English Dictionary, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1845, p. 334. 3 SKS 11, 181–7 / SUD, 67–74. 4 SKS 2, 95 / EO1, 90: “then one sees only the desperate defiance that powerlessly resists but can find no firm ground”; SKS 2, 352 / EO1, 363: “My pride, my defiance, my cold ridicule, my callous irony tempt her”; SKS 4, 93 / R, 227: “On the other side battles the insubordination and defiance of the exception, his weakness and infirmity.” 1

David Lappano

140

is therefore not a characteristic of immediacy or the aesthetic stage. Instead, inward deepening and self-reflection must have developed to a stage of relating to something eternal, to the consciousness of God, and then the possibility of defiance emerges as a real choice or a real state for the individual. II. Defiance as a Psychological Attitude Kierkegaard provides a dialectical examination of the psychological task of becoming a self that is qualified by spirit in two pseudonymous works. Both texts pose this task in relation to sin and redemption. Vigilius Haufniensis analyzes the human condition through the qualification of anxiety in The Concept of Anxiety, whereas Anti-Climacus analyzes the human existential task through the qualification of despair in The Sickness unto Death. In each of these texts defiance becomes one psychological possibility available to humans in the individual development of the self. In The Sickness unto Death defiance is a form of despair, or what is the same for Anti-Climacus, a form of sin. “Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair.”5 For Anti-Climacus defiance is a deeper, more reflective form of despair than the despair of weakness, and is therefore a deeper sin. Haufniensis also regards defiance as a “higher” phenomenon than material vices (since it is spiritual), which is to be repented.6 But Haufniensis does not separate defiance from weakness by means of a choice. For him defiance is either a proud or cowardly response to the loss of inwardness or earnestness. The active-passive expression for the loss of earnestness Haufniensis calls “the defiance of melancholy” (pride)7 and the passive-active expression he calls “the defiance of frivolity and witticism” (weakness).8 Whereas in The Concept of Anxiety pride and weakness are aspects of the concept of defiance, in The Sickness unto Death weakness and defiance are aspects of the concept of despair. In The Sickness unto Death defiance involves an affront to God and an affront to the self that is not possible for the despair of weakness. However, Anti-Climacus insists that defiance is implicated to some degree in the despair of weakness. He writes, “No despair is entirely free of defiance; indeed, the very phrase ‘not to will to be’ implies defiance.”9 He also notes how the most extreme form of defiance is not without weakness.10 In this respect Anti-Climacus agrees with the pseudonymous author of The Concept of Anxiety that the two forms are dialectically related. Anti-Climacus also genders the forms of despair so that despair in weakness (not to will to be oneself) is called feminine, while despair in defiance (to will to be oneself) is designated the masculine form. The distinction is further explained SKS 11, 191 / SUD, 77. SKS 4, 418 / CA, 116. SKS 4, 446 / CA, 146. SKS 4, 446 / CA, 146–7. SKS 11, 164 / SUD, 49. 10 Ibid. 7 8 9 5 6

Defiance

141

by claiming that feminine nature is devotedness and “givingness,” whereas the masculine is contrasted by a more egotistical and possessive concept of self.11 It is the egotistical and possessive qualities that are characteristic of defiance. Neither the masculine nor the feminine form of despair is preferable since both forms remain despair. Although Kierkegaard’s gendered categories no longer reflect our understanding of gender satisfactorily, it is important to note that all persons are capable of both forms of despair depending on the level of reflection and inwardness of the individual. Anti-Climacus insists, “I am far from denying that women may have forms of masculine despair and, conversely, that men may have forms of feminine despair,” but he cannot resist adding that “these are exceptions.”12 Defiance is gendered here only as a heuristic device; its essence as a form of despair pertains to the human person as such, and operates regardless of gender. Defiance is a qualification of will that focuses on itself as despairing. Defiance is beyond the weakness of not willing to be oneself, but does not reach as far as demonic “inclosing reserve”13—“the most intensive form of the despair.”14 Before defiance can assert itself a certain psychology must be in place and a certain dialectic must already be at work. According to Anti-Climacus, it is not possible for the immediate person to be defiant (consciously). Instead, the despair of weakness must first become manifest. This self despairs over being a self that knows it exists as a tension between the finite and the infinite, necessity and freedom, the temporal and eternal. It despairs over being a self that is composed, in part, of necessity, and therefore confronted with obstacles seemingly beyond its control; and it despairs over its capability or propensity for weakness and sin. If this despair is intensified it can become defiance.15 The despair that takes the form “to will not to be oneself” chooses another form: “to will to be oneself.” This is the form of defiance. But the form of defiance is ultimately very close to the form of existence that is not despair. Defiance is the despair that comes through the aid of the eternal, but “the despair that is the thoroughfare to faith comes also through the aid of the eternal.”16 Through the eternal one can have the courage to lose oneself in order to win oneself, or, in defiance, the self can choose not “to begin with losing itself but wills to be itself.”17 The difference is a matter for choice and faith. The latter choice is extended to an association of defiance with self-creation. For Anti-Climacus, the defiant self “wants to be master of itself or to create itself, to make his self into the self he wants to be, to determine what he will have or not have in his concrete self.”18 As a consequence, this individual “does not want to see his given self as a task—he himself wants to compose his self by means of being the infinite form.”19 A defiant self refuses to recognize itself as a relation SKS 11, 164 / SUD, 49–50. SKS 11, 164 / SUD, 49. 13 SKS 11, 177, 186 / SUD, 63, 72–3. 14 SKS 11, 186 / SUD, 73. 15 SKS 11, 180 / SUD, 66. 16 SKS 11, 181 / SUD, 67. 17 Ibid. 18 SKS 11, 182 / SUD, 68. 19 Ibid. 11

12

David Lappano

142

that is established by another, and it “recognizes no power above itself.”20 Although defiance delights in its belief about itself, Kierkegaard claims that this remains despair since earnestness regarding its composite nature is essentially lacking in this subjectivity. Yet willing to be oneself in defiance falls short of willing to be oneself through demonic “inclosing reserve.” Of the latter, Anti-Climacus says: Not even in defiance [i Trods] or defiantly [trodsigt] does it will to be itself, but for spite [paa Trods]; not even in defiance [i Trods] does it want to tear itself loose from the power that established it, but for spite [paa Trods] wants to force itself upon it, to obtrude defiantly [paatrodse sig] upon it, wants to adhere to it out of malice—and of course, a spiteful [onskabsfuld] denunciation must above all take care to adhere to what it denounces.21

Earnestness is lacking in the defiant one who wishes to be, or claims to be, strong on his own, or strong without God. In Christian Discourses (1848) Kierkegaard challenges a common notion of strength and again makes the connection between weakness and defiance. He writes, “The one who is strong without God is in fact weak,” and the explanation is as follows: “God is the strong one to the degree to which he is all strength, is strength. Therefore, to be without God is to be without strength; to be strong without God is therefore to be strong—without strength.”22 Following this is another explanation of defiance: Defiance is in relation to worship what envy is in relation to admiration. Defiance is weakness and feebleness, is the unhappy relation of weakness and feebleness to superiority, just as envy tortures itself because it does not want to be what it basically is, admiration. What is required of the human being, which is already suggested in the relationship of admiration…is that he shall lose himself in wonder over God. If he does that with his whole heart, with all his strength, and with all his mind, then he is in a happy relationship with God as the strong one, then he worships.23

Again, defiance is described as the refusal to be a self and a denial of what a self is, rather than the assertion of a self. Psychologically, defiance is regarded as weakness rather than strength. Although defiance marks a separate form of despair from weakness in The Sickness unto Death, it remains conceptually attached to the notions of pride and cowardice—as it is described in The Concept of Anxiety. III. Defiance (Ethically) As a Position of Will Psychologically, defiance has been defined as a position of weakness, a refusal to be who one is. Existentially, or expressed socially, defiance is defined by will. Defiance first appears in Kierkegaard’s philosophical dissertation on irony. Early in the argument defiance and pride are listed as active positions that are not Ibid. SKS 11, 186 / SUD, 73. 22 SKS 10, 140 / CD, 130. 23 SKS 10, 142 / CD, 131–2. 20 21

Defiance

143

adequately treated by Greek philosophical thought.24 According to Kierkegaard, these concepts do not factor into the conceptual framework of active human life. Instead, in Kierkegaard’s analysis, Greek moral philosophy offers ignorance as the primary explanation for behavior that does not tend toward the good and the true. Faulty action is a direct result of faulty understanding. This critique of Greek moral philosophy receives more psychological attention in The Sickness unto Death. Anti-Climacus claims that since Christianity is primarily concerned with willing rather than knowing, it arrives at the concept of defiance rather than ignorance when giving an account of human action and ethics.25 The diagnosis from Greek philosophy states, “If a person does what is wrong, he has not understood what is right.”26 Therefore not doing the good is attributed to a lack of ability or lack of knowledge. Anti-Climacus suggests that Christianity presents an alternative account of the human social situation and the human condition. Christianity “goes a little further back and says that [a person does not do the good] because he is unwilling to understand it, and this again because he does not will what is right,” and further still, “a person does what is wrong (essentially defiance) even though he understands what is right, or he refrains from doing what is right even though he understands it.”27 Defiance comes on the scene ethically in the distinction between being able to act and being willing to act. Defiance gets translated from the inner (to will to be oneself in despair) to the outer (willing not to act ethically, or to will against the good). IV. Defiance and Kierkegaard’s Polemics It is also important to consider where, and at what points in the authorship, Kierkegaard does not use the term “defiance.” In the journalistic essays of his student years where he opposed the free press movement, Kierkegaard’s polemic against the liberal newspapers never describes the movement as defiant. Although this movement was in fact challenging and defying various press laws, Kierkegaard abstains from the language of defiance (Trods), disobedience (Ulydighed ), weakness (Svaghed ), and pride (Stolthed ). One reason for this is that Kierkegaard judged that political endeavor to be too aesthetic, too lacking in depth and reflection to be considered defiant. Similarly, in A Literary Review of Two Ages defiance does not appear. There, envy and indolence stand in for weakness and pride, but defiance is not mentioned among the many pejorative adjectives Kierkegaard employs to describe the modern age. Reflection, which is a target of the whole critique, bears affinity to the category of defiance—understood as weakness and pride. By reflection Kierkegaard does not mean thoughtfulness or enquiry, but rather a kind of rationalizing activity that allows the individual and even communities to abstain from any committed or decisive action whether socially and politically, or existentially and spiritually. SKS 1, 121 / CI, 61. SKS 11, 206 / SUD, 93. 26 SKS 11, 207 / SUD, 95. 27 Ibid. 24 25

David Lappano

144

It is in the age of reflection—what Kierkegaard calls his present age—that envy and indolence are the defining characteristics. Kierkegaard writes of the present age that it is “a sensible, reflecting age, devoid of passion, flaring up in superficial, short-lived enthusiasm and prudently relaxing in indolence.”28 Indolence and envy parallel Haufniensis’ discussion of pride/cowardice, which prefigured defiance in The Concept of Anxiety. Cowardice “manifests its pride by shrinking, as well as by taking into account the fact that it has never suffered a defeat.”29 This in turn becomes the “passive-active” expression of the defiance of frivolity and witticism.30 In A Literary Review we find a similar affliction still applying to the individual but also extending to society as a whole. Indolence and envy encourage constant reinterpretation of events and actions in such a way as to deflect attention away from an individual in order to avoid an essential decision. An event or action, in this case, is always held at arms’ length, at a safe distance because what a person comes to fear more than anything is “reflection’s objection” to any venture, to be shown to be wrong.31 Kierkegaard states that reflection of this sort “turns into the principle of characterlessness, slyly sneaking up out of dispute to make something of itself but constantly covering up by conceding that it is nothing at all.”32 As a result, people elect “to be nobodies in order to become a public”33 and having arrogated to themselves the category of “public” they “fancy themselves greater than kings.”34 These examples from A Literary Review resemble Haufniensis’ discussion of pride and cowardice, Anti-Climacus’ description of inclosing reserve, and Kierkegaard’s comments in the Christian Discourses regarding being strong without strength. Despite a clear conceptual link between defiance as weakness and pride, and reflection as indolence and envy, the description of the present age does not resemble defiance as the inwardness that wills to be itself. If the present age is defiant, it is not defiant in that psychological sense. Rather, the absence of true existential defiance suggests to Kierkegaard that the age is spiritually incapable of genuine revolution or reformation, because it does not exhibit the passion and psychology required for such action. If the description of defiance in The Sickness unto Death is followed, then it is not surprising that “defiance” is omitted from the cultural analysis of Kierkegaard’s present age. In the fifth issue of The Moment there is an article titled, “A Rebellion in Defiance—a Rebellion in Hypocrisy or About the Fall from Christianity.” Here defiance is a recognizable part of human nature along with sagacity.35 Kierkegaard does not provide his reader with a detailed, philosophical, or psychological explanation in these pamphlets. The intention is polemical, and what is at stake for Kierkegaard is how Christendom expresses Christianity. For him Christendom 30 31 32 33 34 35 28 29

SKS 8, 66 / TA, 68. SKS 4, 445 / CA, 145. SKS 4, 446 / CA, 146–7. SKS 8, 82 / TA, 85. SKS 8, 80 / TA, 83. SKS 8, 89 / TA, 94. SKS 8, 89 / TA, 93. SKS 13, 239 / M, 189.

Defiance

145

represents the human desire for defiance against God, but as defiance it is impotent and so resorts to a rebellion in hypocrisy.36 Kierkegaard writes: When there is something that does not please the human being, he sagaciously looks to see whether the power that is in command is weaker than the opposing power that he can command. If he is convinced of that, the rebellion is made in defiance. But if the power that commands what does not please the human being is so superior to him that he unconditionally despairs of rebelling in defiance—then he resorts to hypocrisy.37

Since the requirements of Christianity are, according to Kierkegaard, so difficult and dreadful, if they were established by any worldly authority the sensible human response to such an order would be to rebel in defiance. Yet, for Kierkegaard, “God is a power against whom one cannot rebel in defiance.”38 The key point here is the essential asymmetry in the relation between God and humanity. Since there is no possibility of rebelling against God in defiance, what remains is despair over defiance. Alternatively, if the asymmetry is denied, then defiance is not despairing but proud anti-theism. But instead of assuredly defying God, Christendom has instead “falsified the concept of what it means to be a Christian.”39 At this juncture defiance, if it actually existed in Christendom, would resemble earnestness and depth of subjectivity rather than its absence. Yet, Kierkegaard decries how his age does not have the courage and honesty to defy Christianity’s requirement, but instead he accuses his age of being hypocritical and dubious. He writes, “To make a fool of God is not dubious, but to do it under the name of worshiping him is dubious; to want to abolish Christianity is not dubious, but it is dubious to abolish Christianity under the name of propagating it.”40 Kierkegaard’s final discussion of defiance speaks to the concepts of integrity and earnestness with respect to the religious: there is a kind of defiance with integrity and a kind without. Either there is an honest and open defiance against God, denying God’s qualitative difference (a position of anti-theism) or there is defiant despair over humanity’s ability to confront its divine requirements and divine relationship. Both expressions of defiance contain pride and weakness, as explained by Anti-Climacus. However, in The Moment, Kierkegaard suggests that the anti-theistic form of defiance is the more noble form, since it actually takes God seriously, rather than simply trying to avoid the difficulty of relation. Psychologically, defiance is dialectically related to weakness and pride. For defiance to truly become possible there must be enough depth of subjectivity for the self to confront itself as eternal and then will to be oneself in such a way that it wants to be master of itself. Ethically, defiance is expressed as will, which, although fully able to understand the good, wills to act contrary to the good. Finally, by surveying Kierkegaard’s polemical literature and the absence of defiance within it, the present

Ibid. Ibid. 38 SKS 13, 239 / M, 190. 39 Ibid. 40 SKS 13, 241–2 / M, 190–1. 36 37

146

David Lappano

age is judged to be too aesthetic or spiritless to be able to demonstrate an authentic state of defiance, in the spiritual sense. See also Anxiety; Despair; Earnestness; Envy; Evil; Guilt; Qualitative Difference; Sin.

Demonic William McDonald

Demonic (det Dæmoniske—noun; dæmonisk—adjective) Both the English and Danish words derive from the Greek δαίμων, meaning a (lesser) god or spirit.1 The Greek noun stems from the verb δαίομαι, originally meaning “to allocate or distribute.”2 In Kierkegaard’s time the connotation was usually of something diabolical.3 Kierkegaard frequently hypostatizes the demonic in the form of an abstract noun, det Dæmoniske, to denote the essence of being demonic. The demonic belongs with the cluster of concepts that include melancholy, anxiety and despair. It occurs from early journal entries (1837) to late journal entries (1854),4 and from The Concept of Irony to The Sickness unto Death. Like these related concepts, the demonic is a category with which Kierkegaard tried to diagnose his own psyche and existential condition, but which he refined analytically for more general application. The notion of the demonic is introduced through its incarnations in literature, folklore, music, and the Bible. Examples include the figures of Don Juan, Faust, Mephistopheles, Shakespeare’s Gloucester (later Richard III), and the demons exorcised by Christ. Socrates’ daimonion, while related, belongs to a different category. The demonic also finds incarnations in Kierkegaard’s own literary inventions, such as the merman in Fear and Trembling and Quidam in Stages on Life’s Way, as well as in pseudonymous points of view such as those of the aesthete A and Constantin Constantius. Even Anti-Climacus is described as demonic, since he confuses himself with ideality.5 The demonic is characterized more generally, in The Concept of Anxiety, as “anxiety about the good.”6 For Kierkegaard, anxiety about the good is understood in Christian terms. His paradigmatic example is Christ’s exorcisms of those suffering demonic possession.7 The demons fear the goodness incarnate in Christ and are expelled by his presence.8 Christian spirit and Christian goodness come to be understood as principles by what they exclude. This explains the close relationship between the demonic, Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, column 1250. 2 Niels Åge Nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1966, p. 451. 3 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 3, column 1251. 4 SKS 17, 244, DD:69 / JP 1, 133. SKS 26, 79, NB31:104 / JP 4, 3835. 5 SKS 22, 130, NB11:209 / JP 6, 6433. 6 SKS 4, 420 / CA, 118. 7 For example, Matthew 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–20; Luke 8:26–39. 8 SKS 4, 421 / CA, 119. 1

148

William McDonald

the diabolical, and the sensuous (det Sandselige), since they are all excluded by Christian spirit. Don Juan, especially in his instantiation as Mozart’s Don Giovanni, represents the immediate, sensuous form of the demonic. As the force that reverberates in every note of Mozart’s opera, he is the incarnation of the sensuous erotic. Because music’s essential theme is the sensuous-erotic, “music is the demonic.”9 But because Don Giovanni is “a force of nature,” unreflectively immersed in immediate, sensate existence, he is not the most dangerous form of the demonic excluded by Christianity. Faust comes closer to that position. Faust is characterized as “a demonic figure [Dæmon] like a Don Juan, but a superior one.”10 He is more removed from Christianity because he is conscious of having lost a world of innocence, and seeks to distract himself from this loss by immersing himself in the sensuous. “What he is seeking, therefore, is not only the pleasure of the sensuous but the immediacy of the spirit.”11 Furthermore, Faust is tempted into his pursuit of the sensuous and of immediacy by the wiles of the diabolical Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles, by means of a mirror—a medium of reflection—displays the innocent Margarete to Faust’s sensual desire.12 Innocence, understood as spiritual immediacy, is represented to Faust as something outside of himself and as a temptation—about whose attainment he becomes anxious. But this is precisely the demonic as “anxiety about the good.” Spiritual immediacy is not properly an object of desire; rather, the Christian ideal is to strive for a “higher immediacy” as a task. Johannes the Seducer is like a Faust, only a superior one. He has gone astray even further in the realm of reflection and has no need of an external demon to aid his seductions. He is his own Mephistopheles. This is made explicit in a planned sequel to “The Seducer’s Diary”—called “The Seducer’s Diary No. 2: A Venture in the Demonic by Johannes Mephistopheles.”13 Johannes, like Mephistopheles, manipulates others to destruction for his own amusement. He uses silence, sudden changes of mood and behavior, and secrecy as instruments of manipulation. He is abruptly unpredictable, lacks ethical continuity, and is closed off from other people in his narcissistic games. Just as “the devil for 3,000 years sat and speculated on how to destroy man,”14 Johannes plans his seductions in the brooding, inclosing reserve of the demonic. Just as the suddenness and silent brooding of Mephistopheles are best represented aesthetically in mime,15 Johannes’ seductiveness is best represented in his silent sideways glance.16 But Kierkegaard did not pursue the sequel to “The Seducer’s Diary.” Instead, he transposed the notion of the demonic from a purely aesthetic context into SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 65. SKS 2, 201 / EO1, 206. 11 Ibid. 12 SKS 2, 202 / EO1, 207. 13 SKS 18, 199, JJ:183 / JP 5, 5705. 14 SKS 4, 432 / CA, 131. 15 Ibid. 16 SKS 2, 307 / EO1, 316. 9



10

Demonic

149

increasingly ethical and religious modes of “anxiety for the good.” Whereas the aesthetic celebrates hiddenness, the ethical demands openness and communion in continuity with the universal. Therefore, someone who from birth has been set outside the universal, to become an object for everyone’s pity, “is the beginning of the demonic.”17 Such a person might turn either towards evil or towards good. Shakespeare’s Gloucester (Richard III) is an example of demonic evil, “hating and cursing existence, revenging himself upon the universally human.”18 If one turns towards good, one’s life will be a perpetual self-sacrifice, yet for this to succeed the exceptional individual will have to be spared becoming an object of pity, since this “tempts one to rebel against God” like nothing else.19 The dialectic of universal and exception continues in Fear and Trembling, but is inflected into the dialectic between silence and disclosure by Johannes de silentio. Despite the demands of ethics, “secrecy and silence make a man great simply because they are qualifications of inwardness.”20 Silence can be either divine or demonic, since it is “the demon’s trap” but also “divinity’s mutual understanding with the single individual.”21 The individual needs to avoid being caught up in the garrulous, empty chatter of the crowd in order to take language and thought seriously, inwardly, but also needs to avoid demonic inclosing reserve (Indesluttethed ) in which he or she defiantly cuts off all communication with others. Johannes de silentio considers the contrasting cases of Abraham and the merman, in which the demands of universality are suspended—either divinely or demonically. There is a parallel between the demonic and the divine in that the single individual is able to enter into an absolute relation with either, thereby making the single individual higher than the universal.22 Abraham’s willingness to obey the command of God to sacrifice Isaac is ultimately perceived—by faith—to be a justified teleological suspension of the ethical. The merman’s failure to disclose himself to Agnes, by contrast, is demonic. In Johannes de silentio’s version of the tale, the merman’s demonic drive to seduce is undone by the trusting innocence of Agnes—his potential victim. At this point two forces struggle within the merman: “repentance, and Agnes and repentance. If repentance alone gets him, then he is hidden; if Agnes and repentance get him, then he is disclosed.”23 If he remains hidden, then he will make Agnes unhappy—which in turn will make him even unhappier, through guilt. This is “the demonic in repentance…and the more it torments him, the better.”24 It may even lead him to try to save Agnes, by repelling her with ridicule, by belittling her, and by arousing her pride: “He will spare himself no anguish, for this is the deep contradiction in the demonic, and in a certain sense there is ever so much more good in a demoniac than in superficial people.”25 The convoluted meta-reflections and SKS 20, 161, NB2:53 / JP 4, 4599. Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 SKS 4, 177 / FT, 88. 21 SKS 4, 178 / FT, 88. 22 SKS 4, 186 / FT, 97. 23 SKS 4, 185 / FT, 96. 24 SKS 4, 186 / FT, 96. 25 Ibid. 17 18

150

William McDonald

masochistic indulgence in anguish are quintessentially demonic, especially when they are not communicated. Yet repentance, together with Agnes, can save the merman from the demonic. On the one hand, he can disclose himself to Agnes, thereby returning to the universal. On the other hand, he can recognize that “the divine will save Agnes,” thereby renouncing his absolute relation to the demonic and instead acknowledging an absolute relation to the absolute.26 Repentance provides the possibility of a transition from the aesthetic to the ethical and religious spheres since it is the beginning of a personal relationship to God. But if the individual stops short, withdrawing into “the bondage of repentance” without making the further movement “by virtue of the absurd” to have faith that for God everything (including forgiveness) is possible, he or she is lost in demonic repentance.27 Quidam is another “demoniac…in the direction of the religious.”28 Quidam’s diary, found by Frater Taciturnus, is locked in a box with the key inside—from the outset a symbol of inclosing reserve.29 In his “Letter to the Reader” Frater Taciturnus explains that Quidam is stuck at the frontier between the aesthetic and the religious because he is “unable to take himself back in repentance.”30 He is caught in a paradox in which he can neither begin to repent properly nor let the act of repentance go.31 He is unable to assume his guilt clearly, because he is unsure of the object of his sin. Instead of actually beginning to repent, he plays dialectically with the possibilities of sin and repentance. This causes him endless misery, which he takes to be repentance, and he refuses demonically to let go of his misery. He encloses himself with his tortuous dialectic of self-questioning and never opens himself to the possibility of forgiveness or healing.32 The most thorough and explicit discussion of the demonic occurs in The Concept of Anxiety.33 There it is identified as “anxiety about the good.” The good can be understood as innocence, freedom, continuity in selfhood, the ethical demand for transparency and communication, truth, earnest inwardness, faith, love, eternity, redemption, salvation, and God. With respect to each of these forms of the good, the demonic can be anxious since they present possible alternatives to willful inclosing reserve.34 This anxiety may be viewed ethically, as something to be condemned; aesthetically-metaphysically, as misfortune or fate; or medically-therapeutically, as purely psychological or somatic. This variety of possible viewpoints suggests that the demonic belongs in all these spheres, and is bound up with the fact of that the human being is a synthesis of the psychic, the somatic and the pneumatic.35 Since this synthesis is a task for spirit, which only begins with self-alienation, innocence SKS 4, 187–8 / FT, 98. SKS 4, 188–9 / FT, 99–100. 28 SKS 6, 369 / SLW, 398. 29 SKS 6, 177 / SLW, 189. 30 SKS 6, 413 / SLW, 447. 31 SKS 6, 416–17 / SLW, 451–2. 32 Ibid. 33 SKS 4, 420–54 / CA, 118–54. 34 SKS 4, 421 / CA, 119. 35 SKS 4, 421–4 / CA, 120–2. 26 27

Demonic

151

can never be demonic,36 though the demonic can be anxious about innocence (as was the case with Faust). Since the synthesis is also of the finite and the infinite, freedom and necessity, the temporal and the eternal, the refusal or failure to find an equilibrium among these contradictory elements and the refusal to acknowledge the power that posits their synthesis as a task for spirit, are also demonic. So, for example, the denial of the eternal in a person is demonic.37 Refusal to reconcile the temporal and eternal earnestly in the moment of repetition, to affirm continuity in one’s life, is demonic—and is expressed by sudden change.38 Denial of the spiritual in a person by absolute elevation of the sensuous is demonic (as is the case with Don Juan). Even someone developed to the point of sin-consciousness can be demonic. Sin-consciousness requires spirit, an ethical and religious point of view, and acknowledgement of God. But if such an individual despairs over sin, “there may be a new intensification, a new demonic closing up within himself.”39 The demonic here consists in losing “all relation to grace—and also to himself,”40 thereby having the good outside as an anxious possibility. The demonic inverts the truth, loves its sickness and fears the remedy.41 What it celebrates as freedom is unfreedom (for example, flight from boredom); what it desires in love is self-love; what it constructs as a self is despairing discontinuity; what it pursues as communication is indirect communication. While a certain amount of indirect communication might be necessary to deceive someone into the truth, or to maneuver the reader into a position where he or she can choose freely, “unqualified indirect communication” is demonic when used by anyone other than the Godman.42 When a human being uses indirect communication it is always to some extent demonic—but not necessarily in a bad sense.43 Socrates, for example, used indirect communication in the service of his daimonion. The “demonic” in Socrates is a force midway between an external divinity and an internal determination of subjectivity and is distinct from the will.44 Socrates’ demonic irony serves as midwife at the birth of his interlocutors’ subjectivity, by constantly forcing them to take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions. Since Socrates is pre-Christian, he cannot be demonic in the same sense as those who are anxious about the (Christianly-conceived) good. But there are interesting parallels, sketched as early as The Concept of Irony, which presage the later analysis of the demonic as “inclosing reserve.” In his dissertation Kierkegaard analyzes Socrates’ daimonion as “a qualification of personality, but of course only the egotistical satisfaction of one particular personality. Here again Socrates proves to be one who is ready to leap into something but never in the relevant moment does SKS 4, 424 / CA, 122. SKS 4, 451 / CA, 151–2. 38 Cf. Mephistopheles’ sudden leap. SKS 4, 432–3 / CA, 131–2. 39 SKS 11, 222 / SUD, 110. 40 Ibid. 41 SKS 25, 457, NB30:88 / JP 1, 733. 42 SKS 21, 79, NB7:8 / JP 2, 1958. 43 SKS 23, 471–3, NB20:152 / JP 2, 1959. 44 SKS 1, 213 / CI, 163–4. 36 37

William McDonald

152

leap into this next thing but leaps aside and back into himself.”45 This sounds very much like someone enclosed in himself, though tempted to communicate, to leap out of himself. Moreover, Socrates refused ethical communion with his contemporaries, especially through his “negative relation to the established order.”46 In rejecting the established order, Socrates “inclosed himself within himself, egotistically confined himself within himself.”47 Here we have an adumbration of the very language later used to characterize the demonic. Kierkegaard took Socrates as a model for his method of indirect communication, his maieutic irony, and his critical challenge to his times. Yet from the start he saw the demonic element in Socrates. It was not until late in his own writing career that he clearly saw the demonic in his own practice of indirect communication and resorted to the direct critiques of his contemporaries in The Moment. Kierkegaard’s “authorship” can be read as, among other things, an extended indirect communication to his jilted fiancée Regine Olsen. This is attested not only by the myriad variations on stories of broken engagements and sacrificed relationships, but also by the fact that Kierkegaard had special copies of his works bound for presentation to Regine. His all-too-human practice of indirect communication, his melancholic “inclosing reserve,” his struggles with repentance, his convoluted metareflections in the guise of dialectics, his self-identification as the Socrates of his time, and his conclusion that the only salvation is in love and faith by means of grace all point to his demonic propensities and his drive to overcome them. See also Absolute; Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Anxiety; Communication/Indirect Communication; Despair; Duty; Ethics; Evil; God; Good; Faith; Immediacy/ Reflection; Inwardness/Inward Deepening; Love; Melancholy; Personality; Religious/Religiousness; Repentance; Self; Silence; Spirit; Stages.

47 45 46

SKS 1, 214 / CI, 166. SKS 1, 217 / CI, 168. SKS 1, 217 / CI, 168–9.

Desire Nathaniel Kramer

Desire (Lyst—noun; Begjær—noun; begjære—verb; Attraa—noun; attraae—verb) Lyst is derived from the Old Norse losti, German and English lust, and Gothic lustus. The lexical meaning of Lyst is a strong or intense inclination or erotic desire. However, such a feeling may be mental as well as physical. Lyst may also describe a feeling of joy or happiness as well as satisfaction and pleasure or whatever creates such a feeling of satisfaction and contentment. Lyst is often used with prepositions and often in such contexts means something like a wish or pleasure or delight and not necessarily desire.1 Begjær (or Begjer, modern spelling begær) is derived from the medieval Low German beger(e) and the Old New Danish begær(e)—compare to the German Begehr. The lexical meaning of the word, often synonymous with Lyst, also indicates a strong feeling, especially an erotic or sexual desire. Begjær may also indicate the object or goal of such a feeling. The term may also describe a strong demand or desire for something, such as a product or a good as well as an urge or need to acquire or achieve something or an intense longing or aspiration that demands satisfaction. Also the form Begjæring can appear in the same sense as Begjær.2 Attraa is a compound word formed from at (to) and the Danish Traa and is cognate with the English verb to attract. The lexical meaning of the word is exactly the same as Begjær but Attraa is used exclusively in the written language.3 A final word does bear mention in the context of desire. Concupiscence (Concupiscents) is used by Kierkegaard as it also connotes desire, but its Latin form concupiscentia is used only in a Christian theological context, usually in discussion of the Christian myth of the Fall. Kierkegaard’s exploration of the concepts indicated by these terms occurs in a relatively discrete number of texts. Lyst occurs the most frequently of the terms, and is found most often in Stages on Life’s Way and in both parts of Either/Or. It is also found in Works of Love, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as well as with some frequency in Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Begjær and its various spellings are primarily found in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Christian Discourses, Stages on Life’s Way, Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 27, columns 1623–8. 2 Ibid., vol. 2, columns 168–70. 3 Ibid., vol. 1, columns 945–7. 1

154

Nathaniel Kramer

and both parts of Either/Or. Attraa is found in The Concept of Irony and primarily Either/Or Part One. Concupiscence and concupiscentia are found exclusively in The Concept of Anxiety. That the most frequent occurrences of all these forms of desire would be found in the two volumes of Either/Or and Stages on Life’s Way, is perhaps not surprising. Insofar as both works take up the idea of love, primarily erotic love and love in marriage as a more spiritual synthesis, these two works deal extensively with the idea of desire. In the section of the first part of Either/Or, titled “The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical Erotic,” the aesthete A explores three possible relations to desire as illustrated by three of Mozart’s operas. The first stage is explored through the opera The Marriage of Figaro, the second through The Magic Flute, and the third through Don Giovanni. According to A, the opera Don Giovanni represents the culmination of the aesthetic conception of desire as indicated by the overture: “powerful like a god’s idea, turbulent like a world’s life, harrowing in its earnestness, palpitating in its desire, crushing in its terrible wrath, animating in its full-blooded joy; it is hollow-toned in its judgment, shrill in its lust; it is ponderous, ceremonious in its awe-inspiring dignity; it is stirring, flaring, dancing in its delight.”4 Before turning to a fuller treatment of Don Giovanni as the synthesis of desire’s dialectic, A elaborates, in the second stage of desire figured by Papageno, on the necessity of an object. Desire, in order to be desire, requires an object. “Desire awakens….This awakening in which desire awakens, this jolt, separates desire and its object, gives desire an object. A dialectical qualification that must be strictly maintained is this: only when there is an object is there desire; only when there is desire is there an object.”5 Desire in this case is the Danish Attraa and therefore must be understood as precisely an erotic, sexual desire. However, A characterizes this desire as of a second order in that it is a desire that seeks after an object external to itself by which it might be satisfied. If the first stage is characterized by A as “dreaming” in which the object has not yet been found, figured in the Page from The Marriage of Figaro, desire finds its object in The Magic Flute. However, in both of these cases, A argues, desire has not yet arrived as such in its dialectical progression. Not until Don Giovanni do we arrive at desire’s dialectical synthesis. Don Juan figures as the highest form of such desire precisely because the object that he desires is fundamentally different from all the rest. The highest stage of desire according to the aesthete, at least in this series of discussions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, is to desire desire itself. Such a desire in all its utter abstractness returns the aesthete (and Don Juan as the paradigmatic figure of such desire) necessarily back to the desiring subject. Thus the subject becomes the object of his own desire, or more correctly, desire becomes its own object. The figure of Don Juan is the epitome of just such a desire, since Don Juan desires beyond the practice of mere seduction: “He desires, and this desire acts seductively. To this extent he does seduce. He enjoys the satisfaction of desire; as soon as he has enjoyed it, he seeks a new object, and so it goes on indefinitely.”6 6 4 5

SKS 2, 129 / EO1, 127. The Danish is Lyst. SKS 2, 86 / EO1, 79–80. The Danish is Attraa. SKS 2, 98 / EO1, 99.

Desire

155

Throughout the first volume of Either/Or as well as Stages on Life’s Way the preoccupation with the nature of erotic love and the nature of desire for a woman or women takes many forms. One of the more noteworthy constructions is the connection of desire to sight or to the act of looking. Johannes in “The Seducer’s Diary” expresses a desire to “review” the servant girls strolling through the Deer Park: “I could spend the whole day walking around the streets and lanes and delight in the pleasures of the eyes.”7 The Danish is a more compact phrase that might be rendered the “desire of the eye” (Øiets Lyst). The idea of the eye as an organ of desire is expressed several times in “The Seducer’s Diary” as well as in the second part of Either/Or. Judge William offers a more critical stance on the aesthete’s vision of desire: “your greedy eye devours…without being satisfied, but that is because the eye is the last to be satisfied, especially when one, like you, is not hungry but merely suffers a lust of the eye that cannot be appeased.”8 In contrast to such optical insatiability, Judge William offers an object of desire that cannot be seen, namely the hiddenness of the individual. Such insatiability runs contrary to the restraint of Judge William’s ethics but also founders on the inability to choose or desire the correct object: one’s self. Johannes’ very conception of woman is in fact founded upon the idea that woman is in and of herself essentially an object of desire. In “The Seducer’s Diary,” Johannes writes: “As being-for-other, woman is characterized by pure virginity. That is virginity is a being that, insofar as it is being-for-itself, is actually an abstraction that manifests itself only for-other.”9 Johannes’ description of virginity claims that woman is not a being in herself until she has become aware of her sexuality and thus an object for a man’s desire. Even the Young Man in “In Vino Veritas,” who renounces erotic love because “all desire is selfish,” does not renounce it on ethical grounds. Rather, the Young Man argues that erotic love is fundamentally physical and biological. In such desire “the species triumphs over the individuals, the species is victorious while individuals are subordinated to being in its service.”10 It should be noted, however, that even where the more physical dimensions of desire are obvious and apparent, Lyst always carries with it the idea that such intense feelings are also, or may well be, as mental as they are physical. Opposed to Johannes’ more aesthetic conception of desire, Judge William offers marriage and a form of desire rooted in what he calls resolution, an ethical devotion to another. In Stages on Life’s Way, Judge William claims “erotic love, then, is not satisfied with being self-confident but in its daredevilry attempts that ‘You shall!’ that marriage, then, has a resolution that is the one and only wish, an eternal duty that is the eye’s delight and the heart’s desire!”11 Judge William’s critique of the aesthete’s position on erotic desire is rather pointed in Either/Or when he critiques the aesthetic life-view: “It teaches ‘Enjoy life’ and interprets it as ‘Live for your desire.’ But desire per se is multiplicity, and thus it is easy to see that this life splits 9 7 8



10 11

SKS 2, 401 / EO1, 413. SKS 3, 181 / EO2, 176. SKS 2, 418 / EO1, 430. SKS 6, 46 / SLW, 43. SKS 6, 106 / SLW, 111. Judge William uses here both Lyst and Begjering.

156

Nathaniel Kramer

up into a boundless multiplicity.”12 Such sensual immediacy, according to Judge William, ultimately leads to “hysteria of spirit.” Judge William’s argument that the aesthetic life-view is a pathological form of desire leads, interestingly enough, to an opposition between the moment (Momentet) and the instant (Øieblikket). The satisfaction of desire can only pertain to the moment while restraint, or the refusal of simply satisfying one’s desire, belongs to the instant. If erotic desire for the other motivates the possibility of a relationship, Judge William insists that desire must become something else, a higher form of desire. This notion is made manifest in “In Vino Veritas” in Stages on Life’s Way when the club members depart from their late meeting and chance upon Judge William and his wife sitting in an arbor (Lysthus). Peering through the windows, they witness the exchanges between Judge William and his wife before the club members finally leave them to their domestic tranquility. Whereas “In Vino Veritas” had discussed the pleasures of infatuation and the immediacy of falling in love—desire in its aesthetic sense—Judge William argues in favor of the experience of love in marriage, which is “directly proportionate to the delight of infatuation,” and asks, “was this not just as praiseworthy, just as strong an expression of falling in love?”13 Judge William’s most significant examinations of aesthetic desire occur towards the middle of the section titled “Balance Between the Aesthetic and the Ethical” in Either/Or, Part Two. For all his critique of the aesthetic notion of desire, Judge William argues that the true object of desire, and ultimately the only ethical one, is oneself. The aesthete’s desire dissipates into multiplicity precisely because the object of desire is always outside of oneself. Hence the pursuit of amorous pleasure, even in the case of Don Juan, who desires desiring, only leads away from oneself and thus cannot be satisfied. It is only with one’s own self as the object of desire that a truly ethical sense of desire can be achieved. As might be expected of a religious writer like Kierkegaard, desire is often employed in a more spiritual context as well. In Christian Discourses, for example, Kierkegaard writes that “the lowly Christian’s aspiration is only to dare in life and in death to appropriate his name or to be named after him.”14 “His name” here refers to Christ, and the Christian’s only desire (Begjæring) is to take on the name of Christ. Even in its more spiritual uses, desire can be seen as competing with the will of God. In one of the edifying discourses, Kierkegaard writes: “With humble prayers, with burning zeal (Begjering), you tried, as it were, to tempt God: This wish is so important to me; everything depends on it—my joy, my peace, my future; for me it is so very important; for God it is so easy, since he, after all, is almighty. But it was not granted.”15 In an inversion of the desire or lust of the eye, Kierkegaard takes up this idea in the context of what was initially a good thing to behold but because of an inordinate desire now becomes sinful. In the edifying discourse “The Lord Gave, And The Lord Took Away,” Kierkegaard writes; “What had been his eyes’ delight, SKS 3, 178 / EO2, 183. SKS 6, 93 / SLW, 95. The expressions “delight of infatuation” and “falling in love” are both translations of the Danish Forelskelsens Lyst. 14 SKS 10, 53 / CD, 42. 15 SKS 5, 45 / EUD, 35. 12 13

Desire

157

his eyes craved to see again, and his ingratitude punished him by inducing him to believe it to be more beautiful than it had ever been.”16 What may have started out as a good becomes potentially destructive and even “the occasion for his perdition.” This craving or insatiable desire Kierkegaard calls a worm that hollows out the soul of the man. One therefore might have spiritual desires but one’s spiritual desires might also compete with the will of God or one’s more earthly, fleshy desires. Such “double mindedness” is expressed in “An Occasional Discourse” wherein Kierkegaard writes: “If a person is not to love the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life…then neither should he fear what is the world’s.”17 In fact, “An Occasional Discourse” takes up the issue of desire frequently but always frames desire in terms of the earthly, the mortal, and as such desire is always in competition with more spiritual pursuits. Indeed, desire is translated throughout the discourse as “lust.” Hence, Kierkegaard speaks of “the world and its lust,”18 “the pleasure of dancing,”19 “the pleasure of persuasion,”20 “the desire of your heart,”21 and more. In a modification of the rather rigid distinction drawn by Kierkegaard in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Works of Love offers a more nuanced view of desire, even earthly desire. In “Love is a Matter of Conscience” from Works of Love, Kierkegaard sees the potential danger in desire as not a matter of qualitative difference from the Christian but as a transgression of limits: In this way the heart must be bound. You who burn with the desire of erotic love or with the craving of friendship, please remember that what you say about freedom has never been denied by Christianity; but still there must first be this infinite boundedness if the beloved’s heart and if your heart is to be pure. Therefore, first the infinite boundedness, and then the talk about freedom can begin.22

Still, Kierkegaard insists here that the relationship to God is absolutely central for love to be love or desire to be desire: “However beautiful a relationship of love has been between two people or among man, however complete all their desire and all their bliss…if God and the relationship with God have been omitted, then this, in the Christian sense, has not been love but a mutually enchanting defraudation of love.”23 The Concept of Irony also pursues the idea of love in relation to desire. Following Socrates, Kierkegaard embarks on a definition of love that involves the idea of desire as inherently negative and oriented toward a lack: “Love is the want of and desire for what one does not have.”24 Kierkegaard explores the radical nothingness that Socratic irony and the Socratic definition of love then point to: “love is—because 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 16 17

SKS 5, 122 / EUD, 117. SKS 8, 162 / UD, 52. SKS 8, 142 / UD, 29. SKS 8, 125 / UD, 9. SKS 8, 149 / UD, 36. SKS 8, 229 / UD, 73. SKS 9, 150 / WL, 148–9. SKS 9, 111 / WL, 107. SKS 1, 106 / CI, 45. The Danish is Attraa.

158

Nathaniel Kramer

the addendum, that is longing, desire, is no definition, since it is merely a relation to something that is not given.”25 Socrates, according to Kierkegaard, defines love as “desire, want, etc.”26 The Danish here is Attraa and Socrates explains this desiring, wanting as essentially negative: one wants what one does not have. Hence desire as Kierkegaard explains is rooted in an experience of lacking something, the object that one so desires is precisely absent. This definition of desire fits with Kierkegaard’s broader project of explaining the nature of Socratic irony insofar as irony itself is oriented by such a lack. Irony, interestingly enough, is represented as desiring.27 Desire in this context becomes increasingly abstract wherein concepts themselves are portrayed as desiring or in which the notion of the dialectical relationship is described as desire. In The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard also rehearses Socrates’ exploration of the philosopher’s wish or desire to die so as to pursue genuine knowledge. The desire to be freed from the contingency of the body is understood to be a desire for death.28 Finally, concupiscence—defined in English as “inordinate desire”—is usually encountered in the context of Christian theology. Haufniensis’ discussion of concupiscence in The Concept of Anxiety is part of a broader examination of the Christian doctrine of original sin. Haufniensis’ attempt is not necessarily to give a theological description of the Fall, but rather a psychological one, and he sees the failure of accounting for the Fall psychologically as running aground on concupiscentia. Haufniensis notes that Protestants claim that human beings are born with concupiscence and hence that such inordinate desire is part of the human condition. By and large, Haufniensis follows this viewpoint, though his real concern is where such concupiscence comes from, insofar as it does not, according to him, arise from guilt and sin or the Fall but is in fact a determinant of these. In fact, the origin of concupiscence as well as anxiety is the fundamental question of the book. The Concept of Anxiety thus focuses on desire and the related issue of lack as integral features of the human condition. Desire in the Christian theological sense is an important part of Kierkegaard’s broader consideration of desire. See also Actuality; Being/Becoming; Dialectic; Experience; Identity/Difference; Immediacy/Reflection; Stages.

SKS 1, 107 / CI, 46. Ibid. 27 SKS 1, 258 / CI, 213. 28 SKS 1, 127 / CI, 68. Kierkegaard uses both Ønske and Lyst. 25 26

Despair William McDonald

Despair (Fortvivlelse—noun; fortvivle—verb) The Old Modern Danish (1500–1700) verb fortvivle is a loan word from the Middle Low German vortwivelen. Fortvivle corresponds to the modern German verzweifeln.1 The Danish lexical meaning is: a condition of deep psychic distress characterized by despondency, hopelessness and grief. It has a secondary meaning of desperation.2 It is worth noting that the Danish word contains the word for “doubt,” namely Tvivl, which comes from the Germanic twi-fla, meaning double.3 One meaning of the Danish prefix for is that the action of the verb to which it is appended is intensified to a ruinous extreme.4 In this case, fortvivle would be a ruinous doubting, or doublemindedness. The notion of despair, as a potential subject of writing, occurs in Kierkegaard’s journals as early as 1835. There it is found in his consideration of Don Juan, Faust, and Ahasverus or the Wandering Jew, whom he sees as incarnations, respectively, of desire, doubt, and despair.5 In 1839 Kierkegaard considered writing his dissertation on the topic of suicide, whose motive he took ultimately to be despair.6 In another journal entry devoted to consideration of acedia and tristitia both as illness and sin, Kierkegaard notes in the margin “this is what my father called: a quiet despair.”7 We gain some insight into the relation between fiction and autobiography, when this phrase of the father recurs in a section of Stages on Life’s Way entitled “A Quiet Despair.” There a mirror relation between father and son is described, in which the father sees himself as he has been, and the son sees himself as he will become: “And the father believed that he was responsible for his son’s depression, and the son believed that it was he who caused the father sorrow—but never a word was exchanged about this.”8 It is no accident that anxiety, which is a cognate notion to despair, is associated with inherited sin in The Concept of Anxiety. Melancholy, Niels Åge Nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1966, p. 112. 2 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 5, columns 1028–9. 3 Nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog, p. 431. 4 Cf. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 5, column 198. 5 Cf. SKS 19, 94, Not2:7 / JP 2, 1179; SKS 27, 134, Papir 140 / JP 1, 795. 6 SKS 18, 44, EE:116 / JP 5, 5393. 7 SKS 18, 44, EE:117 / JP 1, 740. 8 SKS 6, 187 / SLW, 200. 1

160

William McDonald

depression, anxiety, and despair—considered as psychological states—all seem to have been inherited by Kierkegaard from his father. The suffering they entail also motivated Kierkegaard to find ways of overcoming them—and, as a work of love, to pass these remedies on to his readers. The concept of despair is explored at length in three books: Either/Or, Part Two, Works of Love, and The Sickness unto Death. The differences in their respective conceptions of despair can be explained in terms of the points of view represented by their authors. Either/Or, Part Two is written by the ethicist Judge William; Works of Love is by the religious poet S. Kierkegaard; and The Sickness unto Death by the idealized Christian Anti-Climacus. Judge William’s writing is in the form of letters to his friend A, the aestheteauthor of the papers that comprise Either/Or, Part One. For William, “every esthetic view of life is despair, and…everyone who lives esthetically is in despair, whether he knows it or not.”9 Yet at the same time, “a person cannot despair at all without willing it.”10 Because despair is universally available, because it is willed and because it is “an expression of the total personality,”11 it is a moral category for which one can be held responsible. According to William, once one knows this, then a higher form of existence becomes imperative.12 But the higher form of existence is only available by means of choosing oneself, absolutely, in one’s eternal validity—which is also what despair chooses when it truly chooses itself.13 Therefore despair is ambivalent, like anxiety, with potential for freedom as well as for damnation. Many people despair when they realize that the deepest values upon which they have built their lives are transient, and that their happiness is therefore contingent on chance. William’s aesthetic friend goes a step beyond this by building his life on the recurrence of transience. If everything is vanity and passes away, then the fleeting itself can be celebrated as the occasion for witticism and for the banishment of boredom. William objects that his friend embodies despair precisely because his life lacks continuity.14 Even this principle of permanent transience is based on whim, opportunism, and ephemeral self-indulgence. If the aesthete were to choose even despair absolutely, then he would choose himself in his eternal validity. But he only chooses despair as an aesthetic experience, for the sake of intoxicating himself with it and of producing seductive impressions on others.15 This is a life-view William calls “despair itself.”16 William distinguishes doubt from despair by claiming that “despair is an expression of the total personality, doubt only of thought.”17 Moreover, doubt and despair are set apart by their respective exclusiveness and universality: to pursue philosophical doubt with any plausibility requires talent, which is a differential SKS 3, 186 / EO2, 192. SKS 3, 204 / EO2, 213. 11 SKS 3, 204 / EO2, 212. 12 SKS 3, 186 / EO2, 192. 13 SKS 3, 204 / EO2, 213. 14 SKS 3, 189 / EO2, 195. 15 SKS 3, 188–9 / EO2, 195. 16 SKS 3, 188 / EO2, 194. 17 SKS 3, 204 / EO2, 212. 9

10

Despair

161

quality of personality (not everyone has it to the same degree); but to despair is truly universal and to that extent borders on the ethical life.18 William is an advocate of the ethical life-view, which consists, first, in making a choice by means of the will. The either/or of the book’s title is primarily a choice between choosing and not choosing. The choice of the ethical is a non-cognitive commitment to prioritize considerations of right and wrong, good and bad, in freely making decisions for which one is responsible. Such a life-view requires that it be a possibility open to everyone, that those who choose it have continuity in their lives for the sake of assuming responsibility over time for their actions, and that reasons for ethical choices are communicable for the sake of public justification. The aesthete, on the contrary, revels in chance rather than free choice, refuses a continuous lifeview in favor of oscillation between indolence and activity, intention and caprice, and prefers secrets and silence to transparent communication. The aesthete tends to live in the category of possibility, rather than actuality, by living a life of private fantasy. The aesthetic life is one of despair, from William’s perspective, because it has its condition for joy outside of itself—“every life-view that has a condition outside itself is despair.”19 Even if, perversely, the aesthete tries to find happiness in life-long sorrow, William says this “is a falsification directed against the eternal power who rules the world. It is mutiny against God.”20 This puts us firmly on track for the later discussion of despair. S. Kierkegaard, as author of Works of Love, places discussion of despair in the realm of ethics and religion: “Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally secured against every change, eternally made free in blessed independence, eternally and happily secured against despair.”21 Here we have a reprise of William’s themes that despair is a consequence of insecurity in the face of change, that it is a contrary of freedom and independence, that it can be overcome by embracing duty, and that to be truly secure the remedy must be eternal. But the introduction of love as the remedy, love conceived as a duty commanded by God, was omitted by William. Works of Love takes up William’s theme that despair is typically over our dependence on chance, but applies it to being in love. Despair is always a consequence when one loves another person with “infinite passion.” Not only is this to place a condition for one’s happiness outside of oneself, but it is also inappropriate to relate oneself with “infinite passion” to a finite being. This just shows “that in its happiness [spontaneous love] had also been in despair.”22 For the only proper object of infinite passion is “the eternal.”23 Despair does not consist in being subjected to a contingent misfortune that causes misery and despondency, but consists in “a misrelation in a person’s innermost being.”24 The remedy for despair is not fortuitous luck or happiness, but a radical SKS 3, 204 / EO2, 212–13. SKS 3, 225 / EO2, 235. 20 SKS 3, 226 / EO2, 236. 21 SKS 9, 36 / WL, 29. 22 SKS 9, 47 / WL, 40. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 18 19

162

William McDonald

change in one’s self-relation that amounts to a conversion experience. “For this reason there is only one security against despair: to undergo the change of eternity through duty’s shall. Anyone who has not undergone this change is in despair.”25 Underneath any devastating loss of meaning whose persistence engenders feelings of despair lies another lack which underpins all despair: “the lack of the eternal.”26 But despair is also defined as “to give up possibility,” or more correctly, “to assume the impossibility of the good.”27 Since “ought” implies “can,” the divine command to love as an antidote to despair, must be possible—if God exists. So despair is implicitly a disbelief in the eternal God for whom all things (including the good) are possible.28 Faith, on the other hand, implicitly contains hope, which is the more obvious contrary of despair. Hope, in turn, implies love: “No one can hope unless he is also loving.”29 Furthermore, to hope (because it implies love, which is selfless) entails hoping for other people as well as for oneself, “and in the very same degree to which he hopes for others, he hopes for himself, because this is the infinitely accurate, the eternal like for like that is in everything eternal.”30 This reconnects love and hope, as antidotes to despair, with William’s exhortation to choose oneself in one’s continuity and universality, since hope is for the good and “the good has an infinite connectedness.”31 The final important link to the exhaustive discussion of despair in The Sickness unto Death is contained in the idea that despair has the dialectical capacity to be a boon as well as a bane. It is something from which we might learn, especially in the light of “eternity’s requirement”—by pushing us to the desperate expedient of seeking God’s help.32 Anti-Climacus defines despair as the sickness unto death. Yet despair is dialectically different from corporeal sickness, “because it is a sickness of the spirit.”33 A person can suffer from it without being aware of being in despair, or can become aware of always having been in despair, and the symptoms of despair can consist in feelings of security and tranquility. Most paradoxically, “not being in despair can be the very same thing as being in despair.”34 Anti-Climacus represents an idealized Christian point of view, so that death is not regarded as the ultimate catastrophe in life, but as “only a minor event within that which is all, an eternal life.”35 As such, the sickness unto death can be utilized dialectically, as a necessary stage on the path to “dying to the world” in order to prepare the spirit for being reborn into eternity. Just as Vigilius Haufniensis conceives anxiety, Anti-Climacus conceives despair as a misrelation of the self. The self, which is identified with spirit, is a relation. Ibid. SKS 9, 48 / WL, 41. 27 SKS 9, 253 / WL, 253. 28 Cf. SKS 8, 205 / UD, 101, where despair is identified with a denial that God is love. 29 SKS 9, 254 / WL, 255. 30 SKS 9, 255 / WL, 255. 31 SKS 9, 254–5 / WL, 255. 32 SKS 9, 129 / WL, 126. 33 SKS 11, 140 / SUD, 24. 34 SKS 11, 141 / SUD, 25. 35 SKS 11, 124 / SUD, 7. 25 26

Despair

163

Self and spirit are distinguished from a mere human being, which is defined as a synthesis—of the eternal and the temporal, the finite and the infinite, and freedom and necessity. It is not the synthesis of these elements that constitutes the self, but the spirit which sustains the synthesis by continually relating itself both to the elements of the synthesis and to another, who established the whole set of relations in the first place. This other, of course, is God. The self, then, consists on the one hand in the self-relating activity of the spirit in the ongoing task of finding an equilibrium between the contradictory elements which make up the human individual, and on the other hand in the spirit’s relating itself to God.36 The only true antidote to despair is the faith that, “in relating itself to itself and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.”37 Given this understanding of the self, together with the assertion that despair is a sickness of the spirit, Anti-Climacus proceeds to lay out a nosology of despair. Since spirit is a conscious self-relation, the first form of despair consists in being unconscious of the task of becoming a self and unconscious of being in despair.38 The difficulty in removing this form of despair consists in getting the sufferer to recognize the condition as despair, and then in motivating the sufferer to choose to become a self. This was the difficulty faced by William in A’s despair. Once a human being has become conscious of the task of becoming a self so that the will is engaged in that task, two further forms of despair emerge: (1) in despair to will not to be oneself (or in despair not to will to be oneself—the Danish is ambiguous); and (2) in despair to will to be oneself. It is the latter which Anti-Climacus claims is the basic form of despair to which the former can be reduced.39 To will not to be oneself— in its most extreme form the will to suicide—is clearly despairing. But how is it reducible to willing in despair to be oneself? It is the ultimate form of taking control of one’s whole existence, to will to be one’s own self, rather than acknowledge the dependence we have as selves on “the power that posited us”—God. This harks back to the denial of the eternal found in Judge William’s and in S. Kierkegaard’s conceptions of despair, and is basic in the sense that it explicitly excludes the only antidote to despair (“resting transparently in the power that established” the self). But there are plenty of other conditions sufficient for causing despair. These include failing to negotiate a fitting equilibrium between any of the binary opposites which constitute us as human: infinity’s despair is to lack finitude; finitude’s despair is to lack infinity; possibility’s despair is to lack necessity and vice versa; despair over things temporal is to lack the eternal and vice versa. Despair can also emerge out of spiritlessness, which is the form typical of the petit bourgeoisie—when someone is content to become no more of a self than is found in socially prescribed roles. Anti-Climacus also distinguishes the feminine form of despair (weakness), which is in despair not to will to be oneself, from the masculine form of despair (defiance), which is in despair to will to be oneself.40 Defiance consists in “the despairing misuse SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14. SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14. 38 SKS 11, 157ff. / SUD, 42ff. 39 SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14. 40 SKS 11, 165n., 181 / SUD, 49n., 67. 36 37

164

William McDonald

of the eternal within the self to will in despair to be oneself.”41 The main obstacle for defiance is that it arrogantly refuses to lose itself by humbling itself under God, thereby failing properly to acknowledge the other in the self-relation. Finally there are the forms of despair that arise in a self with sin-consciousness. Despair itself becomes a sin when, before God and conscious of the task of becoming a self, the spirit nevertheless either does not will to be itself or wills defiantly to be itself—“Sin is the intensification of despair.”42 The most extreme form of defiance is demonic despair, in which the person is perpetually intoxicated with despair and wills his or her self “in the continuance of sin” as a form of self-consistency.43 In its dialectical unfolding, despair is able to find a form for every stage of selfhood. The penultimate one is to potentiate sin by despairing over one’s sin, but in so doing fails to have faith that for God everything is possible, including the forgiveness of sin.44 As stated at the beginning of The Sickness unto Death, the only escape from despair is, in willing to be oneself, to keep the binary oppositions of one’s human nature in equilibrium and to rest transparently in the power that posits the self (through faith). In other words, the self has to will to be itself but also has to give up this self in humility before God in repentance. Contra Judge William, it is not enough to will to be an ethical self—because that does not adequately acknowledge God’s role in establishing the self. The despair that arises because of life’s vicissitudes can be annulled by focusing religiously on the eternal, especially on the hope implicit in eternal love. But one does not escape despair merely by focusing on the eternal, or even by acknowledging God’s role through faith. Hope, love and faith (which amount to collective antidotes to despair) must also be grounded in understanding how to accept God’s forgiveness and grace. See also Anxiety; Atonement/Reconciliation; Contingency/Possibility; Demonic; Faith; Finitude/Infinity; Forgiveness; God; Grace; Hope; Love; Personality; Self; Sickness; Sin; Spirit; Time/Temporality/Eternity.

SKS 11, 81 / SUD, 67. SKS 11, 191 / SUD, 77. 43 SKS 11, 220 / SUD, 108. 44 SKS 11, 221–3 / SUD, 109–11. 41 42

Dialectic Alejandro Cavallazzi Sánchez

Dialectic (Dialektik—noun; dialektisk—adjective) The word “dialectic,” in Danish Dialektik, derives from the Greek ἡ διαλεκτική (sc. τέχνη), meaning “the art of discussion” (by question and answer).1 The term has had currency in the philosophical tradition since the time of Plato but underwent a significant transformation with Hegel. As a noun, “dialectic” describes a process or a philosophical method. References to dialectical method appear throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, but the term appears more often in his philosophical work. Dialectic is implied in various titles, such as Either/Or, Stages on Life’s Way, and Repetition, and even appears explicitly in two subtitles: the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: A Mimical-Pathetical-Dialectical Compilation, An Existential Contribution, and Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric. As an adjective, “dialectical” means the ability to think in dialectical terms or to understand the dialectical method. Kierkegaard refers to this ability in many passages as a capacity for reflection that is exhibited to a high degree in contemplative geniuses such as Socrates.2 By contrast, he denounces certain other thinkers, like Hans Lassen Martensen, as not being dialectical enough.3 Dialectical ability is as important for philosophical as for religious understanding: “Dialectically the matter must be formulated this way: Christianity is the absolute; therein is found both the one and the other.”4 Dialectical skill is not only a reflective capacity, but also a psychological and existential one that allows the individual to relate to himself. As a noun “dialectic” refers mainly to Hegelian dialectics. Broadly speaking, the dialectic is the proper method of speculative reason. The theory of stages (immediacy, mediation, and mediated immediacy) found in Hegel is an application of the dialectic. This corresponds to the theory of stages (aesthetic, ethical, and religious) found in Kierkegaard. In his dissertation The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, Kierkegaard makes a very useful distinction between two types of dialectical communication: the Socratic and the Platonic. The former is a dialogical dialectic that “in perpetual movement continually sees to it that the question does not become Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, columns 710–12. 2 SKS 21, 65, NB6:88 / JP 2, 1373. 3 SKS 26, 81, NB31:108 / JP 1, 558. 4 SKS 21, 93, NB7:35 / JP 1, 486. 1

166

Alejandro Cavallazzi Sánchez

entrapped in an incidental understanding” and “that always knows how to keep the issue in suspension and precisely therein and thereby wants to resolve it.”5 This type of dialectic, which is integral to the Socratic method, corresponds to the use of irony as a “quickening force.”6 This dialogical dialectic is the proper Socratic method and it relates to the mythical. The latter is a conceptual dialectic, which, “proceeding from the most abstract ideas, wants to let these display themselves in more concrete qualifications, a dialectic that wants to construct actuality with the idea.”7 This corresponds to a second type of irony, which is not Socratic but Platonic. In opposition to the “mythical” aspect of the former, the latter is a “metaphorical” dialectic that does not reveal itself in the course of the speech but rather in the signification of terms. Thus we can identify two kinds of dialectic in this early work of Kierkegaard: a “Socratic dialectic” or ἔλεγχος (elenchus) and a “Platonic dialectic,” which has been identified throughout history by the name that we use today, διαλεκτική (dialectic). The Socratic dialectic is a purely negative dialectic that functions as a perpetual negation in order to lead speech towards truth, but is unable to construct knowledge by itself. For this reason many of the early Platonic dialogues tend to finish unresolved in ἀπορία (aporia). The second type of dialectic, which is associated with Hegel, is more closely related to a semantic method whereby knowledge can be constructed from concepts. Kierkegaard also refers to this type of dialectic by the name “absolute method.”8 In Hegel’s philosophy the dialectic has a systematic purpose. His dialectic works in a way that differs from Plato’s. This can be observed in one of its most distinctive characteristics, namely, that dialectical knowledge is built upon negated concepts. The way in which reason operates is by overcoming that which has been negated, yet retaining it in a new, higher form of knowledge. This is the process Hegel calls Aufhebung (sublation). As a philosophical method, the dialectic is so widely used by Kierkegaard that he refers to himself as a dialectical author: “I cannot repeat enough what I so frequently have said: I am a poet, but a very special kind, for I am by nature dialectical, and as a rule dialectic is precisely what is alien to the poet.”9 One of the characteristics of the dialectical process is precisely its building upon contradictions. This was explored deeply by Kierkegaard. One of the clearest examples of this is the theory of stages described in Either/Or, a text that suggests its dialectical theme already in the title. At first glance, the text presents an exclusive disjunction: the individual must choose either the aesthetic or the ethical life, thereby definitively closing off one path. But by choosing the ethical life, which is an authentic choice, the aesthetic is not completely left behind. Rather, as the title “The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage” suggests, there is an aesthetic dimension to the truly ethical life. The method described in Either/Or and throughout all the stages is unequivocally dialectical, but in a manner that differs from Hegelian dialectic. Kierkegaard applies SKS 1, 173 / CI, 121. SKS 1, 337 / CI, 87. 7 SKS 1, 173 / CI, 121. 8 Cf. Pap. V B 41 / JP 2, 1606. 9 SKS 21, 45, NB6:62 / JP 6, 6227. 5 6

Dialectic

167

the method at the level of individual existence. Thus he proposes a kind of dialectic not seen before: an existential dialectic. Kierkegaard takes a method that was synonymous with speculative philosophy and brings it down to the level of personal existence: “Ordinarily, dialectic is thought to be rather abstract—one thinks solely of logical operations. But life will quickly teach a person that there are many kinds of dialectic, that almost every passion has its own.”10 There is also a psychological aspect to Kierkegaard’s dialectic. In Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus dubitandum est he defines consciousness in a dialectical manner as “the relation whose form is contradiction.”11 In other works chronologically close to De Omnibus it is possible to observe this characteristic. For example, in The Concept of Anxiety the history of an individual’s life is explained as a “movement from state to state,”12 signifying a dialectical process. In Fear and Trembling the problem of the teleological suspension of the ethical is a discussion of the relationship between the individual and the public and the private realms. Fear and Trembling also prepares the reader for the last step towards the dialectical fulfilment of the individual: the religious stage. The dialectical process follows the same pattern in both Hegel and Kierkegaard: immediacy, mediation, and mediated immediacy. For instance, when Hegel relates this process to logic he observes three categories that correspond to the structure of the dialectic: being, essence, and concept. Similarly, in his Philosophy of Right we have: abstract right, morality, and ethical life; and in history we have: the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the modern world. Indeed, “the system” as a whole follows this same pattern: philosophy of logic, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of spirit. Kierkegaard follows this sequence but applies it to the individual. The realm of the immediate is the aesthetic sphere. Here the individual is not distinct from its basic human nature. Mediation is characterized primarily by reflective thought, which opposes nature and its immediacy. Finally, these two opposing and distinct realms converge in the truth relationship without cancelling each other, yet still working as contrary forces in the final part of the process: the mediated immediacy portrayed in the religious sphere of existence. Moreover, Kierkegaard takes this use of the dialectic to be the subject of his own authorship, which constitutes a third use of dialectic. The authorship dialectic refers to the dialectic found among the different pseudonyms in Kierkegaard’s writings. If we take each pseudonym as a point of view representative of a life stage, and if life can be understood as several stages that correspond to dialectical movements, then it is possible to find a dialectical relationship among the pseudonyms and between the pseudonyms and Kierkegaard himself. This dialectical relationship can be seen where the pseudonyms confront each other: for instance, in Either/Or where the texts of A and B are juxtaposed, or where various pseudonyms are brought together, as with the case of “In Vino Veritas.” Also of interest, in this connection, are Johannes Climacus’ “A Glance at a Contemporary Effort in Danish Literature” from the Postscript and Kierkegaard’s 12 10 11

SKS 2, 158 / EO1, 159. SKS 15, 56 / JC, 171. SKS 4, 415 / CA, 114.

168

Alejandro Cavallazzi Sánchez

own account of the pseudonyms and their intentions found in The Point of View of My Work as an Author and On My Work as an Author. Not only the pseudonymous works but the pseudonyms themselves can be understood as dialectical. This can be seen, for example, in the relationship between Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, where the dialectical relationship is evident in their names. This device not only exposes the intentions and standpoints of the respective pseudonyms, but it illuminates important aspects of Kierkegaard’s own thinking. As he states: “I would place myself higher than Johannes Climacus, lower than Anti-Climacus.”13 Implied in this antagonism between Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, where Kierkegaard finds himself in the middle, is the dialectical antagonism between reason and faith. The question raised about dialectics is not merely a rational one, but purports to lead to the understanding of religious truth: “by no means does speculative thought say that Christianity is untruth; on the contrary, it specifically says that speculation comprehends the truth of Christianity.”14 Not only does the individual’s comprehension of himself acquire a dialectical form, but so does the relationship between the individual and God or the absolute: “Dialectically the matter must be formulated this way: Christianity is the absolute; therein is found both the one and the other.”15 One of the most detailed accounts of the relation of the dialectic to the religious sphere is found in The Sickness unto Death. Despair can be defined either as a lack of finitude or as lack of infinitude. Similarly, despair can be defined in modal terms either as a lack of necessity or a lack of possibility. In each case, the individual is caught between two extremes, and his existential task is to mediate these opposites. From a psychological perspective, this dialectical process is similar to what is proposed in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. In the last part of The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard links the terms “despair” and “sin.” An unbalanced individual is unable to realize the mediation between the aforementioned opposites, and consequently falls into one of the two extremes of existence: this is despair. Nevertheless, despair is a necessary condition for becoming a Christian, since only in the acceptance of our own limitations can we accept that the dialectical process can only be resolved with the help of God. Accepting the condition of despair also means accepting one’s condition as a sinner. This can be achieved through a dialectical process described in Section B of Part II: “Τhe Continuance of Sin.” The process is described in three stages: the first is the recognition of sin and despairing of it; the second is despairing of the forgiveness of sins (the offense); and the third is the sin of dismissing Christianity by declaring it to be untruth. Each one of these types of despair pushes the individual deeper into obstinate refusal to recognize his sinful condition. One who has thus fallen into obstinacy sins each time he does not accept his sinfulness—a dialectical process that leads to self-annihilation. The only way to break this process is by accepting

15 13 14

SKS 22, 130. NB11:209 / JP 6, 6433. SKS 7, 203 / CUP1, 223. SKS 21, 93, NB7:35 / JP 1, 486.

Dialectic

169

the condition of sin, which means accepting God’s grace and finally letting him be the other, the third term that resolves the unbalanced opposites of human existence. See also Absolute; Actuality; Concept; Concrete/Abstract; Consciousness; Contradiction; Finitude/Infinity; Immanence/Transcendence; Logic; Mediation/ Sublation; Objectivity/Subjectivity; Personality; Reason; Self; Speculation/ Science/Scholarship; Spirit; Stages.

This page intentionally left blank

Dialogue Irina Kruchinina

Dialogue (Dialog—noun; Samtale—noun; samtale—verb) The Danish word Dialog is identical in meaning to the English word “dialogue.” Both derive from the Greek διάλογος—a verbal interaction between two or more persons. Dialogue is contrasted with monologue and also with a coherent sequence of questions and answers that touches upon the issue but does not personally concern the speakers. Dialogue emphasizes the interaction of several people in a conversation. In aesthetic terms, dialogue is defined as a literary form, for example, in dramatic works.1 Kierkegaard presents the concept of dialogue in relation to the oppositions: discourse, speech (Tale)/conversation (Samtale), and “to become involved with you” (at indlade sig med Dig)/chatter (Passiar). I. Socratic Dialogue Kierkegaard uses the term “dialogue” most often to define the genre of literature developed in ancient Greece that presents a written discussion of moral and philosophical problems. Kierkegaard made a deep and elaborate analysis of Plato’s dialogues in his dissertation The Concept of Irony. Kierkegaard revives the Socratic dialogue in his concepts of indirect communication and reticence. This dialogue is an interaction between a wise speaker and perceptive listeners. The speaker refrains from forcing a truth directly on others as a doctrine so that the listener (or the reader) can work out the meaning of life for himself. A variation on this theme is found in the concept of truth as subjectivity developed in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. According to Kierkegaard, truth is a matter of finding that truth which is a truth for the individual speaker and for every single reader. The aim of dialogue, which is truth, puts its participants into a common context of personal responsibility for the content of the dialogue. The latter is a question of each listener’s personal response to relate with conviction to the speech of the wise speaker. Having drawn a frame for each listener’s inward dialogue, the speaker guides the listeners into the silent space beyond expression where the inward dialectic toward the truth takes place. Kierkegaard constructs his works in the form of a discussion of philosophical, ethical, and moral subjects, playing the role of a wise Socrates who maintains his ignorance. Dialogue is understood as an art—in which the image of truth remains Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, column 712.

1

172

Irina Kruchinina

unseen, even by the artist, until the work is complete. The dialogue is a genre consisting of a discourse developed in a linear manner, where the speaker (or writer) knows where he has to bring himself and the reader, but at the same time maintaining a stance of ignorance: only asking, not dictating. In Kierkegaard’s terms, dialogue is understood as a process of discovery for the speaker and the listener, the process of diving into the dialogue itself. He postulates that the target of dialogue is the revelation, the leap, which is a personal affair for both the speaker and the addressee. Kierkegaard subjectively reveals and increases his own passion towards the truth, while the truth itself is considered to be objective—the same for all. II. The Chorus Dialogue presupposes a polyphony of voices. It gathers the participants under one goal, aspired to by all of them. Kierkegaard uses the metaphor of a chorus, which is similar to his concept of dialogue, where everyone sings the same song but in his or her own voice, thereby indicating both the collective striving for truth and the individual nature of personal revelation.2 In The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard discusses dialogue as Plato’s method. Platonic dialogue does not have a concrete subject, but is a process for the collective production of meaning and knowledge. The latter is considered to be “a recollection” of personal responses, “since thought does not understand itself, does not love itself until it is caught up in the other’s being, and for such harmonious beings it becomes not only important but also impossible to determine what belongs to each one, because one always owns nothing but owns everything in the other.”3 The nature of this spiritual “co-knowledge” requires an inward movement by every single individual, a personal dialectic, a revival of one’s own thought that is always related to the other. But the condition of the Platonic dialogue that gives an individual a selfsufficient possibility to “own everything” is a primary impulse towards the divine given by a wise speaker who has a sense of what is true, original: “What Plato saw in Socrates was such a personality, an immediate conveyor of the divine.”4 Plato’s Socrates witnesses the presence of the truth by involving the other in the process of begetting the truth subjectively. The individual relates his own thoughts to the other—the wise speaker who recreates them in the divine light and animates the individual by making him love them. And the dialogue occurs in the moment of reticence, which is a combination (1) of speech that places the thoughts of every single individual in divine context, and (2) of the silence in which the individual’s subjectivity is born: “We may say either that it is the word that creates or the silence that begets and gives birth to the individual.”5

Cf. SKS 1, 95 / CI, 33–4; SKS 11, 41 / WA, 37. SKS 1, 91–2 / CI, 30. 4 SKS 1, 90 / CI, 29. 5 SKS 1, 91 / CI, 29. 2 3

Dialogue

173

III. Direct/Indirect Communication Indirect communication is the art of dialogue—the art of asking the right questions. When Kierkegaard describes Socrates’ method, he underlines that Socrates avoids beginning his speech with the direct object of investigation. Like Socrates, Kierkegaard prepares a platform of questions and impulses around the implicit subject of his discourse in order to facilitate its subjective appropriation. He pushes his reader as well as himself to relate personally and with conviction to the subject, which is ultimately the ethical-religious truth. The dialogue is closely connected with Kierkegaard’s concepts of direct and indirect communication. In Either/Or, Kierkegaard shows the framing intention of the Judge’s letters to his friend: to persuade the aesthete of the moral inadequacy of his poetic bachelor life. The Judge writes simultaneously about an obstacle to being really involved with his friend, because the latter’s aesthetic statements are emphatically ad se ipsum (to himself). But in creating the Judge’s discourse, Kierkegaard shows that a real conversation is also barred for the Judge. The book is supposed to present a dialogue between two friends, but Kierkegaard formally divides the book into two parts, underlining the absence of an actual conversation. In the essay, “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic in Modern Drama,” which comprises a section of Either/Or, Part One, A characterizes dialogue as an “exhaustive reflection with everything merged in it.”6 Ancient tragedy, he says, had monologue and chorus as distinct components instead of dialogue, with the chorus having “more” than an individual may absorb from it directly, and the monologue having “more” than could be merged “in action and situation.”7 The reflection present in dialogue and absent in ancient tragedy is dynamic, a development of understanding. In this sense dialogue is an antonym of stasis. IV. Dialogue as a Communal Practice Dialogue is a struggle and a vehicle of spirit, a transformative art for both the writer and the reader. Dialogue is a significant part of a community, a living situation in which the convictions and commitments of every individual transform under the influence of a common objectivity. But the latter is not the logical consequence of subjectivity reflected in a general point of view. Dialogue is a struggle under the aegis of ideals and is understood as a sacred communal practice. Kierkegaard links the paradox of the individual revelation and the communal reflection on truth through the dialectical practice of dialogue. It lies between Socratic discourse and Christian passionate questioning. Pushed by the Socratic as well as the Christian sentiment, respectively, that we are ignorant and need each other, Kierkegaard transforms his own discourse into an actual dialogue. In his pseudonymous works he creates the vital situation of a dialogue, avoiding self-absorption and didacticism. He is the author of the ideas he himself is arguing with and in this way gives himself the impulse to dive deeper into the subject of 6 7



SKS 2, 142–3 / EO1, 143. SKS 2, 143 / EO1, 143.

Irina Kruchinina

174

his discourse. He verbalizes his own thoughts, which are directed towards the truth that Kierkegaard’s Abraham encounters only in an ineffable inward silence. The ideas interact by modulating each other as parts of one choral composition. The author himself turns simultaneously into his own reader, producing a vital self-communication whose aim is silence. It becomes a productive self-therapy for Kierkegaard because he becomes personally involved in the discussion, sympathizing with both its participants. V. Sympathy as a Condition for a Dialogue Kierkegaard underlines the importance of a personal approach to dialogue. His prefaces are addressed to his reader: That single individual who first deliberates with himself whether or not he will read, if he then chooses to read, will lovingly deliberate whether the difficulty and the ease, when placed thoughtfully together on the scale, relate properly to each other so that what is essentially Christian is not presented with a false weight by making the difficulty or by making the ease too great.8

Here Kierkegaard emphasizes that the reader is a single individual (and in terms of this entire book he is also addressing every individual simultaneously) and expects that the latter would read lovingly and balance the internal contradictions in the text. Kierkegaard is calling upon the absolute, which is lived through every individual’s love that paradoxically reconciles everything in itself. Kierkegaard represents his book as being about “works of love”—“the fruit of much deliberation”9—not a description of the essence of its subject, and he needs his reader’s deliberation, beginning with the decision about whether to read the book or not. He understands writing and reading as a kind of dialogue, in which author and reader strive with conviction, singly and together, towards the truth. In the preface of Either/Or the editor also addresses the reader in the singular. Addressing each individual reader, he appeals to personal experience: “Perhaps your life has put you in touch with people….”10 The reader is invited to reflect on his own life and to remember some real events that are an intrinsic part of the reader and that touch a raw nerve. The book involves the reader in the conversation by making a personal supposition about him. This emphasis on intimacy with the reader is constitutive of Kierkegaard’s edifying discourses. In the preface to The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air from 1849, for example, Kierkegaard is concerned to find in his addressee an intimate soul—“whom I with joy and gratitude call my reader.”11 We can trace throughout almost all of his works the importance of appealing to the inner voice of every single individual, and to this understanding of the reader. SKS 9, 11 / WL, 3. Ibid. 10 SKS 2, 11 / EO1, 3. 11 SKS 11, 9 / WA, 3. 8 9

Dialogue

175

VI. Intimacy as a Condition for Dialogue Kierkegaard’s concept of dialogue with the reader is constant, although it alternates between being outspoken and open (“It is offered with the right hand”) and not communicating directly (“It desires to remain in hiding”).12 It is also supposed to bring joy, understood as a wholeness of being, and a sense of gratitude to the other. In the preface to Three Upbuilding Discourses from 1844 Kierkegaard writes: [the book] seeks and looks for only that favorably disposed person who takes an interest in the seeker, gives an opportunity to what is said, brings the cold thoughts into flame again, transforms the discourse into a conversation, the honest confidentiality of which is not disturbed by any recollection of the one who continually desires only to be forgotten, and this is primarily and preferably the case precisely when the recipient accomplishes the great work of letting the perishability of the discourse arise in imperishability.13 


Kierkegaard here describes a real conversation as an intimate interaction between people through the prism of vivid interest in the subject of discourse. The conversation itself even prevents any question from being answered definitively, instead turning it into a permanent seeking for a close personal relation to the truth. The interest in the personality of the other is a presupposition of dialogue. The listener is open to the speaker, whom Kierkegaard refers to as neither a preacher nor a teacher, but a seeker. The latter is also looking more for intimacy than the right answers. The writer wants the complete and self-enclosed thoughts of his book to be reopened, sympathetically, by another person. The impulse for the conversation is the need for a permanent awakening of the mind that is possible only in the open process of interacting. The dead, cold system of objective thoughts, or solipsistic subjectivity, can be opened by the vivid interest and intervention of another person. The listener is looking for a seeker, being a seeker herself. Conversation between reader and writer thereby constitutes the ground of living a life forwards by reviving the thoughts enclosed in words already written. VII. Dialogue is a Process Dialogue becomes part of an individual dialectic fulfilled in a constant process of self-reflection with another. Following the example of Socrates—who leads his dialogues by asking what beauty, justice and truth are—Kierkegaard asks what it is to be a self, and to be a Christian. In the Postscript Climacus compares Plato’s dialogue the Greater Hippias, which introduces the concept of beauty, with his own book, which introduces what it is to become a Christian. The general concept remains Socratic: Climacus insists that he does not give a recipe, does not introduce the basics of Christianity, and does not show the bridge between not being a Christian and becoming a Christian. In the Greater Hippias Socrates demolishes all explanations of what the beautiful is, and ends by “saying that he has benefited from 12 13

Ibid. SKS 5, 231 / EUD, 231.

176

Irina Kruchinina

the conversation…[because] he has found out that it is difficult.”14 This is analogous to Climacus’ conversation with his reader with respect to Christianity. The real aim is to learn, through the process of conversation (Samtale), how difficult it is to become a Christian. The word Samtale replaces the word Dialog in most of the cases where it implies not a concept or genre, but the process of mutual learning. Samtale is wise, intelligent and contextualized talk. Literally it means talking together and is understood as a verbal art of developing an idea in a private and confidential conversation. The word is a more neutral form of Konversation or Drøftelse (discussion, debate). The word became current at the beginning of the nineteenth century as a more pretentious form than mere talk (Tale).15 In The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard often uses the word Samtale instead of Dialog, the latter being used mainly to define the genre and method in Plato’s works. Samtale appears in speaking about the necessity of dialogue in philosophy, about what Kierkegaard calls the art of conversation (Samtale). Kierkegaard opposes it to the Sophists’ Tale (speech, talk). This indicates that a real dialogue is not merely sophistical, self-concerned, non-dialectical speech, a method of inventing arguments for and against a proposition. Conversation is a creative, dynamic process involving writer and reader, rather than the imposition of pre-existing ideas. This allows Kierkegaard to emphasize dialogue as embedded in a particular, concrete context, unlike the floating abstractions of the Sophist. In “The Seducer’s Diary” the narrator uses the word Samtale to refer to a hidden conversation with himself, in which he reflects on how his ideas change and come true: In my relation to Cordelia, have I been continually faithful to my pact? That is, my pact with the esthetic, for it is that which makes me strong—that I continually have the idea on my side. It is a secret like Samson’s hair, one that no Delilah can wrest from me…. Has the interesting been preserved at all times? Yes—I dare to say that freely and openly in this secret conversation.16

He constructs his discourse in the form of a dialogue, asking questions of himself and responding to them immediately. But this inner dialogue is unproductive because it occurs in the seducer’s closed system of ideas and lacks real, felt inwardness. The seducer says that he would have begun a real conversation if he had found a vivid interest in the subject among his contemporaries.17 But the lack of sympathy in the subject of dialogue prevents his contemporaries from being deeply involved in the conversation. Meanwhile, it was passion that Kierkegaard considered as truly tragic in the dramatic genre of dialogue18 and that he claimed to be one of the conditions of his own productive writing,19 since a real dialogue represented a dynamic process of deliberate thinking leading to a cathartic movement.

SKS 7, 349 / CUP1, 383–4. Ordbog over det Danske Sprog, vol. 18, column 687. 16 SKS 2, 424 / EO1, 437–8. 17 SKS 2, 421 / EO1, 434. 18 SKS 2, 143 / EO1, 143. 19 Cf. SKS 13, 19 / PV, 12; SKS 5, 231 / EUD, 231. 14 15

Dialogue

177

Here we have to keep in mind that by writing his edifying discourses Kierkegaard emphasized sympathy for the speaker and intimacy between people. The seducer, from the aesthetic point of view, is concerned only with himself. The seducer does not find the conditions even to begin the conversation, since he does not respect the otherness of an interlocutor. The seducer is eager to have “a candid conversation” with the goddess Diana, whom he sees as “pure virginity,” the essence of a young woman personified.20 He does not find an interlocutor in real life, and that causes him to talk deceptively to himself. This self-deception in turn causes the ethicist, B, difficulty in really conversing with the aesthete. When speaking about interest and sympathy, the seducer contrasts ancient times with his own and is convinced that in antiquity he would have been able to have a real conversation because he could have found people who had a vivid interest in his “research.” But in “The Tragic in Ancient Drama,” A asserts that ancient tragedy lacks real dialogue. In modern drama, by contrast, “poetic character is commensurate with the dialogue.”21 This dialogue excludes the monologue as an excessive, direct, and immediate expression of feelings—although it is emphasized that dialogue depends on situation and temporal action. This means that, in modern drama, the character, the situation, and the dialogue (as an interaction between people) all become part of subjectivity in the process of self-development. In Philosophical Fragments the narrator presents the moment as decisive for becoming a self, for being reborn, since it is only in this moment that one can recognize that one was not a self previously but has now become one.22 Similarly, the moment of insight can only come to be out of the process of dialogue, whereby one sees the truth emerge from the interaction of the participants. Unless one participates with conviction in pursuit of the truth, conversation never rises above the level of chatter, as one can see in the epilogue of Fear and Trembling.23 The concept of dialogue, real dialogue, is opposed to chatter—which does not have a sacred goal and is not governed by an individual dialectic. A dialogue is not a direct transition to the truth either, but is itself an action prior to the leap and to personal revelation. That is why a poetic figure is important, whether it be a narrator or a character, who can bring the author’s message to the surface. The poetic figure is a personified instrument of the art of a dialogue. It represents the dialogue as a commitment to the present that becomes a movement towards the sacred leap. But the latter is fulfilled by both the writer and the reader, as they perform a dialogue themselves. Thus a real dialogue makes its participants live through the idea instead of only understanding it. The prerequisites for dialogue as a practice in Christianity are sympathy both to the subject and the speaker, vivid interest in the subject of investigation, and knowing how to ask the right question aimed at the absolute, sacred target. See also Communication/Indirect Communication; Dialectic; Imagination; Immediacy/ Reflection; Individual; Inwardness/Inward Deepening; Leap; Otherness/Alterity/the Other; Sympathy/Empathy; Writing. 22 23 20 21

SKS 2, 423 / EO1, 436. SKS 2, 240 / EO1, 247. SKS 4, 229 / PF, 21 SKS 4, 208–9 / FT, 121.

This page intentionally left blank

Dogma/Doctrine Lee C. Barrett

Dogma (Dogme—noun); Doctrine (Lære—noun, or Doctrin—noun) Dogme is derived from the Greek δόγμα, meaning in general any correct teaching, or more specifically a foundational philosophical or religious proposition. The term was used commonly in the Reformation period and by the eighteenth century had come to refer to ecclesiastically sanctioned religious teachings. In a parallel fashion, Doctrin, derived from the Latin doctrina, also suggested any authoritative teaching. To further expand the lexical options, by the middle of the sixteenth century the more ordinary term Lære, meaning “teaching,” was also being employed to indicate the main themes of the Bible and the tenets of the church. It was this term that Kierkegaard generally preferred when referring to the core convictions of any tradition.1 In his authorial practice the meanings of Doctrin and Lære were so interchangeable that he sometimes employed both of them in the same sentence for the sake of emphasis.2 Kierkegaard also often used “dogma” and “doctrine” as if they were synonymous, although “dogma” usually had a stronger nuance of authority for him. For example, he sometimes referred to the “sacred affirmations of Scripture” as “dogmas.”3 Kierkegaard employed “doctrine” and “dogma” to suggest any strongly held foundational principle, even if it were entirely secular. More specifically, he sometimes followed the widespread scholarly custom of nineteenth-century northern Europe and utilized “dogmatic” to refer to the fundamental principles of non-skeptical, non-critical philosophic traditions.4 However, Kierkegaard most frequently used this fluid set of concepts to point to the authoritative beliefs of the Christian tradition. Ostensibly, Kierkegaard’s writings seem to express contradictory assessments of the value of the articulation and codification of normative Christian teachings. On the one hand, some of his remarks about doctrine and dogma sound stridently negative. For example, he exclaims, “But good Lord, Christianity is no ‘doctrine,’ ”5 and laments that “dogmatics as a whole is a misunderstanding, especially as it now has been developed.”6 Criticizing the contemporary ecclesial ethos of Denmark, Otto Kalkar, Ordbog til det ældre danske Sprog, vols. 1–5, Copenhagen: UniversitetsJubilæets danske Samfund 1888–92, vol. 2, p. 875. 2 SKS 16, 242 / JFY, 195. 3 SKS 18, 54, EE:153 / JP 3, 3279. 4 SKS 1, 308 / CI, 272. 5 SKS 23, 240, NB17:101 / JP 3, 2870. 6 SKS 18, 236, JJ:305 / JP 1, 627. 1

180

Lee C. Barrett

Kierkegaard protests that “the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not bring any doctrine into the world and never delivered lectures.”7 He also complains that it is part of “the superficial sanctity of the modern age” that preachers search for more precise definitions of doctrinal concepts.8 Similarly, the pseudonym Johannes Climacus flatly asserts that “Christianity is not a doctrine,”9 and attacks the notion that the acceptance of the doctrinal content of Christianity qualifies a person as a Christian.10 On the other hand, Kierkegaard often does speak of Christian doctrine with approbation. He asserts that “on the whole the doctrine as it is presented is entirely sound,”11 and that “the doctrine in the established church and its organization are very good.”12 He even exclaims, “Lutheran doctrine is excellent, is the truth.”13 Similarly, the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis expresses respect for the confessional standards of the Lutheran Church and in practice assumes their validity in Christian discourse.14 Most dramatically, Kierkegaard described “suffering for the doctrine” as the quintessential expression of the Christian life, thereby closely associating “doctrine” with Christianity in its truest form.15 Kierkegaard’s seeming ambivalence about doctrine need not be regarded as a straightforward contradiction, forcing the interpreter to choose between competing construals of Kierkegaard as being either a non-doctrinal subjective thinker or an orthodox dogmatist. The apparent contradiction can be resolved by recognizing that throughout his authorship Kierkegaard used both “doctrine” and “dogma” in two distinguishable ways. The first use was to condemn the treatment of Christian concepts as abstract cognitive formulae, while the second use was to encourage the employment of those very same concepts in the nurturing of genuine Christian pathos. Kierkegaard’s negative remarks about doctrine are directed against understandings of doctrine as passion-neutral propositions in a grand system of logical entailments. In this vein he complains that “people have completely transferred Christianity from being an existence-communication [Existents-Meddelelse] to being a doctrine.”16 The pseudonym Climacus objects that in contemporary culture doctrines, rather than being genuine “existence communications,” are treated as propositions that must be grasped speculatively.17 However, for Climacus, it is an egregious error to attempt to impart Christianity didactically, as if Christianity were a set of definitions to be systematized and analyzed. When Christian teachings are treated as bits of information to be cognitively grasped, they are evacuated of genuine meaning. 9 7 8

12 13 14 15 16 17 10 11

SKS 16, 254 / JFY, 209. SKS 21, 36, NB6:47 / JP 1, 660. SKS 7, 345 / CUP1, 379. SKS 7, 552 / CUP1, 607. SKS 24, 117, NB22:23 / JP 6, 6702. SKS 24, 221, NB 23:33 / JP 6, 6727. SKS 13, 52 / FSE, 24. SKS 4, 333–4 / CA, 26–7. SKS 16, 253 / JFY, 207. SKS 22, 320, NB13:77 / JP 1, 676. SKS 7, 346 / CUP1, 380.

Dogma/Doctrine

181

In general, Kierkegaard used “doctrine” in the pejorative sense to condemn the transposition of basic Christian concepts from the struggle to transform the self to the construction of historical, metaphysical, or psychological schemas. These disastrously misleading misuses of doctrines distort the very nature of Christianity and attempt to convert it into a conceptual system to be scrutinized and interpreted rather than allowing it to be a life that must be lived with passion. By reconceiving the individual as a detached scientific investigator, this speculative enterprise inevitably subverts the mood of intensely engaged self-concern necessary for truly grasping the meaning of basic Christian teachings. Kierkegaard’s often scathing criticism of doctrines and dogmas as ciphers in an abstract theological calculus was fueled by the same motivations that inspired his parallel critique of grand metaphysical systems. On the other hand, Kierkegaard’s favorable remarks about doctrine point to a very different employment of Christian teachings: their use in making possible a new way of life that would be impossible without the introduction of a set of unique concepts. According to Kierkegaard, the proper work for doctrines should be to enable the individual to imagine and experience the attractions of a new, previously unanticipated existential possibility. In this sense, grasping the meaning of a doctrine essentially involves the ability to discern its implications for the way that one lives one’s own life. Having envisioned this possibility, the individual can then either begin to cultivate the novel dispositions and virtues required by the doctrine, or, offended, reject the daunting prospect of a radically altered existence. In order to be meaningful, doctrines, even the ones that refer to divine actions like the Incarnation and the Atonement, must be used to impart a capability to act, think, and feel differently.18 Consequently, Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms often treat doctrines as the explicit articulations of the presuppositions and basic convictions governing the distinctively Christian way of life.19 He observes that the basic concepts of Christianity, such as “I am a sinner,” are “presupposed” by Christianity in the way that all speaking presupposes “I exist.”20 For Kierkegaard, Christian doctrines are intended to express the logically primitive categories of Christian discourse. As such, these doctrines are not only logically basic but are also conceptually sui generis. For example, in The Concept of Anxiety Vigilius describes dogmatics as the definition of Christian concepts that are utterly unique.21 Borrowing the terminology of speculative philosophy, Vigilius claims that dogmatics is a separate “science” or conceptual domain whose categories must not be confused with those of logic,22 ethics,23 or psychology.24 Dogmatics, he emphatically insists, should not be conflated with other ways of interpreting and engaging life, such as speculative metaphysics. In a similar fashion, Climacus protests against the contemporary tendency to 20 21 22 23 24 18 19

SKS 27, 390–9, Papir 365:1–24 / JP 1, 649. SKS 4, 318 / CA, 10. SKS 18, 21, JJ:223 / JP 1, 1032. SKS 4, 383 / CA, 79. SKS 4, 317 / CA, 9. SKS 4, 319 / CA, 12. SKS 4, 321 / CA, 14.

182

Lee C. Barrett

convert the doctrine of the Incarnation into a metaphysical principle concerning the universal coming of the eternal into time.25 Extending this trajectory, Anti-Climacus also praises the “older dogmatics” that resisted speculation’s identification of sin with the logical concept of negation.26 Because of this conceptual uniqueness, the foundational categories of Christian discourse cannot be derived from other conceptualities, nor can they be translated into their idioms.27 For example, dogmatics simply presupposes the actuality of hereditary sin without attempting to explain its existence or clarify its nature through reference to any other conceptual domain.28 Christian doctrines, according to Kierkegaard, are autonomous of all other conceptualities. In these contexts in which “doctrine” and “dogma” are used positively, Kierkegaard develops the closely related theme that individual Christian doctrines cannot be defined in isolation from one another, for they constitute a complexly interlocking conceptual framework. According to Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms, the meaning of a concept is embedded in its relations to concepts from the same domain. For example, the doctrine of hereditary sin is part of a network of related concepts, such as “atonement.”29 In order to appreciate the significance of the atonement for sin, the individual must have a sense of the waywardness of the human heart and the intractability of sin. As Kierkegaard observes, the doctrine of atonement only makes sense against the background of the doctrines of human sin and God’s righteousness.30 Conversely, the gravity of sin can only be grasped as the individual recognizes the extreme lengths to which God went in order to forgive it. Because of this network in which the meaning of one concept is dependent upon the meaning of another, doctrinal concepts cannot be clarified by linking them with concepts drawn from other domains. For example, “sin” cannot be explained in terms of extra-doctrinal concepts like “negation,” and the meaning of “reconciliation” cannot be clarified by conflating it with non-Christian concepts like “mediation.” Accordingly, Vigilius insists that every concept must be dealt with in the particular science to which it properly belongs.31 Each domain of discourse possesses its own appropriate passional mood, and the meaning of all the interlocking concepts within that domain requires the preservation of that mood. When a deliberation forgets where its core concepts belong, nonsense is the result. Doctrinal communication must be vigilant against the danger of blurring domains and thereby diluting and confusing the passions and concerns appropriate to each domain. The network of Christian doctrinal concepts is not only autonomous of other conceptual domains, but it is also sui generis. In his different voices Kierkegaard argues that Christian doctrines cannot simply be regarded as more nuanced specifications of generic ethical or religious concepts, nor can they be seen as 27 28 29 30 31 25 26

SKS 7, 526 / CUP1, 579. SKS 11, 194 / SUD, 80. SKS 4, 327 / CA, 20. SKS 4, 321 / CA, 14. SKS 4, 363 / CA, 58. Pap. VIII–2 B 133:5 / JP 3, 2792. SKS 4, 317 / CA, 9.

Dogma/Doctrine

183

organically emerging from those concepts. Christian doctrine is different from the more universal language of ethics that most people can discover on their own, in the way that a farm boy’s inherent capacity to be a soldier may be actualized.32 According to Climacus, even generic religiosity with its concentration on suffering, guilt, and resignation, is not the same thing as Christian pathos.33 Christian faith is not to be confused with immediate religious enthusiasm, no matter how strong or profound it may be. The Christian way of life possesses its own unique morphology, governed by distinctive concepts, such as the paradox of the Incarnation, and therefore requires a uniquely paradoxical form of pathos.34 Consequently, the way of life informed by Christian doctrine cannot be an organic outgrowth of any prior process of spiritual development. Christian faith is a new subjectivity that is not the actualization of a universal capacity inherent in human nature. Climacus’ proposal that “subjectivity is untruth” suggests that one cannot learn this subjectivity from one’s own self through the ordinary rigors of the cultivation of moral and religious virtues.35 Christianity involves a transcendent point of departure, a new factor, not anticipated in the preceding immanent development of the human spirit. Christian pathos, such as gratitude for forgiveness, is necessarily linked to teachings about alleged external events. Christian faith is more than the self-cultivation of certain dispositions; it must be described as a response to an object of faith, an external given. The “what” of Christianity cannot be exhaustively explicated in terms of any ordinary pathos-laden “how,” independent of all special authoritative teachings. For example, in Christianity, “incarnation” cannot be reduced without remainder to a description of certain passional and behavioral dispositions. It involves a belief that God really did enter time, which does require the assertion of certain history-like propositions. Similarly, one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms claims approvingly that “as dogma the death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ is indeed a historical event.”36 Therefore Christian doctrinal communication does involve the communication of a knowledge which can look suspiciously direct. Of course, even in regard to the ostensible fact-stating force of doctrine the “what” requires a commensurate “how.”37 Kierkegaard suggests that in Christian communication one does need some teaching, but then “the same relationship as obtains in ethical communication” must enter the picture.38 Even the referential use of Christian doctrines requires the presence of the appropriate and utterly distinctive type of pathos in the individual. Because they are foundational, logically primitive, and sui generis, Christian doctrines in the positive sense function authoritatively in Kierkegaard’s literature. For example, Anti-Climacus describes such dogmas as the sinfulness of humanity as a communication that must be believed, for they have “an agreement and alliance” 34 35 36 37 38 32 33

SKS 27, 390–9, Papir 365:1–24 / JP 1, 649. SKS 7, 511–33 / CUP1, 561–86. SKS 7, 554–5 / CUP1, 610–11. SKS 7, 189–91 / CUP1, 207–9. SKS 11, 64 / WA, 58. SKS 23, 91–2, NB15:128 / JP 1, 678. SKS 27, 399–400, Papir 366:1–5 / JP 1, 650.

184

Lee C. Barrett

with faith and paradox.39 Kierkegaard insists in his own voice that the doctrines articulated by an apostle like Paul are crucially significant only because of their divine authority, and not because of their aesthetic form or philosophic content.40 In Christianity, to say that a doctrine has apostolic authority is to say that it must be believed and obeyed as a presupposition of the Christian life. Kierkegaard, as we have seen, assumed the normative status and unique nature of the skein of basic Christian teachings. By so doing, there was nothing particularly remarkable about his work; most theologians of his era, whether orthodox or revisionist, did the same. However, Kierkegaard’s radical innovation was to proclaim that this network of authoritative concepts is only meaningful when the appropriate set of deeply felt passions, concerns, and interests is present in the individual’s heart. Kierkegaard refused to understand doctrines as neutral propositions whose meanings could be clarified without the cultivation of the necessary pathos. Because doctrines can be used either damagingly as speculative abstractions or productively as pathos-forming precepts, they are significant only under certain circumstances, when they are used by the individual to perform certain transformative functions in the individual’s life. Because the proper use of Christian doctrines is to present a distinctive way of life characterized by a distinctive pathos, grasping the meaning of a set of doctrines requires imagining the highly particular aspirations, hopes, joys, and fears that are essential to that way of life. An individual must develop the capacity to envision the unique passions encouraged by a doctrine, entertain them as genuine possibilities for one’s own life, and experience their lure as well as their potential offensiveness. This, of course, can only happen if profound concern has been cultivated about the shape and quality of the individual’s own life, about one’s deepest hopes, fears, and values. Truly grasping the meaning of a doctrine requires the cultivation of earnestness about oneself, a pathos-filled desire to express an existential ideal, just as much as it involves attention to the doctrine’s transcendent or historical subject matter.41 Consequently, a singular theological meaning cannot be regarded as a property that inheres in a doctrinal proposition or a dogmatic text, independent of its use. Kierkegaard’s drafts for a series of lectures on communication make it clear that meaning is not just a matter of “what” is said, but also of “how” it is said.42 A doctrine does not retain the same meaning if it is asserted by a different person in different circumstances for different purposes. Affirmed by a genuine witness willing to suffer for the faith, a doctrine can be a profound truth, but if mouthed by an aesthetic observer or a disengaged professor it becomes a ludicrous untruth.43 Elsewhere Kierkegaard remarks that when Christ, facing crucifixion, proclaims, “There is an eternal life” something of unique significance has been said, but when a comfortably situated theology graduate casually repeats the same words something very different has

41 42 43 39 40

SKS 11, 209 / SUD, 96. SKS 11, 100 / WA, 96. SKS 22, 329–32, NB13:88 / JP 6, 6521. SKS 27, 390–9, Papir 365:1–24 / JP 1, 649. SKS 20, 321–2, NB4:72 / JP 1, 646.

Dogma/Doctrine

185

been suggested.44 Throughout the proposed lectures on communication, Kierkegaard lambastes preachers and professors who proclaim doctrinal formulae in a mood of clinical detachment or personal complacency, and advances the counterclaim that authentic ethical and religious communication demands a confluence of appropriate life context, personal engagement, and speech. According to Kierkegaard, this pathos-shaping use of Christian doctrines can inform not just one aspect of an individual’s life, but the individual’s life as a whole. Christianity’s network of doctrinal concepts is sufficiently comprehensive and extensive to give a unifying directionality to the individual’s existence, if those concepts are not treated speculatively. The interwoven fabric of doctrines encourages the growth of abiding dispositions, purposes, and passions capable of establishing historical continuity for a life, forging a cohesive unity out of the potentially chaotic welter of discrete desires and social roles. Taken as a whole, the web of doctrines encourages an individual to reconfigure his or her life, adopting a consistent and integrated set of attitudes, goals, emotions, and behaviors. In Kierkegaard’s pages the felicitous appropriation of Christian doctrine is the cultivation of a distinctive way of feeling, desiring, perceiving, and dealing with life’s vicissitudes and challenges. See also Authority; Christendom; Church; Faith; Orthodox; Pastorate; Protestantism/ Reformation; Revelation; Scriptures.

44



SKS 11, 105–7 / WA, 101–3.

This page intentionally left blank

Double Movement Roe Fremstedal

Double Movement (Dobbelt-Bevægelse—compound noun) Dobbelt from German doppelt, French double, Latin duplus, derived from Latin, duo. Bevægelse, from bevæge, derived from Middle Low German, bewegen. The lexical meaning of dobbelt is double, doubled, twofold, and dual.1 Bevægelse has a wide range of lexical meanings. It can refer to physical movement, motion, and action, as well as different forms of activity and intellectual or political movements. It can also refer to one’s being moved by something, as well as a person’s attitude, dignity, behavior, and state of mind. Finally, it can refer to affects, incentives, drives, or inclinations, as well as expressions or appearances of different feelings.2 The concept “double movement” occurs mainly in Fear and Trembling, but is occasionally used elsewhere in Kierkegaard’s authorship as well. The concept itself can refer to physical movement or motion, such as the rocking of a ship3 or currents of air that move in two different directions at the same time.4 It can also be used in a formal sense to denote the negation of a negation that contains an affirmation, that is, a dual negation that results in positivity.5 Johannes the Seducer uses double movement to refer to a duality in which Cordelia is treated in such a way that she is both calmed and excited.6 By contrast, Judge William uses double movement to describe marital love: Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, columns 812–18. 2 Ibid., vol. 2, columns 598–605. 3 E.g., SKS 19, 225, Not8:2 / JP 5, 5507. 4 E.g., SKS 11, 66 / WA, 60. 5 SKS 1, 348 / CI, 318. Kierkegaard discusses the work of Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger (1780–1819) here. Kierkegaard also speaks of “logical operations [bevægelser– movements],” “dialectical movements,” and “the inner movement of thought.” See SKS 2, 158 / EO1, 159; SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 215; SKS 3 203 / EO2, 211. 6 SKS 2, 374 / EO1, 386. The commentary in SKS suggests that the concept double movement might have been so important to Kierkegaard that he actually removed it from the second edition of Either/Or, Part One, in order to distinguish the movements of the aesthete from the double movement of faith as found in Fear and Trembling. See SKS K2–3, 69. Also, the Journal NB2 (SKS 20, 214, NB2:186 / JP 1, 607) describes the relation between Jesus and contemporary Jews as “double movement” where “the very person of whom men have been appreciatively aware...turns against them.” SKS 19, 335, Not11:22 / KJN 3, 333 describes the Greek term δυάς (two-ness, duality) as double movement, cf. SKS K19, 466. 1

188

Roe Fremstedal Marriage...ought not to call forth erotic love; on the contrary, it presupposes it not as something past but as something present. But marriage has an ethical and religious element that erotic love does not have; for this reason, marriage is based on resignation [Resignation], which erotic love does not have. If one is unwilling to assume that in this life every person goes through the double movement—first, if I may put it this way, the pagan movement, where erotic love belongs, and then the Christian movement, whose expression is marriage—if one is unwilling to say that erotic love must be excluded from Christianity, then it must be shown that erotic love can be united with marriage.7

Put in contemporary terms, the first movement consists of a first-order desire of a particular kind—that is, erotic love. The second movement, however, consists of a second-order desire—that is, a desire about desire. This movement takes the form of relating to one’s first-order desire and involves either distancing oneself from it or taking it upon oneself. Marital love presumably takes over erotic love but sees it as implying ethical obligations. Judge William also uses the term “double movement” to describe the choice of oneself: This self that he [the individual] chooses…is infinitely concrete, for it is himself, and yet it is absolutely different from his former self, for he has chosen it absolutely. This self has not existed before, because it came into existence through the choice, and yet it has existed, for it was indeed “himself.” The choice here makes two dialectical movements simultaneously—that which is chosen does not exist and comes into existence through the choice—and that which is chosen exists; otherwise it was not a choice.8

In one sense, one is already a self prior to choosing oneself; in another sense, one first becomes oneself by virtue of choosing oneself. Whereas the former corresponds to one’s finite, given self (one’s being a particular person in a determinate context), the latter corresponds to selfhood as a task, something that is tied to the realization of ethical ideals. The choice of oneself is also described in a different way: “The true concrete choice is the one by which I choose myself back into the world the very same moment I choose myself out of the world.”9 Moreover, “In the moment of choice, he [who chooses] is in complete isolation, for he withdraws from his social milieu [Omgivelsen], and yet at the same moment he is in absolute continuity, for he chooses himself as a product.”10 Here, the first movement does not represent a given self or a given social context, but rather the break with—or detachment from—it. The second movement, then, represents a return to the surroundings that takes the form of an appropriation of both human history and one’s own personal history.11 The first movement involves choosing oneself as free in an abstract manner, as different from one’s surroundings. The second movement, by contrast, involves choosing oneself as a specific individual that is already part of the human community and its particular

SKS 3, 43–4 / EO2, 36. SKS 3, 207 / EO2, 215. SKS 3, 237 / EO2, 248–9. 10 SKS 3, 239 / EO2, 251. 11 Regarding appropriation, see SKS 3, 240 / EO2, 251. 9 7 8

Double Movement

189

history.12 The second movement occurs after the first movement in a logical, rather than temporal, sense, since there needs to be a break before there can be a return. This choice of oneself is also identified with repentance,13 something which again is described in terms of a double movement: “Ethical repentance has only two movements—it either annuls [ophæver] its object or bears it. These two movements also imply a concrete relation between the repenting individual and the object of his repentance, whereas fleeing from it expresses an abstract relationship.”14 Presumably, repentance annuls its object by distancing itself from an evil past in order to avoid repeating it. Instead of simply denying the past, one acknowledges it (“bears it”) as part of one’s history while striving for improvement. The Sickness unto Death seems to follow Either/Or, Part Two, in describing the self in terms of a double movement: The self is the conscious synthesis of infinitude and finitude that relates itself to itself, whose task it is to become itself, which can only be done through the relationship to God. To become oneself is to become concrete. But to become concrete is neither to become finite nor to become infinite, for that which is to become concrete is indeed a synthesis. Consequently, the progress of becoming must be an infinite moving away from oneself in the infinitizing of the self, and an infinite coming back to itself in the finitizing process.15

Infinitely moving away from oneself may be taken to mean that one continually or endlessly transcends one’s given self (for example, being a white male with particular preferences and desires) by being free and by imagining possibilities and ideals. However, the task of becoming oneself also requires that one continually use freedom and imagination in order to return to finitude. Presumably, one does this by trying to express or actualize ethical ideals in reality. However, The Sickness unto Death is clear that this can only be achieved “through the relationship to God.” This suggests that selfhood or moral agency is dependent on God (probably in a more radical way than expressed by Judge William in Either/Or, Part Two). This topic is also developed in Practice in Christianity: “Every human being possesses to a higher or lower degree a capability called the power of imagination [Indbildningskraften], a power that is the first condition for what becomes of a person, for will is the second and in the ultimate sense the decisive condition.”16 Kierkegaard (Anti-Climacus) goes on to say that one “perceives some image of perfection (ideal)” with one’s imagination.17 He then concludes, “the earnestness of life is to will to be, to will to express the perfection (ideality) in the dailyness SKS 3, 239 / EO2, 250–1. SKS 3, 237 / EO2, 248; SKS 3, 239 / EO2, 250–1. 14 SKS 3, 237 / EO2, 248–9. Similarly, the double movement of faith, found in Abraham, is described as “two movements.” See SKS 4, 203 / FT, 115. 15 SKS 11, 146 / SUD, 29–30. Similarly, Climacus writes: “Only momentarily can a particular individual, existing, be in a unity the infinite and the finite that transcends existing. This instant is the moment of passion….In passion, the existing subject is infinitized in the eternity of imagination and yet is also most definitely himself.” SKS 7, 180–1 / CUP1, 197. 16 SKS 12, 186 / PC, 186. 17 Ibid. 12 13

190

Roe Fremstedal

of actuality.”18 This suggests a double movement in which imagination transcends finitude by reaching for ideality (perfection) and then returns to finitude by virtue of willfully expressing perfection in action. One transcends the finite reality by making use of one’s imagination and freedom. However, instead of merely contemplating different possibilities, one selects a possibility and acts on it. This means using one’s imagination and freedom not to escape the world, but to act in it. However, the clearest example of a double movement is the so-called “double movement of faith” in Fear of Trembling. This double movement consists of the following: first, the so-called “infinite movement of resignation,” a movement whereby one fully (“infinitely”) resigns or renounces one’s own ability to realize the highest; second, the “infinite movement of faith,” a movement whereby one fully believes that the same good can nevertheless be realized with divine assistance.19 Neither resignation nor faith represents immediate, first-order feelings or sentiments. Rather, they represent specific ways to relate not only to oneself and the surroundings, but more specifically to what is perceived as being valuable. In performing the movement of resignation, with respect to what one takes to be most valuable—for instance, getting a princess20—one does not deny the importance of getting the princess; the point is rather that the desire or want, as it immediately is, no longer induces one directly to act. This is because it is seen as lying beyond one’s capability to realize; the power of immediate (first-order) desire is dethroned or rendered impotent. It will move one to act only if it is endorsed in a new movement, such as the movement of faith.21 This double movement is different from an ordinary sacrifice in which one renounces a lower good in order to obtain a higher good. As opposed to the sacrifice of the tragic hero, the “knight of faith” in Fear and Trembling resigns (resignerer paa) his own capacity to realize the highest and yet still believes that it will be returned with God’s help.22 Thus, the movement of faith makes it possible to act by putting one’s confidence in God. At one point Fear and Trembling says that only the single individual can give himself a more precise explanation of what the highest is.23 Here the highest is understood as that which is subjectively perceived as the highest, rather than that which actually is objectively highest. However, the book elsewhere makes suggestions about what is objectively good or valuable. Indeed, man’s telos (purpose) is explicitly said to be eternal bliss (Salighed ).24 We will see that this is consistent with the account given in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, according to which

SKS 12, 189 / PC, 190. SKS 4, 129–45 / FT, 34–52; SKS 4, 167 / FT, 75–6; SKS 4, 189–90 / FT, 99–101; SKS 4, 197 / FT, 109; SKS 4, 203 / FT, 115. 20 Cf. SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41–2. 21 I am indebted to Kjell Eyvind Johansen on this point. 22 SKS 4, 150ff., 117–18 / FT, 56ff., 20–2. 23 SKS 4, 163 / FT, 71. 24 SKS 4, 148 / FT, 54. 18 19

Double Movement

191

the good resigned in the double movement is eternal bliss, something which is also identified with the highest good. Perhaps the earliest (implicit) occurrence of the double movement of faith in the published works is from “Ultimatum,” a pseudonymous text that predates Fear and Trembling: If your one and only wish was denied you, my listener, you are still happy….If your wish were what others and you yourself in a certain sense must call your duty, if you not only had to deny your wish but in a way betray your duty, if you lost not only your joy but even your honor, you are still happy—in relation to God, you say: I am always in the wrong….In relation to God we are always in the wrong—this thought puts an end to doubt and calms [its] cares; it animates and inspires [begeistrer] to action.25

I take this as saying that if one wishes to realize one’s duty and be virtuous, then one must give up one’s wish (due to human guilt and sin). Nevertheless, divine grace makes it possible to be happy, even saved. Like Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life’s Way and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript all describe religiousness in terms of a double movement. Paraphrasing the Gospels, The Concept of Anxiety describes the religious person as losing all and receiving it back.26 Like Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Anxiety hardly explicates what one loses (resigns) and gets back. Stages on Life’s Way states that one has always to make double movements if one is to persist in one’s task. The double movement is then described as holding on to one’s love while simultaneously seeing it as impossible to realize.27 It is presumably impossible to realize, since it lies outside one’s capability—unless one is to rely on lucky circumstances. When discussing resignation and how one is to relate to the highest good, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript explicitly describes religious existence as involving a “double movement.”28 One possibility is to read this as a reference to Fear and Trembling, a work Climacus refers to several times.29 On this reading, Climacus relies on the interpretation of faith in Fear and Trembling, although he specifies that the object resigned is the highest good. Another possibility is to read this double movement as merely the necessity of relating absolutely to the absolute telos, and relatively to the relative.30 The absolute telos is explicitly identified with the highest good, a synthesis of virtue and happiness that is also described as eternal bliss (Salighed ).31 Thus, the double movement appears to refer to the subjective attitude of the religious believer, wherein one attributes absolute value to the highest good and only conditional value to other goods. However, the analysis of SKS 3, 331–2 / EO2, 353. SKS 4, 409, 457 / CA, 107, 158. Cf. SKS K4, 479; cf. Matthew 10:39; Luke 17:33. 27 SKS 6, 383–4 / SLW, 413–14. 28 SKS 7, 372 / CUP1, 409. At SKS 7, 264 / CUP1, 290 “double movement” refers to a duality of jest and seriousness, the comic and the tragic. 29 E.g., SKS 7, 238ff. / CUP1, 261ff. 30 Cf. SKS 7, 370–1 / CUP1, 407–8. 31 See SKS 7, 354–9, 368, 388, 390–1 / CUP1, 389–94, 404, 426–7, 429–30. 25 26

192

Roe Fremstedal

guilt and suffering in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript makes it clear that the highest good lies beyond what we are capable of realizing on our own. Kierkegaard (Climacus) therefore concludes that when it comes to the highest good we are capable of doing nothing ourselves—although everything is possible through the Christian God.32 The pagan cannot get further than this insight into man’s inability to realize eternal bliss (the highest good).33 Whereas self-annihilation and guilt-consciousness are said to belong to immanent religiousness, the ability to receive the highest good is tied to Christianity. In the writings Kierkegaard penned under his own name, the double movement of faith is hinted at in many different places.34 Kierkegaard himself claims that the pagan can resign, but only when he sees that loss is inevitable. He goes on to say that the piety of Judaism, presumably exemplified by Abraham and Job, can resign and believe—but only then the believer is put through an ordeal. As opposed to the pagan and the Jew, the Christian is capable of voluntary resignation and belief.35 Kierkegaard comments on the relation between Christian faith and the faith of Abraham in the following way: “according to the New Testament Abraham is called the father of faith, and yet it is [arguably]36 clear that the content of his faith cannot be Christian—that Jesus Christ has been in existence. But Abraham’s faith is the formal definition [Bestemmelse—determination] of faith.”37 In Fear and Trembling, Abraham is depicted not only as the knight of faith, but is also used to exemplify the double movement of faith. I take the previous passage to say that the double movement of faith explicates the formal structure of faith rather than the content of faith. So although Judaism and Christianity differ when it comes to the content of faith, Kierkegaard claims that there is a structure common to both of them, a structure which formally defines or determines what faith is. Whereas the content of faith refers to the dogmas or objects of faith, the formal definition appears to correspond to the act whereby one believes. Or rather, it corresponds to the dual act of resigning and believing. This is in line with the lexical meaning, according to which “movement” can mean (subjective) “attitude” or “state of mind.”38 To summarize: the concept “double movement” is used mainly to describe religious faith, but also has a more general form in which an object is both negated and affirmed at the same time. Typically, however, a double movement represents a subjective attitude or state of mind whereby one breaks with an object yet returns to it. However, the different double movements differ when it comes to what lies behind the break and the return. Notably, the double movement can be specifically SKS 7, 390–1 / CUP1, 429–30. SKS 7, 503, 519 / CUP1, 554, 571–2. 34 SKS 10, 205–6, 209, 187 / CD, 195–7, 200, 176. 35 SKS 10, 189 / CD, 178f. Cf. SKS 25, 152–3, NB27:39 / JP 2, 1433. SKS 15, 268 / BA, 112–13. 36 The translation leaves out the word vel here, a word which can be translated “presumably,” “arguably,” or “certainly.” 37 Pap. X–6 B 81 / JP 1, 12. 38 Cf. SKS 3, 317 / EO2, 337 who explains “the attitude” as “the development [Bevægelsen–movement]” and “the position.” 32 33

Double Movement

193

religious, so that the return is only made possible by religious faith—or it can involve an ethical choice that relies on willpower. See also Choice; Dialectic; Dying to/Renunciation; Existence/Existential; Faith; Finitude/Infinity; Freedom; Grace; Guilt; Imagination; Movement/Motion; Repentance; Repetition; Salvation/Eternal Happiness; Self/Spirit/Personality; Sin.

This page intentionally left blank

Double-Reflection Wojciech Kaftański

Double-Reflection (Dobbelt-Reflexion—compound noun) The Danish dobbelt is derived from the German doppelt, compare French and English double, derived from the Latin duplus. The lexical meaning in Danish refers to increase by a large number of quantity, size, amount, weight, and the like, namely, twice as large. Reflection is derived from Latin reflexio. The lexical meaning in Danish refers to backscattered light from shiny surfaces, to glare and sound.1 The most frequent occurrences of the term “double-reflection” are in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and the journals. Double-reflection appears minimally in Practice in Christianity and in an article “The Activity of a Travelling Esthetician and How He Still Happened to Pay For the Dinner.”2 Kierkegaard does not discuss the concept of double-reflection directly; he refers to the concept in a discursive way. The major considerations of double-reflection occur in the discussions of (1) indirect communication, (2) the subjective thinker, and (3) the dialectic of existence. Kierkegaard discusses the above-mentioned topics in an interrelated way. Although he does not refer to double-reflection systematically, one can identify complementary descriptions of the concept. In both descriptions, Kierkegaard defines the specific types of reflection that constitute double-reflection. The first description of the concept appears in the Postscript, where Climacus says: The form of a communication is something different from the expression of a communication. When a thought has gained its proper expression in the world, which is attained through the first reflection, there comes the second reflection, which bears upon the intrinsic relation of the communication to the communicator and renders the existing communicator’s own relation to the idea.3

Here the first reflection addresses the relation between the expressed thought and its accuracy. It concerns certain truths or convictions, for example: “truth is inwardness.”4 The second reflection addresses two relations. The first relation occurs between the communicator and the form of the communication. The second relation Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 7, columns 545–8. 2 The article was published in Fædrelandet, no. 2078, December 27, 1845. SKS 14, 79–84 / COR, 38–46. 3 SKS 7, 77 / CUP1, 76. 4 SKS 7, 77 / CUP1, 77. 1

196

Wojciech Kaftański

appears between the communicator and his or her relation to the truth that is being expressed in the communication. The second description of double-reflection can be found in Kierkegaard’s— planned but never delivered—lectures on communication entitled: “The Dialectic of Ethical and Ethical-Religious Communication”: “[A]ll communication must go through a double reflection; the first [reflection] is the reflection in which the communication is made, and the second [reflection] is that in which it is taken back [tages tilbage].”5 At this point, the first reflection is presented as the sphere that links the communicator and the communicated thought; it functions as a platform that allows the content of the reflection to occur. In the second reflection the communicator reflects over the first reflection. In the first reflection there is an object that is the content of the reflection. The first reflection is, however, the content of the second reflection (thereby enabling the communicator to take an attitude towards it—for example, revocation). Kierkegaard uses the concept of double-reflection to illustrate his understanding of communication. “Double-reflection is already implicit in the idea of communication itself,”6 but the “secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free, for that very reason he [the communicator] must not communicate himself directly.”7 Double-reflection focuses on the ethical form of communication that addresses the relation between communicator and the receiver.8 Double-reflection keeps the communication between individuals on the level that exceeds the “ordinary communication”9 between people, which takes place in the immediate. Doublereflection characterizes an individual’s communication with respect to the eternal dimension of life, and treats the individual as “continually [being] in the process of becoming.”10 Double-reflection is a methodological procedure that results from the appropriate understanding of the communicator and the communication. The human communicator is not God (master-teacher); therefore he is not supposed directly to teach a receiver—the receiver already has the knowledge in himself. The communicator should lead the receiver to confront his or her master-teacher. Through indirect communication the communicator attains an understanding of his or her individuality.11 The communicator must concentrate on the individuality of his or her receiver, ignoring the “illusory results”12 of speculative philosophy— which is certainty of historical knowledge about the individual, which proclaims the individual as an intrinsic part of the crowd. In consequence, the receiver— acknowledging the fact of being an individual—will pursue an exclusive relation with God. Both the communicator and the receiver are ultimately in relation to God, 7 8 9 5 6

12 10 11

SKS 27, 397, Papir 356:14 / JP 1, 649 (translation modified). SKS 7, 74 / CUP1, 73. SKS 7, 74–5 / CUP1, 74. SKS 27, 397, Papir 356:14 / JP 1, 649. SKS 7, 74 / CUP1, 74. SKS 7, 74 / CUP1, 73. SKS 7, 70, 77 / CUP1, 70, 77. SKS 7, 81 / CUP1, 81.

Double-Reflection

197

and their inwardness is directed to God in their individuality and in isolation from others. In indirect communication, through double-reflection, the communicator redoubles his or her being. He or she is both a teacher and a learner. Reduplication occurs in the double-reflection. What the communicator holds as true must resonate in his or her existence since the communicator does not communicate disinterested thoughts. “Just as his communication must in form essentially conform to his own existence, so his thought must correspond to the form of existence.”13 Kierkegaard refers to double-reflection in refining his concept of the subjective existing thinker. He exemplifies the opposite tendencies within the communicator. The communicator communicates with “duplexity”: the communicator, “existing in the isolation of inwardness, wants to communicate himself…[and] simultaneously wants to keep his thinking in the inwardness of his subjective existence.”14 Doublereflection is connected with the concepts of redoubling and reduplication,15 expressed as the “duplexity [Dobbelthed ] of thought-existence.”16 Contrary to the objective thinker, the subjective existing thinker is ultimately interested in his or her thinking, because this thinking is part of the process of his or her becoming. The objective thinker is existentially disinterested with what is communicated; consequently his or her dispassionate relation to what is being communicated leaves the subject turned into an object. “In thinking [the subjective thinker] thinks the universal, but, as existing in this thinking, as acquiring his inwardness, he becomes more and more subjectively isolated.”17 In indirect communication, the communicator—the existing subjective thinker—“is essentially interested in his own thinking, [as he] is existing in it…his thinking has another kind of reflection,…that of inwardness, of possession.”18 Double-reflection characterizes the dialectic of existence. The dialectic of existence can be expressed only in indirect communication that respects its dialectical character. “Existential dialectic, especially in the form of doublereflection, cannot be communicated directly.”19 The dialectic of existence contains in itself its positivity and negativity that can be comprehended (rendered) in the subject through double-reflection. The positivity in the subject is not the certainty of earthly life.20 It is related to the subject’s negativity; the positivity is the awareness of the negativity of the subject, which is the contradiction of “the infinite in his soul”21 and the perpetual process of becoming: “his positivity consists in the continued inward deepening in which he is cognizant of the negative.”22 The relation between the positive and negative in the subject is expressed in the relation between the comic SKS 7, 80 / CUP1, 80. SKS 7, 73 / CUP1, 73. 15 SKS 27, 410, Papir 368:7 / JP 1, 653. 16 SKS 7, 73–4 / CUP1, 73. 17 SKS 7, 73 / CUP1, 73. 18 Ibid. 19 SKS 14, 83 / COR, 44. 20 SKS 7, 86 / CUP1, 86. 21 SKS 7, 81 / CUP1, 81; SKS 7, 82 / CUP1, 82; SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 84. 22 SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 84. 13 14

198

Wojciech Kaftański

and pathos in the subject. The subjective existing thinker’s relation to the comic and pathos is regulated by the fact of the thinker’s existing in double-reflection.23 For ordinary people the communication must be either pathos-filled or comic, or if both are incorporated in the communication, either the pathos or the comic must predominate. “But for the person existing in double-reflection, the proportion is this: just as much of pathos, just as much of the comic.”24 Indirect communication contains the double-reflection that is expressed in a certain deception (this deception signifies that the communicator first and foremost does not seem to be earnest) that unites the religious and the jest: “The dialectical in that the communicator must work against himself.”25 What the thinker says may sound like a jest, but in fact it may be the highest earnestness.26 Kierkegaard sees the complexity of his enterprise—his pseudonymous and signed works—as expressing the dialectical existence of the author. He sees his authorship as the art of communication, and therefore he sees himself existing in the dialectic of double-reflection.27 Understanding double-reflection in this context of the art of communication explains why Kierkegaard refers to his pseudonymous works as a “doubly reflected communication.”28 Double-reflection expresses the plurality of reflections that occurs in the indirect communication, in the relation between communicator and receiver, and in the dialectic of existence. Double-reflection, as the core of indirect communication, has the ultimate goal of relating an individual to God. In double-reflection the dialectic of existence is constituted and the relation between individuals is secured. Doublereflection is more than a disposition of the subject. The doubly-reflecting individual is in fact qualitatively different from the non-doubly-reflecting individual, and it is this difference that places him or her in the eternal dimension and guarantees his or her individuality. See also Appropriation; Being/Becoming; Comic/Comedy; Communication/Indirect Communication; Existence/Existential; Negativity; Passion/Pathos; Redoubling/ Reduplication.

SKS 7, 87 / CUP1, 87. Ibid. 25 SKS 27, 398, Papir 365:22 / JP 1, 649. 26 SKS 7, 88 / CUP1, 88. 27 Pap. VII–1 B 83 / JP 5, 5865. 28 SKS 12, 137 / PC, 133. 23 24

Dreams Anne Nielsen

Dreams (Drømme—noun, plural of Drøm) From the Old Norse draumr (compare German Traum, English “dream”), the Danish word Drøm primarily refers to the succession of ideas, images, sensations, and emotions that occur involuntarily during sleep. It may also describe certain waking states that involve the use of imagination or fantasy, sometimes referred to as “daydreaming.” The word may also be used to express a special aspiration or ideal, or to indicate that something is almost too good or perfect to be real.1 References to dreams, dreaming, dream existence, daydreaming, and the like, are scattered throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship, but occur most frequently in the journals, papers, and notebooks, Either/Or, and Stages on Life’s Way. Five different uses of the concept can be distinguished: (1) dream as a vanishing illusion, (2) the biblical use of dream, (3) the aesthetic use of dream, (4) the philosophical/cognitive use of dream, and (5) the existential/psychological use of dream. (1) The use of dream in the sense of a vanishing illusion occurs, for example, in the “Seducer’s Diary” of Either/Or: “Her pace slackens, she is almost carried along by the gentle breeze—like a cloud, like a dream.”2 The meaning is clear: the young girl, in the eyes of the seducer, is so adorably lighthearted as to be comparable to a fleeting cloud or a dream. Another example can be found in The Sickness unto Death: “and any human fabrication remains just a dream, a precarious delusion.”3 In this context, dream is equated with an unstable imagination. In his journal, Kierkegaard groups “dreams” together with “visions” and “revelations.”4 He also touches upon the concept of a daydream in Stages on Life’s Way: “Woman, even less than the god, is a whim from a man’s brain, a daydream, something one hits upon all by oneself.”5 (2) In the Old Testament, dreams can function as a medium of divine revelation, in which God expands the human experience of reality.6 After the dream there is a need for a dream-interpreter, and we could say that Kierkegaard writes himself into this tradition as he elaborates on some of the stories from the Old Testament in order Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 3, columns 1053–5. 2 SKS 2, 345 / EO1, 355. 3 SKS 11, 229 / SUD, 117. 4 SKS 23, 168, NB17:5 / JP 2, 2092. 5 SKS 6, 73 / SLW, 73. 6 Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vols. 1–36, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2002, vol. 34, pp. 34ff. 1

200

Anne Nielsen

to underscore a certain point in the theme he is currently discussing. For example, in Stages on Life’s Way an interpretation of Solomon’s dreams is woven into the narrator’s diary. A dream enlightens Solomon about the nature of his father, King David,7 and in this sense it is a source of revelation/knowledge. The literature about dream traditions is divided into an understanding of dream as a mode of religious experience and as a mode of something psychodynamic, belonging to modern depth psychology.8 We could say that Kierkegaard intersects with both traditions, for he often uses the biblical tradition as a point of departure for treating psychologicalreligious themes such as anxiety, despair, and faith. A prime example is the story of the Fall as a model for shaping the concept of a “dreaming spirit” in The Concept of Anxiety. Other examples of dream exegesis include Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream in Journal EE and in Either/Or, as well as the reference to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in The Book on Adler.9 In the introduction to Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Kierkegaard ties dream to a certain hope and trust, as he states that this little book is like an illusion and a dream in the daytime. However, in this illusion lies precisely the hope of fulfillment, its possibility of success.10 Even though this reflection primarily concerns the act of writing and communicating, we could interpret this hope and trust in a Christian-biblical discourse as a dimension of dream. (3) The third use can be described as the aesthetic use of dream. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript Climacus sketches different stages of human existence,11 and one of these describes the possibility of having one’s whole reality in “esthetic dreams.”12 This is the aesthetic mode of existence described in Either/Or: “My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius”13 Thus the aesthete is actually not living in reality, for he is either sleeping or dreaming. This description of the aesthete ties in with Kierkegaard’s general consideration of the poet. In Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, he states that the poet’s rare gift of speaking about true love expresses an incomplete view of life, rather than a wish for a complete existence.14 That is, the “dreaming poet”15 lives inauthentically, unethically—without taking responsibility for himself or even for his thoughts—as we see in the repeated expression that “the poet lets nature dream about him.”16 The poet, in all his vanity, sees himself as necessary—as a necessary part of nature, indeed as the praiseworthy part; and in relation to culture, as a necessary part of the development of world history. Kierkegaard is very critical of such a pantheistic, SKS 6, 236 / SLW, 251. Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. 34, p. 41. SKS 15, 97 / BA, 11. 10 SKS 8, 121 / UD, 5. 11 SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501. 12 SKS 7, 235 / CUP1, 258. 13 SKS 2, 37 / EO1, 28. 14 SKS 5, 431 / TD, 56. 15 SKS 11, 22 / WA, 17. 16 Ibid. Cf. SKS 7, 495 / CUP1, 545. 9 7 8

Dreams

201

illusionary perspective, and he ironically pinpoints it by ascribing a dream existence “to a higher power”—the infinite illusory dream within a dream existence (whereby it becomes transformed into a kind of actuality)!17 The existence of the aesthete is surpassed by the existence of the ethicist who has been brave enough to choose himself, thereby escaping the aesthete’s inauthentic way of living. As B writes to A: “I wanted you to tear yourself loose from the illusions of the esthetic and from the dreaming of a half-hearted despair, in order to become awakened to the earnestness of the spirit.”18 Kierkegaard often uses the metaphor of waking up to reality and truth (which has Pauline connotations in, for example, 1 Thessalonians 5:6 and 1 Corinthians 16:13). The same metaphor is applied in Christian Discourses, which describes a kind of “hardship” that will awaken the dreaming person.19 The act of being woken up reveals new possibilities for a person, above all self-consciousness, desire, and confession.20 Kierkegaard also has a positive understanding of the “poetical,” namely as a new way of living in which the individual’s eyes are being opened to the eternal. In The Concept of Irony, he states that “living poetically is not the same as being in the dark about oneself, as sweating oneself out in loathsome sultriness, but it means becoming clear and transparent to oneself, not in finite and egoistical self-satisfaction but in one’s eternal validity.”21 Kierkegaard states that every individual who truly seeks it has the possibility of living poetically since poetry can be understood as a victory over the world, thereby opening up to a higher reality—only in this way can a human being live out his potential as a spiritual being. (4) In his philosophical/cognitive use of the concept, Kierkegaard sees dreams as allowing a person to anticipate what lies hidden in reality or what has not yet revealed itself. This capacity to anticipate, linked to the Danish word Ahnelse (presentiment),22 is strongly connected to the cognitive capacity for fantasy/ imagination. In Practice in Christianity,23 Kierkegaard calls attention to the young dreamer’s great imagination (Indbildningskraft), and in Journal EE, Kierkegaard states that the poetic consideration comes increasingly closer to actuality in the same way that Pharaoh’s second dream came closer to actuality than the first one.24 This analogy illustrates that only the poetic imagination is better at reflecting reality than the non-imaginative, since reality admits of many possibilities. There is a subtle distinction between dreaming as an imaginative-cognitive ability and dreaming as a self-created fantasy (for example, concerning the cognition of God). In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus states that “individuals grope as in a dream for a concept of God….And the same thing could easily repeat itself in the individual’s relation to himself.”25 That is, you cannot dream your way to know God, See SKS 19, 208–9, Not7:9 / JP 1, 804. SKS 3, 210 / EO2, 219. 19 SKS 10, 120 / CD, 109. 20 SKS 23, 245, NB17:104 / JP 4, 3909. 21 SKS 1, 332 / CI, 298. 22 See SKS 2, 399 / EO1, 411. 23 SKS 12, 188 / PC, 186. 24 SKS 18, 59, EE:172 / KJN 2, 54. 25 SKS 7, 495 / CUP1, 544–5. 17 18

202

Anne Nielsen

for in that way you will neither grasp the thought of God nor practice true worship of him.26 Nor can you dream your way to know yourself, but there has to be a reflected existence and conscious personality behind the cognitive faculty in dreaming— otherwise we end up in aesthetic existence. However, a clear motif in Kierkegaard is the transition from the young dreamer, who only views the world as a complete picture and does not include the sufferings of real life, to a more developed personality. In the young man, whose “imagination is awakened to his dream about the personality,”27 the dream dimension links up negatively with vanity and self-sufficiency but positively with a rich sensibility, understanding of ideality, and possibility for development. Consequently dreaming fantasy takes the stronger part in shaping his personality. It should be emphasized again that, for Kierkegaard, this condition of dreaming is not reserved for a specific developmental age, but the cultivated faculty of imagination is, as mentioned in the aesthetic use of dream, a way of living. Kierkegaard also ascribes a kind of historical–periodic reality to the cognition linked to dreaming. For example, in The Concept of Irony he explains the development of the mythical as dialectical thinking’s attempt to approach the idea, and as this fails the fantasy reacts by starting to dream—the mythical here being “the enthusiasm of imagination.”28 That is, dreaming fantasy is over-stimulated, and the object is not recognized but put outside thought. The merit of the dream as cognition must be understood in another way, according to Kierkegaard, namely, as Socrates understands it in Plato’s Symposium, where he states that his “wisdom is a poor kind and of an ambiguous nature, like a dream.”29 Kierkegaard takes this to mean that the dream contains “a faint clue of…positive knowledge.”30 The dream with its dimension of totality31 anticipates truth and reality that otherwise appear fragmented. Furthermore, Kierkegaard hints at Socrates’ sudden staring on occasion as a kind of dream existence, since in these moments the negativity becomes clear to him.32 Finally, Kierkegaard has a little fragment in one of his journals concerning the low status of the dream in his own time compared to former times, where one could find a richer understanding of the cognitive dimension of dreams and the whole scope of the unconscious: Men must have lived in a far simpler manner in those days when they believed that God divulged his will in dreams….But imagine life in the great cities and the manner of life there—no wonder people attribute dreams to the devil or to demons.—Moreover, the slight significance attributed to dreams in our era is consistent with the spiritualism which constantly emphasizes consciousness; whereas that more simple era piously believed that the unconscious life in man is both the paramount and the most profound aspect.33 See SKS 21, 106, NB7:59 / JP 2, 2008. SKS 4, 30 / R, 154. 28 SKS 1, 154 / CI, 101. The wording here is clearly inspired by Hegel. 29 SKS 1, 101n. / CI, 40n. 30 Ibid. 31 SKS 2, 320 / EO1, 331. 32 SKS 1, 222n. / CI, 175n. 33 SKS 22, 393, NB14:83 / JP 1, 781. 26 27

Dreams

203

(5) The existential/psychological use of the concept of dream may be the most original. Here we will focus on the “dreaming spirit” and how the concept of dream corresponds to the various stages of life. In The Concept of Anxiety, Haufniensis connects the notion of anxiety with “the dreaming spirit”: Anxiety is a qualification of dreaming spirit, and as such it has its place in psychology. Awake, the difference between myself and my other is posited; sleeping, it is suspended; dreaming, it is an intimated nothing. The actuality of the spirit constantly shows itself as a form that tempts its possibility but disappears as soon as it seeks to grasp it, and it is a nothing that can only bring anxiety.34

Thus, the aim of the slumbering spirit, which characterizes the spiritual condition of the human being, is to wake up in order for the human being to know the difference between good and evil, to realize his own sexuality, to realize his own freedom, etc. This has to do with the psychological faculties of the human being. However, following the tradition of German Idealism, and Hegel in particular, Kierkegaard blurs the lines between psychology, religion ,and philosophy.35 Hegel’s notion of the conscious spirit that has grasped its own eternal meaning in relating to truth reflects the difference that has been set as the spirit has finally woken up. Consequently, dreaming spirit, understood as anxiety, is a very potent concept for Kierkegaard, and he uses it to describe an individual’s degree of inner life. In Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, he states that one can read a soul by knowing his dreams: “he [the human being] would reveal himself as an entirely different person if you saw him in his dreams, when in sleep he has thrown off the constraint of fear…and he is as he actually is…for from olden days it is said that one learns to know a person’s soul through his dreams.”36 Not only single individuals but also cultures can have a dreaming spirit in which what is childlike is preserved—dreaming spirit is a measure of the profundity of the culture.37 In Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard divides human life into four stages (childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age) and, recalling the old expression “the dreams of childhood and youth,”38 he assigns the label “dream life” to childhood and youth. Consequently, the corresponding personalities, “the child” and “the young man,” can be regarded as sleepwalkers. This prompts the question: what right do we have to label the child and the young man a sleepwalker, since the child is more awake than the old man in that his senses are wide open and he has vitality, and the young man is so full of passions that he almost cannot sleep? Yet, Kierkegaard maintains, childhood and youth are dream lives, since the more noble part, namely the inner life, still sleeps. Consequently, the state of being awake is defined as being eternally turned inwards. The young man is turned inwards, but only in fantasy and not in eternity, and the risk of continuing to dream into adulthood exists—just by SKS 4, 347 / CA, 41. See Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward Craig, London and New York: Routledge 1998, vol. 4, pp. 259ff. 36 SKS 8, 161 / UD, 50. 37 SKS 4, 348 / CA, 42. 38 See SKS 10, 119 / CD, 108. 34 35

204

Anne Nielsen

losing the ideality of youth. Kierkegaard states that a kind of hardship, which brings the hope of eternity, is required to awaken the young man from this dream. Female existence, too, is a dream life to a certain point. Commenting on God’s creation of Eve from one of the sleeping Adam’s ribs (in “The Seducer’s Diary” in Either/Or), the seducer concludes that “woman is man’s dream.”39 Moreover, he supposes that, being taken from a rib, she is pure nature, devotion, and “being for another.”40 Not until she is touched by erotic love does she awaken from the dream existence she has so far been living, in which, furthermore, two stages can be distinguished: “in the first, love dreams about her; in the second, she dreams about love.”41 Also, in Stages on Life’s Way, the seducer defines the woman as a dream and yet as the highest reality, or at least that is the way the devotee of erotic love sees her, and in the moment of seduction they are both outside time. Here the condition of the woman, as illusion, as dream, is contrasted with that of the married couple.42 Finally, the old man can likewise waste a lot of time on dreaming—for instance, about his youth—and since youth is nothing but a dream it will be an illusion to the second power.43 The reason for this is that the old man has an ideality like that of the young man, the only difference being that the former has it backwards in memory and the latter forwards in hope. As mentioned in the section concerning the aesthetic use of dream, dream is also applied here to the stages of existence. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus states that the ethicist has chosen himself out of the terror of having his life in “esthetic dreams, in depression, in hiddenness.”44 Consequently, we could say that the next stage retroactively cancels the previous stage and turns it into a dream, in other words, an illusory state of being. Finally, A in Either/Or connects the concept of dream with the stages of existence in his discussion of the immediate erotic stages, where desire slowly awakens. He ascribes the dreaming stage to the page in The Marriage of Figaro, the seeking stage to Papageno in The Magic Flute, and the desiring stage to Don Giovanni in Mozart’s opera of the same name.45 Overall, we may say that the dreaming stage is an actual stage in a certain period of life that must, however, come to an end when one chooses oneself in one’s eternal validity. To conclude, five different uses of the concept of dream can be distinguished in Kierkegaard’s corpus. All these uses are centered on the opposition between dream and actuality. The dream represents a deficit due to its illusory character, but at the same time it holds a potential that can bring the individual, in a cognitive-imaginary sense, not only closer to the world in its enormous variety, but also closer to the individual himself in an aesthetic, psychological, and existential way. Kierkegaard tries to get us to reflect on our fixed notions about what is dream and what is SKS 2, 418 / EO1, 430. Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 SKS 6, 78 / SLW, 80–1. 43 SKS 5, 426 / TD, 51. 44 SKS 7, 235 / CUP1, 258. 45 SKS 2, 86 / EO1, 80. 39 40

Dreams

205

actuality; and he does this by drawing attention to the twin dangers of either living in a fantasy world or laboring under the illusion that one has actualized all dreamlike possibilities. See also Actuality; Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Anxiety; Desire; Genius; Imagination; Spirit; Stages.

This page intentionally left blank

Duty Azucena Palavicini Sánchez

Duty (Pligt—noun) The Danish word Pligt comes from the Old Danish Plict (penalty, punishment), which is derived from the Medieval Low German Plicht (High German Pflicht). The modern term refers primarily to a relationship characterized by obedience or debt (Skyld), and more specifically to actions that a person is (or feels) obligated to fulfill for reasons of conscience, morality, religion, social norms, or by virtue of one’s position.1 The term appears frequently in Fear and Trembling, Stages on Life’s Way, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Either/Or, Part Two, and Works of Love. The most sustained discussions of duty occur in Fear and Trembling and Either/Or, Part Two, as well as in Works of Love. As a fundamental part of Kierkegaard’s ethics, duty is defined in terms of (1) “first” ethics, and (2) Christian ethics.2 I. Duty in “First” Ethics Duty is discussed in the context of “first” ethics in Part Two of Either/Or. There, duty is taken to be central to the ethical sphere of existence, which is equated with “the universal and thus the abstract.”3 There is a direct relationship between abstraction and prohibition: the more abstract the duty, the more prohibitive, or negative, it becomes.4 Conversely, the more concrete the duty, the more positive it is. Judge William illustrates concrete duty through the recurrent figure of marriage. He also presents duty as the expression of rationality by means of which the good is chosen, and thereby the means by which one chooses oneself—not only as “a personal self but [also as] a social, a civic self.”5 Individuals can conceive duty as part of themselves or as something external. If it is considered as external, duty is understood as a law imposed from without, which is impossible to fulfill entirely. This is because there is a confrontation between the Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 16, columns 1016–19. 2 Note that “first” ethics is equated with pagan ethics, the morality of mores, and rational ethics, and is contrasted with Christian (“new” or “second”) ethics. The latter conception of ethics is predicated on “the sinfulness of the single individual.” Cf. SKS 4, 328–9 / CA, 20–1. 3 SKS 3, 243 / EO2, 255. 4 Ibid. 5 SKS 3, 250 / EO2, 262. 1

208

Azucena Palavicini Sánchez

particularity of the individual and the universality of the abstract duty. As abstract, the ethical lacks “the means for accomplishing the least thing.”6 But even when duty is more concrete, if I regard it as something external, as though it does not emerge inwardly from “my true being,” it is a form of despair.7 This is the major difference between the Kantian notion of duty and duty as conceived in Either/Or, Part Two. Although both positions coincide in stressing the importance of duty and the dynamics of choice, Kantian duty is established by construing concrete maxims in abstract, universal terms and is vulnerable to Hegel’s charge that it is ultimately an empty formalism. Concrete ethics, by contrast, calls on the individual’s conscience, spontaneously and affectively, and is rooted in a sense of practical identity.8 This does not mean that the type of duty conceived in Either/Or, Part Two is irrational or criterionless, but it is not exhausted by its objective determination in terms of public justification and universalizability: “The fundamental point, therefore, is not whether a person can count on his fingers how many duties he has, but that he has once and for all felt the intensity of duty in such a way that the consciousness of it is for him the assurance of the eternal validity of his being.”9 Only when individuals appropriate and internalize duty do they enter the ethical stage of existence. Individuals have both a concrete and an abstract nature, dialectically related—first, in our concrete and immediate natures in the aesthetic stage of existence, and second in reflection, when the abstract and universal are embraced. When the individual passionately appropriates the universal moral law as part of his or her practical identity, and internalizes it concretely as conscience, that person becomes an ethical individual.10 One of our main ethical duties is to disclose ourselves to others. Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript states: “It is every human being’s duty to become open.”11 This contrasts with aesthetic hiddenness, which at its most extreme becomes demonic “inclosing reserve.”12 When choosing to become an ethical self, the individual commits to openness, to the other, and to the universal. Johannes Climacus, in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, referring to Judge William’s work, identifies disclosure with the possibility of embracing time within oneself—as the continuity of personal history.13 Judge William exemplifies this when claiming that openness constitutes an essential part of marriage: “Inwardly this primary condition is as follows: frankness, uprightness, openness on the largest scale possible; this is the life-principle of love.”14 Vigilius Haufniensis, in The Concept of Anxiety, agrees and also portrays the relationship between openness and communication as necessary for the individual to assert his or her freedom: 8 9 6 7

12 13 14 10 11

SKS 3, 243 / EO2, 255. SKS 3, 242–3 / EO2, 254–5. SKS 4, 434–5 / CA, 133–4. SKS 3, 254 / EO2, 266. SKS 3, 215 / EO2, 224. SKS 7, 452 / CUP1, 499–500. SKS 4, 434–5 / CA, 133–4. SKS 7, 231 / CUP1 254. SKS 3,106 / EO2, 104.

Duty

209

“But communication is in turn the expression for continuity, and the negation of continuity is the sudden.”15 II. Duty in Christian Ethics The concept of duty within the context of Christian ethics is illuminated by Johannes de silentio in Fear and Trembling and by Kierkegaard in Works of Love. In Fear and Trembling, Johannes de silentio analyzes the role of duty by describing different scenarios for the story of Abraham and Isaac, which lead to the so-called “teleological suspension of the ethical.” When duty is considered part of a religious context, our way of embracing it could lead to a different sphere from the (“first”) ethical: “The duty becomes duty by being traced back to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter into relation to God.”16 Insofar as I take “[t]he ethical [to be] the universal, and as such…also the divine,” I may relate to God “in a totally abstract sense,” and even if I trace duty back to God, “his power is only in the ethical, which fills all of existence.”17 In this case, even where duty is taken to be divine command, it is co-extensive with immanent, rationalistic ethics or the morality of mores. However, if the individual acknowledges that duty requires obedience to the transcendent God’s command, duty breaks from human immanence. In other words, understanding duty as divine command with a transcendent source makes it an absolute imperative, whereas under Kantian or Hegelian parameters even religious duty remains immanent and merely universal. In its most radical form, transcendent religious duty is stressed in a way that immanent ethics can be suspended, which from the perspective of rational ethics is considered evil.18 While this can be considered as an irrational element concerning religious duty, other interpretations argue that the suspension of the ethical can be inclusive—or even a movement that abandons immanent ethics but not rationality. The nature of transcendent religious duty, as characterized by Johannes de silentio, requires the suspension of disclosure, universality, and communicability: “But if the will of heaven had not been declared to him by an augur, if it had come to his knowledge quite privately, if it had entered into a purely private relation to him, then we are in the presence of the paradox…then he could not speak, however willing he might be to do so.”19 Language, as the medium par excellence of rationality, would suppose not only an objective realm where religious duty could be directly articulated, but also open disclosure. As transcendent religious duty lacks these features, it poses epistemological difficulties for making objective statements and threatens to lead to ethical relativism. This threat is arrested only if we regard religious duty not as an expression of rationality but as an absolute commandment by God directed SKS 4, 433 / CA, 129. SKS 4, 160 / FT, 68. 17 Ibid. 18 SKS 4, 152 / FT, 57. 19 SKS 4, 183 / FT, 93. 15 16

Azucena Palavicini Sánchez

210

specifically to each and every single individual. Kierkegaard expands on this topic in Works of Love. Throughout Works of Love, Kierkegaard approaches the difficulty of specific religious duties, in particular the divine command to love one’s neighbor. By depicting all the different features that involve loving the neighbor, Kierkegaard develops the idea of how Christian religious duty differs from ethical duty. Christian religious duty is the most concrete, and therefore positive, command for human beings. In contrast to the ethical appropriation of duty, the Christian acceptance of duty is a relationship that moves from the concreteness of duty to the concreteness of the individual.20 Individuals have to invest themselves in a personal and passionate way in order to fulfill this type of duty absolutely. Loving the neighbor involves duty to oneself and duty to the other. In the context of Christian ethics, duty towards the other takes the form of the divine commandment: “ ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ but if the commandment is properly understood it also says the opposite: You shall love yourself in the right way.”21 According to Kierkegaard, this type of duty stands in a relationship among three terms: the beloved, the lover, and love—or the self, the other, and God.22 Here God acts as a middle term between the lover and the beloved. This threefold relationship develops in different aspects. On the one hand, Christian duty presupposes self-love, which is supposed to be a disinterested love. Loving oneself without an egotistic worldly interest is the conditio sine qua non for loving the other as oneself. Secondly, this duty embraces completely the duty towards God, since it is by loving the other that we fulfill our duty towards God. Furthermore, in order to fulfill our duty, we must constantly renew our love of the neighbor, because the neighbor is whoever we encounter who is in need—though the love is eternal. This conception of love seems counterintuitive insofar as it is taken to be a disinterested duty, rather than a spontaneous feeling: “The commandment about love for the neighbor and about love of oneself becomes synonymous not only through this phrase ‘as yourself’ but even more through the phrase you shall.”23 Finally, due to the nature of the neighbor, our duty to love the other cannot be preferential but must extend to everyone. However, although Christian love and preferential love are contrasting notions, which might sometimes come into conflict, Kierkegaard holds out the hope that they might also be reconciled by always treating the preferentially beloved also as the neighbor. “Christian duty” and “rational duty” differ in many structural aspects including (1) temporality, and (2) their relation to individuals. (1) Regarding temporality, rational duty, as part of immanent ethics, does not last forever. Rational duty is finite and temporal, even if a task endures throughout a lifetime. Religious duty, by contrast, is eternal. Its performance, even if accomplished in multiple ways, is an everlasting one that extends beyond an individual’s life and earthly time.

22 23 20 21

SKS 9, 173 / WL, 173. SKS 9, 30 / WL, 22. SKS 9, 124 / WL, 121. SKS 9, 32 / WL, 24.

Duty

211

(2) Concerning the relationship between individuals and duty, everything depends on the context in which these relations occur. Understood in a rational context, the relationship will be developed in universal–individual terms. This relationship begins with a duty, which is essentially abstract and universally directed to individuals, who are essentially concrete and particular. However, as stated above, individuals are not only concrete, but also abstract. Once individuals become aware of their duality, they can undertake the task of becoming a self through acknowledging both natures: individual concreteness and universal abstractness. In other words, when deciding to live according to duty, individuals embrace the universal personally, in the subjective passion of conscience.24 When duty is related to Christian ethics, the relationship changes significantly because Christian duty is not generated by reason. Rather, its source is the transcendent God and therefore it is eternal and absolute. The individual’s duty to obey a divine command is both absolute and concrete. In striving to appropriate the divine command absolutely, with all concreteness, the individual relates passionately towards the source of the duty, that is, God.25 The individual strives infinitely, though concretely, to become a dutiful self through his or her personal relationship to the absolute. See also Absolute; Actuality; Appropriation; Choice; Concrete/Abstract; Contingency/ Possibility; Ethics; Evil; Existence/Existential; Good; Individual; Love; Religious; Stages; Teleological Suspension; Universal.

24 25



SKS 4, 161 / FT, 69. SKS 4, 165–6 / FT, 74.

This page intentionally left blank

Dying To/Renunciation Adam Buben

Dying to (afdøe—verb) Afdøe combines the prefix af with the verb dø(e), which is derived from the noun Død, “death”; from the Old Danish døth, Old Norse dauðr, English derived death. The lexical meaning of afdøe in Danish is primarily the eschewing or overcoming of something, especially in a theological context (for example, worldly desires and wisdom). It can also refer to the wasting away of organic tissue.1 The concept of “dying to” comes up frequently throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, both pseudonymous and signed, and it is important to identify the connection that runs through these various occurrences. Generally speaking, Kierkegaard uses this expression to suggest a renunciation of selfish worldly interests, plans, desires, understanding, and even temporality; it is also the prescription for recovering from the sickness unto death. There is an obvious connection between this more metaphorical discussion of dying and his frequent treatment of physical death and occasional treatment of martyrdom. Because these latter two topics are separate Kierkegaardian concepts dealt with elsewhere in this volume, I mention them only for the purposes of clarifying what need not be extensively addressed here. Although the most thorough discussions of dying to are located in Kierkegaard’s later work—after 1848—brief references can be found in earlier writings, such as The Concept of Irony, The Concept of Anxiety, and the early upbuilding discourses.2 Even when the term itself does not appear, however, there are still other early inklings of something like dying to. For example, one might suggest that Johannes de silentio, the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, has dying to the world in mind when he says that “infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement does not have faith, for only in infinite resignation do I become conscious of my eternal validity.”3 Using Abraham as the model for such faith, de silentio explains that it is only in the willingness to give up everything one holds most dear in life that one can become ready to trust in the possibility that God will provide.4 One way of putting this might be that one must Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 1, columns 151–2. 2 SKS 1, 135–6 / CI, 76–7; SKS 4, 392–3 / CA, 89–90; SKS 5, 315 / EUD, 325. The passages from The Concept of Irony and The Concept of Anxiety are particularly interesting; they offer criticism of a kind of intellectual or philosophical dying to in Plato’s thought. 3 SKS 4, 140 / FT, 46. 4 SKS 4, 116–17 / FT, 20; SKS 4, 140–2 / FT, 46–7. 1

Adam Buben

214

sacrifice the worldly attachment to the notion that one gives one’s own life meaning so that one can allow all such meaning to be bestowed by God. When one’s meaning comes from the right relationship to God, then it no longer relies on the transient temporal self, but is, rather, grounded in the eternal. In order to free oneself from attachment to worldly meaning and come into the right relationship with the Christian divinity, the pseudonym Johannes Climacus suggests that one must learn to accept, as the early followers did, that a Christian life is necessarily one of suffering.5 Such suffering in its most extreme form is the martyrdom that the early Christians faced, but it also takes the shape of the figurative martyrdom of “dying to immediacy” and to “oneself.”6 Dying in this sense is really a series of sacrifices that an individual must make in order to remove obstacles on the road to becoming a Christian. These sacrifices, which will be described in greater detail in Kierkegaard’s later texts, may include giving up worldly goods, bodily security, and comfort, but they certainly include “the martyrdom of faith (to crucify one’s understanding).”7 This loss of understanding, which is contrary to all hope for the objective demonstration of either the truth of Christianity or one’s relationship to it, is necessary for subjectively appropriating what turns out to be the core belief of Kierkegaard’s Christianity—the paradoxical mortality of the immortal God as demonstrated by death on the cross.8 In the same vein as Climacus’ crucifixion of the understanding, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits describes liberation from temporal/worldly sagacity in terms of “dying to.”9 As an example of being dead to worldly interpretation of otherwise worldly events, consider Kierkegaard’s account of the martyr on his way to die, who only sees and speaks to God in gratitude, despite being paraded before a malicious crowd.10 One can find a similar connection of martyrdom and dying to worldliness in Works of Love where Kierkegaard muses: Let us now think of a Christian witness. For the sake of this doctrine, he ventures into battle with the powers that be who have his life in their hands and who must see in him a troublemaker—this will probably cost him his life. At the same time his contemporaries, with whom he has no immediate dispute but who are onlookers, find it ludicrous to risk death for the sake of such fatuousness. Here there is life to lose and truly no honor and admiration to gain! Yet to be abandoned in this way, only in this way to be abandoned, is Christian self-denial!11

Not only does this passage express the sense of dying to worldly understanding and selfhood that has come up in earlier texts, but it also displays a further Christian sharpening (now with a more personal interest not shared by Climacus) of this sort of dying. 597–8. 7 8 9 10 11 5 6

SKS 7, 416 / CUP1, 458. SKS 7, 418–21 / CUP1, 460–3; SKS 7, 428 / CUP1, 472; SKS 7, 542–3 / CUP1, SKS 7, 508 / CUP1, 559. SKS 7, 525 / CUP1, 578. SKS 8, 215–16 / UD, 113–14; SKS 8, 355 / UD, 257. SKS 8, 426–7 / UD, 336. SKS 9, 195–6 / WL, 196–7.

Dying To/Renunciation

215

Although the notion of dying to is clearly not far from Kierkegaard’s mind early on, the writings from 1848 and beyond display an increased attention to such dying. The first text from this period to manifest this extra attention is Christian Discourses, which re-emphasizes his earlier ideas about overcoming the attachment to all things earthly, human, and temporal in order to open oneself up to Christ and the eternal life that comes with faith in him. Kierkegaard claims, “if there is no next day for you, then all earthly care is annihilated…then either you are dying or you are one who by dying to temporality grasped the eternal, either one who is actually dying or one who is really living.”12 Here one can see his focus on the atemporal or kairological sense of the fullness of time of the present moment. Tomorrow has no significance for one who comes into the right relationship with the eternally present meaning of a Godly life.13 Another possible implication of the previous passage, and others like it, is that so long as one is bound to the perishable things of a rapidly decaying existence, one participates in death, but one is said to be truly alive by participating instead in something that can never die—the resurrected divinity (who, as a human, established the pattern for passing from death to life).14 Since the world is a place of death, in order not to die with it in one sense one must die to it in another: “a person must die to finitude (to its pleasures, its preoccupations, its projects, its diversions), must go through this death to life…and realize how empty is that with which busyness fills up life, how trivial is that which is the lust of the eye and the craving of the carnal heart.”15 One must sacrifice an insignificant and temporary way of life so as not to rule out the meaningful and everlasting Christian way of life.16 Having introduced the strange distinction between death as pathological and death as therapeutic, Kierkegaard uses a new pseudonym, Anti-Climacus, to say more about the former. The Sickness unto Death is not directly involved in the further explication of dying to, but is rather wholly absorbed in describing the state of individuals who seem in need of such dying. The sickness unto death is the human state of despair, which Anti-Climacus will later interpret Christianly as sinfulness.17 He says, “in the whole book, as the title indeed declares, despair is interpreted as a sickness, not as a cure.…Thus, also in Christian terminology death is indeed the expression for the state of deepest spiritual wretchedness, and yet the cure is simply

SKS 10, 81 / CD, 72. Elsewhere Kierkegaard briefly discusses the irrelevance of death for those who receive Christ’s promise of “this very day” as seen in Luke 23:43 (SKS 11, 47–8 / WA, 44–5). 14 SKS 10, 216–17 / CD, 208; SKS 10, 271 / CD, 258. 15 SKS 10, 183 / CD, 172. 16 SKS 10, 29 / CD, 17; SKS 10, 194–5 / CD, 184; SKS 10, 248–9 / CD, 242–3. If Kierkegaard does not emphasize the good news of the rebirth on the other side of such death, it is because he understands himself as speaking to a world (Christendom) that has grown soft, taking the joyous benefits for granted. He focuses on the nastiness of the “death first” because he thinks nineteenth-century Copenhageners need to hear it. 17 Despair is basically failing to be a proper (i.e., non-worldly) self, and sin is failing to be a proper self while having some sense that God demands such selfhood of a person (SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13; SKS 11, 191–3 / SUD, 77–9). 12 13

216

Adam Buben

to die, to die to the world.”18 Since, in the works that surround Sickness, Kierkegaard is mostly interested in what this passage calls “the cure,” it might seem possible to leave Anti-Climacus’ thorough discussion of the ailment of spiritual death (by worldly association) out of the present account of dying to. However, it would be strange to focus on the discussion of the cure without ever naming the disease. Nonetheless, given that the dead way of life that one must die to is a separate concept addressed in this volume, it seems appropriate to return to the explanation of the more beneficial sense of living death. The most thorough discussion of dying to in Kierkegaard’s works is found in For Self-Examination, where he describes the figurative martyrdom of serving Christ through imitation. Since Christ died on the cross for mankind, each and every individual who would be a follower of Christ must join him in death. Whether or not one finds violent biological death on the Christian path, and this seems increasingly unlikely, by remaining on this path one participates in the sort of death Christ suffered and becomes as good as dead, at least so far as the ways and wisdom of the world are concerned. Kierkegaard, echoing Luke 14:26, claims that, “in a certain sense…love of God is hatred toward the world.”19 Hints of such hatred can be seen at least as far back as de silentio’s discussion of resignation in Fear and Trembling, where the focus is on seeing the world in a new way.20 Despite the language of hate, it must be emphasized that Christian dying to the world is not founded in bitterness or pessimism about life, and thus it does not come as easily as bitterness and pessimism. Kierkegaard explains, “the life-giving Spirit is the very one who slays you; the first thing the lifegiving Spirit says is that you must enter into death, that you must die to…in order that you may not take Christianity in vain.”21 Even in the most difficult of times, humans are deeply attached to the world and its interpretation of things; this makes hating and severing one’s worldly connections while remaining in it no easy task. It is only through God’s intervention and Christ’s example that an individual can die to the world and avoid making his or her Christianity into a trivial worldly project. That is, only through spiritual assistance can one hope to overcome the impulse to view new life in Christ in “immediate continuation” with the accomplishments SKS 11, 118 / SUD, 6. SKS 13, 105 / FSE, 85. Cf. SKS 10, 194–5 / CD, 184; SKS 10, 248–9 / CD, 242–3. 20 De silentio discusses the meaning of Luke 14:26 in detail. Drawing a distinction between Cain and Abraham, de silentio points out that God does not demand actual hatred, but a willingness to give up even what you love most in the world (SKS 4, 165–7 / FT, 73–5). In its corrupt and fallen state, renunciation is the proper way to relate to the creation; hatred is in some sense the proper way to love God. Matters in the world are backwards after the Fall, and redemption, life through death, is necessary. Participation in Christ’s death, which is a snub of all aspects of worldliness, must come before any truly loving relationship with others is possible. Although these ideas are present throughout Kierkegaard’s works, they are perhaps most forcefully stated in his late journals (1851–55: e.g., SKS 24, 330, NB24:20 / JP 3, 279; SKS 25, 62, NB26:55 / JP 3, 281; SKS 25, 160, NB27:48 / JP 3, 282; SKS 25, 313–14, NB29:24 / JP 3, 287–8; SKS 25, 329–30, NB29:58 / JP 3, 288–9; SKS 25, 370–2, NB29:107 / JP 3, 293–5; SKS 26, 342–4, NB34:33 / JP 3, 297–8; SKS 27, 656, Papir 553 / JP 3, 302). 21 SKS 13, 98 / FSE, 76–7. Cf. SKS 16, 155 / JFY, 98. 18 19

Dying To/Renunciation

217

of the previous worldly life; decisively breaking with the worldly self, and its corresponding concerns about what it has or has not done to make itself Christian, are necessary for genuine acceptance of this new life.22 In fact, Kierkegaard is opposed to any sort of aspiring Christian’s dependence on himself or herself. Consider the following: the apostles were indeed dead, dead to every merely earthly hope, to every human confidence in their own powers or in human assistance. Therefore, death first; you must first die to every merely earthly hope, to every merely human confidence; you must die to your selfishness, or to the world, because it is only through your selfishness that the world has power over you; if you are dead to your selfishness, you are also dead to the world.23

Here is a list of human capabilities, traits, and resources that signify a dangerous worldliness, which must be overcome. In elaborating on the implications of claims like this, Kierkegaard adds the use of reason to his list of potentially detrimental examples of worldly self-reliance.24 He states, “the way is narrow—it is…impassable, blocked, impossible, insane [afsindig]…[T]o walk this way is immediately, at the beginning, akin to dying…along this way sagacity [Klogskab] and common sense [Forstand ] never walk—‘that would indeed be madness [Galskab].’ ”25 But why does Christian life reject reason and embrace a kind of madness? At least partially, as previously mentioned, because it holds as its core belief that Christ (a man) entered into the paradoxical situation of finding life in death (or, as God, the paradoxical situation of a mortal immortal). Similarly, in imitation, prospective Christians must die to the world in order to be born again.26 In both cases, reason and experience, which argue relentlessly that death only comes after life (and that worldly achievements are to be enjoyed rather than denied), would have to be wrong. For Kierkegaard then, “faith is against understanding [Forstand ]; faith is on the other side of death…when you died or died to yourself, to the world, then you also died to all immediacy in yourself, also to your understanding.”27 While claims such as this one paint the faith and reason relationship in highly antagonistic tones, Kierkegaard does not exactly believe that reason or understanding itself is the enemy. It is more the craving for worldly support found in rational explanation of the things one thinks, says, or does (especially in matters of faith) that concerns Kierkegaard.28 As suggested in several earlier writings, he sees dying to the security blanket that SKS 13, 97–9 / FSE, 76–7; SKS 13, 102 / FSE, 81. Cf. SKS 10, 214–15 / CD, 205. SKS 13, 99 / FSE, 77. For another description of the apostles’ dying to the world see Christian Discourses (SKS 10, 194–5 / CD, 184); and compare both texts with the distinction that Kierkegaard draws between the apostles and modern clergy with respect to “dying to” in Judge For Yourself! (SKS 16, 171–2 / JFY, 116; SKS 16, 186–7 / JFY, 132–3). 24 Anti-Climacus also claims that more than “a little self-denial” might be in order when it comes to the use of reason or understanding, if faith, which is the only way to grasp the “essentially Christian,” is to flourish (SKS 11, 211 / SUD, 99). 25 SKS 13, 84 / FSE, 61–2. 26 SKS 13, 83–4 / FSE, 60–1. 27 SKS 13, 103 / FSE, 82. 28 SKS 13, 90 / FSE, 68. 22 23

218

Adam Buben

is the understanding as a necessary prerequisite for appropriating, through faith, the backwards situation of being a Christian. However, since killing off any aspect of worldliness, reliance upon reason included, is a challenging ordeal, humans need divine support. By way of conclusion, it should be mentioned that after three years of silence, Kierkegaard enlists dying to one last time in his ultimate attack on the diluted version of Christianity preached by the Danish church. Among other things, the series of pamphlets titled The Moment describes the backwards situation of Christianity by pointing out that its God, who has infinite love for humans, is also their greatest nemesis. In order to take part in God’s love, he demands suffering of us; he demands death to what we are—worldly beings.29 Here we see the sense of hatred from God that is demanded of humans in For Self-Examination. Kierkegaard’s use of the expression “dying to” is on the whole aimed at capturing this beneficial and loving sense of hate. See also Death; Despair; Martyrdom/Persecution; Reason; Resignation; Sacrifice; Suffering; Time/Temporality/Eternity; Understanding/Comprehension/Confusion; Worldliness/Secularism.



29

SKS 13, 227 / M, 177; SKS 13, 352 / M, 294.

Earnestness John J. Davenport

Earnestness (Alvor—noun; alvorlig—adjective) From the Old Norse alvara, the Danish Alvor was originally composed of al, “all,” and an adjective meaning “true,” as the German wahr. Its lexical meaning in Danish is an expression of one’s true opinion or sincere feeling. The term is closely associated with open devotion and honest portrayal of one’s convictions and can connote severity or even gravity; but it mainly indicates that one takes a vital matter, issue, or task seriously or with the importance it deserves. Thus it has the secondary meaning of following through on one’s intentions, keeping one’s commitments, making a genuine effort. It also has the tertiary adverbial sense of “really” or “truly,” for example, meaning what one says, or being obvious about one’s views or intentions.1 “Earnestness” is used throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, from nearly the earliest to the latest, and in both signed and pseudonymous works, major and minor. It is a central concept in his authorship, closely related to senses of “will,” involving striving, pathos, and commitment (in addition to choice). For example, in Practice in Christianity, writing under the authoritative pseudonym of Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard contrasts earnestness with jest, noting how they are combined in indirect communication.2 Such address seeks to spur the individual to initiative by directing her back to herself, encouraging her nascent loves and capacity for devotion. Anti-Climacus describes a youth inspired by imagination of Christ as one in whom “the earnestness of life” has begun: he accepts that “to live is to be examined” based on earnest commitment kept inwardly in the heart, as opposed to being lost in the “pressure of finitude and busyness with livelihood, job, office, and procreation..”3 Rather, “the earnestness of life is to will to be, to will to express the perfection (ideality) in dailyness of actuality”4—a formula we also find in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript’s descriptions of willing the absolute (unlosable) Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 1, columns 501–4. 2 SKS 12, 130 / PC, 125. 3 SKS 12, 188–9 / PC, 189–90. 4 Ibid. The Shakespearean phrase “will to be” also resonates directly with several of Judge William’s statements about the “choice” to become an ethical chooser in Either/Or Part Two. Anti-Climacus repeats it in describing the “second immediacy” of faith as the “will to preserve youth’s enthusiasm, rescued in all its original character, to will to struggle to the end” (SKS 12, 191 / PC, 192; Kierkegaard’s italics)—a formula for the infinite resignation component of faith. Earnestness as genuine willing is a crucial aspect of all these phenomena. 1

220

John J. Davenport

good at every moment to govern pursuit of finite ends in everyday life.5 It means that an earnest person wills the good “in truth,” or is genuinely devoted to an ethical ideal that requires dedication, sacrifice, and perseverance over time, subordinating pursuit of other finite goods to this eternal standard. It is crucial that the values to which an earnest agent is devoted, or the ideal the agent serves throughout devotion to more particular ends, must have an authority that is independent of his or her own choices; otherwise it cannot provide a stable basis for self-determining decision. Thus Judge William argues in his letter on marriage that earnest erotic lovers turn to an outside authority to make their oath binding.6 By contrast, Anti-Climacus describes one form of despair in which the agent seeks to “bestow infinite interest and significance upon his enterprises” simply by choosing them.7 This orientation solely by way of one’s own “imaginary constructions” is not genuine commitment, “however perseveringly pursued. It recognizes no power [authority] over itself; therefore it basically lacks earnestness.”8 For a created will cannot be absolutely committed to something without finding infinite value in it.9 For Kierkegaard, the best form of such an ideal is the perfectionist demand of Christian agapic ethics; but earnestness refers to the subjective devotion that defines one’s volitional identity through caring in general, whether it presently aims at an aesthetic, ethical, or religious good. Thus in Either/Or, Judge William refers to “esthetic earnestness” as choice (on non-ethical grounds) among one’s various natural potentials: “Like all earnestness, even esthetic earnestness is beneficial for a person, but it can never rescue him entirely”—because it is not choice on the stable basis of “the difference between good and evil.”10 This makes earnest passion a basic precondition for advance from one basic “stage” or existence-sphere to another. For example, romantic devotion is not yet choice guided by ethical ideals, but it is a spiritual training that awakens the capacities of will or spirit by inspiring risk and sacrifice for something greater than ourselves. It quickens conscience or prepares us to appreciate our individual responsibility, to understand (even if inchoately rather than in explicit reflection) that no one else can play our role or do our most important work for us. The call of religious revelation is singularizing in this way, appealing to a capacity for conviction that is inward, impossible for others to know with certainty. Recognizing this is “earnestness, the only thing, if you do not have faith, that can lead you to having it; the only This is the main theme in the “Initial Expression of Existential Pathos” section, introduced in its full title: “Simultaneously to Relate Oneself Absolutely to One’s Absolute τέλος and Relatively to Relative Ends.” SKS 7, 352 / CUP1, 387. Compare the “Purity of Heart” on “slowness of the good” and patience in daily reaffirmation of the good over many years: SKS 8, 170–3 / UD, 62–3. 6 SKS 3, 63 / EO2, 55–6. 7 SKS 11, 182–3 / SUD, 68–9. 8 Ibid. 9 This is closely connected to Kierkegaard’s argument in his discourse on “Purity of Heart” that only “the good” in a perfectionist sense can be the object of an absolutely unified will: see John Davenport, Narrative Autonomy, Identity, and Mortality, New York: Routledge 2012, Chapter 4. 10 SKS 3, 216–17 / EO2, 225–6. 5

Earnestness

221

thing, if you have faith, that can keep you in it.”11 Earnestness is a necessary though not sufficient condition for faith just as ethical willing is, and is closely related to the latter. While earnestness plays a role in every existence-sphere, the kind of volition that Kierkegaard develops the ordinary concept of Alvor to signify is most distinctively related to the choice that defines his “ethical” stage. In particular, earnestness is essential to “the ethical” not in the sense of Sittlichkeit or cultural practices but in the sense of willing that is qualified by “the absolute ethical distinction between good and evil”12 in one’s intentions and striving, even if they have no outward effect or “world-historical” significance.13 In that sense, even “willing evil with diabolical callousness” or demonic defiance is earnest, though in a deficient way compared to “willing the good to the utmost” of one’s strength.14 At least the evil individual thereby acquires a distinctive character that is clear to him or her, as opposed to the “ambiguity and equivocation” of an age in which “the distinction between good and evil is enervated” by heroic commitment going out of fashion.15 This sense of ethics is closer to Kant’s in focusing on the quality of motivation or reasons for one’s choice: “True ethical enthusiasm consists in willing to the utmost of one’s capability, but also, uplifted in divine jest, in never thinking whether one thereby achieves something.”16 This “jest” is associated with earnestness throughout the authorship. In its religious form, it consists in understanding that any “result” of one’s efforts is from God; one’s freedom controls only the choice and striving. Thus “a truly enthusiastic ethical individuality, moved in earnestness,” could accept the “holy jest” that he is created with great talents yet proves unable to succeed in helping others; he says, “Yet I shall with utmost strenuousness will the ethical, this is earnestness.”17 In this form of purified will, earnestness is characterized by what Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms call “infinite resignation.”18 Thus in his diary, Quidam writes that “true SKS 10, 245 / CD, 238. SKS 7, 125–6 / CUP1, 134. 13 Ibid. Compare Judge William’s argument that marriage is earnest only if chosen for the sake of love’s infinite value (SKS 3, 72 / EO2, 63–4) and so involves “resignation” or striving that is not pursued (solely or primarily) for the sake of external results. 14 SKS 7, 125–6 / CUP1, 134. Compare Anti-Climacus’ argument that the category of “sin” is earnest, because it only applies to the single individual as acting and choosing agent (SKS 11, 231 / SUD, 119–20). Existentially, we could say that the forms of despair constituted by spiritlessness lack earnestness and thus are not sin in the full sense, though dogmatically all despair is categorized as sin. 15 SKS 8, 75 / TA, 78. By contrast, the age of revolution is sincere, because it is “a manifestation of energy that is unquestionably a definite something,” openly committed to a cause; and so it can become “either good or evil” (SKS 8, 64 / TA, 66). 16 SKS 7, 126 / CUP1, 135. This does not mean that earnest willing is not trying to accomplish any good outcomes. Kierkegaard affirms that “it is indeed earnestness to will this,” but earnestness requires understanding that the moral worth of one’s “eternal willing” (or infinite commitment) is the same whether one accomplishes much or “seemingly nothing at all” in external temporal affairs (SKS 8, 194 / UD, 89). 17 SKS 7, 128–9 / CUP1, 137. 18 Ibid. 11

12

222

John J. Davenport

earnestness is the unity of jest and earnestness,” because earnest willing must be free of needing any “external support” from contingent events (which enables a comic attitude towards results in the external world).19 But in its Christian form, this earnestness of an ethically resigned person is deepened by accepting “the jest” that even that person’s inner striving, like its outer results, is dependent on divine grace.20 Importantly, Kierkegaard also uses this relation of jest with earnestness in inner being to stress that earnestness rightly understood is not emotional gravity or “a gloomy frame of mind, the ill humor of a worldly worried heart….”21 Earnestness is a volitional phenomenon, not primarily an emotional state; and it is certainly not a morose or bitter mood. An earnest person is able to enjoy the finite goods of earthly life, balancing them with infinite devotion to eternal ideals and accepting it as divine jest if sincere effort comes to naught—again linking earnestness with the suffering of resignation.22 Of course, full joy in the finite world of temporality ultimately requires faith beyond resignation in Kierkegaard’s view, and so we are not completely earnest without such faith. For him, the highest sense of earnestness applies to the promise of final judgment and eternal salvation that is the consolation of a purified ethical will.23 Taking these points together, it is clear that Kierkegaard’s use of Alvor links common notions of sincerity with a kind of volitional commitment that (in his view) underlies sincerity and explains why it is crucial for spiritual development. In this way, Kierkegaard’s volitional interpretation of earnestness is the main inspiration and basis for later existential analyses of “authenticity” as a kind of proto-virtue or precondition for having any character that can be evaluated as morally good or evil. For example, like Heidegger after him, Kierkegaard links earnestness closely with “conscience” understood not as a threatening superego or a daimon that checks us but as a reflexive power by which a question is posed as if we had to ask it of ourselves in private inwardness.24 He writes:

SKS 6, 339–40 / SLW, 365–6. This independence of earthly results is related to the (moderate) sense of autonomy that is always involved in ethical earnestness, in contrast to motives such as fear of punishment (see SKS 8, 162–3/ UD, 51–2). The good to which the ethical will responds is never an enticement, a threat, or cruel; we can recognize our spiritual capacity as fit for it, in agreement with it. 20 SKS 7, 130 / CUP1, 139. 21 SKS 20, 343, NB4:117 / CD, Supplement, 365. 22 Thus “religious earnestness” involves an element beyond serious devotion to family, business, and social affairs on the basis of ethical requirement; it also requires ability to take joy in the pleasures of earthly life, without which ethical earnestness can lapse into austere “ill humor” (SKS 7, 449 / CUP1, 499). 23 For example, note the relation between earnestness and final judgment in Kierkegaard’s discourse on “The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation” (SKS 5, 255 / EUD, 258). Similarly, in the discourse on the teaching that “There Will Be A Resurrection of the Dead,” Kierkegaard stresses that the separation according to the “difference between right and wrong,” which is essential to the eternity of the hereafter, is the gravest question to each individual posed in the first-person (SKS 10, 218 / CD, 209). 24 SKS 10, 242 / CD, 235. 19

Earnestness

223

There, where there is no one who asks and where there nevertheless is a personal question, an invisible one is there, the questioner; there in the deepest sense you are involved with yourself, and this is the relationship of conscience...when someone asks you a question, you can manage to deceive him if it does not please you to answer him... but here—here it is no one!25

In other words, in the relation of conscience we are necessarily sincere, and so to enter into this sort of inwardness is a basis for earnestness: at this level, we cannot lie about our true commitments. Thus as the edifying discourse on “Purity of Heart” says, a basic earnestness is involved in being able to face the eternal question of what we truly will, what matters to us most. Even if our will remains partly ambiguous or “double minded” (as we always are to some extent), to be able to hear and “answer this question earnestly, a person must already have chosen in life, chosen the invisible, the internal” and be able to withdraw occasionally from the hustle and noise of social life to collect his thoughts with himself.26 Thus earnestness is associated throughout the authorship with silence, singularity, quiet attentiveness to what really matters, the tranquility necessary to understand oneself27—the state in which we can hear “the voice of conscience”28 and receive scriptural teaching as directed to us personally.29 In the section of Works of Love titled “Love is a Matter of Conscience,” Kierkegaard argues that in the apostolic command that love “must be out of a pure heart and out of a good conscience and out of a sincere faith,” the middle clause concerning conscience “essentially contains the other two.”30 This means that volitional devotion informed by the perfectionist agapic ideal (the striving for which constitutes purity of heart) involves the “hidden being of inwardness” in which the individual’s self-relation is “directed towards the God-relationship” (faith).31 Kierkegaard implies here that the kind of willing that makes derivative forms of sincerity possible depends on a singularizing ethical ideal that gives each of us unique importance. Although erotic love can appear earnest in its immediate 25 SKS 10, 243 / CD, 236; compare SKS 8, 224 / UD, 124. In a paragraph prior to this, we are told that “the most earnest question is the one of which it must be said: There is no one who is asking the question, and yet there is a question—and a question to you personally. If that is the case, then it is the conscience that is asking the question” (SKS 10, 243 / CD, 236). Kierkegaard uses “conscience” for an anxious reflexive relation in which it seems to be our self who is asking, yet our self in our very essence, at such a depth that the source seems mysteriously ‘other.’ This reflexive relation with alterity within us parallels the self-relation in The Sickness unto Death in which the self is said to be constituted by a spiritual relation to its own body–mind composite that draws its capacity for free striving from another. Thus Kierkegaard’s conception of “conscience” reflects this sense of dependence on God; it requires earnest willing before God, whereby we make something of our finite particulars. 26 SKS 8, 227 / UD, 126–7. 27 SKS 8, 176 / UD, 67. 28 SKS 8, 228–9 / UD, 128–9. 29 SKS 13, 62–3 / FSE, 36. 30 SKS 9, 139 / WL, 137. 31 SKS 9, 141 / WL, 139. Again, compare being “before God” in The Sickness unto Death.

224

John J. Davenport

spontaneity—especially in contrast to dissolute shrewdness—all loves of particular others can endure as earnest devotion over time only if based on the “eternal foundation” of ethical love.32 Thus “inwardness, for the sake of earnestness” infuses all real forms of love, although they appear distinct in external relations.33 This suggests, for example, that I should see my beloved or spouse first as my neighbor if my love for her is to last or be willable even to the point of infinite resignation: a “pure heart” is “in the deepest sense a bound heart,” committed not only to a particular beloved but at the root of this devotion also “bound to God.”34 This demanding test is a strengthened version of the thesis that earnestness in any project or relationship requires an authoritative ethical basis. However, even if someone thinks this religious standard is too demanding, she may yet agree with Kierkegaard that all loves properly speaking are sincere, because “to love falsely is to hate.”35 The category of earnestness is helpful in clarifying that certain action-terms such as loving, caring, deciding, and striving have a strict sense that is incompatible with deception or refusal to express them openly (at least to oneself, but normally also to others): as the Judge puts it, “Only the ethical individual gives himself an account of himself in earnest and is therefore honest with himself.”36 In this sense, aesthetic earnestness is incomplete because it is liable to lapse into an insincerity as the aesthete tries to be enigmatic and thereby cultivates an “artificial” persona.37 Ethically earnest commitment is inward and in that sense hidden, but it can never be a mere means to maximizing some other end for the sake of which it could also be given up or misrepresented to others—as Peter finally understood when the rooster crowed after he denied Christ. It is essential to these states of agency to be non-instrumental in this way: we do not really love if we regard our love as a mere means (even to serving what or who we love). Hence such “earnest authenticity” (as we might call it), with its tendency towards ethically grounded devotions and ultimately to a sense of being answerable to God for one’s self/volitional identity, is clarified by Kierkegaard’s portrayal of its opposite in various psychological phenomena of inauthenticity. For example, again inspiring Heidegger, he contrasts the inward reflexive questioning of conscience with “curiosity” about what others may believe or approve: “it is the nature of faith to ward off all curiosity in order to concentrate the mind on earnestness.”38 In Kierkegaard’s famous polemic on “The Present Age,” this kind of curiosity or polite inquisitiveness that substitutes for genuine inspiration by the heroism of others is associated with idle talk or “chatter” that answers curiosity but cares nothing for the truth of what is said, a “garrulous confiding” that aims only to avoid silence by SKS 9, 142–3 / WL, 141. SKS 9, 145–6 / WL, 144. Compare SKS 9, 147–8 / WL, 146: “the spirit’s love...can lie at the base of and be present in every other expression of love.” 34 SKS 9, 149–50 / WL, 148. 35 SKS 9, 152 / WL, 151. 36 SKS 3, 249 / EO2, 261; compare the Judge’s point that an ethical individual does not flaunt his values, but he is not afraid of “owning up to his striving” or standing up for ethical commitment: SKS 3, 218 / EO2, 227. 37 SKS 3, 249 / EO2, 261. 38 SKS 10, 244 / CD, 238. 32 33

Earnestness

225

finding “something to chatter about.”39 Both are related to a “superficiality” in which “the hiddenness of inner life” is annulled by a constant effort to conform to the crowd. As a result, the superficial person may write or say much but without expressing any authentic identity; in discussion with others, there is no “personal human discourse” because the interlocutor seems like a machine whose “enthusiasm” is only superficial busyness.40 In short, the inauthentic person seems fake, inwardly hollow, or devoid of any lasting identity because he lacks earnest willing. His insincerity results from failure to will anything passionately, in the way that can “become either good or evil”—for a commitment that can be judged for ethical worth would necessarily be revealed to others rather than “deceptively change” whenever it is convenient.41 Instead, listless, envious, detached reflection “holds the will and energy in a kind of captivity” to social relations in which inward spiritual relation to oneself cannot begin.42 Because the agent fears negative gossip by envious others “more than death,”43 he is not authentically engaged in any purpose: “The individual does not belong to God, to himself, to his beloved, to his art, to his scholarship..”44 He does not earnestly care about excellence of any kind, which would have moved him towards appreciation of ethical values.45 This is the situation of most “aesthetes” in Kierkegaard’s range of aesthetic types, aside from those on the way to ethical conversion who do muster heroic devotion to goals taken as objectively valuable in some sense prior to ethical qualification (usually some type of distinction or greatness in the result). For non-heroic aesthetes, like those of the anonymous “public” described in “The Present Age” who are not “essentially engaged in any way,”46 it is hard to hear the call of conscience. As we saw above, if a person is not devoted to any ideal for life, excellent end, or principle beyond personal whims or inclinations, that person has not “chosen” in a way that involves any genuine commitment, which is the precondition for taking to heart or properly appreciating the question of whether one wills the good in truth. At this point, it should be clear that earnestness is a qualification of “will” in a distinctive sense of that concept. Although Alvor is frequently associated with decision, the network of other terms to which Kierkegaard links it points to an ongoing direction of efforts, commitment in the sense of staying-power, and thus to a sort of focus and strength that are not connoted by “choice” in the ordinary sense of instantaneous picking among options: earnestness refers to a “decisiveness” that continues itself over time, a process whose motive-power is autonomous. Thus it is starkly contrasted with “doz[ing] off” spiritually “in the habitual routine SKS 8, 92–5 / TA, 97–9. SKS 8, 98–100 / TA, 103–5. 41 SKS 8, 64 / TA, 66. 42 SKS 8, 78–9 / TA, 82–3. 43 SKS 8, 82 / TA, 85. 44 Ibid. 45 As Kierkegaard writes, echoing Judge William almost exactly, a “rash leap” if it is truly decisive shows that one has “the makings of a man” who can learn from the costs of his choice (SKS 8, 69 / TA, 71). 46 SKS 8, 88 / TA, 93. 39 40

226

John J. Davenport

of sameness....”47 In “The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress,” we are told that almost everyone succumbs to “the fraud of habit,” by which they deceive themselves that they are unchanged, though in fact they are “as if emaciated in their inner beings” as their love for others has become dull, weak, and “devoid of soul.”48 This form of inauthenticity is perhaps the clearest clue that earnestness requires continuity through repeated striving, commitment continually renewed, kept fresh. Thus in Kierkegaard’s most extended statement on earnestness, which is found in The Concept of Anxiety, Haufniensis distinguishes earnestness from “disposition” (Gemyt) which he defines following Rosenkranz’s Psychology as a tendency involving “the unity of feeling and self-consciousness.”49 A “disposition” in this sense is not a blind conatus or drive; it is a habit of acting intentionally in some familiar way, with characteristic feelings. But earnestness is more than this: Earnestness and disposition correspond to one another in such a way that earnestness is a higher as well as the deepest expression for what disposition is. Disposition is a determinant of immediacy, while earnestness, on the other hand, is the acquired originality of disposition, its originality preserved in the responsibility of freedom and its originality affirmed in the enjoyment of blessedness. In its historical development, the originality of disposition marks precisely the eternal in earnestness, for which reason earnestness can never become habit…habit arises as soon as the eternal disappears from repetition. When the originality in earnestness is acquired and preserved, then there is succession and repetition, but as soon as originality is lacking in repetition, there is habit.50

In other words, a disposition is a natural tendency (one can be born with it),51 whereas earnestness is repeatedly willed—a volitional disposition, a spiritual pattern of caring in the will itself, with the novelty of choice keeping it alive by responding again to the eternal value that justifies it, and thereby keeping the motivation strong. Habit is the shell that remains when this kind of caring decays into empty routine, when the outward actions continue but the inward volitional commitment to their original purpose is lost, or the values that initially grounded the whole trajectory are forgotten. In sum then, earnestness is a synthesis of disposition and choice, involving the continuity of the former and the spontaneity of the latter. Kierkegaard’s treatment of this concept thus offers a particular conception of authenticity. Like Heidegger after him, Kierkegaard holds that one must first be earnest about oneself, one’s spiritual potential52—which is the “choice” to be a serious chooser that Judge William SKS 10, 268 / CD, 254. SKS 14, 101 / CD, 315. 49 SKS 4, 447–8 / CA, 147–8. 50 SKS 4, 448–9 / CA, 148–9. For more on this aspect of earnestness, see my essay “Towards an Existential Virtue Ethics,” in Kierkegaard After MacIntyre, ed. by John Davenport and Anthony Rudd, Chicago: Open Court 2001, pp. 265–83. 51 SKS 4, 449 / CA, 150. 52 SKS 4, 449–50 / CA, 150: the ultimate “object” of earnestness is one that “every human being has, because it is himself.” And this is related to the legitimate agapic form of “self-love.” 47 48

Earnestness

227

celebrates. This does not mean that we can only care earnestly about ourselves; on the contrary, as we saw, earnest willing must be directed away from itself towards something it takes to be infinitely valuable (thus the need for choice to be grounded in an eternal ideal with objective authority). Rather, it means that in caring earnestly about anything else, we are eo ipso taking it as seriously as it merits, and being sincere about the importance of our own volitional potential for integrity. This selfrelated consideration is one we have to care earnestly about, if we are to be earnest about anything else. In that sense, Judge William seems to be correct that ethical earnestness is a constitutive condition of autonomous agency. See also Choice; Conscience; Decision/Resolve; Inwardness/Inward Deepening; Love; Passion/Pathos; Patience; Self; Will.

This page intentionally left blank

Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon Kyle A. Roberts

Edifying Discourse (opbyggelig Tale—noun); Deliberation (Overveielse—noun); Sermon (Prædiken—noun) Corresponding to the German erbaulich, the Danish adjective opbyggelig (“edifying”) is derived from the verb opbygge, which is a compound term formed from the prefix op- (“up”) and bygge (“build”), and is sometimes translated as “upbuilding.”1 The word Tale, from the Old Danish talæ, refers primarily to speech, but often, as in this case, denotes a type of formal address or discourse.2 The words Overveielse3 (deliberation) and Prædiken4 (sermon) correspond both in meaning and use to their English counterparts. This constellation of concepts provides a depth of insight into Kierkegaard’s authorship—in particular into how he understood his authorial task. Kierkegaard sought to facilitate, through his writing, the edification (opbyggelse) or upbuilding of his readers, or more specifically, that single individual reader (den Enkelte). The edifying or upbuilding discourse was a prominent literary genre Kierkegaard used for the purpose of ethical and religious awakening. He distinguished this from the standard sermon or devotional reflection. Indeed, his precise, nuanced definition of “discourses” and “deliberations” is a masterful reflection of the depth of awareness of his own literary style. Nevertheless, they bore many similarities to written sermons and devotional reflections, though with the addition of Kierkegaard’s philosophical acumen and conceptual erudition. In fact, Kierkegaard delivered several of his discourses as preached sermons. I. Setting the Stage: Edification as Kierkegaard’s Authorial Purpose Kierkegaard came to the conclusion that Governance had been at work in his authorial production, ensuring a “comprehensive plan in the entire production.”5 The purpose of his authorship, Kierkegaard would insist in his later interpretation of his writings, was to awaken his reader—“that single individual”—to an ethically and religiously Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 15, column 744. 2 Ibid., vol. 23, columns 668–74. 3 Ibid., vol. 16, columns 203–6. 4 Ibid., vol. 16, columns 1431–3. 5 SKS 21, 276, NB10:38 / JP 6, 6346. 1

230

Kyle A. Roberts

serious life. He wanted to provoke his readers out of their self-deception and ethicoreligious apathy. His religious, “signed,” works were offered, he said, with the right hand, while the pseudonymous works were offered with the left. The goal of all of his works, whether pseudonymous or signed, was (at least as he would come to understand it)—to make aware, or call attention to, “the essentially Christian.”6 All of Kierkegaard’s discourses were signed—thus offered with the “right hand.” They comprised Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, Christian Discourses, The Lily of the Field, the Bird of the Air, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse: The Woman that was a Sinner, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, and The Changelessness of God, which was a sermon Kierkegaard had preached four years prior to its publication. Works of Love, as we will see, was a type of discourse, which bore the more specific designation, “deliberations.” In his posthumously published On My Work as an Author, a retrospective explanation of his authorship, Kierkegaard suggested that the signed discourses were published, from the very beginning of his authorship, alongside his pseudonymous (aesthetic, ethical, and ethico-religious) works to give evidence that he had been a religious author from the very start. The appearance of these explicitly religious discourses alongside his more aesthetic and philosophical works would provide evidence to his later readers that his religious earnestness was not simply a result of age and experience. With the benefit of hindsight (and under the umbrella of divine providence) he urged that his writing had always been earnest about ethical and religious seriousness. His discourses served to illustrate this claim, many of them being extended philosophical and theological reflections on biblical texts, dealing with issues such as suffering, death, marriage, love, loss, self-denial, eternal life, and sacrifice. His first discourses roughly coincided with the publication of Either/Or, which marked the beginning of his authorship, per se. The last of his signed discourses in his “first authorship,” according to the Hongs’ influential schema, were Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions.7 These discourses were set in hypothetical (“imagined”) contexts, each within a familiar liturgical setting and marked by major life events (a confession, a wedding, and a funeral). For Kierkegaard, the imagined settings enabled them to have a broader relevance than if they were actual preached sermons with actual particular people in mind. This is consistent with Kierkegaard’s notion that the discourses aimed for “universally human” relevance.8 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits marked the beginning of the “second authorship.”9 A clue to the strongly (and directly) religious themes of the second SKS 22, 349, NB14:10 / JP 6, 6525. See the Historical Introduction to TD. 8 Pap. VIII–2 B 192 / EUD, Supplement, 476: “The point of departure of the pseudonymous writers is continually in the differences—the point of departure in the upbuilding discourses is in the universally human.” 9 In the preface to these discourses, Kierkegaard writes, “These Christian discourses (which in more than one respect are not, and thus for more than one reason are not called, sermons) are not intended to ‘fill an idle moment for inquisitiveness.’ If, however, just one single sufferer, who perhaps is also going astray in many thoughts, should by means of them 6 7

Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon

231

authorship lies in its subtitle, “Christian Discourses,” which was used for the first time in that text, and then became the main title of Christian Discourses, published later.10 As we will see, the addition of the adjective “Christian” to “discourses” is, for Kierkegaard, an important hermeneutical one—for it explicitly brings into play the category of biblical revelation. For Kierkegaard, a discourse differs from a sermon, in that the latter presupposes a level of authority that the former does not. A minister who enjoys the backing of ecclesial ordination delivers a sermon. Anyone, regardless of any claim to ecclesial authority, can compose a discourse. Kierkegaard explicitly stated this in a journal entry reflecting on Christian Discourses: “A sermon presupposes a pastor (ordination); a Christian discourse can be by a layman.”11 Furthermore, a discourse does not presume that its author has attained to a high level of Christianity or to an authentic ethico-religious life. As Kierkegaard noted, “My task is to get persons deceived—within the meaning of truth—into religious commitment, which they have cast off, but I do not have authority; instead of authority I use the very opposite, I say: the whole undertaking is for my own discipline and education.”12 The sermon is a higher level than the discourse, both in terms of the authority of the one delivering the sermon (ordained bishop or minister) and in terms of the content.13 Of course, as typically is the case with Kierkegaard, one has to keep one eye open and one ear tuned to irony. Is his consistent and pronounced disavowal of religious authority, along with his apparent deference to the authority of ecclesial ordination, an ironic critique of Christendom? As indicated by the previous quotation, is his “lack of authority” simply a component of his strategy to awaken by deception? In any case, it is difficult to ignore Kierkegaard’s continual, emphatic disavowal of any religious authority. His signature, as author, was applied to the discourses and deliberations; but he made clear that he was as much a reader as an author of his work: From the very beginning, I have stressed and repeated unchanged that I was “without authority.” I regard myself rather as a reader of the books, not as the author. “Before God,” religiously, I call my whole work as an author (when I speak with myself) my own upbringing and development, but not in the sense as if I were now complete or completely finished with respect to needing upbringing and development.14

find a heavy moment lighter, should find in them a trail leading through the many thoughts, then the author will not regret his intention with them” (SKS 8, 317 / UD, 215). 10 Historical Introduction to UD, xi. 11 SKS 20, 87, NB:120 / JP 1, 638. 12 SKS 22, 362, NB14:31 / JP 6, 6533. 13 In terms of content, the sermon is distinguished from the discourse because the discourse employs the “ethical categories of immanence, not the doubly reflected religious categories in the paradox.” SKS 7, 217 / CUP1, 256. However, it is important to point out that for Kierkegaard, the Christian Discourses do assume the religious categories of the paradox, because they presuppose the authority of Scripture as a given. 14 SKS 13, 19 / PV, 12.

232

Kyle A. Roberts

Kierkegaard teased with yet another nuance within the concept of edifying/ upbuilding discourses, which continues the theme of disavowal of religious authority. He noted that an upbuilding discourse does not presume any authority for the writer/speaker, whereas a “discourse for upbuilding” does. In a journal entry corresponding to Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Kierkegaard says that his book is called “ ‘discourses,’ not sermons, because its author does not have authority to preach, ‘upbuilding discourses,’ not discourses for upbuilding, because the speaker by no means claims to be a teacher.”15 A “discourse for upbuilding” is meant for the transformation of the reader/auditor in such a way that it assumes the same transformation has already occurred in the speaker/author; and so it makes too strong a claim about the author’s religious achievement, for Kierkegaard’s taste. Thus, “I use only the poetic designation: ‘upbuilding,’ not even ‘for upbuilding.’ ”16 As author, Kierkegaard claimed to be equally a part of the transformational process as the reader. He was no “authority,” in any sense of the word. Kierkegaard insisted, “I am only a poet.”17 Kierkegaard did not want to be confused as presenting himself as one who either had religious authority to preach or to present himself as one who had accomplished the ideal he was advocating: authentic, New Testament Christianity. He claimed the stance of “learner”—not teacher. Nonetheless, the claim to be only a poet had limits, since he certainly also saw himself as a religious author whose task was to facilitate existential and religious awakening. Works of Love, Kierkegaard’s vision of subjectivity applied to the social sphere, was a form of discourse—similar in style to the edifying/upbuilding discourses. However, to complicate and nuance the issue further, Kierkegaard called them deliberations.18 The Hongs point out that the English “deliberate” and the Danish overveie have fundamentally the same meaning: “to weigh.” In a journal entry from 1847, Kierkegaard explained the rationale: A deliberation [Overveielse] does not presuppose the definitions as given and understood; therefore, it must not so much move, mollify, reassure, persuade, as awaken and provoke men and sharpen thought. The time for deliberation is indeed before action, and its purpose therefore is rightly to set all the elements in motion. A deliberation ought to be a “gadfly”; therefore its tone ought to be quite different from that of an upbuilding [opbyggelig] discourse, which rests in mood, but a deliberation ought in the good sense to be impatient, high-spirited in mood. Irony is necessary here and the even more significant ingredient of the comic. One may very well even laugh once in a while, if only to make the thought clear and more striking. An upbuilding discourse about love presupposes that people know essentially what love is and seeks to win them to it, to move them. But this is certainly not the case. Therefore the “deliberation” must first fetch them up out of the cellar, call to them, turn their comfortable way of thinking topsy-turvy with the dialectic of truth.19 SKS 22, 135, NB11:221 / JP 6, 6438. Ibid. 17 Pap. X–6 B 145, 217 / EUD, Supplement, 488. 18 See the Historical Introduction to WL, xi. 19 SKS 20, 211, NB2:176 / JP 1, 641. This version of the translation is from the Supplement to WL, 469–70. 15 16

Edifying Discourse/Deliberation/Sermon

233

Kierkegaard explained that Works of Love did not presume the reader’s awareness of the two kinds of love he was setting side by side in his book: divine or “neighbor love” (Kjerlighed ), in which God is the “middle term,” and merely human or erotic love (Elskov), characterized by immediacy and preference. The work attempts to invite readers to engage in a process of “deliberation,” or dialectical reflection, through which they would eventually come to understand and accept—for themselves—that gravity of the distinction between these two kinds of love and consequently, would begin to act upon or appropriate the distinction by fulfilling the imperative to do works of neighbor love for others. In order for this to work properly, Kierkegaard suggested they be read slowly; that is, deliberately.20 While there is a distinction between a discourse and a deliberation, Kierkegaard drew further distinctions among the discourses themselves. As he noted, a Christian Discourse differs from other discourses, in that it more emphatically assumes the authority of the Bible as Christian Scripture: What is essentially Christian and the point in the fifth of the Christian Discourses is specifically that the authority of the Bible is affirmed, that it is not something one has thought out but something commanded, something with authority, the command that tribulation is the task. Consequently the analogy of the child of whom the parents require something is continually used: in the same way the Bible, God’s word, commands the parents. In an upbuilding or edifying discourse [opbyggelig Tale] I could not so rigorously maintain that the Bible says this.21

While a Christian Discourse assumed biblical authority, it still registered lower than a sermon in terms of its intensity and directness as a religious communication. In a journal entry, Kierkegaard reflected that a Christian discourse “deals to a certain extent with doubt,”22 whereas “a sermon operates absolutely and solely on the basis of authority, that of Scripture and of Christ’s apostles.23 It is worth noting, however, that Kierkegaard insisted upon setting realistic limits to the sermon as a form of religious discourse. As he noted in Christian Discourses, “Certainly a sermon should also bear witness to him, proclaim his word and his teaching, but a sermon is still not his voice.”24 II. Discourses and Deliberations for Provoking Edification: A Summary Discussion Edifying discourses and deliberations both function as elements in Kierkegaard’s larger literary strategy to expose inauthenticity, hypocrisy, and self-deception in his In the preface to Works of Love, Kierkegaard wrote: “These Christian deliberations, which are the fruit of much deliberation, will be understood slowly but then also easily, whereas they will surely become very difficult if someone by hasty and curious reading makes them very difficult for himself….These are Christian deliberations, therefore not about love but about works of love” (SKS 9, 7 / WL, 3). 21 SKS 20, 93–4, NB:134 / JP 1, 207. 22 SKS 20, 87, NB:120 / JP 1, 638. 23 As Kierkegaard put it, “A sermon presupposes a pastor (ordination); a Christian discourse can be by a layman” (SKS 20, 87, NB:120 / JP 1, 638). 24 SKS 10, 290 / CD, 271. 20

Kyle A. Roberts

234

readers, for the purpose of repentance and transformation. But unearthing deception and illusion takes hard work; they lie deep in the human psyche. Provoking edification, Kierkegaard said, “resembles artesian well-digging.”25 The upbuilding process is elusive because the person who needs the upbuilding is likely unaware of his or her need. The deceived “Christian” in Christendom must be “terrified” by the presentation of the New Testament ideal of authentic Christianity (what Kierkegaard called the essentially Christian) in order to be awakened to a realization of his or her sinfulness—and lack of authenticity—before God. As terrifying as the edifying process might be, Kierkegaard affirmed that it is essentially positive and “glorious,” teleologically considered: “Whatever at first glance could seem to be its enemy is made a presupposition, a servant, a friend. If the art of medicine successfully performs the difficult task of turning poison into a remedy, in the upbuilding the terrifying is far more gloriously transformed into the upbuilding.”26 Kierkegaard viewed his task as an edifying author as analogous to a hunter who cunningly pursues his prey. He relied on poetic communication to captivate his aesthetically oriented audience. Aesthetes would simply ignore—or entirely misunderstand—a directly Christian presentation, incorrectly believing they were already Christians. Kierkegaard’s discourses utilized a religious conceptuality which aimed for the concreteness of actuality—and would therefore be compelling to the single, individual reader. They ranged, Kierkegaard averred, in the explicit assumption of the authority of Scripture, since only the Christian Discourses assumed that his readers accepted the authority of the Bible. In any case, in his discourses he does not purport to “deceive” his reader into the truth through irony or pseudonymity. Rather, he unpacks the terrifying reality of God and of eternal judgment, though coupled with the splendor of God’s grace and love. This invites the caveat, mentioned earlier, that an edifying/upbuilding discourse does not rank with the explicitly Christian “directness” of a Christian discourse. In any case, Kierkegaard’s expositions of biblical texts in these discourses present a compelling “life-view”; theological concepts and biblical metaphors are applied concretely to matters of existence. He elucidates the meaning of Scripture, as he discerned it, pointing his readers to the demands and concrete implications of the religious life, under the spectrum of eternity. See also Authority; Authorship; Christendom; Church; Communication/Indirect Communication; Hypocrisy; Pastorate; Scriptures; Teacher.



25 26

SKS 10, 108 / CD, 96. SKS 10, 109 / CD, 96–7.

Enthusiasm Carson Webb

Enthusiasm (Enthusiasme—noun; Begeistring—noun; begeistre—verb; Sværmeri— noun; sværme—verb) There are three Danish terms frequently translated into English as “enthusiasm.” Sværmeri (sometimes spelled Sværmerie in Kierkegaard’s authorship) comes from the concrete noun sværm (swarm), which derives from the Old Norse svarmr (turmoil, tumult). In Kierkegaard’s time, Sværmeri referred to a state of mind given to fanaticism and an overactive imagination that participates in flights of fancy which then guide one’s behaviors and thoughts.1 It was sometimes thought to be the result of a nervous condition and was often linked to melancholia.2 In its verbal form, when used of human beings rather than of swarming insects, it means acting with overwrought emotion, particularly in the religious, political, and erotic spheres.3 Historically, Sværmeri’s German cognate, Schwärmerei, functioned rhetorically to designate who or what would be perceived as falling outside the disputed bounds of religious and philosophical orthodoxy. It was used liberally during the German Enlightenment as a negative epithet denoting dogmaticism, fanaticism, overlyimagistic thought, and what were perceived to be anomalous political positions, but its pejorative use in religious polemic can be seen as early as Luther, who ridiculed as Schwärmer certain religious sects for their emphasis on strong emotions and their tendency to “swarm” in mobs against established authorities. With the rise of Romanticism, Schwärmerei’s negative connotations began to shift as enthusiasm came to be seen as necessary for living poetically. Much the same can be said for the roughly synonymous Danish word Begeistring. This term was borrowed in the latter half of the eighteenth century from the German Begeisterung,4 which was often used interchangeably with Schwärmerei and Enthusiasmus, which is the German cognate of our third term: Enthusiasme (from the Greek ἐνθουσιασμός). In contrast to Sværmeri and Begeistring, and despite the rough synonymity of all three See Christian Molbech, Dansk Ordbog, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 456. 2 See Xenophons Sokratiske Mærkværdigheder, ed. and trans. by Jens Bloch, Copenhagen: N. Møller 1802 [1792], pp. 36–7, quoted in SKS 1, 208 / CI, 158. Bloch describes Socrates’ daimon as “a kind of fanaticism [Sværmeri] that to some extent had its roots in his vivid imagination and his delicate nervous system.” 3 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 22, columns 1342–6. 4 See ibid., vol. 2, columns 181–2. 1

236

Carson Webb

terms, Enthusiasme had a decidedly more positive connotation before and during Romanticism. These terms are found frequently throughout Kierkegaard’s writings, with the exception of Enthusiasme, which, in its nominal and verbal forms, is found exclusively in The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, Part One, and a few entries in the journals and notebooks, all but one of which come from 1836 to 1841. The concept of enthusiasm is most prominent in writings from 1841 to 1847, specifically, The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, Stages on Life’s Way, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, A Literary Review of Two Ages, The Book on Adler, and Works of Love. When placed within the context of the philosophical and religious discussions of enthusiasm, which revolved around the place of imagination, emotion, and speculative knowledge in philosophy and religion, Kierkegaard’s frequent use of these terms takes on a different significance than the casual use of the word “enthusiasm” might suggest in modern English. I. In The Book on Adler, Kierkegaard describes enthusiasm as “vague and indefinite” and as an “infinitely nebulous category.”5 In A Literary Review of Two Ages, however, published only a few months before beginning to draft his analysis of Adler, Kierkegaard distinguishes between “enthusiastic action,” “immediate enthusiasm,” and “infinite enthusiasm”: Antecedent to enthusiastic [begeistrede] action are: first of all, the immediate, spontaneous enthusiasm [Begeistring], then the period of prudence, which, because immediate enthusiasm does not deliberate, seems to be superior by virtue of its ingenuity in deliberation, and then finally the highest and most intensive enthusiasm which follows on the heels of prudence and therefore perceives what is the most prudent thing to do but rejects it and thereby gains the intensity of infinite enthusiasm.6

Socrates serves Kierkegaard as a model of infinite enthusiasm, because he recognized what prudence would require of him if he wished to avoid death, but he refrained, for which reason his infinite enthusiasm was imperceptible in itself. It was recognizable only negatively as imprudence. Thus Socrates is not explicitly identified as an infinite enthusiast; instead, he is “not a man of immediate enthusiasm.”7 While this passage is the first occurrence in the authorship of an explicit distinction between infinite enthusiasm, immediate enthusiasm, and enthusiastic action, each concept appears separately in earlier works. Infinite enthusiasm. In The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard calls attention to the moral fanaticism for which Fichte was not uncommonly criticized. This is said to be a consequence of the negative infinity of Fichte’s thought and, in particular, of his theory of knowledge: Fichte “infinitized [knowledge] negatively, and thus…instead SKS 15, 183, 198 / BA, 60, 75. SKS 8, 105 / TA, 111, translation slightly altered. 7 Ibid. 5 6

Enthusiasm

237

of positive striving, that is, happiness [Salighed], he obtained a negative striving, that is, an ought.”8 This endless striving that can never achieve a concrete result because it lacks the finite is “an infinite enthusiasm [Enthusiasme].”9 What Kierkegaard means by “enthusiasm” is very close to what he means by “irony.” Both entail a distance from and a negation of actuality for the sake of possibility.10 Thus Kierkegaard writes, “Enthusiasm [Enthusiasme] is not always bound up with endurance; on the contrary, enthusiasm is a consuming zeal [Begeistring] in the service of possibility. Therefore, an ironist is always an enthusiast, except that his enthusiasm never accomplishes anything, for he never goes beyond the category of possibility.”11 It is in this clearing of possibility made by the ironist-enthusiast that fantasy or imagination (Phantasien) is left free to assert its self- and world-constructive power at will, without regard for the givenness of actuality.12 The remedy for this is to submit infinite enthusiasm to the limitations of actuality, or to practice “controlled irony,” so that its energy can be used to reinvigorate finitude.13 Succinctly stated, then, infinite enthusiasm maintains the negative relationship to actuality within which irony and idealism can carry out their ethical, metaphysical, and imaginative projects. Immediate enthusiasm. Nowhere in The Concept of Irony are infinite and immediate enthusiasm contrasted side by side. We find the first reference to “immediate enthusiasm” in Stages on Life’s Way, where Frater Taciturnus calls Quidam “an enthusiast [Sværmer], and an enthusiast of a particular kind, not simply because he has arrived a few centuries too late.”14 This is a reference to Don Quixote, whose “beautiful enthusiasm [skjønt Sværmeri]” was the result of his believing himself to be one of Spain’s knights errant, who had disappeared centuries earlier.15 Taciturnus’ point is that Quidam’s enthusiasm is not due to his being out of touch with reality or with the historical moment like Quixote. Rather, like Socrates, Quidam “is an enthusiast to such a degree…by not being an immediate enthusiast; he is an enthusiast in the form of deception under which he lives free in his enthusiasm. This is a new expression for the degree of his enthusiasm and shows that this is SKS 1, 310 / CI, 273. Ibid., emphasis mine. 10 With the exception of SKS 1, 154 / CI, 100, each occurrence of the term Enthusiasme in The Concept of Irony highlights its negating power. See SKS 1, 222, 239, 262, 300, 310 / CI, 175, 192, 217, 262, and 273. The near-identification of irony and enthusiasm reappears in A Literary Review of Two Ages. See SKS 8, 78 / TA, 81. 11 SKS 1, 239 / CI, 192. By contrast, see Poul Martin Møller, “Strøtanker III. 1826–1837,” in Efterladte Skrifter af Poul M. Møller, vols. 1–3, ed. by Christian Winther, F.C. Olsen, and Christen Thaarup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1839–43, vol. 3, p. 241: “Enthusiasm [Entusiasme] is something enduring. One can perform a longstanding work with enthusiasm, not with inspiration [Begejstring] (Affect).” 12 See SKS 1, 311–19 / CI, 275–84. This is the “enthusiasm of imagination [Phantasiens Enthusiasme]” that, earlier in the text, is responsible for myth. SKS 1, 154 / CI, 101. I have included the italics that are suppressed in the Hong translation. 13 See SKS 1, 352–7 / CI, 324–9. 14 SKS 6, 374–5 / SLW, 403–4. 15 SKS 7, 42 / CUP1, 35. See also Judge William’s comparison of the aesthete to Don Quixote, both of whom are “continually fighting…for a bygone time” (SKS 3, 139 / EO2, 141). 8 9

238

Carson Webb

the highest.”16 The intensity of Quidam’s enthusiasm corresponds to the degree of difference between his inwardness and its outward expression. It can be inferred, then, that immediate enthusiasm is characterized principally by the directness of its expression, or its recognizability as enthusiasm. This is confirmed by Taciturnus’ claim that “to this class [sc. spontaneous, immediate enthusiasts] essentially belong all who have become well-known.”17 Immediate enthusiasm is also characterized by its dependence on mood, its focus on the moment, and its resultant tendency to overlook the difficulty of preserving enthusiasm amidst future hardship, thus possibly claiming victory prematurely.18 This, too, is expressed directly; the immediate enthusiast will either “plant the banner of victory” or he will “weigh heavily upon existence with his suffering.”19 In either case, “the enthusiast [Sværmer] still cannot do without the world.”20 The immediate enthusiast is therefore reliant upon something outside himself either as the source of his enthusiasm or as the audience of its expression. In short, immediate enthusiasm prohibits a negative relationship to actuality, the result of which is a reliance on the external that manifests itself in immediate enthusiasm’s directness of expression and its vulnerability to mood and opposition. Enthusiastic action. It is important to note that, in the passage from A Literary Review quoted above, both immediate and infinite enthusiasm are said to be “antecedent to enthusiastic action.” By “enthusiastic action,” then, Kierkegaard cannot mean activity that might express enthusiasm, since this would give it the immediacy that is said to be antecedent to it. If infinite enthusiasm is the enthusiasm that recognizes the incommensurability between inner and outer, then the enthusiastic action that follows it is unconcerned with the external effectiveness of the action as an index of the inner disposition of the actor. Indeed, this is precisely how enthusiasm is identified in the few passages in the authorship that seem to give the most straightforward indications of what enthusiasm is. For instance, in the Postscript we read that the religious person “inwardly deepens his outward activity by acknowledging that he is capable of nothing, by cutting off every teleological relation to what is directed outward, all income from it in finitude, even though he still works to the utmost of his ability—and precisely this is enthusiasm [Begeistring].”21 Because the person acting enthusiastically is unconcerned with effectiveness, his focus is always on the future, the domain of the ethical, rather than on the historical moment: “Continual association with the world-historical makes a person incompetent to act. True ethical enthusiasm [Begeistring] consists in willing to the utmost of one’s capability, but also, uplifted in divine jest, in never thinking whether or not one thereby achieves something.”22 The ethical enthusiast is SKS 6, 374–5 / SLW, 404. SKS 6, 375 / SLW, 404. See also SKS 7, 457–8 / CUP1, 504. This mirrors one of Climacus’ criticisms of “the inexhaustible spokesman of enthusiasm,” Jacobi. See SKS 7, 98–9 / CUP1, 100–1. 18 See SKS 8, 66–73 / TA, 68–96 passim. 19 SKS 3, 375 / SLW, 404. 20 Ibid. 21 SKS 7, 459 / CUP1, 506. Cf. SKS 5, 430–1 / TD, 55–6. 22 SKS 7, 126 / CUP1, 135. 16 17

Enthusiasm

239

unconcerned with how his or her actions contribute to the unfolding of world history, since every moment spent focusing on this would be a moment in which he or she fails to act enthusiastically. To be concerned with the world-historicality of one’s actions is to engage in a form of comparison, which is opposed to true enthusiasm. Instead of comparison, Kierkegaard recommends a constant remembrance of “the debt of infinitude” created by the duty to love. This is what defines enthusiasm in Works of Love: “What is enthusiasm [Begeistring]? Is it not simply to be willing to do and to suffer everything? Is it not also to be willing to remain in the debt of infinitude?”23 The infinitude of the debt prevents any chance of comparison, both because one’s actions can never bring one closer to discharging the debt and because all people are equally indebted.24 This ethical enthusiasm of love corrects the “purely human” conception of love as a “beautiful fanaticism [skjønt Sværmerie]” that turns love into a “fanatical [sværmerisk] expression” about the idea of love.25 The enthusiasm for love that remains in infinitude’s debt, however, is constant action, not as an expression of enthusiasm (which would be immediacy) but as a response to one’s infinite duty. It “is occupied at the speed of action, whereas in fanaticism even at its highest [i Sværmeriets Høieste] there is an element of dwelling.”26 It is the moment of dwelling and aesthetic revelry in mood that allow fanaticism to creep in. The constant activity of ethical enthusiasm, then, is the remedy for the ethereality and sentimentality of fanaticism (Sværmeri). So, Kierkegaard does not attempt to expunge enthusiasm altogether. He attempts instead to exchange one type of enthusiasm for another: ethical enthusiasm’s temporal orientation towards the future for fanaticism’s temporal orientation in the moment. II. I began this analysis with Kierkegaard’s observation in The Book on Adler that enthusiasm is “vague and indefinite.” This indefiniteness was first called into question by turning to a distinction Kierkegaard made in A Literary Review, but it is also called into question in The Book on Adler itself, where it appears that enthusiasm is not so indefinite that it cannot be sharply distinguished from other phenomena. Kierkegaard upbraids Adler for failing to distinguish between the temporal orientations of “an apostle, a religiously awakened person [Opvakt], [and] an enthusiast [Begeistret].”27 Whereas the awakened person is oriented toward the past insofar as he is awakened into an ongoing history, the apostle is oriented toward the future insofar as he has been given a task.28 Unfortunately, in the fourth version of The Book on Adler there is no corresponding temporal orientation given for the enthusiast. Included in the first two versions of the text, however, was a lengthy 25 26 27 28 23 24

SKS 9, 185 / WL, 186. SKS 9, 184–90 / WL, 184–91. SKS 9, 187 / WL, 187. SKS 9, 185–8 / WL, 186–8. SKS 15, 183 / BA, 60. SKS 15, 183ff. / BA, 60ff.

240

Carson Webb

discussion of Adler’s spiritual “dizziness,” analogous to the absence of a fixed boundary for the eye (Øiet). This dizziness is illustrated in part by Adler’s “doctrine of the moment [Øieblikket],”29 which lacks the purposiveness of ethical enthusiasm. One can see in this passage on dizziness each of the three components of the concept of enthusiasm discussed above. Physiologically, “what is dizzying is the expanse, the infinite, the unlimited, the indeterminable” that results from the eye’s having “no boundary, no limitation.”30 Kierkegaard traces this dizziness to Adler’s devotion to the “fantasy-view” of Hegelianism, to his having gone “so far astray in the infinite that nothing finite can have continuance for him,”31 and to “an excess of imagination [Phantasiens].”32 Adler’s dizziness is therefore characterized by each of the key facets of infinite enthusiasm that were developed in The Concept of Irony: negative infinitude, negation of actuality, and the ensuing constructions of the imagination. As a further illustration of Adler’s dizziness, Kierkegaard refers to Adler’s reliance on manufactured excitement in his writing: “In reading his four latest books, one gets a suspicion and an idea (and it is impossible to escape this impression) that Adler really does not think but instead must have the habit of putting himself into an excited mood.”33 Adler then tries to communicate this dizziness to his reader: “Instead of wishing and asking the reader to keep his mind quiet in order to reflect on the thought that is communicated…Adler would rather recommend that his reader put himself into ecstasy.”34 Unlike Socrates and Quidam—two of Kierkegaard’s examples of those who were not immediate enthusiasts, since their enthusiasm was never expressed as enthusiasm—Adler attempts to express his enthusiasm directly, as though it were contagious.35 Finally, Kierkegaard’s proposed remedies for Adler’s enthusiasm reiterate those we have already seen. “The remedy for dizziness is limitation,” Kierkegaard writes, echoing the dissertation’s endorsement of controlled irony.36 Most prominently, though, Kierkegaard asserts the curative power of the ethical: What, then, can halt this dizziness, which actually results because a person stands still in fantasy and does not earnestly grasp any task for his life…? …What can constrain that desperate overwrought state of the moment? The ethical. When at every moment of one’s life there is work and a task, when often enough there unfortunately is serious concern that one has not attended to one’s work as one should—then there is not time to indulge in fantasy or to abandon oneself to fantastical speculation on the moment and on the dialectic that it is all and is nothing.37 SKS 15, 236 / BA, 289. SKS 15, 234 / BA, 287. 31 SKS 15, 235 / BA, 288. 32 Ibid. 33 SKS 15, 241 / BA, 294–5. 34 SKS 15, 242 / BA, 296. 35 Adler’s immediate enthusiasm is also seen in the rashness with which he burned his Hegelian manuscripts and in his reliance upon this external gesture to demonstrate his internal conversion. See SKS 15, 255–9 / BA, 98–103. 36 SKS 15, 235 / BA, 288. 37 SKS 15, 237 / BA, 290–1. 29 30

Enthusiasm

241

Just as Climacus articulated in the Postscript and as Kierkegaard would go on to articulate in Works of Love, ethical activity and its temporal orientation towards the future are diversions from any temptation to revel in the moment. To conclude, what appears to be Kierkegaard’s skepticism regarding the conceptual clarity of enthusiasm might seem to discourage an interpreter from attempting to give a coherent account of the concept. Nevertheless, one can detect a structural lucidity that takes shape between The Concept of Irony and A Literary Review of Two Ages. And lest the concept of enthusiasm itself become merely an enthusiastic phantasm, Kierkegaard utilizes this conceptual framework in his analysis of Adler. See also Actuality; Concrete/Abstract; Earnestness; Ethics; Imagination; Inner/Outer; Irony; Mood/Emotion/Feeling; Negativity; Reason; Romanticism.