Volume 5, Tome I: Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions - Philosophy (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) [1 ed.] 9780754668183, 0754668185

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Pierre Bayle: Kierkegaard's Use of the Historical and Critical Dictionary
René Descartes: Kierkegaard's Understanding of Doubt and Certainty
David Hume: Kierkegaard and Hume on Reason, Faith, and the Ethics of Philosophy
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: Two Theories of the Leap
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Traces of Kierkegaard's Reading of the Theodicy
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Appropriating the Testimony of a Theological Naturalist
Michel de Montaigne: The Vulnerability of Sources in Estimating Kierkegaard's Study of Essais
Blaise Pascal: Kierkegaard and Pascal as Kindred Spirits in the Fight against Christendom
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Presence and Absence
Baruch de Spinoza: Questioning Transcendence. Teleology, and Truth
Index of Persons
Index of Subjects

Citation preview

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions tome I: Philosophy

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 5, Tome I

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 Katalin Nun peter Šajda Advisory Board IstvÁn CzakÓ FINN GREDAL JENSEN David D. Possen Heiko Schulz

This volume was published with the generous financial support of the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions Tome I: Philosophy

Edited by Jon stewart

First published 2009 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 © Jon Stewart and the contributors 2009 Jon Stewart has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor 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 Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and modern traditions Vol. 5 Tome 1: Philosophy. – (Kierkegaard research : sources, reception and resources) 1. Kierkegaard, Soren, 1813–1855 2. Philosophy, Renaissance 3. Philosophy, Modern I. Stewart, Jon (Jon Bartley) 198.9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and modern traditions / [edited by] Jon Stewart. p. cm. – (Kierkegaard research: sources, reception and resources ; v. 5) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-0-7546-6818-3 (hardcover : v. 1 : alk. paper) 1. Kierkegaard, Soren, 1813-1855–Sources. I. Stewart, Jon (Jon Bartley) B4377.K45527 2008 198’.9–dc22 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-6818-3 (hbk) cover design by Katalin nun.

2008050992

Contents List of Contributors Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Pierre Bayle: Kierkegaard’s Use of the Historical and Critical Dictionary Karl Verstrynge

vii ix xiii xv

1

René Descartes: Kierkegaard’s Understanding of Doubt and Certainty Anders Moe Rasmussen

11

David Hume: Kierkegaard and Hume on Reason, Faith, and the Ethics of Philosophy Thomas Miles 

23

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: Two Theories of the Leap Anders Moe Rasmussen

33

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Traces of Kierkegaard’s Reading of the Theodicy Håvard Løkke and Arild Waaler

51

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Appropriating the Testimony of a Theological Naturalist Curtis L. Thompson

77

Michel de Montaigne: The Vulnerability of Sources in Estimating Kierkegaard’s Study of Essais Søren Landkildehus

113

Blaise Pascal: Kierkegaard and Pascal as Kindred Spirits in the Fight against Christendom Søren Landkildehus

129

vi

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Presence and Absence Vincent A. McCarthy

147

Baruch de Spinoza: Questioning Transcendence, Teleology, and Truth Clare Carlisle

167

Index of Persons Index of Subjects

195 201

List of Contributors Clare Carlisle, Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, 7 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WY, UK. Søren Landkildehus, Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, 1510 St. Olaf Avenue, Northfield, MN 55057, USA. Håvard Løkke, Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1020, 0315 Blindern Oslo, Norway. Vincent A. McCarthy, Department of Philosophy, Saint Joseph’s University, 5600 City Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131–1895, USA. Thomas Miles, Philosophy Department, Boston College, 21 Campanella Way, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Anders Moe Rasmussen, Department of Philosophy, University of Aarhus, Ndr. Ringgade, 8000 Århus C, Denmark. Curtis L. Thompson, Thiel College, 75 College Avenue, Greenville, PA 16125– 2181, USA. Karl Verstrynge, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Vakgroep Wijsbegeerte en Moraalwetenschappen, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Arild Waaler, Department of Computer Science, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1080, 0316 Oslo, Norway.

Preface The long period from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century supplied numerous sources for Kierkegaard’s thought in any number of different fields. The present, rather heterogeneous volume covers the long period from the birth of Savonarola in 1452 through the beginning of the nineteenth century and into Kierkegaard’s own time. Unlike some of the other volumes in this series which focus on, for example, Kierkegaard’s Greek, Roman, German or Danish sources, the present volume explores sources from a number of different nationalities. The Danish thinker read authors representing vastly different traditions and time periods; he was interested in authors from the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Moreover, he also read a diverse range of genres; he pondered the depths of German philosophy, was moved to inward reflection by Pietist literature, and laughed at comedies and satirical works. His interests concerned not just philosophy, theology and literature but also drama and music. The present volume consists of three tomes that are intended to cover Kierkegaard’s sources in these different fields of thought. Tome I is dedicated to the philosophers of the early modern period and the Enlightenment who played a role in shaping Kierkegaard’s intellectual development. He was widely read in German and French philosophy of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He makes reference to the leading rationalist philosophers Descartes (1596–1650), Spinoza (1632–77) and Leibniz (1646–1716) in his journals and in a number of his published writings. Further, connections have also been pointed out between his thought and the writings of the French thinkers Montaigne (1533–92), Pascal (1623–62) and Rousseau (1712–78), who share with Kierkegaard a form of philosophy that is more interested in life and existence than purely conceptual analysis for its own sake. Several philosophical thinkers of this period provided Kierkegaard with inspiring impetuses for his life-long reflections on the relation between faith and reason and between Christianity and philosophy. Their considerations were central for the development of his thinking on the key question of the proper use, scope and limits of human reason. Through the works of the thinkers explored here, Kierkegaard became acquainted with some of the major philosophical discussions of the modern era such as the beginning of philosophy, the role of philosophical doubt, the status of autonomy in ethics and religion, human freedom and the problem of theodicy found in thinkers such as Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) and Leibniz. Finally, it has long been established that the German thinkers Jacobi (1743–1819) and Lessing (1729–81) profoundly influenced Kierkegaard since they are mentioned explicitly in the wellknown passages from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, where the category of the leap is explored in some detail.



Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions

Tome II is dedicated to the wealth of theological and religious sources from the beginning of the Reformation to Kierkegaard’s own day. It examines Kierkegaard’s relations to some of the key figures of the Reformation period, from the Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic traditions, such as Luther (1483–1546), Calvin (1509–64), and Erasmus (ca. 1466–1536). It explores Kierkegaard’s reception of theologians and spiritual authors of various denominations, most of whom are known to history primarily for their exposition of practical spirituality rather than theological doctrine. Although, to be sure, the Erbauungsliteratur that he read was marked by dogmatic controversies typical of the Reformation, its primary aim was the edification of the individual Christian layperson, which was one of the reasons why Kierkegaard held it in such high esteem. Several of the figures explored here are connected to the Protestant tradition of Pietism that Kierkegaard was made familiar with at a very early stage. It is well known that Kierkegaard’s father came from a Pietist background, and the importance of this has long been a point of debate in the research. The figures related to the Pietist tradition range from the “forefather” of Pietism Johann Arndt (1555–1621) to one of its late representatives, the Reformed writer Gerhard Tersteegen (1697– 1769). Alongside renowned authors of the German tradition, such as Arndt, Francke (1663–1727) and Tersteegen, this tome also explores Kierkegaard’s reception of the rich legacy of Danish Pietism through its constitutive figure Hans Adolph Brorson (1694–1764). Although Kierkegaard’s interest in Catholic spirituality concerned primarily the Patristic and Medieval traditions, he was also familiar with several popular figures of Catholic humanism, Post-Tridentine theology and Baroque spirituality. Through his reading of François Fénelon (1651–1715), he even received a glimpse of internal Catholic theological discussions, such as the Quietist controversy, which were in some ways parallel to the Protestant polemic concerning Pietism. The eclectic works of Ludwig Blosius (1506–66) and Abraham à Sancta Clara (1644–1709) provided Kierkegaard with abundant material from Patristic and Medieval literature, which steadily gained importance for his thinking. Both Protestant and Catholic Erbauungsliteratur represented for Kierkegaard a respectable source of practical Christian ethics and moral pedagogy, which, in contrast to the contemporary Danish Lutheranism, retained the doctrine of Christianity’s incongruity with the world. Kierkegaard was also able to find inspiration in highly controversial and original figures of the Renaissance and the early modern period, such as Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98) or Jacob Böhme (1575–1624), the latter of whom was in Kierkegaard’s day an en vogue topic among the trendsetting philosophers and theologians such as Hegel (1770–1831), Franz von Baader (1765–1841), Schelling (1775–1854) and Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–84). Tome III covers the sources that are relevant for literature, drama and music. Kierkegaard was well read in the European literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. He was captivated by the figure of Cervantes’ (1547–1616) Don Quixote, who is used as a model for humor and irony. He also enjoyed French literature, represented here by articles on Chateaubriand (1768–1848), Lamartine (1790–1869), and Mérimée (1803–70). French dramatists were popular on the Danish stage, and Kierkegaard demonstrated an interest in, among others, Molière

Preface

xi

(1622–73) and Scribe (1791–1861). Although he never possessed strong English skills, this did not prevent him from familiarizing himself with English literature, primarily with the help of German translations. While there is an established body of secondary material on Kierkegaard’s relation to Shakespeare (1654–1716), little has been said about his use of the Irish dramatist Sheridan (1751–1816). It is clear from, among other things, The Concept of Irony that Kierkegaard knew in some detail the works of some of the main writers of the German Romantic movement. However, his use of the leading figures of the British Romantic movement, Byron (1788–1824) and Shelley (1792–1822), remains largely unexplored terrain. The classic Danish writers of the eighteenth century, Holberg (1684–1754), Wessel (1742–85) and Ewald (1743–81), were influential figures who prepared the way for the Golden Age of Danish poetry. Kierkegaard constantly refers to their dramatic characters, whom he often employed to illustrate a philosophical idea with a pregnant example or turn of phrase. Finally, while Kierkegaard is not an obvious name in musicology, his analysis of Mozart’s Don Giovanni shows that he had a keen interest in music on many different levels. This volume is distinguished from volumes 6 and 7 of the present series with respect primarily to time period. Volume 6 is dedicated to Kierkegaard’s German contemporaries, by which is meant the key Germanophone sources for his work in the period from the latter part of the eighteenth century to Kierkegaard’s own lifetime. Similarly, volume 7, which explores Kierkegaard’s relation to his Danish contemporaries, focuses on his Danish sources from the same span of time. For this reason figures such as Holberg, Wessel and Ewald, who are considered pre-Golden Age, are consigned to the present volume. Moreover, since there is no corresponding volume for Kierkegaard’s French sources, these have been included in the present volume, although some of them are in fact contemporary with Kierkegaard himself. Despite the differences in time period, language or nationality of the figures featured here, there are nonetheless many important points of continuity, similarity and overlap that unite these sources in the context of their individual fields. This volume, perhaps better than any other in the series, demonstrates the vast range of Kierkegaard’s readings and interests. Moreover, it provides numerous examples of how he eclectically made use of the various sources by shaping and revising them in his own unique way in order to incorporate them into his own writings and thought.

Acknowledgements This volume and the “Sources” part of this series in general have been made possible by a grant from the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. The host institute of the project from its inception has been the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen, which continues to provide invaluable support. The patient staff at Ashgate Publishing has also been extremely helpful in the course of the production of this series. I would also like to recognize the efforts of several individuals who have helped with this volume in different ways. I am extremely grateful to Joseph Ballan, Christopher Barnett, Ingrid Basso, István Czakó, Philip Hillyer, Finn Gredal Jensen, Cynthia Lund, David Possen, Richard Purkarthofer, Peter Šajda, Heiko Schulz, and Brian Söderquist for their invaluable suggestions as well as their bibliographical and editorial help. I am also grateful to Bjarne Laurberg Olsen at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre for his behind-the-scenes efforts in support of this project. Finally, the greatest thanks is owed to Katalin Nun who has been in large part responsible for the creation of the detailed bibliographies that accompany the articles featured here. Her tireless work in editing and formatting the articles has been absolutely essential for the realization of this project. Finally, I am profoundly appreciative of the cooperation and patience of the authors who have contributed to the series. Without their help, this volume would never have been possible.

List of Abbreviations Danish Abbreviations B&A

Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, vols. I–II, 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, K1–K28, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, Alastair McKinnon and Finn Hauberg Mortensen, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag 1997ff.

SV1

Samlede Værker, ed. by A.B. Drachmann, Johan Ludvig Heiberg and H.O. Lange, vols. I–XIV, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag 1901–06.

SV3

Samlede værker, vols. 1–20, ed. by Peter P. Rohde, 3rd ed., Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1962–64. 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.

xvi

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions

ASKB

The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by H.P. Rohde, Copenhagen: The Royal Library 1967.

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 1992.

CUP2

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992.

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

xvii

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 (A translation of B&A).

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, 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.

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PJ

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

xix

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.

Pierre Bayle: Kierkegaard’s Use of the Historical and Critical Dictionary Karl Verstrynge

Kierkegaard’s connection with the French philosopher Pierre Bayle will not be remembered as a very strong or intense one. All in all, the way the Dane dealt with the French philosopher has two main characteristics. On the one hand, he makes use of Bayle’s famous Historical and Critical Dictionary, of which he owned a German copy. On the other hand, he occasionally refers in his notebooks to Leibniz’s famous discussion with Bayle on the problem of theodicy, while commenting upon his reading of Leibniz’s chief work, Essais de théodicée (1710). Shedding some more light on this (rather instrumental) relation between Kierkegaard and Bayle cannot be done without first providing some more information on this skeptical thinker and the discussions he was involved in, or without shedding some more light on his most important work. In investigating the relation between Kierkegaard and Bayle, I can fall back on Niels Thulstrup’s article, “Kierkegaards Benyttelse af Bayle,” which up to now is the only article that directly treats Kierkegaard’s relation to the French philosopher. I. Pierre Bayle: Life and Thought Bayle’s personal history was a quite turbulent one. On November 18, 1647, he was born in a Calvinist family in Carla, Southern France. Although his father was a Huguenot clergyman, he studied with the Jesuits in Toulouse, where he converted to Catholicism in 1669. One year later, however, he again joined the religion of his ancestors. After his discovery of Cartesian philosophy in Geneva, he became a professor of philosophy and history at the Protestant Academy of Sedan. When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes (1685), which until then had been a guarantee for the toleration and protection of the Calvinist religion in France, Bayle fled to the Netherlands and stayed the rest of his life in Rotterdam. For a while he again worked as a professor in philosophy and history at the protestant Athenaeum Illustrum, but was forced to resign due to religious disagreements and disputes. Thereafter he lived Niels Thulstrup, “Kierkegaards Benyttelse af Bayle,” Meddelelser fra Søren Kierkegaard Selskabet, vol. 5, no. 2, 1955, pp. 6–8.





Karl Verstrynge

as an unemployed scholar, writing his philosophical and historical works. Bayle died in exile on December 28, 1706. His famous Dictionnaire historique et critique (1696) took shape in the period after his dismissal as professor. Originally conceived as a successor to Louis Moréri’s (1643–80) Le grand dictionnaire historique (1671), the work became a totally new encyclopaedia. It focused particularly on theology, mythology, biography and politics, confronting all of these themes with the contemporary standards of human reason. In this respect Bayle was the great precursor of the age of Enlightenment and was a direct influence on the encyclopaedists of the eighteenth century. Due to its untimely and progressive character, his chief work was subject to appreciations of a quite different kind. Being forbidden in the whole of Catholic France, it nevertheless enjoyed a wide circulation and won appreciation from both religious readers and those who were strongly opposed to any religious commitment. Since it was mainly Bayle’s Dictionary Kierkegaard referred to and was interested in, I will not comment in detail on other works of the French philosopher such as Pensées diverses sur la comète (1682) or Réponses aux questions d’un provincial (1703–07). Still, it is of importance to draw attention to Bayle’s basic assumptions, since they provide us with a better understanding of the discussions Kierkegaard alludes to in his notes. In general, Bayle’s thought is often connected to skepticism. Basically, he claimed that human reason is deficient on two general grounds. On the one hand, human reason is impotent since it has no control over human action. On the other hand, it is a mere negative power since it predominantly refutes philosophical arguments rather than justifying them. This twofold assumption on the powerlessness of reason affected Bayle’s religious views. His skeptical position did not lead to a denial of religious claims, as many of his later Enlightenment readers read into his works. Bayle rather embodied the opposite position, in that his philosophical convictions led him towards fideism. By confirming the absolute separation between God and man, man’s total perdition and his inability to overcome his sinful state and fate solely by his intellectual faculties, the French philosopher expressed his Calvinist roots. Bayle’s philosophical and religious convictions were especially of importance with regard to his critique of the philosophical problem of theodicy. In 1710 his views were taken up and discussed by Leibniz in his Theodicy. Leibniz’s famous work was a direct attempt to refute Bayle’s claim that theodicy—an attempt to justify reasonably the ways of God in relation to humans, especially with regard to suffering—is not possible. Bayle never saw the publication of Leibniz’s book since he died four years earlier. But the discussion had its echo in later philosophical debates, and, as I will show, Kierkegaard also picked up some elements of the arguments both authors used. The main difference between Bayle and Leibniz is that Bayle strongly opposed any consequentialist theory of moral rationality. This latter See Hubert Bost, Pierre Bayle et la religion, Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1994, pp. 74ff.  See Elisabeth Labrousse, Bayle, trans. by Denys Potts, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1983, pp. 49ff., and Craig Balcombe Brush, Montaigne and Bayle: Variations on the Theme of Skepticism, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1966. 

Pierre Bayle: Kierkegaard’s Use of the Historical and Critical Dictionary



viewpoint was clearly Leibniz’s since he argued that God reasons according to the “rule of the best” and hence allows evil if it is a means to the maximization of the good. Bayle was acquainted with this consequentialist theodicy by way of Isaac Jacquelot (1647–1706), who in his La conformité de la raison et de la foi (1705) held the same view as Leibniz. Bayle reacted against Jacquelot in his above-mentioned Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, stating that there clearly are duties superior to the rule of merely bringing about the most good overall. Rather than being a consequentionalist, Bayle should be placed in the camp of deontological thinkers, albeit with a great respect for individuality. II. Kierkegaard’s (Rather Instrumental) Use of Bayle How did Kierkegaard get to know the work of Bayle and how did he relate to it? We know that Kierkegaard owned a copy of Bayle’s Dictionary, but not in the original French edition. Early journal entries and notes in his pseudonymous writings show that he consulted this dictionary now and then. It is therefore striking that the first references to Bayle are predominantly connected to and mainly about the discussion with Leibniz. The relevant fragments teach us that in fact Kierkegaard became acquainted with Bayle at the time he studied Leibniz—that is, around 1842—and that it was through Leibniz he discovered the work of Bayle. The following journal entry hints at this presupposition: “ ‘What I predict will either happen or it will not happen; for Apollo granted me the gift of prophecy.’ Tiresias. (I believe these words are to be found somewhere in Leibnitz’s Theodicy, quoted from Bayle.)” One finds indeed that Leibniz refers in his Theodicy10 to Bayle’s article on Epicurus and the question of “the possibility of things that do not happen.”11 He thereby discusses Epicurus’ denial of the basic logical assertion that something is either true or false, by referring to his French opponent: “M. Bayle observes that ‘neither of these [Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz], Herrn Gottfried Wilhelms, Freyherrn von Leibnitz, Theodicee, das ist, Versuch von der Güte Gottes, Freyheit des Menschen, und vom Ursprunge des Bösen, 5th revised ed. by Johann Christoph Gottscheden, Hannover and Leipzig: Im Verlage der Försterischen Erben 1763, § 25 (AKSB 619). English translation, Leibniz, Theodicy, trans. by E.M. Huggard, ed. by Austin Farrer, New Haven: Yale University Press 1952.  Ibid., §§ 22ff.  See Charles Larmore, “Théodicée et rationalité morale,” in his Modernité et morale, Paris: Presses universitaires de France 1993, pp. 121–38.  Kierkegaard owned a German translation, [Pierre Bayle], Herrn Peter Baylens Historisches und Critisches Wörterbuch. Nach der neuesten Auflage von 1740 ins Deutsche übersetzt, vols. 1–4, [trans. and ed. by] Johann Christoph Gottscheden, Leipzig: Breitkopf 1741–44 (ASKB 1961–1964). But, as will be remarked further on, he often refers to a French edition of the text, edited in a collection of Leibniz’s philosophical writings he possessed.  See also Thulstrup, “Kierkegaards Benyttelse af Bayle,” p. 6.  SKS 18, 154, JJ:40 / KJN 2, 143. 10 Kierkegaard owned Gottsched’s German translation, see [Leibnitz], Theodicee. The original edition was a French one, but Kierkegaard was not very comfortable in reading French and maybe could not obtain a French edition. 11 Leibniz, Theodicy, § 121. 



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two great philosophers [Epicurus and Chrysippus] understood that the truth of this maxim, every proposition is true of false, is independent of what is called fatum: it could not therefore serve as proof of the existence of the fatum....’ ”12 In the note (situated between 1842 and 1843) quoted above, Kierkegaard seems to have been aware of this discussion in the Theodicy. One could even suggest that the article Leibniz refers to has affinities with the theme of the “Interlude” in Philosophical Fragments. There Johannes Climacus also deals with the question of the necessity of the past and the future. But Climacus does not refer to either the passage in Leibniz or in Bayle—in fact only Chrysippus the Stoic and Diodorus the Megarian are mentioned.13 From the journal entry itself, it is rather unlikely that Kierkegaard read the very piece in the Dictionary that Leibniz refers to, and we should stick to the assumption that if the theme had any influence on the “Interlude” in Philosophical Fragments, he only became acquainted with the discussion via Leibniz and Tennemann’s Geschichte der Philosophie. Another pseudonym, however, Vigilius Haufniensis, did use Bayle’s Dictionary as a direct source for his thoughts. In The Concept of Anxiety, Haufniensis quotes a letter of the Dutch lawyer and historian Erycius Puteanus (1574–1646) written to John Baptista Saccum, the secretary of the city council of Milan, on the meaning of a kiss: In southern countries and among more passionate peoples, the kiss no doubt means more than in the North (concerning this one may refer to Puteanus’ letter to John Bapt. Saccum: nesciunt nostrae virgines ullum libidinis rudimentum oculis aut osculis inesse, ideoque fruuntur. Vestrae sciunt [Our Belgian maidens do not know that a kiss or a glance of the eye can be the beginning of lust, and therefore abandon themselves to it. Your Italian maidens know it.] Cf. Kempius Dissertatio de oculis, in Bayle).14

In this passage, like the passage in Philosophical Fragments written during the first half of 1844, Kierkegaard, alias Haufniensis, refers directly to Bayle. Hence, we may assume that, around this period, he did have direct access to Bayle’s instrument without having to consult Leibniz first and that he also used it as a tool for further illustration of the themes he treated. The best place to detect the way Kierkegaard came to know Bayle and to learn around what period he bought the Dictionary, is a rather long and undated fragment in his notebooks on Leibniz’s Theodicy. Somewhere between 1842 and 1843, under the heading “Leibnitz’s Theodicee übersetzt mit Anmerkungen v. Gottscheden. 1763. Hanover und Leipzig,”15 he comments upon his study of Leibniz’s work.16 When Ibid., § 169. SKS 4, 276 / PF, 76. 14 SKS 4, 374 / CA, 70. The reference to Bayle’s Dictionary can be found in Kierkegaard’s edition, see [Pierre Bayle], Herrn Peter Baylens Historisches und Critisches Wörterbuch, pp. 842ff. 15 SKS 19, 390, Not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. 16 It is curious though that Kierkegaard here refers to a French edition of this work, see [Leibniz], God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Berlin: [Eichler] 1839–40 (ASKB 620). 12 13

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reading, he finds out about the well-known discussion between the two philosophers. After having noted that the “introduction deals with the correspondence between reason and faith,”17 he writes: What I usually express by saying that Christianity consists of paradox, philosophy in mediation, Leibniz expresses by distinguishing between what is above reason and what is against reason. Faith is above reason. By reason he understands, as he says in many places, a linking together of truths, a conclusion from causes. Faith therefore cannot be proved, demonstrated, comprehended, for the link which makes a linking together possible is missing, and what else does this say than that it is a paradox. This, precisely, is the irregularity in the paradox, continuity is lacking, or at any rate, it has continuity only in reverse, that is, at the beginning it does not manifest itself as continuity. In my opinion nothing else should be said of the paradox and the unreasonableness of Christianity than that it is the first form, in world history as well as in consciousness. The whole conflict between Leibniz and Bayle is very much to the point, and one is astonished if he compares it with controversy in our time, for we have actually gone backward, and I believe that Hegel has not really understood what is was all about.18

In the margin he writes, “Bayle’s argument is found in his Dictionary under the articles Manicheans, Rorarius, and Xenophanes.”19 Indeed, towards the end of the introduction in the Theodicy, Leibniz explicitly deals with the Frenchman’s view on the relation between reason and religion, and refers to the places in the Dictionary Kierkegaard mentions in the margin.20 The Dane seems to suggest that he also read the passages in Bayle’s manuscript, even though it could just as well be the case that he merely paraphrases Leibniz’s understanding of Bayle: In this Leibniz is certainly right over against Bayle, that by making man the sole measure of all things one gets entangled in contradictions. Bayle, like many others, has given the elemental impression that man has received the distinguished appointment in life to judge everything et quidem in relation to this position of man in creation. Leibniz shows that everything is linked together; he establishes a teleology which includes mankind. See § 119 in Theodicy. One cannot deny that there is a weakness in all the answers Leibniz gives Bayle in paragraphs 121, 22 and following; he seeks to avoid difficulty by saying that it is not a question of the individual but of the whole universe. This is ridiculous, for if there is just one individual man who has valid reason to complain, then the universe does not help. The answer is that even in sin man is greater, more fortunate, than if it had not appeared, for even the split in man has more significance than immediate innocence.21

SKS 19, 390, Not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. Ibid. 19 SKS 19, 390, Not13:23.a / JP 3, 3073. 20 To be more precise, G.W. Leibniz, “Essais de Théodicée,” in Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vols. 1–7, Hildesheim: Olms Verlag 1961 (photomechanical reprint of Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vols. 1–7, ed. by C.J. Gerhardt, Berlin: Weidmann 1875–90), vol. 6, pp. 39f. 21 SKS 19, 391–2, Not13:23 / JP 1, 40. 17 18



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In the margin he writes, “He finally takes recourse in analogies from the external world, that God lets it rain, even though low-lying areas are not served thereby. See para. 134.”22 And further on in the fragment: “A perfectly disinterested will (equilibrium) is a nothing, a chimera; Leibniz demonstrates this superbly in many places; Bayle also acknowledges this (in opposition to Epicurus).”23 Whether Kierkegaard actually checked these references in Bayle is not certain. Also from Leibniz’s own text one can find enough material for the comments Kierkegaard makes, since Leibniz explicitly quotes Bayle in his texts and carefully renders his thoughts on the themes under discussion. Moreover, it is very unlikely that the young Kierkegaard possessed Bayle’s Dictionary at the time of the fragment in his notebook. It is more probable that the Theodicy connected him with the thoughts of Bayle and induced him to buy Gottsched’s German translation later on.24 That he from that moment on also made use of the Dictionary, especially for references to classic authors, is proven by an undated note—also situated between 1842 and 1843—Kierkegaard made on the front cover of a copy of The Concept of Irony: Two quotations concerning his [Socrates’] relation to Xanthippe, which I have never seen referred to otherwise but found in Antoninus, Philosophus ad se ipsum, para. 23 and 28. Moreover, I have indicated the best of Diogenes Laertius in my copy of the Danish translation. The article in Bayle also contains a few things.25

Although the editors of the Papirer suggest in a footnote that Kierkegaard here refers to Bayle’s article on Agesilaus26—for it is known that the French writer had no lemma on Socrates—it is not certain whether he actually had that spot in mind. On one occasion only does Bayle refer to Xanthippe, that is, in an article where she is compared to Albrecht Dürer’s wife.27 In any case the entry tells us that it is an older one than the ones quoted before, where it is clear that he found the references in the Theodicy and not in his own copy of the Dictionary. Between both fragments, the longer one on Leibniz’s Theodicy and the short note on the cover of The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard must have found and bought the German edition of Bayle’s Dictionary. Together with Niels Thulstrup, one can conclude that Kierkegaard had only limited knowledge of Bayle’s thought. The few occasions where he refers to Bayle’s own insights are in pursuance of his reading of Leibniz’s Theodicy. In fact, Kierkegaard was only acquainted with the Dictionary and used it mainly as a tool for looking up passages about classic writers (cf. the reference to Puteanus in The Concept of Anxiety). Even though there are several themes in which the Dane had a similar interest, he never made a conscientious study of Bayle’s thought. The same goes for the discussion between Leibniz and Bayle: he may have been aware of it, but he never really picked it up as a theme for further investigation. One might only SKS 19, 391–2, Not13:23.b / JP 1, 40. SKS 19, 393, Not13:23 / JP 2, 1241. 24 Cf. Thulstrup, “Kierkegaards Benyttelse af Bayle,” p. 7. 25 Pap. IV A 202 / JP 4, 4249. 26 Ibid. 27 See also Thulstrup, “Kierkegaards Benyttelse af Bayle,” p. 7. 22 23

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wonder how he would have reacted, had he studied the Dictionary thoroughly or had he been familiar with other crucial works where Bayle dealt with the irreconcilability of reason and faith, the nature of sin, the relation between God and man, themes that, implicitly or explicitly, were dominant in most of Kierkegaard’s writings.

Bibliography I. Bayle’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Herrn Peter Baylens Historisches und Critisches Wörterbuch. Nach der neuesten Auflage von 1740 ins Deutsche übersetzt, vols. 1–4, [trans. and ed. by] Johann Christoph Gottsched, Leipzig: Breitkopf 1741–44 (ASKB 1961–1964). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Bayle [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 8, p. 400; p. 546 (ASKB 1972–1983). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Johann Georg Rosenbusch’s Wittwe 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 [Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820], vol. 4, pp. 33ff. (ASKB 440–445). Erdmann, Johann Eduard, Leib und Seele nach ihrem Begriff und ihrem Verhältniß zu einander. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der philosophischen Anthropologie, Halle: C.A. Schwetschke und Sohn 1837, p. 100 (ASKB 480). Flögel, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte der komischen Litteratur, vols. 1–4, Liegnitz and Leipzig: David Siegert 1784–87, vol. 1, p. 264; p. 272; p. 281 (ASKB 1396– 1399). Guerike, Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Halle: in der Gebauerschen Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 2, p. 1148 (ASKB 158–159). Hahn, August (ed.), Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, Leipzig: Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel 1828, p. 273 (ASKB 535). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 2, p. 27; p. 138; vol. 3, p. 10; vol. 4, p. 28; p. 53; p. 310 (ASKB 536–544). Herder, Johann Gottfried von, “Bayle,” in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Philosophie und Geschichte, vols. 1–22, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 11, pp. 90–7 (ASKB 1695–1705; see also ASKB A I 114–124).

Pierre Bayle: Kierkegaard’s Use of the Historical and Critical Dictionary



[Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm], God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Berlin 1839–40, pp. 104–6; pp. 150–4; pp. 188–9; p. 492; p. 496; p. 532; p. 544; p. 606 (ASKB 620). Longin, Dionysius, Dionysius Longin vom Erhabenen Griechisch und Teutsch, Nebst dessen Leben, einer Nachricht von seinen Schriften, und einer Untersuchung, was Longin durch das Erhabene verstehe, trans. and ed. by Carl Heinrich Heineken, Leipzig and Hamburg: Conrad König 1738, p. 32; p. 396 (ASKB 1129). Meiners, Christoph, Historische Vergleichung der Sitten und Verfassungen, der Gesetze und Gewerbe, des Handels und der Religion, der Wissenschaften und Lehranstalten des Mittelalters, vols. 1–3, Hannover: im Verlage der Helwingischen Hofbuchhandlung 1793‑94, vol. 3, pp. 441–7; p. 485; p. 488 (ASKB 672‑674). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852–53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 2, p. 212 (ASKB 358–363). Schaller, Julius, Darstellung und Kritik der Philosophie Ludwig Feuerbach’s, Leipzig: Verlag der J.C. Hinrichsschen Buchhandlung 1847, p. 3 (ASKB 760). [Schlegel, Friedrich], Friedrich Schlegel’s Philosophische Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1804 bis 1806. Nebst Fragmenten vorzüglich philosophisch-theologischen Inhalts. Aus dem Nachlaß des Verewigten, ed. by C.H.J. Windischmann, vols. 1–2, Bonn: Eduard Weber 1836–37, vol. 1, p. 430 (ASKB 768–768a). Stäudlin, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus vorzüglich in Rücksicht auf Moral und Religion, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius 1794, vol. 2, pp. 103–20 (ASKB 791). Sulzer, Johann Georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., Leipzig: Weidmann 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 37; p. 47; p. 69; p. 134; p. 204; p. 206; p. 293; p. 554; p. 615; vol. 2, p. 44; p. 143; p. 160; p. 183; p. 509; p. 665; vol. 3, p. 181; p. 185; vol. 4, p. 53; p. 121; p. 137; p. 139; p. 149; p. 151; pp. 153–4; p. 176 (ASKB 1365–1369). Tennemann, Wilhelm Gottlieb, “Pierre Bayle,” in his Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth 1798–1819, vol. 11, pp. 251–80 (ASKB 815–826). Thomsen, Grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et Forsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort Frem- eller Tilbageskridt i Frankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?,” Copenhagen: Wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. 7 (ASKB 1390). Tiedemann, Dietrich, Geist der spekulativen Philosophie von Thales bis Sokrates, vols. 1- 6, Marburg: in der Neuen Akademischen Buchhandlung 1791–97, vol. 6, pp. 307–46 (ASKB 836–841). Weiße, Christian Hermann, Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Ch.F. Grimmer’sche Buchhandlung 1833, p. 173, note (ASKB 866).

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III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Bayle Nedergaard-Hansen, Leif, Bayle’s og Leibniz, drøftelse af theodicé-problemet: en idéhistorisk redegørelse. Med nogle træk af denne debats avspejling i dansk filosoferen fra Holberg til Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: Munksgaards Forlag 1965. —— “Bayle,” in Kierkegard Literary Miscellany, ed. by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1981 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9), pp. 154–9. Thulstrup, Niels, “Kierkegaard’s Benyttelse af Bayle,” Meddelelser fra Søren Kierkegaard Selskabet, vol. 5, no. 2, 1955, pp. 6–8.

René Descartes: Kierkegaard’s Understanding of Doubt and Certainty Anders Moe Rasmussen

I. Descartes’ Life and Work For centuries and up to this very day René Descartes has been regarded as the founder of modern Enlightenment philosophy, introducing a radical turn in Western philosophical and scientific thought. With the way prepared by thinkers of the Renaissance, Descartes broke definitively with the scholastic tradition of the Middle Ages since he turned against the doctrines of Aristotle, especially the doctrine about the senses being the one and only source of knowledge. Drawing upon the skeptical tradition of ancient Greek philosophy, which was revitalized in the Renaissance, Descartes in his philosophical writings, most explicitly in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), developed a two-part strategy, rejecting at the same time Aristotelian sensualism and skepticism. The key concept in this context is the famous notion of “methodological doubt.” This method has a double structure: first the sensualist theory is undermined by means of skeptical arguments (the so-called “argument of illusion” the “dream argument” and “the argument of an evil demon”), and thereafter skepticism is turned against itself. The result of this operation is the foundation of a radically new metaphysics. The “methodological doubt” involves both a destructive and a constructive part since the whole process terminates in a new doctrine of metaphysical thinking: the famous “cogito ergo sum.” Doubt and skepticism cannot be universal since I cannot possibly doubt my existence: for if I do not exist, I cannot doubt anything whatsoever. This is the point where skepticism contradicts itself and a new paradigm of knowledge emerges. Raised above any kind of doubt, as absolute certainty, self-consciousness or the “cogito” becomes the new standard of knowledge. All knowledge that is to count as genuine must fulfill the conditions of self-consciousness’ self-evidence and complete transparency. In order to secure the absolute validity and objectivity of thought and knowledge, Descartes reintroduces the “argument of the evil demon” or the “deceiving God,” by means of which he leads up to his epistemological version of the proof of God. So the source of knowledge lies within human reason, and God guarantees its ultimate validity. According to Descartes, this whole procedure is a purely rational enterprise that takes place within reason alone. The skeptical route leading to the absolute certainty of the “cogito” is the internal movement of reason and thought, independent of all

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preconditions other than those posed by reason itself. By stressing the absence of any kind of precondition, Descartes formulates the very principle of what came to be known as modern Enlightenment rationalism. II. Kierkegaard’s Relation to Descartes A. The Forerunner of Hegelian Philosophy Generally, Kierkegaard’s relations and interpretations of philosophers of the past are colored by his picture of Hegelian thinking and how the former stand in relation to this philosophy. This is especially true of his interpretation of Descartes. This, however, is not due to some Kierkegaardian idiosyncrasy, but rather it relies heavily on Hans Lassen Martensen’s (1808–84) interpretation of Descartes’ philosophy, which is documented partly in his lectures on the history of philosophy and partly in his review of Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s (1791–1860) introduction to the logic course in the Maanedsskrift for Litteratur (1836). The review in particular plays an essential role in Kierkegaard’s reception of Descartes. It concerns primarily Hegel’s philosophy as presented in his logic and presents his systematic philosophy as the most “complete and comprehensive development of rational knowledge.” As such, Hegelian thinking represents the result or what is called “the consequence” of the philosophy of modern times, breaking with medieval Christian philosophy by replacing the old notion of “faith” with the new principle of “doubt.” In that connection Descartes is introduced as the inaugurator of this new kind of thinking, who only accepted as true those things that were the result of the inner necessity of thought. The means of arriving at the truth is the methodological procedure of doubt, through which truth becomes equivalent to certainty. Contrary to the old way of thinking, truth, according to the new doctrines of Descartes, is conceived of as something utterly internal to cognition. Making universal doubt the imperative of thinking—“de omnibus dubitandum est”—Descartes states the new principle of philosophy as “the absolute autonomy of thought.”

 See “Referat af Martensens Forelæsninger over den nyere Philosophies Historie,” in Pap. II C 25, in Pap. XII, p. 282.  Hans Lassen Martensen, “Indlednings-Foredrag til det i November 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole. Af J.L. Heiberg, Lærer i Logik og Æsthetik ved den kgl. militaire Høiskole,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 16, 1836, pp. 515–28. (In English as “Review of the Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course” in Heiberg’s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon Stewart, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007 (Texts from Golden Age Denmark, vol. 3), pp. 75–86.)  Martensen, “Indlednings-Foredrag,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 16, 1836, p. 516. (“Review of the Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course,” p. 75.)  Martensen, “Indlednings-Foredrag,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 16, 1836, p. 516. (“Review of the Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course,” p. 76.)  Martensen, “Indlednings-Foredrag,” Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 16, 1836, p. 519. (“Review of the Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course,” p. 78.)

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Together with his lectures on the history of philosophy, this review by Martensen plays an essential role in Kierkegaard’s comprehension of Hegelian philosophy, and it is also a key document in understanding Kierkegaard’s relation to Descartes. Implicitly or explicitly, it is present in all his texts that refer to and comment on Cartesian philosophy, that is, the Preface to Fear and Trembling, Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus dubitandum est and the Journal DD with The Conflict between the Old and the New Soap-Cellar. In the Preface to Fear and Trembling—just as in Martensen’s review—the principle of “recent philosophy” is presented as the imperative of universal doubt. The preface, however, also contains a critical remark on making Descartes the inaugurator of modern philosophy. By giving two extended quotations from Descartes’ Principia philosophiae and Dissertatio de methodo, Kierkegaard wants to point to the crucial difference between Descartes himself and the fashionable philosophy of his own time. Contrary to the philosophy of the present day, Descartes never disputed the authority of divine revelation since he neither forced upon anybody his paradigm or method of universal doubt: “He [Descartes] did not shout ‘Fire! Fire!’ and make it obligatory for everyone to doubt, for Descartes was a quiet and solitary thinker, not a shouting street watchman; he modestly let it be known that his method had significance only for him and was partly the result of his earlier warped knowledge.” In De Omnibus dubitandum est the review by Martensen also plays an important role, since Johannes Climacus’ reflections on doubt could be seen as one long comment on the thesis proposed in the review. The fundamental problem in Johannes’ reflections concerns the apparent contradiction between two types of statements concerning doubt—one of a systematic character, which states that doubt is the beginning of philosophy, and the other of a historical character, which states that “recent philosophy” begins with doubt—a problem that can easily be detected in Martensen’s review, although it is not discussed explicitly by Martensen himself. Furthermore, Johannes’ occupation with this unsolvable problem results in an alternative conception of doubt, skepticism and certainty, a conception that is developed in more detail in some of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works, especially Either/Or and Philosophical Fragments. Finally, Kierkegaard’s draft of a student-comedy The Conflict between the Old and the New Soap-Cellar in Journal DD explicitly alludes to Martensen’s review and its description of Descartes. Towards the end of the text there are several explicit references to the thesis about Descartes being the inaugurator of modern philosophy; the slogans “cogito ergo sum” and “omnibus dubitandum est,” which are used in Martensen’s review to elucidate the philosophy of Descartes in the development of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel, are also imitated.



 

SKS 4, 102 / FT, 6. SKS 17, 288, DD:208 / KJN 1, 279. SKS 17, 290, DD:208 / KJN 1, 282.

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B. Kierkegaaard’s Alternative Interpretation of the Notions of Doubt, Skepticism, and Certainty Apart from the remarks in the Preface to Fear and Trembling, all other comments on the philosophy of Descartes made by Kierkegaard are of a negative or polemical nature. In the Kierkegaardian corpus there are in fact very few evaluative remarks that comment directly on Descartes. However, there are some very important passages that make up an essential part of what could be called Kierkegaard’s epistemology, where he takes up the problems concerning doubt, skepticism and certainty, characteristically enough not mentioning the name of Descartes but rather alluding to Hegel. This holds true of Kierkegaard’s extensive discussion of doubt and despair in Either/Or. In the relevant passages of the text, Kierkegaard mainly deals with two aspects concerning the concept of doubt. He explicitly takes up Hegel’s distinction from the Introduction to The Phenomenology of Spirit between doubt (Zweifel) and despair (Verzweiflung) concerning the difference between small-scale everyday doubt, which ultimately leaves everything as it was before, and a universal and profound doubt leading to science and truth. Taking up this distinction, Kierkegaard simultaneously transforms the two concepts involved—a transformation paradigmatic of his approach to epistemology of the Cartesian/ Hegelian type. In a way Kierkegaard assumes the Hegelian distinction that gives priority to despair over and against doubt, but at the same time he totally transforms the content of the concepts of doubt and despair concerning two different spheres, that is, the sphere of thought and reason and the sphere of life, will and personhood. So, Kierkegaard claims: Doubt and despair, therefore, belong to completely different spheres; different sides of the soul are set in motion. But I am not at all satisfied with this, because then doubt and despair would become coordinate, and that is not the case. Despair is precisely a much deeper and more complete expression; its movement is much more encompassing than that of doubt. Despair is an expression of the total personality, doubt only of thought.10

According to Kierkegaard, despair is the higher and most comprehensive form since it leads to the absolute. This is, contrary to the Cartesian/Hegelian line of thought, due to the practical and volitional character of despair: “Generally speaking, a person cannot despair at all without willing it, but in order truly to despair, a person must truly will it; but when he truly wills it, he is truly beyond despair.”11 This quotation also reveals a genuine Cartesian thread of thought in so far as despair is described as a method leading to the absolute, which in the terminology of Judge William is called an “Archimedean point.” By means of the negative method of despair, security and certainty can be reached, as is explicitly stated in the Judge’s SKS, 3, 203–5 / EO2, 210–14. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by A.V. Miller, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977, p. 49. (Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe in 20 Bänden, ed. by Hermann Glockner, Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag 1928–41, vol. 2, p. 71.) 10 SKS, 3, 204 / EO2, 212. 11 SKS, 3, 204 / EO2, 213.  

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invitation to Johannes: “What, then, is there to do? I have only one answer: Despair, then!”12 His new definitions of doubt and despair follow: doubt is a purely theoretical operation following the inner laws of thought and, as such, an expression of necessity, while despair is a passionate act or choice and as such an expression of will and freedom. Kierkegaard also transforms the concepts of certainty or the “absolute.” As in the case of Descartes, Kierkegaard also locates the “absolute” in human selfconsciousness. In that sense there is a strict correspondence between the Cartesian notion of the “cogito” and Kierkegaard’s notion of subjectivity as “myself in my eternal validity.”13 This being the case, Kierkegaard’s conception of subjectivity, however, is radically opposed to that of Descartes. The reason why Descartes places the “absolute” in human self-consciousness is that self-consciousness possesses a special kind of transparency, an immediate and infallible knowledge of one’s own mind. Contrary to this cognitive model of subjectivity, Kierkegaard develops an alternative conception of subjectivity and the self since he conceives of subjectivity in normative terms. The “absolute” then no longer refers to infallible knowledge but to responsibility, competence and agency in so far as being a person means being the author and originator of an act. This normative or practical transformation of Cartesian epistemological vocabulary is repeated in another passage vital for the understanding of Kierkegaard’s relation to Descartes: the “Interlude” in Philosophical Fragments. In the “Interlude” metaphysical and epistemological concepts are brought together as one of the main problems concerning the question of how becoming is to be conceived. This topic is addressed in § 4 of the “Interlude,” which concerns what is called “The Apprehension of the Past,” where Kierkegaard runs through different modes of apprehension searching for the adequate mode of apprehending the historical or the past: that is, that which has come into being. Ruling out “immediate sensation and immediate cognition,” Kierkegaard finally arrives at “doubt” and “faith” as the true and adequate “organs” of the historical, and the rest of the section concerns what could be called Kierkegaard’s alternative conception of the Cartesian/Hegelian notions of doubt and certainty/truth. In this connection Kierkegaard refers to “Greek skepticism” as a paradigmatic conception of doubt not associated with any kind of cognition but as an expression of the will: Greek skepticism was a withdrawing skepticism...they doubted not by virtue of knowledge but by virtue of will....14 Greek skepticism in the tradition from Pyrrho of Elis to Sextus Empiricus is an expression or an act of the will in so far as doubt is apprehended as a protest or denial of any kind of inferring or judging. Here Kierkegaard explicitly refers to Descartes as a representative of Greek skepticism when the latter claims that error emerges from the will, that is, from being too hasty in judging and inferring. Now there seems to be two kinds of will: on the one hand, refraining from making judgments and, on the other hand, actively making judgments and inferences. Kierkegaard claims the existence of two different operations, which are identifiable as expressions of the will, but the distinction is not between refraining from making inferences and actively making them. Although 14 12 13

SKS 3, 200 / EO2, 208. SKS 3, 205 / EO2, 214. SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82.

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being of the same risky nature as making inferences, faith, is something different from making inferences: “The conclusion of belief is no conclusion [Slutning] but a resolution [Beslutning], and thus doubt is excluded.”15 According to Kierkegaard “faith” is an act of freedom or an act of the will: It believes the coming into existence and has annulled in itself the incertitude that corresponds to the nothingness of that which is not. It believes the “thus and so” of that which has come into existence and has annulled in itself the possible “how” of that which has come into existence, and without denying the possibility of another “thus and so,” the “thus and so” of that which has come into existence is nevertheless most certain for belief.16

This is the quintessence of Kierkegaard’s notion of “faith”; it reveals a distinct transformation of the Cartesian/Hegelian concepts of certainty and truth. As in the case of Kierkegaard’s notion about the absoluteness of subjectivity, the certainty of faith is an expression of an act. In both cases Kierkegaard claims that something can have the status of being certain or absolute without being the result of a thought operation. According to Kierkegaard, neither is doubt a method nor is certainty a result of that method: “Belief is the opposite of doubt. Belief and doubt are not two kinds of knowledge that can be defined in continuity with each other, for neither of them is a cognitive act, and they are opposite passions.”17 Faith is the resolute suspension of the equilibrium and indifference, the two terms being the synonymous expressions for refraining from judgment. Interestingly, this practical or existential critique and transformation of the Cartesian/Hegelian notions of doubt and certainty has its counterpart in the philosophy of the later Schelling (1775–1854). As can easily be demonstrated, Kierkegaard shares with Schelling numerous thoughts concerning the prospect of a new kind of philosophy capable of reflecting human reality in an adequate way. The parallel between Kierkegaard and Schelling concerning the concepts of certainty and doubt is just another expression of that common enterprise. Without there being any kind of direct or genetic dependence, one is struck by the parallels between Schelling’s critique of Descartes, which are stated most explicitly in his “On the History of Recent Philosophy” (lectures given in Munich in the period from 1827 to 1837),18 and Kierkegaard’s objections against a purely cognitive conception of doubt and certainty stated in different ways and in different contexts in Either/Or and Philosophical Fragments. As in the case of Kierkegaard, Schelling’s relation to Descartes is twofold, having both positive and negative aspects. As noted above, Kierkegaard appreciates the personal and existential dimension of Descartes’ philosophical enterprise, which thereby almost makes him a philosopher of existence. This also applies to Schelling, who frequently praises Descartes for introducing a personal note into philosophical thinking. Nevertheless Schelling repeatedly blames Descartes for having reduced SKS 4, 283 / PF, 84. SKS 4, 282 / PF, 83. 17 SKS 4, 283 / PF, 84. 18 Published in volume 10, in Sämtliche Werke, vols. 1–14, ed. by K.F.A. Schelling, Stuttgart: Cotta 1856–61. (English translation: On the History of Modern Philosophy, trans. by Andrew Bowie, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994, see pp. 42–63.) 15 16

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subjectivity to something utterly anonymous since Descartes exclusively conceives of certainty in terms of the necessity of thought. According to Schelling, Descartes never managed to overcome doubt but instead ignored it by taking refuge in the idea of necessity. Against this conception of certainty, Schelling, like Kierkegaard in Philosophical Fragments, claims that genuine certainty emerges out of doubt being defeated. Certainty does not mean that doubt is totally mastered but rather that doubt is defeated or overcome.19 As stated above, the quintessence of Kierkegaard’s relation to Descartes consists in what could be called a practical or existential transformation of the core concepts of Cartesian epistemology. This also applies to the text titled Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus dubitandum est, which explicitly deals with the Cartesian notion of doubt. In fact, the text is much more a polemical comment on Martensen’s review of Heiberg’s introduction to Hegel’s logic than it is a discussion of Cartesian philosophy. The text tells a story about a young man growing increasingly disturbed by reflecting on the coherence of three claims concerning the status of doubt in philosophy. The three claims are (1) Philosophy begins with doubt, (2) Coming to philosophize one must have doubted, and (3) Modern philosophy begins with doubt.20 All three claims are present in one way or another in Martensen’s review. The main problem with the coherence of these claims stems from the very special status of the third claim, which concerns something historical in contrast to the two other claims, which are of a systematic nature. Finding no solution to this seemingly irresolvable problem, the young man starts by making an entirely new kind of investigation by asking the question: how is doubt possible or what must the nature of existence be if doubt is to be possible?21 In the course of answering this question, Johannes Climacus develops a concept of doubt that could be said to function as an alternative to that of Descartes. On close consideration of the text, it is possible to distinguish between two different kinds of doubt or reflection, a disinterested one and a passionate and interested one. Focusing on the notion of consciousness, Climacus develops the central idea of the text: that is, the relation between “reality” and “ideality.” According to Climacus, the notion of consciousness reveals the latent contradiction between “reality” and “ideality” since consciousness not only makes the relation between “reality” and “ideality” possible, but is the relation itself, in the mode of a contradiction. The nature and the emerging of consciousness can only be explained by contradiction, and this points to a passionate mode of reflection and skepticism: “as long as there is no consciousness, no interest, no consciousness that has an interest in this struggle, there is no doubt....”22 By connecting doubt with interest and passion, Climacus’ reflections on consciousness are just another expression of Kierkegaard’s overall existential transformation of Cartesian epistemology.

Schelling, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 10, pp. 8ff. (On the History of Modern Philosophy, pp. 43ff.) See also Axel Hutter, Geschichtliche Vernunft Die Weiterführung der Kantischen Vernunftskritik in der Spätphilosophie Schellings, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1996. 20 Pap. IV B 1, p. 115 / JC, 132. 21 Pap. IV B 1, p. 145 / JC, 167. 22 Pap. IV B 1, p. 149 / JC, 170–1. 19

Bibliography I. Descartes’ Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Opera philosophica, editio ultima [consists of Meditationes de prima philosophia Principia Philosophiæ, Dissertatio de methodo, Dioptrice, Meteora, Tractatus de passionibus animæ], Amsterdam: Apud Danielem Elzevirium 1678 (ASKB 473). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Descartes Ast, Friedrich, Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, pp. 358–65 (ASKB 385). Baader, Franz von, Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen LudwigMaximilians-Hochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich: Giel 1827, p. 14; p. 19 (ASKB 395). —— Ueber die Nothwendigkeit einer Revision der Wissenschaft natürlicher, menschlicher und göttlicher Dinge, in Bezug auf die in ihr sich noch mehr oder minder geltend machenden Cartesichen und Spinozistischen Philosopheme, Erlangen: J.J. Palm und Ernst Enke 1841 (ASKB 418). —— Ueber das dermalige Missverhältniss der Vermögenslosen oder Proletairs zu den Vermögen besitzenden Klassen der Societät in Betreff ihres Auskommens, sowohl in materieller als intellektueller Hinsicht aus dem Standpunkte des Rechts betrachtet, Munich: Georg Franz 1835, p. 25 (ASKB 404). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 8, p. 399; p. 546; p. 572; vol. 9, p. 305; p. 348; p. 350; vol. 11, p. 200 (ASKB 1972–1983). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 (Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820), vol. 3, pp. 4ff. (ASKB 440–445).

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Cousin, Victor, Über französische und deutsche Philosophie. Aus dem Französischen von Dr. Hubert Beckers, Professor. Nebst einer beurtheilenden Vorrede des Herrn Geheimraths von Schelling, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1834, p. 6; p. 30 (ASKB 471). Erdmann, Johann Eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1837, p. 12 (ASKB 479). —— Leib und Seele nach ihrem Begriff und ihrem Verhältniß zu einander. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der philosophischen Anthropologie, Halle: C.A. Schwetschke und Sohn 1837, p. 117 (ASKB 480). —— Grundriss der Logik und Metaphysik. Für Vorlesungen, Halle: Johann Friedrich Lippert 1841, p. 12; p. 14; p. 89 (ASKB 483). Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, De principiorum contradictionis, identitatis, exclusi tertii in logicis dignitate et ordine commentatio, Bonn: Karl Georg 1840, p. 7 (ASKB 507). —— Beiträge zur Charakteristik der neueren Philosophie, oder kritische Geschichte derselben von Des Cartes und Locke bis auf Hegel, 2nd revised ed., Sulzbach: Seidel 1841, pp. 427–79 (ASKB 508). Fischer, Friedrich, Die Metaphysik, von empirischem Standpunkte aus dargestellt. Zur Verwirklichung der Aristotelischen Metaphysik, Basel: Schweighauser 1847, p. 85; p. 96 (ASKB 513). Günther, Anton, Euristheus und Heracles, Meta-logische Kritiken und Meditationen, Vienna: Beck 1843, pp. 171–349 (ASKB 523). —— “Die cartesischen Teufelchen,” in his Euristheus und Heracles, Meta-logische Kritiken und Meditationen, Vienna: Fr. Beck’s Universitäts-Buchhandlung 1843, pp. 172–278; see also p. 39 (ASKB 523). Günther, Anton and Johann Heinrich Pabst, Janusköpfe. Zur Philosophie und Theologie, Vienna: Wallishausser 1834, pp. 1–10; pp. 12–13; p. 18; p. 25; pp. 228–30; pp. 269ff.; pp. 286ff.; p. 302; p. 328 (ASKB 524). Hahn, August (ed.) Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, Leipzig: Vogel 1828, p. 66; pp. 162ff.; p. 165; p. 187 (ASKB 535). Hase, Karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske Forelæsninger, trans. by C. Winther and T. Schorn, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1837, p. 524 (ASKB 160–166). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Decartes,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 331–67 (ASKB 557–559). —— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by Philipp Marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1840 (vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 2, pp. 217–18 (ASKB 564–565). Helfferich, Adolph, Die christliche Mystik in ihrer Entwickelung und in ihren Denkmalen, vols. 1–2, Gotha: Friedrich Perthes 1842, vol. 1, p. 122 (ASKB 571–572).

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Kant, Immanuel, Critik der reinen Vernunft, 4th ed., Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch 1794, pp. 274–5; p. 288; p. 422, note (ASKB 595). [Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm], God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Berlin: [Eichler] 1839–40, pp. 78–80; p. 111; p. 120; p. 123; p. 127; p. 134; p. 145; p. 498; p. 517; p. 519; p. 552; p. 559; p. 590 (ASKB 620). Martensen, Iohannes, De Autonomia conscientiæ sui humanæ in theologiam dogmaticam nostri temporis introducta, Copenhagen: I.D. Quist 1837, p. 22; p. 27; p. 49; p. 96 (ASKB 648). —— Den menneskelige Selvbevidstheds Autonomie i vor Tids dogmatiske Theologie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1841, p. 19; p. 23; p. 41; p. 79 (ASKB 651, translation of ASKB 648, cf. also ASKB A I 41). Meiners, Christoph, Historische Vergleichung der Sitten und Verfassungen, der Gesetze und Gewerbe, des Handels und der Religion, der Wissenschaften und Lehranstalten des Mittelalters, vols. 1–3, Hannover: im Verlage der Helwingischen Hofbuchhandlung 1793‑94, vol. 3, p. 435; p. 437 (ASKB 672‑674). Michelet, Carl Ludwig, Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes und Unsterblichkeit der Seele oder die ewige Persönlichkeit des Geistes, Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler 1841, p. 67 (ASKB 680). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 228, note; vol. 2, p. 198 (ASKB 358–363). Nielsen, Rasmus, Den propædeutiske Logik, Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen 1845, p. 22 (ASKB 699). Schaller, Julius, Darstellung und Kritik der Philosophie Ludwig Feuerbach’s, Leipzig: Hinrichs 1847, pp. 48–50; p. 59 (ASKB 760). [Schlegel, Friedrich], Friedrich Schlegel’s Philosophische Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1804 bis 1806. Nebst Fragmenten vorzüglich philosophisch-theologischen Inhalts. Aus dem Nachlaß des Verewigten, vols. 1–2, ed. by C.H.J. Windischmann, Bonn: Weber 1836–37, vol. 1, pp. 433ff. ASKB 768–768a). Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 1, p. 336; p. 571; vol. 2, pp. 4–5; p. 246; p. 315; p. 639 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: A.W. Hayn 1851, vol. 1, p. 3–10 passim; p. 13; p. 43; p. 67; p. 69; p. 72; p. 287 (ASKB 774–775). Sibbern, Frederik Christian, Logik som Tænkelære fra en intelligent Iagttagelses Standpunct og i analytisk-genetisk Fremstilling, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens Forlag trykt hos Fabritius de Tengnagel 1835, p. 307 (ASKB 777). —— Om Forholdet imellem Sjæl og Legeme, saavel i Almindelighed som i phrenologisk, pathognomonisk, physiogonomisk og ethisk Henseende i Særdeleshed, Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens eget Forlag 1849, pp. 60–67 passim; p. 80; p. 86; p. 90; p. 115; p. 221; pp. 389–90 (ASKB 781).

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Stäudlin, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus vorzüglich in Rücksicht auf Moral und Religion, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius 1794, vol. 2, pp. 61–5 (ASKB 791). Steffens, Henrich, Christliche Religionsphilosophie, vols. 1–2, Breslau: Josef Max 1839, vol. 1, p. 39 (ASKB 797–798). [Sulzer, Johann George], Johann George Sulzers vermischte philosophische Schriften. Aus den Jahrbüchern der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin gesammelt, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Weidmann 1773–81, vol. 1, p. 53; p. 367; vol. 2, p. 111; p. 192 (ASKB 807–808). Tennemann, Wilhelm Gottlieb, “Descartes,” in his Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, Leipzig: J.A. Barth 1798–1819, vol. 10, pp. 200–86 (ASKB 815–826). Tiedemann, Dietrich, Geist der spekulativen Philosophie von Thales bis Sokrates, vols. 1- 6, Marburg: in der Neuen Akademischen Buchhandlung 1791–97, vol. 6, pp. 77–148 (ASKB 836–841). Trendelenburg, Adolf, Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, Berlin: G. Bethge 1840, vol. 1, p. 211; pp. 270–1 (ASKB 843). —— “Cartesius und Spinoza,” in his Historische Beiträge zur Philosophie, vols. 1–2, Berlin: G. Bethge 1846–55, vol. 1, Geschichte der Kategorienlehre. Zwei Abhandlungen, 1846, pp. 262–5 (ASKB 848) [vol. 2, 1855 not in ASKB]. Waitz, Theodor, Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft, Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn 1849, p. 35 (ASKB 852). Weiße, Christian Hermann, Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Grimmer 1833, pp. 17–32; p. 171 (ASKB 866). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Descartes Grimsley, Ronald, “Kierkegaard and Descartes,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 4, 1966, pp. 31–41. Löwith, Karl, “Descartes’ vernünftiger Zweifel und Kierkegaards Leidenschaft der Verzweifelung,” in Congrès Descartes [IX. Congrès Internationale de Philosophie], ed. by Raymond Bayer, Paris: Études Cartésiennes 1937, fasc. I, parte 1, pp. 74–9. Mesnard, Pierre, Le Vrai Visage de Kierkegaard, Paris: Beauchesne et ses fils 1948, pp. 7–8; pp. 12–17; pp. 25–8; p. 35; p. 119; pp. 180–1; p. 445; p. 451; p. 461. Schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel 1968, see pp. 123–5; pp. 133–5. Thulstrup, Niels, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by George L. Stengren, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1980, see p. 21, note; p. 26; p. 67; p. 93 passim; pp. 133–4; p. 183 passim; p. 209; p. 280; p. 296; pp. 309–10; p. 346; p. 367. (In Danish as Kierkegaards forhold til Hegel, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1967.) Torralba Roselló, Francesc, “Crítica al racionalismo de Descartes,” in his Poética de la libertad Lectura de Kierkegaard, Madrid: Caparrós editores 1998, pp. 70–3.

David Hume: Kierkegaard and Hume on Reason, Faith, and the Ethics of Philosophy Thomas Miles

In attacking theoretical attempts to supply a rational basis for Christianity, Kierkegaard found an unlikely ally in “the great Infidel,” David Hume (1711–76). Often thought to be an atheist, the Scottish philosopher believed that the existence of God could be neither proven nor disproven by rational argument, and throughout his life he worked carefully to formulate refutations of arguments for the existence of God and other religious dogmas. Kierkegaard followed Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88) in welcoming these refutations as “truth in the mouth of the enemy.” Writing from a theistic standpoint, Hamann taught that Hume’s skeptical attacks on rational theology accomplished the worthwhile goal of exposing Christianity as something rationally unjustifiable and therefore as something requiring faith. Kierkegaard expresses admiration for Hamann’s response to Hume in two early journal entries from 1836 and then again in Stages on Life’s Way. That Hume was an important, if indirect, source for Kierkegaard’s thinking about reason and religion has already been demonstrated by several scholarly studies. In what follows I will review the case for this connection between Kierkegaard and Hume. In addition, I will suggest an overlooked similarity between these two thinkers. Hume not only anticipates Kierkegaard’s philosophical skepticism about the application of reason to religion, he also anticipates Kierkegaard’s existentialist ethics, at least with respect to the task of doing philosophy. Hume and Kierkegaard do not just happen to adopt similar arguments while pursuing vastly different projects regarding religion; these arguments emerge from a common stance toward the proper task of philosophy and the existential situation of the philosophers themselves. However different their philosophical aims and methods, Hume and Kierkegaard agree to a great extent about what might be called the ethics of philosophy.

 Roderick Graham, The Great Infidel: A Life of David Hume, East Lothian: Tuckwell Press 2004, p. 29.  Hamann’s letter to J.G. Lindner, July 3, 1759. Quoted from Johann Georg Hamann, Briefwechsel, vols. 1–7, ed. by Walther Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel, Wiesbaden et al.: Insel Verlag 1955–79, vol. 1, p. 356.  SKS 17, 32, AA:14.1 / KJN 1, 26. SKS 6, 101–2 / SLW, 106.

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David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1711, the son of a lawyer and country gentleman. Beginning at the age of twelve, he studied at Edinburgh University for two years. Although he was ostensibly at the university to study law, his attention turned instead to his newly found passion for philosophy and literature. Eventually giving up the pretense of studying law, Hume left the university and went back to his family home, whereupon he entered a period of deep depression. Recovering from his melancholy, Hume tried to set aside philosophy and live an active life in the world of commerce, but soon returned to his philosophical studies. By 1737, at the age of 26, he had finished his magnum opus, A Treatise of Human Nature. As Hume admitted, this book “fell deadborn from the press,” but later he published more digestible versions of the same ideas in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. In these works, Hume continues in the empirical tradition of John Locke, but also pushes skepticism to new limits, bringing into question some of the foundational concepts of the Enlightenment, such as the notion of causality. During his own lifetime, Hume was most famous for writing a multi-volume history of England, but he devoted the last years of his life to perfecting his posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. These dialogues contain a variety of arguments against proofs of God, especially the argument from “Intelligent Design”; these arguments remain some of the strongest objections against rational natural theology. Although he seems not to have had any direct familiarity with Hume’s writings, Kierkegaard may have had several sources for his knowledge of Hume. He may have first heard of Hume from the letters of Hamann already mentioned. As we shall discuss shortly, the legacy of Hamann’s thinking, especially with respect to his response to Hume, proved to be a formative influence on Kierkegaard’s understanding of faith. Kierkegaard’s knowledge of Hume may also have been enhanced by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s (1743–1819) lengthy dialogue “David Hume on Faith,” which was also inspired by Hamann. In Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard’s Johannes Climacus makes a parenthetical reference to Jacobi within a discussion on will and belief, which may be an allusion to Jacobi’s work on Hume. In addition, Kierkegaard may have known about Hume from several lecture series he attended. Two of Hans Lassen Martensen’s (1808–84) “Lectures on Theological Dogmatics,” dated November 29 and December 1, 1837, discuss Hume’s skepticism. In the first of these two lectures, Martensen discusses Hume’s skepticism with respect to causality, and in the second he discusses Hume’s skepticism regarding Christianity. Specifically, Martensen mentions two of Hume’s most famous arguments against the rational proofs of Christianity. The first of these questions evidence from early historical accounts of Christianity, which Hume finds questionable due to their This period of Hume’s life somewhat resembles the life of Johannes Climacus in Kierkegaard’s unfinished work Johannes Climacus or De Omnibus dubitandum est. Plagued by the bottomlessness of his skeptical doubts, Hume was driven almost to the point of madness. See Graham, The Great Infidel: A Life of David Hume, p. 24.  Biographical information from Graham, The Great Infidel: A Life of David Hume.  SKS 4, 282–3 / PF, 83–4.  SKS 19, 132–3, Not4:7–8. 

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distance in time from the present. Secondly and more powerfully, Hume argues that the existence of miracles conflicts in the highest degree with all experience and thus with the only grounds for establishing a matter of fact. Martensen returns to these arguments in his “Lectures on the History of Philosophy from Kant to Hegel.” Here, Martensen explains that in Hume’s thinking “Christianity now becomes the least probable thing of all.” In addition to these lectures by Martensen, Hume is mentioned in the lectures by Schelling that Kierkegaard heard while in Berlin. Schelling groups Hume with Locke and Descartes as thinkers who challenge the idea of “a God who was a beginning and a principle.”10 The only direct references to Hume in Kierkegaard’s writings predate these lectures and seem to rely entirely on the understanding and interpretation of Hume offered by Hamann. In a journal entry dated September 10, 1836 Kierkegaard wrote: With regard to a Christian’s views of paganism, see Hamann, I, pp. 406, 418, and 419, especially p. 419: “Nein—wenn Gott selbst mit ihm redete, so ist er genöthigt das Machtwort zum voraus zu senden und es in Erfüllung gehen zu laßen—: Wache auf, der Du schläfst.” From p. 406 one sees the complete misunderstanding of a Christian and non-Christian, in that to an objection of Hume’s, Hamann answers: Yes, that’s just how it is.11

The two passages in Hamann referred to here both address an idea that Kierkegaard had already begun to form on his own, namely the incommensurability between philosophy and Christianity.12 The first quotation comes from Hamann’s comparison of the Christian’s relation to the “natural man” with a waking person’s relation to a sleeper: “The question is whether it might in any way be possible for a waking man to convince a sleeper (so long as he sleeps) of the fact that he is asleep.”13 Kierkegaard quotes only Hamann’s resoundingly negative answer. The implication seems to be that nothing within the domain of natural science or rational thought can convince a non-believer of the truths of religion: an entire paradigm shift in thinking is required. To use Kant’s phrase, one must awake from one’s dogmatic slumber in order to have faith. The second reference to Hamann addresses Hamann’s reply to one of Hume’s most famous remarks in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Having argued that the supposedly miraculous historical events upon which Christianity is founded are unprovable by reason and contrary to everything we learn from experience, Hume concludes: the Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to Pap. II C 25 in Pap. XII, pp. 280–331. Pap. II C 25 in Pap. XII, p. 284. 10 SKS 19, 325, Not11:17 / SBL, 360. 11 SKS 17, 32, AA:14.1 / KJN 1, 26. 12 For a detailed discussion of Kierkegaard’s development of this idea, see Lowrie, Kierkegaard, New York: Harper 1962, pp. 164–7. 13 As quoted in ibid., p. 166.  



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Thomas Miles convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.14

Hamann’s response to Hume, so greatly admired by Kierkegaard,15 is to turn the force of Hume’s attacks on theological dogma to the advantage of faith: “Hume may have said that with a mocking expression or with a serious one; at any rate, this is orthodoxy, and a witness of truth in the mouth of an enemy and a persecutor of truth—all his doubts are proofs of his statement.”16 What Kierkegaard calls “the complete misunderstanding of a Christian and non-Christian” is the assumption, shared by both the skeptic and the dogmatist, that Christianity is, or would need to be, rationally demonstrable. Hamann and Kierkegaard agree that the lack of any such possible demonstration is precisely what allows Christianity to be a matter of faith. Anyone familiar with Kierkegaard’s stance on reason and faith will recognize how central this conclusion is for Kierkegaard’s understanding of religion. Somewhat ironically, Kierkegaard allows that reason has a role to play in relation to religion, namely to bring us to a realization of its indemonstrability. This idea is expressed in the second journal entry on Hamann, written two days later: Hamann draws a most interesting parallel between the law (Mosaic law) and reason. He goes after Hume’s statement: “die letzte Frucht Weltweisheit ist die Bemerkung der menschlichen Unwissenheit und Schwacheit”17.... “Unser Venunft,” Hamann goes on to say, “ist also eben das, was Paulus das gesetz nennt—und das Gebot der Vernunft ist heilig, gerecht und gut; aber ist sie uns gegeben uns weise zu machen? Eben so wenig als das Gesetz der Juden, sie gerecht zu machen, sondern uns zu überführen von dem Gegentheil, wie unvernünftig unsere Vernunft ist, und dass unsere Irrthümer durch sie zunehmen sollen, wie die Sünde durch das Gesetz zunahm.”18 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Cambridge: Hackett 1993 [1740], p. 90. Hamann quotes this passage just before the reply Kierkegaard cites, and thus we have good reason to believe that Kierkegaard read at least this much of Hume. 15 Kierkegaard admired this response not only in relation to faith, but as a general philosophical maneuver. In Stages on Life’s Way, Judge Wilhelm answers the critics of marriage in the same way: “When an adversary triumphantly presents his objection in order to terrify with all the difficulty, the thing to do is to have the courage to say with Hamann: That is just the way it is. It is a good answer and in the proper place.” SKS 6, 101 / SLW, 106–7. 16 Hamann’s letter to J.G. Lindner, July 3, 1759. Quoted from Hamann, Briefwechsel, ed. by Ziesemer and Henkel, vol. 1, p. 356. 17 My translation of the German translation of Hume’s works that Hamann uses: “The last fruit of philosophy is the observation of human ignorance and weakness.” The line from Hume actually reads “No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.” See Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, p. 51. 18 Pap. I A 237 / JP 2, 1540. The translation of the German passage: “Our reason is therefore just what Paul calls law—and the command of reason is holy, righteous, and good; but is it given to make us wise? Just as little as the law of the Jews justified them, but is to bring us over from the opposite, how unreasonable our reason is, that our faults should increase through it, as sin increased through the law.” 14

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The idea that “sin increased through the law” is one that becomes central to Kierkegaard’s notion of “the ethical”: in the ethical life one strives for ethical righteousness, but achieves instead the recognition of one’s guilt. Likewise, Kierkegaard adopts Hume’s suggestion that the role of reason is not to make us wise but to reveal our ignorance. Of course, having reached this realization of ignorance, Hume and Kierkegaard part ways. Hume takes this realization of ignorance to be good grounds for accepting that most of our beliefs are unjustified by rational proof, but sufficiently grounded in custom and experience for us to accept and live by them. For Hume religion, which is supported by neither reason nor experience, is to be rejected by every reasonable person. For Kierkegaard, these difficulties are precisely what make faith necessary; the scandal and offense of Christianity, including the fact that it is contrary to reason and experience, is the necessary precondition for true faith. Hume seems eager to push religious believers into a position of fideism, the belief that religious beliefs are founded purely on faith and not reason, in order to extricate religious beliefs from the domain of philosophical and scientific enquiry. Kierkegaard, concerned about a passionless and spiritually deadening rationalism in religion, welcomes this push toward fideism. In fact, as some scholars have pointed out, Kierkegaard seems to have adopted some of the same skeptical arguments used by Hume in formulating his own case for fideism.19 Following Richard Popkin’s groundbreaking 1951 essay “Hume and Kierkegaard,” Isaiah Berlin, Terence Penelhum and Patrick Gardiner have each pointed out the similarities between Hume’s skeptical arguments and the arguments used by Kierkegaard against rational theology, particularly in Philosophical Fragments.20 For example, Philosophical Fragments contain very Humean arguments about the impossibility of rationally establishing any matter of fact.21 Patrick Gardiner nicely summarizes the similarities between the philosophical positions of Hume and Kierkegaard in stating that: “both tend to restrict the attribution of cognitive certainty to necessary truths of reason and to propositions reporting immediate sensory data: likewise, both again imply that

Of course, it is impossible to establish Hume as a direct source for Kierkegaard’s own arguments since we do not know exactly how much Kierkegaard knew about Hume’s specific arguments. The scholarly studies cited below do not take into account what Kierkegaard might have learned about Hume from Martensen’s or Schelling’s lectures. But even these lectures do not detail the specific arguments that Kierkegaard and Hume mutually employ. Nonetheless, the journal entries on Hamann’s responses to Hume seem sufficient establish that Hume was at least indirectly an important source for Kierkegaard’s general stance on reason’s role in relation to faith. 20 Richard Popkin, “Hume and Kierkegaard,” The Journal of Religion, vol. 31, no. 4, 1951, pp. 274–81; Isaiah Berlin, “Hume and the Sources of German Anti-Rationalism,” in Against the Current, New York: Viking Press 1980, pp. 162–87; Terence Penelhum, God and Skepticism: A Study in Skepticism and Fideism, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing 1983, pp. 75–84; pp. 109–13; Patrick Gardiner, Kierkegaard, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988, pp. 18–19; pp. 76–8. 21 Cf. Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section IV Part I with Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments, Part III. 19

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causal inferences concerning matters of empirical fact are lacking in rational, in the sense of demonstrative, justification.”22 Past comparisons of Hume and Kierkegaard usually come to an end after having noted these skeptical similarities between these two thinkers. Popkin even insists that beyond these similarities “they diverge completely.”23 What has been overlooked in these comparisons, I think, is that Hume and Kierkegaard share a common stance on what I have called the ethics of philosophy. Both critique the way of doing philosophy in which the philosopher supposedly sets aside his or her concrete humanity and adopts a view sub specie aeternitatis. In contrast, Kierkegaard and Hume both insist that a thinker must remain existentially situated in his or her concrete, embodied humanity.24 Kierkegaard famously contrasts such a “subjective thinker” to the speculative system-builder. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, his pseudonym Johannes Climacus asks: “Who is supposed to write or finish such a system? Surely a human being, unless we are to resume the peculiar talk about a human being’s becoming speculative thought.”25 For Kierkegaard, speculative thought deals only in generalizations and abstractions, and therefore cannot touch upon what he calls “existence,” meaning the actual lived experience of actual individuals. Thus, Kierkegaard develops an existential ethics of philosophy which calls for thinkers to refuse this escape into abstraction and to remain committed to thinking from their point of view within actual life. Hume expresses a similar view of how philosophy ought to be done in § 1 of his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding “Of the Different Species of Philosophy.” In the admonishing voice of nature, Hume writes: Indulge your passion for science, says she, but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, by the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.26

Hume had earlier reached this same resolution in the Treatise of Human Nature. In the conclusion to Part I of the book, where he has laid out the full breadth of his skepticism, he famously details his skeptical dilemma and how “nature” gets him out of it. For Hume the skeptical worries he explores are not just a matter for academic thought. It is for him quite clearly an existential crisis, and his solution

Gardiner, Kierkegaard, p. 76. Popkin, “Hume and Kierkegaard,” p. 274. 24 Alastair Hannay finds something like this view in comparing Hamann and Kierkegaard, noting that both “appeal to lived experience as the place to which address significant human questions, as well as the place from which to ask them,” but Hannay does not extend this comparison to Hume and Kierkegaard. See Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001, p. 290. 25 SKS 7, 116 / CUP1, 120. 26 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 3–4 (my emphasis). 22 23

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to this existential crisis is to remain firmly rooted in his existential situation as a concrete human being: Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three of four hours’s amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther. Here then I find myself absolutely and necessarily determin’d to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life.27

Here we see that Hume has anticipated Kierkegaard’s call for philosophical thinking to be done with the cognizance of oneself as an embodied, concrete, particular person. Although a complete review of what Hume and Kierkegaard have to say about the ethics of philosophy lies beyond the scope of this study, these passages should be sufficient to establish that the confluence of the ideas these thinkers flows deeper than their overlapping skepticism regarding reason and religion.

Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000, p. 175.

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Bibliography I. Hume’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library None. II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Hume Ast, Friedrich, Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, pp. 398–402 (ASKB 385). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 10, p. 513; p. 540 (ASKB 1972–1983). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Johann Georg Rosenbusch’s Wittwe 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 [Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820], vol. 5, pp. 200ff. (ASKB 440–445). Döring, Heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder’s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., Weimar: Wilhelm Hoffmann 1829, p. 208 (ASKB A I 134). Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, Beiträge zur Charakteristik der neueren Philosophie, oder kritische Geschichte derselben von Des Cartes und Locke bis auf Hegel, 2nd revised ed., Sulzbach: J.E. Seidel 1841, pp. 84–108 (ASKB 508). —— System der Ethik, vols. 1–2.1, Leipzig: Dyk 1850–51 (vol. 1, Die philosophischen Lehren von Recht, Staat und Sitte in Deutschland, Frankreich und England von der Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart, 1850; vol. 2.1, Die allgemeinen ethischen Begriffe und die Tugend- und Pflichtenlehre, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 550–3 (ASKB 510–511; for vol. 2.2, Leipzig: Dyk 1853, see ASKB 504). Günther, Anton, Euristheus und Heracles, Meta-logische Kritiken und Meditationen, Vienna: Fr. Beck’s Universitäts-Buchhandlung 1843, p. 39 (ASKB 523). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 1, p. 28; p. 274; p. 356; pp. 405–6; p. 442–3; vol. 2, p. 36; p. 368; vol. 3, p. 158; vol. 4, p. 25; p. 27; vol. 6, p. 53; p. 171; p. 183; vol. 7, pp. 3–4; p. 66; p. 377 (ASKB 536–544). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Hume,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig

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Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45], vol. 3, pp. 493–500 (ASKB 557–559). Herder, Johann Gottfried von, “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,” in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Philosophie und Geschichte, vols. 1–22, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 15, pp. 383–6 (ASKB 1695– 1705; see also ASKB A I 114–124). [Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich], “David Hume über den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus. Ein Gespräch,” in Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Werke, vols. 1–6, Leipzig: bei Gerhard Fleischer 1812–25, vol. 2, pp. 3–310 (ASKB 1722–1728). Kant, Immanuel, Critik der Urtheilskraft, 2nd ed., Berlin: F.T. Lagarde 1793, p. 203, note; p. 372 (ASKB 594). —— Critik der reinen Vernunft, 4th ed., Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch 1794, p. 5; pp. 19–20; pp. 127–8; pp. 773–4; p. 788; pp. 792–6; p. 884 (ASKB 595). Meiners, Christoph, Historische Vergleichung der Sitten und Verfassungen, der Gesetze und Gewerbe, des Handels und der Religion, der Wissenschaften und Lehranstalten des Mittelalters mit denen unsers Jahrhunderts in Rücksicht auf die Vortheile, und Nachtheile der Aufklärung, vols. 1–3, Hannover: im Verlage der Helwingischen Hofbuchhandlung 1793–94, vol. 2, p. 118; vol. 3, p. 515; p. 549 (ASKB 672‑674). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 4 note; p. 21; p. 275; vol. 2, p. 166; p. 173; pp. 180–92 passim; pp. 200–11 passim; p. 329 (ASKB 358–363). Nielsen, Rasmus, Den propædeutiske Logik, Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen 1845, p. 2 (ASKB 699). Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1844 [1819]; vol. 1, pp. 14–15; p. 45; p. 77; p. 573; p. 597; vol. 2, p. 12; p. 41; p. 580 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: Druck und Verlag von A.W. Hayn 1851, vol. 1, p. 17; p. 116; p. 148 (ASKB 774–775). Stäudlin, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus vorzüglich in Rücksicht auf Moral und Religion, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius 1794, vol. 2, pp. 139–222 (ASKB 791). Steffens, Henrich, Anthropologie, vols. 1–2, Breslau: im Verlage von Josef Max 1822, vol. 1, pp. 365–6; p. 373 p. 375; p. 381; vol. 2, p. 380 (ASKB 795–796). Sulzer, Johann Georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., Leipzig: Weidmann 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 378; vol. 2, p. 379; vol. 4, p. 556 (ASKB 1365–1369). Tennemann, Wilhelm Gottlieb, “David Hume,” in his Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth 1798–1819, vol. 11, pp. 417–68 (ASKB 815–826). Waitz, Theodor, Lehrbuch der Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft, Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn 1849, p. 9; p. 108 (ASKB 852).

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Zimmermann, Johann Georg, Ueber die Einsamkeit, vols. 1–4, Leipzig: Weidmann 1784–85, vol. 1, pp. 79ff. (ASKB 917–920). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hume Berlin, Isaiah, “Hume and the Sources of German Anti-Rationalism,” in Against the Current, ed. by Henry Hardy, New York: Viking Press 1980, pp. 162–87. Gardiner, Patrick, Kierkegaard, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988, pp. 18–19; pp. 76–8. Hannay, Alastair, Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001, p. 73; p. 290. Paresce, Enrico, “Hume, Hamann, Kierkegaard e la filosofia della credenze,” Rivista Internationale di filosofia del Diritto, vol. 26, no. 4, 1949, pp. 357–75. Penelhum, Terence, God and Skepticism: A Study in Skepticism and Fideism, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing 1983, pp. 75–84; pp. 109–13. Popkin, Richard H., “Hume and Kierkegaard,” Journal of Religion, vol. 31, no. 4, 1951, pp. 274–81. Rubow, Paul V., Kierkegaard og hans Samtidige, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1950, pp. 61–2.

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: Two Theories of the Leap Anders Moe Rasmussen

I. Jacobi’s Life and Work Together with Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88) and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819) constituted an important figure of the so-called “German Counter-Enlightenment” which arose in the 1770s and 1780s. Although the literary and philosophical writings of both Hamann and Herder had a great impact on contemporary intellectual life, especially on the formation of the Romantic movement within philosophy and literature, Jacobi was by far the most influential of these thinkers since his works had an impact not only on the Romantics but also on the development of post-Kantian German idealism. In fact, Jacobi’s influence on German idealism is just as important as that of Kant. Born into a rich Pietistic family in Düsseldorf on the Rhine, Jacobi received an education that prepared him for a business career, and for years he earned his living first as a merchant and later on as a civil servant. Finally, in 1807, he was appointed president of the Academy of Sciences in Munich. In a way probably incomparable to any other intellectual at the time, Jacobi had personal contact with almost all the leading figures in the fields of literature, philosophy and the sciences, including notabilities such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832), Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843) and Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1758–1823). The ground-breaking role of Jacobi, however, stems from two books: On the Doctrine of Spinoza, in Letters to Moses Mendelssohn and David Hume on Belief, or Idealism and Realism. In both books Jacobi displays his unique mastery of criticism. He detects hidden contradictions and inconsistencies in different forms of rational philosophy, whether it be the dogmatic rationalism of Spinoza or the critical rationalism of Kant. The book on Spinoza initiated a severe controversy between Moses Mendelssohn and Jacobi (the so-called “Pantheismusstreit”). The conflict was raised to a level of public scandal as it brought to an end the long period of Enlightenment in Germany. When Jacobi, in his letters to Mendelssohn, reported on Lessing’s personal confession about being Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, Breslau: G. Loewe 1785 (2nd ed., 1789).  Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, David Hume über den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus. Ein Gespräch, Breslau: G. Loewe 1787. 

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a Spinozist, the intellectual world was shocked. The condemnation of Spinoza as an atheist, a figure who was seen as a destructive critic of the Holy Scriptures and as a revolutionary political thinker, was universally accepted in Germany. That Lessing, the most prominent German thinker between Leibniz (1646–1716) and Kant (1724– 1804), identified himself with the pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza could not help but produce a public scandal. The main purpose of Jacobi’s Spinoza book, however, was not to make a public scandal or to discredit Mendelssohn (the biographer and greatest admirer of Lessing)—though this might to certain extent have been the case—but to strike a decisive attack on the entire Enlightenment project of rational philosophy. To that purpose Jacobi developed the strategy of making the philosophy of Spinoza the quintessence of all rationalist philosophy, including that of Wolff (1679–1754) and that of Leibniz. According to Jacobi, the nihilism of Spinoza’s philosophical system is to be regarded as the natural and inevitable last stage in the development of the Enlightenment; he thereby claimed that Spinoza’s pantheism was the most consistent system of rational philosophy. Any effort to create a demonstrable system, he believed, had to go in the direction of Spinozism. The superiority of Spinoza’s pantheism is documented in his notion that “substance” was the first and universal cause, the “causa sui,” of all existence. In order, however, to obtain such explanatory force, “substance” must be of such nature that it excludes any kind of reason or will; here one thinks of Spinoza’s famous dictum “deus sive natura.” So the consequences of a demonstrable and all-comprehensive system are fatalism and atheism since such a system leads to the total abolition of freedom. In Spinoza’s rational philosophy the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment is ultimately revealed since Spinoza utterly fails to account for freedom of action. Spinoza did not neglect the notion of action; in fact, he explicitly talks about substance as a “causa efficiens.” According to Jacobi, Spinoza is much more than a mechanistic philosopher since he is an opponent of a dynamic naturalism. Nevertheless, he never managed to account for any kind of becoming or beginning since activities and actions are nothing but modifications of the divine substance. Reason and explanation are in principle unable to grasp any kind of becoming. Against this background, Jacobi formulates a distinct “either/or” between a rational and explanatory philosophy (called “Alleinphilosophie”) and a philosophy of freedom and becoming (Jacobi’s alternative, which was called “Unphilosophie”). This is clearly in evidence in the following quotation: “According to my opinion the greatest merit of the researcher is to uncover and to reveal existence—to him explanation is a means, a route to the goals—never an ultimate goal. His highest goal is what cannot be explained: the indissoluble, the immediate, the simple.” Truth cannot be approached by way of rational thinking, but rather we embrace it in spite of rational thinking. A mortal leap (mortale salto) is needed. This leap away Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, ed. by Klaus Hammacher and Walter Jaeschke, Hamburg: Meiner and Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann Holzboog 1998–, vol. 1.1, Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Mendelssohn, p. 123.  Ibid., p. 120; p. 123.  Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2.1, p. 198.  Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1.1, p. 29. 

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from explanatory philosophy is, however, not to be regarded as a kind of skepticism since Jacobi actually undermines the distinction between dogmatism and skepticism thereby pointing to the prior condition of all cognition, called “belief.” The “either/ or” of explanatory philosophy and Jacobi’s own so-called “Unphilosophie” addresses both the metaphysical problems of being and becoming, necessity and freedom and the epistemological problems of cognition and intuition or belief. The epistemological aspect of Jacobi’s philosophical enterprise is detailed in David Hume on Belief, or Idealism and Realism, which includes a decisive attack on the critical philosophy of Kant. Jacobi’s relation to Kant is deeply ambiguous. On the one hand, he praises Kant for his destruction of rational metaphysics and his insistence on the limits of reason, but, on the other hand, he accuses Kant of just repeating the errors of Spinoza. According to Jacobi, there is no decisive difference between Spinoza’s naturalism and Kant’s transcendental idealism; once again we see his “either/or.” Furthermore, he accuses Kant of a straightforward contradiction, which is rhetorically summarized in the following quotation: “I cannot get inside the system without this assumption and with this assumption I cannot stay in it.” The assumption alluded to is Kant’s notion of the “Ding an sich.” The fundamental theorem in Kant’s theoretical philosophy is the distinction between cognition and sensible intuition, cognition being of a spontaneous nature and sensible intuition being of a receptive nature. In order to secure the receptivity of intuition, Kant must presuppose objects outside the representations that cognition spontaneously produces. In this context Kant talks about the “Ding an sich” affecting our representations. Speaking in that way, however, produces a sheer contradiction in so far as Kant applies the concepts of cause and effect, which belong to cognition, to items that transcend representations. Contrary to the ultimate goal of Kant’s philosophical enterprise, Jacobi states that he is unable to account for our natural convictions about reality and the world. Following in the footsteps of Hume and especially the commonsense philosophy of Thomas Reid (1710–96), Jacobi advances a realist theory about feeling and belief as absolute certainty about reality. To ask for explanations about our most natural and intuitive convictions and beliefs is an utter misunderstanding, leading only to unreality and abstraction. Both of Jacobi’s books had an enormous impact on German idealism as it developed in the 1790s, and reached right up to the very end of this philosophical tradition in Schelling’s later philosophy. Although only very few, such as Jakob Friedrich Fries, came to acknowledge Jacobi’s own philosophy of freedom, belief and action, his philosophical writings nevertheless came to formulate the agenda of German idealism. Both his criticism of Spinoza and his criticism of Kant reach into the very foundations of the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Meanwhile Jacobi came to play a very ambiguous role as both an inspirer or inaugurator and a heretic. As much as the German idealists agreed with his criticism of Spinoza and Kant, they strongly rejected his own alternative (Jacobi was very much aware of this position, calling himself the “a privileged heretic” (“priviligierter Ketzer”). Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1.1. Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2.1, p. 109.  Ibid., p. 198.  

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None of the post-Kantian philosophers accepted his “either/or” between rational or explanatory philosophy and philosophy of freedom since they tried to reconcile system and freedom. Moreover, they also tried to overcome the inconsistencies in Kant’s thinking, revealed by Jacobi, by transforming transcendental idealism into absolute idealism. It was just as much Jacobi as Kant who introduced the concept of freedom as a key concept in the philosophy of German idealism, and they also acknowledged the idea of “uncovering life” as the ultimate purpose of the philosophical enterprise. This is explicitly documented in the writings of the young Schelling and especially in the writings of Fichte, who was a great admirer of Jacobi. Nevertheless, the German idealists insisted that the goal of philosophy could only be achieved through a systematic enquiry into knowledge and reason, stating that there was an intimate relationship between philosophy and life. Though Jacobi appreciated this effort, as is explicitly documented in his Brief an Fichte (1799),10 he nevertheless maintained his view about the incompatibility of reason and knowledge, on the one hand, and freedom and life, on the other hand. Ironically, the ideal method of doing philosophy, for the German idealists, became exactly the rationalistic monism of Spinoza that Jacobi had portrayed in his book on Spinoza. All of the idealists, especially Schelling and Hegel, were fascinated by Spinozist thought about substance embracing the structure of all being, although at the same time they criticized Spinoza for straightforward mechanism. In a subtle way Jacobi predicted this renaissance of Spinozist monism just as he predicted the consequences of his attack on Kant. Jacobi’s diagnosis of Kant’s philosophy as an utterly incoherent system also had an impact on the formation of both Fichte’s transcendental philosophy and Hegel’s speculative philosophy. Fichte’s philosophy of the “I” can be regarded as an answer to Jacobi’s criticism of Kant in so far as he gives a quite new definition of the problematic notion of causality, thereby avoiding the contradiction discovered by Jacobi. According to Fichte, the category of causality is to be deduced from the impact of the so called “Non-I” (Nicht-Ich) on the “I” since both the “I” and the “Non-I” are to be deduced from the so-called “positing I” (setzendes Ich). In this way, in the fashion of absolute idealism, Fichte turns receptivity into a kind of spontaneity or activity. Hegel in an interesting way shared Jacobi’s opinion about Kant’s subjectivism although he draws the opposite conclusion. Taking natural consciousness as his point of departure, Hegel measured all the stages of consciousness ending up in the notion of absolute knowledge. Furthermore, Jacobi’s distinction between Verstand and Vernunft, explicitly documented in Beilage VII of On the Doctrine of Spinoza, in Letters to Moses Mendelssohn, had an impact on the idealists, especially Hegel, who took up the idea of transcending both Kant’s notion of Verstand and his notion about regulative ideas while at the same accusing Jacobi of sheer irrationalism in talking about “his instinctive hostility to rational knowledge.”11 Ibid., p. 224. G.W.F. Hegel, “Glauben und Wissen oder die Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität, in der Vollständigkeit ihrer Formen als Kantische, Jacobische und Fichtesche Philosophie,” in Jub., vol. 1, pp. 277–433, see p. 355 (Jub. = G.W.F. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe 10 11

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While all the prominent and influential philosophers of the time moved in the opposite direction, Jacobi indefatigably continued to advocate his mortal leap and to denounce the philosophical enterprise of combining rational and systematic philosophy with freedom and life. According to Jacobi, all of the idealist systems were nothing but repetitions of Spinoza’s determinism and fatalism. As much as the idealists wanted to distance themselves from what was called the mechanism of Spinoza, thereby infusing the absolute substance with agency and dynamics, in the eyes of Jacobi, they delivered just another version of Spinozism. Evidence of this ongoing controversy can be found in both Sendschreiben an Fichte (1799), in which he characterizes Fichte’s philosophy as a “inverted Spinozism” (umgekehrten Spinozismus)12 and Von den göttlichen Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung (1811), where he accuses Schelling of fatalism and atheism. Jacobi’s impact on German idealism is not restricted to its formation but also includes its transformations. This is especially true of Schelling’s philosophy as it transforms itself from the early philosophy of nature into the Philosophie der Offenbarung of the later Schelling. Much of the philosophy of the later Schelling is inspired by Jacobi with regard to both philosophical motifs and the form of philosophical argumentation.13 The basic feature of Schelling’s later philosophy is the distinction between negative (or logical) and positive (or historical) philosophy, which resembles Jacobi’s distinction between explanatory philosophy and philosophy of becoming and action. Furthermore, his polemics against Hegel, described as the culmination of negative philosophy, has pretty much the same outlook as Jacobi’s criticism of Spinoza, claiming the inability of Hegelian metaphysics to account for the actual and real. Finally, there is a common methodological conviction that an alternative way of doing philosophy can only be worked out through an immanent critique of the opponent’s theory. Neither in Jacobi nor in Schelling is the distinction between opposing kinds of philosophy to be understood in a dualistic way. II. Direct References to Jacobi in the Works of Kierkegaard There are rather few direct references to the philosophy of Jacobi in the works of Kierkegaard, and only in two cases does Kierkegaard involve himself in a more detailed discussion. In the following I will concentrate on the passage in which he deals most extensively with the thinking of Jacobi. In a passage that runs for several pages Kierkegaard reproduces the dialogue between Lessing and Jacobi in On the Doctrine of Spinoza, in Letters to Moses Mendelssohn (depicted by Kierkegaard as a dialogue between the old ironist and the young enthusiast), while at the same time he in 20 Bänden, vols. 1–20, ed. by Hermann Glockner, Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag 1928–41). English translation quoted from G.W.F. Hegel, Faith & Knowledge, trans. by Walter Cerf and H.S. Harris, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press 1977, p. 120. 12 Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2.1, p. 195. 13 According to Axel Hutter the core of Schelling’s later philosophy is to avoid Jacobi’s dualism between reason and actuality. See Axel Hutter, Geschichtliche Vernunft. Die Weiterfürung der Kantischen Vernunftkritik in der Spätphilosophie Schellings, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1996, p. 276.

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makes some critical remarks on Jacobi’s notion of the leap. This criticism is summed up in the following passage: Here I must pause for a moment. It might seem after all that Jacobi is the originator of the leap. Yet it must be noted, first of all that Jacobi is really not clear about where the leap essentially belongs. If anything, his salto mortale is only a subjectivizing act in comparison with Spinoza’s objectivity; it is not a transition from the eternal to the historical. Next, he is not dialectically clear about the leap, that this cannot be expounded or communicated directly, precisely because the leap is an act of isolation, since it is left to the single individual to decide whether he will by virtue of the absurd accept in faith that which indeed cannot be thought: With the aid of eloquence Jacobi wants to help one to make the leap. But this is a contradiction, and all direct incitement is simply an obstacle to actually doing it, which must not be confused with assurances about wanting to have done it. Suppose that Jacobi himself has made the leap; suppose that with the aid of eloquence he manages to persuade a learner to want to do it. Then the learner has a direct relation to Jacobi and consequently does not himself come to make it.14

While recognizing Jacobi as the originator of the leap, Kierkegaard immediately raises two decisive objections: (1) the notion of the leap is misplaced; (2) the notion of the leap is misconceived. In the following I will comment on both of these objections. (1) The description of Jacobi’s notion of the leap as a transition from the objectivism of Spinoza’s philosophy to subjectivism echoes and repeats the objections put forward by Hegel in his Faith and Knowledge (1802).15 This description of Jacobi probably was brought about by Kierkegaard’s teacher Professor Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–84), who in his lectures on the history of more recent philosophy, which Kierkegaard presumably attended from 1838 to1839, portrayed the philosophy of Jacobi in exactly the same way as Hegel did.16 Contrary to Hegel, who manifestly rejected the notion of the leap, putting Jacobi at the same time alongside Kant and Fichte as representatives of the so-called Reflexionsphilosophie, who were unable to grasp absolute knowledge, Kierkegaard’s objection concerns the placement of the leap. According to Kierkegaard, the leap should be understood as a transition from the eternal to the historical. As pointed out by Birgit Sandkaulen,17 this objection, however, misses the point since Jacobi was intensively concerned with the problem about time, becoming and the historical. In fact, Jacobi’s most decisive objection against Spinoza’s metaphysics concerns its inability to account for time and becoming. In his very sensitive reconstructive interpretation of Spinoza, Jacobi in a penetrating way points to Spinoza’s distinction between essence and existence SKS 7, 98–9 / CUP1, 100–1. The Concluding Unscientific Postscript also repeats Hegel’s criticism of Jacobi when talking about “to play with the prepositions, something that Jacobi so greatly relished,” SKS 7, 101 / CUP1, 103. See Hegel, “Glauben und Wissen oder die Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität, in der Vollständigkeit ihrer Formen als Kantische, Jacobische und Fichtesche Philosophie.” 16 See Pap. II C 25 in Pap. XII, pp. 301–7. 17 Birgit Sandkaulen, Grund und Ursache. Die Vernunftkritik Jacobis, Munich: Fink 1999, p. 142. 14 15

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(existence referring to duration and succession), while at the same time accusing him of turning existence into a purely logical thought. Jacobi’s defense of freedom is just as much a defense of becoming and time since they are two sides of the same coin. When talking about a transition from the eternal to the historical, Kierkegaard refers to a turn from metaphysics to Christian revelation, something that is also evident from his notion of the “absurd.” However, as documented in the “Interlude” in the Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard actually speaks about the historical in a way not exclusively connected to Christian revelation. (2) The point of the second objection concerns what could be called the radicality of the leap. According to Kierkegaard, the leap, being an act of sheer individuality, is something that in principle cannot be communicated. Consequently, Jacobi’s effort to persuade Lessing to perform the leap is rejected as a sheer contradiction. Trying to persuade, in the case of Jacobi, by the aid of eloquence, is nothing but an obstacle to perform the leap; Kierkegaard here evokes his general theory about teaching and communicating the truth. Meanwhile there seems to be some ambivalence in Kierkegaard’s judgment about Jacobi’s salto mortale. While maintaining his overall criticism of Jacobi for turning the leap into a kind of transition—here he alludes to the Hegelian notion of “mediation”—Kierkegaard nevertheless seems to moderate his critique quoted above. Commenting on Jacobi’s phrase in On the Doctrine of Spinoza, in Letters to Moses Mendelssohn: “Wenn Sie nur auf die elastische Stelle treten wollen, die mich fortschwingt, so gehts von selbst.”18 Kierkegaard says, “That incidentally, is rather well said, but there is the incorrectness that he wants to make the leap into something objective and the leaping into something analogous to, for example, finding the Archimedean point. The good thing about the reply is that he does not want to have a direct relationship, a direct companionship, in the leap.”19 Apparently, Jacobi’s concept of the leap is not entirely of an unsound character since it explicitly requires an act of choice to step on the “elastic spot.” Accordingly, it seems to be the attitude of Jacobi, described as the attitude of eloquent persuasion, which is the target of Kierkegaard’s objection. Though the passages referred to by Kierkegaard surely concern Jacobi’s most explicit statements about the leap, the notion is present in all of Jacobi’s writings since the “either/or” between Alleinphilosophie and Unphilosophie is the structuring principle of his philosophy. The strategy of Jacobi’s philosophy is that of making the leap unavoidable by way of uncovering inconsistencies and contradictions in rational philosophy, be it that of Spinoza or that of Kant. In his reconstruction of Spinoza’s philosophy the aim is exactly to show the utter inability of rational and explanatory philosophy to account for freedom, life and becoming. He thereby evokes his own Unphilosophie of freedom and life as the only possible alternative, and consequently he rejects all the attempts made by the German idealists to reconcile his anti-Spinozism with Spinoza himself. This being the ultimate scope of Jacobi’s leap, it cannot be reduced to some form of enthusiastic presentation or attitude, nor can it be assimilated to a version of Hegelian “mediation.” Furthermore, the strategy of Jacobi is not alien to Kierkegaard since the enterprise of uncovering the 18 19



Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1.1, p. 30. SKS 7, 100 / CUP1, 102.

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inconsistencies and contradictions of rational metaphysics, in casu the speculative metaphysics of Hegel, is an essential part of his own thinking. The second, more detailed, reference to Jacobi, also to be found in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, is of a much more sympathetic nature. Expressing his admiration of Hamann as well as of Jacobi, Kierkegaard here, contrary to his earlier negative statement about Jacobi’s enthusiasm, praises this quality and speaks of Jacobi’s “noble enthusiasm.”20 This positive statement is framed by a more general description of Jacobi, common to all the German idealists, as a proponent of feeling and enthusiasm, in opposition to rational philosophy. Moreover, when speaking about Jacobi “battling for the significance of existence” and his “inwardness,” Kierkegaard seems to include Jacobi in his own project of protesting against systematic and explanatory speculation in the name of existence and spirit. This inclusion, however, is of a rather dubious character. Although the philosophy of Jacobi certainly could be called a philosophy of existence, “inwardness” is not part of his enterprise. As a proponent of freedom, Jacobi first of all is a philosopher of action who has nothing to do with inwardness. But then again action plays an essential role in the thinking of Kierkegaard. III. Similarities between Kierkegaard and Jacobi The direct references to Jacobi in the work of Kierkegaard do not exhaust the relation between the two thinkers. In fact I think there are a number of weighty and even decisive similarities between Jacobi and Kierkegaard. Jacobi is not just another thinker whom Kierkegaard resembles. In the following I will try to argue this by developing two points. A. Strategy and Style of Thinking In two respects Kierkegaard employs exactly the same strategy and procedure as Jacobi. The aim of Jacobi’s reconstruction of Spinoza is to present his philosophy as the most coherent system of all rational metaphysics. According to Jacobi, the philosophy of Spinoza is simply irrefutable in terms of rational thinking. The same seems to hold for Kierkegaard’s apprehension of Hegel’s speculative metaphysics. Kierkegaard outspokenly considered Hegel’s metaphysics to be the most coherent system of all modern rational philosophy, superior to all other forms of modern philosophy including the other idealist thinkers as well as Kant. Surely the reasons why Kierkegaard occupied himself so intensively with Hegel also had to do with the immense influence of Hegel’s philosophy on the Danish intellectual scene, but the main reason is that he could only present his own way of thinking, as was also the case with Jacobi, by contrasting it to a philosophical system without any rational or conceptual flaws. This is concisely expressed in the following passage, which concerns the leap: “All honor to meditation! No doubt it can help a person in yet another way, as it presumably helped the author of Fear and Trembling to seek the

20

SKS 7, 227 / CUP1, 250.

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leap as a desperate way out, just as Christianity was a desperate way out when it entered the world and will continue to be that for everyone who actually accepts it.”21 This I think is a Kierkegaardian reformulation of Jacobi’s “either/or” between explanatory Alleinphilosophie and his own Unphilosophie. Just as Jacobi rules out a third way between explanatory philosophy and his own philosophy of freedom, action and reality, Kierkegaard insists on the strict alternative between Hegelian rational metaphysics and Christian existential and ethical thinking. Kierkegaard’s criticism of Kant’s critical philosophy is a clear illustration of his rejection of there being a third way: Instead of admitting that idealism is in the right—but please note, in such a way that would reject the whole question about actuality (about a self-withholding an sich) in relation to thinking as a temptation, which like all other temptations cannot possibly be cancelled by surrendering to it—instead of putting a stop to Kant’s deviation, which brought actuality into relation to thinking, instead of referring the actuality to the ethical....22

In a vocabulary very close to Jacobi’s original criticism of Kant’s epistemology, Kierkegaard here claims that Kant’s transcendental philosophy is an utterly unsustainable position that leaves only two options: either the option of absolute idealism or the option of a thinking of the actual or the ethical. The second similarity concerning strategy and style of thinking has to with the essence of Kierkegaard’s and Jacobi’s criticism of rational thinking. As mentioned above, the very essence of Jacobi’s attack on Spinoza’s philosophy concerns its inability to account for existence and becoming. Although clearly admitting a difference between essence and existence (something Hegel later on was to taunt him about), Spinoza, according to Jacobi, was unable to account for any kind of becoming or existence; this is most clearly stated in Jacobi’s notion about “der ungereimte Begriff einer ewigen Zeit”23 as the internal contradiction of Spinoza’s rational system. Kierkegaard’s attack on Hegelian speculation has exactly the same outlook since his most decisive criticism of Hegelian speculation concerns its neglect of time and becoming. Kierkegaard’s constant complaints about Hegel’s introduction of succession and movement into logic, which, however, depend largely on Schelling’s later philosophy, are prefigured in Jacobi’s criticism of Spinoza. Due to the very special character of Hegel’s speculative metaphysics, Kierkegaard’s criticism is, however, of a somewhat different nature. Contrary to Spinoza, Hegel rejects any notion of becoming, existence and succession as something belonging to a sphere external to logical thinking, while he at the same time integrates temporal notions such as change and transition into his system. In contrast to traditional rationalist metaphysics, which excludes temporality, Hegel boldly admits temporal terms into his logical system, especially at the beginning of the Science of Logic, while at the same time making these terms into a kind of mainspring of the self-movement of the

23 21 22

SKS 7, 103 / CUP1, 106. SKS 7, 299 / CUP1, 328. Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1.1, p. 257.

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logical categories. This transformation is the main target in Kierkegaard’s criticism of Hegel’s philosophy, which is most explicitly expressed in the following quotation: Negation, transition, mediation are three disguised, suspicious, and secret agents (agentia) that bring about all movements. Hegel would hardly call them presumptuous, because it is with his gracious permission that they carry on their ploy so unembarrassedly that even logic uses terms and phrases borrowed from transition in time.... Let this be as it may. Let logic take care to help itself. The term “transition” is and remains a clever turn in logic. Transition belongs in the sphere of historical freedom, for transition is a state and it is actual. Plato fully recognized the difficulty of placing transition in the realm of the purely metaphysical, and for that reason the category of the moment cost him so much effort.24

B. Actuality versus Abstraction Kierkegaard’s general project of securing freedom contains two parts: one trying to prevent time, becoming and the historical from being absorbed in logical categories and the other one concerning reality and actuality as irreducible to thinking. Certainly, Kierkegaard’s attack on Hegel’s philosophy was strongly inspired by the later Schelling’s contrasting the negative philosophy of Hegel as a rational discourse of pure possibility with his own positive philosophy of actuality and reality presiding over rational thinking. But upon closer examination, Kierkegaard seems much closer to Jacobi’s position. Despite Schelling’s severe criticism of rationalist metaphysics, which is most explicitly displayed in his critical discussions of the demonstrations of God’s existence, he never gave up the idea that knowledge and thought, in some limited sense, were able to account for actuality. In fact, he rejected only a concept of reason in terms of Denknotwendigkeiten while still holding on to the project of a rational mapping of the actual. Thus Schelling, though very much in accordance with Jacobi’s diagnosis of rational metaphysics, accused Jacobi of sheer dualism, that is, a dualism without any kind of evidence.25 Kierkegaard, by contrast, devoted himself much more to the “either/or” position of Jacobi, abandoning any attempt to preserve the grip of knowledge on the actual and the real. This proximity is clearly documented in Kierkegaard’s concept of actuality or reality. Kierkegaard’s concept of actuality is rather complicated since it seems to denote quite different phenomena,26 but the predominant notion of “actuality” is epistemological and very much in line with Jacobi and Hume. In the Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard displays the whole repertoire of Jacobean/Humean-like notions. With explicit reference to Jacobi, Kierkegaard states:

SKS 4, 384–5 / CA, 82. See [F.W.J. Schelling], Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, ed. by Karl Friedrich August Schelling, vols. 1–14, Stuttgart: Cotta 1856–61, vol. 10, p. 181. 26 See Michelle Kosch, “Actuality in Schelling and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst und Wirklichkeit, ed. by Jochem Hennigfeld and Jon Stewart, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 8), pp. 235–51. 24 25

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This is not entirely true, because I cannot immediately sense or know that what I immediately sense or know is an effect, for immediately it simply is. That it is an effect is something I believe, because in order to predicate that it is an effect, I must already have made it dubious in the uncertainty of coming into existence. But if belief decides on this, then the doubt is terminated; in that very moment the balance and neutrality are terminated—not by knowledge but by will.27

This quotation clearly echoes the Jacobean/Humean dictum that conclusions from cause to effect cannot be drawn by way of proof or explanation but only by means of belief. The passage cited, however, also reveals a difference between Jacobi and Kierkegaard. By stressing the volitional nature of belief, Kierkegaard combines the epistemological aspect of the notion of “actuality” with another important aspect of this notion: namely, the ethical or practical aspect. According to Kierkegaard, we are just as responsible for the world as we are responsible for our actions. By contrast, Jacobi’s concept of belief remains a purely epistemological concept. As much as Jacobi advocates the perspective of free human agency against the determinism of rational philosophy, he does not link his practical, ethical and existential enterprise with his epistemological project.28 This difference, which characterizes Kierkegaard’s practical and existential protest against speculative philosophy, nevertheless resembles Jacobi’s objections against explanatory philosophy. When adopting Schelling’s distinction between rational philosophy as a discourse of sheer possibility and a philosophy of the actual, this distinction has much more in common with Jacobi than with Schelling. While the distinction drawn by Schelling is of a metaphysical nature, denoting different modal categories of being, the distinction drawn by Kierkegaard is of practical and ethical nature, referring to a different kind of perspective: that is, the disengaged and disinterested perspective of the observer and the interested perspective of agency. This way of thinking is prefigured in the philosophy of Jacobi, which is most explicitly documented in Sendschreiben an Fichte. Here Jacobi states: The philosophizing of pure reason must therefore be a chemical process through which everything else is transformed into nothing, and pure reason alone remains. This is a spirit so pure that it cannot itself exist in such purity, but can only construct everything; and it must do so, in turn, in a state of such purity that it cannot itself exist in it, but can only be intuited in the spirit’s construction: the entirety a mere deed-deed. All human beings, in so far as they strive for knowledge at all, make this pure philosophy their final goal [even] without wanting to; for a human being knows only inasmuch as he conceives, and he conceives only inasmuch as—by transforming substance into mere form—he makes form into substance, and substance into nothing. We conceive of a substance only in so far as we construct it, in so far as we can let it appear to us in our thoughts. Insofar as we do not construct it, in so far as we cannot ourselves produce it in thoughts, we do not conceive of it.29 SKS 4, 283 / PF, 84. That might be the reason why commentators such as Günther Baum in his dissertation Vernunft und Erkenntnis. Die Philosophie F.H. Jacobi (1968) claims epistemology to be the core of Jacobi’s philosophy, thereby ignoring its practical and existential aspects. 29 Jacobi, Werke: Gesamtausgabe, vol. 2.1, pp. 201–2. 27 28

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In this passage, containing the famous verdict of nihilism on Fichte’s absolute idealism, Jacobi claims that reason and thought have their origin within the domain of experience and practical concerns since reason comes into being only by way of a destruction of this origin. Reason and cognition are entirely occupied with themselves since they are only governed by their self-produced rules of construction, and thereby abolish actuality and human practical and existential concerns. According to Jacobi, this is the aporia of all rational philosophy. By abstracting from experience, the subject of cognition falls prey to any kind of relation, both to the world and to itself, leaving it circulating in itself. Accordingly, Jacobi’s “mortal leap,” the leap into the domain of experience and human agency, is not a leap into naïve realism, but a conscious and deliberate renunciation of the efforts of justification, characteristic of explanatory philosophy. Kierkegaard’s critical description of Hegelian speculative metaphysics in significant ways echoes Jacobi’s diagnosis of rational philosophy as abstracting from actuality and the perspective of experience and agency. In the works of Kierkegaard there are numerous examples, including the following from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript: For the existing person, existing is for him his highest interest, and his interestedness in existing is his actuality. What actuality is cannot be rendered in the language of abstraction. Actuality is an inter-esse [between-being] between thinking and being in the hypothetical unity of abstraction. Abstraction deals with possibility and actuality, but its conception of actuality is a false rendition, since the medium is not actuality but possibility. Only by annulling actuality can abstraction grasp it, but to annul it is precisely to change it into possibility.30

In a vocabulary quite similar to Jacobi’s, Kierkegaard here states that rational thinking is nothing but an annihilation and a destruction of actuality resulting in a closed system of hypothetical thought-constructions that are in principle unable to grasp reality and human agency. The rational philosopher is an observer who has detached himself from the world of experience and agency without ever reaching or grasping that reality. However much rational and explanatory thinking intends to grasp actuality, this ambition fails. The leap to another kind of thinking, a thinking in the perspective of practical human agency, therefore is a deliberate one. Surely, Kierkegaard wanted to radicalize the scandal of the leap, but his actual practice is very much of the same nature as Jacobi’s.



30

SKS 7, 286–7 / CUP1, 314–15.

Bibliography I. Jacobi’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Werke, vols. 1–6, Leipzig: Gerhard Fleischer d. Jüng., 1812–25 (ASKB 1722–1728). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Jacobi Ast, Friedrich D., Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, pp. 458–60 (ASKB 385). Baader, Franz, Ueber das pythagoräische Quadrat in der Natur oder die vier Weltgegenden, [Tübingen] 1798, p. 27, note (ASKB 392). —— Beiträge zur dinamischen Philosophie im Gegensatze der mechanischen, Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung 1809, p. 91 (ASKB 393). —— Fermenta Cognitionis, vols. 1–5, Berlin: Reimer 1822–24, vol. 5, 1824, p. 57 (ASKB 394). —— Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen Ludwig-MaximiliansHochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich: Giel 1827, p. 7; p. 85 (ASKB 395). —— Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, vol. 1, Stuttgart und Tübingen: Cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1828 (ASKB 396) [vols. 2–5, Münster: Theissing 1830–38], vol. 2, p. 31; vol. 3, p. 34; vol. 4, pp. 99f.; vol. 5, p. 7; p. 12. —— Philosophische Schriften und Aufsätze, vols. 1–2, Münster: Theissing 1831– 32, vol. 1, p. 256; p. 260; p. 265; vol. 2, p. 109; p. 126, note; p. 140, note (ASKB 400–401). —— Vorlesungen über eine künftige Theorie des Opfers oder des Kultus, Münster: Theissing 1836, p. 88 (ASKB 408). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 9, p. 299; vol. 10, p. 548 (ASKB 1972–1983). Bruch, Johann Friedrich, Die Lehre von den göttlichen Eigenschaften, Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes 1842, p. 2; p. 30; p. 40, note; p. 46, note; p. 53, note; p. 54, note; p. 55, note; p. 61, note; pp. 126–7; p. 259, note; p. 267, note (ASKB 439). Colette, Jacques, “La non-philosophie de F.H. Jacobi,” in his Kierkegaard at la nonphilosphie, Paris: Gallimard 1994, pp. 192–9. Cousin, Victor, Über französische und deutsche Philosophie. Aus dem Französischen von Dr. Hubert Beckers, Professor. Nebst einer beurtheilenden Vorrede des Herrn Geheimraths von Schelling, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’sche

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Buchhandlung 1834, p. X; p. XXIV; pp. XXVI-XXVII; pp. 35–6; p. 38 (ASKB 471). Döring, Heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder’s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., Weimar: Wilhelm Hoffmann 1829, p. 159; pp. 192–3; p. 200; p. 212; p. 222 (ASKB A I 134). Erdmann, Johann Eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1837, p. 31; p. 65 (ASKB 479). Feuerbach, Ludwig, Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie. Darstellung, Entwicklung und Kritik der Leibnitz’schen Philosophie, Ansbach: Brügel 1837, p. 133; p. 260 (ASKB 487). Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, Sätze zur Vorschule der Theologie, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1826, p. 47, note; p. 88, note (ASKB 501). —— Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie, vols. 1–2, Heidelberg: I.C.B. Mohr 1833–36, vol. 1, p. 297, note (ASKB 502–503). —— Beiträge zur Charakteristik der neueren Philosophie, oder kritische Geschichte derselben von Des Cartes und Locke bis auf Hegel, 2nd ed., Sulzbach: J.E. Seidel 1841, pp. 249–330 (ASKB 508). —— Die speculative Theologie oder allgemeine Religionslehre, Heidelberg: J.C.B. Mohr 1846 (vol. 3, in Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie), p. 208 (ASKB 509; for vols. 1–2, see ASKB 502–503). Fischer, Carl Philipp, Die Idee der Gottheit. Ein Versuch, den Theismus speculativ zu begründen und zu entwickeln, Stuttgart: S.G. Liesching 1839, p. XLIII (ASKB 512). [Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von], “F.H. Jacobi’s auserlesener Briefwechsel, in zwey Bänden,” in Goethe’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand [in 55 volumes], vols. 1–40, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1827–30; Goethe’s nachgelassene Werke, vols. 41–55, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1832–33, vol. 45 (Nachlaß, vol. 5), pp. 292–4 (ASKB 1641–1668). Günther, Anton, Vorschule zur speculativen Theologie des positiven Christenthums. In Briefen, vols. 1–2, Vienna: Wallishauser 1828–29, vol. 1, pp. 32–41; pp. 51–9 (ASKB 869–870). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 6, p. 230; p. 330; vol. 7, p. 207; p. 227; p. 235; p. 293; p. 297; p. 312; p. 317; p. 347; pp. 363ff.; p. 368; p. 370; pp. 377–9; pp. 385–6; pp. 392–3 (ASKB 536–544). Hase, Karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske Forelæsninger, trans. by C. Winther and T. Schorn, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1837, p. 600 (ASKB 160–166). —— Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studirende, 4th revised ed., Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1839, p. 2; p. 5; p. 59; p. 123; p. 126 (ASKB 581). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Jacobische Philosophie,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophische Abhandlungen, ed. by Karl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832 (vol. 1 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s

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Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45], pp. 52–115 (ASKB 549). —— “Ueber Friedr. Heinr. Jacobi’s Werke. Erster Band” and “Ueber Friedr. Heinr. Jacobi’s Werke. Dritter Band,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s vermischte Schriften, vols. 1–2, ed. by Friedrich Förster and Ludwig Boumann, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1834–35 (vols. 16–17 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 203–18 and vol. 2, pp. 3–37 respectively (ASKB 555–556). —— “Jacobi,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 535–51 (ASKB 557–559). —— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by Philipp Marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1840 (vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, p. 114; pp. 323–4; vol. 2, pp. 342–3; p. 448; p. 477; pp. 512–17 passim; p. 523 (ASKB 564–565). Helfferich, Adolph, Die christliche Mystik in ihrer Entwickelung und in ihren Denkmalen, vols. 1–2, Gotha: Friedrich Perthes 1842, vol. 1, p. 11 (ASKB 571–572). [Hemsterhuis, François], Vermischte philosophische Schriften des H. Hemsterhuis, vols. 1–3, Leipzig: bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich 1782, vol. 3, pp. 163–98 (ASKB 573–575). Marheineke, Philipp, Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1827, p. XXII; p. 23 (ASKB 644). Menzel, Wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd enlarged ed., Stuttgart: Hallberg 1836, vol. 1, p. 276; p. 284 (ASKB U 79). Michelet, Karl Ludwig, “Jacobi,” in his Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel, vols. 1–2, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1837–38, vol. 1, pp. 339–86 (ASKB 678–679). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], p. 4; p. 31, note; p. 35; p. 43; p. 70; p. 97; pp. 466–7; vol. 2, p. 144; p. 163; p. 174; pp. 205–6; p. 208 (ASKB 358–363). Nielsen, Rasmus, De speculativa historiæ sacræ tractandæ methodo commentatio, Copenhagen: Tengnagel 1840, p. 92, note (ASKB 697). —— Den propædeutiske Logik, Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen 1845, p. 23; p. 93; p. 200 (ASKB 699). Rauch, Friedrich August, Vorlesungen über Goethe’s Faust, Büdingen: Heller 1830, pp. 30–1; p. 55, note; p. 62; p. 98 (ASKB 1800). [Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich], Jean Paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed.,

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Stuttgart and Tübingen: Cotta 1813, vol. 1, p. 82, note; vol. 2, p. 542; p. 604; p. 621; p. 635; vol. 3, p. 825; p. 848; p. 927 (ASKB 1381–1383). Rosenkranz, Karl, Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1837, p. 5 (ASKB 743). —— Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, Danzig: Fr. Sam. Gerhard 1843, p. 200; p. 325; pp. 327–9 (ASKB 766). Rudelbach, Andreas, De ethices principiis hucusque vulgo traditis, disquisito historico-philosophica, quæ systematum ethicorum secundum primas causas amplioris criseos introductionem continet, Copenhagen: Hartv. Frid. Popp. 1822, p. 22, p. 99, note; p. 180 (ASKB 750). Schlegel, Friedrich, Philosophische Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1804 bis 1806, ed. by C.J.H. Windischmann, vols. 1–2, Bonn: Weber 1836, vol. 1, p. 191; p. 471; p. 473, vol. 2, pp. 418–20 (ASKB 768‑768a). Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 2, p. 8; p. 640 (ASKB 773–773a). Sibbern, Frederik Christian, Speculativ Kosmologie med Grundlag til en speculativ Theologie, Copenhagen: Forfatterens eget Forlag 1846, p. 73 (ASKB 780). —— Om Forholdet imellem Sjæl og Legeme, saavel i Almindelighed som i phrenologisk, pathognomonisk, physiogonomisk og ethisk Henseende i Særdeleshed, Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens eget Forlag 1849, pp. 199–201; p. 242 (ASKB 781). Sihler, W., Die Symbolik des Antlitzes, Berlin: F. Laue 1829, p. 91 (ASKB 784). Steffens, Henrich, Christliche Religionsphilosophie, vols. 1–2, Breslau: Josef Max 1839, vol. 1, p. 46 (ASKB 797–798). —— Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef Max 1840–44, vol. 3, pp. 258–60; pp. 263–4; pp. 291–2; vol. 8, pp. 381–2; pp. 376–81; pp. 385–6; p. 390; vol. 4, pp. 134–6; p. 312 (ASKB 1834–1843). Stilling, Peter Michael, Den moderne Atheisme eller den saakaldte Neohegelianismes Conseqvenser af den hegelske Philosophie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1844, pp. 135–6 (ASKB 801). Thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: G. Reimer 1846, p. 14 (ASKB 1378). Trendelenburg, Adolf, Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, Berlin: G. Bethge 1840, vol. 1, p. 73; p. 289n (ASKB 843). Weiße, Christian Hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: C.H.F. Hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 33, note (ASKB 1379–1380). —— Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Grimmer 1833, p. 96, note; p. 129, note (ASKB 866). Wirth, Johann Ulrich, Die speculative Idee Gottes und die damit zusammenhängenden Probleme der Philosophie. Eine kritisch-dogmatische Untersuchung, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1845, p. 122; pp. 400–10 (ASKB 876).

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Zeuthen, Ludvig, Humanitet betragtet fra et christeligt Standpunkt, med stadigt Hensyn til den nærværende Tid, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1846, p. 34 (ASKB 915). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Jacobi Kleinert, Markus, Sich verzehrender Skeptizismus. Läuterungen bei Hegel und Kierkegaard, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2005 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 12), pp. 16–23; pp. 30–4; p. 51. Kodalle, Klaus-M., “Salto Mortale: Kierkegaard und Jacobi,” in Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Ein Wendepunkt der geistigen Bildung der Zeit, ed. by Walter Jaeschke and Birgit Sandkaulen, Hamburg: Meiner 2004, pp. 395–421. Niedermeyer, Gerhard, “Die Erzieher Kierkegaards zur Freihet von ungesunder Ironie,” in his Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik, Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), pp. 61–73. Rasmussen, Anders Moe, “The Legacy of Jacobi in Schelling and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst und Wirklichkeit, ed. by Jochem Hennigfeld and Jon Stewart, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 8), pp. 209–34. Reuter, Hans, S. Kierkegaards religionsphilosophische Gedanken im Verhältnis zu Hegels religionsphilosophischem Systems, Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1914 (Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, no. 23), see pp. 63–8. Schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel 1968, see pp. 121–3.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Traces of Kierkegaard’s Reading of the Theodicy Håvard Løkke and Arild Waaler

There are clear traces of Leibniz (1646–1716) in some crucial passages in Kierkegaard’s writings. For instance, as part of his subtitle to the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Climacus asks: “Is the past more necessary than the future?” This reads like a quotation from Leibniz’s Theodicy. As we shall see, it is by no means the only trace of Kierkegaard’s reading of Leibniz during an intense period of philosophical studies in 1842–43. In these studies, Kierkegaard seems to have read mainly the Theodicy, the only large work by Leibniz to appear in his lifetime, published in French in 1710, as Essais de Théodicée. The Theodicy is divided into four parts. First comes a text called “Preliminary Dissertation on the Conformity of Faith with Reason” (50 pages), followed by a “Part One” (59 pages), then a longer “Part Two” (94 pages), and finally an even longer “Part Three” (101 pages). In the “Preliminary Dissertation” Leibniz formulates the theodicy problem and introduces most of his metaphysical assumptions and philosophical concepts. In “Part One” he then argues for compatibilism: that is, the view that free will is compatible both with divine foreknowledge and with the assumption that the future is determined, in a restricted sense. The two last parts concern the views and arguments of Pierre Bayle (1647– 1706). Starting in “Part Two” and continuing in “Part Three,” Leibniz discusses seven theological propositions and nineteen philosophical maxims that Bayle had SKS 4, 272 / PF, 72: “Er det Forbigangne mere nødvendigt end det Tilkommende?” See also SKS 19, 405, Not13:40 / JP 2, 1245.  See Theodicy 2, § 170: “It is open to question whether the past is more necessary than the future.” The German translation Kierkegaard used is even more similar: “Es ist die Frage: Ob das Vergangene nothwendiger sey, als das Zukünftige?” (see SKS K4, 262). On which translation we quote from and how we refer to the Theodicy, see the following two notes. On which editions of the work Kierkegaard used, see p. 54 below.  We use G.W. Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, trans. by E.M. Huggard, ed. by A. Farrer, Routledge: London 1951. Huggard italicized a number of Leibniz’s words and phrases; we have removed these italics from the passages we quote.  These four parts are further sectioned into 504 paragraphs. The “Preliminary Dissertation” (Pre. Diss.) is divided into §§ 1–87. “Part One” (1) then starts from the beginning, covering §§ 1–106, while “Part Two” (2) covers §§ 107–240, and “Part Three” (3) covers §§ 241–417. 

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formulated in order to show that there can be no rational solution to the theodicy problem, which is precisely what Leibniz aims at refuting. Kierkegaard refers quite rarely to Leibniz in his published works. In the “Index Nominum” to the second edition of Kierkegaard’s complete works in Danish, there are nine entries under “Leibniz.” Of the passages referred to, three are in Either/ Or, one in Fear and Trembling, one in Repetition, two in Philosophical Fragments, and two in The Concept of Anxiety. The four passages in Either/Or and Fear and Trembling concern the same point: that is, that some lovers belong together because their hearts are in a pre-established harmony, a “harmonia praestabilita,” as Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms say, playfully alluding to Leibniz’s famous doctrine. None of these passages testifies to a profound influence. The other five references to Leibniz are more significant. One passage is in the opening paragraph of Repetition, where Constantin Constantius states that repetition “will play a very important role in modern philosophy, for repetition is a crucial expression for what ‘recollection’ was for the Greeks. Just as they taught that all knowing is a recollecting, modern philosophy will teach that all life is a repetition. The only modern philosopher who has had an intimation of this is Leibniz.” This is a significant reference to another thinker. It is also a good example of what we will see is a recurring pattern in Kierkegaard’s references to Leibniz, namely, the fact that he is loosely referring to Leibniz at crucial points in his own arguments. We will address the passage from Repetition in Section V below. The four remaining passages all bear directly on the modalities. First, Leibniz is mentioned in the famous footnote in Book 3 of Philosophical Fragments, on God’s existence, where Kierkegaard writes: “[I]n the old days this was expressed, even though somewhat imperfectly, as follows: If God is possible, he is eo ipso necessary (Leibniz).” Second, the same Leibniz doctrine is clearly alluded to in the “Introduction” to The Concept of Anxiety, where Kierkegaard writes: “[A]s soon as [freedom] is, it is actual, in the same sense as it was said in an older philosophy that if God’s existence is possible, it is necessary.” Third, Leibniz’s name occurs, in  Three passages contain this expression: SKS 2, 348 / EO1, 359. SKS 3, 29 / EO2, 20. SKS 4, 139 / FT, 45.  The fourth passage (SKS 3, 125 / EO2, 126) is interesting in its own right, however. Here Judge Wilhelm says: “You know how to elaborate to the point of ridiculousness and loathsomeness a marital uniformity that not even nature can match, ‘for here, as Leibniz has already shown, nothing is exactly the same; such uniformity is reserved only for rational creatures, either as the fruit of their lassitude or of their pedantry.’ ” Two points are worth noting: (i) Wilhelm’s paraphrase is reminiscent of Leibniz’s New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. by P. Remnant and J. Bennett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981, pp. 229–31. This is the only testimony we have that Kierkegaard knew this work. (ii) There are arguably similarities between what Wilhelm here says and what Constantin Constantius says at the outset of Repetition (see next paragraph in the main text). However, read within the context of Either/Or, Wilhelm’s reference to Leibniz seems to be just a more elaborate version of the two playful allusions to the harmonia praestabilita doctrine earlier in Either/Or.  SKS 4, 9 / R, 131.  SKS 4, 247 / PF, 42.  SKS 4, 329 / CA, 22.

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parentheses, in § 4 of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, where Kierkegaard refers to the doctrine of possible worlds.10 And, fourth, Leibniz’s name is found (twice, in fact) in parentheses at the beginning of Book 4 of The Concept of Anxiety, first on free will, then on the so-called “Lazy argument.”11 We discuss these four passages in Sections II–IV below. It should already by now be clear that one’s interpretation of the traces of Leibniz’s Theodicy in Kierkegaard’s writings can take two rather different directions. On the one hand, one may want to emphasize that Kierkegaard associates Leibniz with key issues in his own philosophy, such as necessity, possibility and freedom. But, on the other hand, one may also want to point out that none of the references to Leibniz is very substantial, most of them in fact consisting of just mentioning Leibniz’s name in parentheses. This makes it difficult to assess what influence Leibniz’s Theodicy had on Kierkegaard. We will argue that Kierkegaard saw in Leibniz mainly a representative of a renowned philosophical tradition, which he found inspiring in three respects. First, he seems to have benefited from the Theodicy’s detailed information about the history of philosophy. One example is the notes Kierkegaard took while reading the Theodicy 2, §§ 169–70, about the so-called “Master argument” between ancient logicians on whether events that did not happen, may have happened.12 Second, it is fair to say that Kierkegaard was influenced by Leibniz’s conceptual apparatus, notably on the modalities. But it is also important not to overemphasize Leibniz’s importance in this respect, since most of the conceptual distinctions and nuances in the Theodicy are in effect neglected by Kierkegaard. And, third, we argue that Kierkegaard, when it suited his own purposes, was pleased to find support in the Theodicy for his own views. In fact, all of Kierkegaard’s parenthetical references to Leibniz in the published work seem to have this function. It is mainly in these three respects that there are traces of the Theodicy in Kierkegaard’s writings, or so we argue. The overall picture we have just outlined, emerges also from the somewhat richer material that we find in Kierkegaard’s notes from his reading of the Theodicy in 1842– 43. These are now edited as SKS 19, 390–4, Not13:23, with very useful comments in SKS K4, 559–71. These notes touch on many of the topics we have already come across in Kierkegaard’s published works, such as the doctrine of possible worlds, and the problem of free will.13 We also learn from these notes that Kierkegaard took an interest in other subjects in the Theodicy than the ones he associates with Leibniz in his published works. Chief among these is the relation between faith and reason, which is the subject of the first and longest note that Kierkegaard took while reading the Theodicy.14 The notes are also very useful for our purposes because they are more SKS 4, 279 / PF, 80. SKS 4, 414–15 / CA, 112–13. 12 SKS 19, 392, Not13:23 / JP 5, 5593; see also SKS 19, 385, Not13:6 / JP 5, 5580. 13 On possible worlds, see SKS 19, 390, Not13:23 / JP 3, 2365; on free will, see SKS 19, 392C, Not13:23 / JP 3, 2366. SKS 19, 393, Not13:23 / JP 2, 1241. 14 SKS 19, 390–1, Not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. There is also in SKS 19, 393, Not13:23, a note (lines 3–15 on p. 393) on a subject of crucial importance for Kierkegaard: namely, the 10 11

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explicit than the published works in making clear when Kierkegaard is siding with Leibniz and when he is not. So in order to understand the traces of the Theodicy in Kierkegaard’s writings, we must inquire into the notes he took while reading the work. A curious feature in these notes is the fact that Kierkegaard writes interchangeably in Danish, French and Latin. For instance, commenting on a moot sentence in the Theodicy 1, § 31, Kierkegaard writes: “...paa det sidste Sted siger han: les raisons ideales qui la bornent) hvad forstaar han derved.”15 To explain this mixture of languages, it seems we must assume that Kierkegaard was using Erdmann’s edition of Leibniz’s philosophical works, published in Berlin 1839–40 (ASKB 620), in which the text is printed in Latin, French and German. But Kierkegaard also owned a copy of Gottsched’s German translation of the Theodicy, published in Leipzig in 1763 (ASKB 619), which he refers to in the headings to his notes. Kierkegaard seems to have used both Gottsched’s translation and Erdmann’s trilingual edition.16 In what follows, we focus on some themes in Kierkegaard on which we believe he drew on the inspiration he got from reading Leibniz’s Theodicy. The chapter falls into five sections, of slightly different character. Sections I–III are about passages in the Theodocy and Kierkegaard’s comments on these. We look in Section I at the relation between faith and reason, in Section II at some of Leibniz’s modal and epistemic concepts, and in Section III at some of his views on free will. Against this background we then turn to discuss two central Kierkegaard texts and Leibniz’s role in these. Section IV is an interpretation of § 4 of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments. We argue that Kierkegaard is here discussing what one might call “epistemic agency”: that is, the forming of beliefs, in particular beliefs about the past. Section V, finally, is an attempt to make sense of Kierkegaard’s reference to Leibniz at the beginning of Repetition. We argue that Kierkegaard is here discussing agency in the more ordinary sense of performing actions. Kierkegaard’s notion of agency—the epistemic as well as the ordinary type—is inspired by Leibniz’s notion of divine agency, or so we argue. I. Faith and Reason Here is Leibniz’s first characterization of the relation between reason and faith: I assume that two truths cannot contradict each other; that the object of faith is the truth God has revealed in an extraordinary way; and that reason is the linking together of truths, but especially (when it is compared with faith) of those whereto the human mind can attain naturally without being aided by the light of faith.17

relationship between quantity and quality. We are not going to comment specifically on this subject here. 15 SKS 19, 391, Not13:23: “on the latter place he says: the ideal reasons that restrict it) what does he mean by that.” 16 See SKS K4, 559. 17 Theodicy Pre. Diss., § 1.

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Leibniz distinguishes between “the truths of reason” and “the truths of revelation.” He links the truths of reason to the notion of necessity, distinguishing between two kinds. Some are eternal in the sense that “the opposite implies contradiction. Such are the truths whose necessity is logical, metaphysical or geometrical, which one cannot deny without being led into absurdities.”18 Other truths of reason are logically contingent: for example, the laws of nature, but nevertheless governed by physical necessity. The truths of revelation, on the other hand, are not necessary and hence not attainable by means of reason. But they are truths, and hence can never contradict each other, on the assumption that “two truths cannot contradict each other,” as Leibniz says in the quotation above. Moreover, belief in the truths of revelation can be rationally justified: “Mysteries may be explained sufficiently to justify belief in them; but one cannot comprehend them, nor give understanding of how they come to pass.”19 In developing this point further, Leibniz introduces a distinction between above reason and against reason: [W]hat is against reason is contrary to the absolutely certain and inevitable truths; and what is above reason is in opposition only to what one is wont to experience or to understand….A truth is above reason when our mind (or even every created mind) cannot comprehend it. Such is, as it seems to me, the Holy Trinity; such are the miracles reserved for God alone, as for instance Creation; such is the choice of the order of the universe, which depends upon universal harmony, and upon the clear knowledge of an infinity of things at once. But a truth can never be against reason, and once a dogma has been disputed and refuted by reason, instead of its being incomprehensible, one may say that nothing is easier to understand, nor more obvious, than its absurdity.20

Building on his distinction between truths of reason and truths of revelation, Leibniz is here explaining that the truths of revelation are above reason, but not against it. The only thing that can be against reason is a proposition that contradicts an eternal truth: that is, a truth of reason that is metaphysically necessary and thus “absolutely certain and inevitable,” as Leibniz says in the passage above. While reading the Theodicy passages just quoted, Kierkegaard took notes that are informative in many respects, not least because they tell us something about Kierkegaard’s use of logical language. Here is the first part of his notes: What I usually express by saying that Christianity consists of paradox, philosophy in mediation, Leibniz expresses by distinguishing between what is above reason and what is against reason. Faith is above reason. By reason he understands, as he says in many places, a linking together of truths, a conclusion from causes. Faith therefore cannot be proved, demonstrated, comprehended, for the link which makes a linking together possible is missing, and what else does this say than that it is a paradox. This, precisely, is the irregularity in the paradox, continuity is lacking, or at any rate, it has continuity only in reverse, that is, at the beginning it does not manifest itself as continuity.21

Ibid., § 2. Ibid., § 5. 20 Ibid., § 23, twice substituting “against” for Huggard’s “contrary to.” 21 SKS 19, 390–1, Not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. 18 19

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Kierkegaard first makes a distinction similar to the one he finds in Leibniz: the truths of revelation consist of paradoxes, while the truths of reason are linked to Hegel’s philosophy through the catchword “mediation.” This first sentence alone may create the impression that Kierkegaard is here taking an irrationalist stance on Christian doctrines. But that would be wrong. For in what follows, Kierkegaard links his term “paradox” to Leibniz’s notion of “what is above reason.” For example, by saying that “in the paradox, continuity is lacking, or at any rate, it has continuity only in reverse,” he seems to mean that paradoxical truths can be explained, even if they cannot be rationally proved. And in any case, Kierkegaard expresses his clear support for Leibniz’s distinctions, as applied to Christianity, in the lines following directly after the ones quoted above: “In my opinion nothing else should be said of the paradox and the unreasonableness of Christianity than that it is the first form [i.e. above reason], in world history as well as in consciousness.”22 Here it is clear that Kierkegaard follows Leibniz in regarding Christianity as being above reason, not against it. In other words, even if Christianity cannot be comprehended in the sense of rationally proved, it is not absurd, either. But Kierkegaard differs from Leibniz in the way he expresses this point, using, as he says, the expression that Christianity “consists of paradox.” This terminological difference should come as no surprise to readers of Kierkegaard. It is Leibniz’s use of logical language that is used in contemporary philosophy, where “paradox” means more or less the same as “contradiction.” Kierkegaard’s use was directly inspired by the Hegelian language that he learned from Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860), the Danish playwright and philosopher who introduced Hegel’s philosophy in Denmark, and in this tradition “paradox” does not mean the same as what we today would take as contradictory. For a case in point, see the last part of Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, where Kierkegaard, following Hegel, says that “[t]he moment I make a statement about reality, contradiction is present, for what I say is ideality.”23 By this he does not of course mean that every statement contains a logical contradiction, but rather that the universality intrinsic in linguistic expressions gives rise to a philosophical problem concerning every statement about particular things.24 Kierkegaard’s deviating practice on logical language can, if not properly observed, cause confusion and even misinterpretation, as would be the case if one were to identify Kierkegaard’s term “paradox” with Leibniz’s notion of being against reason. Scholars have sometimes questioned the link we have argued for above, between Kierkegaard’s notion of the paradox of Christianity and Leibniz’s notion of truths above reason. For example, Grimsley argues that the text we have used as evidence Ibid. The mention here of “world history” (and the claim in the passage quoted above, that “the paradox...has continuity only in reverse”), suggests that Kierkegaard used Leibniz’s conceptual apparatus also in developing his own conception of history. We return to this in Section IV below. 23 Pap. IV B 1, p. 146 / JC, 168. 24 Kierkegaard associates the “contradiction”―which here seems to mean just something like “meaningful opposition”―that arises from the “collision” of the universal and the particular, with the notion of repetition. This seems to be the first elaboration of this notion in Kierkegaard’s writings. We return to the notion of repetition in Section V below. 22

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for our view is “a defense of religion,” and that Kierkegaard later came to change his mind on this issue, so that “ultimately [he] came to have doubts...about the validity of this defense of religion.”25 Against the view that Kierkegaard changed his mind, one may argue that the note just quoted was written shortly before Kierkegaard wrote one of the most distinct expressions of his paradoxical attitude to Christianity, namely, the section on “the absolute paradox” in Chapter 3 of Philosophical Fragments. So it seems better to hold that Kierkegaard regards “the absolute paradox” as “totally inexplicable,” but not as logically incoherent. Of course, the difference between Kierkegaard and Leibniz is more than just terminological. There are also important differences in what they understand by something being above reason. For example, when Kierkegaard was reading about Leibniz’s principle of pre-established harmony in the Theodicy 1, § 181, he wrote the following note: Only abstract truth can be proved in that way. But Christianity is an historical truth; it appears at a certain time and a certain place and consequently it is relevant to a certain time and place. If one says that it had existed before it came into existence, just like harmony, then one says no more about it than about any other idea...in Christianity it is precisely the historical which is the essential; whereas with the other ideas this is accidental.26

In fairness to Leibniz, one should be aware of the fact that Kierkegaard is here taking a point out of its proper context, since Leibniz does not discuss the Incarnation in relation to pre-established harmony. But the note is useful in that it tells us two things about Kierkegaard’s reading of the Theodicy, namely (1) that he did not find Leibniz’s principle of pre-established harmony useful for his own project, and (2) that he found his treatment of the historical nature of Christianity insufficient: that is, too abstract, as he says. This latter objection—that Leibniz’s approach is too abstract—comes up also in connection with Kierkegaard’s comments on Leibniz’s critique of Bayle’s third philosophical maxim. Here is Bayle’s maxim, as quoted by Leibniz: “In the production of the world, all the characteristics of knowledge, skill, power and greatness that are displayed in [the Creator’s] work are destined for the happiness of intelligent creatures.”27 In his discussion of this maxim, Leibniz admits that “the happiness of intelligent creatures is the principal part of God’s design,” but he criticizes Bayle for stating that the happiness of man is the sole aim of creation. Leibniz’s point is that man has his place in nature, and that nature is an intrinsically related system. For instance, according to Leibniz, “there is no reason to suppose that God, for the sake of some lessening of moral evil, would reverse the whole order of nature.”28 Here is how Leibniz elaborates this idea:

See Ronald Grimsley, “Kierkegaard and Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 26, 1965, p. 391. 26 SKS 19, 392–3, Not13:23 / JP 2, 1635. 27 Theodicy 2, § 118. 28 Ibid. 25

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Håvard Løkke and Arild Waaler Thus the evil, or the mixture of goods and evils wherein the evil prevails, happens only by concomitance, because it is connected with greater goods that are outside this mixture. This mixture, therefore, or this compound, is not to be conceived as a grace or as a gift from God to us; but the good that is found mingled therein will nevertheless be good. Such is God’s gift of reason to those who make ill use thereof. It is always a good in itself; but the combination of this good with the evils that proceed from its abuse is not a good with regard to those who in consequence thereof become unhappy.29

Kierkegaard makes two comments on this. On the one hand, he sides with Leibniz against Bayle’s homo mensura assumption: In this Leibniz is certainly right over against Bayle, that by making man the sole measure of all things one gets entangled in contradictions. Bayle, like many others, has given the elemental impression that man has received the distinguished appointment in life to judge everything et quidem in relation to this position of man in creation. Leibniz shows that everything is linked together; he establishes a teleology which includes mankind. See § 119 in Theodicy.30

A key point in Leibniz’s solution to the theodicy problem is that God evaluates all possible worlds, including all possible courses of action at all times, and that he selects one of these possible worlds on the basis of “the rule of the best.”31 It is only this best world that is given actual existence. Leibniz scholars differ about which standard Leibniz thought was applicable in judging the goodness of worlds, but there is no doubt that the judgment is made relative to a total state of affairs. By saying that “Leibniz shows that everything is linked together” (see the note just quoted), Kierkegaard gives the impression that he fully agrees with Leibniz on this point. However, the next note in his notebook corrects this impression: One cannot deny that there is a weakness in all the answers Leibniz gives Bayle in paragraphs § 121, 22 and following; he seeks to avoid difficulty by saying that it is not a question of the individual but of the whole universe. This is ridiculous, for if there is just one individual man who has valid reason to complain, then the universe does not help. The answer is that even in sin man is greater, more fortunate, than if it had not appeared, for even the split in man has more significance than immediate innocence.32

This can be read as a rejection of Leibniz’s solution to the theodicy problem but is perhaps better seen as a dismissal of the whole problem as such. Rather than addressing the abstract question of whether or not the goodness and omnipotence of God are consistent with there being evil in the world, Kierkegaard is concerned with the question of how suffering can be meaningful, thus in effect turning attention away from the whole theodicy problem and towards the existential problems raised by the existence of evil and suffering.

Theodicy 2, § 119. SKS 19, 391–2, Not13:23 / JP 1, 40. 31 See, e.g., Theodicy 1, § 22, § 25. 32 SKS 19, 391–2, Not13:23 / JP 1, 40. 29 30

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This difference of approach between Kierkegaard and Leibniz has consequences for how they conceive of some key Christian doctrines, for example, sin. On this issue, the Theodicy had little to offer Kierkegaard. Leibniz’s analysis of sin as privation seems to have left him puzzled, rather than inspired: “Leibniz believes that the ground of evil is not to be sought in matter but in the ideal nature of creation (see § 20. § 31; the different expressions must be compared...) what he understands by that.”33 Some years later, in 1850, he writes in his diary that “Christianity makes sin the most dreadful thing―and then wants to have it removed. A more lenient view (Leibniz, for example) wants to make sin more benign....”34 So it seems clear that when Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death expands on the theme that man is more fortunate in sin than in a state of immediate innocence, he does so without bringing in Leibniz’s analysis of sin as privation, although he does in these works seem to posit sin to “the ideal nature of creation.” In sum, it seems that Kierkegaard is in overall agreement with Leibniz’s distinction between above reason and against reason, understood as a conceptual model, but that he disagrees in some respects with Leibniz’s use of the distinction. As we shall argue in the next section, Kierkegaard seems not to agree fully with Leibniz’s notion of necessity, either. II. Necessity versus the Principle of Sufficient Reason As to other traces of the Theodicy in Kierkegaard’s writings, the following marginal note is quite informative: “The difference between necessity and la raison du mellieur [sic] and that a completely indifferent freedom is nonsense are the two cardinal ideas in Leibniz’s Theodicy.”35 In this section we discuss the first of these “cardinal ideas,” which we take to be the difference between necessity and sufficient reason.36 In the next section we turn to the second “cardinal idea.” First a few words about how we understand the expression “cardinal idea.” The Theodicy is a complex web of interrelated arguments in which many other ideas may just as well be called “cardinal,” such as pre-established harmony, possible worlds, the rule of the best, and so forth. In the marginal note just quoted, Kierkegaard is saying which ideas he regards as most important in the Theodicy. He is not saying, SKS 19, 391, Not13:23 / JP 3, 2364. SKS 23, Not15:72 / JP 4, 4027. 35 SKS 19, 392, Not13:23.c / JP 3, 2366. 36 This calls for an explanation. Leibniz’s expression for sufficient reason is la raison suffisante, while la raison du meilleur (literally, “the reason of the best”) seems not to be used in the Theodicy. (There is thus a question of whether Kierkegaard coined the expression himself or took it from a popularizing version of Leibniz.) But Leibniz uses several similar expressions, e.g., le principe du meilleur (“the principle of the best”) and la loi du meilleur (“the law of the best”), all of which seem to refer to God’s principle, law, etc. (see SKS K19, 567). So the expression la raison du meilleur seems to refer to God’s reason. On the assumption that Kierkegaard does not have in mind God’s reasons for creating the world, God’s reasons are just the reasons captured in the principle of sufficient reason. So we take la raison du meilleur to be equivalent to “sufficient reason.” 33 34

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at least not in so many words, which ideas in the work that he has found most useful for his own project. But it is quite natural to attend to other peoples’ ideas to the extent that one finds them congenial to one’s own. So we believe it is fair to say that the “cardinal ideas” are two strands in the Theodicy that Kierkegaard found useful for his own project. According to Leibniz, the distinction between necessity and sufficient reason is a contrast between the fact that something holds of necessity because its negation is contradictory, on the one hand, and the fact that everything happens for a reason, on the other. In § 1 of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, Climacus alludes to a distinction of this kind: “All coming into existence occurs in freedom, not by way of necessity. Nothing coming into existence comes into existence by way of a ground, but everything by way of a cause.”37 We shall briefly look at some similarities and differences between Kierkegaard and Leibniz on this issue. The main similarity is that Kierkegaard, like Leibniz, seems to operate with a distinction between two spheres, each consisting of three members. On the one hand, there is the sphere of essences, whose being is necessary, and the cognition of which is knowledge. On the other hand, there is a sphere of existence, whose being is contingent, and the cognition of which is belief. It is this distinction between two separate spheres that Kierkegaard seems to ascribe to Leibniz as “the difference between necessity and [sufficient reason],” as he says in the note quoted above, thus associating the principle of sufficient reason with the sphere of existence, contingency and beliefs. But again Kierkegaard understands some of these notions in a different way from Leibniz. One difference brings out the contrast between the rationalist metaphysical tradition to which Leibniz belongs and the new philosophy Kierkegaard was developing. The difference concerns Kierkegaard’s distinction between ideal being and factual being. We have already seen that, in the footnote on God’s existence in Chapter 3 of Philosophical Fragments, Climacus says that “[i]n the old days this was expressed, even though somewhat imperfectly, as follows: If God is possible, he is eo ipso necessary (Leibniz).”38 The caveat “even though somewhat imperfectly” is crucial for our present purposes. For what Climacus seems to be saying is that he accepts Leibniz’s statement that the possibility of God’s existence entails that he exists of necessity, but only as far as ideal being is concerned, arguing that it contributes nothing to the factual being of God. Kierkegaard’s distinction between ideal being and factual being is in fact foreign to the metaphysical tradition to which Leibniz belongs. Worse, it is even detrimental to the very principle of sufficient reason on which Leibniz’s whole system relies, including, notably, his proof of God’s existence.39 For in the Platonic metaphysical tradition to which Leibniz belongs, it is often taken for granted that a cause has more being than that of which it is the cause, which is a presupposition that Climacus flatly denies when he, in the same footnote, argues that God has no more factual being than a fly. We believe it is fair to say that SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75. The phrase that “nothing comes into existence by way of a ground” is polemics against the Hegelians of the time. 38 SKS 4, 247 / PF, 42. 39 See, e.g., Theodicy Pre. Diss., § 44; Theodicy 1, § 44. 37

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Leibniz’s solution to the theodicy problem is based on a rationalistic tradition in philosophy, with which Kierkegaard breaks. That said, Kierkegaard’s dismissal of Leibniz’s rationalism was far from complete. One example of this is the fact that the metaphysical difference just outlined does not seem to affect Kierkegaard’s notion of knowledge. For he seems to agree with Leibniz and other rationalists that we may have knowledge only of essences, which are the only objects that exist of necessity. Leibniz strongly suggests this in a number of passages in the Theodicy: for example, the following: Plato said in Timaeus that the world originated in Understanding united to Necessity. Others have united God and Nature. This can be given a reasonable meaning. God will be the Understanding; and the Necessity, that is, the essential nature of things, will be the object of the understanding, in so far as this object consists in the eternal verities. But this object is inward and abides in the divine understanding.40

We will see shortly that Kierkegaard cites with approval another paragraph in the Theodicy in which Leibniz talks about “understanding” and “seeing” essences: that is, the essential properties of things. There is, however, too little evidence to be able to say for certain how Kierkegaard understood Leibniz’s notions of essence and knowledge. There is more evidence for the sphere of contingency, existence and belief. We have said that Kierkegaard associates this sphere with Leibniz’s notion of sufficient reason. Several paragraphs in the Theodicy confirm that Kierkegaard is right in this, for example, the following: [N]othing ever comes to pass without there being a cause or at least a reason determining it, that is, something to give an a priori reason why it is existent rather than non-existent, and in this wise rather than in any other. This great principle holds for all events...and although more often than not we are insufficiently acquainted with these determinant reasons, we perceive nevertheless that there are such.41

Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason thus accounts for a thing’s existence: that is, for “why [something] is existent rather than non-existent, and [why it is] in this wise rather than in any other” (see the passage just quoted). What Kierkegaard seems to have found inspiring in this, is the fact that in virtue of the principle of sufficient reason, a thing’s existence in the contingent sphere is not random. This in turn has implications for how Kierkegaard conceived of the freedom of the will, as we will see in the next section. Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason has also epistemic aspects, as the passage just quoted makes clear. For what Leibniz seems to be saying, is that while the nature of sufficient reasons in principle can be grasped a priori, in concrete situations it is often unclear to us why things are the way they are. This amounts, in effect, to two different ways in which we can have epistemic access to sufficient reasons. Leibniz labels these two ways of having access to reasons, “seeing” and “believing.” Here 40 41



Theodicy 1, § 20. Theodicy Pre. Diss., § 44.

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is what he says: “I call ‘seeing’ here what one knows a priori by the causes; and ‘believing’ what one only judges by the effects, even though the one be as certainly known as the other.”42 On reading this, Kierkegaard wrote in his notebook: “On p. 52 he uses the expression ‘to see’ for that which is known a priori on the basis of genuine causes; ‘to believe’ for that which is concluded only from the effect.”43 In other words, Kierkegaard took an interest in Leibniz’s view that one can see that an effect has a certain cause, but that one will arrive at a belief only if one infers from the effect to its cause. We will understand better why Kierkegaard was interested in this distinction if we bear in mind that Leibniz further characterizes beliefs in terms of their degrees of certainty. For example, he discusses the notion of certainty with respect to future events: Thus the contingent is not, because it is future, any the less contingent; and determination, which would be called certainty if it were known, is not incompatible with contingency. Often the certain and the determinate are taken as one thing, because a determinate truth is capable of being known: thus it may be said that determination is an objective certainty.44

In other words, according to Leibniz, we may have cognition of what is contingent: that is, existing things, by forming beliefs, and these beliefs can be more or less certain. By contrast, we may have a priori knowledge only of necessary truths in mathematics and metaphysics, as we said above. This should sound familiar to readers of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, where Climacus in § 4 elaborates on the uncertainty of beliefs in contrast to the certitudes of immediate sensation. Having argued that beliefs result from an act of the will, he contrasts them with “immediate sense perception and cognition,” which “do not have any intimation of the unsureness with which belief approaches its object.”45 This leads to a discussion of doubt, which again is couched in terms of the will: Immediate sensation and cognition cannot deceive....Greek skepticism was a withdrawing skepticism...; they doubted not by virtue of knowledge but by virtue of will....The Greek skeptic did not deny the correctness of sensation and immediate cognition, but, said he, error has an utterly different basis—it comes from the conclusions I draw. If I can avoid drawing conclusion, I shall never be deceived.46

Now, § 4 of the “Interlude” is by any standards a difficult text. Interpreters may find it useful to compare the quotation above with a paragraph from the Theodicy, where Leibniz is discussing an objection that Bayle had made to the distinction between against reason and above reason: Ibid. The reference to “p. 52” is to Gottsched’s translation of the Theodicy. SKS 19, 390, Not13:23 / JP 3, 3073. 44 Theodicy 1, § 36. 45 SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82. 46 SKS 4, 281 / PF, 82–3. 42 43

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[M]y answer to this objection is that the representation of the senses...is often against the truth; but it is not the same with the faculty of reasoning, when it does its duty, since a strictly reasoned argument is nothing but a linking together of truths....The external senses, properly speaking, do not deceive us. It is our inner sense which often makes us go too fast....Now when the understanding uses and follows the false decision of the inner sense...it is deceived by the judgement it makes upon the effect of appearances, and it infers from them more than they imply.47

The overall impression created by the two last-quoted passages is that Kierkegaard’s and Leibniz’s notions of belief and certainty are similar in a number of respects. More precisely, we believe the following six views are shared by the two thinkers: (1) that it is up to our reason to attain a priori truths; (2) that it is up to an inner sense to decide how information from the senses is to be interpreted; (3) that this decision is or is not governed by correct reasoning; (4) that the formation of a belief depends on an act of the will, (5) that one difference between belief and knowledge is that the former is more or less certain; and (6) that the degree of certainty one’s beliefs attain depends on the degree to which one has grasped the sufficient reason for things being as they are. But again there is a difference in terms of the extent to which Kierkegaard embraces rationalism. We see this from the fact that Leibniz refers to correct reasoning at the point where Kierkegaard makes a detour through Greek skepticism. It is arguably not clear how much weight we are to place on this, especially since Leibniz’s argument is aimed at Bayle’s objection, which in turn arises from arguments found in Greek skepticism.48 But it may be taken to suggest that Kierkegaard accommodated Leibniz’s trust in human reason only up to a point. Despite this and other differences in terms of how notions are applied, it does seem fair to say that Kierkegaard saw in the Theodicy a distinction between two spheres of being that he identified as “the difference between necessity and [sufficient reason],” and which he found cognate to his own thinking. The issue we turn to next shows an even greater similarity between Kierkegaard and Leibniz’s rationalist tradition. III. The Nature of Freedom The second “cardinal idea” in the Theodicy, according to Kierkegaard, is “that a fully indifferent freedom is nonsense.”49 Another note, in which Kierkegaard is using the term “will” rather than “freedom,” makes the same point: “A completely indifferent will (equilibrium) is a nothing, a chimera; Leibniz demonstrates this superbly in many places; Bayle also acknowledges this (in opposition to Epicurus).”50 None of these notes refers to paragraphs in the Theodicy, but in the latter case, Kierkegaard seems to have had in front of him the following passage from “Part Three” of the Theodicy: Theodicy Pre. Diss., §§ 64–5. See ibid. 49 SKS 19, 392, Not13:23.c / JP 3, 2366. 50 SKS 19, 393, Not13:23 / JP 2, 1241. 47 48

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Håvard Løkke and Arild Waaler [A]s I have declared more than once, I do not admit an indifference of equipoise,51 and I do not think that one ever chooses when one is absolutely indifferent....Epicurus [introduced his theory of a swerve of atoms] in order to evade necessity....This swerve had a final cause in the mind of Epicurus, his aim being to free us from fate; but it can have no efficient cause in the nature of things, it is one of the most impossible of chimeras. M. Bayle himself refutes it admirably....52

The use of “chimera” in both Kierkegaard’s note and Leibniz’s text also suggests that the note was made while reading the Theodicy 3, §§ 303–4.53 But in the passage just quoted, Leibniz repeats a theme that recurs often in the Theodicy, as he makes clear by saying “as I have declared more than once.” The first mention of this theme in the Theodicy is the following passage from “Part One”: I am of [the] opinion that our will is exempt not only from constraint but also from necessity. Aristotle has already observed that there are two things in freedom, to wit, spontaneity and choice, and therein lies our mastery over our actions....It is not to be imagined...that our freedom consists in an indetermination or an indifference of equipoise, as if one must needs be inclined equally to the side of yes and of no and in the direction of different courses, when there are several of them to take. This equipoise in all directions is impossible....54

This paragraph also caught Kierkegaard’s attention. On reading it he wrote in his notebook: “In connection with the doctrine of sufficient reason, he [Leibniz] shows that there is no indifferentia aequiliberii. He returns to Aristotle. (cf. § 34)....”55 So in these two passages in the Theodicy (and no doubt several others), Kierkegaard found support for his own view that “a fully indifferent freedom is nonsense”: that is, that “a completely indifferent will...is a nothing, a chimera.” How are we to understand this? On the negative side, we may observe that Kierkegaard agrees with Leibniz on how not to conceive of freedom. The classical illustration of the sort of “completely indifferent will” that Kierkegaard and Leibniz found impossible is known as Buridan’s ass, mentioned by Leibniz as a sophism.56 This poor animal could not decide between two equally attractive stacks of hay and hence starved to death. Kierkegaard follows Leibniz in insisting that this is not how a free will works. Leibniz’s own view on how a free will works is the view “of all the ancients, of Plato, of Aristotle, of St. Augustine,” namely, the view that “the will is never prompted to action save by the “Indifference of equipoise” translates indifferentia aequiliberii, a Latin expression used by Kierkegaard. 52 Theodicy 3, §§ 303–4, substituting “swerve” for Huggard’s “deviation.” 53 A chimera (“she-goat”) is a monstrous creature in Greek mythology (see, e.g., Homer, Iliad, 6, 179–82). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term could be used from around Leibniz’s time to designate “a wild and fanciful conception.” 54 Theodicy 1, § 34–5. 55 SKS 19, 391, Not13:23. On the Latin expression indifferentia aequiliberii, see note 51 above. 56 See Theodicy 3, § 307: “I have set out elsewhere the true rejoinder to the Buridan sophism: it is that the case of perfect equipoise is impossible....” 51

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representation of the good”: that is, that “the will consists in the inclination to do something in proportion to the good it contains.”57 In other words, Leibniz holds that to will something is to regard it as good and thus to have an inclination towards it, which is the sufficient reason for the thing happening without it being forced. Kierkegaard’s views on freedom are perhaps more complex, but not a subject we need to discuss here. On the positive side, however, one should note the following reference to Leibniz at the beginning of Chapter 4 of The Concept of Anxiety: We have nowhere been guilty of the foolishness that holds that man must sin; on the contrary, we have always protested against all merely imaginatively constructed knowledge. We have said what we again repeat, that sin presupposes itself, just as freedom presupposes itself, and sin cannot be explained by anything antecedent to it, anymore than can freedom. To maintain that freedom begins as liberum arbitrium (which is found nowhere, cf. Leibniz) that can choose good just as well as evil inevitably makes every explanation impossible.58

This suggests that Kierkegaard had a positive interest in Leibniz’s rejection of Buridan’s ass, because a fully indifferent will “inevitably makes every explanation impossible.” It is not clear how we are to square this claim with the preceding one, namely, that freedom cannot be explained “by anything antecedent to it.” The idea seems to be that one should not rule out explaining the workings of a free will as long as this explanation is not in terms of something happening before the forming of a decision. And the reason why one should not rule this out might be that one should heed Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason: that is, the doctrine that there is no event without a cause. We have seen that Kierkegaard connects the principle of sufficient reason with the refutation of a completely indifferent will, writing in his notebook that “[i]n connection with the doctrine of sufficient reason, he [Leibniz] shows that there is no indifferentia aequiliberii.”59 However, this evidence alone does not enable us to say anything specific about the extent to which Kierkegaard subscribed to Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason. This completes our discussion of some important notes Kierkegaard took while reading the Theodicy, first on the relation between faith and reason, then on a group of modal, ontological and epistemic concepts belonging to two spheres, and finally on the nature of free will. We turn now to discuss two central Kierkegaard texts and Leibniz’s role in these. In both discussions the notion of agency will play a key role.

59 57 58

Theodicy 1, § 22, § 45. SKS 4, 414 / CA, 112. SKS 19, 391, Not13:23, quoted also above.

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IV. Agency, Possible Worlds and the Apprehension of the Past In § 4 of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Climacus is portraying a philosopher who speculatively apprehends the past as “a prophet in reverse.” It is in expanding on this point that he refers to Leibniz: That he is a prophet simply indicates that the basis of the certainty of the past is the uncertainty regarding it in the same sense as there is uncertainty regarding the future, the possibility (Leibniz—the possible worlds), out of which it could not possibly come forth with necessity.60

To see what Climacus getting at, we need to look at his line of thought in the “Interlude” as a whole. In § 1 he starts by introducing the notion of κίνησις (movement, change), which he takes to denote a real phenomenon, i.e. a transition from possibility to actuality, not in logic but in reality. In § 2 he builds on this notion of κίνησις to develop a notion of history. Here he draws a key distinction between “the historical in the stricter sense” and the “more special historical coming into existence;”61 the latter is brought about by “a relatively freely acting cause,”62 presumably human agents originating κίνησις, while the former is “dialectical with respect to time,”63 and the result of human apprehension of the past, as we will learn later in the “Interlude.” In § 3, then, Climacus argues that the fact that the past cannot be changed, does not entail that it holds of necessity. Rather, necessity pertains only to essences, while “[t]o want to predict the future (prophesy) and to want to understand the necessity of the past are altogether identical....”64 That is why seeing past events as necessary amounts to acting as “a prophet in reverse,”65 as Climacus says at the outset of § 4. This view has striking epistemic consequences. For if the past is as uncertain as the future, we cannot attain knowledge of either. The way we relate to the past is, rather, just as the way we relate to the future, namely, in terms of belief (Tro).66 We will see this if we look at the way Kierkegaard summarizes his view towards the end of § 4: Belief and coming into existence correspond to each other and involve the annulled qualifications of being, the past and the future....The possibility from which emerged the possible that became the actual always accompanies that which came into existence and remains with the past, even though centuries lie between. As soon as one who comes later repeats that it has come into existence (which he does by believing it), he repeats

SKS 4, 279 / PF, 80. SKS 4, 276 / PF, 76. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 SKS 4, 277 / PF, 77. 65 SKS 4, 279 / PF, 80. 66 One should bear in mind that the Danish word Tro can mean both belief and faith. So even if “belief” is the correct translation of Tro as used in the “Interlude,” the Danish word has connotations not captured by the English word “belief.” 60 61

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its possibility, regardless of whether there may or may not be more specific conceptions of this possibility.67

So, according to Climacus, history is construed by people deciding to form one belief rather than another, thus selecting one possibility among a number of others. This conception of history makes the apprehension of the past a matter of uncertainty, presumably because the future possibilities that at a given time pertain will continue to exist as past possibilities also after some of them have been actualized. To apprehend the past means not just to report what has happened but rather to explain why some things happened rather than others, and such an explanation can be given only on the basis of beliefs. What has this to do with Leibniz? It is important to note that Kierkegaard refers to Leibniz’s doctrine of possible worlds, as we saw in the quotation at the outset of this section. This suggests that we may get further insight into the notion of possibility that is at play in the “Interlude” by consulting Leibniz’s doctrine of possible worlds. In the Theodicy we find that the notion of possible worlds is used as a vehicle for explaining divine agency in Leibniz’s solution to the theodicy problem. Contingent things, Leibniz argues, have “nothing in them to render their existence necessary.”68 Therefore, one must seek the reason for the existence of the world, which is the whole assemblage of contingent things, and seek it in the substance which carries with it the reason for its existence, and which in consequence is necessary and eternal. Moreover, this cause must be intelligent: for this existing world being contingent and an infinity of other worlds being equally possible, and holding, so to say, equal claim to existence with it, the cause of the world must needs have had regard or reference to all these possible worlds in order to fix upon one of them.69

Leibniz defines and justifies the notion of a possible world as “the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in different times and different places.”70 Possible worlds are thus conceptualized in God’s mind, whose “understanding is the source of essences,” while it is God’s will that “is the origin of existences.”71 In one of his notes, Kierkegaard observes that Leibniz applies his theory of possible worlds to divine creation: The idea of many possible worlds is the one whereby he [Leibniz] really attributes consciousness to God [egl. gjør Gud vidende], for if there are many possible worlds, a choice is presupposed, and a choice presupposes consciousness [Bevidsthed] (§ 7): He

67 SKS 4, 284 / PF, 86–7. Note the talk about repeating, a subject that we will look at more closely in the next section. 68 Theodicy 1, § 7. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid., 1, § 8. 71 Ibid., 1, § 7.

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The divine choice that Kierkegaard has in mind is the act by which a possible world is given existence, and this choice is, according to Leibniz, governed by rational criteria. As Leibniz says: “There is an infinitude of possible worlds among which God must needs have chosen the best, since he does nothing without acting in accordance with supreme reason.”73 Kierkegaard seems to use Leibniz’s exposition of divine cognition and agency as a model for human cognition and agency. Or, rather, he seems not to operate here with a sharp distinction between divine and human cognition and agency. We can see this in the passage in the “Interlude” where Climacus refers to Leibniz’s notion of possible worlds. For he speaks there about “the uncertainty regarding the future,” which pertains to human beings only, since God has foreknowledge. We can see it also from the fact that Climacus in § 2 of the “Interlude” seems to refer to a human agent and a divine agent in very similar terms: that is, as a “relatively freely acting cause” and an “absolutely freely acting cause,” respectively. It is not entirely clear from the Theodicy how Leibniz conceived of the relation between divine and human agency. On the one hand, he moves from discussing human agency to discussing divine agency, without commenting on the move.74 On the other hand, he seems not to link the notion of possible worlds directly to human agency. On balance, then, we believe it is fair to say that when Kierkegaard refers to possible worlds in the “Interlude,” he is putting Leibniz’s notion to use in a way that it was not primarily intended: Leibniz used it primarily to argue that in the best possible world, the totality of goodness justifies the existence of evil; Kierkegaard, by contrast, understands the notion to apply to possibilities at the level of human existence. One may want to argue that this is but a small step, especially since Leibniz himself assumes that human virtues are finite expressions of the infinite divine goodness, and that the properties ascribed to God are “infinitely” supreme versions of human virtues. What is important for our purpose, however, is merely to establish that it is a step that Kierkegaard seems to have taken. It is also important to see that Kierkegaard does this primarily in an epistemic context. What we do, he says, is to form a belief, and a specific type of belief at that: namely, a belief about the past. We have seen that epistemic terms are not as such foreign to Leibniz’s notion of possible worlds. When God creates the best possible world, he conceptualizes possible worlds in his mind before selecting the best of them. But as we have argued, Kierkegaard applies this model to the level of human epistemic agency, describing how we come to form beliefs about the past. To understand what Kierkegaard is getting at, we must return again to the notion of κίνησις as used in §§ 1–2 of the “Interlude.” Here Kierkegaard seems to turn Aristotle’s notion of κίνησις on its head, making essences, not physical objects, the subjects of coming into existence, thus emphasizing the notion of agency over SKS 19, 392, Not13:23 / JP 3, 2365. Theodicy 1, § 8. 74 See Theodicy 1, §§ 50–2. 72 73

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the notion of substance. This seems to imply two other views to which Kierkegaard was committed: namely (1) that the change from possibility to actuality occurs when essences are instantiated in objects, and (2) that this instantiation always requires an agent other than the subject of change. Since agency is free, it cannot be fully comprehended by other humans. It is against this background that Climacus elaborates on the role of belief: It is clear, then, that the organ for the historical must be formed in likeness to this, must have within itself the corresponding something by which in its certitude it continually annuls the incertitude that corresponds to the uncertainty of coming into existence—a double uncertainty: the nothingness of non-being and the annihilated possibility, which is also the annihilation of every other possibility. This is precisely the nature of belief, for continually present as the nullified in the certitude of belief is the incertitude that in every way corresponds to the uncertainty of coming into existence.75

Belief, then, is just like κίνησις in that it is understood relative to possibilities, one of which is made actual, the others being annihilated. To form a belief is to make a decision, a resolution, by means of which one possibility is made certain. And this, according to Kierkegaard, is “an act of freedom, an expression of the will.”76 Knowledge is unlike belief in that it is attained by drawing a conclusion that necessarily follows from its premises. So since both κίνησις and belief involve a resolution bringing about a transition from possibility to actuality, there is a sense in which belief according to Kierkegaard is more like κίνησις than it is like knowledge. As we have seen, there is some reason to think that Kierkegaard’s thinking on the forming of belief was inspired by Leibniz’s notion of divine agency, in particular the notion of possible worlds, but that this amounts to putting a crucial notion from the Theodicy to a use for which it was not primarily intended. In the final section we look at how Leibniz may have inspired Kierkegaard’s thinking on agency in the more familiar sense. V. Agency, Repetition and Practical Philosophy Repetition begins by contrasting the notion of repetition with recollection, stating that they are “the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected, has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward.”77 It seems that, since recollection is a process aimed at getting hold of the essence of things that occur in actuality, repetition, the opposite, is a movement from essence to actual being. In other words, it seems that while recollection is an epistemic concept, repetition is a concept belonging to practical philosophy. We quote the important passage again:

77 75 76

SKS 4, 280–1 / PF, 81. SKS 4, 282 / PF, 83. SKS 4, 9 / R, 131.

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Håvard Løkke and Arild Waaler Say what you will, this question will play a very important role in modern philosophy, for repetition is a crucial expression for what “recollection” was for the Greeks. Just as they taught that all knowing is a recollecting, modern philosophy will teach that all life is a repetition. The only modern philosopher who has had an intimation of this is Leibniz.78

Leibniz is here said to be the only recent philosopher who has vaguely seen “that all life is a repetition,” a point missed by all the others. That alone makes it very tempting to speculate about what it is that Leibniz saw, according to Kierkegaard. Speculations easily lead astray, and we underline that we do not mean to contribute to the debate on Kierkegaard’s notion of repetition, beyond commenting on the reference to Leibniz.79 It is easy to forget that the vague reference to Leibniz in the passage just quoted does not imply that there is a fully developed notion of repetition in the Theodicy, and that Kierkegaard seems not to have studied any other works by Leibniz. The commentators to the third edition of Kierkegaard’s works in Danish seem to us to be far too speculative when they suggest that the reference just cited is a tacit allusion to Leibniz’s doctrine of the monads.80 We know of no evidence to suggest that Kierkegaard was impressed by the monadology. Moreover, we find that Leibniz’s monadology is so much at odds with the notion of repetition that it would be unreasonable to assume that Kierkegaard related the two. It is more reasonable, we find, to assume that Kierkegaard related his theory of repetition to some aspects of Leibniz that he knew reasonably well and which did make an impression on him. With all these provisos, then, we find that the following passage a bit further on in Repetition, is reminiscent of the Theodicy: 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. Repetition—that is actuality and the earnestness of existence.81

If we are right to assume that Kierkegaard in Philosophical Fragments adopts Leibniz’s notion of divine agency as a model for human agency, the passage just quoted suggests an answer to a salient question: namely, what it is that gets repeated. For if it is Leibniz’s doctrine of divine creation that Kierkegaard had in mind when he referred to him at the outset of the Repetition, it seems clear that essences are what Ibid. For recent work on Repetition, see Clare Carlisle, Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions, Albany: State University of New York Press 2005, esp. Chapter 5; Niels Nymann Eriksen, Kierkegaard’s Category of Repetition: A Reconstruction, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2000; Dorothea Glöckner, Kierkegaards Begriff der Wiederholung, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 1998; Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2003, esp. Chapter 6. 80 See SV3, 5, p. 272 (note to p. 115). 81 SKS 4, 10–11 / R, 133. 78 79

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gets repeated. On this interpretation, a repetition consists of a contemplated action becoming real. And the only way in which that can happen, we have argued, is by the essences being instantiated by an agent. The following passage in Repetition is compatible with this interpretation: The dialectic of repetition is easy, for that which is repeated has been—otherwise it could not be repeated—but the very fact that it has been makes the repetition into something new. When the Greeks said that all knowing is recollecting, they said that all existence, which is, has been; when one says that life is a repetition, one says: actuality, which has been, now comes into existence.82

Recall that, in § 1 of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, Climacus introduces the notion of κίνησις as a transition from possibility to actuality: “But this nonbeing that is abandoned by that which comes into existence must also exist.”83 Here in the Repetition, it is likewise claimed that that which is repeated already has a kind of existence. In other words, the dialectic is similar. So we suggest that what Leibniz alone had an “intimation” of was the idea that that which is repeated exists in ideality prior to the repetition and in actuality after it has been instantiated by an agent. Clearly, this bears on freedom, as we will see if we consult Kierkegaard’s journals. For example, Kierkegaard distinguishes three types for repetition, saying of the first type that “[w]hen I am going to act, my action has existed in my consciousness in conception and in thought—otherwise I act thoughtlessly—that is, I do not act.”84 Again, this arguably suggests that Kierkegaard adopted Leibniz’s doctrine of divine agency as a model for human agency. Moreover, it seems that he may have been inspired also by Leibniz’s own reflections on the nature of human freedom, for which deliberation is central: There is contingency in a thousand actions of Nature; but when there is no judgement in him who acts there is no freedom. And if we had judgement not accompanied by any inclination to act, our soul would be an understanding without will.85

But Kierkegaard does not comment on this or similar passages from the Theodicy. VI. Conclusion We have argued that reading the Theodicy inspired Kierkegaard in three respects, of which we have said nothing about the Theodicy as a source for the history of philosophy, focusing instead on the similarities in conceptual apparatus and in doctrine. The Leibniz doctrine from which Kierkegaard drew most inspiration, is the doctrine of divine agency. He applies this, more directly than Leibniz seems to do, to human agency, and, following Leibniz, he regards agency as a key phenomenon in both cognition and action. Moreover, Kierkegaard agrees with Leibniz that both 84 85 82 83

SKS 4, 25 / R, 149. SKS 4, 273 / PF, 73. SKS 18, 191, JJ:159 / JP 3, 3793. Theodicy 1, § 34.

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epistemic and practical agency involve free will, and with how the operations of a free will are not to be conceived. Further, Kierkegaard seems to be inspired by a downsized version of Leibniz’s conceptual apparatus, partly by confirming his own views on such issues as the distinction between necessity and contingency, partly by presenting him with a clear version of a rationalistic tradition, with which he disagreed.

Bibliography I. Leibniz’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Theodicee, das ist, Versuch von der Güte Gottes, Freyheit des Menschen, und vom Ursprunge des Bösen, ed. by Johann Christoph Gottsched, 5th revised ed., Hannover and Leipzig: Im Verlage der Försterischen Erben 1763 (ASKB 619). Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Berlin: [Eichler] 1839–40 (ASKB 620). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Leibniz Baader, Franz von, Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen LudwigMaximilians-Hochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich: Giel 1827, p. 14; p. 100 (ASKB 395). —— Revision der Philosopheme der Hegel’schen Schule bezüglich auf das Christenthum. Nebst zehn Thesen aus einer religiösen Philosophie, Stuttgart: S.G. Liesching 1839, p. 161 (ASKB 416). Baur, Ferdinand Christian, Die christliche Lehre von der Versöhnung in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung von der ältesten Zeit bis auf die neueste, Tübingen: Osiander 1838, pp. 457–8; p. 492 (ASKB 423). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 9, p. 305; pp. 307–13; vol. 10, p. 523; p. 547 (ASKB 1972–1983). Bruch, Johann Friedrich, Die Lehre von den göttlichen Eigenschaften, Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes 1842, p. 1 (ASKB 439). Cousin, Victor, Über französische und deutsche Philosophie. Aus dem Französischen von Dr. Hubert Beckers, Professor. Nebst einer beurtheilenden Vorrede des Herrn Geheimraths von Schelling, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1834, p. 32; p. 41; p. 59 (ASKB 471). Erdmann, Johann Eduard, Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1837, p. 12 (ASKB 479). —— Leib und Seele nach ihrem Begriff und ihrem Verhältniß zu einander. Ein Beitrag zur Begründung der philosophischen Anthropologie, Halle: C.A. Schwetschke und Sohn 1837, p. 4; pp. 95–6; p. 99; p. 101; p. 104 (ASKB 480).

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—— Grundriss der Logik und Metaphysik, Halle: Lippert 1841, pp. 31–3; p. 53; p. 73; p. 77; p. 88; p. 92 (ASKB 483). Feuerbach, Ludwig, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie. Darstellung, Entwicklung und Kritik der Leibnitz’schen Philosophie, Ansbach: Carl Brügel 1837 (ASKB 487). Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, Sätze zur Vorschule der Theologie, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1826, p. XXI (ASKB 501). —— De principiorum contradictionis, identitatis, exclusi tertii in logicis dignitate et ordine commentatio, Bonn: Karl Georg 1840, p. 12 (ASKB 507). —— Beiträge zur Charakteristik der neueren Philosophie, oder kritische Geschichte derselben von Des Cartes und Locke bis auf Hegel, 2nd revised ed., Sulzbach: in der J.E. Seidelschen Buchhandlung 1841, pp. 427–79 (ASKB 508). Fischer, Carl Philipp, Die Idee der Gottheit. Ein Versuch, den Theismus speculativ zu begründen und zu entwickeln, Stuttgart: S.G. Liesching 1839, pp. XII–XIV; p. XVI; p. XVIII (ASKB 512). Fischer, Friedrich, Die Metaphysik, von empirischem Standpunkte aus dargestellt. Zur Verwirklichung der Aristotelischen Metaphysik, Basel: Schweighauser 1847, p. 5, p. 80 (ASKB 513). Flögel, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte der komischen Litteratur, vols. 1–4, Liegnitz and Leipzig: David Siegert 1784–87, vol. 1, p. 105; p. 300 (ASKB 1396–1399). Hahn, August (ed.), Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, Leipzig: Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel 1828, p. 34; p. 52; p. 606 (ASKB 535). [Hase, Karl], Hutterus redivivus oder Dogmatik der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche. Ein dogmatisches Repertorium für Studirende, 4th revised ed., Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1839, p. 43; p. 148 (ASKB 581). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Leibniz,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 449–73 (ASKB 557–559). Martensen, Hans Lassen, De Autonomia conscientiæ sui humanæ in theologiam dogmaticam nostri temporis introducta, Copenhagen: I.D. Quist 1837, p. 22 (ASKB 648). —— Den menneskelige Selvbevidstheds Autonomie i vor Tids dogmatiske Theologie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1841, p. 19 (ASKB 651, translation of ASKB 648, cf. also ASKB A I 41). —— Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1849, p. 82; p. 94; p. 192 (ASKB 653). Menzel, Wolfgang, Die deutsche Literatur, vols. 1–4, 2nd enlarged ed., Stuttgart: Hallberg’sche Verlagshandlung 1836, vol. 1, p. 266; vol. 3, p. 48 (ASKB U 79). Michelet, Carl Ludwig, Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes und Unsterblichkeit der Seele oder die ewige Persönlichkeit des Geistes, Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler 1841, p. 67 (ASKB 680). [Møller, Poul Martin], 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. 2, p. 166 (ASKB 1574–1576).

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Müller, Julius, Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Breslau: Josef Max und Komp. 1849, vol. 1, pp. 371–80; pp. 395–406; vol. 2, pp. 210–12 (ASKB 689–690). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 216; p. 258; p. 278; vol. 2, pp. 117–18; p. 120; pp. 162–3; p. 207 (ASKB 358–363). Nielsen, Rasmus, Den propædeutiske Logik, Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen 1845, p. 71; p. 160; pp. 168–74 passim; p. 211 (ASKB 699). Rosenkranz, Karl, Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, Danzig: Fr. Sam. Gerhard 1843, p. 35; p. 47 (ASKB 766). Schaller, Julius, Darstellung und Kritik der Philosophie Ludwig Feuerbach’s, Leipzig: Verlag der J.C. Hinrich 1847, p. 2 (ASKB 760). Sibbern, Frederik Christian, Logik som Tænkelære fra en intelligent Iagttagelses Standpunct og i analytisk-genetisk Fremstilling, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens Forlag trykt hos Fabritius de Tengnagel 1835, p. 129 (ASKB 777). —— Speculativ Kosmologie med Grundlag til en speculativ Theologie, Copenhagen: Forfatterens eget Forlag 1846, p. 26; pp. 43–4; p. 60; p. 101; p. 130 (ASKB 780). —— Om Forholdet imellem Sjæl og Legeme, saavel i Almindelighed som i phrenologisk, pathognomonisk, physiogonomisk og ethisk Henseende i Særdeleshed, Copenhagen: Paa Forfatterens eget Forlag 1849, p. 29; p. 50; pp. 60–77; p. 84; p. 115; p. 148; p. 199 (ASKB 781). Stilling, Peter Michael, Den moderne Atheisme eller den saakaldte Neohegelianismes Conseqvenser af den hegelske Philosophie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1844, pp. 19–25 passim (ASKB 801). Trendelenburg, Adolf, Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, Berlin: G. Bethge 1840, vol. 1, p. 272; vol. 2, p. 74; p. 96n; pp. 111–12; p. 325; p. 340 (ASKB 843). Weiße, Christian Hermann, Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Ch.F. Grimmer 1833, pp. 143–9; pp. 170–83; p. 197, note; p. 198; p. 221, note; p. 236; p. 255; p. 256, note; p. 284 (ASKB 866). Wirth, Johann Ulrich, “Lehre des Leibniz,” in his Die speculative Idee Gottes und die damit zusammenhängenden Probleme der Philosophie. Eine kritischdogmatische Untersuchung, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1845, pp. 310–31 (ASKB 876). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Leibniz Grimsley, Ronald, “Kierkegaard and Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 26, 1965, pp. 383–96. Schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel-Verlag 1968, p. 61; p. 110; pp. 123–8. Sorainen, Kalle, “Kierkegaard und Leibniz,” Ajatus, no. 17, 1952, pp. 177–86.

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Torralba Roselló, Francesc, “Lectura de la Teodicea de Leibniz,” in his Poética de la libertad Lectura de Kierkegaard, Madrid: Caparrós editores 1998, pp. 78–81. Viallaneix, Nelly, “Kierkegaard, lecteur de Leibniz,” Critique, vol. 25, 1969, pp. 895–914. Waaler, Arild, “Aristotle, Leibniz and the Modal Categories in the Interlude of the Fragments,” Kierkegaard Studies. Yearbook, 1998, pp. 276–91.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Appropriating the Testimony of a Theological Naturalist Curtis L. Thompson

Søren Kierkegaard recognized in the writings of the early modern critic, playwright, and littérateur Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) a kindred spirit with whom he could profitably form an alliance. On the surface it appears an unlikely partnership, with Kierkegaard defending religious faith in all its paradoxical irrationality and Lessing instigating the German Enlightenment with its advocacy of reason as the true basis of authority. Closer scrutiny, though, doing justice to the complex interaction of faith and reason in Kierkegaard, uncovers his appreciation of Lessing’s independent thinking, valuing of subjectivity, self-awareness in the modes of communication, acknowledgment of reason’s limits, and avowal of the unending quest for truth. Such an investigation also exposes the complexity of Lessing who—behind the veil of ambiguity created by prudent care not to parade his heterodox philosophical, religious, and theological viewpoints—is finally endorsing a theological naturalism that affirms the divine while insisting that all things must be understood within the confines of a natural account. The purpose of this essay is to tell the story of the unholy alliance Kierkegaard made with Lessing. It will unfold by first giving a synopsis of Lessing’s life and work, then treating Lessing as a source for Kierkegaard’s writings, and finally offering an interpretation of the relationship between these two fascinating intellectuals separated by a century in time but united in outlook on issues of existential import. I. Lessing’s Life and Work Lessing was born on January 22, 1729 in the quiet country town of Kamenz, located 30 miles north-east of Dresden between the Elbe and Oder rivers in the Oberlausitz region of Saxony, Germany. His father was Johann Gottfried Lessing (1693– For biographical accounts of Lessing’s life, all of which I have drawn upon for this overview, see Barbara Fischer and Thomas C. Fox, “Lessing’s Life and Work,” in A Companion to the Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, ed. by Barbara Fischer and Thomas C. Fox, Rochester, New York: Boydell & Brewer 2005, pp. 13–39; an old but still useful book that has been recently reprinted: namely, T.W. Rolleston, Life of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, London: Walter Scott 1889 (reprinted, Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing 

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1770) and his mother was Justine Salome Lessing (1703–77). He was raised in an environment dominated by the strict Lutheran piety and orthodoxy of his father. Educated in the classics in the Latin grammar school at Kamenz, Lessing then at the age of twelve, after passing a rigorous examination in Greek, mathematics, and the Lutheran Catechism, was given a free place—as the result of the scholarship his father obtained for him through the Elector of Saxony—at St. Afra, Meissen, one of three “Princes’ Schools” of Saxony, an elite boarding school. After five years of education at this fine school, Gotthold had been immersed in classical learning that was a gift of the Lutheran ethos of which it was a constitutive part. He would later criticize Lutheran Christianity with a passion, but he would always be unable to deny its inherent value and goodness. That same year Lessing matriculated as a student of Theology at the University of Leipzig. In this thriving cosmopolitian setting Gotthold sensed the possibilities open to him, and his independent spirit found its expression. He soon lost interest in theological lectures and was most intrigued by those of Johann Friedrich Christ (1700–56) in philology, Johann August Ernesti (1707–81) in biblical studies, and Abraham Gotthelf Kästner (1719–1800) in mathematics, science, and the philosophy of Leibniz. The University of Leipzig also housed the most powerful literary movement of the day, led by Professor Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–66). Lessing was in no sense interested in Gottsched, though he did become friends with 2005); Henry Burnand Garland, “Lessing’s Life,” in his Lessing: The Founder of Modern German Literature, London: Macmillan 1862, pp. 3–35; Edward M. Batley, “Life and Work,” in his Catalyst of Enlightenment: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Bern: Peter Lang 1990, pp. 11–82; Henry E. Allison, “Lessing’s Philosophical and Theological Development,” in his Lessing and the Enlightenment: His Philosophy of Religion and Its Relation to EighteenthCentury Thought, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1966, pp. 50–79; Toshimasa Yasukata, “Lessing and Christianity,” in his Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment: Lessing on Christianity and Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002, pp. 14–28; and the helpful chronology in Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, trans. and ed. by H.B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005, pp. viii–x.  As a Lutheran pastor he had studied theology and church history at the University of Wittenberg, knew the classics, French, English, and oriental languages, and had published theological pieces and translations.  His mother was the daughter of the chief pastor of Kamenz whose position was later assumed by her husband.  Christ was especially formative because his wide-ranging lectures delved into archaeology, the statues and engravings of classical antiquity, and teaching through example the critical method of starting with a trivial point and then unfolding it into a pointed and effective polemical attack on the position being considered.  Gottsched had developed rules for the practice of literature and had devoted himself especially to the reformation of the German stage on the basis of the principles of Aristotle as interpreted by the rules of French classicism and illustrated paradigmatically on the French stage by the tragedies of Pierre Corneille (1606–64) and Jean Racine (1639–99). Gottsched and his party had already been criticized by the Swiss critics Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698– 1783) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701–76), as well as by Caroline Neuber (1697–1760) of Leipzig, one of the most talented and renowned actresses of her age, who had previously assisted Gottsched to bring the German stage into closer contact with literature.

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the shy and awkward but talented C.F. Weisse (1726–1804) who was also interested in the theater and eventually became a dramatist; together, night after night, the two of them enjoyed the living action on the Leipzig stage, gaining free admission into the theater of Caroline Neuber and her acting company by translating French plays for her. At this time Lessing also became friends with Christlob Mylius (1722–54), the gifted, worldly, free-thinking renegade from Kamenz, seven years his senior, who enticed him even further away from books and into the world of sociality. In January, 1748, Frau Neuber’s company performed Lessing’s The Young Scholar, a comedy—ridiculing pedantry and his own tendencies in that direction—that he had sketched out during his Meissen days and now reworked in Leipzig. Lessing soon abandoned his career in theology for one in medicine. A degree in medicine eventually did come, but not without much meandering. In Berlin, Lessing worked as a journalist and critic, wrote miscellaneous poems, and met Voltaire (1694–1778) and translated his Shorter Historical Writings into German. The Magister Artium degree was earned from the University of Wittenberg in April 1752, on the basis of coursework completed and Lessing’s translation of a pioneering sixteenth-century work showing the connection between psychology and physiology by Juan Huarte (1530–92), the Spanish physician and psychologist. The year at Wittenberg leading up to earning the Master of the liberal arts degree allowed him time for leisurely study and productivity and for finding his personal style as a writer by which he could express himself with efficacy of form and independence of thought. In the fall of 1752, he returned to Berlin where he worked again as a journalist, became friends with Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811) and Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), and published his comedy, The Jews, which treated antiSemitism and racial prejudice in advocating for Jewish rights. “In several of his early years he wrote as many as one hundred twenty book reviews,” crafting an approach and method that made him “the most literary author imaginable” and committed to “the exegesis and discussion of texts as the royal road to all knowledge.” His writing style attempted to engage the reader in a dialogue and was Socratically sensitive to the reality that truth needs to be appropriated by the subjective thinker. Over the next many years—from 1755 to 1770—the meandering would continue, with time spent in Leipzig (three years), Berlin (two), Breslau (five), Berlin (two),  In a letter of January 20, 1749 to his mother Lessing explains that he had been occupied entirely with his books, but then he “came to see that books would make me a scholar, but never a man”; therefore, he ventured forth among others, learning “to dance, to fence, to vault….I sought society in order that now I might also learn to live. I laid aside serious books for a time in order to make myself acquainted with others, which are far more pleasant, and perhaps quite as useful.” (For citing Lessing’s writings, I use wherever possible Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vols. 1–32, Berlin: Voss 1825–28 (ASKB 1747–1762).) In this instance and in other places I am using Gotthold Ephraim Lessings sämtliche Schriften, vols. 1–23, 3rd ed., ed. by Karl Lachmann and Franz Muncker, Stuttgart, Berlin and Leipzig: Göschen 1886–1924 (reprinted, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1968), hereafter referred to as Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 17, pp. 7–8 as cited in Yasukata, Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, p. 15.)  Peter Heller, Dialectic and Nihilism: Essays on Lessing, Nietzsche, Mann and Kafka, Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press 1966, p. 6.

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Hamburg (two), and then the extended visit to Italy. During this protracted period Lessing published a number of works. In 1770 Lessing took the position of librarian at the Ducal Library in Wolfenbüttel, and it was there that he would spend his years until his death in 1781. There he would marry Eva König, the widow of a Hamburg merchant and a lively, vivacious, cultured spirit with whom he had become intimate friends years earlier. Financial reasons delayed their marriage, but it finally occurred in 1776. Sadly, after a single year of wedded bliss, Eva gave birth to an apparently healthy boy who inexplicably died twenty-four hours later on Christmas Day, and about two weeks later, because of complications related to giving birth, she also died. Gotthold would live another three years, but for each of those days he carried deep within the pain of the tragic loss of Eva. In 1772 Lessing published the tragedy Emilia Galotti. His Wolfenbüttel years, however, are generally remembered for Lessing’s publishing of extracts of a long

These works included: the tragedy Miss Sara Sampson, which as the first successful German “bourgeois” tragedy dealt with the drama of forgiveness and gained him national acclaim; Letters on Literature, a series of letters, written to a wounded military officer, offering critical reviews of contemporary literature in a conversational tone with much irony, humor, and lively personal contestation that was put out along with Nicolai, Mendelssohn, and others; Fables, offering a complete collection of his fables but more importantly a treatise on the genuine nature of the fable as a story or connected chain of events that leads to an end which is the moral lesson being set forth, the use of animals to illustrate moral truths, and the use of fables in education; translations of the dramas and dramatic theory of Diderot (1713–84); a life of Sophocles; Laocoön, or on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, a classic of European literature as the Enlightenment’s first systematized treatment of aesthetics still influential in semiotics and media theory, which clearly articulates in response to Johann Joachim Winkelmann (1717–68) the difference between painting production or art with physical realities as in sculpture, painting, and architecture, on the one hand, and poetic production or art with words on the other, with the former (painting) being aligned with the notion of space and the goal of depicting spatial relations within a singular moment, and the latter (poetry) being aligned with the notion of time and the goal of depicting a sequence of events as they unfold temporally; Minna von Barnhelm, the bourgeois comedy—promoting Saxon and Prussian reconciliation in the aftermath of the Seven Years War (1756–63)—which is Lessing’s best and best-known comedy and secured his reputation as Germany’s leading dramatist; The Hamburg Dramaturgy, consisting of reviews, criticisms, and discussions of theatrical theory in relation to its practice from his position as official critic and dramatic theorist at the new “National Theater” in Hamburg; Antiquarian Letters, a series of letters on the culture of Greece and Rome in which he was especially critical of criticism leveled against his Laocoön by the antiquarian Christian Adolf Klotz (1738–71); and his important essay “How the Ancients Portrayed Death,” which inquires into the theory of death and youth and rightly contends that skeletons as employed by the ancient Greeks depicted ghosts of wicked people condemned to haunt the earth but were not intended as a symbol of their general conception of death, since the Greeks conceived death as the calm and beautiful twin brother of Sleep rather than as a horrible and frightening image.  This play implicitly criticized courtly absolutism by means of a drama of intrigue showing the very real dangers of an indulgent monarch who abuses governmental powers to satiate his own passionate desires. 

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writing on natural religion by the deist Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1704–68).10 Lessing had been a welcomed guest among the family of Reimarus, and he became acquainted with Reimarus’ daughter Elise (1735–1805),11 and her brother, the distinguished physician Johann Albrecht Reimarus (1729–1814). For two decades Reimarus had been working on the manuscript Apology or Defense for Rational Worshippers of God, and he had carefully kept its existence a secret. His enduring desire was that the manuscript remain a secret and available only to friends until a more enlightened climate would allow for its public acceptance.12 In 1772 Lessing received permission to publish materials from the library without submitting them to the censor, and between 1774 and 1778 he published in the library’s journal seven fragments from the Reimarus manuscript, claiming that it was an anonymous work discovered in the library’s holdings.13 The most provocative fragments were on the “Impossibility of a Revelation Which All Men Can Believe on Rational Grounds,” “On the Resurrection Narratives,” and “On the Intentions of Jesus and His Disciples.”14 The deistic view expressed by Reimarus actually shares much with the view of the Lutheran orthodox theologians, in so far as both thought

The publishing of those Fragments created the most explosive response from the Protestant quarter of the eighteenth century and possibly was unparalleled since the Reformation. During his years in Hamburg, Lessing had gotten to know Reimarus, who was a Professor of Oriental Languages at the Gymnasium there. Reimarus had gained popularity with his publications, especially his 1754 Treatises on the Foremost Truths of Natural Religion, which refutes atheism and pantheism alike while advancing a discussion of the nature and purpose of God and the duties and eternal destiny of the human on the basis of a position “firmly rooted in the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy” and “the logical development of its rationalistic implications.” (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, pp. 42–3.) 11 Elise Reimarus came to be known by many as “the Muse of Hamburg’s intellectual life” and the most significant female leader of the German Enlightenment. 12 Upon the death of his father, Johann Reimarus had given the manuscript to the University of Göttingen with instructions that it be lent only to “fitting persons.” However, his sister Elise, who had become a close friend of Lessing, gave a copy of a large portion of the manuscript, which Albert Schweitzer reported in its entirety runs to about 4000 pages, to her trusted confidant with permission to publish it as he saw fit while observing strict secrecy as to the author’s identity. Lessing carried the document with him to Wolfenbüttel. (The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. by W. Montgomery, New York: Macmillan 1968, p. 14.) 13 Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 6. 14 The first of these fragments rules out special revelation in arguing for a natural religion for people of all times and places. The second identifies inconsistencies among Gospel accounts of the resurrection and concludes that these contradictions mean that the narratives are entirely mistaken. The third lifts up the difference between the political message and intention of Jesus and the spiritual message and intention of the early church. Allison summarizes this third fragment by stating that in claiming that after the death of Jesus, his “disciples stole the body, invented the story of the resurrection, and became the founders of a new and mysterious religion,” Reimarus leaves his readers with Jesus as a “deluded fanatic,” the apostles as “self-seeking deceivers,” and the Christian religion as “a colossal fraud.” (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, p. 48.) 10

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that the truth of Christianity depended upon the factual truthfulness of the biblical accounts. On this point, Lessing disagreed with both of them. The publication of Fragments from an Unnamed Author halted when Lessing was informed by the Duke of Brunswick that no further fragments would be published and other publications hereon would be subject to the censor.15 Lessing’s reservations about some of the views expressed in the fragments were registered in editorial comments in the 1777 publication of five of the fragments.16 Despite these “counter-propositions” against the deceased deist, Lessing made it clear that he did agree with the unnamed author (Reimarus) that belief in the literal truth of the Bible is no longer tenable or needed: “In short, the letter is not the spirit, and the Bible is not religion. Consequently, objections to the letter, and to the Bible, need not also be objections to the spirit and to religion.”17 Response to these publications ended up being what Lessing hoped it would be. Lessing all along had been interested in philosophical and theological discussions. By the end of his first year at Leipzig University he had already brought religion onto his own domain, as indicated in a letter to his father.18 In the years that followed, Lessing was at the cutting edge on so many fronts, leading the way for his contemporaries and functioning as “their most eloquent and respected” spokesperson, and yet at almost every point he broke away from the positions in which they customarily settled.19 He read with interest the books of the deists in England and France but found most of their viewpoints crass and lacking in subtlety. It might be—as Peter Gay, who regards him as a philosophe, has noted—that Lessing “practically tried to invent a religion,” but I would add that in doing so he strove to construct in a manner that honored his best experiences of religion.20 Lessing’s religion, as with his art, is more than logic, for “he elevated the organ of logic to the organ of the heart.”21 His understanding of religion needed, yes, to respect the dictates of reason, but it also needed to respect the realities of the heart and of feelings, so that it could Reimarus: Fragments, trans. by Ralph S. Fraser and ed. by Charles H. Talbert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1970, pp. 21–2. 16 Lessing’s comments and counter-propositions are included in Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 61–82. 17 Ibid., p. 63. 18 The letter of May 30, 1749 reads “Time will tell whether the better Christian is one who has the principles of Christian teaching memorized and on his tongue, often without understanding them, who goes to church, and follows all the customs because he is used to them; or whether the better Christian is one who has held serious doubts and, after examining them, has attained conviction, or at least is still striving to attain it.” (Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 17, pp. 17–18 as cited in Yasukata, Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, p. 16.) 19 Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History, trans. by Brian Cozens and John Bowden, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 1959, p. 221. 20 Peter Gray, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vols. 1–2, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1966–69, vol. 1, p. 11. 21 R. Withalm, Über eine stilistische Eigentümlichkeit in Lessings Dramen, Graz: C. Huber 1880, p. 91 as cited in Heller, Dialectics and Nihilism, p. 30. 15

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grasp religion from “the standpoint of a wider, deeper rationalism, a rationalism deepened in the direction of an independent and permanently independent awareness of one’s own existence.”22 Making room for feeling and the heart is one major way that Lessing can be seen as a precursor of the Romantic movement. Lessing clearly was aware of the centrality of subjectivity, inwardness, and the requirement that internal experiential aspects of existence be included in how one understands the communication process. Lessing had written the fragment on Religion in 1749 or 1750, pronouncing in the Preface that “religion has for many years been the theme that invokes my more serious poetic inspirations.”23 Two other fragmentary writings from around this time are his Thoughts about the Moravians (1750) 24 and The Christianity of Reason (1752 or 1753).25 The Christianity of Reason finds Lessing making the case that God and the world are one and the same and its Leibnizian logic unfolds in a most forthright fashion.26 It was during his Breslau period (1760–65) that Lessing had been able to devote significant time to Leibniz, Spinoza, and the theological controversies of the day. The three primary options of that time were orthodox Lutheran theology,27 deistic Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, p. 222. Cited in Yasukata, Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, p. 17. 24 The Moravian writing, Allison indicates, makes “it abundantly clear that Lessing had no quarrel with the purely human conception of Christ” and “that at this time he stood completely outside the Christian framework”; nevertheless, “he saw that Christian dogmas are by their very nature inscrutable mysteries and, consequently, that any attempt to ‘prove’ their rationality is absolutely futile.” (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, p. 65.) 25 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 7, pp. 161–5 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 25–9). 26 This essay depicts a most perfect being occupied from eternity with the contemplation of that which is most perfect. Since for God, thinking, willing, and creating are all the same, God from eternity has also been creating a being lacking in no perfection, and that is the Son of God, which is an identical image of God. These two, God the Father and the image or Son of God, are together only one and have everything in common, so there is the greatest harmony between them, and this harmony is the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son. The reality of God needs all three of these, so God is all three in one. As God thinks God’s perfections discretely, the particular beings are created, and these beings together are called the world. The unity of this world of multiple realities is maintained because God always thinks of those divided perfections as finding their place in the most perfect world possible, the best of all possible worlds, and thus God in thinking makes real that possible world. 27 Orthodox Lutheranism, on which Lessing had been bred in his youth, confessed belief in God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; the human as sinful and in need of redemption, which is a real possibility because of the justifying work of Christ; and the Scriptures, the inspired Word of God, which deliver the revelation of God to humans unto their salvation. In this conservative form of Lutheranism, the living tradition had become static and taking the Bible seriously had degenerated into taking the Bible literally. The theologian’s task was seen as protecting the beliefs of the past rather than as reinterpreting them for the present and the future. This defensive posture was provoked all the more by the radical declarations that 22 23

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rationalism that argued for natural religion and against revealed religion,28 and neology. Neology, as the third option presenting itself during the second half of the eighteenth century, dominated the scene theologically. It was the rationalistic version of Lutheranism in Germany that emerged out of the less radical philosophical theology of Christian Wolff (1679–1754).29 Neological theology was explicitly rejected by Lessing, especially its reduction of religion to morality.30 “Neology was to orthodoxy as liquid manure was to dirty water,” writes Toshimasa Yasukata using Lessing’s own imagery. “Both were impure—that is to say, untruth—but dirty water (orthodoxy) was more tolerable than liquid manure (neology). That is why Lessing, in leveling caustic criticisms at neology, often took the side of orthodoxy.”31 Lessing expected Reimarus’ Fragments and their attack on revealed religion to rouse criticism from the neologists, but it was rather the orthodox Lutherans who led the charge. The first of the fifty critical books and articles came from Johann Daniel Schumann (1714–87), Director of the Lyceum in Hanover.32 Lessing responded were assailing the faithful. Lessing had grave problems with this orthodox perspective, but it troubled him less than did the other two options. 28 We have gained a sense already for the stance of hard-nosed deism, the second option on the scene. While the perspectives within this camp varied considerably, deism generally desired nothing less than the removal of the supernatural elements of religion and a reduction of revealed religion to natural religion and morality by means of a thoroughgoing rationalization of the content of revelation. Deism, in short, trimmed belief in God to harmonize with belief in reason and nature. Its logical culmination, following rigorously the principle of reason implanted within the human, is that Christianity and the worship of the true God include nothing positive, except for the actions of morality, and therefore traditional Christian doctrines in their totality are irrelevant religiously and pernicious morally. (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, pp. 10–16.) 29 As the liberal or progressive form of Lutheranism that took shape in responding positively to the scientific and philosophical insights of the Enlightenment, the neological party of theology defended the harmony of reason and revelation and affirmed the former as key for ascertaining the God’s will. This movement—led by August Friedrich Wilhelm Sack (1703–86), Johann Gottlieb Tollner (1724–74), Johann Joachim Spalding (1717–1804), Wilhelm Abraham Teller (1734–1804), Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem (1709–89), and especially Johann Salomo Semler (1725–91)—represented an advance beyond Wolff’s more epistemological approach to rationalist theology to an exacting scrutiny of the rationality of actual doctrinal content of historical Christianity. (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, pp. 38–42; pp. 175–6.) 30 Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, p. 66. 31 Yasukata, Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment, pp. 22–3. Lessing would have appreciated Hegel’s comparison of the neological theologians to “the Englishman who didn’t know that he was speaking prose”; they go about their rational exegetical operations in what they take to be a passively receptive way, when actually they are very much engaged in active thinking which could better be directed, thought Hegel, toward comprehending the divine. (Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, trans. by Peter C. Hodgson, vols. 1–3, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007, vol. 3, p. 261 as cited in Peter C. Hodgson, Hegel and Christian Theology: A Reading of the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005, p. 61.) 32 Schumann defended the verbal infallibility of Scripture and out of a concern to establish the identity of Christianity and the synoptic Gospels presented—along the lines of

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courteously to Schumann with his most influential piece, On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power, in which he points out that fulfilled prophecies and accomplished miracles are one thing, but reports of them are another.33 Similarly, he will contend in Axioms that one “must not assume that a person who doubts certain proofs of something also doubts the thing itself.”34 Historical proofs cannot establish the truth of the Christian religion, but that does not rule out religious truth being established in other ways.”35 Lessing in this writing makes reference to “the leap,” which will not go unnoticed later by another great thinker. He states in reference to Aristotle’s notion of a category jump that “to make the leap from this historical truth into a quite different class of truths...[is] a ‘transition to another category’ ”: “This, this is the broad and ugly ditch which I cannot get across, no matter how often and earnestly I have tried to make the leap. If anyone can help me over it, I beg and implore him to do so. He will earn a divine reward for this service.”36 Lessing appends to this piece another short one entitled The Testament of St. John, which in telling an apocryphal story about St. John in Ephesus declares that the mandate to love one another is the all-important message of Christianity.37 This creative and effective testimony is attributed to St. John, but it is really a very condensed version of Lessing’s testimony on religion. Lessing’s next opponent, Johann Heinrich Ress (1732–1803), the Archdeacon and superintendent of Wolfenbüttel, had issued a writing defending the history of the resurrection, and Lessing responded with “A Rejoinder,” which included his statement on truth as a quest rather than a possession that would become for many his watchword.38 During this time (1778), Lessing also wrote New Hypothesis on the Origen’s “proof of the spirit and of power” in Contra Celsum 1.2—proof in the form of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament and the miracles recorded in the Gospels. 33 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 76 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 83). 34 Lessings Sämtliche Schriften, vol. 13, p. 109 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 122). 35 Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, p. 101. Lessing writes: “If no historical truths can be demonstrated, then nothing can be demonstrated by means of historical truths. That is, contingent truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason.” (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 80 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 85).) 36 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 83 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 87). 37 St. John pronounces at one point, “It’s enough if they [Christians] hold on to Christian love, and it doesn’t matter what happens to the Christian religion.” (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 92 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 92).) 38 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, pp. 95–213 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 95–109.) The statement is on pp. 99–100 (p. 98): “Not the truth which someone possesses or believes he possesses, but the honest effort he has made to get at the truth, constitutes a human being’s worth. For it is not through the possession of truth, but through its pursuit, that his powers are enlarged, and it is in this alone that his ever-growing perfection lies. Possession makes us inactive, lazy, and proud—If God held fast in his right hand the whole of truth and in his left hand only the ever-active quest for truth, albeit with the

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Evangelists as Merely Human Historians,39 which was only published after his death. The third, more formidable, attack against Lessing was issued by Johann Melchior Goeze (1717–86), pastor of the Church of St. Catharine in Hamburg, leader of the local clergy, and spokesperson for Lutheran orthodoxy in Germany.40 Polemical exchanges with Goeze quickly intensified and degenerated into a prolonged controversy without much theological substance. In the midst of these exchanges the seventh and most bombastic of the Reimarus fragments was published. That was the last straw for the authorities, and they brought the debate to a close. No further comments on the “Fragment Controversy” with Goeze can be offered. In this conflictual setting, some have compared Lessing, who freed Christians from being bound to a literalistic interpretation of the Bible, to Luther, who freed Christians from being bound to authoritarian traditions. Unable to continue his theological disputing through written attacks because of the imposition of censorship, Lessing turned to what he called his old pulpit, the theater, in order to engage in an indirect means of attack through his 1779 drama Nathan the Wise. That work, together with the complete text of The Education of the Human Race published in 1780, constitute the high point of Lessing’s theological writings. Nathan the Wise, the didactic play that includes persuasive speech addressed to the audience, is in spirit and message “a dramatic conversation in praise of the principle of the Socratic dialogue, a sober panergyric to the essence of the academic mind.”41 It communicates how religion functions in the modern world of a plurality of religions by impacting on personal identity.42 The Nathan drama of 1779 on religion should be interpreted in conjunction with the writing on education of the next year, which Paul Tillich suggests gives one more insight into the Enlightenment, as concerns the sense for the meaning of life it conveys, than anything else.43 The future-directedness and proviso that I should constantly and eternally err, and said to me: ‘Choose!’, I would humbly fall upon his left hand and say: ‘Father, give! For pure truth is for you alone!’ ” 39 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 6, pp. 225–57 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 148–71). The arguments of this writing on the Gospels have long since been outpaced by the work of biblical scholars, but the writing has “value as the first sympathetic attempt to investigate the evolution of the New Testament canon in an historical light.” (Garland, Lessing: The Founder of Modern German Literature, p. 159.) 40 Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 9. 41 Heller, Dialectic and Nihilism, p. 16. 42 Jan-Olav Henriksen, The Reconstruction of Religion: Lessing, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 2001, pp. 59–60. Nathan the Wise becomes a vehicle for expressing Lessing’s idea of religion and the doctrine of religious tolerance. Its parable of the three rings teaches that the continual striving of the three brothers (and the three positive religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—represented by them and their rings) to emulate the father’s love will demonstrate the genuineness and truth of the ring (and of religion). 43 Paul Tillich, Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology, London: SCM Press 1967 p. 40. M.H. Abrams informs us that The Education of the Human Race of 1780 was a work in the genre of Universalgeschichte that considers the course of the ages in its entirety as a single person who perpetually lives on and continually learns: Lessing translated the biblical themes of the fall and redemption of the human “into a secular history of mankind’s progressive education in reason and morality, assimilated external

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prophetic quality of The Education of the Human Race gives it a tone and substance “similar to the idea of the great prophet of the twelfth-century, Joachim de Fiore (ca. 1132–1202), who prophesied the coming of the divine Spirit in which everyone will be taught directly by the Spirit and no authorities will be needed any more.”44 And this time of a new, eternal good news that has also been promised by the New Testament will indeed come about because the divine educator is working providentially to bring enlightenment and make people worthy of the coming third age of the world. These rather wild views of what has been called “Lessing’s Religious Testament”45 make more sense when one obtains a better feeling for the comprehensive theological viewpoint informing his vision.46 In his 1763 fragmentary writing entitled On the Reality of Things Outside God that was published by his brother after his death, Lessing makes the speculative argument that all things in reality are conceived by God and are therefore in God. The argument flows from the same understanding that informed his identifying God’s conceiving and God’s creating in his 1753 The Christianity of Reason, discussed above.47 Lessing argues that things are distinct from God and yet they are in God. This is the classic definition not of pantheism, or the view that all things are God, but rather of panentheism, or the view that all things are in God.48 Providence to an immanent historical principle, equated the stages of civilization to stages in the maturation of an individual, and represented the educational process in the persistent metaphor of a laborious journey on the long road toward perfection.” (M.H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature, New York: W.W. Norton 1971, pp. 201–2.) 44 Tillich, Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology, p. 72. 45 That is the title of Chapter 11 that covers Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts and Lessing’s theological fragments in F. Andrew Brown, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, New York: Twayne Publishers 1971, pp. 143–50. 46 Karl Barth notes, “Lessing had certainly long been on the road which led to Goethe, to interpreting God, in an at any rate quite untheistic way as the immanent principle of the human microcosm and macrocosm.” (Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, p. 221.) This is quite accurate, except for the fact that Lessing’s vision is theistic rather than untheistic. 47 The key claim here is: “If, in the concept which God has of the reality of a thing, everything is present that is to be found in its reality outside him, then the two realities are one, and everything which is supposed to exist outside God exists in God.” (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 4, p. 301 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 30).) 48 Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment; Yasukata, Lessing’s Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment; and Leonard P. Wessel, G.E. Lessing’s Theology: A Reinterpretation, The Hague: Mouton 1977, all identify the panentheistic character of Lessing’s understanding of God’s relation to the world. Spinoza affirms that there is nothing beyond or outside of God (præter deum nihil). Lessing endorses Spinoza’s claim that all things are inside of God, and he argues that the contingency of the particular reality being conceived by God is also part of God’s conceiving, so contingency is not thereby lost simply because it is inside of God. Here the close association with Leibniz is obvious. Allison maintains “that Lessing reinterpreted Spinoza’s fundamental distinction between ‘natura naturans’ and ‘natura naturata’ in terms of the distinction between the divine mind and its conceptual

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Not too many months before Lessing’s death in 1781, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819) made a trip to Wolfenbüttel to converse with him. Jacobi reports in Recollections of Conversations with Lessing in July and August 1780 that he was surprised to discover early on in their conversations that Lessing was a Spinozist, that he knew nothing else than Spinoza’s motto of “One and All,” and that “there is no other philosophy than that of Spinoza.”49 Jacobi at one point stated that he sometimes gets out of difficulties by a salto mortale or mortal leap, which Lessing later said that he rather liked, adding, “I can see how a thinking head might perform this kind of headstand just to get out of the bit. Take me with you, if you can!” To which Jacobi responded, “If you will just step on the spring board which lifts me off, the rest will take care of itself.” This prompted Lessing to say, “But even that would mean a leap which I can no longer impose on my old legs and heavy head.”50 The concept of the leap, then, appears in connection to Lessing in two different contexts. The claim Jacobi makes about Lessing after their conversation, namely, that he “continued to maintain that he ‘required a natural account of everything,’ ” seems to have been the general stance he had been affirming for the past many years.51 In developing a theological naturalism, he anticipates the tradition of German idealism and Kierkegaard’s issue of subjectivity that emerged out of his struggles with that idealist tradition. As Cassirer saw, Lessing’s God is an intramundane or innerworldly power that does not intervene in our world of experience but permeates and

content. Thus, rather than finite modes which follow necessarily from the infinite essence of God, created beings, for Lessing, are contingent ideas within the divine understanding.” (Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment, p. 71.) This indicates that Lessing’s Spinozism has been reshaped to some extent by his ongoing commitment to Leibniz. Another fragmentary writing in which Lessing argues that Spinoza has provided a starting point for Leibniz—in this instance, on the notion of the pre-established harmony—is Spinoza Only Put Leibniz on the Track of [His Theory of] Pre-established Harmony (To Moses Mendelssohn), (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 4, pp. 302–5 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 32–4).) 49 Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, pp. 243–4. Some have contended with Mendelssohn that Lessing was relating ironically to his inquisitor and that he was not really committed to the philosophy of Spinoza. But from what we have seen there appears to be plenty of evidence to support the claim that Lessing was a follower of Spinoza’s philosophy, especially if we add the proviso that he followed Spinoza as further nuanced by Leibniz. 50 For this exchange, see Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 246 and pp. 251–2. 51 Naturalism, or the view that everything must be understood on the basis of realities and events within the arena of nature, goes rather agreeably with a rationalism of Lessing’s variety: i.e., the rationalism of Leibniz which, while surely being logic-oriented and guided toward unity by an overarching concept of reason, is yet open to plural realities and the sensibilities of religion in advocating that the most global perspective possible be taken in order to approximate as fully as possible the Creator’s view. Lessing’s embrace of Spinoza is qualified by his lingering commitment to Leibniz, and the resulting viewpoint is a panentheistic theological vision that informs his writing of Nathan the Wise and The Education of the Human Race.

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shapes this world from within.52 If the courageous freedom to think for oneself and use one’s own understanding is the essence of enlightenment, as Kant intimated, then Lessing is certainly worthy of the accolades that have been bestowed upon him as one of the most pivotal figures of the Age of Enlightenment. II. Lessing as Source for Kierkegaard’s Writings Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s life and work disclose that he was accomplished in many areas but also that he was a person of considerable complexity. Kierkegaard’s use of him as a source for his own work and life was likewise complex. In Kierkegaard’s writings, the largest part of the total pages dealing with Lessing is the long section of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript that Johannes Climacus devotes to “Something about Lessing.”53 Besides this dominating set of pages, though, there are references to Lessing sprinkled throughout the authorship and the journals and notebooks. In this part of the essay we will identify as thoroughly as possible those places where Kierkegaard has made use of Lessing. The task is to lay bare the ways in which Lessing’s testimony has influenced Kierkegaard’s writings.54 Testimony and appropriation go together. Paul Ricoeur reminds us that “testimony gives something to be interpreted.”55 Lessing gave something to Kierkegaard to be interpreted. In making use of Lessing’s testimony, Kierkegaard has been involved in interpreting it. In the process, Kierkegaard also has given us something to be interpreted. Here, then, in setting forth Lessing’s testimony to Kierkegaard, we are at the same time beginning to set forth Kierkegaard’s testimony to us about his relation to Lessing. The third part of the essay will deal explicitly with interpreting the testimony of Kierkegaard to his relation to Lessing. Kierkegaard owned the 32 volume set of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften. In his dissertation on The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. by Fritz C.A. Koelin and James P. Pettegrove, Boston: Beacon Press 1955, p. 191. Clinging to Leibniz’s philosophical insights allowed Lessing to affirm the particular and the individual in a positive way that Spinoza could never do. We see the results of this theological vision in The Education of the Human Race where now reason and history have joined forces to become a rational temporality or an historical reason that is on the move, no longer static but dynamically progressing toward that anticipated endpoint that will bring fulfillment. (Ibid., pp. 191–2.) Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) will carry this vision further into an explicit account of world history and Hegel will systematize this reason that moves dialectically toward the fuller self-actualization of truth. 53 SKS 7, 65–120 / CUP1, 61–125. 54 With his closing remarks on witnessing rather than teaching and the inability of truly religious writers to cite others as authorities, Alastair Hannay too seems to be pointing toward the notion of testimony or witnessing as a key ingredient in the relation between these two thinkers. See his “Having Lessing on One’s Side,” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. by Robert L. Perkins, Macon, Georgia: Macon University Press 1997 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 12), pp. 205–26. 55 Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. by Lewis S. Mudge, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980, p. 144. 52

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Socrates, Kierkegaard includes in his “Introductory Observations” some thoughts on asking questions, which is integral to the Socratic method and analogous to the negative in Hegel. He points out, referring to Lessing, that since questions emerge in relation to the subject matter under consideration there is more necessity and less arbitrariness to them than one might think.56 There is also a reference to Abraham à Sancta Clara (1644–1709)—who tells of the child who at birth was so frightened by the world that it rushed back into its mother’s womb—and this also comes by way of Lessing, through a letter he wrote to his brother Karl Gotthelf on January 5, 1778.57 A final dissertation reference to Lessing is to his Nathan the Wise.58 At this time Kierkegaard was interested in Faust, and he very likely “found his way to Lessing’s treatment of the Faust story.”59 Already at the outset of his career as a scholar, Kierkegaard has paid some attention to Lessing’s testimony. Either/Or, published in 1843, also makes limited use of Lessing as a source. Among A’s Papers contained in Part I of Either/Or edited by Victor Eremita is the piece on “Silhouettes” that is indicated as having been “Delivered before the Fellowship of the Dead.” Part of the poem of unhappy love serving as an epigraph for this section is attributed to Lessing.60 Early on in “Silhouettes” a reference is He writes: “But if asking questions is seen as a necessary relation to its subject, then asking becomes identical with answering. And just as Lessing has already wittily distinguished between replying to a question and answering it, so there is a similar contradistinction fundamental to the difference proposed by us, namely, the contradistinction between asking [spørge] and interrogating [udspørge]; hence the true relation comes to be the relation between interrogating and answering. Admittedly there is still always something subjective about it, but if it is borne in mind that the reason for the individual’s asking thus and so is found not in his arbitrariness but in the subject, in the relation of necessity that joins them together, then this also will disappear.” (SKS 1, 96–7 / CI, 35.) The Hongs’ note explains that this refers to Lessing’s Eine Duplik, where he states: “it is one thing to reply to something; something else to answer something,” or as Nisbet translates the statement: “it is one thing to give an answer to an objection, and another to answer it.” (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 98 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 97).) 57 SKS 1, 89 / CI, 28; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 28, pp. 327–8. 58 Kierkegaard is here discussing the essentially critical stance of irony in relation to historical actuality. Irony has rendered its judgment in the different spheres. In relation to religion, “One religion or another was momentarily the absolute for it”: “Therefore it taught, just as it is taught in Nathan der Weise, that all religions are equally good, Christianity perhaps the worst, and then for a change it was itself pleased to be Christian.” (SKS 1, 314 / CI, 278; Sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 22, pp. 132–8; Nathan the Wise, trans. Patrick Maxwell, New York: Bloch 1939, p. 250.) 59 Henning Fenger, Kierkegaard, The Myths and their Origins, trans. by George C. Schoolfield, New Haven: Yale University Press 1960, p. 85. For more on the theme of Lessing and Faust, see Philip Mason Palmer and Robert Pattison More, The Sources of the Faust Tradition: From Simon Magus to Lessing, New York: Haskell House 1965, pp. 271–86. Lessing was the first thinker of significance after Christopher Marlowe to deepen the content of the Faust play. Changes he made rescued the old story and paved the way for Goethe. 60 The Hongs, EO1, 63, identify the poem as Lessing’s “Lied aus dem Spanischen.” “A Spanish Song” is also included in SKS, 18, 146, JJ:4 / KJN 2, 135. See Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 17, p. 281. 56

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made to Lessing’s Laokoon.61 Another possible link to Lessing is the epigraphical poem by Paul Pelisson (1624–93) placed at the beginning of “Diapsalmata,” which was probably found in Lessing’s writing on the epigram.62 In the lengthy essay, “The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical-Erotic,” when the young man in a systematic argument claims “a natural affinity between music and the sensuouserotic” and even that music has its absolute theme in sensuousness, this might well be seen in light of the author’s romantic credentials “as an extension of Lessing’s aesthetics.”63 Finally, the piece on “The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic in Modern Drama” does not mention Lessing explicitly. It does, however, note how in the modern era there is still a continual return to Aristotelian aesthetics, and here the writer is likely thinking of, among others, Lessing and viewpoints he expressed.64 Fear and Trembling and Repetition were both published on October 16, 1843, and both include references to Lessing. In Repetition, we encounter Lessing in Part One’s “Report by Constantin Constantius” on the young man who had fallen in love and needed a confidant, when the pseudonym writes: “Along with Lessing, I prefer the delights of conception to the discomforts of childbirth.”65 This refers to a line in Lessing’s introductory essay on the fable.66 Constantin Constantius also speaks at one point of the “strangest leaps,” but there is no indication that this has any reference to Lessing with whom the leap is so closely tied,67 and the same goes for the mention of the little dancer “who had already made the leap.”68 As we turn to Fear and Trembling we see that the epigraph to that work is from Hamann, but Lessing had discussed it in his writing on the fable.69 We saw in the first part of this essay that the concept of the leap came to play in Lessing’s thoughts about historical and rational truths as well as in his conversation with Jacobi. We must now begin to indicate why this concept was important for Kierkegaard. To appreciate the significance of the leap for Kierkegaard, one has to have some sense for the Hegelian philosophy that he thought was exerting considerable It states that since “Lessing defined the boundaries between poetry and art,” most aestheticians agree “that art is in the category of space, poetry in the category of time, that art depicts repose, poetry motion.” (SKS 2, 167 / EO1, 169.) 62 The Hongs offer this suggestion, EO2, Notes, p. 605; see Lessing’s Zerstreute Anmerkungen über das Epigramm, in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 17, p. 82. This means that “the subject for artistic portrayal must have a quiet transparency so that the interior rests in the corresponding exterior.” The artist’s task becomes the more difficult the less this is the case. 63 Harvie Ferguson, Melancholy and the Critique of Modernity: Søren Kierkegaard’s Religious Psychology, London: Routledge 1995, p. 88. SKS 2, 76–7 / EO1, 70–1. 64 The Hongs (EO1, Notes, p. 624, note 4) cite Lessing’s Hamburgische Dramaturgie, pp. xxxvii–xxxix (1767), in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 24, pp. 267–84; Hamburg Dramaturgy, trans. by Helen Zimmern, New York: Dover 1962, pp. 105–14. 65 SKS 4, 18 / R, 141. 66 Lessing, “Fabeln, Vorrede,” in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 18, p. 96. 67 SKS 4, 33 / R, 158. 68 SKS 4, 44 / R, 170. 69 Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 28, pp. 164–5. 61

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influence on the intellectual climate of the day in Copenhagen.70 The leap “pertains to qualitative transitions, which cannot be accounted for by quantitative changes or by the continuity of mediation.”71 The Hongs’ statement on the leap is worth noting.72 Kierkegaard writes that the concept of the leap is significant to him for showing “that the ultimate can be reached only as limit.”73 In Fear and Trembling, when Johannes de silentio speaks of the double movement, he is referring first to the movement from Hegel’s logic was the basis of his philosophical system and at the heart of it was movement, the movement from category to category through the dialectical process of mediation. This movement involved the transition from quantity to quality, with quantitative changes finally being able to account for qualitative changes. To be fair to Hegel, he understood this happening because of the dynamic character of the dialectical process empowering the mediation, but it happens all the same. Kierkegaard disagreed completely with Hegel on this central and critical matter. His standpoint is that this transition from quantitative change and consideration to qualitative represents a difference in kind, and this cannot take place without a volitional act, a decision, an expression of freedom, a production of passion. Kierkegaard thinks that the notion of a “leap” rather nicely captures what has to occur existentially for the transition to take place and he makes use of this notion at many points in his authorship. For journal entries on the leap, see SKS 19, 386, Not13:8, 13:8b / JP 3, 2338. SKS 19, 386, Not13:8a / JP 3, 2339. SKS 19, 386, Not13:c / JP 3, 2340. SKS 18, 266–266a, JJ:266 / KJN 2, 206. Pap. V B 1, 3 / JP 3, 2342. Pap. V B 49, 14 / JP 3, 2343. Pap. V B 150, 21 / JP 3, 2344. Pap. V C 1 / JP 3, 2345. Pap. V C 2 / JP 3, 2346. Pap. V C 3 / JP 3, 2347. Pap. V C 6 / JP 3, 2348. Pap. V C 7 / JP 3, 2349. Pap. V C 8 / JP 3, 2350. Pap. V C 9 / JP 3, 2351. Pap. V C 12 / JP 3, 2352. SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221. Pap. VI B 35, 30 / JP 3, 2354. Pap. VI B 98, 26 / JP 3, 2355. Pap. VII–2 B 261, 22 / JP 3, 2356. Pap. VIII–1 A 681 / JP 3, 2357. SKS 22, 40, NB11:63 / JP 3, 2358. Pap. X1–2 A 103 / JP 3, 2359. For an alternative and convincing interpretation of Hegel’s understanding of the leap or the relation of quantity to quality, see the account by Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 405–11. 71 FT, Notes, p. 344, note 20. 72 The Hongs’ statement is in JP 3, p. 794: “In his thorough investigation of existential issues Kierkegaard discussed that it is impossible to carry through a continuous movement either in thought or in existence. Thought and existence encounter very definite limits, and the next level or next sphere cannot be reached without a leap. Since thought and existence are the two media within which human life develops, there are first of all two kinds of leap: the dialectical and the pathos-filled (IV C 121), but there are also the leaps from each of these to the other, of which the leap from thought to existence is the more important. Kierkegaard found the definition of the leap in Aristotle’s theory of κίνησις (motion, movement, change), understood as ‘the transition from possibility,’ or from the sphere of thought ‘to actuality’ (IV C 47) or existence. This leap is the most important part of Kierkegaard’s elaborated ‘theory of the leap’ (V C 12) and is used particularly in his development of the theory of the stages. He lamented that even though it was necessary to use the leap, no philosopher before him had been aware of the decisive significance of the leap in life and in thought.” It can here be underscored that “Alastair McKinnon points out that ‘leap of faith’ is hardly a Kierkegaardian term of art, but an invention of commentators. The closest Kierkegaard comes to this phrase is a passing Postscript reference to ‘the leap’ over ‘Lessing’s ditch.’ ” See Edward F. Mooney, Knight of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, Albany: State University of New York Press 1991, p. 147, note 17. 73 SKS 18, 225, JJ:266 / KJN 2, 206. 70

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existence to thought, the dialectical leap, which he as a poet-dialectician is able to make, and secondly to the movement from thought to existence, the pathos-filled leap, which he is unable to make. The first movement is the playful imagining of possibilities; the second is the earnest constructing of actuality.74 In Fear and Trembling Johannes de silentio mentions that the movement or leap of the knight of infinite resignation is carried out normatively. He then further explains in a note what he means by the normative character of the movement.75 While Lessing is not mentioned here, the note does allow us to gain further nuance in grasping Johannes’ understanding of the leap. In discussing how the Abraham story contains a teleological suspension of the ethical, Johannes de silentio declares that this faith of Abraham is a marvel indeed, “and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that which unites all human life is passion, and faith is a passion.”76 In relation to the claim that passion unites all human life, Johannes adds a note in which he points out that “Lessing has somewhere said something similar from a purely aesthetic point of view,” and in that passage Lessing Johannes de silentio depicts how Abraham is able to move beyond the stage of infinite resignation into faith. He informs us that the understanding is “the stockbroker of the finite” because in the double movement of faith that is made by virtue of the absurd one loses one’s understanding and along with it everything finite in the act of resignation, but then one wins “the very same finitude again”: Abraham gives up Isaac in faith, but then wins him back. (SKS 4, 131 / FT, 36.) By virtue or power of the absurd, the impossible becomes possible, because with God all things are possible. Johannes de silentio himself, though, is unable to make the double move of faith. Faith’s double movement, David Kangas has argued, on the one hand, presupposes—infinite resignation, absolving itself to the eternity of self-consciousness, maximizing its self-positing, egologically claiming sovereignty over all external phenomena, passing beyond temporality and finitude, recognizing itself as the highest or even absolute principle; on the other hand, faith’s double movement grasps—that it has been given to hold fast that temporality which it had given up, that its self-positing consciousness is not the highest principle, that it is not its own constitutive ground of its temporality, that it is resigning itself of its capacity for resignation, that it is renunciating its renunciation, that it is renouncing that final power whereby one’s autarchy is preserved, and that this renouncing itself is identical to receiving everything back on loan or in the power of the absurd. (David J. Kangas, Kierkegaard’s Instant: On Beginnings, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2007, pp. 151–5), 75 Johannes de silentio writes in the note: “This requires passion: Every movement of infinity is carried out through passion, and no reflection can produce a movement. This is the continual leap in existence that explains the movement, whereas mediation is a chimera, which in Hegel is supposed to explain everything and which is the only thing he has never tried to explain. Just to make the celebrated Socratic distinction between what one understands and what one does not understand requires passion; and even more, of course, [passion is necessary in order] to make the authentic Socratic movement, the movement of ignorance. What our generation lacks is not reflection but passion. In one sense, therefore, our age is actually too tenacious of life to die, for dying is one of the most remarkable leaps, and a little poem has always appealed to me very much because the poet, after beautifully and simply expressing his desire for the good things of life in five or six lines, ends thus: ein seliger Sprung in die Ewigkeit [a blessed leap into eternity].” (SKS 4, 137 / FT, 42.) 76 SKS 4, 159 / FT, 67. 74

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showed “that grief, too, can yield a witty remark,” and then quotes remarks from King Edward II of England and from a story of Diderot.77 In dealing with Abraham’s concealment in the last part of the book but before turning to the story of Abraham, Johannes de silentio in a note gives thanks to Lessing.78 Interesting differences can be identified between the Johannes of Fear and Trembling and the Johannes of Fragments.79 The epigraph of the 1844 Philosophical Fragments identifies the three problems that will be addressed in this work and in the other major work by Johannes Climacus, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments of 1846.80 A sketch from the journals and notebooks explicitly connects the problem to Lessing.81 Peter Fenves provocatively suggests that a passage in Lessing’s The Education of the Human Race plays as significant a shaping role on a particular passage of Climacus in the Fragments as did the “leap” passage from On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power on the Postscript.82 Fenves Ibid. SKS 4, 178 / FT, 88. He states that he is always happy to give thanks to somebody to whom he owes something, and he thanks Lessing in particular “for the several hints about a Christian drama found in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie.” See FT, Notes, p. 352, note 17; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 24, pp. 11–25; Lessing, Hamburg Dramaturgy, especially pp. 4–8. In the second half of the note he sings the praises of Lessing with gusto and gives us a further sense of why Lessing’s testimony is important. 79 See Merold Westphal, “Johannes and Johannes: Kierkegaard and Difference,” in Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, ed. by Robert L. Perkins, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 1994 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 7), pp. 13–32. 80 Cf. SKS 4, 213 / PF, 1, where the epigraph reads: “Can a historical point of departure be given for an eternal consciousness; how can such a point of departure be of more than historical interest; can an eternal happiness be built on historical knowledge?” 81 For the sketch, see Pap. V B 1:2 / PF, Supplement, pp. 182–3: “This [a historical point of departure for an eternal consciousness] is and remains the main problem with respect to the relation between Christianity and philosophy. Lessing is the only one who has dealt with it. But Lessing knew considerably more what the issue is about than the common herd [Creti and Pleti] of modern philosophers.” Other changes were also made at the time of publication. The final version is authored by Johannes Climacus with S. Kierkegaard designated as the editor, whereas the draft of Fragments had S. Kierkegaard as the author. (PF, xvi.) A sketch also indicates that “An Expression of Gratitude to Lessing” was to have been included in Fragments rather than the Postscript. (Pap. V B 8 / PF, xvii and Supplement, p. 217.) Yet another sketch shows that much of what was to have been included in Fragments was held back to be included in the Postscript. (PF, xvii and Supplement, pp. 185–6.) 82 Peter Fenves, “Chatter”: Language and History in Kierkegaard, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1995. Johannes Climacus writes: “Unless the unknown (the god) is not merely the limit, then the one thought about the difference [den ene Tanke om det Forskjellige] is confused with the many ideas about the differences. The unknown is then in diaspora, and the understanding has an attractive selection from what is available and what imagination can think up (the monstrous, the ridiculous, etc.).” (SKS 4, 250 / PF, 45 (the translation is by Fenves, pp. 130–1).) Fenves believes that Climacus’ reflections on this dispersion have been influenced by Lessing’s paragraph 6 of The Education of the Human Race: “Even if the first human being was immediately equipped with a concept of the one and only God, this concept, being imparted and not independently acquired, could not possibly retain its purity for long. As soon as human reason, left to its own devices, began to work on it, it divided the 77 78

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also draws attention to “Autopsies of Faith” in Fragments. Climacus contends that the teacher must bring the truth to the learner and provide the condition for understanding it, and then is made possible that “autopsy of faith” or personal act of seeing by which the believer is made a contemporary with the object of faith; for this coming into existence, the condition is necessary, but so also is human freedom, since contemporaneity does not mean the loss of freedom but rather its potentiation, that higher freedom that comes in the deepening of inwardness, forgiveness, and action.83 In The Concept of Anxiety, published in June of 1844 four days after the Fragments, Vigilius Haufniensis mentions Lessing only once. In a note on death as the punishment of sinfulness, “the beautiful essay84 of Lessing on the representation of death in classical art” is mentioned. In a draft, in discussing the “Relationship to the Historical,” we read that “no one has freely and openly posed the problem of doubt in relation to Christianity—Lessing might be the only one.”85 However, this writing is full of references to the leap, because in treating the notion of original or hereditary sin Haufniensis holds firm the distinction between its qualitative aspect which he identifies as actual sin and its quantitative aspect which is hereditary sin.86 In the 1845 Stages on Life’s Way we encounter the comment that “Lessing was wrong in saying that the swiftest thing of all, swifter than sound and light, is the transition from good to evil, for even swifter is das Zugleich, the all-at-once.”87 In “Letter to the Reader” from Frater Taciturnus in a discussion of “The Tragic Needs History More than the Comic Does; the Disappearance of this Difference in the ‘Imaginary Construction,’ ” the author states that no one will quote Lessing against

one immeasurable being into several more measurable parts, giving each of these a separate designation.” (Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 230 (Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, p. 219).) 83 SKS 4, 233, 270–1 / PF 14, 70. See Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Existence, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 2003, pp. 70–1, 86–7. 84 The essay is “Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet,” in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 3, pp. 75–159. 85 Pap. V B 64 / JP 2, 1637. 86 In this writing the leap is a way of understanding the qualitative transition involved in the Fall, as opposed to the quantitative progression in the transmission of guilt through history. The consequences of the first sin have been passed down through the generations and they condition the situation of those in later times. But those consequences are quantitative in character. The fall into sin, however, is a qualitative occurrence that happens as the individual takes the leap into sin. This is a misuse of freedom, and then the consequence of that misdeed joins its force to the others being passed down through the generations. Ultimate guilt, though, is not due to the reception of the quantitative consequences of the first sin; it is due, rather, to the individual’s actual qualitative leap of transgression. The unfreedom of sin is a condition that has come about in and through human freedom. If the human were not free, then human responsibility and guilt would not be genuine. 87 SKS 6, 358 / SLW, 386. See “Doctor Faust,” in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 23, p. 177: “No more and no less than the transition from good to evil.”

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him since his play Emilia Galotti,88 “and many comments by its author indicate that he himself has had the same view on the subject.”89 In the same “Letter to the Reader” in discussing “Misunderstanding as the Tragic and Comic-Tragic Principle Utilized in the Imaginary Construction,” Taciturnus quotes from Lessing’s Nathan the Wise the phrase “he is free who mocks his chains.”90 This comes in the author’s consideration of the place of passion in relation to tragedy and comedy in his imaginary construction. Near the end of Philosophical Fragments Johannes Climacus had mentioned “that in the next section of this pamphlet, if I ever do write it, I intend to call the matter by its proper name and clothe the issue in historical costume.”91 He planned to return to that task and he does so in the Postscript. The Fragments had a minimal requirement for the historical92 and did not attire Christianity in historical costume in a complete way. The Postscript does not carry that costuming much further either, for it concentrates on the matter of how a person becomes a Christian. The Postscript first presents in brief compass the objective problem, whereby the historical receives its due, and the protracted second part addresses the subjective problem; therefore, Book One is “sequential to the Fragments,” whereas Book Two is “a new approach” to the problem of the Fragments.93 I will not be able to give the pages devoted to Lessing in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript the attention they deserve.94 The Postscript’s section on Emilia Galotti, Lessing’s sämmtlilche Schriften, vol. 21, pp. 185–304. Five German Tragedies, ed. and trans. by F.J. Lamport, Baltimore: Penguin 1969, pp. 31–103. 89 See Lessing, Hamburgische Dramaturgie, p. 14; p. 19; p. 23; pp. 87–8; p. 91; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 24, p. 103; pp. 138–44; pp. 165–71; vol. 25, pp. 246–59; pp. 272–9; Hamburg Dramaturgy, pp. 38–40; pp. 51–3; 58–62; pp. 221–9; pp. 236–9. See also Pap. V B 8, 18 / SLW, Supplement, p. 633. 90 Nathan der Weise, IV, 4, in Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 22, p. 181 (Nathan the Wise, p. 205). 91 SKS 4, 305 / PF, 109. 92 Cf. SKS 4, 300 / PF, 104: “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 us, and then died’—that is more than enough. The contemporary generation would have done what is needful, for this little announcement, this world-historical nota bene, is enough to become an occasion for someone who comes later, and the most prolix report can never in all eternity become more for the person who comes later.” 93 Niels Thulstrup, Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by Robert J. Widenmann, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1984, p. 150. 94 Specific Lessing references in the Postscript deal with: “Alexander,” SKS 7, 94–5 / CUP1, 96; “Christianity,” SKS 7, 67–9 / CUP1, 65–7; “the comic,” SKS 7, 90 / CUP1, 91; “communication,” SKS 7, 72–80 / CUP1, 72–80; “contemporaneity SKS 7, 96–8 / CUP1, 96– 8; “the dialectical,” SKS 7, 69–71 / CUP1 68–9; “earnestness,” SKS 7, 70–2 / CUP1, 69–71; “Gleim,” SKS 7, 101 / CUP1, 104; “the God-relationship,” SKS 7, 69 / CUP1, 67; “Goeze,” SKS 7, 90, 104 / CUP1, 91, 107; “gratitude,” SKS 7, 65–72 / CUP1, 63–71; “Grundtvig,” SKS 7, 43 / CUP1, 36; “Hegel,” SKS 7, 71–2 / CUP1, 70; “his own,” SKS 7, 71 / CUP1, 69; “as an individual,” SKS 7, 67–8 / CUP1, 66; “Jacobi,” SKS 7, 71, 98–102 / CUP1, 70, 100–5; 88

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Lessing includes a chapter entitled “An Expression of Gratitude to Lessing” and a second on “Possible and Actual Theses by Lessing.”95 Lessing is claimed as an ally as Kierkegaard through Climacus rejects “the ‘direct transition’ to Christianity,” be it through historical deliverances, churchly objective truths, or speculative considerations.96 These four theses, with the first two being less definitely traceable and the last two more definitely traceable to Lessing, deal with (1) the subjective existing thinker’s awareness of the dialectic of communication, (2) the existing subjective thinker’s relation to truth as a process of becoming, (3) the leap that is required to make the transition by which one will be able to build an eternal truth on historical reports, and (4) the preference of the ever-striving drive for truth with all its errors over possessing the truth in all its fullness. Thulstrup’s commentary addresses these pages,97 and Merold Westphal’s “reading” of them is especially helpful.98 The fourth thesis considers in turn two propositions: (a) a logical system can be given, and (b) a system of existence cannot be given. In discussing the former, Climacus considers the issue of the presuppositionless beginning.99 In discussing the latter, Climacus makes the claim that God is the one who “is outside existence and yet in existence, who in God’s eternity is forever concluded and yet includes existence within Godself.”100 This claim seems to resonate with Lessing’s fragmentary piece, On the Reality of Things Outside God, with its panentheism. Some other references are made to Lessing in the pseudonymous authorship, the signed edifying discourses, and the journals and notebooks.101 “Lavater,” SKS 7, 71 / CUP1, 70; “the leap,” SKS 7, 92–103, 111 / CUP1, 93–106, 115; “Lindberg,” SKS 7, 43 / CUP1, 36; “Origen,” SKS 7, 95 / CUP1, 96–7; “the present age,” SKS 7, 69 / CUP1 67–8; “the religious,” SKS 7, 67–8 / CUP1, 65–7, 71; “the result,” SKS 7, 67 / CUP1 65; “Socrates,” SKS 7, 71 / CUP1, 69; “Spinoza,” SKS 7, 98–9 / CUP1, 100–1; “striving,” SKS 7, 80, 103–5, 117 / CUP1, 80, 106–9, 121; “style,” SKS 7, 70–1 / CUP1, 69–70; “subjectivity,” SKS 7, 67–9 / CUP1, 65–7; “the system,” SKS 7, 103 / CUP1, 106; “truth,” SKS 7, 103–5 / CUP1, 106–9. 95 While Kierkegaard possessed Lessing’s Schriften, in the Postscript he utilized the Danish translation of Strauss’ dogmatics prepared by Hans Brøchner in citing his use of Lessing. (Paul R. Sponheim, Kierkegaard on Christ and Christian Coherence, New York: Harper & Row 1966, p. 74, note 117.) 96 Claus von Bormann, “Lessing” in Kierkegaard’s Teachers, ed. by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1982 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10), p. 138. 97 Thulstrup, Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pp. 202–31. 98 Merold Westphal, Becoming A Self: A Reading of Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press 1996, pp. 59–99. 99 For a thorough handling of this theme, see Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, pp. 488–96. 100 SKS 7, 115 / CUP1, 119. 101 For other entries referring to Lessing in the journals and notebooks, see the following. SKS 17, 32, AA:14.1 / KJN 1, 26f. SKS 17, 90–1, BB:8 / KJN 1, 83f. SKS 18, 146, JJ:4 / KJN 2, 135. SKS 19, 91–2, Not2:2b / JP 5, 5085. SKS 19, 100–2, Not3:4 / JP 5, 5120. SKS 19, 375, Not12:4c / JP 4, 4828. SKS 19, 376, Not12:9 / JP 4, 4826. SKS 19, 377, Not12:12.a / JP 4, 4837. SKS 22, 41, NB11:65 / JP 3, 2373. SKS 22, 44, NB11:73 / JP 6, 6266. SKS 22, 44–5,

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In his 1847 Works of Love Kierkegaard did not make any explicit references to Lessing, but he did write, “Remember that the person who in order truly to will one thing chose to will the good in truth has this blessed comfort: one suffers only once but is victorious eternally.”102 In “The Single Individual”: Two “Notes” Concerning My Work as an Author, the supplement to The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard mentions taking “to heart Lessing’s felicitously expressed wise advice, ‘Let us not pretend to be wise when we have only been lucky.’ ”103 In “The Expectancy of Eternal Salvation,” included in Three Upbuilding Discourses from 1844, Kierkegaard indicates how some who misconstrued salvation did not “perceive that this temporal assurance was precisely the illusion; they did not perceive that ‘they suspended eternity in a spider web.’ ”104 Kierkegaard also makes reference in this same discourse to God holding all truth in the right hand and the eternal striving for it in the left and suggestively links this to salvation.105 In “On the Occasion of a Confession” included in Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions from 1845, Kierkegaard mentions how “a poet has rightly said that a sigh to God without words is the best worship” and then proceeds to reflect on that statement.106 In the discourse “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing” included in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the first post-Postscript work of “the NB11:75, 75a, 75b / JP 4, 3898. SKS 22, 45, NB11:76 / JP 3, 2720. SKS 22, 49, NB11:81 / JP 6, 6269. SKS 22, 57–8, NB11:102 / JP 3, 3195. SKS 22, 60–1, NB11:107 / JP 1, 73. SKS 22, 63, NB11:112 / JP 6, 6274. SKS 22, 63–4, NB11:113 / JP 1, 974. SKS 22, 66–7, NB11:118, 118.a / JP 4, 4326. SKS 22, 87, NB11:149 / JP 4, 4154. SKS 22, 97–8, NB11:165, 1645.a, 164.b. SKS 22, 105–7, NB11:176 / JP 4, 4375. Pap. I C 102 / JP 5, 5160. Pap. II C 25 in XII, p. 283 / JP 5, 5353. Pap. III B 179,1. Pap. V B 1,2 / JP 3, 2370. Pap. V B 1,3 / JP 3, 2342. Pap. V B 64 / JP 2, 1637. Pap. VI B 8, 18 / JP 5, 5792. Pap. VI B 35, 1. Pap. VI B 35, 7 / JP 3, 2371. Pap. VI B 35, 14 / JP 5, 5793. Pap. VI B 35, 34. Pap. VI B 36. Pap. VI B 37. Pap. VI B 95. Pap. VI B 96. Pap. VI B 98, 20. Pap. VI B 98, 22. Pap. VI B 98, 23. Pap. VI B 98, 27. Pap. VI B 98, 31. Pap. VI B 136 / JP 3, 2372. SKS 23, 51–2, NB15:75 / JP 1, 73. SKS 24, 372–3, NB24:86 / JP 4, 4474. SKS 26, 83–4, NB31:112 / JP 4, 4302. SKS 26, 108–9, NB31:146 / JP 3, 3042. SKS 26, 124–5, NB32:13 / JP 3, 2666. SKS 26, 209–10, NB32:120 / JP 3, 2379. SKS 26, 424–6, NB36:26 / JP 3, 2556. Pap. XI–3 B 103, 6.) 102 SKS 9, 94 / WL, 89. Here Kierkegaard is surely drawing on Lessing’s Laokoon, oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie, III, XV-XVIII; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 2, pp. 147–52, 265–99, especially pp. 148–50, 269 / Lacoön, Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, trans. by W.A. Steel, Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons 1930, pp. 14–16, 53–69, especially 14–15, 55. Related to the statement about suffering once but being victorious for eternity are two entries from Kierkegaard’s journals and notebooks: SKS 20, 98, NB:145, 145.a / JP 4, 4593, 4594. 103 SV1 XVIII, 164 / PV, 120. This is from Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, II, 4. Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 21, p. 216. 104 SKS 5, 262 / EUD, 267. This may be referring to the comment in Lessing’s Eine Duplik or Rejoinder: “to want to suspend no less than all eternity on the thread of a spider.” Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 113. 105 SKS 5, 267 / EUD, 272. This reference is to Eine Duplik, Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 5, p. 100. 106 SKS 5, 397 / TD, 16. This is likely referring to Lessing and a statement made in Minna von Barnhelm, II, 7: “One thankful thought to Heaven is the best of prayers!” Lessing’s

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second authorship,” Kierkegaard—in discussing the grip that double-mindedness can have on a person and thus the difficulty of achieving singularity of purpose or purity of heart—makes a reference to Nathan the Wise: “But free—the slave of sin is indeed not, nor has he cast off the chain ‘because he mocks it’: he is under constraint and therefore double-minded, and certainly he must not rule.”107 In an 1849 journal entry Kierkegaard reminds himself that he must read again Lessing’s whole book “On the Fable” because, as with everything he writes, it is masterful, and he must check out Lessing’s comments on Aristotle’s teaching about actuality and possibility along with Lessing’s teaching concerning it because these seem to agree perfectly with what Kierkegaard himself has developed through several of his pseudonyms.108 Another 1849 entry illustrates clearly that Kierkegaard is more prepared to criticize Lessing than is Johannes Climacus. Kierkegaard’s opening paragraph sets the tone for the entry: “Even though Lessing can be forgiven everything in the Fragments [of Reimarus], only in a different sense can he be forgiven for making the attack anonymously (alas, and in this respect, too, he set the tone for the modern age); here he obviously was not sufficiently developed dialectically to know what he was doing.”109 Kierkegaard goes on to explain what he means. That Kierkegaard’s appropriating of Lessing continued to the end is evidenced in his later attack on the church where he makes use of a situation in one of Lessing’s plays in discussing “Bishop Martensen’s Silence.” Martensen’s silence speaks very loudly what it is hiding, just as in Emilia Galotti “When Countess Orsini says to Marinelli, ‘I want to whisper something to you’ and then shouts very loudly what she wants to say.”110 III. An Interpretation of Kierkegaard’s Relation to Lessing The long section in the Postscript that Johannes Climacus devotes to “Something about Lessing” ends with a comment about how anyone, even a cellar dweller, can play the game of being humankind and referring to themselves as “we,” but then the question is how then “one learns that it means a little more to be one,” to be simply and solely a human being.111 Deleted from the final copy of the Postscript was a closing passage to the Lessing section stating that everyone can understand Lessing right away, but “the person who ponders him cannot understand him, which, however, is not to be understood directly, since on the contrary to him it is the

sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 20, p. 241; Lacoön, Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, p. 245. See also SKS 18, 232, JJ:291 / KJN 2, 213. 107 SKS 8, 146 / UD, 32; Lessing, Nathan der Weise, IV, 5; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 22, p. 181 / Nathan the Wise, p. 295. 108 SKS 22, 41, NB11:65 / JP 3, 2373. 109 SKS 22, 44, NB11:71 / JP 3, 2374. 110 SV1 XIX, 84 / M, 80; Lessing, Emilia Galotti, IV, 5; Lessing’s sämmtliche Schriften, vol. 21, p. 273. (The Dramatic Works, ed. by Ernest Bell, trans. by R. Dillon Boylan, London: Bell 1878, p. 201.) 111 SKS 7, 119–20 / CUP1, 124.

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enthusiastic expression for his perhaps having understood Lessing nevertheless.”112 Why did Kierkegaard delete this passage? It seems to be disclosing something significant about Kierkegaard’s relation to Lessing: that is, his self-understanding that Lessing’s testimony is one which, on the surface appears to be readily grasped, but upon further reflection raises questions about one’s self-certainty and leads one more deeply into one’s own existence. Johannes Climacus states that Socrates “was aware that there is no direct relation between the teacher and the learner, because inwardness is truth, and inwardness in the two is precisely the path away from each other.”113 He also proclaims, “The direct relationship with God is simply paganism, and only when the break has taken place, only then can there be a true God-relationship.”114 One breaks with immediacy by reflection and then there is the possibility of faith as a new form of immediacy after reflection. The same holds for relating to the other. A break in the relation is required so that an inward deepening can occur, and then a higher-level relationship becomes possible.115 The deleted passage points to this transition in relating to the other. One thinks Lessing has been understood and the relation with him is immediate. But then after pondering him, one comes to learn that one does not understand him. At that point one has a higher-order relationship with him, and one begins to appreciate that the heightened inwardness in which one is engaged is what Lessing has wanted to evoke. As Kierkegaard receives Lessing’s testimony, then, the reception is not passive. Involved in the province of inwardness empowering the appropriation is spirit, possibility, earnestness, productivity, self-activity, transformation, passion. This Pap. VI B 98, 31 / CUP2, Supplement, pp. 38–9. My emphasis. The full passage reads: “If a private thinker, a speculative capricemonger, like a poor lodger occupied a little garret room in a huge building....—but why does he want to go on living there? After all, he can quietly move away, pack his few belongings. But where would he go, alone in the wide world? Well, if only he dared to knock on Lessing’s door, but Lessing is a difficult man. Everyone can directly understand him right away, so popular is he compared with the systematicians. But the person who ponders him cannot understand him, which, however, is not to be understood directly, since on the contrary to him it is the enthusiastic expression for his perhaps having understood Lessing nevertheless. With the systematicians it is the reverse: the first understanding is difficult, but the last—well, it is hard for those who had trusted in it. But then Lessing has made matters much worse for the poor lodger. He has made him more than dissatisfied with his lodgings; he has made him more venturesome in being dissatisfied—and then, then he leaves him in the lurch. It may so happen that now in his solitude he perhaps longs for the little garret room and the distracting noise and bustle in the big building—perhaps, who knows? I do not know, since I myself, of course, am not the lodger.” 113 SKS 7, 225 / CUP1, 247. 114 SKS 7, 221 / CUP1, 243. 115 In Emmanuel Levinas this break is occasioned by the radical exteriority of the other as experienced most climactically in the face of the other. See Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. by Alphonso Lingis, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press 1969. Cf. the comment of Kierkegaard’s pseudonym in SKS 4, 369 / CA, 65: “The spiritual has its expression in the face.” 112

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means creativity is to be expected in the appropriating.116 Kierkegaard’s appropriating of Lessing’s testimony calls for an interpretation of the relationship between them. It is fitting that our interpretive account keep an eye on the Postscript in which Lessing was “put in a place of honor”117 while conferring with others—who have been engaged in their own appropriating of testimony in construing the relationship— without in so doing relinquishing our own need to appropriate. Lessing is given “an expression of gratitude” by Climacus, one view has it, because, like Socrates, he is a hero of indirect communication and he made his life and beliefs an enigma,” perhaps expressing “the essential truth that subjectivity must always be a personal acquisition” and therefore remaining “in a sense a ‘secret’ to everyone who has not acquired the secret” for herself or himself.118 Or it might well be that Kierkegaard chose to have Climacus feature Lessing, the humanistic skeptic, because he “would have been perceived as an essentially unserious witness, not only not theologically sound but a kind of advocatus diaboli, and therefore one whose testimony would have possessed great irritation value to the cultured intellectual establishment.119 Others stress the subjectivity factor, contending that Lessing’s grasp of subjective thinking was strong, and it is at this level that Climacus seeks kinship with this third-generation Enlightenment thinker in the ironic spirit of Lessing himself.120 Another viewpoint argues that Lessing “served Kierkegaard most as a model of a thinker,” as one who exhibited modesty in that he was “content to hold onto a few thoughts, but to think them through with consistency,” and as a master of ironic indirection invited “self-reflection by means of polemic and wit.”121 Yet a different claim is that Kierkegaard’s transformation of the question from “What is Christianity?” to “How can I become a Christian?” has brought adjustments to how Christian theology is done.122 On the matter of style, it is argued that comments of 116 It is not inappropriate to point out where and how Kierkegaard or Climacus has shifted the meaning of a Lessing-concept such as the leap, but to accuse of misunderstanding might be misconstruing the nature of the relationship, the testimony, and the act of appropriating. 117 Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by George L. Stengren, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1980, pp. 316–17. 118 C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Fragments and Postscript: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International 1983, p. 103. 119 Roger Poole, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia 1993, p. 148. 120 Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001, p. 287. The third generation social location of Lessing amidst the Enlightenment as a movement is from Gay, The Enlightenment. 121 David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996, p. 45. 122 The Christian theologian had best disagree with Kierkegaard’s attempt to leap over what Lessing rightly saw could not be leaped over and admit that both Lessing’s dismissal of history as irrelevant to religion and Kierkegaard’s transformation of it into the paradox could be better replaced by an admittance that questions of history do matter, that faith ought not be sealed off from historical inquiry, that enterprises such as the search for the historical Jesus are of value to Christian faith, but that historical judgments, while occasioning adjustments in the content of faith (the fides quae creditor, the faith that is believed or objective faith),

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Climacus on Lessing’s literary style indicate that it provided Kierkegaard “with an example of how a Socratic writer might aspire to write.”123 These two as rebels against their times is another emphasis one encounters in interpreters. Lessing valiantly took on the unclear thinking of his age and with his naturally polemical character enhanced by an implicit sense of vocational identity criticized most forms of contemporary cultural creations. “For Kierkegaard, Lessing lived and thought through the process of becoming subjective with respect to religion in an exemplary manner, i.e., he did that which Kierkegaard…called the task of his own life: to reflect himself out of the existing pseudo-religious Christendom (Christenhed) in order to realize a simple Christianity (Christendom).”124 In the struggle to live with integrity the question of religion arises, whether it is a resource for such living or rather for the leveled life that serves the status quo. It is asserted that Lessing and Kierkegaard—with all their nuances and distinctions concerning the perennial problem of Christian faith’s relation to history and their image of the “ugly ditch”—merely represent stages in the evolution of a problem which contribute to the confusion and misunderstanding of two centuries of Protestant thought on this faith–history issue and therefore such ditch imagery should simply be left behind.125 Or possibly rather than this Barthian approach, it would be better to go in a more Derridian direction. Johannes Climacus’ critique of objective, speculative thinking can be interpreted as a critique of the metaphysics of presence and Kierkegaard’s Johannes can be claimed as a postmodernist whose position adds a potent religious posture to the options on the postmodern spectrum.126 In the Postscript the objectivity that is attacked by Johannes in the name of subjectivity is nothing other than modernity’s Reason in all its amorality.127 John Caputo, for whom deconstruction is “a hermeneutics of the desire for God and so a certain religion (without religion),” with Lessingian and Kierkegaardian sensitivity describes modernity’s secularism as “the rule of the world, the regime of the profane, which represents an assault on the event, a reductionistic attack on the excess of the sacred, the attempt to disenchant the world in virtue of which everything we mean by God is reduced to the economy have a degree of independence from and are not determinative for the commitment of faith (the fides qua creditor, the faith through which one believes or subjective faith). The case for this middle way between the two extremes represented by Lessing and Kierkegaard is persuasively argued by Richard Campbell, “Lessing’s Problem and Kierkegaard’s Answer,” Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 19, 1966, pp. 35–54. 123 George Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2005, p. 181. On Climacus’ comment on Lessing’s style, see SKS 7, 70–1 / CUP1, 69. 124 See Bormann, “Lessing,” pp. 135–6. This article by Bormann, it should be said, contains a brief but valuable literature review of writings on Lessing and Kierkegaard appearing prior to 1982. 125 Gordon E. Michalson, Jr., Lessing’s “Ugly Ditch”: A Study of Theology and History, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press 1985. 126 Westphal, “Kierkegaard’s Climacus—a Kind of Posmodernist” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments,” pp. 52–71. 127 Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 1987, pp. 120–1.

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of the saeculum, where everything has a market price.”128 Caputo’s post-secular or “postcritical” theological perspective is a good example of a recent attempt to address the impasse that has faced religious and philosophical thinkers this side of Lessing, Kierkegaard, and Kant: namely, that there appear to be only two positions one can affirm: either a “precritical” and fundamentalist stance, or alternatively a “critical” and reductionistic one.129 I am stressing how Kierkegaard’s appropriating of Lessing is a productive, creative receiving. There is a sense in which the relation comes to resemble Kierkegaard’s relations with his pseudonyms.130 Kierkegaard is self-active in appropriating Lessing. And yet, both men affirm the interiorization of religion in a way “that by no means signifies the dissolution of religion in the immanence of reason.”131 The two thinkers have ground in common.132 Without question Kierkegaard found ways to recognize clues in Lessing’s testimony that proved beneficial in demarcating the boundaries and outlining the conditions of Religiousness B. Turf is here shared between the two, but it is a restricted terrain. This, though, is not the extent of their John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event, Bloomington, Indiana: University Press 2006, pp. 292–3. The secularism described is Kierkegaard’s objectivity in its early twenty-first century guise, and Caputo testifies to a “theology of the event” that “takes up residence within the secular order, and working its way through secularism and the death of God, comes out on the other end on the grounds that it has become obvious that the event harbored by the name of God cannot be contained by the ‘world’ (saeculum).” 129 Garrett Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination, New York: Harper & Row 1989, p. 2. 130 Michelle Stott, Behind the Mask: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymic Treatment of Lessing in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Lewsburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press 1993), has developed this theme, describing “Kierkegaard’s Psuedonymic Treatment of Lessing.” She suggests (p. 5) that under Kierkegaard’s hand “Lessing’s appearance in the Postscript can only be understood in terms of Kierkegaard’s overall concept of existential communication, and his employment of pseudonymous figures is an attempt to fulfill its requirements”; furthermore, she asserts “that the Lessing figure of the Postscript is, in actuality, a pseudonymous figure into which Kierkegaard/Climacus has infused that which he believes to be the essential ideality of the historical Lessing.” 131 Bormann, “Lessing,” p. 155. For Kierkegaard human understanding comes to a halt over against the paradox, which it can appropriate only through faith’s passionate leap. For Lessing, too, religion is cultivated in relation to the fact that reason has its limit: “a certain subjugation of reason to the discipline of faith is simply based on the essential definition of revelation. Or rather reason surrenders itself, and its surrender is merely an acknowledgement of its limits as soon as it is assumed that the revelation is a genuine one.” See Nisbet, Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings, “Commentary on the Fragments of Reimarus,” p. 67; see also Bormann, “Lessing,” p. 155. 132 Both were raised in Lutheran homes and continued to be aware of developments within their religious tradition throughout their lives; both were occasionally in conflict with their pious, orthodox, and strict fathers; both lived at a time when the prevailing world-view was rapidly becoming untenable and the opportunity was ripe for new directions to be taken; both were intellectual and existential pioneers whose achievements cannot be easily categorized; and both attacked the church and the cultural form of Christianity that was dominating the day. See Stott, Behind the Mask, pp. 3–4. 128

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connecting on religion. Lessing the Enlightenment figure and Kierkegaard the postEnlightenment figure interrelate on a more expansive territory because the very large majority of Kierkegaard’s writing on religion is concentrated on Religiousness A, which shares much with the more rational, natural, immanental form of religion that Lessing both criticized and internalized as the dominating overarching framework of understanding the cultural life and work of the Aufklärung. Kierkegaard transcended and relativized Religiousness A but, as with other teleologically-suspended realities, never intended to reject it absolutely or banish it from existence. In his study of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, George Pattison makes some conclusions about the stance Kierkegaard settles upon which seems to situate him in a resonant relation with Lessing. Pattison’s sensibilities allow him to appropriate what we might call a “Religiousness A-interpretation” of Kierkegaard’s testimony.133 Pattison sees “the Kierkegaardian religious self” representing “a line of a very distinctive form of religiousness that runs from Plato...through Augustine,” through some of the medieval mystics, and up to the present, and as a religious thinker, Kierkegaard himself “is more adequately understood as an expositor of the love of God than as a defender of the faith.”134 Kierkegaard did not take his starting point from the historical reports and then attempt to extract some type of revelation from them.135 Kierkegaard specifically proclaims Jesus the person of history as the Christ rather than some vague Christ-idea.136 Kierkegaard’s theological movements are grounded in his theological anthropology and theology of creation, so that his vision of faith in Christ emerges out of desires and concerns of human existence which create a context for Christian claims to be meaningfully grasped and provide reasons for holding to particular commitments.137 Finally, Kierkegaard “sought orientation from” Socrates, “the wise man of ancient times,” who had been there from the very beginning, because he “was, historically, a once-for-all and unrepeatable historical individual”; and, in relation to his own age near the end of his life, Kierkegaard “sees possibilities of repeating Socrates’ work in a variety of cultural forms and conditions,” including “the task of witnessing to the love of God amid the decay of Christendom.”138

Pattison draws few links from Kierkegaard to Lessing, but I will attempt to do so in this brief summary. 134 Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, pp. 163–4. Lessing could be included within this line as well and stands firm with his Danish counterpart in commitment to love as the “category proper” in Christian faith’s understanding of and testimony to God. For the theme of love as the “category proper” in Kierkegaard, see Paul R. Sponheim, Speaking of God: Relational Theology, St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press 2006, p. 47. 135 Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, p. 164. Lessing is congruent with Kierkegaard on this. 136 Ibid., p. 166. On this Lessing would agree with him that that is what Christianity demands, although the extent to which Lessing embraces this figure in faith is not clear. 137 Ibid., pp. 166–9. Lessing’s claims of ultimacy, too, emerge organically from his ready embrace of the world in its earthy creatureliness. 138 Ibid., pp. 172–4; p. 182. On this matter, again, Lessing would be in agreement with the Danish Socrates about the singular import of the Greek Socrates. 133

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This Kierkegaardian theological viewpoint is no theological naturalism of the type Lessing seems to have affirmed. It is, though, a theology in which Religiousness A plays its significant part and one that, in reverberating profoundly with many aspects of Lessing’s thought, could also be manifesting signs of dependency on Lessing’s theological perspective. Lessing’s testimony gave something to be interpreted. Kierkegaard appropriated it with the creative flair that characterizes most all of his writing and living, and his testimony has given us something to interpret. Both thinkers bear testimony to the eternal God who comes into time in the moment if freedom’s appropriation responds faithfully to the beckoning divine promise of possibility. Now that my appropriation of their testimony has been executed, I offer my testimony—which gives something to be interpreted—for you to appropriate, with the hope that—in the spirit of Kierkegaard and quite possibly Lessing as well—the testimonium Spiritus Sancti might sanctify and potentiate my testimony for you.

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—— vol. 4, p. 213; p. 248; p. 267; p. 358; pp. 396–9; p. 406; p. 440; p. 581; p. 588 (ASKB 1365–1369). Thiersch, Friedrich, Allgemeine Aesthetik in akademischen Lehrvorträgen, Berlin: G. Reimer 1846, pp. 15–16 (ASKB 1378). Weiße, Christian Hermann, System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der Schönheit, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: C.H.F. Hartmann 1830, vol. 1, p. 24; vol. 2, p. 217; p. 247 (ASKB 1379–1380). —— Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Ch.F. Grimmer’sche Buchhandlung 1833, p. 256 (ASKB 866). Zeuthen, Ludvig, Om Ydmyghed. En Afhandling, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852, p. 4 (ASKB 916). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Lessing Baerthold, A., Lessing und die objective Wahrheit aus Sören Kierkegaards Schriften zusammengestellt, Halle: Fricke 1877. Bormann, Claus von, “Kierkegaard und Lessing,” in Kierkegaard und die deutsche Philosophie seiner Zeit, ed. by Heinrich Anz, Peter Kemp and Friedrich Schmöe, Munich: Fink 1980 (Text & Kontext, Sonderreihe, vol. 7), pp. 9–46. —— “Lessing,” in Kierkegaard’s Teachers, ed. by Niels Thulstrup and Marie Mikulová Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1982 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10), pp. 135–57. Campbell, Richard, “Lessing’s Problem and Kierkegaard’s Answer,” Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 19, 1966, pp. 35–54. (Reprinted in Essays on Kierkegaard, ed. by Jerry H. Gill. Minneapolis: Burgess 1969, pp. 74–89.) Colette, Jacques, “Kierkegaard et Lessing,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, vol. 44, 1960, pp. 2–39. Evans, C. Stephen, Kierkegaard’s Fragments and Postscript: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International 1983, p. 103; p. 106; p. 163; p. 248; p. 275. Fischer, Hermann, Die Christologie des Paradoxes. Zur Herkunft und Bedeutung des Christusverständnisses Sören Kierkegaards, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1970, see pp. 28–47. Garff, Joakim, “Retorisk list og lyst: At læse Lessing,” in his “Den Søvnløse.” Kierkegaard læst æstetisk/biografisk, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1995, pp. 225–31. Gouwens, David J., Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996, pp. 45–6. Hannay, Alastair, “Having Lessing on One’s Side,” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments,” ed. by Robert L. Perkins, Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 1997 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 12), pp. 205–26. (Reprinted in his Kierkegaard and Philosophy. Selected Essays, London and New York: Routledge 2003, pp. 49–63.)

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—— Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001, p. 78; p. 234; p. 240; p. 276; pp. 283–96; p. 298; p. 304; p. 311; p. 394; p. 426; p. 469; pp. 473–4. Henriksen, Jan-Olav, The Reconstruction of Religion. Lessing, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cambridge: Eerdmans 2001. Jørgensen, Sven-Aage, “Lessing in Dänemark. Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Grundtvig und Kierkegaard,” in Nation und Gelehrtenrepublik. Lessing im europäischen Zusammenhang, ed. by Wilfried Barner and Albert M. Reh, Munich: Text + Kritik; Detroit: Wayne State University Press 1984, pp. 315–24. Kjældgaard, Lasse Horne, “Kierkegaards forhold til Lessings æstetik,” in his Mellemhverandre. Tableau og fortælling i Søren Kierkegaards pseudonyme skrifter, Hellerup: Forlaget Spring 2001, pp. 26–31. —— “Det prægnante og det transitoriske: to nøglebegreber i Lessings æstetik,” in his Mellemhverandre. Tableau og fortælling i Søren Kierkegaards pseudonyme skrifter, Hellerup: Forlaget Spring 2001, pp. 43–8. Krämer, Helmut, “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,” in his Autorität und Erziehung als Problem der neueren Philosophie seit Søren Kierkegaard, Hamburg: Kovač 1993, pp. 21–6. Lunding, Erik, “Lessing und Kierkegaard,” Orbis Litterarum, no. 2, 1944, pp. 158– 87. Michalson, Gordon E. Jr., “Lessing, Kierkegaard, and the ‘Ugly Ditch’: A Reexamination,” The Journal of Religion, vol. 59, 1979, pp. 324–34. —— “Kierkegaard’s Debt to Lessing. Reply to Whisenant,” Modern Theology, vol. 6, 1989–90, pp. 379–84. —— Lessing’s “Ugly Ditch”: A Study of Theology and History, University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press 1985. Pattison, George, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2005, p. 3; p. 14; p. 26; p. 71; pp. 150–1; p. 164; p. 166; p. 172; pp. 181–2. Pieper, Annemarie, Geschichte und Ewigkeit bei Sören Kierkegaard. Das Leitproblem der pseudonymen Schriften, Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain 1968, see pp. 16–18. Pizzuti, Giuseppe Mario, Invito al pensiero di Sören Kierkegaard, Milan: Grupp Ugo Mursia Editore 1995, pp. 184–9. Poole, Roger, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia 1993, p. 148; pp. 155–6. Requadt, P. “Lessing, Schlegel, Kierkegaard,” Neue Schweizer Rundschau, no. 22 (Neue Folge, no. 1), 1933, pp. 103–8. Rizzacasa, Aurelio, “Socrate e Lessing,” in his Kierkegaard. Storia ed esistenza, Rome: Edizioni studium 1984, pp. 57–60. Rogan, Janet Eileen, Across Lessing’s Ditch. Hegel, Kierkegaard and Historicality, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester 1987. Schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel-Verlag 1968, p. 61; p. 121. Scopetea, Sophia, Kierkegaard og græciteten. En kamp med ironi, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1995, see p. 45; p. 56, note 98; p. 67, note 10; p. 73, note 48; p. 98,

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note 7; pp. 248–50; pp. 252–3; p. 258; p. 262; p. 324, note 32; p. 395, note 12; p. 397, note 33; p. 398; p. 476. Stott, Michelle, Behind the Mask. Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymic Treatment of Lessing in the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press 1993. Thulstrup, Niels, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by George L. Stengren, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1980, p. 281; pp. 316–17; p. 345; p. 373. —— Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by Robert J. Widenmann, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1984, p. 38; p. 46; p. 107; pp. 175ff.; pp. 202ff.; p. 209; p. 215; p. 219; pp. 221–2; pp. 230–1; p. 270; p. 343. Vergote, Henri-Bernard, “Dogmatique et saut: le problème de Lessing,” in his Sens et répétition. Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, vols. 1–2, Paris: Cerf/Orante 1982, vol. 2, pp. 59–66. Westphal, Merold, “The Subjective Issue—Something about Lessing,” in his Becoming a Self: A Reading of Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press 1996, pp. 59–99. Whisenant, James, “Kierkegaard’s Use of Lessing,” Modern Theology, vol. 6, 1989–90, pp. 259–72.

Michel de Montaigne: The Vulnerability of Sources in Estimating Kierkegaard’s Study of Essais Søren Landkildehus

I. The State of the Research Although it is unlikely that Montaigne’s thoughts exercised any profound influence on Kierkegaard’s works, there is something to be said about Montaigne’s Essais in relation to Kierkegaard. Perceptive readers might detect that my opening sentence is modelled on Ronald Grimsley’s slightly similar beginning from his chapter “Kierkegaard and Montaigne” in Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature. Grimsley’s chapter, is to my mind, the best place to start and the definitive treatment of the various sources of Montaigne in Kierkegaard’s writings. Were it not for the fact that on numerous occasions, to the reader’s bemusement, Grimsley claims to be able to discern from the few notes Kierkegaard makes in his journal a whole range of intentions on the part of Kierkegaard, we might have found Grimsley’s work adequate in this area. Grimsley’s Kierkegaard “saw in Montaigne a thinker whose honest appraisal of human motives acted as a salutary corrective to the absurd pretensions of human pride,” and “probably studied with some care the long and famous Apologie de Raymond Sebond.” Moreover, Grimsley claims that the number of quotations spanning the years 1847–50 suggests “a fairly long and close study of the Essais.” To start with the last claim first, Grimsley enumerates more than a dozen quotations, many of which are very brief. Only once does Kierkegaard reference Montaigne in the published works, namely, as what a “wise man has said.” This number of quotations offers no reason to conclude that Kierkegaard’s reading of the Essais was anything remotely resembling a “long and close study.” One might once in a while pick up a copy of, say, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, I am grateful to the Hong Kierkegaard Library and the Kierkegaard House Foundation for enabling me to do research for this article.  Ronald Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1966.  Ibid., p. 72.  Ibid., p. 66.  Ibid., p. 65.  SKS 10, 145 / CD, 135.

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proceed to read a little and note down a few striking sentences. This does not make what one does a close study. However, were Kierkegaard to have critically engaged with what Montaigne argued, then naturally it could have been a close study. This has a bearing on Grimsley’s next claim that Kierkegaard studied with “some care” the Sebond apology. Grimsley acknowledges, “[if] Kierkegaard does not discuss the main arguments of the Apologie he notes with approval a number of Montaigne’s observations.” So, Kierkegaard reads Montaigne with some approval but is not really occupied with any arguments. This speaks for the view that Kierkegaard was a casual reader of Montaigne, rather than one who pored over the Essais in a close, careful, and long-term study of the French essayist. Lastly, Grimsley does not flinch when making the claim that Kierkegaard “saw a thinker whose honest appraisal of human motives acted as a salutary corrective to the absurd pretensions of human pride.” Grimsley gives no sources at all to support such a claim. The point is not that Grimsley says anything decidedly wrong, but it is merely that his interpretation of Kierkegaard’s engagement with Montaigne’s text is dressed up with the help of over-enthusiasm. Grimsley even states that although his chapter only deals with the known and attributable journal passages, who knows what studies of a number of the later works might turn up of hitherto unrealized connections between Kierkegaard and Montaigne. Although the possibility of finding such connections should not be denied outright, I tend to have a pessimistic view of such an endeavor. My aim with this essay is to estimate Kierkegaard’s engagement with Montaigne. This means that the source material I investigate is largely identical to Grimsley’s selection; however, the conclusions I draw diverge from what Grimsley concludes. The divergence is due primarily to methodological differences, the importance of which, I aim to show in this essay, cannot be overlooked. I began by saying that despite the lack of influence there might still be something to say about Kierkegaard and Montaigne. This is because, as indicated, things have been said already, and because, in my estimation, the evidence of Kierkegaard reading Montaigne points not to direct influence on Kierkegaard’s published works, but rather documents Kierkegaard’s reading habits. So, this essay is less about concrete lines of thought found in Kierkegaard which owe something to Montaigne, and more about us as readers of a reader of Montaigne. II. The Sources Kierkegaard read a German translation of Montaigne which distributes over seven volumes the three books of the Essais. The majority of entries in the journals are

Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 67. Ibid., p. 72.  [Michael Montaigne], Michael Montaigne’s Gedanken und Meinungen über allerley Gegenstände, trans. by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, vols. 1–7, Berlin: F.T. Lagarde 1793–99 (ASKB 681–687).  

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either in Journal NB2 and NB3, all dating from 1847, or in Journal NB20 and NB21,10 all dating from 1850. The engagement with Montaigne is non-systematic. The earlier entries correspond to volume 3 of the German edition, which contains the Apology for Raymond Sebond.11 The exceptions are NB2:172 and NB2:174 which correspond to volume 4, containing the essay “Of Giving the Lie.”12 The later entries correspond to volumes 2, 3, 4, and 5.13 Nine entries (the majority) note that something is well said or stated by Montaigne, after which the remarkable saying is recorded.14 Two entries are instances of references to sayings without any particular import of Montaigne’s own thinking.15 One entry compares Montaigne and Spinoza on the outward indistinguishable appearance of followers of various faiths;16 and one entry discusses bashfulness as a sign of spirit as opposed to Montaigne’s wonder why humans are so prudish about their origin.17 What does this tell us? The evidence points to a casual engagement with Montaigne’s text rather than a careful study over a long period. Saying that Kierkegaard read Montaigne from 1847 to 1850 is inaccurate. We have evidence that suggests Kierkegaard read Montaigne in 1847 and in 1850. Kierkegaard started out with the famous apology which articulates Montaigne’s skepticism of what humans can know. He later returned to read the essays on solitude, friendship, inequality, and the art of discussion. This is far from showing a general interest in Montaigne’s overall project; Kierkegaard seems simply to have been reading around at random. Most of the entries are undoubtedly source material from Montaigne’s Essais.18 These entries are clearly referenced to the Essais with page number or with a phrase such as “Montaigne says in one place...” or just in mentioning Montaigne’s name. One entry recorded in Kierkegaard’s journals under the heading of “Montaigne” refers to See SKS 20, 205, NB2:161. SKS 20, 208, NB2:172. SKS 20, 210, NB2:174. SKS 20, 217, NB2:194. SKS 20, 249, NB3:12. 10 See SKS 23, 451, NB20:111. SKS 23, 471, NB20:151. SKS 24, 22, NB21:19. SKS 24, 33, NB21:38. SKS 24, 43, NB21:59. SKS 24, 44, NB21:61. SKS 24, 47, NB21:66. SKS 24, 49, NB21:71. 11 Note that SKS 20, 20, NB2:161 which is used in Christian Discourses (SKS 10, 145 / CD, 135) is from the essay “On Conscience.” 12 In Montaigne’s order this essay comes close after the Apology. 13 The essays concerned are from volume 2, “Of Solitude” (SKS 24, 49, NB 21:71), “Of Friendship” (SKS 24, 140, NB21:66), and “Of the Inequality that is between Us” (SKS 24, 49, NB 21:71). From volume 3, it is again the Apology (SKS 23, 471, NB20:151). In volume 4, it is “Of Glory” (SKS 23, 451–2, NB20:112). In volume 5, it is “Of the Art of Discussion” (SKS 24, 22, NB21:19) and “On Some Verses of Virgil” (SKS 24, 33, NB21:38. SKS 24, 43, NB21:59). 14 See SKS 20, 205, NB2:161. SKS 20, 208, NB2:172. SKS 20, 210, NB2:174. SKS 23, 451, NB20:111. SKS 23, 471, NB20:151. SKS 24, 22, NB21:19. SKS 24, 33, NB21:38. SKS 24, 44, NB21:61. SKS 24, 49, NB21:71. 15 See SKS 20, 249, NB3:12 and SKS 24, 47, NB21:66. 16 See SKS 20, 217, NB2:194. 17 See SKS 24, 43, NB21:59. 18 A number of entries, which are quotations from Seneca, are perhaps sourced from Montaigne. See SKS K24, 27, note 17.20. SKS K24, 31, note 22.10. SKS K24, 41, note 34.2. SKS K24, 44, note 38.1. 

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volume 3 of the German edition page 481.19 There is no overt reference to Montaigne in this entry, which deals with an Italian proverb that whoever “grows too keen cuts himself.”20 No connection can be discerned between the content of entry NB2:197 and the page number referenced. Neither in actual wording nor in content does the page in question justify placing the entry under the heading of Montaigne. Rather, after some investigation, the content of VIII–1 A 318, i.e. NB2:197, is connected to Petrarch’s The Canzoniere,21 no. 105: chi troppo assotiglia si scavezza.22 Montaigne does mention this bit; however, it appears in the third volume on page 556.23 (The correct reference is given in the Papirer edition.) However, the confusion in the Journals and Papers edition is aggravated when considering the following entry VIII–1 A 317, i.e. NB2:196, which does not appear in the Hongs’ collection. This entry is a quotation from Augustine on how God’s greatness in great things is no less so in small things. Kierkegaard reproduced the passage appearing in Montaigne word for word.24 The entry has the peculiarity of matching perfectly to the page number in Essais from above (p. 481) which the Hong edition wrongly attributes to VIII–1 A 318, i.e. NB2:197. We are thus left with an edition of Kierkegaard’s journal entries that represent one entry with references that belong to another entry which is not represented. There are two lessons to be learnt from this little exercise. One is that vagueness may allow inaccurate claims about the extent of influence on Kierkegaard’s work. The other is that inaccurate representation and referencing are a reminder that we have a responsibility to review and correct previous scholarship.

See SKS 20, 218, NB2:197 / JP 3, 2777. Montaigne, The Complete Works, trans. by Douglas M. Frame, London: Everyman Guides 2003 (Everyman’s Library Classics), p. 509. The John Florio translation (1603) has “Who makes himselfe too fine, doth break himselfe in fine” which fits somewhat better with the German translation Kierkegaard notes down also: Wer spinnt zu fein Haspelt sich ein. 21 Francesco Petrarca, Petrarch’s Songbook: A Verse Translation of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, trans. and ed. by James Wyatt Cook, Italian text by Gianfranco Contini, Binghampton and New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 1995. 22 In SKS K20, 213, Kierkegaard is accused of not recording the wording correctly. Following the commentator it should be Chi troppo s’assottiglia, si scavezza (which accords well with the original French editions of Montaigne). This is not what the German edition has. There we find: “Chi troppo assottiglia, si scavezza”—however, Kierkegaard still misspells assottiglia. However, the saying is correctly transcribed if it were taken from Petrarch’s Italian. In the Italian editions of Il Canzoniere consulted the saying is chi troppo assotiglia si scavezza. Beyond the text mentioned in note 21, see also Petrarch, Sonnets & Songs, New York: Pantheon 1946. As a curious mistake then, Kierkegaard did not misspell the Italian as claimed in SKS K20. 23 The entry corresponds to the Apology. 24 This entry corresponds to the Apology, see also note to Pap. VIII–1 A 317, i.e. SKS 20, 217, NB2:196. 19 20

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III. Well said, Montaigne! “My friends, there are no friends any more”25—this sentence is found in Montaigne’s essay on friendship. Montaigne wrote this particular essay in memory of his beloved friend Etienne de la Boétie, who died at only 32 years of age. The death of his friend may have been the shock, for indeed it was a shock that propelled Montaigne into his role as an author. Montaigne withdrew from public life and spent his retirement partly in his famous tower amongst his books. Montaigne wrote about himself in the essays, and so also, perhaps, he was writing to himself. At the loss of a confidante, the act of writing may play the role of communicating the way towards oneself, which might otherwise have been traversed in the company of the living. In a trail of letters, the author walks with the dead towards death. My friends, there are no friends, may be addressed to pages filling up with ink spots while those living “customary friendships,”26 who bring the sentence to mind, swerve in and out of our lives. But, as Marcel Proust reminds us, reading is a friendship.27 And so, the friends, to whom we thus sigh, may be our books. But if neither writing nor reading offer much regarding resistance to our self-understanding, in turn we are much more unpretentious and honest in the silence of the pages. Faced with paper, we need no artificiality of tact to continue to be amongst friends. Whether Kierkegaard found a particular friend in Montaigne is doubtful, but he might have sighed, on occasion, as we have been sighing above, when encountering an interesting expression. Kierkegaard’s reading of Montaigne falls roughly into two kinds. One comprises entries recording some striking saying or some wellphrased passage. The other comprises recordings of quotations from classical writers, especially Seneca.28 More likely than not Kierkegaard refers the first kind of entry to his edition of Montaigne’s essays, but in many instances he leaves out references when it comes to the second kind of entry. In Kierkegaard’s journals, the majority of entries that are either expressively referenced to Montaigne or can be traced to reading Montaigne are not contextualized as being part of a particular essay in Essais. Kierkegaard is not tracking any particular line of thought of Montaigne’s, rather, it appears that what Kierkegaard gains from reading Montaigne is a study of a superb writer, someone who expresses well either the kind of insights Kierkegaard recognizes as true, or supplies phrases which may be used entirely out of context by Kierkegaard. The latter practice is evident in the single, traceable reference to Montaigne by Kierkegaard. In Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard discourses on the joy of the thought that what we lose temporally we gain eternally. Montaigne is credited only as a “wise man” who has said that “everyone who has deserved punishment fears punishment, but everyone who fears punishment suffers punishment.”29 This dictum is used as Montaigne, The Complete Works, trans. by Douglas M. Frame, p. 171. Ibid. 27 Marcel Proust, Om Læsning [snippet from Journées du lecture], trans. by Christina Westenholz Bojlén in Vejen til Swann, trans. by Christian Rimestad, Copenhagen: MunksgaardRosinante 1994. 28 Another is Quintillian, see SKS K24, 40, note 33.16. 29 SKS 10, 145 / CD, 135. 25 26

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an out-of-context illustration of what it means to have eternity very close to one’s existence. However, this is the case only in so far as it illustrates that the guilty individual has not yet been punished, but because punishment hovers in such close proximity the guilty individual suffers it.30 Montaigne’s short piece on conscience is not alluded to, nor does it resemble in any way what Kierkegaard is up to in Christian Discourses. Part of the explanation why Kierkegaard does not credit the saying explicitly to Montaigne may involve the consideration that whereas Montaigne is a humanist writer concerned with the human experience of human affairs, Kierkegaard is a religious writer who seeks to call to attention the difference between the divine and the human sphere. Thus, Kierkegaard eliminates any overt reference to Montaigne, because it is of negligible importance. Having Montaigne’s name figuring in a text of Christian exhortation might even take away attention from the main errand. Rather than exclude it altogether, Kierkegaard adds the vague term “wise man” to indicate what is borrowed. One might speculate why Kierkegaard wanted to keep the Montaigne saying, and propose that the motivation for such an act stems from a penchant for well-coined phrases. As support for this line of speculation, we can list the entries in the journals, the majority of which records the aesthetics of what is phrased well. IV. Sources in Context Although Kierkegaard as a reader of Montaigne mainly notes striking articulations found in the Essais, he is concomitantly making observations. In two particular instances, Kierkegaard contextualizes observations from Montaigne with lines of thought he rehearses in the journals. The first instance is from 1847. The context comprises the entries NB2:193–5.31 In NB2:193, Kierkegaard remarks on the discrepancy between preaching on Christ amongst sinners while in everyday life speaking to simple people is frowned upon. Along with NB2:195, which is a reproduction by memory from the Sermon on the Mount on how to distinguish pagans and Christians (a dictum which speaks of how the pagans also shake hands),32 this entry envelops NB2:194, where Kierkegaard copies a passage from Essais, which is recommended as a “very good observation by Montaigne.”33 The passage is from the beginning of the Sebond apology, where Montaigne develops the thought that it is only by their words that Christians are marked. If divine knowledge illuminated all of our existence, then Montaigne writes that “we ought to be ashamed that in human sects there never was a partisan, whatever difficult and strange thing his doctrine maintained, who did not to some extent conform his conduct and life to it.”34 Connected to this, Kierkegaard quotes Spinoza to be saying that the distinguishing marks between various individuals of Ibid. One can expand the context to other entries in the vicinity, but the selection is representative. 32 Cf. SKS K20, 213, note 217.23. 33 SKS 20, 217, NB2:194 34 Montaigne, The Complete Works, trans. by Douglas M. Frame, p. 390. 30 31

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different religious beliefs are only outward characteristics, such as where they go to worship and what they say about their worship.35 In Montaigne, the context has to do with geographical Christendom the morals of which are not distinguished compared to other religions. The shame of Christendom is, according to Montaigne, the fact that Christians are all words and no deeds. The connection to Spinoza turns on the observation that disregarding what different people profess, the “how” of their lives does not differ. The connection is telling in two respects. One is that, were Christians to live as they say they believe, then superiority is implied, following Montaigne, since the life of such a person would be governed and illuminated by divine rays of light.36 Spinoza seems to sanction the observation that Christians ought to be ashamed since there is no way of making distinctions between the various believers. But in another respect, as things stand for Montaigne, when Christian morals are compared to “a Mohammedan’s, or a pagan’s; we always fall short of them.”37 This observation does not gain sanction from Spinoza, since no moral superiority is accorded worshippers of non-Christian religions. Kierkegaard’s comment is to be determined from the “enveloping” remarks. On the one hand, both Spinoza and Montaigne’s observation that Christians do not live as they believe is affirmed by noting how inconsistently “Christians” behave. On the other hand, by referring to the Sermon on the Mount, Kierkegaard takes the position that what distinguishes Christians and pagans does not reside in outwardly detectable mores. Kierkegaard does not think that Christians would reveal themselves by having extraordinary morals, or even have moral superiority in what they do by the fact of their religion. Rather, the play with Montaigne and Spinoza is a piece of indirection: the outward should have no importance as a criterion for determining Christian virtue. Whereas Montaigne could be read as wishing for a splendid display of Christianity, Spinoza notes indistinguishability across the board, though both of them look for a public criterion of distinguishability. Kierkegaard’s notion of reduplication, which directs the individual to exist in what he believes, is still (in 1847) governed by the idea of hidden inwardness: one must exist as a Christian within the worldliness and not apart from it.38 The point for a Christian is not to be recognized as such by his fellow companions on earth. The criterion of distinguishability is not publicly available but divinely reticulative. Journal NB21 (1850) is packed with evidence of Kierkegaard immersed in studying various authors, to express his relation to Mynster, and his “self” and his motivation. Kierkegaard is now more concerned with how Christianity is preached and how to get out of hiding. Reduplication is no longer how to exist as a Christian incognito within the world, but to exist as a Christian (to express or live out what one believes) in opposition to the establishment. This does not automatically mean that one must proclaim membership in Christianity. The awakened Christian in

SKS 20, 217, NB2:194; cf. SKS K20, 212, note 217.15. See Montaigne, The Complete Works, trans. by Douglas M. Frame, pp. 390–1. 37 Ibid., p. 391. 38 Cf. SKS 20, 215–16, NB2:191. 35 36

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a community of Christendom is such as a negation of that community, thus not a “Christian” as Christendom would understand it. The second instance of context, NB21:20–1, is from 1850, and with some hesitation we may call it a context of Kierkegaard reading Montaigne, for although Kierkegaard sources a quotation from Livy from Montaigne (and as a result of reading the Essais) the quotation is lifted out of its original context, and its context in the journal entries has nothing to do with what Montaigne discusses. In NB21:20, Kierkegaard records with approval what Livy says about judging post ex facto that it is not a via media (golden mean, virtuous) to await the outcome in order to adjust one’s decisions according to the winds of fate, but nulla via (no way, aporia). The puzzle is elaborated in NB21:21. Kierkegaard explains the motivation to want to wait for the outcome before judging stems from the misunderstanding that we, the awaiting ones, are merely there to judge, whereas whoever stands out is there to be judged. The appropriate understanding is that everyone is there to be judged; those who misunderstand this have their judgment: that they wait for the outcome before judging. Standing apart without waiting to see whether where one stands is going to be successful implies both that one may lose (temporally) and that the criteria for judging what to do are extant to the individual regardless of any outcome. Given the nature of the later journals, we may read many of these reflections on virtue as means by which Kierkegaard is rehearsing his final battle against the church. Kierkegaard is studying the character traits and appropriate behaviors suitable for someone who is extraordinary without claiming to be. In a derived sense, he remarks on this when noting in NB21:166 that as long as he kept silent the earlier authorship was gradually being accepted, but with the publication of Practice in Christianity he is yet again looked upon with suspicion. Kierkegaard as a reader of Montaigne falls in two distinct periods of the authorship. In 1847, Kierkegaard is keen to develop and clarify his ideas, whereas in the 1850s Kierkegaard is building himself up character-wise for the coming attack, he is clarifying his relationships and his conduct, and he is perusing literature for sharply penned expressions. We can describe Kierkegaard as a reader in the above respects as seeing literature as either a prism for reflecting his own thought or a mirror in which to reflect his own resolve of character. But all this should be taken with some reservation. Kierkegaard did not pore over Montaigne especially. His reading of Montaigne is limited and disappointing, particularly when one notes that the relatively large number of entries, which can be referenced to Montaigne, leaves such a small impact. The reservations I have regarding speculating any further on the Montaigne–Kierkegaard connection are founded on methodological considerations. We have one—one—treatment of the purported influence of Montaigne on Kierkegaard. I turn now to discredit such an enterprise of demonstrating influence, and I outline certain virtues of method dealing with source material of the kind we have been making use of here.

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V. Sources of Persuasion Grimsley offers many interesting readings of Kierkegaard and French literature. His book received a favorable review in Forum for Modern Language Studies. Ian W. Alexander, the reviewer, surrenders all critical hesitation when in four swift sentences Grimsley is recommended for “wisely [concentrating] his attention on Kierkegaard’s references in the Journals. As these show, Kierkegaard studied Montaigne closely between 1847 and 1850. His numerous quotations suggest that he found in him principally a lesson of humility and sincerity.”39 Unfamiliar with the sources, a reviewer may indeed be taken in by the expert reading of Kierkegaard that Grimsley presents. The review confirms only, however, the power of persuasion that is facilitated by hinting at sources. Sources are just enablers for some interpretation. Nonetheless, we require—usually—sources to be constraints on interpretations. Thus, it is reasonable to think that sources have a double role of enabling one interpretation while constraining another. How an interpreter activates the enabling power of sources depends largely on what kind of framework the interpreter takes for granted. In this picture of what sources do, we may see how some source enables very different interpretations and constrains internally the preferred interpretation and externally many competing ones. What makes a source so vulnerable has to do with the regulative context of reading. This is a form of holism in that the significance of some source is acquired from the reader’s context. Now Grimsley presses the interpretation that Kierkegaard was a steady student of Montaigne. The number of identifiable entries which have something to do with Montaigne may indeed be called numerous, since there are more than one.40 We touched on the fact that the entries divide in two groups in relation to years. So, we have numerous entries from two specific years, 1847 and 1850.41 What allows Grimsley to claim that Kierkegaard studied Montaigne closely between 1847 and 1850? Of course, in the word “between” hides a terrible vagueness which subsequently might be employed to get Grimsley off the hook. Nevertheless, the impression, which the reviewer had, was not of an intermittent study. We can diagnose what goes on as a case of a persuasive suggestion which is rather misleading. According to Grimsley, the sources enable the claim that Kierkegaard studied Montaigne closely between the years 1847 and 1850, which suggests that Kierkegaard read Montaigne continuously from 1847 to 1850. (Recall from above that Grimsley claimed Kierkegaard’s engagement to be “a fairly long and close study of the Essais.”) Grimsley’s context is “comparative” literature,42 and there is admittedly no point in writing a chapter on a French writer who did not exercise any notable influence on Kierkegaard’s thinking or who was the object of Ian W. Alexander, “An Existentialist Appreciation of French Literature,” Forum for Modern Language Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, 1967, pp. 179–83. 40 On my tally, the number of entries is approximately 15 (excluding the Seneca quotations). 41 There are seven entries in 1847 and eight in 1850. 42 Cf. Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 1; p. 159. 39

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very casual and intermittent study—unless, of course, one is not engaged in source research but attempts to compare themes in the thoughts of the authors. To be fair, Grimsley does thematically compare the projects of Kierkegaard and Montaigne. Yet to divorce some of the comparisons from the guiding thought of his chapter is difficult. Grimsley thinks there is evidence in Kierkegaard’s journals for the claim that there was considerable influence, since three centuries “had in no way lessened the relevance which Kierkegaard deemed his famous predecessor’s work to have.”43 Be that as it may, in this example the regulative force of the reader’s context exacerbates the vulnerability of the sources. The entries from Kierkegaard’s journal do not even have the power to constrain Grimsley’s interpretation internally. They are allowed to constrain externally only because the sources have a role to play in persuading the audience to accept the reasonableness of some outré claim. That is to say, Grimsley is content to allow Kierkegaard first to have read Montaigne from 1847, since that is the year of the first entry. Having a period of three years from a starting point to an end date coupled with the number and the nature of the entries sets up the interpretative meta-story of “a fairly long and close study of the Essais.” VI. The Vice of Vagueness Grimsley produces several instances of poetizing Kierkegaard-as-reader-ofMontaigne. An example is NB20:111 which speaks of a sailor’s exclaiming to God that he can save him or not, but whatever he does the sailor will not let go of the rudder.44 Grimsley comments “[when] he noted this story, Kierkegaard must certainly have been thinking of his own situation as a thinker as opposed to the false values of his age.”45 And, [when] he noted in his diary the cry which Montaigne borrowed from Aristotle—“le mot que Aristote avoit très familier—O mes amis, il n’y a nul amy,” the words must have been of more than casual interest, their deep personal meaning going far beyond their cryptic appearance in the Journals.46

We may learn much from these comments about the nature of the entries in Kierkegaard’s journal. The entries are of such a brevity and laconic nature that poetizing them seems needed to save them from their cryptic appearance. However, for those who have read the entries the spell does not bind, and scholars ought to remain unconvinced when reading Grimsley’s story of Kierkegaard’s study of Montaigne. A more droll commentary, scholarly speaking, is when there are no sources being poetized at all. Instead, poetizing is unrestrained. Grimsley finds Montaigne’s selfauthorial project remarkable and makes the comparison that perhaps “Kierkegaard Ibid., p. 72. SKS 23, 451, NB20:111. 45 Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 69. 46 Ibid., p. 71. 43 44

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was encouraged by Montaigne’s example when he came to write his own Point of View for My Work as an Author in the following year (1848), for there too he tries to define the whole meaning of his authorship.”47 My view on this frivolity is that even if I do not recommend it, unrestrained poetizing is a less disreputable business than poetizing sources. Let us backtrack for a moment. At the end of the previous section, I said that Grimsley allowed the sources to constrain externally for the purpose of a specific meta-story. Now, why should we even accord the kind of significance to the very first entry in the journals as the start of Kierkegaard’s study of Montaigne? Is it not possible that Kierkegaard read Montaigne before 1847? Why would we be unjustified in claiming that Kierkegaard was inspired by Montaigne as early as 1844? In The Concept of Anxiety, Vigilius Haufniensis writes in the Preface, “the one who intends to write a book ought to consider carefully the subject about which he wishes to write.”48 Only three years later, Kierkegaard recorded the following. “It is well said by Montaigne ‘I have not studied so as to write a book, but I have studied what I have written in the book.’ ”49 The striking resemblance might excite a writer to propose a meta-story that does not count the entry from 1847 as a constraint on when Kierkegaard became acquainted with Montaigne. The excited writer would say that Montaigne was a familiar figure in Kierkegaard’s intellectual life. Whatever else the 1847 entries say, none of them rules out that Kierkegaard read Montaigne earlier. Indeed, the claim would be that the 1847 entries do not necessarily have the significance of “the starting point” of Kierkegaard’s alleged long and close study of Montaigne. There is no reason why we should suspect that the 1847 entries play the role of determining the beginning of Kierkegaard’s reading the Essais. That said we have no reason either for saying that Kierkegaard read Montaigne earlier. What I recommend here is a rather austere regulative framework which tempers the inclination to make more out of study notes than is warranted. The entries on Montaigne do not austerely represent more than study notes. Due to the condensed nature of the entries, a certain vagueness emerges when the sources are forced to say more than is immediately apparent or justifiable. Many of the entries are only recording some saying by Montaigne. Is it unthinkable that Kierkegaard revealed something about himself in jotting these sentences down? Not at all. But in many cases what ought to be the guiding thought should be whether what has been noted down supports the kind of speculation we have indulged in here. As to any revelation Kierkegaard could have made about himself, I think the less said the better. VII. Being Cryptic Grimsley writes that “Kierkegaard’s last reference to Montaigne in the Journals does not go beyond 1850, although the absence of written extracts and comments does not, of course, necessarily mean that he ceased to study the essayist’s work after Ibid., p. 65. SKS 4, 313 / CA, 7. 49 SKS 20, 208, NB2:172. 47 48

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this date.”50 Allowing, as Grimsley does, for a more ambiguous understanding of what we can infer from the last reference to Montaigne, makes the very notion of a concentrated study much less stable. Nevertheless, Grimsley needs this ambiguity to claim that perhaps “a study of the major works written during this period...would reveal other borrowings from Montaigne.”51 The potentiality of the ambiguity has the open-ended result of making any work of Kierkegaard’s after 1847 (recall Grimsley is not ambiguous about this date) a quarry of possible “borrowings” from Montaigne by Kierkegaard. Now consider what criterion we would need for saying that we have found some further hitherto unacknowledged “borrowing.” Under the above pronouncement, lacing Kierkegaard’s text with possible clues pointing to Montaigne is justified solely by the ambiguity that Kierkegaard might have read Montaigne after 1850. I use the word lacing deliberately with reference to Grimsley’s understanding that some entries would be merely cryptic without taking into account the “deep personal meaning.” Interpretative holism is when such and such a sentence is to be understood in relation to or in spite of this or that event, author, or personal history. This way of understanding sentences is, of course, in itself not questionable. The form of holism expressed was implicitly promulgated when I emphasized austerity in dealing with the journal entries on Montaigne. Austere meaning is that, regardless of the surface meaning, there is only a minimal reference to oblique authorial intention (viz. entries are study notes). In contrast, cryptic meaning is then that, regardless of the surface meaning, there is always a further reference to oblique authorial intention (viz. entries display deep personal meaning). Something is cryptic only if it strikes a reader as cryptic. Part of determining a passage as cryptic involves indicating that some key or decoding is available. The kind of framework that supports a cryptic reading of Kierkegaard’s journals would say that, whatever Kierkegaard wrote in the journals, it displays no casualness. Decoding convoluted writing is necessary; such a framework documents the importance of certain events, authors, or personal history. As an example, what strikes a reader as cryptic in the later works can be decoded by laying out the further reference which ex hypothesi is always there to be disclosed. In this way, asserting the open-ended possibility of mining the later works for “borrowings” from Montaigne justifies the cryptic framework which will find and decode every sentence remotely similar to anything in Montaigne. However, this sort of petitio principii finds in the text what is to be established by establishing it. Let us backtrack again. Following our allowance that we have no reasons to accept or to dismiss 1847 as a starting point, we have no reasons to accept or to dismiss 1850 as an end point. The argument I have presented in this section is that despite the lack of reasons for determining the beginning and end of Kierkegaard’s study of Montaigne we cannot be justified in interpreting the works as being influenced by the Essais. In contrast to a cryptic reading of Kierkegaard, I urge an austere interpretative holism. It says, in spite of Kierkegaard’s possible continuation Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 72. Ibid.

50 51

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of reading Montaigne, striking similarities seem to appear on account of our interests rather than Kierkegaard’s. VIII. Beyond Poetizing What is a good reason for writing about Kierkegaard and Montaigne? Whether poetizing sources or simple enthusiasm, there are no good reasons to accept either meta-story for how the respective claims get off the ground. Accordingly, the reason for writing about Kierkegaard and Montaigne cannot be that we can document influence. The negative point of austerity is keeping in check the tendency to point to sources as justification for some reading. Sources do not function in this way. Sources are enablers for the kind of reading which is justified and find their sole justification in the interests of the reader. An author may activate such interest. In this way, the author may wish to direct the interests of a reader to compare the work to another author. On the other hand, the author may have no say—no authority—over the interests of readers. Indeed, the author may even make a point out of privileging the reader to develop independently the framework from which he or she reads the work. The positive point of austerity is that, in spite of the lack of sources, the comparison of Kierkegaard with Montaigne is on account of our interests. The claim allows for the kind of work which draws comparisons between Kierkegaard and some other author, for example Dickens, without needing to document whether Kierkegaard read the figure. The project is then not to dissect Kierkegaard’s works to find out where he got everything from. Rather, that aside, the justification for any original reading is the reader’s interest. In this way, it is a great shame when Grimsley undercuts his own most fruitful endeavor in the book when he writes in the introduction: Laclos and Vigny...are not mentioned by name (as far as I am aware) in Kierkegaard’s work, and although this does not necessarily mean that he did not read them, our “comparative” intention will be limited to a significant confrontation of their essential attitude towards two basic themes—the idea of seduction and the role of “the poet.” This extended comparison appears to be justified by the great attention accorded to these topics by the European writers of the day, for both the Don Juan theme and the Romantic discussion of the poet’s function were of widespread interest.52

Grimsley’s interest is quite clearly French literature. He associates some engaging ideas from his study of Laclos and Vigny with his study of Kierkegaard. His comparison needs, he thinks, further justification beyond its being interesting. Admittedly, Grimsley is careful in his use of justification. It is merely the case of an appearance of being justified. However, further along in the introduction, Grimsley cannot help pointing out that even if Kierkegaard did not own many of the works that absorb Grimsley, he could have had access to them through the various lending 52

Ibid., p. 2.

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libraries in Copenhagen.53 My submission is that it is not because many European writers were engaged in the listed themes that these justify an associative comparison, but because the themes are interesting for the reader whose comparison it is. Likewise, for reading Kierkegaard alongside some other authors it is unimportant whether he might have had access to their works. Austerity urges restraint when reading the source material and awareness of what role sources may play in justifying interpretations. Looking at the sources, we may ask, austerely, whether there are reasons for further research into the influence of Montaigne on Kierkegaard?

Ibid., p. 3.

53

Bibliography I. Montaigne’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Michael Montaigne’s Gedanken und Meinungen über allerley Gegenstände, trans. by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, vols. 1–7, Berlin: F.T. Lagarde 1793–99 (ASKB 681–687). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Montaigne Ast, Friedrich, Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, p. 351 (ASKB 385). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Johann Georg Rosenbusch’s Wittwe 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 [Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820], vol. 2, pp. 908ff. (ASKB 440–445). Carriere, Moriz, Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit in ihren Beziehungen zur Gegenwart, Stuttgart and Tübingen: Cotta 1847, pp. 64–6 (ASKB 458). Jäger, Josef Nikolaus, Moral-Philosophie, Vienna: J.G. Heubner 1839, pp. 55–6 (ASKB 582). Meiners, Christoph, Historische Vergleichung der Sitten und Verfassungen, der Gesetze und Gewerbe, des Handels und der Religion, der Wissenschaften und Lehranstalten des Mittelalters, vols. 1–3, Hannover: im Verlage der Helwingischen Hofbuchhandlung 1793–4, vol. 3, p. 397 (ASKB 672‑674). Stäudlin, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus vorzüglich in Rücksicht auf Moral und Religion, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius 1794, vol. 2, pp. 3–27 (ASKB 791). Tennemann, Wilhelm Gottlieb, “Michael de Montaigne,” in his Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth 1798–1819, vol. 9, 443–58 (ASKB 815–826). Tiedemann, Dietrich, Geist der spekulativen Philosophie von Thales bis Sokrates, vols. 1–6, Marburg: in der Neuen Akademischen Buchhandlung 1791–97, vol. 5, pp. 582ff. (ASKB 836–841).

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III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Montaigne Grimsley, Ronald, “Kierkegaard and Montaigne,” in his Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature: Eight Comparative Studies, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1966, pp. 64–73.

Blaise Pascal: Kierkegaard and Pascal as Kindred Spirits in the Fight against Christendom Søren Landkildehus

I. The State of the Research This is not the first time, nor is it presumably the last, that an essay on Blaise Pascal (1623–62) and Søren Kierkegaard appears entitled with a conjunction of their names. A mere cursory glance at the literature in this field of research might persuade one to accept one of two stances on thus entitling comparative research on the two authors. Perhaps researchers are struck by an inordinate lack of imagination. The conjunction of Pascal and Kierkegaard may cover all sorts of considerations of the relative importance of the former on the latter, and thus by the conjunction one does not promise too much or too little. However, let us consider that influence might not be emphasized. The researcher will then try to convey that what the reader can reasonably expect is a consideration of two authors who are seen to be related in virtue of their projects more than in virtue of one influencing the other. The striking similarities are thus, on account of the reader, more than reasonably supported by the sources. (Another stance is also possible, and we shall dwell on that at the end of the essay, but it is not available on a cursory glance.) What is striking is the almost universal acknowledgement that Pascal did not influence Kierkegaard’s thinking. That may be so, but it raises important questions. Firstly, we may wonder what should be made of Kierkegaard’s interest in Pascal and the Port Royal criticism of the Jesuits. Secondly, such refusal of influence leads to the question of why we should bother with essays that nonetheless try to compare

I would like to thankfully acknowledge the fruitful discussions on the topic of Kierkegaard and Pascal that I had with Adam Buben at St. Olaf College in 2007.  Ronald Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1966, pp. 73–88, see p. 74. Harald Høffding, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” special edition of Tilskueren, 1923, pp. 1–23 (the Hong Kierkegaard Library has Høffding’s author copy, which is the copy used here), cf. p. 4. Niels Thulstrup, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” in Akcept og Protest. Artikler i udvalg, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1981, vol. 1, pp. 231–6, see p. 234. The contrary point is made by Thor Sundby in his Blaise Pascal—hans Kamp mod Jesuitterne og hans Forsvar for Kristendommen, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1877, pp. VI–VIII.

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Pascal and Kierkegaard. The aims of this essay are thus to describe the sources and to review some select pieces of comparative research. II. The Sources Kierkegaard owned three editions of Pascal’s Pensées, each with varying content. One was the 1777 Kleuker edition. Two other editions were acquired rather late in Kierkegaard’s life; they represented at the time the latest in Pascal publishing. The last edition was probably bought after Kierkegaard learnt that the editions he had were not in the shape originally left by Pascal. From Hermann Reuchlin’s books on Jansenism, Kierkegaard gained knowledge about the Port Royal monastery, with which Pascal was affiliated. Kierkegaard refers to Pascal in his published work by As examples, Per Lønning, “Pascal’s ‘Wager’Argument—a Precursor to Kierkegaard’s ‘Leap’?” Liber Academiae Kierkegaardiensis, vols. 2–4, 1979–81, ed. by Alessandro Cortese and Niels Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1982, pp. 9–24, and Denzil G.M. Patrick, Pascal and Kierkegaard: A Study in the Strategy of Evangelism, vols. 1–2, London: Lutterworth Press 1947.  Gedanken Paskals, [ed. by] Johann Friedrich Kleuker, Bremen: Johann Heinrich Cramer 1777 (ASKB 711); Gedanken über die Religion und einige andere Gegenstände, vols. 1–2, trans. by Karl Adolf Blech, Preface by August Neander (Part 1 in Pascal’s Sämmtliche Schriften über Philosophie und Christenthum, Parts 1–2, Berlin: Besser 1840–41), Berlin: Besser 1840 (ASKB 712–713); Pascal’s Gedanken, Fragmente und Briefe. Aus dem Französischen nach der mit vielen unedirten Abschnitten vermehrten Ausgabe P. Faugère’s, vols. 1–2, trans. by C. F. Schwarz, Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1848 (ASKB 714).  For a brief exposition of editions of Pensées, see the chapter, “Editions of Pascal’s Thoughts,” in The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal, trans. by Orlando Williams Wight, New York: Derby & Jackson 1859, pp. 15–32, especially regarding Faugère’s edition, see pp. 29–30. The story of Pascal’s Nachlass is eminently described in Nils Soelberg’s introduction in Blaise Pascal, Tanker. Forsvar for den kristne religion, trans. and ed. by Nils Soelberg, Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag Arnold Busck 1986.  Kierkegaard purchased “Pascal Gedanken” on November 29, 1850 and something referred to as “Pascal theolog Werke 1–2” on December 25, 1850. The accounts from the transactions between Kierkegaard and C.A. Reitzel are reproduced in Hermann Peter Rohde, “Om Søren Kierkegaard som bogsamler,” Fund og Forskning, vol. 8, 1961, pp. 4–127. Rohde assigns ASKB numbers to the various purchases with some hesitation. However, the November entry is assigned “711–14” and the December entry “714?” where the assignment of 714 to the latter might be justified by reference to Kierkegaard’s journal entry SKS 24, 98–9, NB21:163. However, entries on Pascal written in September 1850 (see SKS 24, 63, NB21:100; SKS 24, 64, NB21:102; and SKS 24, 65, NB21:104) are referenced to Gedanken Paskals which is likely to have been in Kierkegaard’s possession before making the November and December purchases.  On Reuchlin see, for example, SKS K24, 140. On the books, see Hermann Reuchlin, Geschichte von Port-Royal. Der Kampf des reformierten und des jesuitischen Katholicismus unter Louis XIII und XIV, vols. 1–2, Hamburg: F. und A. Perthes 1839–44; Hermann Reuchlin, Pascals Leben und der Geist seiner Schriften zum Theil nach neu aufgefundenen Handschriften mit Untersuchungen über die Moral der Jesuiten, Stuttgart: Cotta 1840. There is no record of Kierkegaard owning these books. It is likely that Kierkegaard used the Athenæum library 

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way of Feuerbach in Stages on Life’s Way, and possibly in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. However, the evidence of Kierkegaard reading the work of and about the life of Pascal is primarily restricted to the journals NB21 and NB22 from late 1850. A couple of entries included in journals and papers are from 1853 and 1854. In NB21, the relevant entries are 100, 101, 102, 104, and 163. The first four record some interesting passages from Pascal’s Pensées.10 These entries deal respectively with issues regarding the abasement of Christ, the danger of not knowing one’s own misery, similarities regarding reduplication, and the idea that although there is agreement in ways of speaking, one cannot infer essential (or ideal) agreement. The neighboring entries deal with Anti-Climacus and Practice in Christianity, which may or may not help to contextualize why Kierkegaard makes those specific notes. Number 163 is a lengthy entry on Neander’s treatise on Pascal, to which Kierkegaard notes important issues regarding cognition and the divine.11 In NB22, the entries are 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, and 31. All these entries are not directly sourced from Pascal’s work, but appear to be notes from reading Reuchlin. Entry 14 contains a little exposition on a miracle healing that Pascal witnessed at Port Royal. The point revolves around the idea of the hidden God: namely, that when God reveals himself it is a mystery.12 Kierkegaard records poignant expressions in entries 18, 19, 26, and 27. Kierkegaard muses on Pascal’s Provincial Letters in 21 and 22. In 28, Kierkegaard notes a change of what is generally considered important: once it was the case that theology added value to other sciences, whereas in Kierkegaard’s experience the fact that Pascal was a mathematician adds value to his theological considerations. In entry 29, Kierkegaard sets out describing Bishop Mynster’s ministry with Pascal’s recipe for converting the atheist. In entry 31, Kierkegaard given that Neander’s treatise on Pascal, which Kierkegaard read concurrently, was taken from there. See SKS K24, 115. On Kierkegaard’s access to the Copenhagen libraries see Rohde, “Om Søren Kierkegaard som bogsamler,” p. 84.  On Stages on Life’s Way, see SKS 6, 424; cf. also SKS K6, 374–5. On Concluding Unscientific Postscript see Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 76, and Hong’s notes in JP 3, p. 849.  Cf. SKS 20, 43, NB:40 / JP 3, 3103–22.  SKS 25, 189–90, NB27:74 / JP 3, 3123. Pap. XI–2 A 327 / JP 3, 3124. See also SKS 25, 477–8, NB30:113, SKS 25, 482, NB30:119, and SKS 26, 155, NB32:52. Moreover, there is a single reference in The Book on Adler, see Pap. VII–2 B 257,9 / BA, Supplement, p. 264. 10 All of which is from the 1777 Kleuker edition. For modern readers the following are fragment numbers to Blaise Pascal, Pensées sur la religion et quelques autres sujets, ed. by Luis Lafuma, Paris: Éditions du Luxembourg 1951, NB21:100 = 308, NB21:101 = 189. NB21:102 can be tracked down to Pascals Tanker over Religionen eller Brudstykker af en Apologi over Christendommen, trans. by W.F. Coninck, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: O.H. Delbanco 1873, p. 49. NB21:104 has not been tracked to any other edition, for reference see SKS K24, 74. 11 See Johann Wilhelm August Neander, Über die geschichtliche Bedeutung der Pensées Pascal’s für die Religionsphilosophie insbesondere. Ein zur Feier des Geburtstages Seiner Majestät des Königs in öffentlichen Sitzung der Akademie am 16. Oktober gehaltener Vortrag, 2nd unchanged ed., Berlin: Besser 1847 [1846]. 12 Cf. Pascals Breve, Afhandlinger og Samtaler, tilligemed hans Levnedsbeskrivelse ved Fru Périer, trans. by W.F. Coninck and Thor Sundby, Copenhagen: O.H. Delbanco 1868, pp. 44ff.

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notes Jacqueline Pascal’s thoughts on doing good deeds. In addition to these entries there is a series of entries on Reuchlin’s work, which is about the Port Royal culture and the Jesuits. The entries are 9, 10, 11, 12, 20, 32, and 35. As such, it is reasonable to claim that the evidence points to documenting Kierkegaard’s interest in Pascal’s life more than his work.13 However, it would be unwise to think that the entries document any serious study of Pascal as claimed by Ronald Grimsley.14 Although Grimsley’s chapter “Kierkegaard and Pascal” is highly recommendable, there is a tendency to exaggeration implicit in Grimsley’s style of writing, which might mislead one to draw the conclusion that Kierkegaard spent quite some time acquainting himself with the Frenchman. One of the great advantages the new edition of Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter affords is that the publication of the journals and papers in their original notebook sequence displays Kierkegaard’s method of working more clearly than any other edition. Looking at the relevant entries may inform readers that these entries do not amount to more than a couple of months working with the sources. Nevertheless, Grimsley takes pains to compare the two authors based on the various sources from Kierkegaard’s journals. Grimsley’s approach is to document a comparison based on the source material from Kierkegaard’s hand. Even if this is commendable, the general style of Grimsley’s comparative approach does nothing to help us get a better grasp on why someone would initiate research into Kierkegaard and Pascal. III. Sources in Context Kierkegaard’s interest in Pascal blossoms in the autumn and winter of 1850. The entries from the journals are divided between those referencing directly from Pensées in NB21 and those noting down interesting snippets from Reuchlin’s biography in NB22. At the time, Kierkegaard was engaged in the training, as it were, for the attack on the church, and he had just published Practice in Christianity. Thematically, issues regarding Anti-Climacus, the state of confessing Christianity in Denmark, and Kierkegaard’s relationship to Mynster and himself were pondered repeatedly. Kierkegaard may not be an apologist in a similar fashion as Pascal: namely, as a defense of the truth of Christianity and how we get to know that truth; rather, Kierkegaard’s form of apology is a defense of Christianity against those who would have us believe that believing in Christ is easy or straightforward. Nevertheless, there are some noteworthy similarities between the two authors as recorded by Kierkegaard himself. Kierkegaard observes, for example, that the category of reduplication which is of pivotal importance in Practice in Christianity can also be detected in Pascal, though merely aesthetically developed, whereas Kierkegaard, as he himself says, “makes a further claim in relation to existence.”15 Of similar nature is Kierkegaard’s estimation of Pascal’s talk of offense at Christ debased.16 Kierkegaard is acutely aware of the potency of his concept of reduplication and its Cf. Thulstrup, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” p. 234. Grimsley, Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature, p. 76. 15 SKS 24, 64, NB21:102. 16 SKS 24, 63, NB21:100. 13 14

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ability to communicate the contradictions between what is divinely significant and what is important in a worldly sense. At the end of NB21, we find a lengthy note on Neander’s treatise on Pascal. It is interesting in a couple of respects: firstly, because up until NB21:163 (the Neander entry) Kierkegaard shows no interest in widening the theoretical engagement with Pascal beyond “reduplication,” and secondly, because after the entry on Neander Kierkegaard resorts to reading Pascal through reading Reuchlin. Perhaps Kierkegaard is impressed by the influx of philosophical material in Neander, maybe Kierkegaard is daunted by the prospect of realizing that his copy of the Pensées is out of date. In any case, Kierkegaard notes with some bemusement that it is not until Faugère’s 1844 edition that the Pensées were published as originally intended. Kierkegaard then turns to three points from Neander. Kierkegaard commends Neander for showing that Pascal advocates the primacy of the practice. This does not mean, however, that there is no place for theoretical inquiry of the truth, rather that it would be ridiculous if “reason would require of the heart proof of its first principles, just as if the heart were to require reason to feel all the sentences it proves in order to accept them.”17 Kierkegaard is impressed by this division of realms of knowledge, and returns to it when considering various forms of cognition in Pascal, which Neander distinguishes between cognition of the divine and cognition of the human. Whereas in the latter we must know it in order to love it, in the former we must love it in order to know it. Consequently, Kierkegaard is also in approval of Pascal’s dynamics of cognition which had not been available in previous editions of the Pensées. Quoting Neander, Kierkegaard writes that according to Pascal one must embody three qualities: Pyrrhonism, geometry, and in faith submission to Christianity. These have to be in harmony, and mutually temper one another such that one doubts when appropriate, asserts when appropriate, and submits when appropriate. It is the last step of reason to acknowledge that there is much beyond its powers; if reason does not reach that step, then it is weak.18

Kierkegaard leaves off his reading of Pascal and turns to other considerations. However, these points are germane to Kierkegaard’s philosophical project in many respects. Particularly, one might offer some time in researching the dynamics of reason and sentiment (heart) in Pascal and Kierkegaard with a view to getting a grip on what kind of belief is entertained when one professes faith. However, such a project goes beyond source research and enters another domain altogether. As already mentioned, there is widespread agreement that Kierkegaard was not influenced by Pascal. So, when assessing this area of source research it is not an issue of to what extent we can document influence. What we must assess is the research that from the sources is led along the way to compare Pascal and Kierkegaard. Because there is so much secondary literature on Pascal and Kierkegaard, I am going to spend some time considering methodology to distinguish and to assess various approaches. On this note, I now turn to a brief review of research strategies. The purpose is not to provide a complete review of research into Kierkegaard and Pascal. Rather, 17 18



SKS 24, 99, NB21:163. SKS 24, 99, NB21:163.

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the aim is to describe some ways in which to approach reading both Kierkegaard and Pascal concurrently, and the vast literature originating from such endeavor. To outline a few possible ways in which scholars can approach this area, I have chosen the following three representatives, Edgar L. Allen, Niels Thulstrup, and Jørgen K. Bukdahl. IV. Rapid Oscillations Allen sets the tone of his comparison in the following manner, “Pascal and Kierkegaard, the Frenchman and the Dane, the Catholic and the Protestant, the one admitted to the most select circle of Parisian intelligentsia and the other a life-long rebel against the mediocrity of Copenhagen—are not these two ultimately of one spirit?”19 Allen’s answer is throughout an oscillation between points of convergences and divergences.20 Allen sets out to draw attention to various superficial similarities and disparities. Both thinkers were “emphatically the son of his father,”21 they were both lavishly endowed with genius, but “Nature...was niggardly of health; there was in each a maladjustment of body and mind, an earthly vessel too frail to hold the heavenly treasure,”22 and they both died early. Allen claims that they were dissimilar in their approaches to love: whereas Pascal is “cold and prosaic,” Kierkegaard is “a daemonic force within his own breast.”23 Such descriptions are, I suspect, more a reflection of Allen’s general world-view than useful characterizations of the authors, since if the statements were of the latter kind, it would be only natural to require documentation. Allen turns to their authorship and notes that both published other works amidst their lofty pursuits of religion. This, according to Allen, reminded the public in the case of Pascal with his treatise on “the cycloid” that he had not abandoned science.24 In the case of Kierkegaard, the article on a crisis in the life of an actress showed that “his powers were still what they had always been.”25 Given that not all may be as convinced as Allen that these points of similarity are such simpliciter, comfort may be had from Allen’s hurried mention that “nowhere do these two men come nearer to each other than in the innermost region,” the latter of which is expressed as the joy Edgar Leonard Allen, “Pascal and Kierkegaard,” London Quarterly and Holborn Review, no. 162, 1937, p. 150. 20 In this sort of strategy he is joined by Hans Fuglsang-Damgaard in his “Pascals Gudsbegreb,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 7, 1968, pp. 135–49. 21 Allen, “Pascal and Kierkegaard,” p. 150. 22 Ibid., p. 151. 23 Ibid. pp. 150–1. 24 Allen is presumably referring to Pascal’s answer to his own contest on the cycloid which Pascal published under the pseudonym Amos Dettonville, see The Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal, p. 35. 25 Ibid., p. 151. Allen refers to “The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress,” which was published in the newspaper Fædrelandet, nos. 188–91, July 24–27, 1848 under the pseudonym “Inter et Inter.” 19

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of experiencing a “supreme hour of illumination.”26 However, the phenomenological quality of being subject to illumination differs, according to Allen, such that it “came to Pascal in tongues of fire” whereas “the manifestation of the Spirit was to Kierkegaard as a cooling wind out of eternity.”27 Although I have no quarrel with the fact that similarity may be revealed in dissimilarity, the point is that, according to Allen, an essentially similar type of religion may produce divergent expositions. In light of this, comparisons of outward features may be interesting, but not crucial, since what is important is to track the different expressions of being “ultimately of one spirit,” as it were. The first oscillation is between outward similarities and disparities, which are intriguing but less important, and an inner kinship, which is important. The next oscillation is between a shared starting point (consequently, also a shared goal) and the circumstances of articulation of these. Allen claims that the authors shared the starting point of “the paradox of human nature.”28 Yet, already in defining what this paradox amounts to, Allen has to make allowances for substantial differences between the two, which turn out to be embedded in their respective traditions of Christianity: Pascal was a Catholic and Kierkegaard a Protestant. However, their respective conceptions of human nature are articulated without basis in empirical study, Allen goes on to say, because “they ascribed to others what they had first found within themselves.”29 Further, what they “say of human nature is the symbol of their own unhappy fate as spirits in touch with the infinite and eternal, yet imprisoned within frail, hampering and dying bodies. They purchased the heavenly vision by years of earthly pain.”30 Here, we detect a rapid oscillation from talking of a shared starting point, which dissolves in the particular details of the respective traditions, over against a dissimilarity of outward circumstances, which turn out to be essentially shared. Nevertheless, Allen ventures forth unabashed to say that “as the starting point was the same for both, so also was the goal, that of a world-renouncing Christianity.”31 Goals of this kind are sufficiently vague to allow of different interpretations. The means of implementing world-renunciation in the lives of our two authors is sketched out in terms of Pascal’s love of poverty and Kierkegaard’s squandering of his inheritance. However, according to Allen, the similarity consists in the following: Had he been a Catholic in the days of Port Royal, there can be little doubt that Kierkegaard would have found his way to that institution, while had Pascal been born in nineteenth-century Scandinavia, he would have looked back on monasticism with regret, as mistaken indeed in its claim to give God’s service a name and badge, but infinitely superior to the lip-heroisms of a later time.32

Ibid. Ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 152. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., pp. 152–3. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 26 27

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Now, Allen has oscillated from a claim about the shared circumstances which allowed the purchase of the “heavenly vision,” to a claim about shared dispositions which responded in various contexts to the disparity of circumstances. The sense of proposing what some individual might do in another age strikes me as quite quixotic. If, indeed, the description above is paradigmatic for the claim that our two authors are of one spirit, then we have problems. One is that the consequence of being one spirit renders the various differences in what our two authors propound as essentially unimportant. As a result, any comparison would be superfluous, since we can substitute one author with the other mutatis mutandis, which would mean that the responses to their respective contexts would be similar. There is another problem arising from the above. If we allow for Allen’s claim that our two authors are of one spirit, embedded in different yet substitutable conditions and traditions, then either context is essentially uninformative. This means that no difference makes enough of a difference to inform a corrective, an expansion, or a progress (or deterioration) in relation to the other. Consequently, there is no difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism which would make a difference. I shall add no further examples from Allen’s essay, though several could be had. Allen’s strategy relies on entertaining the idea of oneness of spirit, which, however, is neither clearly articulated nor passes tests of coherence. One might think that to compare any two (or more) authors implies claiming similarity of something or other: that is, shared context, shared intellectual outlook, or shared aim, method, and goal. But such prejudice fares no better than if one were to think that comparisons imply the goal of finding the best of something. The strategy of oscillation, if consciously employed, obfuscates the fact that although we may see similarities in the lives and works of various authors, this does not amount to there being such similarities. We often say that various states of affairs strike us as similar. With further investigation, we may realize that what struck us as similar was careless superficiality. V. Magisterial Thulstrup Niels Thulstrup, as an influential scholar, strove to set standards for Kierkegaard research. He did this as author of, amongst many other works, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel,33 as editor of, for example, Kierkegaardiana, Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, and Liber Academicæ Kierkegaardiensis Annuarius, and as a writer of reviews. It is to Thulstrup’s review of Patrick’s two-volume comparison of Pascal and Kierkegaard we turn now.34 Thulstrup begins his review by noting that if one were to compare two important authors, one would need to take care that the comparison has no mere accidental Thulstrup, Kierkegaards Forhold til Hegel og til den spekulative Idealisme indtil 1846, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1967. (English translation, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by George L. Stengren, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1980.) 34 Thustrup, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” op. cit. (translations are mine); reference to Patrick, see Patrick, Pascal and Kierkegaard: A Study in the Strategy of Evangelism; see also the review of Patrick’s work by J.M. Lloyd Thomas, “Pascal and Kierkegaard,” Hibbert Journal, no. 47, 1948–49, pp. 36–40. 33

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value. But although one, according to Thulstrup, rarely finds ludicrous comparisons, there is no short supply of the kind which detects striking general similarities. Thulstrup warns against this latter sort of approach, which tends to produce, so he claims, “two narratives independent of each other, which happen to be written by the same man.”35 Thulstrup continues to make some references to the works of various authors.36 However, the informational value of these contributions is restricted to superficiality: for example, that our two authors “were passionate seekers of the truth,” that they “were critical of contemporary ecclesiastical and cultural affairs,” and that they were “great stylists.”37 What is lacking in such superficiality is the presence of a valuable thesis: that is, a thesis which has more than mere accidental interest.38 Regardless of the fact that Patrick’s work is neither accidentally interesting nor displays superficiality, Thulstrup considers politely the scholarly side of the two volumes to be sub-standard for a scientific investigation, but quite on a par with a popular representation of the two thinkers.39 Patrick uses a German translation of Kierkegaard and is therefore on occasion “led astray”; he draws on encyclopedic material to contextualize Kierkegaard’s work, which of course gives the work the disadvantage of being less independent.40 However, despite the voluminous effort of Patrick being tainted by such scholarly faux pas, Thulstrup recommends the brief and rare moments when Patrick draws his conclusions, since “these passages are among the best in the whole oeuvre.”41 Thulstrup moves on to consider what might be a workable thesis, which must be more than accidentally interesting. Firstly, Thulstrup deals with the idea of influence. The striking similarities detected in the works of our two authors might be explained as a result of direct influence. Kierkegaard might have read Pascal as a young man, and then unwittingly, perhaps, reproduced what he learned from Pascal. But this is dismissed by Thulstrup by force of the majority of the wise, as Aristotle would have termed it, because a consensus amongst Kierkegaard scholars exists to the effect of a generally accepted opinion that the claim of direct influence is without evidence.42 Thulstrup’s second consideration is what above was referred to as oneness of spirit, although Thulstrup does not use that term. Kierkegaard might, when reading Pascal, have recognized a specific kinship with the French author.43 Thulstrup draws out the fact that the evidence we have of Kierkegaard studying Pascal is often confined to notes from reading a work Thulstrup, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” p. 231. Ibid. pp. 231–2. Thulstrup mentions Sundby, Høffding, and Fuglsang-Damgaard. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. p. 233. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. p. 234. 42 Ibid. p. 234; reference to Aristotle, cf. his Topica, trans. and ed. by E.S. Forster, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1997 (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 391), 100b 21–23. 43 For this sort of claim see Howard Hong’s notes to the entries on Pascal in JP 3, Notes, p. 849. 35 36

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on Pascal’s life.44 These notes are from late 1850, and so Thulstrup comments that Kierkegaard’s “main views were by then set, and though his opinions were possibly confirmed, it is doubtful that anything of importance was changed.”45 What they shared, as it were, was a decisive Christian attitude which determined their polemics. This thesis for comparison is not available when, Thulstrup mentions, scholars compare Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer. But it is this thesis which redeems Patrick’s work, because out of the shared Christian attitude one might sketch the various stylistic means, the basic thoughts, and the context of articulating these.46 With this thesis, the scene is set for an exposition of a specific trend in the history of ideas, which pits Kierkegaard and Pascal against Hegel and Descartes.47 In this way, Kierkegaard’s work can be seen as a sort of reinvention of the wheel, where such reinvention is needed. Kierkegaard belongs to a set of authors who share fundamental values, which in turn dictate opposition to certain philosophical systems. The re-articulation of an opposition, for example, towards encompassing reason, gains its independence vis-à-vis context just in cases where values are shared. Comparing Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard is not such a case, according to Thulstrup. Thus, the criterion of making non-accidentally interesting comparisons is that the author with whom one compares Kierkegaard must essentially be motivated by Christian values. Thulstrup does not address why this is more than just accidentally interesting. Harking back to Allen, we may wonder what the advantage of Thulstrup’s approach is. Allen might have countered the criticism of oscillation by saying that his intention was merely to point out the shared Christian background. Nevertheless, this will only invite further questions, as we saw, because Christianity is not just one thing. The criterion of shared values would need to become, therefore, somewhat abstract. Such values, it might be argued, could be found in many different authors without pointing to explicit instances of avowing the values as Christian. The kind of endeavor, which would spend time and energy to justify some comparison on the terms of a vague criterion, would hardly be worth our while. VI. Compared As Writers The strategy employed by Bukdahl avoids the pitfalls of claiming that our two authors were of one spirit.48 In a collection of Bukdahl’s essays, three chunks from his prize-winning dissertation appear as stand-alone articles in their own right.49 The The work is Reuchlin, Pascals Leben. Thulstrup, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” p. 234. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., p. 235. 48 To some extent a similar recommendation may be given of Carl Henrik Koch’s “Kierkegaard og Pascal—Antihumanismens tænkere,” in Kierkegaard Inspiration. En Antologi, ed. by Birgit Bertung, Paul Müller, Fritz Norman, and Julia Watkin, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1991 (Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets Populære Skrifter, vol. 20), pp. 18–25. 49 Jørgen K. Bukdahl, Om Søren Kierkegaard. Artikler i Udvalg, ed. by Jan Lindhardt, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1981, pp. 166–75; pp. 176–92; pp. 193–201. 44 45

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first chunk, which comprises the early pages from the dissertation, is a discussion of Kierkegaard’s theory of spiritual awakening. The pivotal point for Bukdahl is Kierkegaard’s aim to reinstate Christianity in Christendom, for how does one effect a polemical engagement with an age that is deep in the delusion of hypocritical Christendom?50 In other words, how does one enlighten people who think they are already enlightened? The answer for Kierkegaard is, of course, indirect communication. This is because of two related factors. If, on the one hand, one wishes to dissuade people of the belief that they are enlightened already, then it will not do to say to them up front that they are deceived. Rather, one has to deceive people out of their deception. If, on the other hand, one wishes to persuade people of the truth, then it will not do for the communicator to become the reason why people were persuaded. Thus, the point of interest for Bukdahl is not what Kierkegaard says, even if that is important too, but how he says it. The second chunk begins in medias res with a discussion of Kierkegaard’s articles from the attack on the church: namely, Christendom.51 Reading this chunk in sequence with the first leaves us no choice but to focus our attention on the second factor from above. This is so, firstly, because Kierkegaard published his attack on the church under his own name, and secondly, because Kierkegaard’s attack utilizes a very shrill tone and provocative treatment of the subject matter. No doubt, some effect of being riled ought to propel one into self-reflection, consequently to consider whether one really is as enlightened as one imagines. However, using a shrill tone and being provocative are means of distancing people from oneself. As such, the example of Kierkegaard’s attack on the church is a means to answer the question of how one awakens Christendom to Christianity without being accused of demagogy. In the three snippets published, Bukdahl’s engagement with Pascal is limited to the Lettres Provinciales.52 Pascal published a series of eighteen letters under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. The character of the letters changes over the course of their publication. The first ten letters are formed as letters to a country friend who is in want of news regarding the case against Antoine Arnaud, a Jansenist, who was a leading member of the Port Royal monastery. The point of the letters is to expose the cheap tricks of the Jesuits, and to counter the arguments proposed against the Jansenist movement. The last eight are lengthy addresses to particular prominent Jesuits.53 Since success is to be achieved by condemning what is essentially Augustine theology, the overwhelming power of the Jesuits is counteracted, not at the Sorbonne, but out amongst ordinary folk. Pascal is not out to excite someone to self-reflection; rather, he aims to get public opinion on his side. The purpose is not to enlighten people to the truth of religion, but to expose the falsehoods of the Jesuits, Ibid., p. 166. Published from 1854 to 1855, the attack on the church included newspaper articles, a couple of discourses, and the serial The Moment, which Kierkegaard published himself. 52 Published from 1656 to 1657, the letters were in great demand and the strategies of their publication quite notorious, see A. Jantzen’s introduction in Pascals Provincialbreve, trans. by W.F. de Coninck, Copenhagen: O.H. Delbanco 1876. 53 There are other ways of dividing the letters, see Sundby, Blaise Pascal—hans Kamp mod Jesuitterne og hans Forsvar for Kristendommen, pp. 44–6. 50 51

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and so he blackens their name in public. Yet, again Bukdahl is interested in the how of Pascal’s polemic rather than the what. What follows in Bukdahl’s analysis is a thrilling exposition of the various means and techniques employed by our two writers. How do they catch people’s attention? How do they connect to their audiences? This is analyzed both linguistically and ethically.54 How do they reserve and retain confidence in their writing? The analysis is carried into the third chunk which deals with specific rhetorical measures exploited by Kierkegaard. When one leaves alone the particulars of what Bukdahl does to the works of our authors, why he works in this way is more interesting. When considering the similarities and differences between Pascal and Kierkegaard, Bukdahl writes, we should focus on what we can learn about polemics as such.55 This is to say, that analyzing the how’s of the two authors should point to a diagnosis of a specific writing technique, as opposed to merely documenting what striking similarities there may be. The aim of comparing writing techniques is to distil a “set of concepts” which could in future help us characterize other polemical endeavors.56 Bukdahl mentions that with some care one might use the concepts mined from the comparative work to analyze “the polemics of Jesus against the Pharisees, and Augustine’s polemic against the semipelagianism.”57 As such, the aim of Bukdahl is paradigmatic of research proper to the humanities, since comparing Kierkegaard and Pascal can tell us something about the activity of polemics: namely, writing polemics and as such. VII. Propaedeutic Remarks on Comparative Research The genesis of comparative research is, I think, in some sense illustrated by Allen. There is something striking which commands attention. That we find something striking is no doubt as much a reflection of what we find important, as it is an observation of what some authors thought important. Navigating the differences between what we find important and what was important to our authors might land us in the oscillation we detected in Allen. It may cause some difficulty presenting a persuasive account of what is found striking. The next step is to consider if we can document any direct influence: did our authors read one another? There are all sorts of qualifications to be made addressing this question, but for our purposes the task is to document when Kierkegaard read Pascal and what evidence we have of an in-depth study. But if there is no evidence of direct influence, we may turn to the idea that our authors somehow share a project, values, means and aims, circumstances of production or the like. In such cases, we ought to establish whether comparing what is thought to be shared mutually elucidates the execution of the project or aim of the production. The snag here is that we might conflict with the expectation pronounced by Thulstrup that comparisons should have more than accidental interest. This is merely a complication about addressing why Bukdahl, Om Søren Kierkegaard. Artikler i Udvalg, pp. 180–3. Ibid., p. 199. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 54

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something seems strikingly important to us, and so presents a similar difficulty in making the account persuasive. The relative fruitlessness of these steps can be reversed if one were to focus on author intention and motivation. Having a thesis to found the comparison is the sort of thing Thulstrup recommends. On the one hand, with a thesis we can argue that our authors both reacted towards their times and their cultures, and this allows us to draw some conclusions with regard to similarities of means and aims in their endeavor. On the other hand, we may with a thesis set out an exposition of the history of ideas and trends in culture, by which the comparison exposes our authors as part of a party pitted against some other party. The question is whether the thesis we formulate makes too much out of what we find striking, and thus tends to downgrade differences, which otherwise would make a difference. As a way to duck out of whether the comparison is more than accidentally interesting, this creates an impasse since it sets up so specialized an interest as to intrigue only few. Lastly, one might consider the kind of scientific paradigm within which the comparison is made. Bukdahl’s exemplary investigation removes the focus from what we find striking and from the authors themselves. Instead of being parts of the aim themselves, the authors are means by which the investigation attempts to describe a specific human endeavor, in this case polemics. The benefit of this sort of approach is that questions of interest and strikingness do not arise essentially. Firstly, the humanistic approach contributes to our understanding of the human condition and activity, which ought to interest any human being making enquiries about what it is to be human. Secondly, the basis for choosing authors does not rely on whether there are striking similarities between them, regardless of whether the scholar entertains a thesis or not. Rather, authors are chosen according to the kind of input they make independently to a specific issue, which is an issue for humans as such. These few remarks are made in the spirit of a review of research strategies as they have been distilled from selected examples. The remarks are not meant to be exhaustive, but at least directive for the sort of comparative research that might be conducted in future. We should not shy away from making comparative analyses of, say, Pascal and Kierkegaard given that we do so with the proper approach.

Bibliography I. Pascal’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Gedanken Paskals, [ed. by] Johann Friedrich Kleuker, Bremen: Johann Heinrich Cramer 1777 (ASKB 711). Gedanken über die Religion und einige andere Gegenstände, vols. 1–2, trans. by Karl Adolf Blech, Preface by August Neander (Part 1 in Pascal’s Sämmtliche Schriften über Philosophie und Christenthum, Parts 1–2, Berlin: Besser 1840– 41), Berlin: Besser 1840 (ASKB 712–713). Pascal’s Gedanken, Fragmente und Briefe. Aus dem Französischen nach der mit vielen unedirten Abschnitten vermehrten Ausgabe P. Faugère’s, vols. 1–2, trans. by C.F. Schwarz, Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1848 (ASKB 714). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Pascal Ast, Friedrich, Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, p. 365 (ASKB 385). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Johann Georg Rosenbusch’s Wittwe 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 (Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820), vol. 3, pp. 341ff. (ASKB 440–445). Guerike, Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Halle: in der Gebauerschen Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 2, pp. 960–1 (ASKB 158–159). Fenelon, François de Salignac, “Anhang von Etwas aus den sogenannten Gedanken des Pascal,” in Fenelon’s Werke religiösen Inhalts, vols. 1–3, trans. by Matthias Claudius, Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes 1823, vol. 3, pp. 289–342 (ASKB 1914). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 2, p. 235; vol. 6, p. 302; vol. 7, p. 397 (ASKB 536–544). Hase, Karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske Forelæsninger, trans. by C. Winther and T. Schorn, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1837, p. 550; p. 552 (ASKB 160–166).

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Herder, Johann Gottfried von, “Gedanken (pensées) Maximen,” in Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur schönen Literatur und Kunst, vols. 1–20, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 17, pp. 36–47 (ASKB 1685– 1694; see also ASKB A I 125–133). Martensen, Hans Lassen, Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1849, p. 252, note; p. 363 (ASKB 653). Meiners, Christoph, Historische Vergleichung der Sitten und Verfassungen, der Gesetze und Gewerbe, des Handels und der Religion, der Wissenschaften und Lehranstalten des Mittelalters mit denen unsers Jahrhunderts in Rücksicht auf die Vortheile, und Nachtheile der Aufklärung, vols. 1–3, Hannover: im Verlage der Helwingischen Hofbuchhandlung 1793–94, vol. 2, p. 297 (ASKB 672–674). [Münscher, Wilhelm], Dr. Wilhelm Münschers Lærebog i den christelige Kirkehistorie, til Brug ved Forelæsninger, trans. by Fred. Münter, revised and ed. by Jens Möller, Copenhagen: Trykt paa Universitets-Boghandler F. Brummers Forlag 1831, p. 298 (ASKB 168). Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 1, p. 123; vol. 2, p. 192; p. 204; p. 228 (ASKB 358–363). [Richter, Johann Paul Friedrich], Jean Paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1813, vol. 3, p. 755 (ASKB 1381–1383). Rosenkranz, Karl, Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, Königsberg: Bornträger 1837, p. 49 (ASKB 744). Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1844 [1819], vol. 1, p. 419; vol. 2, p. 611 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: Druck und Verlag von A.W. Hayn 1851, vol. 2, p. 280 (ASKB 774–775). Stäudlin, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte und Geist des Skepticismus vorzüglich in Rücksicht auf Moral und Religion, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: Siegfried Lebrecht Crusius 1794, vol. 2, pp. 48–53 (ASKB 791). Steffens, Henrich, Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef Max 1840–44, vol. 1, p. 246 (ASKB 1834–1843). —— “Pascal und die philosophisch-geschichtliche Bedeutung seiner Ansichten,” in his Nachgelassene Schriften. Mit einem Vorworte von Schelling, Berlin: E.H. Schroeder 1846, pp. 1–40 (ASKB 799). Thomsen, Grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et Forsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort Frem- eller Tilbageskridt i Frankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?,” Copenhagen: Wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. v; p. xxxvi (ASKB 1390). Weiße, Christian Hermann, Die Idee der Gottheit. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Als wissenschaftliche Grundlegung zur Philosophie der Religion, Dresden: Grimmer 1833, p. 37, note (ASKB 866).

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III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Pascal Adinolfi, Isabella, Il cerchio spezzato: linee di antropologia in Pascal e Kierkegaard, Roma: Città nuova 2000. Allen, Edgar Leonard, “Pascal and Kierkegaard,” London Quarterly and Holborn Review, no. 162, 1937, pp. 150–64. Bense, Max, “Pascal und Kierkegaard,” Europäische Revue, no. 18, 1942, pp. 88–92. Bohlin, Torsten, “Søren Kierkegaard,” in his Blaise Pascal, vols. 1–2, Stockholm: Sveriges kristliga Studentrörelses forlag, 1920–21 (Sveriges kristliga Studentrörelses skriftserie, nos. 121–4), vol. 2 (Hans tankar över religionen och hans personlighet), pp. 197–8; pp. 243–5. —— “Kierkegaard och Pascal,” in his Kierkegaards tro och andre Kierkegaardstudier, Stockholm: Svenska Kyrkans Diakonistyrelses Bokförlag 1944, pp. 51–6. Bukdahl, Jørgen K., “Kierkegaard’s teori om vækkelse,” in his Om Søren Kierkegaard: Artikler i udvalg, ed. by Jan Lindhardt, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1981, pp. 166–75. Clair, André, “Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain, no. 78, 1980, pp. 507–32. —— “Un auteur singulier face à un auteur singulier: Kierkegaard lecteur de Pascal,” in his Kierkegaard Penser le singulier, Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 1993, pp. 145–72. Dallago, Carl, “Augustine, Pascal, und Kierkegaard,” Der Brenner, vol. 6, 1921, pp. 642–734. Daniel-Ropa, “Un Pascal protestante: Sören Kierkegaard,” Folia Humanistica, vol. 3, 1965, pp. 385–90. Douchevsky, Alain, Médiation et singularité. Au seuil d’une ontologie avec Pascal et Kierkegaard, Paris and Montreal: L’Harmattan 1997. Faber, Bettina, La contraddizione sofferente. La teoria del tragico in Søren Kierkegaard, Padova: Il Poligrafo 1998, p. 134; p. 188. Fuglsang-Damgaard, H., “Pascal et Kierkegaard,” Revue d’ histoire et de philosophie religieuses, vol. 10, no. 3, 1930, pp. 242–63. —— “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” Dansk teologisk Tidsskrift, no. 4, 1941, pp. 212–26. —— “Pascals Gudsbegreb,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 7, 1968, pp. 135–49. Gandillac, Maurcie de, “Kierkegaard, le Pascal du Nord,” La Revue Universelle, vol. 59, no. 15, 1934, pp. 371–6. Grimsley, Ronald, “Kierkegaard and Pascal,” in his Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature. Eight Comparative Studies, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1966, pp. 73–89. Gromczynski, Wieslaw, “Czy Kierkegaard jest irracjonalista? Kilka uwag o porównaniu Kierkegaarda z Pascalem,” in Tozsamosci Kierkegaarda, ed. by Alina Djakowska et al., in Principia, Tome XXIII, 1999, pp. 157–70. Høffding, Harald, “Pascal et Kierkegaard,” Revue de metaphysique et de morale, vol. 30, no. 2, 1923, pp. 221–46.

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—— “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” in his Religiøse Tanketyper, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1927, pp. 70–97 (published originally in Tilskueren, vol. 40, no. 6, 1923, pp. 412–34). Jolivet, Regis, “Kierkegaard et Pascal,” in his Aux sources de l’existentialisme chrétien. Kierkegaard, Paris: Libraire Arthéme Fayard 1958, pp. 125–6. Koch, Carl Henrik, “Kierkegaard og Pascal. Antihumanismens tænkere,” in Kierkegaard inspiration. En antologi, ed. by Birgit Bertung, Paul Müller, Fritz Norman, and Julia Watkin, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1991 (Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets Populære Skrifter, vol. 20), pp. 18–25. —— “Kierkegaard og Pascal—antihumanismens tænkere,” in his Strejftog i den danske filosofis historie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2000, pp. 120–7. Listov, A., “Kierkegaards Forhold til Pascal,” Dansk Kirketidende, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 81–7 and vol. 43, no. 7, pp. 103–10. Lloyd Thomas, J.M., “Pascal and Kierkegaard,” Hibbert Journal, no. 47, 1948–49, pp. 36–40. Lønning, Per, The Dilemma of Contemporary Theology: Prefigured in Luther, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press 1962. —— “Pascal’s ‘Wager’ Argument—A Precursor to Kierkegaard’s ‘Leap’?” Liber Academicae Kierkegaardiensis Annuarius, vols. 2–4, 1979–81, ed. by Alessandro Cortese and Niels Thulstrup, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1982, pp. 9–24. Maia Neto, José Raimundo, The Christianization of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and Lev Shestov, Ph.D. Thesis, Washington University, Washington 1991. Molenaar, P.J., “Pascal en Kierkegaard,” Stemmen des tijds, vol. 20, no. 6, 1931, pp. 580–94. Müller, Christa, “Vom Gewissen bei Pascal und Kierkegaard,” Evangelische Theologie, no. 15, 1955, pp. 115–28. Pareyson, Luigi, Opere complete. XIII: Kierkegaard e Pascal, ed. by Sergio Givone, Milan 1999. Patrick, Denzil G.M., Pascal and Kierkegaard: A Study in the Strategy of Evangelism, vols. 1–2, London and Redhill: Lutterworth Press 1947 (Lutterworth Library, vols. 23–4). Paulsen, Anna, Menschsein heute. Analysen aus Reden Sören Kierkegaards, Hamburg: Friedrich Wittig Verlag 1975, see p. 38; pp. 73–4; p. 93; pp. 141–2; p. 184; p. 186. Regina, Umberto, Kierkegaard, L’arte di esistere, Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana 2005 (Filosofia, Nuova serie, vol. 26), see pp. 61–2; p. 94; p. 117. Rops, Daniel, “Kierkegaard un Pascal protestante,” La fiera letteraria, August 8, 1965. Rose, Tim, Kierkegaard’s Christocentric Theology, Aldershot: Ashgate 2001, pp. 150–2; p. 156; p. 157. Sundby, Thor, “Kierkegaard og Pascal,” Fædrelandet, March 16, 1867. —— “Søren Kierkegaard og Pascal,” in his Blaise Pascal: hans Kamp mod Jesuiterne og hans Forsvar for Kristendommen, Copenhagen: n.p. 1877, pp. VI-VIII. Surin, Valerie, Pascal and Kierkegaard: Their Understanding of Man and the Human Condition, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Birmingham, Birmingham 1974.

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Thulstrup, Niels, “Pascal og Kierkegaard,” in his Akcept og protest. Artikler i udvalg, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1981, vol. 1, pp. 231–6. Valle, Agustín Basave Fernández del, “Pascal y Kierkegaard,” Tópicos. Revista de Filosofía, vol. 6, 1973, pp. 261–6. Visscher, Jacques De, “Rigorisme et scepticisme. Over Pascal en Kierkegaard,” Uil Minerva, vol. 14, 1997–98, pp. 109–27.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Presence and Absence Vincent A. McCarthy

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–68) was still a major author during Kierkegaard’s lifetime and one of several French thinkers who influenced a Danish Romanticism that, because of its Gallic components, was distinctive from the standard German version. Yet the fact of the matter is that Rousseau is a very minor presence in Kierkegaard’s writings. In the Kierkegaardian corpus, there is only one brief mention in the formal authorship (in Fear and Trembling of 1843) and an additional six in the journals and notebooks between 1847 and 1850, and all of which mention Rousseau simply to make a Kierkegaardian point. Kierkegaard was not a systematic reader of Rousseau, and his library at the time of his death contained only two works by Rousseau, namely Émile in both French and Danish and a 1798 Danish translation of the Confessions that contained an additional autobiographical work, namely the lyrical Rêveries du Promeneur Solitaire to which Kierkegaard refers. The investigation of a Rousseau–Kierkegaard connection will prove as interesting for the things that Kierkegaard did not say and for the books that he did not read as for the ones that he did. Both Rousseau and Kierkegaard were contrarian, subjective thinkers and lyrical authors, whose writings are strongly connected to their personal lives. Both were passionately concerned about personal, subjective truth. Had Kierkegaard studied Rousseau, there is much to suggest that he would have found a great deal to be sympathetic to (as well as a great deal more to critique), but there is no evidence that he did read Rousseau systematically. Had he done so, he might even have qualified the few remarks that he did make about Rousseau. Yet Rousseau remained in early nineteenth-century Denmark an important background figure, not just because of his elevation to political icon status by the French Revolution but also because of the literary circles in Denmark and in Germany that remained strongly influenced by him. For Kierkegaard, if there is any particular individual who mediated and championed Rousseauan ideas in his readings, it is the novelist Fru Thomasine Gyllembourg and her family of towering figures in Golden Age Copenhagen (see below): she being the famously divorced wife of Peter Andreas Heiberg and the mother of Johan Ludvig Heiberg. But it was not Rousseau himself.  Olaf Carlsen, Rousseau og Danmark, Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget i Aarhus 1953, p. 152.

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I. Short Overview of Rousseau’s Life and Works Jean-Jacques Rousseau, controversial French essayist, novelist, philosophe, autobiographer and sometime composer—was born in Geneva on June 12, 1712 and died outside Paris on July 2, 1778. Although he lived the greater part of his life outside of Geneva, he still proudly insisted on one sole title “citizen of Geneva.” Settling in Paris in 1745 and quickly entering the circle of Diderot and the French Encyclopedists, he interested and entertained his sympathetic, reform-minded aristocratic Parisian connections by his odd manner and progressive views, and was sometimes used by them as a stalking horse in the publication of reformist ideas. He perplexed some of these same aristocratic Parisian patrons by his originality and egalitarianism, as, for example, insisting that his “cook” and eventual commonlaw wife Thérèse join an aristocratic visitor at the luncheon table, subsequently by his adapting Armenian attire and by a host of other idiosyncrasies. After the condemnation of his 1762 work Émile, he was forced into nomadic exile, rejected even by his native Geneva, culminating in 18 months in England, and an unfortunate quarrel with his benefactor David Hume (1711–76). After his quiet return to Paris in 1770, he lived fairly obscurely until his death. His haunted state of mind in his final years is perhaps best reflected in the high drama of his frustrated attempt to place the draft of his posthumously published Dialogues on the high altar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in February 1776. Highly original, Rousseau was largely self-taught and consequently unsystematic, yet a substantial thinker whose influence extended from the French Encyclopedia movement to the French Revolution (which appropriated him for its own purposes), to Kant and Hegel. Tellingly, the only cited decoration in the home of the ascetic Kant was a portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau produced a series of highly diverse, original writings that were immediate successes and enduring influences, commencing with his 1749 Dijon Academy prize-winning Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, which courageously dared to suggest that modern progress had not in fact contributed to the improvement of morals and human existence. It was a harbinger of subsequent contrarian thinking. His second discourse, On the Origins of Inequality (1755) was, in some senses, even more radical as it located inequality in private property and with it the origin of social evil. Along the way, he earned his living as a music copyist, often for the aristocratic friends from whom he refused any pension or overt gifts, and wrote an opera, Le Divin du Village (1752), which was an enduring popular success, to the consternation of the musical establishment (including Jean-Philippe Rameau). Eventually, it was even performed as part of the Fontainebleau marriage festivities of (the future) Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1770, as well as over 400 times in France alone. Rousseau’s philosophical sorties extended beyond social commentary to include the first substantial philosophy of education since Plato, in his Émile of 1762, which was subsequently condemned mostly for its Book IV. The seemingly separate composition, “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” formally constituted a consideration of the tolerant religious education that Émile should be given but in fact extended to an undisguised critique both of Christian orthodoxy and of

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its Enlightenment critics, as in its odd deism it critiqued rationality and insisted sentimentally on a place for the humanly appealing Jesus. Rousseau’s The Social Contract, also published in 1762, was generally included in the condemnations of Rousseau that emanated from the political-eccelesiastical establishments of Europe, and has earned a permanent place in political philosophy for its radical insistence that power derives from the people. II. Rousseau’s Religious Thought Since Kierkegaard’s remarks on Rousseau amount largely to a criticism of him visà-vis Christianity, it seems correct to give emphasis in this section to Rousseau’s religious ideas. “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” is the central and most important of Rousseau’s religious writings, and it presents a quite different view of religion from that of The Social Contract’s section on “civil religion,” published in the same year. The Vicar’s essential motivation for formulating his creed was ostensibly his need for peace and repose and his inability to sustain a life of Cartesian doubt. Here, his largely deistic position breaks with the materialism of the philosophes that Rousseau intuited as heading toward atheism. His spiritual encounter with nature saves him from materialist atheism and, in equally romantic fashion, the response of his heart (conscience) to the suffering humanity of Jesus leads him to insist on carving out a prominent place for Jesus. The Vicar of Savoy’s professed faith, in the section of the same name, is a highly personal deism that is the product of ecclesiastical experience, personal trials, and rational scrutiny of Christian doctrines. His lived-out faith is one of personal morality and humanity, detachment from doctrinal formulations but ultimately faithfulness to traditional outward religious expression, most notably church-going. Part I opens with a declaration of the true, moral function of religion, followed by a declaration of the Vicar’s epistemology in matters of religion, which aims to justify only what he feels the need to know, and his theodicy, which justifies God and leaves man the author of all evil. (This position was much more fully developed in the “Letter to Voltaire on Providence.”) At the end of Part I the faculty of conscience emerges as the essential element of this faith, as infallible guide of the soul, and as the primary source of anything to be called “revelation.” In Part II, a rationalist critique of so-called revealed religion is followed by an affirmation of the heart as the highest court in judging religion, thus displacing Enlightenment philosophy’s role for reason. Like Nathan the Wise, in Lessing’s play of the same name, Rousseau’s Vicar evaluates historical religion on moral criteria (teaching and practice) and, after criticizing the inhumanity of the doctrine of the damnation of non‑believers, he goes on to wax eloquent and sentimental about the gospel and its Jesus. Cf. also Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus dubitandum est. In this work of 1842–43 and unpublished during his lifetime, Kierkegaard, in the character of the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, gives us a rather charming satire on the attempt to live out a life of Cartesian doubt. 

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The Vicar declares his purpose to be saving the trunk at the expense of diseased branches, and then issues the paradoxical admonition, for Émile and all, to stay with the cult of one’s fathers, which is possible if one focuses on the moral center of a religion. Thus historical criticism of religion is also sidelined. In effect he proposes traditional eighteenth-century rationalist reasons for doubt and seemingly novel reasons for faith: namely, the response of the heart and of conscience to a good person and moral teacher. Here Rousseau is more sophisticated than he may seem, in so far as he recognizes the real reasons why most persons adhere to a historical religion. The heart knows that there is something good in the Christian religion of conscience and knows that one should stay with the forms and symbols of one’s religious culture. The French critic Pierre-Maurice Masson (1879–1916) summed up the Vicar’s religion as a “Christianity without dogmas,” “a sentimental supplement to the religion of conscience”: The religion of Rousseau...is a Christianity that is not only without doctrinal discipline— I would not say without mysteries, because it jealously holds on to the mystery of Providence, the mystery of the soul and of the immortal soul—it is also a Christianity without history which suppresses time and space about Jean‑Jacques and leaves him in a tête‑à-tête with a kindly Jesus. It is also a Christianity without redemption and without repentance, from which the feeling of sin has disappeared, and of which Jean‑Jacques is at one and the same time the priest and even the new Christ. However, in this religion that guards so lively a confidence in one God “common father of men,” that has let slip away the sense of human weakness but retains that of unhappiness, that cries over a lost paradise, that considers earthly life as a passage toward the true fatherland, and that awaits so firmly just reparation in the time to come, one cannot say that Christianity is dead. This is perhaps no longer the faith of Christianity; but these are, at least, its hopes.

Rousseau affirms and recognizes the moral content of Jesus’ central teachings, and the goodness and pathos of Jesus himself. But he denies the meaning and identity of Jesus in the history of Christian theology, especially the Augustinian formulation of original sin and the Anselmian theology that follows from this: historical salvation begun by a Savior and a God become incarnate in order to redeem. Rousseau’s tenderness and sympathy for Jesus is a radically retro position among eighteenthcentury rationalists, but this is Jesus the man, not the anointed of God (Christos), the admired, gentle‑but‑firm teacher of moral lessons accessible to the sincere heart of everyman. “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” although a classic, is not a great philosophical document. There are, apart from the role of conscience, no commanding insights, nor is there any development of principal ideas. It is, as its title proclaims, the profession of the religious convictions and affirmations of one man, arrived at through diverse sources (self‑education, Bible‑reading, reason and Pierre-Maurice Masson, La religion de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paris: Librairie Hachette 1916, p. 155.  Ibid., p. 270.  Ibid., p. 294. 

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reflection), sanctioned by his heart and held uneasily together in lonely personal insistence. Its enduring attraction, in addition to its literary merits, are its intellectual sincerity in grappling with religion and its powerful insistence on the person of Jesus. It is, finally, a lyrical statement of an incomplete intellectual engagement of religion, an attempt to preserve religion by reason and from reason. Philosophically its success is not great, yet it is a succinct and rich expression of a quasi-intellectual position more widely shared than Rousseau perhaps realized. In The Social Contract, Jesus is strongly criticized for an otherworldliness that is a threat to the organization of a proper society. Yet he weighs in heavily in a criticism of Christianity’s essential other-worldliness and the view of its founder as the teacher of a spiritual kingdom incompatible with the notion of a civil society: “...Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom on earth; this kingdom, by separating the theological system from the political, meant that the state ceased to be a unity, and it caused those intestine divisions which have never ceased to disturb Christian peoples.” Although published in the same year 1762 as Émile, the projects are not directly related, but there is some connection between Book IV of The Social Contract and Book IV of Émile. The most striking difference consists in the central place accorded Jesus of Nazareth as the teacher and model of moral religion in “The Profession of Faith” versus the critique of him as a teacher of other-worldliness in The Social Contract. In Book IV, Chapter Eight of The Social Contract Rousseau’s famous discussion of civil religion outlines the kind of civil religion that will best serve the interests of a secular society. And while Rousseau considers a Christian republic to be impossible, he stops short of rejecting Christianity itself. What he in effect sketches is the neutralization of Christian dogma and its other‑worldliness in a deism whose State‑defined articles of faith foster a free society. The religion of “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” is not the intended State deism: it is thought out only with the education of one young man in mind, without thought of the State. And, in fact, the Vicar never mentions Jesus’ other-worldliness. For him, Jesus was valuable for this-worldly virtues of sincerity and self-transparency, for moral struggle in a corrupt and corrupting world. Looked at in this way, there is no conflict between the two teachings. In stressing Jesus as a pristine figure of sincerity and self‑transparency, Rousseau points to the necessity of individual self‑recovery in order for a reformed society to escape corruption. In this sense, the Christianized deism of “The Profession of Faith” may be said to extend and apply the idea of religion outlined in The Social Contract. To say this, however, is not to disguise the difference in emphases in the respective works. (Kierkegaard’s few references to Rousseau make no mention of any ideas about Christianity or religion in The Social Contract, and surely he would have Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. by Maurice Cranston, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1968, p. 178. (Oeuvres Complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, vols. 1–4, ed. by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, Paris: Gallimard 1959–69, vol. 3, Du contrat social: écrits politiques, p. 462.) 

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disagreed with Rousseau’s critique of Jesus and his notion of civil religion, even as he bemoaned the corruption of Christianity resulting from its State connection in Denmark.) The debate about the religious position of Rousseau continued in the condemnation [Mandement] issued by the Archbishop of Paris and in Rousseau’s colorful reply, but nothing was really added except to point out the difficulties of trying to reconcile deism and traditional Christian formulations. Julie or The New Heloise (published 1761 and containing a kind of profession of faith by Julie) began as an effusively romantic tale of illicit love (in epistolary form) but took a sudden turn in Part 2, such that it ended as an exemplary tale of moral duty triumphant over the passions portrayed in Part 1. Indeed, a Kant might well have seen in it the even greater virtue of duty, of having been tempted and having overcome. The work seems to have begun in 1756 as a romantic day‑dream that then in part reflected Rousseau’s own 1757 triangular relationship with Sophie d’Houdetot and Saint‑Lambert. If the work had followed through its apparent logic, the expectable romantic conclusion might have seen either some kind of earthly happiness for Julie and Saint‑Preux in sublimated passion or else in tragic death, as Rousseau originally planned to conclude their afternoon boating excursion. This is to say that Rousseau was in the process of writing a romantic novel but allowed it to evolve into a romantic, moral tale. In the process, both his romantic self‑indulgence and the characters that issue from it are reformed in the religious, moral conclusion. While the first part of the novel was dominated by amour‑propre and portrayed a passion that is eventually revealed as destructive, the ending that Rousseau finally used cast the novel into dialectical form and changed it from a not untypical tale of futile passion into the edifying history of the progress of souls. For neither did Julie expire out of love for Saint‑Preux, nor indulge in any form of love suicide, nor did she drown while out boating with her chaste lover. Those would have been the options for a consistently romantic novel. But instead, Julie dies from a fatal illness contracted after leaping to the rescue of her child who had fallen into the water. In this, she also symbolically cleansed herself as she fulfilled duty. Thus the tragic ending, if it is such, has its basis in morality and duty, not in passion. And Julie’s final words to her lover speak of a culmination of their love in the hereafter where virtue will unite them (much as Kierkegaard would express his enduring attachment to Regine Olsen). In its final form then, the novel portrays the dialectic of passion and virtue, which subsumes into a higher order the romance and sentimentality that made it a best-seller. Julie undergoes a clear character development and, in leaping into the water to save her child, is emphatically not to be viewed as acting on the basis of feeling (even maternal feeling) but rather on the basis of duty and thus as an example of (Rousseau’s) ethics. Ernst Cassirer writes, “Rousseau’s ethics is not an ethics of

Jean Starobinski, Jean‑Jacques Rousseau, Paris: Gallimard 1971 [Paris: Librairie Plon 1957], p. 140.



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feeling but the most categorical form of pure ethics of obligation [Gesetzes‑Ethik] that was established before Kant.” Moral intuitions located in the heart are not to be confused with traditional descriptions of the heart as the seat of passion. The heart triumphs over passion, both in The New Heloise and in Rousseau’s thought generally. It also triumphs over intellectual reason. Rousseau, frequently perceived as a rationalist in religion and a sentimentalist in his novels, ultimately opposed both the cult of feeling and the cult of intellectual reason with the divine intuitions of moral conscience. Far from advocating action based on feeling, Rousseau, as Cassirer notes, not only opposed a one‑sided rationalist culture but “in opposition to the predominant opinion of the century—eliminated feeling from the foundation of ethics.” The Confessions (finished about 1769), the Dialogues (1772), and the Reveries (begun in 1776) are essentially autobiographical works which add little by way of content to the understanding of Rousseau’s religious ideas that caught Kierkegaard’s attention, except perhaps for the nature mysticism of The Reveries of the Solitary Walker. These are both works of self-justification on the part of Rousseau, vis-à-vis his enemies and those influenced by them. In both works Rousseau tries both to understand himself and to explain himself to others. Yet The Reveries is gentle, rather than passionate, and not pleading (as were both The Confessions and the Dialogues). It seems to have been written by Rousseau for himself and for re-reading in his old age. The “Third Walk,” or Promenade, alludes to religious ideas parallel to and invoking “The Profession of Faith” itself, yet Kierkegaard makes no mention of it. Rousseau’s narrative of his sufferings certainly caught Kierkegaard’s attention, and the parallels could not have been lost on him (although he makes no reference to them). III. Rousseau in Early Nineteenth-Century Denmark Throughout Europe in the 1760s, there had been a “Rousseau vogue,” much as there would subsequently be a “Werther vogue” after the publication of Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers (1774). The legend that Immanuel Kant had given up his customary afternoon walk in order to finish Rousseau’s Émile pretty well captures the success of Rousseau in turning out a series of eighteenth-century bestsellers in various modes. By the early nineteenth century, Rousseau belonged to the canon of modern authors. Expectably, he was no longer the sensation that he had been in the 1760s, but he was still a major figure, reinforced by his lionization as a precursor of the French Revolution. (Rousseau died in 1778, eleven years before the storming of the Bastille, and was re-buried in the Pantheon in 1794 with great fanfare.) Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans. and ed. by Peter Gay, Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1963, p. 96. (Originally in German as Das Problem Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 41, 1932, photomechanical reprint, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1970.)  Ibid., p. 99. 

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There were, in a sense, two lines of Rousseau appropriation in Denmark: the political Rousseau of The Social Contract and the romantic Rousseau of The New Heloise. The political Rousseau was mediated for German culture, and eventually Danish intellectuals, by Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), who was a major influence on Goethe and most of the more famous philosophers of the nineteenth century, including Hegel, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche. Herder was an enthusiast of the French Revolution, and for him the political writings of Rousseau were naturally the most significant. The political Rousseau is best represented by the Essay on the Origins of Inequality and The Social Contract. Although recent interpretation has shown that Kierkegaard was by no means indifferent to politics, Rousseau’s political thought and writings are conspicuous by their absence in Kierkegaard. There is not a single mention of Rousseau’s political texts in Kierkegaard’s writings. Kierkegaard’s library did not include these texts, while it did include Émile and the Confessions (but it also did not include the main Romantic work, The New Heloise). The “romantic Rousseau” (Rousseau as precursor of Romanticism) was mediated in early nineteenth-century Copenhagen by the Heiberg circle (as distinct from the Heibergs proper), as well as by the Danish philosopher Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785–1872). The Heiberg connection is both through Peter Andreas Heiberg’s (1754–1841) wife Thomasine (1773–1856), and through their son Johan Ludvig’s support of his mother’s Rousseauan authorship. It was Thomasine, subsequently famous as Fru Gyllembourg, who was the Rousseau enthusiast, not her husband or her son, both of whom also certainly knew his works. Peter Andreas Heiberg was sent into exile for his liberal ideas in 1800 and went to Paris, where he was in fact an ardent admirer of Voltaire and Condorcet. His wife Thomasine, however, was very much taken with the Rousseauan philosophy of feeling. Even before her husband went into exile, the then Fru Thomasine Heiberg had fallen in love with the Swedish nobleman Carl Frederik Ehrensvärd (1767– 1815) who had fled Sweden because of his involvement in the assassination of King Gustav III and who subsequently took a gallicized version of his mother’s name, Gyllembourg. She continued her love affair, was granted a divorce from her exiled husband by the king, and married Gyllembourg in a great scandal in December 1801. Theirs was a famous and self-consciously Rousseauan love in opposition to conventions and bourgeois prejudices,10 in which the only recognized duty was held to be duty toward love itself. Fru Gyllembourg lived out this philosophy of feeling and brought it to her writings.11 For many years, Fru Gyllembourg anonymously published novels and essays through the publishing organs of her son, despite the fact that the identity of the author was well known. In 1835 Fru Gyllembourg published a transparently autobiographical novel Marriage in which a dashing character Honoré-Marie10 Henning Fenger, The Heibergs, trans. by Frederick J. Marker, New York: Twayne Publishers 1971, p. 32. 11 After the death of Gyllembourg in 1815, Johan Ludvig Heiberg was able to effect some reconciliation between his father and mother after his own 1819 reunion with his father in Paris, which would also have been the expectable happier ending in a Rousseau novel.

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Nicolas Duveyrier (1753–1839) is depicted as the incarnation of a Rousseauan ideal. In a retrospective comment in his A Literary Review: Two Ages in 1846, Kierkegaard mentions him in a work that, while formally a literary critique of Fru Gyllembourg’s 1845 novel Two Ages, is for the most part an occasion for Kierkegaard to comment on the admired period of the 1790s and the supposedly passionless 1840s. These connections clearly suggest Kierkegaard’s familiarity, at least indirectly, with this line of Rousseauan thought and sensibility in early nineteenth-century Denmark. Indeed, Fru Gyllembourg is regarded as the champion of Rousseauan passion in Denmark,12 and, of the Rousseau corpus, clearly The New Heloise was the most important work for Fru Gyllembourg and the great influence on her novels. Henning Fenger sums it up as follows: “In the Heiberg school in the Copenhagen of the [nineteenth century], she functioned for more than a generation as the liaison to the eighteenth century, to French taste, and to Rousseau’s espousal of eloquent passion.”13 For Kierkegaard too, she would have been this liaison, but still only an indirect connection to this novel, for we have no evidence that he ever read Julie itself, despite his admiration for Fru Gyllembourg and his knowledge of her own Rousseauan novels. Thus, of particular interest by virtue of its absence is Rousseau’s The New Heloise, precisely because it had been such an influence on Fru Gyllembourg and also a European bestseller. But its content is equally interesting. For Kierkegaard might well have taken an interest in the ethical conclusion of its triangular love affair (Julie, Saint Preux and Wolmar) that paralleled the triangular love affair (Regine Olsen, Kierkegaard, Schlegel) in his own life. For the novel ends in the triumph of ethics over passion and sensuousness. For Fru Gyllembourg this was the key Rousseau work that inspired much of her own writing, as well as the justification of her own brief triangular love affair prior to her husband’s exile. Her son Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860) dominated Danish intellectual life during the early nineteenth century, and both Andersen and Kierkegaard eagerly sought the recognition that the Heiberg circle conferred. Both eventually left its orbit in bitter disappointment, and at least four works of Kierkegaard directly react to the Heibergs, as do some of the tales of Andersen. The Heibergs not only mediated Hegelian philosophy to Denmark but, through Fru Gyllembourg, also the special gallic emphasis that Danish Romanticism would take on. Heiberg was educated in the French classics, to which Rousseau belonged by that point, along with his contemporary Voltaire, as well as the older classics such as Corneille, Molière, and Racine.14 Heiberg read and spoke French with ease, and considered at one point staying on indefinitely in Paris at the time of his extended sojourn there in the years 1819–22. However, the younger Heiberg was no more a Rousseau enthusiast than his father. Equally important for Denmark was Jens Baggesen’s (1764–1826) emphasis on Rousseau, as reflected in his Labyrinten, his celebrated journey to Switzerland and return to Denmark. In it, Rousseau is mentioned several times with reference to nature and love, stimulated precisely by Rousseau’s novel Julie ou La Nouvelle Fenger, The Heibergs, p. 38. Ibid., p. 153. 14 Ibid., p. 53. 12 13

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Hélöise. Baggesen remarks in a diary entry of 1789 that, as a rule for traveling, every day one should read a bit of Horace, Montaigne or Rousseau.15 Baggesen, whose turn against Romanticism is reflected in his long feud and rivalry with the poet Adam Oehlenschläger, and who would have exercised influence in the Heiberg circle, would thus have been another source of influence in Kierkegaard’s Denmark. Among the famous targets of Kierkegaardian polemics—although not for anything Rousseauan—Pastor Nicolai Grundtvig and his humanistic educational project were indebted to Rousseau’s Émile,16 which had launched the first major philosophy of education in modern times; and Bishop Jakob Mynster too was very familiar with the works of Rousseau. None of these facts is reflected directly in any of Kierkegaard’s writings, but they do evidence the fact that Rousseau was still a literary presence, both for his political writings and his so-called Romantic writings, at the time of Kierkegaard and in the very circles where Kierkegaard, at least in his youth, sought to move. Yet what these observations finally suggest is that Rousseau was far less an influence on or presence in the writings of Kierkegaard than he was for many of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries, whether they were admired by him (Fru Gyllembourg) or heavily criticized (Grundtvig and Mynster). Many of his important contemporaries give far more indication of familiarity with Rousseau than does Kierkegaard himself. IV. Kierkegaard’s Rousseau References Kierkegaard’s references to Rousseau and his writings are so few that one can discuss all seven of them briefly. Only one of his seven comments offers a genuine observation about Rousseau as a thinker. The others, like so many comments in Kierkegaard, become occasions or examples for a point that Kierkegaard is himself interested in making. Thus, in reading Kierkegaard’s few references to Rousseau, one learns virtually nothing about Rousseau and also very little about Kierkegaard’s attitude to Rousseau, with the exception of his much-cited comment that, since Rousseau did not understand the Christian idea of suffering, he did not understand Christianity. But this, while it easily could have been the theme of an extended essay, is merely a brief comment in passing. An author can only take on so much, but Kierkegaard’s non-engagement of Rousseau nonetheless remains puzzling. On the one hand, one would have expected Kierkegaard to have taken strong issue with Rousseau’s odd deism, although it was generally perceived to be standard eighteenth-century rationalism. On the other hand, one would have expected him to have appreciated Rousseau’s break with rationalized religion, if he perceived the break (as Voltaire and the French philosophes did), as well as his odd turn to the figure of Jesus. For Kierkegaard had himself set us a similar contrast, between Socrates and Christ, in his Philosophical Fragments, although in a far more substantive and penetrating manner. I am grateful to Henrik Blicher for this reference. Cf. Carlsen, Rousseau og Danmark, pp. 148–51.

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One would have expected Kierkegaard to have been wary of Rousseau’s nature mysticism and stress on sentiment that came to full flowering in the Romantic movement of which Kierkegaard was so leery. Vague sentimentality and the cult of feeling were, after all, part of the life-view critiqued in Either/Or, Part One. In this regard, had Kierkegaard read Rousseau’s epistolary novel The New Heloise, one might have expected Kierkegaard to have been both very uneasy at the general direction that it set off in, and at the same time ultimately supportive of the ethical turn that it took. (Is not this in fact the very contrast set up between the two parts of Either/Or?) The sole remark about Rousseau in the published writings is found in Fear and Trembling (1843) where, in an undocumented reference to a Rousseau work, the pseudonym Johannes de silentio, in the opening paragraphs of his consideration of the problem “Is there an absolute duty to God?,” cites Rousseau’s comment (not located) on loving the Kaffirs [whom one does not see] instead of loving one’s neighbors [whom one does see].17 The remaining Rousseau references are all from the journals and notebooks, and there the first mention of Rousseau comes in 1847,18 referring to two supposed pictures hanging next to each other and entitled respectively “Rousseau’s first love” and “Rousseau’s last love,” and the apparently self-referential comment supposing that there had only been one picture of “Rousseau’s one and only love.” Depending on how one reads Rousseau’s biography, there are several possibilities for each portrait. In Kierkegaard’s version of his life, there is of course only one (although there is evidence to suggest a romantic interest prior to Regine Olsen).19 There follow two references to Émile (both from 1850) and two references to the Reveries of the Solitary Walker (one from 1850, the other from 1851). “The Professor of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar” selection is from Book IV, which, as noted above, most interpreters regard as a separate composition inserted into Rousseau’s education novel. In it, a defrocked Catholic priest sets out the religion of nature, freed of creedal difficulties, that he proposes as making the most sense for young Émile. The section which Kierkegaard quotes in his journals and of which he says, “Now comes the good part,” concerns the faith which people currently hold. If it is sound faith, according to the Vicar, one must not disturb the peaceful or trouble the simple by heaping up problems. If their faith is already shaken, one must preserve the trunk by sacrificing the branches. But (mixing metaphors) the priest then goes on to comment about the troubled faith of Émile, built on false foundations and supported by shaky pillars, and of the need to have faith strengthened and restored.20

SKS 4, 160 / FT, 68. SKS 20, 105, NB:163 / JP 3, 2595. 19 On this point in Rousseau, see inter alia, Leo Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius, Boston: Houghton Mifflin 2005. See also Joakim Garff, Søren Kierkegaard, A Biography, trans. by Bruce H. Kirmmse, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2005, pp. 173ff. (Original Danish: SAK. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. En Biografi, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag 2000, pp. 149ff.) 20 SKS 23, 221, NB17:75 / JP 3, 3824. 17 18

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Kierkegaard comments no further, but Fear and Trembling, among other works, easily provides a clue to what Kierkegaard would make of this passage. Surely he would not be satisfied with merely teaching Émile a combination of ethics and nature religion, as Rousseau’s priest is. For Kierkegaard, Christian religion is of course concerned with ethics but culminates in a personal God-relationship, something that Rousseau and his priest never discuss. The relationship to Jesus on the part of the priest is one of admiration. That would of course not suffice for Kierkegaard. What Kierkegaard has in mind here in quoting Rousseau’s attitude toward the shaking of the foundations of faith is unclear, although Kierkegaard’s own attitude is clear enough. He is against a tranquillized Christianity that hides the challenge of a direct God-relationship, thus the consideration of the troubling figure of Abraham by Johannes de silentio in Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard’s own attitude toward the Christian church establishment eventually emerged as far more militant than Rousseau’s, a fellow “outsider” but one who nonetheless rejoiced to take communion in an atmosphere of fellowship, whereas Kierkegaard abandoned all church participation at the end of his life. An additional comment on Émile makes clear that Kierkegaard had read more than the “Profession of Faith” section of Émile when he admires Rousseau’s astute psychological insight about the offending party never forgiving, while the offended party often forgives.21 But he criticizes Rousseau for not understanding why this occurs, which, for Kierkegaard, consists in the inability of the offending party to humble himself under his own guilt. For Kierkegaard, unless the guilty party feels his guilt, he remains angry toward, or at least avoids, the party that he has wronged. The guilty party simply cannot accept the humiliation of forgiveness by the one he has wronged. Like so many comments, this is not so much an analysis of Émile as an occasion for Kierkegaard to make his own observation, stimulated by the text of Émile. The first quotation from The Reveries of the Solitary Walker is cited in the original French from an 1848 German work on theological ethics by Richard Rothe (1799–1867).22 Whether Kierkegaard also knew the full “Fourth Walk,” independent of Rothe’s discussion of it, cannot be established, but it is quite possible, given that he did own it in Danish translation and that the subsequent “Fifth Walk” from this edition is discussed by Kierkegaard in an 1851 entry. The theme of the “Fourth Walk” is truth versus lies, obligation to tell the truth when it has a practical consequence, and a confession of Rousseau’s deviations from a strict attitude toward truth, some of which are silences kept in order to protect others. The lines immediately before Kierkegaard’s citation establish the context that Rousseau (not Kierkegaard) has in mind: “Two questions arise here for examination, each one very important. The first, when and how we owe the truth to another, since we do not always owe it. The second, whether there are cases in which we may

SKS 23, 228, NB17:79 / JP 3, 3825. Quoted from Richard Rothe, Theologische Ethik, vols. 1–3, Wittenberg: Zimmermann 1845–48, vol. 3, p. 569, note.

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innocently deceive. I am well aware this second question is entirely settled....”23 Rousseau then goes on to cite cases of an author portraying an austere morality that is not the author’s own and morality books that champion an impracticable kind of morality. Kierkegaard then applies this distinction between (easy) talk and (difficult) practice to nineteenth-century Christian preaching, which disturbs neither preacher nor listeners, for “in life we act entirely differently.”24 This is a familiar theme in Kierkegaard by 1850, critical of the so-called Christianity of the nineteenth century, all too pleased with itself, despite its wholesale ignoring of the challenges present in the Christianity of the New Testament. The next entry refers again to the Reveries and specifically to the “Fifth Walk,” or Promenade, which Kierkegaard hailed as “aesthetically unparalleled.”25 Kierkegaard’s entry refers to the Reveries not by name but as Book IV of a four-volume edition of Rousseau in Danish translation.26 Volume 4 included the autobiographical Reveries, but a modern reader could mistakenly think that the reference is to material in The Confessions, where in point of fact it refers to a separate work: namely, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Rousseau’s last work was incomplete at the time of his death in July 1778, and the final entry was composed only shortly before. Like The Confessions, it was published posthumously (The Confessions in 1780, The Reveries in 1782). The “Fifth Walk” is generally considered to have been composed in 1777. Here, just after praise for its aesthetic high notes, one finds the oft-quoted remark of Kierkegaard, “Incidentally, this is an example of what it means not to be taught and brought up in Christianity.”27 The “Fifth Walk” is pure nature romanticism, not quite paganism, so one wonders what prompted the remark. There is in fact no mention of anything Christian in the “Fifth Walk,” nor is there any need for one, for it has to do with a confession of intense satisfaction with the solitary life, which Rousseau declares he is prepared to continue for two centuries, engaged in botany and in afternoon idylls on the lake. Part of Rousseau’s solitary satisfaction is naturally a reaction to the tangle of human relationships and his own difficulties in getting along with people. Rousseau was much criticized for being a solitary and anti-social type. Is this what it means not to be brought up in Christianity for Kierkegaard? Not likely. Rousseau was in fact reasonably familiar with Christian teachings: he was raised a Calvinist Christian in Geneva and took lessons in Catholicism before and after his teenage conversion. (He later reconverted to Genevan Calvinism in 1754, but still preferred the worldly social company of French Catholic abbés to that of the grim Calvinist clergy that he encountered.) But Rousseau famously denied the Christian doctrine of original sin and all that it implied about enduring effects and the need for Rousseau, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, trans. by Charles E. Butterworth, New York: New York University Press 1979, p. 45. 24 SKS 24, 70, NB21:11 / JP 3, 3826. 25 SKS 24, 311, NB23:214 / JP 3, 3827. 26 J.J. Rousseaus Bekjendelser eller hans Levnet, skrevet af ham selv paa Fransk, vols. 1–4, trans. by Matthias Hagerup, Copenhagen: J.M. Stadthagen 1798 (ASKB 1922–1925). 27 SKS 24, 31, NB23:214 / JP 3, 3827. 23

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divine forgiveness. Instead, Rousseau saw the true fall of the species as its movement into settled society and its embrace of private property. For Rousseau, heaven and earth were sundered not when Adam and Eve ate some forbidden fruit but when the greedy word “mine” was first uttered and others acquiesced.28 None of the subsequent comments in Kierkegaard’s entry are justified by the text that is supposedly their occasion. But they do constitute a general reflection, on Kierkegaard’s part, of his image of Rousseau: a person with a willfully twisted notion of Christianity and religion, a person above all without a grasp of the Christian meaning of suffering, although all the while suffering himself and complaining to an unjust world about it. Rousseau did in fact have something of a persecution mania, which was not in any way helped by the fact that he was indeed the victim of machinations against him by a faceless crowd of detractors (including his one-time patron Diderot, his one-time idol Voltaire and others; even David Hume may not be as innocent as once thought29). Rousseau might even be said to have had the gift of making enemies out of friends. But that is not Kierkegaard’s point here. A marginal notation criticizes Rousseau for not understanding the Christian ideal of suffering and therefore for not seeing his own lesser sufferings in this perspective.30 Kierkegaard calls Rousseau an example of “how hard it is for a man to die to the world,” if he does not have a Christian understanding. Once again, this remark has nothing to do with Rousseau’s “Fifth Walk” but is rather a continuation, in the margins, of the theme begun in the preceding marginal remark. Because we regard Rousseau as a major figure, we are puzzled that Kierkegaard did not read him to the extent that others did. To what extent do we expect someone to read an author if the reader is not concerned with the major themes of that author? In the case of Rousseau, these would have included his radical social ideas, his sentimental moral ideas, and his semi-deist religious ideas. While Rousseau’s emphasis on feeling and conscience may have served as a stimulus to a Kant some sixty years earlier, Kierkegaard in the 1820s and 1830s had the benefit of exposure to the Kantian corpus itself and to numerous Kantians on the intellectual scene. And Rousseau’s notion of having a proper (civil) religion for a well-ordered state had already received monumental development in Hegel’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion”. Romantic literature was awash in sentimentality, and there was no special need to consult Rousseau on this. There is no reason to think that Rousseau had any real influence on Kierkegaard, either directly or indirectly. Certainly Kierkegaard read Rousseau, but apparently on a very limited basis. By 1843 and the publication of Either/Or, Kierkegaard had strongly rejected most of what Rousseau was associated with: the naïve cult of feeling, and the substitution of natural goodness and sincerity for the Christian theology of repentance and God’s grace. As Kierkegaard became increasingly concerned with the inner truth of Christianity, and the threat posed by an externalized Christendom, he would have had even less reason to think of Rousseau who had acted in an opposite way in rejecting traditional Christian thinking while nonetheless seeking Cf. Émile and The Social Contract. Cf. Damrosch, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. 30 SKS 24, 311, NB23:214.a. 28 29

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out church fellowship. Kierkegaard’s targets were the disciples of such masters as Goethe and Hegel. Rousseau, after all, while he may have been a maverick master of the eighteenth century, had enthusiasts but no major disciples or school in the nineteenth century.

Bibliography I. Rousseau’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Émile, ou de l’Éducation, vols. 1–4, Aux Deux-Ponts: chez Sanson et Compagnie 1792 (ASKB 939–940). Emil eller om Opdragelsen, vols. 1–6, Copenhagen: Sebastian Popp 1796–99 (ASKB 941–943). J.J. Rousseaus Bekjendelser eller hans Levnet, skrevet af ham selv paa Fransk, vols. 1–4, trans. by Matthias Hagerup, Copenhagen: J.M. Stadthagen 1798 (ASKB 1922–1925). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Rousseau Baader, Franz von, Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen LudwigMaximilians-Hochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich: Giel 1827, p. 7 (ASKB 395). —— Ueber das dermalige Missverhältniss der Vermögenslosen oder Proletairs zu den Vermögen besitzenden Klassen der Societät in Betreff ihres Auskommens, sowohl in materieller als intellektueller Hinsicht aus dem Standpunkte des Rechts betrachtet, Munich: Georg Franz 1835, p. 25 (ASKB 404). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 9, p. 279; p. 411; vol. 10, p. 202; p. 474; p. 516; p. 532; p. 542; vol. 11, p. 452 (ASKB 1972–1983). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2, Göttingen: Johann Georg Rosenbusch’s Wittwe 1800; vols. 3–6, Göttingen: Johann Friedrich Röwer 1802–05 (Abtheilung 6 in Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften seit der Wiederherstellung derselben bis an das Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von einer Gesellschaft gelehrter Männer ausgearbeitet, Abtheilungen 1–11, Göttingen: Röwer and Göttingen: Rosenbusch 1796–1820), vol. 6, pp. 351ff. (ASKB 440–445). Döring, Heinrich, Joh. Gottfr. von Herder’s Leben, 2nd enlarged and revised ed., Weimar: Wilhelm Hoffmann 1829, p. 125; p. 208 (ASKB A I 134). Fichte, Immanuel Hermann, System der Ethik, vols. 1–2.1, Leipzig: Dyk 1850–51 (vol. 1, Die philosophischen Lehren von Recht, Staat und Sitte in Deutschland,

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Frankreich und England von der Mitte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart, 1850; vol. 2.1, Die allgemeinen ethischen Begriffe und die Tugendund Pflichtenlehre, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 667–80 (ASKB 510–511; to vol. 2.2, Leipzig: Dyk 1853, see ASKB 504). Flögel, Carl Friedrich, Geschichte der komischen Litteratur, vols. 1–4, Liegnitz and Leipzig: David Siegert 1784–87, vol. 1, p. 63; p. 100 (ASKB 1396–1399). Guerike, Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand, Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, vols. 1–2, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Halle: in der Gebauerschen Buchhandlung 1838, vol. 2, p. 969 (ASKB 158–159). [Gyllembourg, Thomasine], To Tidsaldre. Novelle af Forfatteren til “En HverdagsHistorie,” ed. by Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1845, p. 227 (ASKB 1563). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 1, p. 511; vol. 2, p. 187; p. 147; p. 166; p. 187ff.; p. 196; p. 199; pp. 366–7; p. 420; p. 437; p. 514; vol. 3, pp. 95–8; p. 116; p. 159; p. 161; p. 183; p. 243; p. 279; vol. 4, p. 424; p. 446ff.; vol. 6, . 276; pp. 279–80; vol. 7, p. 107 (ASKB 536–544). Hase, Karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske Forelæsninger, trans. by C. Winther and T. Schorn, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1837, p. 598 (ASKB 160–166). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Rousseau,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 526–9 (ASKB 557–559). Heiberg, Johan Ludvig, Prosaiske Skrifter, vol. 3, Copenhagen: J.H. Schubothe 1843 (vol. 3, in Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Prosaiske Skrifter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: J.H. Schubothe 1841–43 which is Part of Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s Samlede Skrifter consisting of Skuespil, vols. 1–7, Copenhagen: J.H. Schubothe 1833–41 and Digte og Fortællinger, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: J.H. Schubothe 1834–35), p. 378 (ASKB 1560). [Herder, Johann Gottfried von], Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Religion und Theologie, vols. 1–18, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung 1827–30, vol. 14, pp. 37–48 (ASKB 1678; see also ASKB A I 105–113). —— Johann Gottfried von Herder’s sämmtliche Werke. Zur Philosophie und Geschichte, vols. 1–22, Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1827–30, vol. 13, pp. 211–37; vol 15, pp. 383–6 (ASKB 1695–1705; see also ASKB A I 114–124). Kant, Immanuel, Critik der Urtheilskraft, 2nd ed., Berlin: F.T. Lagarde 1793, p. 6 (ASKB 594). Marheineke, Philipp, Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1827, p. 23 (ASKB 644). Martensen, Hans Lassen, Den christelige Dogmatik, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1849, p. 207 (ASKB 653).

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Mynster, Jakob Peter, Blandede Skrivter, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1852– 53 [vols. 4–6, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1855–57], vol. 1, pp. 113f.; vol. 3, p. 58 (ASKB 358–363). Nielsen, Rasmus, Forelæsningsparagrapher til Kirkehistoriens Philosophie. Et Schema for Tilhørere, Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsens Forlag 1843, p. 84; p. 87 (ASKB 698). [Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich], Jean Paul, Vorschule der Aesthetik nebst einigen Vorlesungen in Leipzig über die Parteien der Zeit, vols. 1–3, 2nd revised ed., Stuttgart and Tübingen: J.G. Cotta 1813, vol. 1, p. 215; vol. 2, p. 355; vol. 3, p. 768 (ASKB 1381–1383). —— Jean Paul’s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–60, Berlin: G. Reimer 1826–28 (vols. 61–65, Jean Paul’s sämmtliche Werke. Jean Paul’s literarischer Nachlaß, Berlin: G. Reimer 1836–38 and Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. Ein biographischer Commentar zu dessen Werken by Richard Otto Spazier, Neffen des Dichters, Leipzig: Wigand 1833), vol. 65, 1833, pp. 179–96 (ASKB 1777–1799). [Schlegel, Friedrich], Friedrich Schlegel’s Philosophische Vorlesungen aus den Jahren 1804 bis 1806. Nebst Fragmenten vorzüglich philosophisch-theologischen Inhalts. Aus dem Nachlaß des Verewigten, ed. by C.H.J. Windischmann, vols. 1–2, Bonn: Eduard Weber 1836–37, vol. 1, pp. 451ff. (ASKB 768–768a). Schopenhauer, Arthur, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vols. 1–2, 2nd revised ed., Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1844 [1819]; vol. 1, p. 216; p. 579; vol. 2, p. 351; p. 533 (ASKB 773–773a). —— Parerga und Paralipomena: kleine philosophische Schriften, vols. 1–2, Berlin: Druck und Verlag von A.W. Hayn 1851, vol. 1, p. 369; vol. 2, p. 427; p. 499 (ASKB 774–775). Steenstrup, Mathias G.G., Historisk-kritisk Oversigt over Forsögene paa at give en Historiens Filosofi, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1854, p. 72 (ASKB 792). Steffens, Henrich, Caricaturen des Heiligsten: in zwei Theilen, vols. 1–2, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus 1819–21, vol. 1, p. 411 (ASKB 793–794). —— Christliche Religionsphilosophie, vols. 1–2, Breslau: Josef Max 1839, vol. 1, p. 191 (ASKB 797–798). —— Was ich erlebte. Aus der Erinnerung niedergeschrieben, vols. 1–10, Breslau: Josef Max und Comp. 1840–44, vol. 3, p. 317; vol. 9, p. 63 (ASKB 1834–1843). Sulzer, Johann Georg, Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste, in einzeln, nach alphabetischer Ordnung der Kunstwörter auf einander folgenden, Artikeln abgehandelt, vols. 1–4 and a register volume, 2nd revised ed., Leipzig: Weidmann 1792–99, vol. 1, p. 23; p. 212; p. 292; p. 296; p. 384; p. 445; p. 447; p. 584; p. 633; p. 751; vol. 2, p. 30; p. 71; p. 146; p. 343; p. 472; p. 477; p. 676; vol. 3, p. 13; p. 95; p. 365; p. 386; p. 433; p. 479; p. 482; p. 525; p. 608; vol. 4, p. 544 (ASKB 1365–1369). Thomsen, Grimur, Om den nyfranske Poesi, et Forsøg til Besvarelse af Universitetets æsthetiske Priisspørgsmaal for 1841: “Har Smag og Sands for Poesi gjort Frem- eller Tilbageskridt i Frankrig i de sidste Tider og hvilken er Aarsagen?,” Copenhagen: Wahlske Boghandlings Forlag 1843, p. xxxiii; p. xxxvii; p. xxxviii; p. Lii; pp. 11–2; pp. 19–26; p. 37; p. 46; p. 69; pp. 88–90; p. 127 (ASKB 1390).

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Weis, Carl, Staten og dens Individer. Indledning i Retsvidenskaben, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1845, pp. 126–8 (ASKB 922). Zimmermann, Johann Georg, Ueber die Einsamkeit, vols. 1–4, Leipzig: bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich 1784–85, vol. 2, pp. 189ff. (ASKB 917–920). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Rousseau Grimsley, Ronald, “Rousseau and Kierkegaard,” Cambridge Journal, vol. 7, 1954, pp. 615–26. —— “Kierkegaard and Rousseau,” in his Søren Kierkegaard and French Literature: Eight Comparative Studies, Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1966, pp. 89–112. Krämer, Helmut, “Exkurs: Rousseaus Emile,” in his Autorität und Erziehung als Problem der neueren Philosophie seit Søren Kierkegaard, Hamburg: Kovač 1993, pp. 33–4. Leverkühn, André, “Rousseau anders: Über den Ursprung der Ungleichheit in der Verschiedenheit,” in his Das ethische und das Ästhetische als Kategorien des Handelns. Selbstwerdung bei Søren Kierkegaard, Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang 2000, pp. 165–8. Rosenberg, Carol Leslie, Towards an Aesthetic Education: An Interpretation of Rousseau, Schiller, and Kierkegaard, Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1985. Tuttle, Howard N., “Rousseau’s Assumptions,” in his The Crowd is Untruth: The Existential Critique of Mass Society in the Thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Ortega y Gasset, New York et al.: Peter Lang 1996 (American University Studies Series V, Philosophy, vol. 176), pp. 6–8.

Baruch de Spinoza: Questioning Transcendence, Teleology, and Truth Clare Carlisle

What do Kierkegaard and Spinoza have to do with one another? Spinoza is a systematic philosopher who emphasizes reason, objective knowledge, necessity, eternity, and immanence; Kierkegaard is a resolutely unsystematic philosopher concerned with faith, subjectivity, freedom, temporality, and transcendence. Furthermore, as a Jewish thinker regarded by some as an atheist, Spinoza is excluded from Kierkegaard’s critique of misguided interpretations of what it truly means to be—or, more precisely, to become—a Christian. Admittedly, both philosophers focus on God, but their perspectives could not be more different, and whereas Spinoza’s God is absolutely intelligible, Kierkegaard’s remains an absolute paradox. And yet, Kierkegaard read Spinoza’s more obscure works in addition to the well-known Ethics and Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and most of his own pseudonymous texts contain some mention of Spinoza. So why was Kierkegaard interested in Spinoza, and what did he think of Spinoza’s philosophy? I. Introduction to Spinoza’s Philosophy Baruch (or Benedictus) de Spinoza (1632–77) is best known for his supra-rational pantheism, his critique of Cartesian dualism, and his view—highly controversial in the seventeenth century—that the Bible is a merely human text reflecting the interests and world-view of a particular community. Perhaps because of the ambiguity of his ideas, there have been many Spinozas: in his own time, a revered teacher and a pernicious heretic; later, an inspiration for the English and German Romantics; a subject for the critical scrutiny of logical analysis; a quasi-Buddhist thinker; and a “continental” philosopher of the body, of power, of immanence and of affirmation—rather like Nietzsche, only more serene. Spinoza’s work continues to divide philosophers, and although he is widely recognized as one of the major thinkers of the Western tradition, many scholars are reluctant to engage seriously with his system, generally because of its difficulty or its apparent strangeness. Spinoza’s greatest work, the Ethics, incorporates ontology, epistemology, psychology, and ethics within a rational system. The fact that this book is called Ethics, rather than Metaphysics or some other title, accentuates the human, existential

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perspective from which this systematic philosophy is constructed. Spinoza argues that the way to “blessedness” for each individual involves an expansion of the mind towards an intuitive understanding of God, of God’s attributes and essence, of the whole of nature and its laws—and this means that Spinoza’s own inquiry into the nature of reality has to be understood in the context of the question of how to live a good life. Spinoza himself has a reputation for living an exemplary, almost saintly life, and his modesty, gentleness, integrity, intellectual courage, and lack of worldly ambition are often regarded as the virtues of a true philosopher. Bertrand Russell, for example, describes Spinoza as “the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers.” Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to Jewish Portuguese parents, and he grew up in an environment of religious tolerance and intellectual exploration, very liberal by the standards of seventeenth-century Christendom. Spinoza was an excellent student in the Jewish schools he attended, and he was chosen to teach some of the younger students. However, in 1656—at the age of 24—he was excluded from the Amsterdam synagogue for holding intolerable views and for engaging in intolerable practices: clearly the leaders of the Jewish community regarded him as a dangerous influence, but exactly what Spinoza did to earn the excommunication has never been established. Spinoza (like Kierkegaard) was not a professional scholar or philosopher; he earned his living as a lens-grinder. His modest library included works by Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Descartes, Hobbes, and Francis Bacon, as well as Maimonides and several other Jewish thinkers. He also owned a copy of Isaac La Peyrère’s controversial Prae-Adamite, published and then quickly suppressed in 1655 because it challenged the accuracy of the Bible. In the late 1650s Spinoza wrote De intellectus emendatione Tractatus (Treatise on the Purification of the Understanding), which he left unfinished. In 1663, at the request of his friends, he published his first work, a geometric exposition of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy. In this book Spinoza challenges Descartes’ proof of God’s existence in the Third Meditation, criticizing Descartes’ distinction between a substance and its principal attribute. A preface, written by Lodewijk Meyer at Spinoza’s invitation, articulates some further criticisms of Descartes’ metaphysics and methodology. Spinoza began writing the Ethics in the early 1660s, but he put it aside for a few years to work on the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which was published in 1670. The Tractatus undermines the claim of revelation to be a source of religious knowledge, questions the traditional understanding of miracles, prophecy, and divine law, and highlights problems relating to the historicity and authority of the Bible. The book provoked widespread protest and condemnation, and when the Ethics was finally completed in 1675 Spinoza decided to delay its publication until after his death, in order to avoid more trouble. He died in 1677, and by the end of that year Spinoza’s friends arranged for the Ethics to be published, along with his letters and three unfinished works—De intellectus emendatione Tractatus, the Tractatus Politicus, and a Hebrew Grammar. Presenting an intelligible concise summary of Spinoza’s philosophy as articulated in his Ethics is probably impossible, since the full text is already dense, intricate, and difficult. Many of its key ideas are expressed in the terminology of Cartesian metaphysics, blending remnants of medieval scholasticism with a more accessible

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modern outlook. Moreover, this terminology frequently takes on new meanings as it is employed to communicate Spinoza’s innovative metaphysical vision. Set out in five books—on God; on the human mind and knowledge; on the emotions; on “the servitude of man and the power of the passions”; and on human freedom—Spinoza’s Ethics unfolds deductively, according to a Euclidean geometrical method. From a foundation of axioms and definitions, Spinoza develops an account of the nature of reality, and of the human condition within this big picture. Since this is not the place to evaluate or even to outline in detail Spinoza’s claims and arguments, I will just try to explain some of the most important aspects of his system. One of Spinoza’s radical philosophical moves is to argue, contra Descartes, that the traditional notion of substance as independent existence—as that which causes itself—leads to the conclusion that there can only be one such substance. This substance, being infinite, must include everything within itself. In so far as substance is self-causing, unique, infinite, eternal, and indivisible, it can be identified as God. For Spinoza, it is clear that the essence of God involves his existence, but it is important to grasp that essence here means power, rather than a definition or a concept of God: “The power of God is his essence itself.” In freeing Cartesian principles from theological presuppositions, Spinoza undermines all notions of a transcendent, anthropomorphic God who created a world distinct from himself, and who might intervene at any time to direct the course of events. Spinoza sometimes uses the term “God or nature”; he suggests that God is identical with natura naturans (the active, self-creating power of nature), while natura naturata (all the things that exist) follow necessarily from God, are in God, and cannot exist or be conceived without God. Whereas Descartes regarded God, minds, and bodies as separate substances, Spinoza distinguishes between different attributes, and between different modes, rather than between substances. For Spinoza, attributes are ways of being, ways of expressing the essence—or power—of God. (We might say that attributes signify “how,” while essence signifies “what.”) Spinoza suggests that God has an infinite number of attributes, but from a human perspective only two are accessible: thinking and extending. Each attribute offers a complete, self-contained expression of God’s power. Particular things are modes (or modifications) of substance, and each particular thing exists through both of the attributes, so that it is both an idea and a body. Finite modes are individuated by a certain ratio of motion and rest that constitutes their cohesion. According to the attribute of thinking, each idea has a place within a system governed by relations of logical necessity, and the totality of finite thinking modes form an infinite thinking mode which might be called the mind of God. According to the attribute of extension, each body has a place within a system governed by relations of causal necessity, and the totality of extending modes forms an infinite extending mode which might be called the face of the whole universe. There are no causal or logical relations between the two attributes (since an attribute precisely is Benedictus de Spinoza, Ethics, trans. by George Eliot, ed. by Thomas Deegan, Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 1981, Book I, Proposition 34, p. 33.  Ibid., Book I, Proposition 29, Scholium, p. 27. 

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an order of such relations), but they are always in parallel since they are two aspects of a single reality: two aspects of one substance, or two aspects of a particular mode. “The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things,” and “thinking substance and extended substance is one and the same, which is now comprehended under this, now under that attribute.” At the level of particular, finite things, “the idea of the body and the body, i.e., the mind and the body, [are] one and the same individual, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension.” Spinoza’s claim that the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things is a cornerstone of his anti-skeptical account of knowledge and error. Because modes belong within, and are dependent upon, an infinite system of causes and conditions, knowledge of particular things involves understanding the wider whole of which they are a part. In principle, this knowledge is accessible: human reason is able to grasp the universal, necessary laws of “God or nature,” and we also have a capacity for a higher, intuitive understanding that grasps immediately the essences of finite things as well as their necessary connections to all other things. Error is simply a symptom of incomplete knowledge. For example, Spinoza argues that people tend to believe that they have free will because they are aware of their appetites and desires, yet unaware of the causes determining these, and so they mistakenly believe that they are themselves free, spontaneous causes of their actions. For Spinoza, the only being that is truly free—that is, self-causing and selfdetermining—is “God or nature” itself, as a whole. Similarly, events are interpreted as miraculous, or simply as due to the will of God, when people are ignorant of their natural causes. And a teleological understanding of the world is another error: of course people do act for the sake of things that they desire, but they often recognize only final causes and do not enquire further into what causes them to desire in the first place. This partial understanding of one’s own actions then gets spread out over the external world (to borrow Hume’s expression), so that natural phenomena appear to have been created for specific purposes. Turning now to Spinoza’s account of human nature, we find a non-dualistic understanding of subjectivity as embodied, and as sensitive to the influences of the environment and of other beings, that anticipates twentieth-century phenomenology. A human being is a finite mode, of which mind and body are two aspects. The mind is the idea of the body, or in other words an awareness of the body. This means that consciousness is always intentional, being of the body together with this body’s changing affections. Because our bodies continually come into contact, through the senses and also through memory, with other bodies—sentient or otherwise— the mind perceives other bodies together with its own, and perceives the ideas (or minds) of other bodies together with itself. For this reason, self-awareness is “not

Ibid., Book II, Proposition 7 and Scholium, p. 47. Ibid., Book II, Proposition 21, Scholium, p. 65.  For Spinoza’s critique of free will, miracles and teleology, see ibid., Appendix to Book I.  Ibid., Book II, Proposition 19, Demonstration, p. 63.  

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clear and distinct, but confused.” Spinoza points out that “the ideas which we have of external bodies indicate more of the constitution of our own bodies than of the nature of external bodies.” He explains self-consciousness as the idea of the mind (i.e., the idea of an idea) which “is nothing else than the form of an idea insofar as it is considered as a mode of thought, apart from any relation to its object [i.e., the body]. For in the moment when anyone knows a thing, he knows that he knows it and at the same time he knows that he knows that he knows it, and so on ad infinitum.” In the third book of the Ethics Spinoza declares his intention to consider human emotions “as if the surfaces of lines, planes or solids”; that is, he insists that emotions are just as natural and as law-governed as all other modes. People who “believe that man rather disturbs than follows the order of nature, that he has absolute power over his actions,” tend to adopt a misguidedly moralistic attitude: “They refer the cause of human weakness and inconstancy not to the common forces of universal nature, but to I know not what vice in human nature, which they therefore bewail, deride, despise, or more frequently detest.”10 Spinoza suggests that it is more fruitful to understand our emotions and actions than to hate or ridicule them. As with all things, knowledge of emotions involves knowledge of what causes them, and how. Spinoza approaches this task by first making a distinction between activity and passivity: I say that we are active when something takes place within us or out of us, of which we are the adequate cause, i.e., when from our nature something follows either within us or out of us, which can be clearly understood by that nature alone. On the other hand I say that we are passive when something takes place in us or follows from our nature, of which we are only the partial cause.11

This means that the more inadequate—that is, partial and confused—ideas a mind has, the more it is susceptible to passions, while the more adequate ideas it has, the more it is capable of action. (The order of the mind’s actions and passions is the same as the order of the body’s actions and passions.) Spinoza then asserts that every individual thing strives to persevere in its existence, and that the effort of this striving, which we call will or appetite, “is nothing but the actual essence of the thing.” This idiosyncratic use of the term “essence” echoes the earlier claim that God’s essence and power are identical: Spinoza brings to the abstract scholastic notion of essence a new sense of activity and dynamism, so that “what a thing is” becomes identical with its power, its energy, its movement of becoming. A finite individual’s power—the mind’s power of thought, and the body’s power of action—increases and diminishes. Spinoza suggests that the emotion of joy arises with the feeling of an increase in power, and the emotion of sadness arises with the feeling of a diminution of power. (In other words, the endeavor to persist in being is simultaneously a pursuit of joy, or pleasure. Whatever increases my power makes Ibid., Book II, Propositions 28 and 29, p. 68. Ibid., Book II, Proposition 16, Corollary 2, p. 60.  Ibid., Book II, Proposition 21, Scholium, p. 65. 10 Ibid., Book III, Preface, p. 91. 11 Ibid., Book III, Definition 2, p. 93.  

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me happy, and therefore leads me to value it as good.) Spinoza regards joy and sadness as the two basic emotions, and all other emotional states are variations of these, combined with awareness of particular objects that cause them. For example, love is a feeling of joy joined with an idea of its cause. An important element in Spinoza’s account of emotions is that both joy and sadness, and also their variations, can be either active or passive, depending on whether or not the individual is aware of them and understands them, and their causes, clearly. Without understanding, we simply suffer our emotions, but knowledge of their nature has a transformative effect: “An emotion which is a passion ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it.”12 When the mind knows thoroughly even a painful emotion such as sadness or grief, its activity of knowing signals an increase of power, which generates a feeling of joy. Spinoza is suggesting that understanding is inherently joyful, regardless of its object. Understanding something completely, whether through reason or intuition, means grasping its connectedness to the whole—that is, to “God or nature.” If we put together Spinoza’s claims that the act of understanding is joyful, that we understand things through their causes, that understanding something completely involves seeing it as caused by God, and that the emotion of love is joy accompanied by the idea of the cause of that joy, then we arrive at his account of loving God. As Spinoza explains, “He who clearly and distinctly understands his emotions feels pleasure, and feels it in connection with the idea of God. And thus he loves God, and loves him in proportion as he understands his emotions.”13 Spinoza points out that a person who truly knows and loves God cannot desire that God should love him in return: God does not feel emotions, since his power, being perfect, cannot increase or decrease.14 Observing that “the weaknesses and miseries of the soul derive their chief origin from excessive love towards objects which are liable to change and which we can never entirely possess,” Spinoza recommends knowledge and love of God, who is eternal and immutable.15 The Ethics concludes with a discussion of the mind without relation to the body. In so far as it is the idea of the body, the mind exists in time and ceases to exist when the body dies. However, Spinoza also claims that “In God nevertheless there is necessarily an idea which expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity,” and that “this idea is therefore necessarily something pertaining to the human mind.” This “something” which belongs to the mind must be eternal (and therefore atemporal). Because reason by its nature understands things under the form of eternity, the mind is able to understand the essence of the body under the form of eternity.16 As Spinoza explains: Things are conceived by us as actual in two ways: either as existing with relation to a certain time and place, or as contained in God and following from the necessity of the divine nature. But the things which are conceived in the second way as true or real, Ibid., Book V, Proposition 3, p. 219. Ibid., Book V, Proposition 15, Demonstration, p. 227. 14 Ibid., Book V, Proposition 19, p. 228. 15 Ibid., Book V, Proposition 20, Scholium, p. 230. 16 Ibid., Book V, Propositions 22–4, pp. 231–2. 12 13

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we conceive under the form of eternity, and the ideas of them involve the eternal and infinite essence of God....Our mind so far as it knows itself and its body under the form of eternity, has necessarily the knowledge of God, and knows itself to be in God and to be conceived by and through God.17

In so far as the mind is eternal, it has knowledge of God and is capable of knowing, intuitively, all the things that follow from God. “From this kind of cognition arises the highest possible repose of mind, i.e., the highest kind of pleasure, which... is connected with the idea of self, and consequently also with the idea of God as cause.”18 Spinoza calls this joyful knowledge “the intellectual love of God,” and insists that this kind of love, unlike love for finite things, is eternal. Although God cannot feel the love that arises from an increase in power, he can be said to love himself with an infinite intellectual love, and an individual’s intellectual love of God should be understood as participating in this divine love. “Hence it follows,” adds Spinoza, “that God, insofar as he loves himself, loves men, and consequently that the love of God towards men and the intellectual love of the mind towards God is one and the same.”19 He concludes that this constant and eternal love constitutes man’s salvation, blessedness or freedom, and that blessedness should be regarded not as a reward for virtue, but as virtue itself. For Spinoza, blessedness does not arise because a person has controlled his passions, but on the contrary the power of controlling the passions arises from blessedness. The final paragraph of the Ethics emphasizes that attaining eternal blessedness is very difficult, yet still possible: The wise man...has a soul scarcely moved by external things; he has true consciousness of himself, of God and of things in virtue of an eternal necessity; he never ceases to exist; and always possesses true repose of mind. If the way which I have shown to lead to this result appears very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. And in truth that must be difficult which is so rarely attained. For if salvation were close at hand and could be attained without great labor, how were it possible that it should be neglected by almost all? But every thing excellent is as difficult as it is rare.20

II. Kierkegaard’s Discussion of Spinoza Kierkegaard completed his doctoral dissertation on The Concept of Irony in 1841, and this contains a couple of very casual references to Spinoza.21 In late October of the same year Kierkegaard traveled to Berlin, where he stayed for a little over four months. One of his reasons for going to Berlin was to attend lectures by Schelling, then Professor of Philosophy at the University of Berlin. After initial enthusiasm Kierkegaard became disappointed with Schelling’s lectures, but he continued to attend and made quite detailed notes on them until early February 1842. These lecture notes contain several references to Spinoza’s metaphysics, and to pantheism, although of Ibid., Book V, Proposition 29, Scholium, p. 234. Ibid., Book V, Proposition 32, Demonstration, p. 235. 19 Ibid., Book V, Proposition 36, Corollary, p. 237. 20 Ibid., Book V, Proposition 42, Scholium, p. 243. 21 SKS 1, 344, 345 / CI, 312, 314. 17 18

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course Kierkegaard is recording Schelling’s views rather than his own.22 There is no evidence that Kierkegaard had at this time read Spinoza himself, although some of the issues that arise in connection with Schelling’s comments on Spinoza reappear when Kierkegaard discusses Spinoza’s work in later texts. One significant point to note is that Kierkegaard, having listened to Schelling, made a connection between Hegel’s philosophy and Spinoza’s: he wrote to Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785– 1872), one of his philosophy professors back in Copenhagen, that “[Schelling’s] main point is that there are always two philosophies, one positive and one negative. The negative is given, but not by Hegel, for Hegel’s is neither negative nor positive but a refined Spinozism.”23 By the time Kierkegaard wrote Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus dubitandum est (1842–43) he seems to have read at least some of Spinoza’s work. The front page to this text bears two epigrams: the first, in Latin, from Spinoza’s unfinished De intellectus emendatione Tractatus; the second, in Greek, from the 1 Timothy 4:12—“Let no one despise your youth.” The extract from Spinoza’s short treatise on the purification of the understanding translates as follows: I speak of real doubt existing in the mind, not of such doubt as we see exemplified when a man says that he doubts, though his mind does not really hesitate. The cure of the latter does not fall within the province of Method; it belongs rather to inquiries concerning obstinacy and its cure.24

In this passage Spinoza distinguishes between genuine, “real, existing” doubt, and the “obstinate” adoption of a skeptical philosophical position. Implicit here is a distinction between a sincere pursuit of truth, which in its sincerity encounters uncertainty, and poses a genuine question; and intellectual posturing or game-playing that, from an existential point of view, has little at stake. Kierkegaard uses this passage from Spinoza to highlight the opposition between an intellectual perspective and an existential perspective, which is one of the most important and consistent elements of his own philosophy. Throughout his authorship Kierkegaard remains preoccupied with the question of the relationship between ideality and actuality. In his pseudonymous works Kierkegaard often attempts to effect a transition from an intellectual to an existential perspective, using characters to personify philosophical concepts, and forms of narrative to dramatize philosophical arguments. This provides the foundation for his critique of speculative (i.e. Hegelian) thought, for this critique often focuses on the question of the relationship between ideality and actuality. Kierkegaard raises this issue in the Introduction to Johannes

SKS 19, 312–13, Not11:9 / SBL, 345. SKS 19, 316, Not11:12 / SBL, 349. SKS 19, 332, Not11:20 / SBL, 369. SKS 19, 333, Not11:21 / SBL, 370. SKS 19, 336, Not11:22 / SBL, 373–4. SKS 19, 337–8, Not11:23 / SBL, 375–7. SKS 19, 348, Not11:29 / SBL, 389. SKS 19, 349, Not11:30 / SBL, 390. SKS 19, 349, Not11:31 / SBL, 391. 23 B&A, vol. 1, p. 84 / LD, Letter 55, p. 107. 24 Pap. IV B 1, p. 103 / JC, 115. Kierkegaard gives as a reference “SPINOZA, De intellectus emendatione Tractatus p. 511,” which presumably refers to the Gfroerer edition of Spinoza’s Opera that Kierkegaard owned. 22

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Climacus,25 and concludes the text with the rather cryptic reflection that “When ideality and reality touch each other, then repetition occurs.”26 Spinoza’s distinction between two kinds of doubt is echoed in Kierkegaard’s summary of the protagonist’s role in Johannes Climacus: By means of the melancholy irony, which did not consist in any simple utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life, by means of the profound earnestness involved in a young man’s being sufficiently honest and earnest enough to do quietly and unostentatiously what the philosophers say (and he thereby becomes unhappy)—I would strike a blow at [modern speculative philosophy]. Johannes does what we are told to do—he actually doubts everything—he suffers through the pain of doing that....[In the end] he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy.27

In his notes relating to Johannes Climacus Kierkegaard writes that Johannes “had already been struck by Hegel’s and Spinoza’s saying that Descartes did not doubt as a skeptic for the sake of doubting, but for the sake of finding truth,” again echoing the quotation from De intellectus emendatione Tractatus.28 In this early text, then, Kierkegaard creatively utilizes a passage from Spinoza in the service of what can be understood, in retrospect, as his “indirect polemic against speculative thought,” which is in turn “a polemic against truth as knowledge.”29 The story of Johannes Climacus shows what happens when a philosophical principle—in this case, that of comprehensive doubt—is translated into an existential principle, a principle to live by. In later texts Kierkegaard repeats this strategy, drawing concepts from the intellectual sphere and setting them into motion on an existential stage. In this way he argues, indirectly, that from the engaged and thoroughly temporal perspective of the existing individual, philosophical concepts are inadequate, ineffectual and sometimes even dangerous. The danger of the philosophical project, which values and pursues the truth in the form of knowledge, is that it might undermine the subjective, existential task of realizing the kind of truth that for Kierkegaard matters infinitely more. This subjective truth is a “how,” not a ”what”; a way of existing that from moment to moment is honest, sincere, and faithful or true to oneself, to another person, or to God. Throughout his authorship Kierkegaard opposes “truth as knowledge” to “truth as inwardness”: the former is a truth that is known, whereas the latter is a truth that is lived. When Spinoza is mentioned in Either/Or (1843), it is again connected to an attempt to translate a philosophical idea into an existential attitude. The title of this text refers to the Aristotelian principle of contradiction, which Hegel’s new dialectical logic was supposed to overcome. Kierkegaard’s “either/or” is an existential version of Aristotle’s logical principle: in the sphere of existence, contradiction is an Pap. IV B 1, p. 111 / JC, 124. Pap. IV B 1, p. 150 / JC, 171. 27 Pap. IV B 16 / JC, Supplement, pp. 234–5. 28 Pap. IV B 2, p. 16 / JC, Supplement, p. 246. 29 SKS 7, 229 / CUP1, 252. Here Climacus is referring to Either/Or, but “polemic against truth as knowledge” is a good description of Kierkegaard’s philosophical project as a whole. 25 26

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occasion for choice. The unnamed author of the first volume, the young aesthete “A,” personifies the denial of contradiction that Kierkegaard attributes to Hegelian philosophy. As Judge William puts it, the aesthete’s attitude bears a strange resemblance to the pet theory of the newer philosophy, that the principle of contradiction is annulled….You mediate contradictions in a higher madness, philosophy mediates them in a higher unity....At this point you are united with the philosophers. What unites you is that life comes to a stop.30

Either/Or’s aesthete repeatedly complains about his inability to move, and Kierkegaard suggests that this paralysis is the result of his refusal to recognize the existential significance of contradiction. The aesthetic attitude is captured in the section headed “Either/Or: An Ecstatic Lecture,” where “A” dismisses life-choices that most people take seriously: “Whether you marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way….whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way.” The aesthete continues his “ecstatic lecture” by comparing himself to Spinoza’s philosophy: It is not merely in isolated moments that I, as Spinoza says, view everything aeterno modo, but I am continually aeterno modo. If one or another of my esteemed listeners thinks there is anything to what I have said, he merely demonstrates that he has no head for philosophy. If he thinks there is any movement in what has been said, this demonstrates the same thing. But for those listeners who are able to follow me, although I do not move, I shall now elucidate the eternal truth by which this philosophy is selfcontained and does not concede anything higher....The philosopher, then, is continually aeterno modo....31

These remarks express, in the first place, a transition from an intellectual perspective—or, more precisely, an epistemological perspective—to an existential perspective. According to Spinoza, the individual expands his knowledge by viewing the whole of which he is a part sub specie aeternitatis; this latter phrase (for which Kierkegaard’s aesthete substitutes “aeterno modo”) signifies a way of looking at things thoroughly objectively, in order to understand them more completely. The aesthete, however, claims not merely to view things from an eternal perspective, but to be “continually aeterno modo.” This is to say, he identifies himself with the objective, eternal truth so coveted by philosophers, and he rules out the possibility of the subjective, existential truth that, according to Kierkegaard, comes into being through making real choices. There is also a hint in this extract of a connection between eternity, objectivity, immanence and stasis: the aesthete points out that Spinoza’s philosophy “is self-contained and does not concede anything higher.” It is precisely this feature of Hegel’s philosophy that Kierkegaard attacks, on the grounds that it is unable to grasp the transcendence inherent both in temporal human existence, and in Christian theology. When Kierkegaard engages more deeply with Spinoza’s philosophy in later texts, he returns to this issue of immanence and raises concerns about the possibility of movement within an all-inclusive system.

30 31

SKS 3, 166–7 / EO2, 170–1. SKS 2, 47–9 / EO1, 38–40. See SKS 19, 316, Not11:12 / SBL, 349.

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During 1844 Kierkegaard appears to have been very much engaged with Spinoza’s ideas, as he refers to them in two of the published texts and in several journal entries of that year. The content of these references is wide-ranging: in Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard discusses Spinoza’s view that God’s essence involves his existence, and also borrows from the Ethics a quotation about truth; in notes relating to The Concept of Anxiety he suggests that Spinoza’s substance “is only a metaphysical expression for Christian providence”32; and in one of his Three Upbuilding Discourses of 1844 he reflects on Spinoza’s controversial attitude to miracles. Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments includes two direct references to Spinoza, the first of which involves an extensive and complicated discussion of Spinoza’s concept of God.33 This occurs in the chapter on “The Absolute Paradox,” which begins with the suggestion that “the paradox is the passion of thought,” and that, since every passion tends ultimately to will its own downfall, “the ultimate passion of the understanding is to will the collision [with the paradox].” According to the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, thought contains its own paradox: the desire “to discover something that thought itself cannot think.”34 Since Kierkegaard in this text seeks to identify the Christian God, and the event of the Incarnation, as absolutely paradoxical, he quite naturally challenges the rationalist project of demonstrating that God exists. At issue here is the distinction— and also the relationship—between essence and existence, and between thinking and being. Kierkegaard argues that existence must always be the starting point of a process of reasoning, rather than its conclusion: [W]hether I am moving in the world of sensate palpability or in the world of thought, I never reason in conclusion to existence, but I reason in conclusion from existence. For example, I do not demonstrate that a stone exists but that something which exists is a stone. The court of law does not demonstrate that a criminal exists but that the accused, who does indeed exist, is a criminal.35

Existence, in other words, is a presupposition rather than a result, so that the attempt to demonstrate existence “becomes an expanded concluding development of what I conclude from having presupposed that the object of investigation exists.” In the manuscript of Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard wrote in the margin next to these comments that “this is the Spinozistic improvement of the AnselmianCartesian idea, which no doubt profoundly but nevertheless deceptively permits a shift by suddenly switching from a factual line of demonstration to an ideal one.”36 This is a little ambiguous, because it is not quite clear whether it is “the AnselmianCartesian idea”—that is, the classical “ontological argument” for the existence of See SKS 4, 400 / CA, 97; and see Pap. V B 55, p. 17 / CA, Supplement, p. 199. The second reference, apparently inconsequential, occurs at SKS 4, 264 / PF, 62, and will be discussed in Section III below. 34 SKS 4, 242–3 / PF, 37. 35 SKS 4, 245 / PF, 40. 36 Pap. V B 5, p. 5 / PF, Supplement, p. 190. See also SKS 19, 312–13, Not11:9 / SBL, 345. 32 33

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God—or the “Spinozistic improvement” on this, that profoundly yet deceptively “permits a shift.” It seems far more likely to be the latter, since in the published footnote to this section Kierkegaard acknowledges the “profundity” of Spinoza’s thought. In this case, Kierkegaard’s marginal note is very significant, because it reveals an insight into Spinoza’s treatment of the concepts of substance, God and existence that eludes most commentators. Spinoza is usually considered to be offering, in the opening pages of his Ethics, a version of the ontological argument for the existence of God—that is, to draw from the concept of God proof that such a God must exist. However, it is possible (and I would argue that it is more fruitful) to interpret Spinoza as beginning with the bare fact of “that which exists” and concluding, through purely rational deduction, that some of the traditional divine predicates—uniqueness, independence, infinity, eternity, and even a kind of omnipotence and omniscience—necessarily apply to this existence. This means that Spinoza’s account of God effects a sort of reversal of the ontological arguments presented by Anselm and Descartes. Perhaps Kierkegaard is suggesting, along these lines, that just as one does not demonstrate that the stone or the criminal exists, but that an existing something or someone is in fact a stone or a criminal, so Spinoza demonstrates not that God exists, but that whatever exists independently is (matches the description of) God. Kierkegaard seems to admire this original move on Spinoza’s part, but he thinks that it involves a deceptive shift from the factual to the ideal. This criticism of Spinoza is developed at length in Kierkegaard’s footnote. In the main body of the text here, Kierkegaard writes that “between the god and his works there is an absolute relation. God is not a name but a concept, and perhaps because of that his essentia involvit existentiam.”37 The footnote continues: For example, Spinoza, who, by immersing himself in the concept of God, aims to bring being out of it by means of thought, but, please note, not as an accidental quality but as a qualification of essence. This is the profundity of Spinoza, but let us see how he does it…he says “[in proportion as a thing is by its own nature more perfect, it entails a greater and more necessary existence; and, conversely, in proportion as a thing entails by its own nature a more necessary existence, the more perfect it is.]” Consequently, the more perfect, the more being; the more being, the more perfect. This, however is a tautology. This becomes even clearer in a note, nota II: “[By perfection I mean reality or being.]”38

Kierkegaard then complains that “what is lacking here is a distinction between factual being and ideal being.” He argues that Spinoza is wrong to speak of quantities or degrees of being, because in the case of factual being it is meaningless to speak of more or less being: A fly, when it is, has just as much being as the god; with regard to factual being, the stupid comment I write here has just as much being as Spinoza’s profundity, for the Hamlet dialectic, to be or not to be, applies to factual being....It is quite true that ideally the situation is different. But as soon as I speak ideally about being, I am speaking no

37 38

SKS 4, 246 / PF, 41. See Spinoza, Ethics, Book I, Definition 1; Propositions 7 and 11. SKS 4, 246 / PF, 41. See also SKS 19, 402, Not13:37–8 / JP 4, 4321–2.

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longer about being but about essence. The necessary has the highest ideality; therefore it is. But this being is its essence, whereby it expressly cannot become dialectical in the determinants of factual being, because it is; and neither can it be said to have more or less being in relation to something else. In the old days, this was expressed…as follows: If God is possible, he is eo ipso necessary (Leibniz). Then Spinoza’s thesis is quite correct and the tautology is in order, but it is also certain that he completely circumvents the difficulty, for the difficulty is to grasp factual being and to bring God’s ideality into factual being.39

This rather technical excursion into logic and metaphysics raises all sorts of questions. Is Kierkegaard being fair to Spinoza? What does the distinction between factual and ideal being mean within Spinoza’s system, where existence is at once singular and ubiquitous, and where ideas and extended things are distinguished from one another as attributes of this singular existence? For Spinoza, all ideas are affirmative; the imagination affirms ideas of non-existent things, and one falls into error when one lacks the (equally affirmative) idea of this fictitious thing’s non-existence. God is self-evident: there is no idea affirming his non-existence, but quite the reverse, for it is easy—from Spinoza’s point of view—to grasp the necessity of God’s existence. Kierkegaard may also be wrong to criticize the notion of degrees of being, since for Spinoza reality, whether on the level of substance or mode, is equivalent to power, and it does seem reasonable to speak of degrees of power. Perhaps fortunately for us, Kierkegaard’s objections to Spinoza do not have to be assessed here and now. What is most important in the present context is Kierkegaard’s distinction between “factual being” and “ideal being.” This anticipates the distinction between existence and essence, and the heightened concern for the former, which became the hallmark of the “existentialist” philosophical tradition that Kierkegaard’s work inspired. By “factual being” Kierkegaard probably means becoming, “in the sense of coming to exist and in the sense of being maintained” in existence.40

SKS 4, 246 / PF, 41–2. On the front flyleaf of his copy of the Gfroerer edition of Spinoza’s Opera, Kierkegaard wrote: “re. pg. 15 Lemma I. Note II. This dissolves in a tautology, since he explains perfectio by realitas, esse. The more perfect a thing is, he says, the more it is; but in turn he explains the perfection of a thing by saying that it has in itself more esse, which therefore says that the more it is the more it is. In a logical sense, this is correct—the more perfection, the more it is; but here being has an altogether different meaning than that it factually is. Thus, with respect to God, this ends in the old thesis that if God is possible, he is eo ipso necessary (cf. Leibniz on this somewhere in the Theodicy).” See PF, Supplement, p. 290, note 22. On the issue of ideality and actuality, Hegel seems to have anticipated Kierkegaard’s criticism of Spinoza: “the defect of the Spinozistic system is that it does not correspond to actuality…the Spinozistic substance is the idea only as wholly abstract and not in its vitality.” See Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825–1826, vol. 3, Medieval and Modern Philosophy, ed. by Robert F. Brown, trans. by Robert F. Brown and J.M. Stewart with the assistance of H.S. Harris, Berkeley: University of California Press 1990, p. 161. 40 See SKS 23, 58, NB15:83 / JP 4, 3852, where Kierkegaard (commenting on Schleiermacher) contrasts Vœren, which he describes as “Spinozistic being,” with Vorden, or becoming. 39

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In his subsequent writings Kierkegaard continues to be occupied with the distinction between existence and essence, or between factual and ideal being, and five or six years after discussing the issue in Philosophical Fragments he returns, in his journal, to the comparison with Spinoza: What confuses the whole idea of “essence” in logic is that attention is not given to the fact that one continually functions with the “concept,” existence. But the concept, existence, is an ideality and the difficulty is precisely whether existence is absorbed in the concept. Then Spinoza may be right: essentia involvit existentiam, namely, the concept-existence, i.e., existence in ideality…. But existence corresponds to the individual; as Aristotle has already taught, the individual lies outside of and is not absorbed in the concept. For a particular animal, a particular plant, a particular human being, existence (to be—or not to be) is very crucial; a particular human being is certainly not concept-existence. The very way in which modern philosophy speaks of existence shows that it does not believe in the immortality of the individual; it does not believe at all; it comprehends only the eternity of “concepts.”41

This passage helps to clarify that, for Kierkegaard, the abstract question of essence and existence is important in so far as it has consequences for the particular individual, and for questions concerning the religious possibility of eternal life. It also helps to clarify the fact that Kierkegaard’s commitment to “the immortality of the individual” separates him sharply from Spinoza—as well it might, since it is a fideistic commitment, which Spinoza’s rationalism will not tolerate. This represents one of the most significant differences between the two philosophers. However, it seems that Kierkegaard’s main target in this extract is Hegel, who as a Christian philosopher might have been expected to believe in individual immortality. In the chapter on “The Absolute Paradox” in Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard makes a further, indirect reference to Spinoza, borrowing from the latter’s anti-skeptical account of truth in Book II of the Ethics. Here, Spinoza claims that “He who has a true idea at the same time knows himself to have a true idea, and cannot doubt of its truth….As light manifests itself and darkness, so truth is a criterion of itself and of falsehood.”42 Kierkegaard, who in the Fragments posits a conceptual equivalence between truth, God and paradox, echoes this, although he has in mind a more existential sense of truth and error: Just as truth is index sui et falsi, so also is the paradox, and offense does not understand itself * but is understood by the paradox. * In this way the Socratic principle that all sin is ignorance is correct; sin does not understand itself in the truth, but this does not mean that it cannot will itself in untruth.43

To follow Spinoza’s metaphor, as light shows up both itself and the surrounding darkness, so the paradox illuminates both itself and the offense that refuses to accept SKS 22, 433, NB14:150 / JP 1, 1057. Spinoza, Ethics, p. 78 (Book II, Proposition 43 and Scholium). 43 SKS 4, 254 / PF, 50. 41 42

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it. Kierkegaard was clearly struck by Spinoza’s suggestion that truth is its own criterion, for he quotes the Latin phrase “Veritas est index sui et falsi” repeatedly, in both The Sickness Unto Death and Prefaces.44 In The Sickness Unto Death he uses it in a sense similar to that in Fragments: discussing the variety of despair that is ignorant of itself, he suggests, “That this condition is nevertheless despair and is properly designated as such manifests what in the best sense of the word may be called the obstinacy of truth. Veritas est index sui et falsi.”45 Let us turn now to one of Kierkegaard’s religious discourses of 1844, “Think About Your Creator in the Days of Your Youth.” This text is connected to the pseudonymous, more explicitly philosophical works discussed above by the theme of truth, and specifically by the opposition between objective “truth as knowledge” and subjective, existential truth. The discourse begins by contrasting the “indifferent” truth sought by knowledge with the “concerned” truth relating to a person’s own existence. Kierkegaard goes on to suggest that in our youth we have a closer, more direct relationship to God than in later life, when many worldly things come between ourselves and God: “For the youth, God lives close by. In the midst of his joy and his sorrow, he hears God’s voice calling….When one grows older, it is a long way to heaven, and the noise on earth makes it difficult to hear the voice; and if one does not hear it, the noise on earth makes it easy not to miss it.”46 Kierkegaard then draws a parallel between this existential distance between the individual and God, and the epistemological distance between finite things and God that is implicit in Spinoza’s interpretation of miracles in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: There was a thinker, much admired in memory, who thought that miracle was a characteristic of the Jewish people, that in a characteristic way this people leaped over the intervening causes to reach God. But if we point to a youth who did not grow up in that nation, do you not think that the marvelousness of miracle will be manifest here, too?...But when one grows older, then along come the intervening causes, he can say that he comes from far away—that is, if he does reach God, for many perish along the way.47

A journal entry from 1844 makes it clear that the “thinker” Kierkegaard is referring to here is Spinoza; and in this unpublished text he is more explicitly critical of Spinoza’s view of miracles: “It is strange that, against miracles, revelation, etc., Spinoza constantly uses the objection that it was a peculiarity of the Jews to refer something immediately back to God and jump over the intermediate causes, just as if it were merely a peculiarity of the Jews and not of all religiousness....”48 Kierkegaard adds that Spinoza would have recognized miracles “if he, too, had had religiousness.” For Kierkegaard, the question of personal religiosity—“whether, how far, in what way”49—is central to the debate about miracles, which he characteristically SKS 4, 95 / P, 58. SKS 11, 157 / SUD, 42. 46 SKS 5, 241–2 / EUD, 242–3. 47 SKS 5, 242 / EUD, 243. 48 SKS 18, 201, JJ:192 / KJN 2, 186. 49 Ibid. 44 45

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approaches not as an epistemological problem, but from the subjective perspective of the existing individual. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) Kierkegaard mentions Spinoza in connection with Lessing, whom he discusses at some length.50 In conversation with Jacobi shortly before his death, Lessing is reported to have confessed to being a Spinozist, a pantheist, and it is in relation to this story that Kierkegaard introduces his famous notion of the leap. Elsewhere in the Postscript, Spinoza has a significant off-stage role, for Kierkegaard several times uses the expression “sub specie aeterni” when criticizing speculative philosophy. For example, he argues that “the speculative result is an illusion insofar as the existing subject, thinking, wants to abstract from his existing and wants to be sub specie aeterni.”51 Further on in the text Kierkegaard characterizes Hegelian mediation as “sub specie aeterni” and asks: Of what help is it to explain how the eternal truth is to be understood eternally when the one to use the explanation is prevented from understanding it in this way because he is existing and is merely a fantasist if he fancies himself to be sub specie aeterni, consequently when he must avail himself precisely of the explanation of how the eternal truth is to be understood in the category of time by someone who by existing is himself in time, something the honored professor himself admits, if not always, then every three months when he draws his salary.52

This is a typical instance of Kierkegaard’s attack on Hegelian philosophy, which often involves a portrayal of Hegel himself as an arrogant, hypocritical professional thinker. Kierkegaard’s tone is sarcastic, but his point about how the individual existing in time relates himself to eternity is a serious one, since it is central to the question of how the Christian relates to God. Kierkegaard goes on to claim, in a similar vein, that the absolute difference between God and a human being is simply this, that a human being is an individual existing being, whose essential task therefore cannot be to think sub specie aeterni, because as long as he exists, he himself, although eternal, is essentially an existing person and the essential for him must therefore be inwardness in existence.

For Spinoza there is also an absolute difference between God and human beings, since God is a substance while all individuals are modes. However, while Spinoza argues that a human being’s task is to attain a God-like view of the whole of reality, Kierkegaard regards this kind of aspiration—which he finds to be particularly prevalent amongst Hegelian philosophers—as sinful self-assertion. Kierkegaard’s journals of 1846 contain several entries relating to different texts by Spinoza: the Ethics, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, De emendatione intellectus, and Principia philosophiæ Cartesianæ. Some of these entries repeat themes already discussed here,53 and others—for example, certain passages copied, SKS 7, 97–100 / CUP1, 99–102. SKS 7, 81 / CUP1, 81. See also SKS 19, 349, Not11:30–1 / SBL, 390–1. 52 SKS 7, 176 / CUP1, 192. 53 Such as demonstrating the existence of God; see SKS 19, 402, Not13:37–8 / JP 4, 4321–22. 50 51

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clearly approvingly but without commentary, from Spinoza’s Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus54—are relatively inconsequential. However, there is one new point that Kierkegaard returns to a few times: he identifies an inconsistency between Spinoza’s denial of teleology in the Ethics, and the path to blessedness, or perfection, that he outlines in the later Books of the same text. If Kierkegaard is right in finding such a “duplicity” and “contradiction” between the ontological and ethical aspects of the Ethics, then his criticisms reach to the heart of Spinoza’s philosophy, and threaten it seriously. Kierkegaard clearly read at least some of the Ethics before 1846, but in this year he returned to the text and read it right through. He records in his journal that he has just finished it, and remarks on its strangeness and ambiguity. What really seems to strike him, however, is the thought that But surely it is a contradiction to discuss how or with what means one achieves perfection in triumphing over the affects, the way to this perfection (cf. p. 430, end), and then offer it as an immanence theory. For the way is indeed precisely the dialectic of teleology. I go this way and that, do this and that—in order to, but this in order to separates the way and the goal.55

Elsewhere in an 1846 journal Kierkegaard notes again that “Spinoza rejects the teleological view of existence and says (at the conclusion of the first book of the Ethics) that the teleological view holds only for someone who takes refuge in asylum ignorantiae—one doesn’t know the causa efficiens and so constructs teleology,”56 and he criticizes Spinoza on this point. A further, longer entry makes more explicit the philosophical and theological issues that are at stake: Spinoza may well be right in his whole introflected method—that the [telos] is itself appetitus: that beatitudo is not virtutis præmium men ipsa virtus57—the question is only whether his whole ethics is not to be charged with a duplicity, that he simultaneously (in order to do away with theology) contemplates everything at rest and then also (by virtue of the definition’s suum esse conservare) gets finitude in process: that is, the concept of motion is lacking here. It is certainly true that truth must be understood in and by itself….In the same way virtue must be desired for its own sake. But if the individual is not originally disposed to do this—something Spinoza, after all, denies—the question is whether or not he himself can do anything. Spinoza does in fact speak of a way to this perfectio; he himself defines lætitia [joy] by transitio, in perfectionem, and specifically stresses…transition, movement.58 But right here is the duplicity. The first, seen sub specie æterni gives immanence. But if Spinoza wants to speak of actual individuals as he indeed does, then See SKS 18, 215, JJ:232 / KJN 2, 197; see also SKS 20, 217, NB2:194 / JP 3, 2776. SKS 18, 289, JJ:443 / KJN 2, 266–7. 56 SKS 18, 287, JJ:439 / KJN 2, 265. At the end of this entry Kierkegaard writes, “See Concluding Unscientific Postscript, part II, chapter II, ‘Subjectivity is Truth.’ ” 57 “Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself”; see Spinoza, Ethics, Book V, Proposition 42, p. 242. 58 See SKS 18, 288, JJ:442 / KJN 2, 266: “Obviously [Spinoza] uses the Greek concept of κίνησις to mean in transitio as he does in saying of lætitia and tristitia that it is transitio in perfectionem, not perfectio itself.” For a discussion of Kierkegaard’s interest in Aristotle’s 54 55

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The “duplicity” that Kierkegaard accentuates here arises from a tension he finds within Spinoza’s philosophy, between the latter’s ontological denial of teleology— which is in turn tied to his commitment to immanence—and his view that finite individuals strive both to persist in being, and to attain virtue or blessedness. Kierkegaard thinks that Spinoza wants to have it both ways: to “contemplate everything at rest” by viewing “God or nature” under the form of eternity, and also to describe a movement, a progression towards this goal. This is the most important issue that arises from Kierkegaard’s encounter with Spinoza, and we shall return to it in the following section. III. Kierkegaard and Spinoza: Differences and Affinities Although Kierkegaard’s references to Spinoza in his published works are relatively few and far between, he manages to engage with Spinoza’s philosophy in some depth. As we have seen, the issues that most interest Kierkegaard, and to which he returns in his writings on Spinoza throughout the 1840s, are miracles, the relationship between ideal and actual being, teleology and immanence, and truth. Kierkegaard admires Spinoza’s account of truth, and even incorporates it into his own philosophy, but on the other three issues he disagrees with Spinoza. In the case of miracles, there is a quite straightforward disagreement between the two thinkers, which is to be expected given their very different religious perspectives. For Spinoza, the only possible form of religiosity is both rational and naturalistic, since it involves grasping the eternal, immutable laws (at once causal and logical) of “God or nature.” From this perspective, there is no room for miracles. What Kierkegaard would recognize as a religious attitude—attributing certain special, apparently inexplicable events to the will of God, intervening in the usual order of nature—Spinoza regards as ignorance and superstition. From Spinoza’s point of view, Kierkegaard’s claim that authentic subjective religiousness involves a faith that goes against reason appears as willfully ignorant and superstitious. Their disagreement on the subject of miracles highlights some of the basic differences between Kierkegaard and Spinoza: while Kierkegaard believes in a paradoxical, transcendent God, distinct from nature, and suggests that becoming religious involves the surrender of the understanding, Spinoza equates God and nature and regards understanding as the way to blessedness. On the question of the relationship between ideality and actuality the disagreement is more complicated. The distinction between the ideal (or the possible) and the actual is absolutely central to Kierkegaard’s philosophy: his understanding of subjective concept of kinesis, see my Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions, Albany: State University of New York Press 2005, pp. 14–22; pp. 67–89. 59 SKS 19, 403, Not13:39 / JP 4, 4319–20.

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truth in terms of the actualizing movement of repetition rests on this distinction, and his critique of the aesthetic way of life involves the claim that it is confined to ideality and incapable of actualization. For Spinoza, however, there is no clear distinction, and therefore no transition, between the ideal and the actual, for in his system ideas are an aspect of—or in other words, one way of expressing—the reality of “God or nature,” and the reality of each finite mode. There is an historical connection between these two positions: Hegel follows Spinoza in regarding consciousness, and the activities of thinking and understanding, as part of concrete actuality, and Kierkegaard’s strong distinction between ideality and actuality is formulated in opposition to Hegel.60 Complaining that there is no movement in Hegel’s philosophy, since mediation, operating within the sphere of ideas and according to logical necessity, is not a real (i.e. free) movement, Kierkegaard offers an alternative account of the movement of becoming that is based on Aristotle’s understanding of κίνησις as the transition from potentiality to actuality. So, when in Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard criticizes Spinoza’s account of God’s existence for shifting deceptively from factual to ideal being, it is difficult to consider this objection from Spinoza’s point of view. For Spinoza there is no question of a shift, for within his system the only distinction between kinds of being is that between the attributes, and specifically between the attributes of thinking and extending. This distinction is of a different order to Kierkegaard’s distinction between the ideal and the factual, or actual: both (or all) the attributes of Spinoza’s substance are actual. God’s actuality is the same as his essence, which in turn is the same as his power. Kierkegaard might criticize this way of thinking as tautological, but for Spinoza it merely expresses the self-evident reality of “God or nature.” It seems strange that Kierkegaard complains about the tautological and deceptive character of Spinoza’s discussion of God, since this would be a problem only if Spinoza were engaged in a traditional attempt to prove that God, as conceptualized in a particular way, does in fact exist. As we have seen, Kierkegaard does seem to grasp that this is not the case, and that Spinoza is rather arguing that what exists can legitimately be called God, in the same sense as a jury has to decide that the person who stands before them can legitimately be called a criminal. On this issue of ideality and actuality, then, Kierkegaard and Spinoza think very differently. Kierkegaard, following Aristotle but focusing on the subjective perspective of the existing individual, understands the movement of becoming in terms of a transition from potentiality (or possibility, or ideality—these are equivalent for Kierkegaard) to actuality. In Spinoza’s philosophy, what Kierkegaard would call the sphere of ideality is conceived as the attribute of thinking, which See my Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions, p. 32; pp. 72–8; pp. 129–33. In fact, Hegel seems to be in agreement with Kierkegaard about Spinoza, at least on this issue: “If thinking stops with substance, there is no development, no life, no spirituality or activity. So we can say that with Spinozism everything goes into the abyss but nothing emerges from it....What differentiates and forms the particular is said to be just a modification of the absolute substance and nothing absolute in its own self….This is what is unsatisfying in Spinoza.” See Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 154–5. 60

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is always already active and actual. Here, ideas do not become actual, but rather they express the essence or power of God, which is synonymous with actuality. So whereas Kierkegaard understands actuality in terms of the actualization of ideas, Spinoza (like Hegel after him) understands actuality as dynamic self-expression, both in the medium of ideas and, simultaneously, in the medium of extension. Kierkegaard seems to have misunderstood Spinoza’s concept of essence, failing to grasp that for Spinoza essence signifies power, which in turn can be equated with what Kierkegaard would call actuality. Spinoza uses traditional philosophical terminology in new, unorthodox ways, and Kierkegaard is neither the first nor the last to be confused and misled by this. Kierkegaard’s concern about how Spinoza can posit a path towards blessedness within an immanent, non-teleological system can also be traced to fundamental differences between the two philosophers, which Kierkegaard may not have grasped fully. Again, the issue of movement or transition is crucial here. Kierkegaard regards the individual’s spiritual path as “the task of becoming a Christian,” and understands this becoming in terms of the Aristotelian model of actualization, as described above. The actualization involved in becoming a Christian is not achieved merely through the individual’s effort, but through a reciprocal relationship with God that involves self-surrender and an openness to the transcendent movement of grace. Spinoza’s account of the blessedness accessible to human beings is rooted in his basic claim that all finite things strive to persevere in their existence, and that this striving constitutes each thing’s essence. Although Spinoza understands emotions in terms of increasing or decreasing power, the transitions that are felt as joy or sadness are not movements of actualization, but merely changes in degrees of power. These changes are quantitative, but they are experienced qualitatively, whereas Kierkegaard insists that the movement of becoming is itself qualitative, being a transition from ideality to actuality. The important point to grasp in the present context is that, since for Spinoza the essences of finite things are in God and follow from his essence according to necessary laws, an individual’s striving is completely determined. Spinoza is suggesting that as individuals we are constituted by this striving, and he therefore insists that it is wrong to regard ourselves as free. However, human striving can be either ignorant or enlightened. Striving in ignorance is mostly passive; it involves bodily restlessness and mental agitation, and remains in bondage to the emotions and to those objects one imagines to increase one’s power of existing. Enlightened, active striving involves complete understanding of one’s nature and experiences, of the conditions under which emotions arise, and of one’s connectedness to other things. Blessedness is not a telos that lies outside of oneself, but an immanent transformation accomplished purely through an expansive selfunderstanding. Perhaps Kierkegaard criticizes Spinoza on this issue because he assumes that the individual’s striving must be understood in terms of an actualizing movement, and he is right to identify a difficulty in accommodating this kind of movement within a deterministic, immanent system. But Spinoza and Kierkegaard understand movement differently. Another point that seems to indicate some misunderstanding of Spinoza is Kierkegaard’s description of knowing under the form of eternity as “contemplating everything at rest.” For Spinoza, “God or nature” is always active

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and expressive, and therefore always dynamic. The logical and causal laws through which God’s essence thinks and extends are immutable, but this does not mean that “God or nature” as a whole is static. When we turn to the question of truth we find that Kierkegaard adopts Spinoza’s view that truth is the criterion of itself and of falsehood. Kierkegaard transfers this principle to a subjective and religious context, where truth is not something to be known or possessed, but a way of existing. One of the most difficult tasks facing the individual here is to overcome self-deception, which is a form of existential “untruth.” For Kierkegaard, truthfulness as a Christian involves sin-consciousness, which is actualized through an attentive self-examination before God that exposes, and repents of, ignorance and error. “As light manifests itself and darkness, so truth is a criterion of itself and of falsehood.”61 It seems fitting that Kierkegaard appreciates Spinoza’s interpretation of truth and appropriates it to his own, more existential interpretation, because even though he challenges him on philosophical and theological grounds, he expresses admiration for Spinoza from an existential point of view. Kierkegaard often criticizes philosophers such as Hegel—probably unjustly—for neglecting their subjective, spiritual truth and focusing too much on pursuing objective knowledge. However, in his journal he praises Spinoza in this respect: The researcher lives his personal life in quite other categories than those in which he leads his life as a researcher, but it is precisely the former that were the most important ...the question is how he, as a scholar, understands himself in the act of prayer and how, as someone praying, does he understand himself as a scholar?62

In the margin he writes, “That’s how, so naturally and simply, a little essay of Spinoza’s begins (de emendatione intellectus p. 495).”63 Kierkegaard is referring here to Spinoza’s unfinished De intellectus emendatione Tractatus. When we read the opening paragraphs of this text, it is clear why they appealed to Kierkegaard: After experience had taught me that all the things which regularly occur in ordinary life are empty and futile, and I saw that all the things that were the cause or object of my fear had nothing of good or bad in themselves, except insofar as my mind was moved by them, I resolved at last to try to find out whether there was anything which would be the true good...which, once found and acquired, would continuously give me the greatest joy, to eternity....I wondered whether perhaps it would be possible to reach my goal... without changing the conduct or plan of life which I shared with other men. Often I tried this, but in vain....I came to the conclusion that if only I could resolve, wholeheartedly, to change my plan of life, I would be giving up certain evils for a certain good. For I saw that I was in the greatest danger, and that I was forced to seek a remedy with all my strength, however uncertain it might be—like a man suffering from a fatal illness, who, foreseeing certain death unless he employs a remedy, is forced to seek it, however uncertain, with all his strength. For all his hope lies there. But all those things men ordinarily strive for, not only provide no remedy to preserve our being, but in fact hinder Spinoza, Ethics, Book II, Proposition 43 and Scholium, p. 78. SKS 18, 286, JJ:437 / KJN 2, 264–5. 63 SKS 18, 286, JJ:437.a / KJN 2, 264f.a. 61 62

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Here we find a natural affinity between Spinoza and Kierkegaard, for Spinoza clearly regards his pursuit of truth as an existential task that involves reflection on his own life, and a willingness to challenge conventional values. In light of this, I think it is significant that Kierkegaard mentions Spinoza when, in the Fragments, he emphasizes the difference between a philosophical teacher and Christ—that is, between the immanent teacher–learner relationship in the case of knowledge, and the transcendent teacher–learner relationship in the case of faith. Although in this text Kierkegaard usually contrasts Christianity to the Socratic model of truth, he chooses Spinoza rather than Socrates to exemplify the philosophical teacher: “If I comprehend Spinoza’s teaching, then in the moment I comprehend it I am not occupied with Spinoza but with his teaching, although at some other I am historically occupied with him. The follower, however, is in faith related to the teacher in such a way that he is eternally occupied with his historical existence.”65 This not only indicates that Spinoza was on Kierkegaard’s mind when he was writing the Fragments, but suggests that Kierkegaard—or perhaps the pseudonym Johannes Climacus—regarded Spinoza as his teacher. In so far as Kierkegaard occupies himself with Spinoza’s philosophical ideas, he is intrigued but for the most part disagrees; when he considers how Spinoza lived, and practiced philosophy, he finds something to admire and to learn from.

The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. by Edwin Curley, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985, pp. 7–9. 65 SKS 4, 264 / PF, 62. 64

Bibliography I. Spinoza’s Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library Benedicti de Spinoza Opera philosophica omnia, [ed. by] A. Gfroerer, Stuttgart: Metzler 1830 (ASKB 788). II. Works in The Auction Catalogue of Kierkegaard’s Library that Discuss Spinoza Adler, Adolph Peter, Populaire Foredrag over Hegels objective Logik, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1842, p. 100 (ASKB 383). Ast, Friedrich, Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie, Landshut: Joseph Thomann 1807, pp. 369–78 (ASKB 385). Baader, Franz von, Vorlesungen, gehalten an der Königlich-Bayerischen LudwigMaximilians-Hochschule über religiöse Philosophie im Gegensatze der irreligiösen, älterer und neuer Zeit, vol. 1, Munich: Giel 1827, p. 27 (ASKB 395). —— Ueber den Paulinischen Begriff des Versehenseyns des Menschen im Namen Jesu vor der Welt Schöpfung. Sendeschreiben an den Herrn Professor Molitor in Frankfurt, vols. 1–3, Würzburg: In Commission der Stahel’schen Buchhandlung 1837, vol. 3, p. 30, note; p. 46, note (ASKB 413; for vols. 1–2, see ASKB 409– 410). —— Ueber die Nothwendigkeit einer Revision der Wissenschaft natürlicher, menschlicher und göttlicher Dinge, in Bezug auf die in ihr sich noch mehr oder minder geltend machenden Cartesischen und Spinozistischen Philosopheme, Erlangen: bei J.J. Palm und Ernst Enke 1841, pp. 5–20 passim (ASKB 418). [Becker, Karl Friedrich], Karl Friedrich Beckers Verdenshistorie, omarbeidet af Johan Gottfried Woltmann, vols. 1–12, trans. by J. Riise, Copenhagen: Fr. Brummer 1822–29, vol. 8, p. 547; vol. 10, p. 523 (ASKB 1972–1983). [Billroth, Johann Gustav Friedrich], Vorlesungen über Religionsphilosophie gehalten von Dr. Joh. Gust. Friedr. Billroth, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Leipzig: Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel 1837, pp. 23–5; pp. 29–39 (ASKB 428). Brøchner, Hans, Nogle Bemærkninger om Daaben, foranledigede ved Professor Martensens Skrift: “Den christelige Daab,” Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsen 1843, p. 23 (ASKB U 27). Bruch, Johann Friedrich, Die Lehre von den göttlichen Eigenschaften, Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes 1842, p. 7; p. 124 (ASKB 439). Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie seit der Epoche der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–6 (in 10 tomes), vols. 1–2,

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Günther, Anton and Johann Heinrich Pabst, Janusköpfe. Zur Philosophie und Theologie, Vienna: Wallishausser 1834, p. 11; p. 13 (ASKB 524). Hahn, August (ed.), Lehrbuch des christlichen Glaubens, Leipzig: Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel 1828, p. 11; p. 26; p. 178; p. 187; p. 291 (ASKB 535). [Hamann, Johann Georg], Hamann’s Schriften, vols. 1–8, ed. by Friedrich Roth, Berlin: G. Reimer 1821–43, vol. 1, p. 359; p. 438; vol. 2, p. 340; vol. 3, p. 192; vol. 7, p. 207; p. 216; p. 251; p. 253; p. 281; p. 292; p. 360 (ASKB 536–544). Hase, Karl, Kirkehistorie. Lærebog nærmest for akademiske Forelæsninger, trans. by C. Winther and T. Schorn, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1837, p. 524 (ASKB 160–166). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, “Spinoza,” in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–3, ed. by Carl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1833–36 (vols. 13–15 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 3, pp. 368–411 (ASKB 557–559). —— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, vols. 1–2, ed. by Philipp Marheineke, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1840 (vols. 11–12 in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe, ed. by Philipp Marheineke et al., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1832–45), vol. 1, pp. 90–6 passim; p. 106; pp. 323–4; p. 392; vol. 2, p. 149; pp. 217–18; p. 477; pp. 510–17 passim; pp. 545–9 passim (ASKB 564–565). [Hemsterhuis, François], Vermischte philosophische Schriften des H. Hemsterhuis, vols. 1–3, Leipzig: Weidmann 1782, vol. 3, pp. 163–98 (ASKB 573–575). [Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich], Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Werke, vols. 1–6, Leipzig: Gerhard Fleischer 1812–25, vol. 4.1; vol. 4.2 (ASKB 1722–1728). Jäger, Josef Nikolaus, Moral-Philosophie, Vienna: J.G. Heubner 1839, pp. 58–9 (ASKB 582). Kant, Immanuel, Critik der Urtheilskraft, 2nd ed., Berlin: F.T. Lagarde 1793, p. 322; p. 325; p. 373 (ASKB 594). [Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm], God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera philosophica, quæ exstant latina gallica germanica omnia, vols. 1–2, ed. by Johann Eduard Erdmann, Berlin: [Eichler] 1839–40, vol. 1, p. 139; p. 144; pp. 484–5; p. 557; pp. 612–3 (ASKB 620). Marheineke, Philipp, Die Grundlehren der christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft, 2nd revised ed., Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1827, p. 305 (ASKB 644). Martensen, Hans Lassen, De Autonomia conscientiæ sui humanæ in theologiam dogmaticam nostri temporis introducta, Copenhagen: I.D. Quist 1837, p. 91; pp. 102–4; p. 108 (ASKB 648). —— Den menneskelige Selvbevidstheds Autonomie i vor Tids dogmatiske Theologie, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1841, p. 73; pp. 83–5; p. 88 (ASKB 651, translation of ASKB 648, cf. also ASKB A I 41). —— Grundrids til Moralphilosophiens System. Udgivet til Brug ved academiske Forelæsninger, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1841, pp. 6–7; p. 52; p. 69 (ASKB 650).

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—— Om Ydmyghed. En Afhandling, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel 1852, p. 30; pp. 73–82 passim; p. 100 (ASKB 916). III. Secondary Literature on Kierkegaard’s Relation to Spinoza Anne, Chantal, “Kierkegaard Lecteur de Spinoza et la question de l’éternité,” Studia Spinozana, vol. 10, 1994, pp. 135–53. Colette, Jacques, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard, Paris: Desclée et Cie 1972, see pp. 150–9 passim; p. 167; p. 171; p. 221; pp. 244–6; p. 254; p. 257; p. 272. Congleton, Ann, Spinoza, Kierkegaard and the Eternal Particular, Ph.D. Thesis, Yale University, New Haven 1962. Kühnhold, Christa, “Kierkegaard gegen Spinozas Gottesbeweis,” in her Der Begriff des Sprungs und der Weg des Sprachdenkens. Eine Einführung in Kierkegaard, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 1975, pp. 14–17. Mesnard, Pierre, Le Vrai Visage de Kierkegaard, Paris: Beauchesne et ses fils 1948, pp. 13–15; p. 27; p. 186; p. 302; p. 438. Muska, Rudolph Charles, Antithetical Religious Conceptions in Kierkegaard and Spinoza, Ph.D. Thesis, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 1960. Schäfer, Klaus, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel-Verlag 1968, see p. 111; p. 121; p. 123; p. 125; pp. 128–33; p. 160. Torralba Roselló, Francesc, “Crítica al determinismo de Spinoza,” in his Poética de la libertad Lectura de Kierkegaard, Madrid: Caparrós editores 1998, pp. 73–8.

Index of Persons

Abraham, 93, 94, 158. Abraham of Sancta Clara (1644–1709), Austrian divine, x, 90. Alexander, Ian W., 121. Allen, Edgar L., 134–6, 140. Andersen, Hans Christian (1805–75), Danish poet, novelist and writer of fairy tales, 155. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), Scholastic philosopher, 150, 177, 178. Antoninus, 6. Aristotle, 11, 64, 68, 85, 91, 99, 122, 137, 168, 175, 180, 185, 186. Arnaud, Antoine (1560–1619), French Jansenist theologian, 139. Arndt, Johann (1555–1621), German mystic, x. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), church father, 64, 104, 116, 140, 150. Baader, Benedict Franz Xaver von (1765– 1841), German philosopher, x. Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), English philosopher, 168. Baggesen, Jens (1764–1826), Danish author, 155. Bayle, Pierre (1647–1706), French Protestant scholar, ix, 1–10, 51, 57, 58, 62–4. Berlin, Isaiah (1909–97), British philosopher and historian of ideas, 27. Blosius, Ludovicus or Louis de Blois (1506–66), Flemish Benedictine spiritual author, x. Bodmer, Johann Jakob (1698–1783), Swiss historian and critical writer, 78.

Boétic, Etienne de la, 117. Böhme, Jacob (1575–1624), German mystic, x. Breitinger, Johann Jakob (1701–76), SwissGerman writer, 78. Brorson, Hans Adolph (1694–1764), Danish Pietistic poet, x. Bukdahl, Jørgen K. (1936–79), 134, 138–41 passim. Byron, George Gordon Noel (1788–1824), English poet, xi. Calvin, John (1509–64), French Protestant theologian, x, 1, 2, 159. Caputo, John, 102, 103. Cassirer, Ernst (1874–1945), German philosopher, 88, 152, 153. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547– 1616), Spanish writer, x. Chateaubriand, Vicomte François René de (1768–1848), French writer and statesman, x. Christ, 104, 118, 131, 132, 140, 149–52 passim, 158, 188. Christ, Johann Friedrich (1700–56), German historian and archeologist, 78, 156. Chrysippus of Soli, 4. Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106 bc–43 bc), Roman politician, philosopher and author, 168. Condorcet, Marquis de (1743–94), French philosopher, 154. Corneille, Pierre (1606–64), French poet and dramatist, 78, 155.

196

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Descartes, René (1596–1650), French philosopher, ix, 11–21, 25, 138, 168, 169, 175, 177, 178. Dickens, Charles (1812–70), English author, 125. Diderot, Denis (1713–84), French philosopher and Encylopedist, 80, 94, 148, 160. Diodorus the Megarian, 4. Diogenes Laertius, 6. Dürer, Albrecht (1471–1528), German Renaissance painter, 6. Duveyrier, Honoré Marie Nicolas (1753– 1839), French author, 155. Epicurus, 3, 4, 6, 63, 64. Erasmus, Desiderius (1466–1536), Dutch humanist, x. Erdmann, Johann Eduard (1805–92), German philosopher, 54. Ernesti, Johann August (1707–81), German theologian and philologist, 78. Ewald, Johannes (1743–81), Danish poet, xi. Faugère, Georges, 133. Faust, 90. Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651–1715), French writer, x. Fenger, Henning (1921–85), Danish literary scholar, 155. Fenves, Peter, 94. Feuerbach, Ludwig (1804–72), German philosopher, 131. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814), German philosopher, 35–8 passim, 44. Fiore, Joachim of (ca. 1132–1202), Italian theologian and mystic, 87. Francke, August Hermann (1663–1727), German Protestant theologian, x. Fries, Jakob Friedrich (1773–1843), German philosopher, 33, 35. Gardiner, Patrick, 27.

Gay, Peter, 82. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832), German poet, author, scientist and diplomat, 33, 153, 154, 161. Goeze, Johann Melchior (1717–86), German Protestant theologian, 86. Gottsched, Johann Christoph (1700–66), German author and critic, 6, 54, 78. Grimsley, Ronald, 56, 113, 114, 121–5 passim, 132 Grundtvig, Nicolai Frederik Severin (1783–1872), 156 Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, Carl Frederik (1767–1815), Swedish nobleman, 154 Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, Thomasine Christine (1773–1856), Danish author, 147, 154–6. Hamann, Johann Georg (1730–88), German philosopher, 23–6 passim, 33, 91. Hamlet, 178. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770– 1831), German philosopher, x, 5, 12, 14, 17, 35–44 passim, 56, 90–2, 138, 148, 154, 155, 161, 174–6, 180–7 passim. Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), 14, 39. Heiberg, Johan Ludvig (1791–1860), Danish poet, playwright and philosopher, 12, 17, 56, 147, 154, 155. Heiberg, Peter Andreas (1758–1841), Danish author, 147, 154. Herder, Johann Gottfried (1744–1803), German philosopher, 33, 89, 154. Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), English philosopher, 168. Holberg, Ludvig (1684–1754), Danish poet, xi. Horace, i.e, Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 bc–8 bc), Roman poet, 156. Huarte, Juan (ca. 1530–92), Spanish physician and psychologist, 79.

Index of Persons Hume, David (1711–76), Scottish philosopher, 23–32, 35, 42, 148, 160, 170. Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich (1743–1819), German philosopher, ix, 24, 33–49, 88, 182. Jacquelot, Isaac (1647–1706), French Calvinist theologian, 3. Jerusalem, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm (1709–89), German Protestant theologian, 84. Jesus, see “Christ.” John, 85. Kangas, David, 93. Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), German philosopher, 25, 34–41 passim, 89, 103, 148, 152, 153, 160. Kästner, Abraham Gotthelf (1719–1800), German mathematician, 78. Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye (1813–1855), The Conflict between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars (1837), 13. The Concept of Irony (1841), xi, 6, 89, 95, 173. Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est (ca. 1842–43), 13, 17, 56, 174, 175. Either/Or (1843), 13, 14, 16, 52, 90, 157, 160, 175, 176. Fear and Trembling (1843), 13, 14, 41, 52, 91–4 passim, 147, 157, 158 Repetition (1843), 52, 54, 69, 70, 71, 91. Four Upbuilding Discourses (1844), 98, 177. Philosophical Fragments (1844), 4, 13–17 passim, 24, 27, 39, 42, 51–4, 57, 60, 62, 66, 70, 71, 94–6, 156, 177, 180, 181, 185, 188. The Concept of Anxiety (1844), 4, 6, 53, 59, 65, 123, 177. Prefaces (1844), 181. Stages on Life’s Way (1845), 23, 95, 131.

197

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1845), 98. Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), ix, 28, 40, 43, 89, 94, 96, 98, 101, 102, 131, 182. A Literary Review of Two Ages (1846), 155. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirit (1847), 98. Works of Love (1847), 98. Christian Discourses (1848), 117, 118. The Point of View for My Work as an Author (ca. 1848), 98, 123. The Sickness unto Death (1849), 59, 181. Practice in Christianity (1850), 120, 131, 132. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (SKS) (1997–), 132. Journals, Notebooks, Nachlaß, 1, 4, 13, 71, 89, 94, 97, 114–24 passim, 131, 132, 147, 157, 182. Klotz, Christian Adolf (1738–71), German philologist, 80. König, Eva (1736–78), 80. Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de (1741–1803), French author, 125. Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de (1790–1869), French poet and statesman, x. La Peyrère, Isaac (1596–1676), French theologian, 168. Leibniz, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646–1716), German philosopher and mathematician, ix, 1–6 passim, 34, 51–76, 78, 83, 179. Theodicy, 2–6 passim, 51–76. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81), German writer and philosopher, ix, 34, 37, 39, 77–112, 149, 182. Lessing, Johann Gottfried (1693–1770), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s father, 78.

198

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions

Lessing, Justine Salome (1703–77), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s mother, 78. Livy, i.e., Titus Livius (59 bc–ad 17), Roman historian, 120. Locke, John (1632–1704), English philosopher, 24, 25. Louis XVI (1754–93), King of France, 148. Luther, Martin (1483–1546), German religious reformer, x, 84, 86. Maimonides, Moses (1135–1204), Torah scholar, physician and philosopher, 168. Marie Antoinette (1755–93), Queen of France, 148. Martensen, Hans Lassen (1808–84), Danish theologian, x, 12, 13, 17, 24, 25, 38, 99. Masson, Pierre-Maurice (1879–1916), 150. Mendelssohn, Moses (1729–86), German thinker, 34, 79. Mérimée, Prosper (1803–70), French writer, x. Meyer, Lodewijk (1629–81), intellectual collaborator of Spinoza, 168. Molière, i.e., Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622– 73), French dramatist, x, 155. Montaigne, Michel de (1533–92), French essayist and philosopher, ix, 113–28, 156. Moréri, Louis (1643–80), French Encyclopaedist, 2. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756–91), Austrian composer, xi. Mylius, Christlob (1722–54), German author, 79. Mynster, Jakob Peter (1775–1854), Danish theologian and bishop, 119, 131, 132, 156. Neander, August (1789–1850), German theologian, 131, 133. Neuber, Friederike Caroline (1697–1760), German actress, 78, 79.

Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich (1733–1811), German critic and novelist, 79. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900), German philologist and philosopher, 154, 167. Oehlenschläger, Adam (1779–1850), Danish poet, 156. Olsen, Regine (1822–1904), 152, 155, 157. Pascal, Blaise (1623–62), French scientist and philosopher, 129–46. Patrick, Denzil G.M., 136–8. Pattison, George, 104. Pelisson-Fontanier, Paul (1624–93), French writer, 91. Penelhum, Terence, 27. Petrarch, Francesco (1304–74), Italian scholar and poet, 116. Popkin, Richard H. (1923–2005), American historian of philosophy, 27, 28. Plato, 42, 61, 64, 104, 148. Proust, Marcel (1871–1922), French writer, 117. Puteanus, Erycius (1574–1646), Dutch lawyer and historian, 4, 6. Pyrrho, 15. Racine, Jean (1639–99), French dramatist, 78, 155. Rameau, Jean-Philippe (1683–1764), French composer and music theoretician, 148. Reid, Thomas (1710–96), Scottish philosopher, 35. Reimarus, Hermann Samuel (1704–68), German philosopher, 81, 82, 84, 86. Reimarus, Johann Albrecht (1729–1814), German physician, 81. Reimarus, Margaretha Elisabeth (1735– 1805), German Enlightenment cultural figure, 81. Reinhold, Karl Leonard (1758–1823), German philosopher, 33. Ress, Johann Heinrich (1732–1803), 85.

Index of Persons Reuchlin, Hermann, 130–3. Ricoeur, Paul (1913–2005), French philosopher, 89. Rothe, Richard (1799–1867), German Protestant theologian, 158. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78), French philosopher, ix, 147–65. Russell, Bertrand (1872–1970), English philosopher and mathematician, 168. Saccum, John Baptista, 4. Sack, August Friedrich Wilhelm (1703–86), German philosopher and Protestant theologian, 84. Sandkaulen, Birgit, 38. Savonarola, Girolamo (1452–98), Italian religious reformer, ix, x. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von (1775–1854), German philosopher, x, 16, 17, 25, 35–7, 41–3, 173, 174. Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768–1834), German theologian, 154. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860), German philosopher, 138. Schumann, Johann Daniel (1714–87), German theologian and headmaster, 84, 85. Scribe, Augustin Eugène (1791–1861), French dramatic author, xi. Semler, Johann Salomo (1725–91), German Protestant theologian, 84. Seneca the Younger, i.e., Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 bc–65 ad), Roman philosopher and playwright, 117, 168. Sextus Empiricus, 15. Shakespeare, William (1564–1616), English dramatist, xi. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751–1816), Irish dramatist, xi.

199

Sibbern, Frederik Christian (1785–1872), Danish philosopher, 154, 174. Socrates, 6, 100, 101, 104, 156, 180, 188. Spalding, Johann Joachim (1717–1804), German Protestant theologian, 84. Spinoza, Baruch de (1632–77), Dutch philosopher, ix, 33–41 passim, 83, 88, 115, 118, 119, 167–94. Stewart, Jon, 92. Teller, Wilhelm Abraham (1734–1804), German Protestant theologian, 84. Tersteegen, Gerhard (1697–1796), German mystic and poet, x. Thulstrup, Niels (1924–88), Danish theologian, 1, 6, 97, 134–41 passim. Tillich, Paul (1886–1965), GermanAmerican theologian, 86 Tollner, Johann Gottlieb (1724–74), German Protestant theologian, 84. Vigny, Alfred de (1797–1863), French poet, playwright and novelist, 125. Voltaire, i.e., François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), French Enlightenment writer, 79, 154–6, 160. Weisse, Christian Felix (1726–1804), German dramatist, 79. Wessel, Johan Herman (1742–85), DanishNorwegian poet (1742–85), xi. Westphal, Merold, 97. Winkelmann, Johann Joachim (1717–68), German art historian, 80. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889–1951), Austrian philosopher, 113. Wolff, Christian (1679–1754), German philosopher, 34, 84. Xanthippe, 6. Xenophanes, 5. Yasukata, Toshimasa, 84.

Index of Subjects abstraction, 28, 35, 42–4. absurd, the, 39. actuality, 42–4, 66, 69, 71, 93, 99, 174, 184–6. appropriation, 89, 100, 105. Archimedean point, 14, 39. atheism, 34, 149, 167. attack on the church, 139. autonomy, ix, 12. belief, 43, 66, 69. Buridan’s ass, 64, 65. Catholicism, x, 1, 135, 136, 159. causality, 24, 36. Christendom, 102, 104, 119, 120, 139, 160. Christianity, ix, x, 5, 23–7 passim, 41, 55–9 passim, 78, 82, 85, 95–7, 101, 102, 119, 132, 133, 135, 138, 139, 149–52 passim, 156–60 passim, 188. communication, 97. indirect, 101, 139. conscience, 118, 149, 150, 153, 160. contemporaneity, 95. contradiction, 17, 55, 56, 175, 176. deism, 84, 149, 151, 152, 156. despair, 14, 15, 181. determinism, 37, 43. doubt, ix, 11–17 passim, 43, 62, 149, 150, 174, 175. dualism, 42, 167. Enlightenment, ix, 2, 11, 12, 24, 33, 34, 77, 80–9 passim, 101, 104, 149. eternity, 167, 172, 182, 184. ethical, teleological suspension of the, 93.

ethics, 23, 28, 29, 41, 43. evil, 3, 58, 59, 68, 95, 149. existence, ix, 28, 41, 61, 68. faith, ix, 5, 7, 12, 15, 16, 23–7 passim, 38, 53–5, 77, 93, 95, 100, 102, 104, 133, 149, 150, 157, 158, 167, 184, 188. autopsy of, 95. fideism, 2, 27. freedom, 15, 16, 34–42 passim, 53, 59, 60, 63–6 passim, 69, 71, 95, 105, 167, 169, 173. free will, 15, 16, 51, 53, 54, 61, 65, 72, 170. French Revolution, 147, 148, 153, 154. friendship, 117. God, 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 23, 24, 42, 52–61 passim, 67, 68, 70, 83, 87, 88, 97, 98, 100–5 passim, 116, 122, 131, 135, 150, 160, 167–87 passim. grace, 58, 160, 186. history, 66, 67, 102. humor, x. idealism, 41, 88. absolute, 36, 41, 44. transcendental, 35, 36. ideality, 17, 56, 71, 103, 174, 175, 179, 180, 184–6. immortality, 180. Incarnation, 57, 177. inter-esse, 44, inward deepening, 100. inwardness, 40, 95, 100, 119, 175. irony, x, 175. Jansenism, 130, 139.

202

Kierkegaard and the Renaissance and Modern Traditions

Jesuits, 130, 139. κίνησις, 66–71 passim, 92, 185. knowledge, absolute, 36, 38. leap, ix, 33–44 passim, 85, 88, 91–7 passim, 182. logic, 41, 42. love, 172, 173. Manicheans, 5. materialism, 149. mediation, 5, 39–42, 55, 56, 92, 176, 182, 185. melancholy, 24, 29, 175. metaphysics, 11, 35–44 passim, 62, 103, 168, 173, 179. miracle, 25, 85, 131, 168, 177, 181, 184. moment, the, 42. monads, 70. movement, 186. mysticism, 104, 153, 157. natural man, 25. naturalism, 34, 35, 77. necessity, 17, 35, 53, 55, 59–66 passim, 72, 167. negation, 42. neology, 84. offense, 27, 132, 180. ontological argument, 177, 178. pantheism, 34, 87, 167, 173, 182. Pantheismusstreit, 33. paradox, 5, 55, 56, 135, 167.

absolute, 57, 177, 180. passion, 93, 100. philosophy, beginning of, ix, 13. rational, 34, 39, 43, 44. speculative, 28, 43, 182. transcendental, 41. Pietism, x. possible worlds, 53, 58, 59, 66–9, 83. pre-established harmony, 52, 57, 59. Pyrrhonism, 133. rationalism, 12, 27, 33, 61, 63, 83, 84, 88, 156, 180. reality, 17, 35, 41, 42. recollection, 52, 69, 70. reduplication, 119, 131–3. Reformation, x. religiousness A and B, 103–5. repetition, 52, 69, 70, 71, 175, 185. revelation, 13, 39, 55, 56, 168, 181. Romanticism, 33, 147, 154–6. sin, 5, 7, 27, 58, 59, 65, 95, 99, 150, 159, 180. skepticism, 2, 11, 13, 14, 17, 23, 24, 28, 29, 35, 115. Greek, 15, 62, 63. sub specie aeterni, 182, 183. subjectivity, 15, 16, 88, 101, 167. suffering, 58, 156, 160. sufficient reason, the principle of, 59–63 passim, 65. teleology, 183, 186. theodicy, ix, 1, 2, 3, 51, 52, 58, 61, 67, 149. time, 38, 41, 42.