Art and Selfhood: A Kierkegaardian Account 9781498552851, 9781498552844, 1498552854

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Art and Selfhood

Art and Selfhood A Kierkegaardian Account Antony Aumann

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Aumann, Antony, author. Title: Art and selfhood : a Kierkegaardian account / Antony Aumann. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018059359 (print) | LCCN 2019005729 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498552851 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781498552844 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Kierkegaard, S?ren, 1813-1855. | Self (Philosophy) | Art--Philosophy. | Aesthetics. Classification: LCC B4377 (ebook) | LCC B4377 .A96 2019 (print) | DDC 198/.9--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059359 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To my parents, for nurturing my love for the arts from the beginning

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction

ix xi xiii 1

I: On Selfhood

15

1

The Inner Sense Model: Finding Ourselves Within

17

2

The Constitution Model: The Self as an Artistic Creation

39

3

Kierkegaard’s Religious Model: Receiving Ourselves from God

59

4

The Dialogical Model: A Secular Alternative

79

II: On Art

101

5

The Value of Art: An Indirect Method of Communication

103

6

The Nature of Art Appreciation: Overcoming the Tradition of Disinterest

131

7

Rules for Art Creation: Two Moral Considerations

161

8

Art, Selfhood, and the Role of Academic Philosophy

183

Bibliography Index About the Author

205 221 233

vii

List of Illustrations

Figure 5.1. Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da) (1573–1610), The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610. Oil on canvas, 37 x 49 3/8 in. (94 x 125.4 cm). Gift of Herman and Lila Shickman, and purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1997 (1997.167). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY. Figure 5.2. Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Monogram, 1955–1959. Combine: oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas with oil and rubber tire on Angora goat on wood platform mounted on four casters. 42 x 63 1/4 x 64 1/2 in. (106.7 x 160.7 x 163.8 cm). Purchase 1965 with contribution from Moderna Museets Vänner/The Friends of Moderna Museet. Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. Image copyright © Moderna Museet. Image courtesy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York, NY. Figure 6.1. Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), In Harriet Tubman I Helped Hundreds to Freedom, from the series The Negro Woman, 1946-47 (retitled The Black Woman, 1989), 1946, printed 1986. Linoleum cut: sheet (irregular), 10 1/4 x 7 3/4 in. (26 x 19.7 cm); image (irregular), 9 1/8 x 7 1/16 in. (23.2 x 19.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; purchased with funds from the Print Committee 95.194. Art copyright © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Figure 6.2. Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), In Sojourner Truth I Fought for the Rights of Women as Well as Negroes, from the series The Negro Woman, 194647 (retitled The Black Woman, 1989), 1946, printed 1986. Linoleum cut: sheet, 10 1/4 x 7 3/8 in. (26 x 18.7 cm); image, 8 7/8 x 5 15/16 in. (22.5 x 15.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; purchased with funds from the Print Committee 95.195. Art copyright © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Figure 6.3. Dread Scott (1965–), A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday, 2015. Nylon. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Dread Scott. ix

x

List of Illustrations

Figure 6.4. Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980), P15 Parangolé Cape 11, I Embody Revolt (P15 Parangolé Capa 12, Eu Incorporo a Revolta) worn by Nildo of Mangueira, 1967. Photograph by Claudio Oiticica. Image copyright © César and Claudio Oiticica. Image courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica. Figure 7.1. Anselm Kiefer (1945–), Winter Landscape, 1970. Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper. 16 7/8 x 14 in. (42.9 x 35.6 cm.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denise and Andrew Saul Fund, 1995 (1995.14.5). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Art copyright © Anselm Kiefer. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY. Figure 7.2. Faith Ringgold (1930–), American People Series #20: Die, 1967. Oil on canvas, two panels; 72 x 144" (182.9 x 365.8 cm). Purchase; and gift of The Modem Women’s Fund. The Museum of Modem Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Art copyright © 2018 Faith Ringgold, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY. Image copyright © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY.

Acknowledgments

The seeds of this book project were sown during a series of summer visits to the Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. I benefited immensely from the guidance and assistance I received there from my long-time friend and mentor, Gordon Marino, as well as from Cynthia Lund, Eileen Shimota, and the other staff members and scholars at the library and in the St. Olaf community. Most of the book was written while I was on sabbatical in New York during the 2017–2018 academic year. Generous financial support for the sabbatical was provided by Northern Michigan University. Logistical support, including library access, was supplied by Fordham University in the Bronx, where I held the position of visiting research scholar. Many thanks are also due to John Davenport and Noreen Khawaja for their hospitality as well for our many stimulating philosophical conversations that made my stay in New York so productive. Much of chapter 5 is published as “Kierkegaard on the Value of Art: An Indirect Method of Communication” in The Kierkegaardian Mind, ed. Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms, and Patrick Stokes (New York: Routledge, 2019), reprinted here with kind permission of the publisher. Along the way, I have accumulated numerous other intellectual and practical debts. Most notably to Paul Vincent Spade, who has long nurtured my love for Kierkegaard and provided extensive feedback on the entire manuscript. Two of my students, Sophia Novak and Alex Roggow, were so kind as to read and comment on all the chapters as well. Additional thanks also are due to the following individuals who supported the project in a variety of ways: April Bertucci, Adam Buben, Julianne Chung, Lara Clisch, Zac Cogley, Claudia Galgau, Eleanor Helms, Kelly Dean Jolley, Derek Jones, Sarah Jones, Keith Kendall, Jamie Lorentzen, Kristopher Philips, Patrick Stokes, Kari Theurer, Uku Tooming, and Phil Woodward. I am grateful as well to the audiences at the Valparaiso University Philosophy Colloquium in 2016, the Summer Lecture Series at the Hong Kierkegaard Library in 2016, the 68th Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference at Gonzaga University in 2016, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Ryerson University in 2017, the Leiden University Institute for Philosophy Colloquium in 2017, the Midsouth Philosophy Conference at Rhodes College in 2018, the Pacific Division Meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics in 2018, the 8th International xi

xii

Acknowledgments

Kierkegaard Conference at St. Olaf College in 2018, and the Rocky Mountain Division Meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics in 2018. An extra thank you to the following people and institutions who provided images or copyright permissions for the works of art that appear on the pages of the book: César and Claudio Oiticica, Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Dread Scott, the Catlett Mora Family Trust, Anselm Kiefer, the Gagosian Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moderna Museet, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art. Faith Ringgold, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Finally, I offer my deepest thanks to my parents, Margery and Herbert Aumann, for their enduring support over the years, and to my partner, Sarah, without whose love and endless encouragement I would not have completed the book. New York June 2018

Abbreviations

References to Kierkegaard’s writings in English will use the following standard sigla adapted from Mercer University Press’s International Kierkegaard Commentary series: BA

The Book on Adler, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

CA

The Concept of Anxiety, trans. Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980).

CD

Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).

CI

The Concept of Irony and “Notes on Schelling’s Berlin Lectures,” trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).

CUP

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments,” 2 vols., trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).

CUPH

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Alastair Hannay (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

EO 1

Either/Or: Part I, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

EO 2

Either/Or: Part II, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).

EUD

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. Howard H. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

FSE

For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

FT

Fear and Trembling and Repetition trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983). xiii

xiv

Abbreviations

JC

“Johannes Climacus or De omnibus dubitandum est.” See Philosophical Fragments.

JFY

Judge for Yourself! See For Self-Examination.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, 7 vols., ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, vol. 1: 1967; vol. 2:1970; vols. 3 and 4:1975; vols. 5–7: 1978).

LD

Letters and Documents, trans. Hendrik Rosenmeier (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978).

P

Prefaces and Writing Sampler, trans. Todd W. Nichol (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).

PC

Practice in Christianity, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

PF

Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985).

PV

“The Point of View for My Work as an Author,” “The Single Individual,” On My Work as an Author, and “Armed Neutrality,” trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).

SLW

Stages on Life’s Way, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).

SUD

The Sickness unto Death, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980).

TDIO

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

TM

The “Moment” and Late Writings, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).

UDVS

Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

WA

Without Authority, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).

WL

Works of Love, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Abbreviations

xv

The corresponding volume and page number in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag) has been provided wherever available: SKS 1

Af en endnu Levendes Papirer; Om Begrebet Ironi, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup og Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1997).

SKS 2

Enten—Eller. Første del, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1997).

SKS 3

Enten—Eller. Anden del, Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1997).

SKS 4

Gjentagelsen; Frygt og Bæven; Philosophiske Smuler; Begrebet Angest; Forord, Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1997).

SKS 5

Opbyggelige taler, 1843–44; Tre Taler ved tænkte Leiligheder, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1998).

SKS 6

Stadier paa Livets Vei, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen (Copenhagen: Gads, 1999).

SKS 7

Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2002).

SKS 8

En literair Anmeldelse; Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2004).

SKS 9

Kjerlighedens Gjerninger, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2004).

SKS 10

Christelige Taler, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2004).

SKS 11

Lilien paa Marken og Fuglen under Himlen; Tvende ethiskreligieuse Smaa-Afhandlinger; Sygdommen til Døden; ”Ypperstepræsten”—”Tolderen”—”Synderinden,” ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2006).

SKS 12

Indøvelse i Christendom; En opbyggelig Tale; To Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn,

xvi

Abbreviations

Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2008). SKS 13

Dagbladsartikler 1834–48; Om min Forfatter-Virksomhed; Til Selvprøvelse, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Tonny Aagaard Olesen, and Steen Tullberg (Copenhagen: Gads, 2009).

SKS 14

Bladartikler, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Tonny Aagaard Olesen, and Steen Tullberg (Copenhagen: Gads, 2010).

SKS 15

Et Øieblik, Hr. Andersen!; Johannes Climacus eller De omnibus dubitandum est; Polemik mod Heiberg; Bogen om Adler, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Tonny Aagaard Olesen, and Steen Tullberg (Copenhagen: Gads, 2012).

SKS 16

Synspunktet for min Forfatter-Virksomhed; Hr. Phister som Captain Scipio; Den bevæbnede Neutralitet; Dømmer Selv!, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Tonny Aagaard Olesen, and Steen Tullberg (Copenhagen: Gads, 2012).

SKS 17

Journalerne AA–DD, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2000).

SKS 18

Journalerne EE–KK, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2001).

SKS19

Notesbøgerne 1–15, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2001).

SKS 20

Journalerne NB–NB5, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2003).

SKS 21

Journalerne NB6–NB10, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2003).

SKS 22

Journalerne NB11–NB14, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 1997).

SKS 23

Journalerne NB15–NB20, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2007).

Abbreviations

xvii

SKS 24

Journalerne NB21–NB25, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2007).

SKS 25

Journalerne NB26–NB30, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2008).

SKS 26

Journalerne NB31–NB36, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2009).

SKS 27

Løse Papirer, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2013).

SKS 28

Breve og Dedikationer, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, and Johnny Kondrup (Copenhagen: Gads, 2013).

Where the relevant text does not appear in SKS, I have cited Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. I–XVI, ed. P. A. Heiberg, V. Kuhr, E. Torsting, Niels Thulstrup, and Niel Jørgen Cappelørn (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1909–1948; 1968–1970; 1975–1978), designated “Pap.” and cited in the conventional format: volume and tome number followed by entry category and number, for example (Pap. X–6 B 79). Finally, in a few cases, for the relevant Danish text, I will cite Breve og Akstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, 2 vols., ed. Niels Thulstrup (Copenhagen: Muksgaard, 1953–1954), designated “A&B” and cited using a volume number followed by a page number.

Introduction

WHY ART MATTERS We would be worse off, I venture, in a world without art. Not only as a society but also as individuals, we would be out some great good were the arts to disappear from our lives or be banished from the scene as Plato once considered recommending. 1 We are inventive and adaptive creatures, of course. On down the line, our progeny might find new ways to acquire what art has been giving us. Thus, saying that art is “indispensable” or “irreplaceable” might be too much. Still, art surrogates likely would be hard to come by, and so at least for a while we would be in a state of great loss. There is more than one answer to give when pressed to articulate what we would lack in a world without art. We certainly would be without the distinct pleasures art affords us, including the ones connected with its unique kinds of beauty. We would also be lacking one of our richest means of self-expression. Some of us would particularly miss the way art binds us together in common experience and fellow feeling. Others would lament the loss of one of their greatest sources of inspiration— or one of their most cherished diversions from the stresses of everyday life. This is not an exhaustive list. Nor are there likely to be any exhaustive lists when it comes to the value of art. An open-ended account is probably the only way to accommodate the ever-increasing kinds of art that exist. 2 Yet, there is one value, not yet mentioned, that deserves special attention. One of the central reasons art matters, on the view I will defend in this book, is that it teaches us about the world around us and about ourselves. It educates us about how to think, how to act, and how to live. Thus, if forced to go on without art, we would lose one of our most crucial sources of insight. This claim has a long pedigree in the history of philosophy. Horace, Phillip Sidney, and Samuel Johnson all held that poets, at least, should not just please but also instruct. 3 We encounter defenses of the so-called “cognitive value of art” in our time as well from the likes of Noël Carroll, Berys Gaut, John Gibson, Gordon Graham, Martha Nussbaum, and many others. 4 Yet, the idea of art as educator needs qualification in order to have the ring of truth. For art does not teach us in anything like a straightforward way. We do not learn from it how we learn from text1

2

Introduction

books, manuals, and treatises. Works of art seldom come right out and tell us what we are to believe and why we ought to believe it, or what we ought to do and why we ought to do it. Moreover, we judge art negatively when it is this way. We downgrade it for being didactic or preachy. No, art at its best teaches us in an indirect fashion. It prompts us to make our own discoveries rather than spoon-feeding us lessons. To defend this position, I will be appealing throughout the book to what is sometimes called “high art.” 5 I will be speaking about works such as Caravaggio’s The Denial of Saint Peter, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram. But I wish to emphasize at the start that my view covers “low art” as well. Indeed, it is quite intuitive here. Take the popular television show, Friends, for example. In any given episode, a subset of the familiar characters—Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross—engage in some mundane interaction. They fight with each other, or they reconcile. They make amorous advances toward one another, or they decide to take a break. They do each other wrong at the worst possible moment, or they come to one another’s aid in a time of need. As we watch these situations unfold, we often use what we see as a framing device for thinking about our own lives. Would we behave like Ross or Rachel if put in his or her situation? Have we in fact committed the same errors as Joey or Monica in our interactions with our own friends? Are Phoebe and Chandler making use of some felicitous strategy we could employ in our own pursuits of happiness? Does one member or another of the group exhibit some virtue we should adopt or some vice we should avoid? When we ask these questions, we treat the characters in Friends as metaphors for ourselves. 6 We use their lives to restructure how we think about our own lives; we use who they are to shed new light on who we are—or who we might be someday. Our appreciation of Friends is not unique in this regard. I will argue over the coming chapters that we value a lot of art because it can help us as we struggle to work out our sense of personal identity. Many works of art matter to us, in other words, because they can assist us with the project of selfhood. THE PROJECT OF SELFHOOD Questions about our identity or sense of self do not always seem very hard. They do not always seem like the kind of thing for which we need a lot of assistance. After all, most of us have ready responses when people ask us who we are. For example, we may appeal to our social roles and relationships: we are teachers at a given school, parents of a particular child, or descendants of some famous person. Or we may appeal to our pasts: we have been ex-convicts or high school track stars. Sometimes we may point to our passions and hobbies: we are avid tennis players, we

Introduction

3

paint on the side, or we are movie buffs. Other times we may identify ourselves by our beliefs and values: we are Christians or Buddhists; liberals or conservatives. Finally, we may define who we are in terms of our character or personality traits: we are introverts or social butterflies, INTPs or ESFJs. What is striking is that we do not always find these quick and easy answers satisfying when others give them to us. Indeed, with some regularity, we encounter people whom we suspect are trying to pass themselves off as someone they are not. In an effort to impress us, they are making themselves out to be more virtuous, accomplished, or interesting than they really are. Or they are telling their life story in a way that is overly tragic so we will pity them. Or they are attempting to come across as more akin to us than the truth would allow so that we will take a liking to them. Phoniness of this sort has many sources. Sometimes the people with whom we are interacting are just being dishonest. They know they are not who they are pretending to be. Other times we suspect our interlocutors do not realize what they are saying is false. They are confused about the relevant concepts: Christian, extrovert, liberal. Or they are too close to themselves to see facts about themselves that are obvious to us from a distance. Most interesting of all, however, are cases we cannot chalk up to ordinary lies or honest mistakes. The people with whom we are dealing, or so our hunch goes, have talked themselves into believing things about themselves that they know are not true. They have deceived themselves into thinking they are more, less, or other than who they really are. The questions of selfhood that interest me in this book—and the kind with which I will claim that art can help—are those that arise when our suspicions about others bend back in on ourselves. We begin to worry that we are no different from those around us. When it comes to our personal identity, we are equally tempted to pass ourselves off as better than or worse than we actually are. We are just as prone to honest mistakes, and just as susceptible to self-deception. So, we begin to interrogate ourselves: Who are we really? Behind and beyond the pat answers we give to the people we meet, what is our identity? Is there a “real us” that underlies everything else? If so, how do we uncover it? Or, is the notion of a “true self” itself a fiction? Is our identity something we must construct for ourselves rather than discover? And how might we go about doing that? RELYING ON KIERKEGAARD To summarize, this book will address issues in two main areas of philosophy: aesthetics and metaphysics. On the aesthetics side, it will deal with questions about why art matters and how we ought to appreciate it. On

4

Introduction

the metaphysics side, it will focus on questions having to do with the nature of personal identity or authentic selfhood. The goal of the book is to bring these two topics together in a productive manner. In particular, I aim to show that works of art matter in part because they can help us with the project of selfhood. They can offer us guidance and support as we struggle to figure out who we really are. I will take a historical approach to defending this claim. I will make my case throughout the book by building on ideas set forth by the existentialist thinker, Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). Two of his insights are especially important at the outset. The first is that a self—at least, an authentic self—is not something we automatically are; it is rather something we must work to become. 7 Selfhood, in other words, is a task or a project we must struggle to accomplish and indeed may take a lifetime for us to accomplish (CUP 1:130, 163/SKS 7:122, 151–52; SUD 30, 35/SKS 11:146, 151). Kierkegaard is not alone in holding this belief. It is common fare in modern philosophy. 8 What sets Kierkegaard apart is a second important claim. He maintains that authenticity is not something we can achieve on our own (SUD 13–14/SKS 11:129–30). We need to look beyond ourselves for help if we wish to succeed. This latter idea cuts against the grain of popular ways of thinking about authenticity. Many philosophers have held that we ought to rely on ourselves here. We see this in Rousseau’s view that we can find our true selves only if we consult our innermost feelings, thoughts, and desires. It is integral also to the Romantic model according to which we have to invent our own true selves in a burst of artistic creativity. In chapters 1 and 2, I will trace a series of objections Kierkegaard forwards against these individualistic approaches to selfhood. First, because our wills and desires are fickle, relying on them alone can give rise to an unstable sense of self. Second, because our wills and desires do not always track the good, using them as our sole guide may lead us to become moral monsters. Finally, if our identity rests entirely on our own wills and desires, who we are threatens to become arbitrary. To avoid these problems, Kierkegaard recommends that we head in a religious direction. Rather than turning inward to ourselves, we should look upwards to God if we wish to learn who we really are. We should “rest transparently in the power that established [us]” (SUD 14/SKS 11:130). The reason is that, like Augustine before him, Kierkegaard thinks that God is the author or “poetic constructor” of our true identities (CI 280–81/SKS 1:316–17). More specifically, he believes that God assigns each of us a vocation—a unique project or undertaking that defines who we really are (UDVS 93/SKS 8:198). Becoming authentic for Kierkegaard is thus a matter of abiding by what God would have us do with our lives (see EO 2:177, 216–17/SKS 3:172, 207–8). Chapter 3 appraises the merits of this religious approach to selfhood. I argue that, on a theoretical level, Kierkegaard’s model has many virtues.

Introduction

5

Turning to God to figure out who we are ameliorates the problems that arise when we try to go it alone. It reduces concerns about the stability, morality, and arbitrariness of our identities. (At least it does so if we grant Kierkegaard leeway when it comes to questions about the rationality of theistic belief.) Practically speaking, however, Kierkegaard’s model is less than satisfying. Owing to the hidden nature of God, we do not always experience ourselves as receiving divine guidance. Like Jesus or Job, some of us even feel forsaken by God when we need him most. In sum, from a practical point of view, relying on God for our sense of identity often seems no different than relying on ourselves. It thus seems prudent to look elsewhere for other sources of support. Chapter 4 speaks to our need for additional guidance by developing a secular version of Kierkegaard’s view. Taking a cue from Anna Strelis Söderquist, I call it “the dialogical model of selfhood.” 9 The guiding idea here is that, rather than (or in addition to) consulting God, we can turn to our friends for help with selfhood. We can work out our sense of who we are by discussing our projects, values, and beliefs with those people who know us best. Now it is tempting to think Kierkegaard would oppose this approach. After all, it conflicts with the anti-community themes that notoriously pervade his authorship. 10 Building on recent scholarship, however, I argue that we can recruit Kierkegaard to a pro-community account of selfhood. 11 He is more open than it seems to the proposal that friends can help us with our struggle to become who we are. Yet, not all of us have friends. Moreover, those of us who do have them find they are not always there to help us when we need them. It is here that art comes into play. Although artists may not know us in an intimate way, their works can help us with the project of selfhood. One main way they can do so, I argue in chapter 5, is by teaching or educating us about ourselves. This “cognitivist” view of art is controversial. But Kierkegaard’s writings contain a version of it that sidesteps some of the standard objections. Kierkegaard holds that art at its best does not teach us “directly” by telling us important truths and offering us evidence in support of them. Instead, it teaches us in an “indirect” fashion by helping us make our own discoveries. Works of art can offer us lenses or prisms through which we can see ourselves differently, for example. Or, to put it in Kierkegaard’s terms, they can serve as mirrors in which we can see ourselves more clearly (FSE 25–26, 40–4/SKS 13:53–54, 66–70; SLW 8/SKS 6:16). The benefits of art do not accrue to us automatically, however. We reap them only if we appreciate works of art in the right way. What the right way is, of course, is a matter of dispute. On one influential tradition, art appreciation ought to be “disinterested.” When engaging a work of art, we should set aside any personal interests we might have in its use or possession. This includes any interest we might have in using it to gain knowledge about ourselves. Instead, as the view is sometimes developed,

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we ought to focus on the work of art itself. We should value it for its own sake, not for the sake of its instrumental benefits. Kierkegaard often appears to accept versions of these ideas. In fact, in several passages, he describes aesthetic appreciation as disinterested (TA 97/SKS 8:92; CUP 1:313n, 318, 322, 357/SKS 7:285n, 290, 294, 326). Yet, following Sylvia Walsh, I argue in chapter 6 that Kierkegaard ultimately ends up rejecting the tradition of aesthetic disinterest. 12 Indeed, he must. For aesthetic disinterest requires setting aside the very thing he thinks makes art worth attending to in the first place. To wit, it requires ignoring art’s ability to help us with our personal struggles with selfhood. In place of disinterest, Kierkegaard forwards a new ideal that I develop and defend in detail. At the heart of this new ideal is the notion that appreciating a work of art requires considering its significance for our personal lives. Art appreciation ought to be interested rather than disinterested; it should be subjective rather than objective. Chapter 7 turns to the norms of art creation. According to Kierkegaard, when attempting to help people with the project of selfhood, artists ought to abide by certain rules. The most important rule is that they must respect the autonomy of their audience. They must not use the power of art to compel people to adopt a specific ideology or approach to life. Instead, Kierkegaard says, they must allow their audience to “go their own way” or “stand alone” (CUP 1:277/SKS 7:251; JP 1:280/SKS 27:403; WL 274–75/SKS 9:272–73). I argue for two claims regarding this central rule. First, in one sense, it goes too far. Artists are often morally justified in pushing their audiences toward or away from a particular way of life. The most obvious case is when the well-being of others is on the line. Second, in another sense, the rule does not go far enough. Artists can respect their audience’s autonomy and still do them harm. Thus, we need an amendment that requires artists also to care about their audience’s well-being. I end the chapter by explaining why Kierkegaard, in his eagerness to help us become authentic, violates this amendment. The final chapter addresses a question about the extent to which art matters. Kierkegaard asserts that art—at least in the form of his own literary or poetic style of writing—is not just important but indispensable for his purposes. He cannot accomplish his goals without it. This radical claim has some appeal in the context of the central topic of the book, the project of selfhood. It seems plausible that art, in virtue of its engagement with our emotions, enables Kierkegaard to inspire us toward authenticity in ways he otherwise could not. Yet, Kierkegaard says that art is necessary not only for his “therapeutic” goals but also for his philosophical ones. In particular, it is impossible for him to communicate his philosophical insights to us without using a literary or poetic writing style. This position, if true, creates a problem for Kierkegaard scholarship. If the philosophical content of his works is wed to their literary form, then we cannot pair it with a different form. We cannot present it in an ordi-

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nary and straightforward way, as academic scholars are wont to do. In short, we cannot paraphrase Kierkegaard. I close the book with a qualified defense of this no-paraphrase thesis and a discussion of whether it undermines the accomplishments of earlier chapters. FOUR METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES This book adopts what Jonathan Bennett calls the “collegial approach” to the history of philosophy. I explore Kierkegaard’s texts “in the spirit of a colleague and antagonist, a student, a teacher—aiming to learn as much philosophy as [I] can from studying them.” 13 That is to say, I do not treat Kierkegaard as someone great but dead, a figure whose relevance belongs to a bygone era. For me, he is someone still very much alive who has things to say to us today. He is someone to whom we can turn for answers to our philosophical questions and diagnoses of our philosophical problems. This approach to Kierkegaard has become increasingly popular in recent years. Scholars have mined his writings for contributions to current debates about philosophy of religion, 14 personal identity, 15 love, 16 and ethics. 17 But engaging Kierkegaard in the way that I do is also contentious. For it requires adopting controversial stands on a number of methodological debates. In what follows, I will address four specific challenges faced by those who take the path I tread. Those whose interests are philosophical rather than historical may wish to skip directly to chapter 1. The Contextualism Challenge Like all figures in the history of philosophy, Kierkegaard was a thinker of his time and place. For the most part, he was not responding to “timeless” philosophical issues. Nor was he conversing primarily with Hume, Kant, Hegel, and the other towering members of the discipline. Kierkegaard’s writings were motivated by specific questions being discussed in a specific way in nineteenth-century Denmark. His main dialogue partners were Danish figures whose names we have mostly forgotten: Henrik Nicolai Clausen, Poul Martin Møller, Frederik Christian Sibbern, Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, Johan Ludvig Heiberg, and Hans Lassen Martensen. Thus, when we use Kierkegaard’s insights to solve our current philosophical problems, we pull them out of their historical context. We frame his views in ways that are foreign to his thinking, and we make him speak to people he did not see himself addressing. The result is that we risk distorting what he actually said. We put ourselves in jeopardy of losing sight of the real Kierkegaard and instead engaging with a pseudo-Kierkegaard we have made in our own image. Jon Stewart expresses the worry as follows: “When we apply these think-

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ers from the past to our current problems, we often lose the very essence of those thinkers by abstracting them out of their historical context, and if there was ever a thinker rooted in a specific historical context, it was surely Kierkegaard.” 18 To some degree, I concede to Stewart’s objection. I acknowledge that in this book I am appropriating Kierkegaard for my own purposes. My primary aim is to show how we can read him as contributing to our current debates rather than as belonging to the Golden Age of Denmark. Accomplishing this goal involves adapting his ideas to our language and terminology. It requires making him speak to issues that might not have interested him and developing his views in ways he might not have endorsed. For this reason, I have characterized the positions set forth in this book as “Kierkegaardian” rather than “Kierkegaard’s.” Yet, I am not indifferent to historical scholarship on Kierkegaard. On the contrary, I believe the success of my book depends on it. For we cannot use Kierkegaard’s insights to solve our problems unless we first understand these insights in their own right. “We must be clear about what Kierkegaard is saying before we attempt to transplant his ideas . . . into alien contexts,” as Patrick Stokes puts the point. 19 Thus, throughout the book, I will be building on research by scholars such as Stewart who have sought to situate Kierkegaard in his specific cultural milieu. The Secularization Challenge There is another version of the contextualism challenge that has long bothered Kierkegaard scholars and that Jamie Turnbull has recently articulated in a forceful way. 20 Turnbull points out that Kierkegaard describes himself as a religious author (PV 29–37/SKS 16:15–22). Theological ideas and principles permeate his writings from beginning to end. In terms of both content and motivation, the conclusions he defends are bound up with his brand of Christianity. This is especially true when it comes to selfhood, Turnbull claims, but the point may apply equally well to Kierkegaard’s aesthetics, as Peder Jothen has argued. 21 Kierkegaard’s religiosity poses a problem because our current philosophical scene is largely a secular one. Philosophers today tend to prefer views they can defend without relying on sacred texts or theological assumptions. They usually gravitate toward theories they can explain without appealing to spiritual beings or supernatural phenomena. To make Kierkegaard speak to such an audience, we must secularize or “detheologize” him. 22 We must remove the religious elements that Kierkegaard himself considers essential to his work. Thus, Turnbull worries, just as we risk distorting Kierkegaard’s views when we extract them from their historical context, so too we risk distorting his views when we extract them from their religious context. 23

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One of the aims of this book is to investigate the degree to which Turnbull’s worry is justified. 24 To this end, chapters 1 and 2 will examine whether Kierkegaard’s criticisms of popular models of selfhood depend on theological premises that defenders of these models would not accept. I will argue that in some cases they do. Where this happens, though, it is possible to develop alternative, secular justifications for Kierkegaard’s objections. Thus, we can agree with his criticisms here even if we do not agree with the religious reasoning behind them. In chapter 3, I will discuss the role religion plays in Kierkegaard’s own model of selfhood. I will identify several respects in which he thinks turning to God solves the problems that beset the popular models of selfhood. This discussion will pave the way for chapter 4, where I will address the question of what Kierkegaard has to say to readers who do not share his belief in God. I will maintain that he has more to offer here than is often appreciated. In particular, he does not think God is our only source of support for the project of selfhood. He allows that by turning to friends and works of art, we can find some of the guidance we need as we struggle to figure out who we are. The Pseudonymity Challenge Philosophical discussions of Kierkegaard typically turn to his pseudonymous writings—that is, the books he publishes under fictional names. The reason for this focus is that these works, especially the ones penned under the Climacus and Anti-Climacus pseudonyms, are among his most philosophical. They are the ones containing material that most closely resembles what we today consider philosophical argumentation, conceptual analysis, and the like. Appealing to the pseudonymous texts is problematic because Kierkegaard famously requests that we not attribute to him the views found in them (CUP 1:625–30/SKS 7:569–73). He takes responsibility for their content in the sense that he wrote it, but he denies that this content necessarily reflects his own beliefs (CUP 1:627/ SKS 7:570–71). Thus, if we rely on the pseudonymous texts to develop “Kierkegaard’s theory of selfhood” or “Kierkegaard’s theory of art,” we risk attributing to him something he does not endorse. We risk developing a theory that is not really “Kierkegaard’s.” Scholars disagree about how to treat the pseudonyms. On the view that may be most familiar to casual readers of Kierkegaard, we should abide by his request. We should distinguish between the texts he publishes under pseudonyms and those he publishes under his own name. Moreover, we should make sure to attribute the views found in a given text to the author named on the title page, whether that be “S. Kierkegaard” or a particular pseudonym. C. Stephen Evans has forwarded an influential variant of this view. 25 He too takes the pseudonyms seriously, naming them rather than Kierke-

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gaard when citing the relevant texts. But Evans argues that we ought to remain open to the possibility that the positions articulated by the pseudonyms might align with Kierkegaard’s own in some cases. Like the points of view of actual people, there may be partial or even significant overlap. Where this occurs, Evans claims, we are justified in drawing on the pseudonymous works to fill out what Kierkegaard has to say. Jon Stewart, by contrast, deemphasizes the importance of the pseudonyms. He maintains that we can identify the voice of many of the pseudonyms, including Climacus and Anti-Climacus, with Kierkegaard’s own. Stewart justifies this position by appealing to historical evidence that Kierkegaard added several of the pseudonyms as an afterthought. 26 In addition, he notes, Kierkegaard often used material from his notebooks indiscriminately in pseudonymous and nonpseudonymous texts. 27 Several postmodern scholars downplay the pseudonyms for a different reason. Unlike Stewart, they do not suspect that Kierkegaard embraced most of the ideas found in the pseudonymous writings. Instead, they suspect that the “S. Kierkegaard” on the title page of the signed works is just one more pseudonym. It is just one more mask behind which the real Kierkegaard playfully hides. 28 Thus, we ought not to treat the signed works as more revelatory of Kierkegaard’s beliefs than the pseudonymous works. In fact, it is impossible to get at Kierkegaard’s actual beliefs. As Michael Strawser puts it, “Kierkegaard, that historical person with certain views, cannot be found.” 29 My own position is that whether the issue of pseudonymity matters depends on our project. 30 If our aim is to write an intellectual biography—if we seek to provide an account of Kierkegaard’s actual opinions on some set of topics—then differentiating between passages where he stands behind what he says and passages where he does not becomes crucial. We need to know when he is expressing what he believes and when he is merely trying on a point of view that he ultimately rejects. Intellectual biography is not my project, however. My goal is to take the ideas contained in Kierkegaard’s writings and show how they illuminate philosophical issues we care about today. Following the lead of Patrick Stokes, Anthony Rudd, and others, I seek to mine Kierkegaard’s books for intellectual resources I can use to develop coherent and compelling positions about art and authenticity. 31 For this purpose, it is irrelevant whether Kierkegaard actually believed what he wrote. After all, we will neither accept an idea nor consider it profound simply because he did. Nor would he want us to do so. That is why he claimed to write “without authority” (PV 6n, 12/SKS 13:12n, 19). Thus, the issue of pseudonymity is largely beside the point when it comes to this book. Nevertheless, for the sake of those who disagree with me, I will follow the lead of Evans. I will distinguish between the pseudonymous and the signed writings, citing the relevant pseudonym rather than Kierkegaard when appropriate. Like Evans, however, I find a lot of agreement among

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these works. Thus, where overlap occurs, I will draw on the pseudonymous texts to fill out the picture defended in the signed texts. Now, if it turns out that Kierkegaard did not actually accept the patchwork theory I develop, this will not bother me. It will be enough that the positions I put forward are compelling and that we can attribute them to Kierkegaard in the minimal sense that he came up with them. This is another respect in which the theories expounded in this book are Kierkegaardian rather than Kierkegaard’s own. 32 The Challenge of Kierkegaard’s Literary Writing Style Kierkegaard calls himself a philosopher on only a few occasions and even then only with some hesitation (JP 3:158/Pap. IX B 63; JP 5:447/SKS 20:364; JP 6:62/Pap. X-6 B 41). More frequently, and with greater acclaim, he refers to himself as “a kind of poet” (PV 84–86/SKS 16:63–64; JP 6:38–39/SKS 21:45–46; JP 6:400/Pap. X-6 B 173). 33 If we operate with a broad sense of the word “poetry,” this label fits what we find in his writings. Kierkegaard does not offer us philosophical treatises after the fashion of Spinoza, Kant, or Hegel. What philosophical arguments and analysis we find in his texts are embedded in a literary substrate. He delivers his ideas to us in and through narratives, metaphors, humor, irony, and the like. 34 Thus, if we wish to bring Kierkegaard into dialogue with current analytic philosophy, we must extract his philosophical contributions from this substrate. We must remove all the literary and poetic elements—all the “indirectness”—for which he is so famous. The project of reconstructing Kierkegaard’s positions in a straightforward manner is not new. It was well underway during his lifetime. In fact, Kierkegaard himself knew about the undertaking and took issue with it (JP 6:506/Pap. XI-3 B 13; see also CUP 1:79n, 274–75n/SKS 7:79n, 249n). He thought that attempting to present his ideas in an academic format was a mistake. It reflected a misunderstanding of the kind of works he was producing (TDIO 5/SKS 5:389). Moreover, it removed the most important part (CUP 1:283/SKS 7:257) and so harmed his cause (JP 6:273/Pap. X-6 B 121). Kierkegaard is not the only person to express these kinds of concerns. We run into versions of them whenever we discuss philosophy that occurs in literature or poetry. Part of the reason is that the content of most works of literature and poetry does not appear accidentally related to their form. On the contrary, their form and content seem essentially related to each other. It seems impossible to say exactly what they say in any other way. In sum, as the New Critics put it, a lot of literature and poetry appears to defy paraphrase. 35 I agree with the spirit of this objection. It seems right to say that the poetic format Kierkegaard and others use is essential to their purposes. Thus, prose paraphrases are often inadequate substitutes for the origi-

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nals. Nevertheless, I believe there is a place for paraphrases. Indeed, my book will be filled with them. But explaining how we can reconcile the inadequacy of paraphrase with its legitimacy will have to wait until chapter 8. Before turning to this thorny issue, I will have to say more about the role art plays for Kierkegaard, including how it figures into the project of selfhood. It is with this latter topic of selfhood that I will now begin. NOTES 1. Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), ll. 605b, 607b. Socrates ends up moderating his recommendation that poets should not be admitted into a city that is well-governed. He allows in “hymns to the gods” and “eulogies to good people” (607a). And he states that poetry in general can “return from exile” once its defenders have shown that it is “beneficial both to constitutions and to human life” (607d). 2. For a defense of this kind of view, see Morris Weitz, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15, no. 1 (1956): 27–35. 3. Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus], Ars Poetica, trans. Henry Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library 194 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), ll. 333–46; Samuel Johnson, Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings, ed. Peter Martin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 359; Philip Sidney, An Apology For Poetry (Or The Defence Of Poesy), ed. R. W. Maslen and Geoffrey Shepherd, 3rd ed. (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002), 86. 4. For example, see Noël Carroll, “The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature, and Moral Knowledge,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60, no. 1 (2002): 3–26; Berys Gaut, “Art and Cognition,” in Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, ed. Matthew Kieran (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 115–26; John Gibson, “Cognitivism and the Arts,” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (2008): 573–89; Gordon Graham, “Aesthetic Cognitivism and the Literary Arts,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 30, no. 1 (1996): 1–17; Martha C. Nussbaum, “‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible’: Literature and the Moral Imagination,” in Love’s Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 148–67. 5. For discussion of the distinction between high and low art, see John A. Fisher, “High Art Versus Low Art,” in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, ed. Berys Nigel Gaut and Dominic Lopes (New York: Routledge, 2001), 409–22. 6. For further discussion of this kind of claim, see Elisabeth Camp, “Metaphors in Literature,” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature, ed. Noël Carroll and John Gibson (New York: Routledge, 2015), 334–46; Noël Carroll, “Fictional Characters as Social Metaphors,” in Questions of Character, ed. Iskra Fileva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 385–400. 7. For support, see Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 63. Of course, as Noreen Khawaja points out, Kierkegaard never uses the word “authenticity”; we receive this term from Heidegger (The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016], 33). But Kierkegaard does have the idea or concept that lies behind the word, as Khawaja admits (ibid., 19). We can see that this is so from a series of distinctions he draws. He differentiates between being a subject of sorts and really being a subject (CUP 1:130/SKS 7:122), between just being a human being and actually being a self (SUD 13/SKS 11:129), and between existing and truly existing (CUP 1:308/SKS 7:280). 8. For example, see Cheshire Calhoun, “Standing for Something,” The Journal of Philosophy, 1995, 235–260; Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (New York: Psycholo-

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gy Press, 2004); Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 9. Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 32–38. 10. For this criticism, see Theodor W. Adorno, “On Kierkegaard’s Doctrine of Love,” Zeitschrift Für Sozialforschung 8, no. 3 (1939): 413–29; Martin Buber, “The Question to the Single One,” in Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor-Smith (New York: Routledge, 2002), 46–97; Louis Mackey, “The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard’s Ethics,” The Review of Metaphysics 15, no. 4 (1962): 602–620. 11. For example, see George B. Connell and C. Stephen Evans, eds., Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992); M. Jamie Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving: A Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert L. Perkins, ed., Works of Love, International Kierkegaard Commentary 16 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999); Steven Shakespeare and George Pattison, eds., Kierkegaard: The Self in Society, 1998th ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998). 12. Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994), 6. 13. Jonathan Bennett, Learning from Six Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), 1:1. For discussion, see Daniel Garber, “What’s Philosophical About the History of Philosophy?,” in Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy, ed. Tom Sorell and G. A. J. Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 129–46. 14. For example, see Robert Merrihew Adams, “Kierkegaard’s Arguments Against Objective Reasoning in Religion,” The Monist 60, no. 2 (1977): 228–43; Adam Buben, “Neither Irrationalist Nor Apologist: Revisiting Faith and Reason in Kierkegaard,” Philosophy Compass 8, no. 3 (2013): 318–26; C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006); Louis P. Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984). 15. For example, see John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012); Lippitt, John and Patrick Stokes, eds., Narrative, Identity, and the Kierkegaardian Self (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2015); Simon D. Podmore, Kierkegaard and the Self Before God: Anatomy of the Abyss (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011); Anthony Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Patrick Stokes, The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 16. For example, See Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving; Sharon Krishek, Kierkegaard on Faith and Love (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 17. For example, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Edward F. Mooney, ed., Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard: Philosophical Engagements (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). 18. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 39.For further discussion of this issue in Kierkegaard scholarship, see Roe Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good: Virtue, Happiness, and the Kingdom of God (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 5–21. For more general discussion of the issue, see Anthony Kenny, “The Philosopher’s History and the History of Philosophy,” in Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy, ed. Tom Sorell and G. A. J. Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 13–24. 19. Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 8. 20. Jamie Turnbull, “Kierkegaard’s Religious, and Our Methodological, Crisis,” in Kierkegaard and the Religious Crisis of the Nineteenth Century in Europe, ed. A. Burgess et

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al., Acta Kierkegaardiana 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2009), 153–69; Jamie Turnbull, “Saving Kierkegaard’s Soul: From Philosophical Psychology to Golden Age Soteriology,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2011, ed. Jon Stewart, Heiko Schulz, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2011), 279–302; Jamie Turnbull, “Kierkegaard and the Limits of Philosophical Anthropology,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2015), 468–79; see also Karen L. Carr, “Kierkegaard and Atheistic Existentialism,” in Kierkegaard and Human Nature, ed. Roman Kralik et al., Acta Kierkegaardiana 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013), 65–74. 21. See Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2014). 22. The term here comes from Stokes; see The Naked Self, 19–20. 23. Turnbull, “Saving Kierkegaard’s Soul,” 290. 24. For more direct criticism of Turnbull, see Anthony Rudd and Patrick Stokes, “The Soul of a Philosopher: Reply to Turnbull,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), 475–94. 25. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1983), 6–9. 26. Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, 40–41. 27. Ibid., 41. 28. For defense of this view, see Joakim Garff, “The Eyes of Argus. The Point of View and Points of View with Respect to Kierkegaard’s Work as an Author,” in Kierkegaard: A Critical Reader, ed. Ree Jonathan and Chamberlain Jane (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 75–102; Edward F. Mooney, “Pseudonyms and Style,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 191–210; Roger Poole, “The Unknown Kierkegaard: Twentieth-Century Receptions,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 48–75; Joseph Westfall, The Kierkegaardian Author: Authorship and Performance in Kierkegaard’s Literary and Dramatic Criticism (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2007), 130–39. 29. Michael Strawser, Both/and: Reading Kierkegaard: From Irony to Edification (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), 97. 30. I draw here on Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 8–9. 31. For example, Rudd writes that his aim is “to show analytic philosophers that Kierkegaard is relevant to their concerns, and offers a fertile source of ideas which can be applied to contemporary debates” (Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical [Clarendon Press, 1997], vii). In a similar vein, Stokes says, “I think we can indeed mine Kierkegaard for useful philosophical insights that may have applications in contexts very alien to his own” (The Naked Self, 20). 32. From time to time, I will slip into talk about what “Kierkegaard believes” or what “Kierkegaard thinks.” But this will be for expediency’s sake. These expressions will be shorthand for referring to what we find in texts published under Kierkegaard’s own name or under a pseudonym whose views seem to overlap with those penned under Kierkegaard’s own name. 33. For example, see Louis Mackey, Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971). For more recent discussion of Kierkegaard’s status as a poet, see Eric Ziolkowski, The Literary Kierkegaard (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011), 19–26. 34. As George Pattison has argued, literary elements pervade not only Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings but his signed writings as well, including the upbuilding discourses; see Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology (New York: Routledge, 2003). 35. For example, see Cleanth Brooks, “The Heresy of Paraphrase,” in The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry, 1947, 192–214.

I

On Selfhood

ONE The Inner Sense Model Finding Ourselves Within

IRONY AND AUTHENTICITY For many of us, the starting point for our interest in authenticity is a practical problem. Taking part in modern society makes us feel alienated from ourselves. To fit in and get along with others, we must put on masks. We must pretend to believe, feel, and think things we do not actually believe, feel, or think. We must construct our lives such that the inner is not the outer and the outer is not the inner, as Victor Eremita puts it in the opening lines of Either/Or (EO 1:3/SKS 2:11). Such game playing tends not to sit well with us. It strikes us as dishonest or insincere. It gives rise to the disconcerting thought that we are not being true to ourselves. 1 Displeasure at public phoniness leads to a variety of responses. Some people simply withdraw from everyday social life. They may do so outwardly by moving to isolated areas and creating physical distance between society and themselves. Or, they may withdraw inwardly. They may continue to adhere to popular social conventions but with an “ironic” attitude, to use Kierkegaard’s technical term. In the privacy of their own minds, they may not take these conventions seriously or regard them as meaningful. They may refuse to identify with the roles, projects, and values they have inherited from society. They may tell themselves that such things do not define who they really are. 2 Kierkegaard has negative things to say about this particular kind of ironic withdrawal, especially in his dissertation (CI 272–323/SKS 1:308–52). But there is at least one aspect of it he endorses. He thinks the “ironist” is right to question the identity he or she has inherited from society. Indeed, he believes all of us should do this. All of us ought to 17

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have a moment when we cast a skeptical eye on society’s expectations of us and challenge society’s way of defining us (EO 2:240/SKS 3:229; SUD 55/SKS 11:170). 3 These are necessary steps in the process of figuring out who we really are. This is what Kierkegaard means when he says irony is “the absolute beginning of personal life” (CI 326/SKS 1:355) and “a life that may be called human begins with irony” (CI 6/SKS 1:65). Yet we cannot stop with irony, Kierkegaard claims; we cannot go through life being ironic from beginning to end. For a truly ironic attitude, at least as he describes it in The Concept of Irony, is purely negative (CI 259/SKS 1:297). It involves saying “no” to social guidelines and recommendations without offering positive alternatives. Most of us will find it hard to live this way. We need a positive lifeview, as Judge William says, a sense of who we actually are and what really matters (EO 2:179/ SKS 3:175). We need something that does what our socially given identities used to do for us. In sum, we must go beyond the stage of ironic withdrawal from society. We must find new identities. But where might we find identities that are not phony or dishonest? Do we even have “true” or “real” selves? If so, what do they look like? In what do they consist? Such are the questions that models of authentic selfhood seek to answer. I will examine a number of candidate models in the first half of the book. The present chapter will focus on a particularly influential one, which following Somogy Varga I will call “the inner sense model.” 4 I will begin by describing how this model sets up the ideal of authenticity. Then, drawing on insights from Kierkegaard, I will explain how it suffers from a number of problems. In particular, I will argue, it leaves us with a sense of self that is both morally dubious and deeply unstable. These problems will not exactly spell the end of the inner sense model. But they will be sufficiently serious to justify considering alternative accounts of authenticity. OVERVIEW OF THE MODEL The inner sense model has its roots in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 5 Its central idea is that we can discover our true selves by turning inward. All we have to do is push past our socially conditioned ways of thinking and uncover what lies beneath. The natural and spontaneous desires, feelings, and attitudes we find there constitute the true us. They make up who we really are. The project of selfhood according to the inner sense model is thus to get in touch with our innermost thoughts and express them outwardly. We can lay claim to being authentic selves once we do so. One common way to develop the inner sense model, sometimes associated with Johann Gottfried Herder, is to claim that each of us has an

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inner voice or inner sense telling us what is right and good for us as individuals. 6 The problem is that it gets drowned out by the cacophony of voices blaring at us from the media and mass society. So, we have to sort through all this noise. We have to identify the sound of our own voice and act in accordance with it. Then and only then will we become authentic. 7 It is important to see how there are both active and passive dimensions to the inner sense model. On the passive side, the inner sense model does not ask us to change who we are—at least not on the most rudimentary level. We do not have to struggle to become more virtuous or work to improve our characters. Becoming authentic on the inner sense model does not require altering our most fundamental ways of thinking or feeling. Indeed, its primary selling point is that we get to hold on to our deepest cares, desires, and preferences. Yet, there is a crude kind of passivity that the inner sense model rejects. It requires us to eschew the path of the mindless bumbler who lets himself or herself be pushed around by the crowd. We cannot just go with the flow in the sense of giving in to the ways we have been socialized to think or act. Adhering to the inner sense model requires pushing past our culturally inherited ways of being. This may take work, maybe even a lot of work. Finding what lies within will not be easy for most of us, especially given how deeply we have all been socially conditioned. In fact, complete authenticity on the inner sense model is probably rare. Thus, it might be best viewed as a regulative ideal toward which we must strive rather than a standard we can actually hit. 8 In addition, expressing our natural beliefs and desires may entail making outward changes. To become authentic, we may have to adjust how we look to other people or alter how we act around them. Our lives may need to undergo a transformation Noreen Khawaja describes as analogous to religious conversion. 9 But there is no universal rule here. Adherence to the inner sense model will not always result in observable differences. It may just so happen that our natural and spontaneous beliefs and desires coincide perfectly with what society has been pressuring us to think and do all along. One upshot of this is that it does not follow from the fact that a person is a conformist that he or she is inauthentic. Just as our religiosity may be incognito, according to Johannes Climacus, so too our authenticity may be indiscernible to others (CUP 1:509/SKS 7:460; but cf. JP 3:489–90/SKS 26:346–47). THE RELATIONSHIP TO KIERKEGAARD’S AESTHETIC STAGE Kierkegaard does not discuss the inner sense model per se; this label is a recent construction. But he does talk about the ideals that lie at its core. Most often he does so in the context of commenting on a version of

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what he calls the aesthetic stage on life’s way or the aesthetic sphere of existence. There are several ways to think about the aesthetic life. One way, largely derived from part I of Either/Or, is to regard its defining feature as the pursuit of enjoyment (see CUP 1:288/SKS 7:263; EO 2:179/SKS 3:175). 10 This includes the pursuit of immediate bodily pleasures, such as food and sex. That is why Don Juan, who beds 1,003 in Spain alone, is a quintessential aesthete (EO 1:22–23/SKS 2:31). But it also encompasses the pursuit of more intellectual pleasures, such as those associated with the appreciation of art or the practice of philosophy (EO 1:9/SKS 2:17). So it is that part I of Either/Or, which contains the papers of an aesthete named A, includes an academic essay on Mozart, a discourse on ancient and modern drama, as well as a review of Eugene Scribe’s play, First Loves. To summarize, the aesthetic goal of enjoying life as portrayed in part I of Either/Or is a matter of getting what one wants, whether that is something mundane or lofty (EO 1:31/SKS 2:40). part II of Either/Or offers us a slightly different picture of the aesthetic stage. Judge William, the pseudonymous author of this volume, describes the aesthete as someone who is whoever he or she immediately is (EO 2:178/SKS 3:173). 11 What he means is that aesthetes are not interested in the project of self-development. They do not seek to shape their desires, beliefs, and attitudes in accordance with a higher standard. Especially not in accordance with some ethical or religious standard. They are happy to be however they naturally happen to be. Insofar as this includes pursuing whatever desires naturally arise within them, there is a connection to the version of the aesthetic life described in part I. We can think of the inner sense model as a development of the second picture of the aesthetic life. Like ordinary aesthetes, adherents of the inner sense model are whoever they immediately are. They do not strive to shape or mold their beliefs and desires in any particular way. Unlike some aesthetes who bumble into the lifestyle like unthinking wantons, however, adherents of the inner sense model pursue it on purpose. They intentionally choose to be who they immediately are. They do so because they believe this makes up their real or authentic self. 12 As a result, more so than typical aesthetes, practitioners of the inner sense model seek to identify their natural beliefs and desires. They try to distinguish what is original to them, separating it out as best they can from what is merely the product of social conditioning. Ideally it is only this—their own original thoughts and desires—that they express in the external world. Most commentators read Kierkegaard as a critic of the aesthetic life. 13 In many respects, this is right. But Kierkegaard is not against all aspects of all versions of the aesthetic way of life. Some features of the version associated with the inner sense model receive his praise. 14 It is good, he thinks, for us to develop a sense of who we are that is distinct from society’s view. It is also important for us to descry what we think and feel

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at a “primitive” level (JP 1:35/SKS 26:40; JP 1:86/SKS 24:444–45; JP 1:293–96/SKS 27:419–22). 15 That is, it is important for us to dig beneath the ways of thinking and feeling we have inherited from society and uncover ones more original to ourselves. 16 This is part of the point of those passages in which Kierkegaard criticizes following the crowd and extols being “a single individual” (PV 105–24/SKS 16:85–104). It is also part of what lies behind the lines in Concluding Unscientific Postscript where Johannes Climacus encourages us to develop “subjectivity” and “inwardness” (CUP 1:129–99/SKS 7:121–73). In fact, sometimes it seems as though Kierkegaard endorses the inner sense model outright. For some of the things he says come across as alternative ways to put the idea that the authentic person is the one who follows his or her inner voice. “The person who in truth can stand alone in the world this way, consulting with his own conscience,” he writes in his journals, “he is a hero” (JP 2:71/SKS 24:110). We encounter a similar line in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits: “What else, indeed, is the accounting of eternity than that the voice of conscience is installed eternally in its eternal right to be the only voice” (UDVS 128/SKS 8:228). THE MORAL PROBLEM I will say more about the degree to which Kierkegaard embraces the inner sense model in chapter 3. For now, I wish to focus on the fact that, despite his positive remarks about the model, his writings also contain grounds for several criticisms of it. Two in particular are telling. The first I will refer to as the moral problem. We can get at it as follows. One of the attractions of the inner sense model is that it offers us a clear account of who we really are. Thus, adhering to it promises us an obvious benefit: it will help us in our struggle to become authentic. That is, it will help us with the project of selfhood. We must ask, however, whether our adherence to the inner sense model would also be good for others. Would it benefit the people around us or the community at large? Would a community in which everyone adhered to the inner sense model be one that flourished? To use Cheshire Calhoun’s way of framing the question, is authenticity as defined by the inner sense model a social virtue or just a personal virtue? 17 Defenders of the inner sense model sometimes answer these questions in the affirmative. Our being authentic will benefit society, they claim. This response is sometimes grounded in an optimistic view about human nature. Defenders of the inner sense model sometimes maintain that our own-most desires and beliefs are morally good. 18 In fact, many of the Romantics were explicit about this point. They associated uncovering our natural desires and beliefs with accessing an innocent childlike state. 19 If our inner states are oriented toward the good, they concluded, then ex-

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pressing them will also be good. Freeing ourselves from the repressive influence of society and giving voice to what naturally lies within us will lead to better things for the people around us. Kierkegaard rejects this optimistic take on our inner selves. He maintains that our natural and spontaneous thoughts and desires are often harmful and cruel (JP 2:179/SKS 25:223; JP 3:42/SKS 21:100; JP 4:415/SKS 25:72). In part he bases this view on the Christian doctrine of original sin (see CA 25–51/SKS 4:332–57). But, as Stephen Evans argues, he need not do so. 20 Secular thinkers such as Nietzsche and Freud have developed powerful defenses of the view that we are instinctively cruel. Moreover, the fact that society encourages us to suppress our natural thoughts and feelings suggests that they have the potential to harm society. 21 Thus, for Kierkegaard, following the promptings of our inner voice does not promise to benefit other people. It promises to endanger them. A much discussed literary figure illustrates Kierkegaard’s concern. I have in mind the character of Lui from Denis Diderot’s great dialogue, Rameau’s Nephew. 22 Lui is a paradigm example of inner sense authenticity. “He offers an exceptionally clear example of sincerity in its basic form of uninhibited expression or enactment,” as Bernard Williams puts it. 23 The inner states to which Lui gives unfettered expression are an odd mix. His character is “a compound of elevation and abjectness, of good sense and lunacy.” 24 In this regard, Diderot suggests, Lui is the same as most people we meet. At least he is “neither more nor less detestable than other men.” 25 What sets Lui apart is simply that he refuses to cover over who he is. He has the courage to be himself: “[H]e shows without ostentation the good qualities that nature has bestowed upon him, just as he does the bad ones without shame.” 26 Thus, sometimes Lui is resentful or envious. Other times, he is exceedingly cheerful. He flatters and lies when he feels like it, but tells the truth when it strikes him to do so. “I’m never false if my interest is to speak true,” Lui claims, “and never true if I see the slightest use of being false. I say whatever comes into my head.” 27 But as a result, Lui’s authenticity does not contribute to the flourishing of the people around him. Quite the opposite. Indeed, again in Williams’s words, Lui is exactly the kind of person who makes us rethink “how much is morally and socially secured by either sincerity or authenticity.” 28 It might be objected that not everyone is like Lui. Despite Diderot’s claim that Lui is no worse than anyone else, it might seem as though at least some of the people we encounter have better natures than Lui has. Being kind and considerate comes easily for them. They do not have to wrestle with their selfish desires before they assist the less fortunate. Their altruism is automatic. It is the direction in which they naturally tend. Kierkegaard acknowledges that some people do not have to struggle to be morally good. But he insists it is only because they already have shaped their own character to such a degree that selfless behavior spontaneously

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flows out of them. They have given themselves a virtuous “second nature” on top of their vicious primary nature (JP 5:447/SKS 20:364). This is a good place to be, of course. Indeed, it is where Kierkegaard hopes all of us will end up, as Patrick Stokes argues. 29 But Kierkegaard thinks that getting to this point is a difficult task, one we cannot accomplish without a lot of work (CUP 1:130/SKS 7:122; SUD 35/SKS 11:151; see also FT 121–23/SKS 4:208–10). At the very least, we have to go beyond the pure self-acceptance that the inner sense model endorses. Yet, suppose Kierkegaard was wrong here. Suppose some of us possessed first natures that were morally good. It is true that following the inner sense model would not lead us to harm or endanger other people. This positive outcome would be a matter of luck, however. It would be an accident of fate rather than something we could be credited with achieving. And this luck might run out. Even though our natural thoughts and desires have pushed us toward the good in the past, they might not do so in the future. Our inner selves could take an unexpected turn for the worse. It follows that even for the best of us, adhering to the inner sense model amounts to taking a moral risk. It is living a life that endangers others even if it never actually harms them. As such, it is still morally blameworthy. This objection cannot be headed off by adding a morality clause to the inner sense model. Defenders of the model cannot simply append a rider that says we may express our natural beliefs and desires only if they are morally good. For such a rider would contradict the essence of the inner sense model. The model is motivated by a frustration with how society urges us to suppress our natural inner states. It is driven by the belief that denying outwardly what occurs inwardly is dishonest. So, from the point of view of the inner sense model, any proviso that asks us to sort through what lies within us and censor parts of it is tantamount to a demand that we be inauthentic. To summarize, we have moral reasons not to adhere to the inner sense model. Doing so may of course help us gain a sense of identity or self. Thus, it may contribute to our own personal well-being. But it is not likely to contribute to the well-being of others or to the flourishing of society as a whole. For the self we end up with if we follow the inner sense model is not likely to have moral virtues such as kindness and compassion. In fact, there is a fair chance it will possess serious vices. In conclusion, we ought not to adhere to the inner sense model because doing so will lead us to harm or at least risk harming the people around us. 30 Is the Moral Problem an External Criticism? Scholars dispute how much weight we should assign the moral problem. One important challenge to its significance comes from the work of Rob Compaijen, Ryan Kemp, and Walter Wietzke. 31 They argue, each in their own way, that the moral problem represents an external criticism of

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the inner sense model. It does not show that the inner sense model fails on its own terms. It does not prove that we will fall short of authenticity if we pursue the inner sense model. All the moral problem does is establish that following the inner sense model may lead us to violate commonly accepted moral norms. Compaijen, Kemp, and Wietzke note that adherents of the inner sense model may not care whether they violate common moral norms. Indeed, moral considerations may not matter to them at all. Thus, the moral problem may not gain motivational traction with its target audience. Those inclined to accept the inner sense model may not see it as a reason to look elsewhere for an account of authentic selfhood. This is what happens with A, the pseudonymous author of part I of Either/Or. He recognizes his aesthetic approach to life may strike others as morally dubious. But he does not care. He dismisses moral objections out of hand as boring (EO 1:367/SKS 2:356). We encounter a similar phenomenon in contemporary American politics. When President Trump says something offensive, his defenders sometimes dismiss moral criticisms of his remarks on the grounds that he is being true to what he thinks. Such dismissals may not be entirely wrongheaded. Sometimes it seems right to set aside morality in the name of selfhood, as Bernard Williams has argued. 32 Consider that our sense of self revolves around our deepest desires and beliefs and that expressing these desires and beliefs is often what gives us our reason for living. Moreover, it is often what gives us our reason for caring about the world at all. If morality demands that we sacrifice such things in order to protect the people around us, it is demanding too much. In fact, such a demand is selfundermining. It asks us to give up our reason for caring about the world in order to save the world. We encounter a version of Williams’s argument in Fear and Trembling. 33 Therein Johannes de Silentio offers an account of the story from the Hebrew Bible in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Silentio reminds us that Abraham is no lukewarm devotee. His relationship with God means everything to him (see FT 48–49/SKS 4:142–43). It stands at the center of his identity. Thus, when God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham faces a dilemma. Either he can remain true to his life-defining relationship, or he can adhere to the dictates of morality, which require him to love and protect his children, not kill them (FT 57/SKS 4:151). Abraham selects the former option. Although God sends an angel to stay his hand before he plunges the knife into Isaac, he is willing to do the deed. Silentio argues that if Abraham is to be the religious hero that Western faiths make him out to be, his decision must be justified (FT 30–31, 55–56/SKS 4:125–26, 149–50). It must be right for him to set aside his moral obligations for the sake of his relationship with God. There has to be, in Silentio’s words, a “teleological suspension of the ethical” (FT 54/SKS 4:148). That is to say, there have to be

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cases where it is right to suspend the moral order for the sake of some higher purpose. It is possible to frame Silentio’s argument in terms of personal identity. We can interpret Fear and Trembling as supporting Williams’s claim that pursuing a project that stands at the center of our identity is sometimes more important than living up to the demands of morality. It follows that moral objections to a person’s identity are not always decisive. Some people are justified in continuing to be who they are even though it leads them to harm or endanger others. 34 Defending the Relevance of Moral Concerns These challenges to the moral problem are powerful. But there are counter-points to be made. First, although some people may care little about morality, few fully socialized adults care nothing about it at all. Sometimes and to some degree, ethical considerations matter to virtually everyone. Thus, moral concerns are almost never totally external to a person’s motivational set. Raising a moral problem with someone’s identity rarely will gain zero traction. Kierkegaard agrees with this view. There may be passages where he seems to embrace the Calvinist position that humans are totally depraved; he often says that without God we are capable of nothing at all (EUD 297–326/SKS 5:291–316; CUP 1:461/SKS 7:419; JP 2:171/SKS 24:190–91). But, as Anthony Rudd argues, a close reading suggests that Kierkegaard thinks God gives us a moral compass. 35 In Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits and Christian Discourses, Kierkegaard says that in addition to whatever else we will, we always also will the good (UDVS 24–35/SKS 8:139–48; CD 82–83/SKS 10:91). This even applies to A. He may come across as an example of someone with no regard for ethics. But Evans points out that there are places where he exhibits signs of a conscience. However depraved A may be, part of him cares about others. 36 Of course, it is important not to overstate the natural goodness of people here. I am not claiming that we are inherently perfect or that we always, unequivocally, and without hesitation desire the good. If that were the case, we would not have to worry about the moral problem in the first place. Following the inner sense model would lead us to help others. My view is rather that we are mixed creatures. Like Lui from Rameau’s Nephew, our inner natures are partly good and partly bad. We are bad enough that following the inner sense model will lead us to harm or endanger the people around us. But we are good enough that raising moral objections will gain some traction with us. Moral concerns will almost never be completely external to our motivational set. 37 The second counter-point is that, although Williams and Silentio’s argument about the importance of identity is compelling, it does not alleviate the moral problem as much as it might seem. For Williams and

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Silentio are not claiming that identity-related concerns always trump moral concerns. Silentio in particular is explicit about this point. He asserts in Problema I that not every teleological suspension of the ethical is justified (FT 54–57/SKS 4:148–51). Some are and some are not. One of Silentio’s requirements is that a teleological suspension of the ethical cannot be done lightly. It has to be done against the backdrop of an abiding respect for the moral rules being suspended (FT 78/SKS 4:169). Judge William institutes a similar rule in Either/Or. He insists that the single individual who departs from the universal must first acquire a deep respect for the universal (EO 2:328–31/SKS 3:310–13; see SLW 181/ SKS 6:168). We see this play out in the case of Abraham. He does not go off to Mount Moriah with a happy heart. He experiences great anguish along the road to sacrificing Isaac; he is tortured by what God has asked him to do (FT 28, 30/SKS 4:125, 126). That is partly why the book is entitled “fear and trembling.” Adherents of the inner sense model are unlikely to meet this first requirement. Some amount of concern for the ethical is natural, as I said above, but a deep respect for the rules of morality does not come automatically for many people. It is something most of us have to devote a lot of effort to cultivate in ourselves. This kind of self-shaping is at odds with the inner sense model. For the inner sense model tells us to accept the drives and urges that naturally arise within us rather than to shape our characters in accordance with a particular ideal. If we do manage to bring ourselves to care deeply about the rules of morality, we will not violate them willy-nilly. We will not break them whenever we feel like but only when something important is on the line. This is the second requirement we find in Fear and Trembling. Silentio says the telos or goal for which we are suspending the ethical must be central to our identity. The whole of our life’s content or the entire meaning of our reality must be concentrated in it (FT 42–43/SKS 4:137; see SLW 181/ SKS 6:168). Consider again the case of Abraham. His love for God is not one care among many, Silentio tells us (FT 48–49/SKS 4:142–43). It means everything to him; giving it up would amount to giving up who he is. Here too there is a conflict with the inner sense model. Being authentic on the inner sense model is a matter of expressing our inner states. This is not limited to the most important ones; people who suppress their "lesser" beliefs or desires because they conflict with traditional moral rules are not living up to the ideal. Moreover, the inner sense model does not demand that we have a most important desire or belief. It does not ask us to concentrate the entire meaning of our reality or the whole of our life’s content in a single goal. Thus, once again, it seems unlikely that adherents of the inner sense model will meet the requirements for a justified teleological suspension of the ethical. In sum, it is possible for us to accept Silentio and Williams’s point about the importance of identity without letting the inner sense model off the hook for the moral problem.

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THE UNITY PROBLEM Kierkegaard’s second objection to the inner sense model is what I will call the unity problem. The issue here is that, just as our natural and spontaneous beliefs and desires are not always pro-social, so too they are not always coherent and stable. They are susceptible to unexpected changes and prone to push in competing directions. People who make their lives conform to their spontaneous beliefs and desires thus may end up flitting from task to task. They may not stick with any given project for very long, and the new project they pick up may not connect in any deep way to the one that came before. In short, their lives may be all over the map. 38 Although she is not thinking about Kierkegaard, Christine Korsgaard tells a story that illustrates the problem he has in mind: Jeremy settles down at his desk one evening to study for an examination. Finding himself a little too restless to concentrate, he decides to take a walk in the fresh air. His walk takes him past a nearby bookstore, where the sight of an enticing title draws him in to look at a book. Before he finds it, however, he meets his friend Neil, who invites him to join some of the other kids at the bar next door for a beer. Jeremy decides he can afford to have just one, and goes with Neil to the bar. When he arrives there, however, he finds that the noise gives him a headache, and he decides to return home without having a beer. He is now, however, in too much pain to study. So Jeremy doesn’t study for his examination, hardly gets a walk, doesn’t buy a book, and doesn’t drink a beer. 39

Korsgaard admits that not everyone is like Jeremy. Just as some people are naturally good, so too some people are naturally stable. The inclinations that spontaneously arise within them remain constant over the long haul. Some people, for instance, have an abiding love of music; the desire to play and enjoy it sticks with them across the years. Others have a predictable tendency to be gentle and soft-spoken regardless of context; they do not have an outgoing bone in their body. Few people are this way in their entirety, however. Indeed, John Doris, in his work on character, has mounted considerable evidence for the conclusion that perfectly stable traits are rare. 40 Common experience confirms his view. The vectors of our dispositions tend to shift over the course of our lives, waxing and waning and changing their direction. We go through phases when we care more about our careers and ones when we care more about our families. Whether we incline toward being outgoing or reserved also tends to be cyclical or vary based on situation. Few things are true of our personalities at every moment of every day of our entire lives. In part I of Either/Or, A acknowledges our natural inconstancy, and he sets up his version of the inner sense model to accommodate it. One of his rules is that we not make firm commitments to anyone or anything (EO 1:295–98/SKS 2:284–87). If we want to preserve our ability to follow our

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natural beliefs and desires, he says, we should not get married. Nor should we form deep friendships or have careers. Such entanglements will only hem us in; they will inhibit us from doing what we feel like doing in the future. To insure that we are always free to move on, A encourages us to accept the following maxim: “No part of life ought to have so much meaning for a person that he cannot forget it any moment he wants to” (EO 1:293/SKS 2:282). A’s recommendation sounds extreme, the sort of advice only a fictional character could follow. But it is actually not so different from what we see real people do. Think about those who will not give us a yes or no in response to an invitation because they do not know whether something better might come along. Or consider the epidemic in our society of skittishness about relationship commitments. What makes people hold back in many cases is a fear that at some point they may want to be with someone else. As the story of Jeremy brings out and A’s advice hammers home, following the inner sense model is likely to disrupt the unity of our lives. If we base our identity on our spontaneous thoughts and desires, we may fragment synchronically and diachronically. At any given moment, the various parts of our lives may clash. There may be disharmony between how we comport ourselves on the street and how we comport ourselves at home. The values we express in one context may compete with those we express in others. In addition, our lives may exhibit discontinuity over time. Our pasts may not hook up in meaningful ways with our futures; where we are going may not be informed by where we have come from. 41 A PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVATION FOR THE UNITY PROBLEM Kierkegaard motivates the unity problem in a couple different ways. Some of the time, he justifies its importance on psychological grounds. In Either/Or, for instance, he has Judge William say that it is natural for human beings to desire a unified lifeview (EO 2:179/SKS 3:175). We want the various aspects of our lives to weave together into a harmonious whole, and we get frustrated when this does not happen (EO 2:160/SKS 3:157–58). In particular, we become disconcerted when we discover that our core beliefs conflict with each other or that we cannot reconcile two desires we hold dear. Similarly, we experience distress when success in one area requires us to compromise ideals we endorse in another, such as when achieving our career goals requires us to spend less time with our family members than we believe they deserve. We desire not only synchronic unity in our lives, according to Kierkegaard. We desire diachronic unity as well. That is, we want our pasts to link up with our futures in ways that make sense. We want there to be meaningful ties between where we have come from and where we are

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going (SUD 29–42/SKS 11:145–57). This is evidenced by the despair we experience when our current way of understanding ourselves collapses (EO 2:192–94/SKS 3:186–88). People are crestfallen and bewildered when they are let go without warning from a job that was central to their sense of self. Similar emotions occur in mothers and fathers who suddenly cannot inhabit old parental roles because their children have gone off to college. For our lives to have the kind of unity we want, Kierkegaard thinks, we have to form deep and abiding commitments. 42 One way to spell out the precise level of commitment Kierkegaard has in mind is in terms of Frankfurt’s notion of wholeheartedness. 43 A commitment counts as wholehearted according to Frankfurt if it meets two conditions. First, it must not conflict with our other commitments. Second, we must care about it so much that we cannot easily abandon it or fluctuate between supporting and rejecting it. Kierkegaard often uses extreme language to describe the ideal in play here. He speaks of “purity of heart,” “willing one thing,” “avoiding double-mindedness,” and “never serving two masters” (UDVS 7–154/SKS 8:123–250; CD 81–92/SKS 10:89–98; WA 21–35/ SKS 11:26–39). Such talk might suggest there needs to be one and only one goal around which our entire lives revolve. But most interpreters do not read Kierkegaard as holding this view. He is not claiming we have to become the equivalent of career-obsessed lawyers who care about nothing but making partner. 44 There can be several projects to which we are wholeheartedly committed. We could have a deep passion for raising a family and creating works of art and contributing to a social justice movement, for instance. Kierkegaard’s point is just that these projects must be woven together into a unified whole. We must not pursue them in ways that lead them to compete with each other but rather in ways that make them complement each other. 45 It is now possible to state the psychological version of the unity problem. The inner sense model is deficient because it is unlikely to give us the inner unity we want. And it is unlikely to give us the inner unity we want because it is not conducive to making wholehearted commitments. In fact, the inner sense model militates against wholeheartedness. As A says in Either/Or, if we wish to preserve our ability to express our spontaneous desires, we must refrain from tying ourselves down. We must not bind ourselves to any project or relationship that might hem us in in the future. Three Criticisms of the Psychological Motivation Critics have objected to the psychological version of the unity problem on at least three grounds. 46 First, some have claimed they do not care whether their identities possess synchronic unity. They do not share what Judge William describes as the common human desire for harmony be-

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tween the various parts of their lives. The prospect of a civil war between their projects or goals troubles them not in the least. 47 Some even purport to enjoy the sense of well-roundedness that comes from pursuing a diversity of ends that do not neatly fit together. 48 Second, some who oppose Kierkegaard say that they do not care much about diachronic unity. An episodic existence—one made up a series of moments that lack narrative links—does not strike them as unappealing. 49 Indeed, they argue, it is more interesting to move from project to project than to stick with the same one over the long haul. We miss out on the “adventure of life” if we only do what fits with what we have done before. 50 Third, some critics raise a normative objection to Kierkegaard’s view. They assert that pursuit of unity is actually a vice. It causes us to put on blinders or have tunnel vision when making decisions. As a result, we end up overlooking possibilities that would lead us in more fruitful directions. In other words, insisting on continuity and coherence renders us insufficiently open to those transformative moments that upset the apple cart of our lives in a way that is for the best. 51 We can summarize these points by saying the unity problem suffers from the same kind of defect as the moral problem. It is an external criticism of the inner sense model. It imposes a constraint on adherents of the model that they might not accept and perhaps should not accept. So, even though the unity problem might gain traction with some people, it will not do so with all people. In particular, it seems unlikely to hit home with the kind of person who would be attracted to the inner sense model. A CONCEPTUAL MOTIVATION FOR THE UNITY PROBLEM The most promising way to respond to the forgoing objections is to move beyond the psychological argument for unity. On a careful reading, Kierkegaard’s point is not just that we desire a unified self. He also holds that a fragmented self—a self that lacks inner unity—is not actually a self. Thus, for Kierkegaard, we ought to reject the inner sense model of selfhood not just because it fails to give us the kind of selves we want. At a deeper level, we should reject it because it fails to give us selves at all. What, then, is it to be a “self”? Following his predecessors, F. C. Sibbern and I. H. Fichte, Kierkegaard maintains that being a self is a matter of having a determinate personality (JP 1:302/SKS 27:428; EO 2:263–65/SKS 3:250–52). 52 And we have a determinate personality only if our beliefs, desires, and patterns of behavior are more or less stable and consistent. Judge William expresses the idea as follows: Or can you think of anything more appalling than having it all end with the disintegration of your essence into a multiplicity, so that you actually become several, just as that unhappy demoniac became a legion, and thus

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you would have lost what is the most inward and holy in a human being, the binding power of the personality? (EO 2:160/SKS 3:158)

As Rudd explains the judge’s point, if my thoughts and actions are all over the map—if they are either incongruous or prone to unpredictable changes—then there is nothing that I am. 53 There is no fixed answer to the question, "Who am I?" For I am one thing one moment and something else the next. I am one person in one context and someone else in another. I am a multiplicity, not a self. Thus, Kierkegaard equates the person “who is not himself a unity, is never really anything wholly and decisively” with the person “who only exists in an external sense" (UDVS 127/SKS 8:227). 54 We might worry that the objections leveled against the psychological argument for unity will return at this point. Critics of Kierkegaard’s view could argue that they do not value having a personality. They find it too restrictive or insufficiently open to adventure. Thus, if a personality is what is required for being or having a self, they do not want one. Selfhood is not an attractive project in their eyes. This move, although one to which I am sympathetic and to which I will return in chapter 7, is not available to the adherent of the inner sense model. For the goal of the inner sense model is to provide us with an account of authenticity—that is, an account of what it takes to be an authentic self. We cannot be authentic selves, however, if we are not selves at all. 55 So, if following the inner sense model does not provide us with a self, it fails on its own terms. It does not do what it sets out to do. To summarize, the conceptual argument represents an internal criticism of the inner sense model. The model purports to describe a path to authentic selfhood. But if we follow its guidelines—if we express all our natural beliefs and desires—we are unlikely to be authentic selves. For we are unlikely to be selves at all. We will be incongruous heaps that lack the inner unity needed for selfhood. 56 Is Abstract Unity Enough? There may be a way to defend the inner sense model from this charge. It could be argued that the inner sense model does provide a kind of inner unity after all—just an abstract kind. Following the model may well lead us to experience fragmentation, but really only at the level of our concrete first-order beliefs and desires. The fragmentation will disappear at a higher-order level. When it comes to our attitudes toward our first-order beliefs and desires, there will be unity. At any given moment, our incongruous first-order beliefs and desires will be bound together in our minds as so many different aspects of our struggle to be authentic. The same holds for the diachronic axis. Over the course of our lives, our changing beliefs and desires will be unified by the thought that they are all just

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moments in our ongoing pursuit of authenticity. In sum, adherence to the inner sense model will itself be the thread that ties our life together. To frame this point in another way, it is not true that the person who pursues the inner sense model will lack all deep and abiding commitments. He or she may have no abiding first-order commitments, of course. As A recommends, he or she may refuse to commit to loving any specific person or following through with any particular career. So, he or she may break off a relationship without a moment’s notice or change jobs every six months. But the devout adherent of the inner sense model will have at least one stable higher-order commitment. To wit, he or she will have the commitment to living authentically as laid out by the inner sense model. This commitment will not be a trite one. Keeping it will involve work, and a lot of it. As noted at the outset of the chapter, the devotee of the inner sense model must perpetually sort through the contents of his or her mind. He or she must root out any beliefs or desires that are merely internalizations of social norms or part of a cultural inheritance. At every moment, he or she must pick out and then express only those feelings and inclinations that occur naturally and spontaneously within his or her heart. An adherent of the inner sense model could appeal to these stable patterns of behavior when responding to the question, “Who are you?” And there is enough content here for at least somewhat of an answer. Of course, the person will not have as much to say about himself or herself as someone who has stable and consistent first-order beliefs and desires. But he or she will not be completely devoid of a sense of self. The Need for Concrete Unity It might seem as though Kierkegaard has to bite the bullet on this objection. For there are passages where he seems to suggest that an abstract kind of unity is all we need in our lives. In Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, for instance, he claims we avoid the stress of conflicting desires or “double-mindedness” not by picking a specific project and sticking with it for our entire lives. The way to a unified consciousness or “purity of heart” is simply to “will the good” however that ends up looking in the various situations we encounter (UDVS 24–25/SKS 8:139–40). He makes a similar point in Christian Discourses. We overcome the perils of “serving two masters” not by dedicating our entire lives to one specific vocation. Rather, we do so by following the “one true master,” God, wherever he happens to tell us to go (CD 83–85/SKS 10:91–93). If we follow Kierkegaard’s advice in these texts, our day-to-day lives may end up rather fragmented. For both God and the good can lead us in all kinds of directions. What they call for in one moment can be entirely different from what they call for the next, at least at a fine-grained level of description. Ultimately, we may not enjoy more unity on the concrete

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level of our everyday comings and goings than the person who adheres to the inner sense model. I do not think it is best to read Kierkegaard as saying that abstract unity is good enough for selfhood, however. Or, if this is what he says in some places, it is not his most attractive position. For it does not fit with his more compelling insight that having a self requires having a personality. We do not have a personality if our lives merely possess higher-order or abstract unity. We need to have at least some stable and coherent firstorder beliefs and desires. There has to be at least something concrete, in other words, that binds together the moments of our lives. This point is best borne out by way of example. Imagine a precocious young college student named Rachel. While reading Rousseau’s Confessions in one of her literature classes, she is inspired by his devotion to the ideal of sincerity. She decides to follow in his footsteps by expressing outwardly whatever desires and beliefs arise naturally within her. Yet, not being much past her teenage years, Rachel’s inner life is chaotic. Like Diderot’s Lui, or A in Kierkegaard’s “Diapsalmata,” she is a mass of conflicting drives and urges. Expressing her natural inner feelings leads her at one moment to display great kindness for even the most casual acquaintances but at the next to be curt and insensitive even to her closest friends. One semester, doing what she honestly wants leads her to add an extra major so her applications to law schools will be more attractive. The next semester, it leads her to drop out of college altogether and become a barista so she can fund her avant garde film project. Rachel’s attitudes toward religion are similarly inconsistent. Some days she honestly feels the pull of her Christian upbringing. She goes to the local church, sits in the pews, and earnestly recites the traditional prayers her family said when she was young. Other days, she broods for hours over how a loving God could allow so much suffering in the world. Sometimes she gets so worked up about the problem that she posts rants on social media about how no reasonable person could be a theist. Her political beliefs are no different. In some conversations, she earnestly advocates for conservative Republican policies. In others, she sincerely attacks the very same policies from a liberal perspective. So it goes with all things in Rachel’s life. She never settles on any one project or point of view for very long, and she has no compunction about contradicting one moment what she said or did the moment before. There is, at the most abstract level, a single thread that ties together the parts of Rachel’s life. In every situation and circumstance, she pursues the goal of adhering to her version of the inner sense model. Yet, despite the fact that her life exhibits this abstract unity, she does not seem to have a determinate personality. Her overarching goal in life leads her in so many different directions that there is not much—at least not much that is concrete—she could say in response to the question, “Who are you?” Were we to consider the prospect of entering into a relationship

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with Rachel, we would have to confess that we do not have a clear idea with whom we would be interacting. We would have to say of her what Judge William says of A on account of his constant flittering; she is “a non-entity” (EO 2:159/SKS 3:157; see also EO 2:265/SKS 3:252). If this analysis of the Rachel example is correct, it follows that higherorder unity alone is not quite enough for having a personality. There also has to be some amount of coherence and stability at the level of our firstorder desires and beliefs. How much and what kind is unclear. Many current accounts of selfhood require there to be consistency among our core desires and beliefs at any given moment. It is typical to add that these desires and beliefs must possess continuity over time as well. But usually not perfect continuity. It is common to allow for some amount of change over time. 57 Shelly Kagan suggests one plausible way of being more precise here. 58 He asks us to imagine a rope stretched across a room. The rope is made up of bundles of thin fibers that have been woven together. Each individual fiber is very short, often not more than a few inches. None extend the entire length of the rope. But this does not lead us to say it is not the same rope at the beginning and end. The fact that at any given point most of the threads continue, with only a few old ones tapering off and a few new ones being introduced, is enough for sameness. Kagan proposes that something similar holds for personalities. No one of our beliefs or desires needs to last our entire lives. It is sufficient for having a unified personality if at any given moment there is a large amount of overlap between our old beliefs and desires and our new ones. However we work out the details here, Kierkegaard’s overarching criticism of the inner-sense model still holds. Following it will not guarantee us the kind of inner unity we need in order to have a personality and thus a genuine self. Of course, the inner sense model will not always produce the extreme fragmentation we see in the cases of Jeremy, Rachel, or A. Some adherents of the model may even end up with considerable stability in their lives. But to the degree this happens it will only be by chance. Therefore, if we want to ensure that we acquire a real or authentic self, we need to move beyond the inner sense model. We must find a model that does not just ask us to express outwardly whatever naturally occurs within us but that gets us to shape and mold our inner states so they constitute a unified whole. In the next chapter, I will turn to a model of authenticity that proposes to do precisely this. NOTES 1. For more recent philosophical discussions of this point, see Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (New York: Psychology Press, 2004), 34–35, 55–56; Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 24–25.

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2. For Kierkegaard’s account of the ironic attitude, see Andrew Cross, “Neither Either nor Or: The Perils of Reflexive Irony,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon Marino (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 137; Brad Frazier, Rorty and Kierkegaard on Irony and Moral Commitment: Philosophical and Theological Connections (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 119; K. Brian Söderquist, The Isolated Self: Irony as Truth and Untruth in Søren Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 2007), 97–100, 106. 3. For further discussion, see Cross, “Neither Either nor Or: The Perils of Reflexive Irony”; Frazier, Rorty and Kierkegaard, 133–48, 151, 162–64; John Lippitt, Humour and Irony in Kierkegaard’s Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 148; Söderquist, The Isolated Self, 108, 110, 129, 131, 134–37; K. Brian Söderquist, “Irony,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 356; George Willis Williams III, “Irony as the Birth of Kierkegaard’s ‘Single Individual’ and the Beginning of Politics,” Toronto Journal of Theology 28, no. 2 (2012): 309–318. 4. Somogy Varga, Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal (New York: Routledge, 2012), 7. 5. For example, Rousseau says, “The particular object of my confessions is to make known my inner self, exactly as it was in every circumstance of my life. It is the history of my soul that I promised, and to relate it faithfully I require no other memorandum; all I need do, all I have done up until now, is to look inside myself” (Confessions, trans. Angela Scholar [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 270). 6. See Johann Gottfried von Herder, Herder: Philosophical Writings, trans. Michael N. Forster (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 414. 7. For other accounts of the inner sense model, see Guignon, On Being Authentic, 57–58; Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 26–29; Varga, Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal, 61–70. 8. The difficulty of determining which of our beliefs and desires are natural to us and which are the product of social conditioning has led some critics to regard this as the central problem facing the inner sense model. For example, see Varga, Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal, 62–65. 9. Noreen Khawaja, The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 28–69. 10. I draw here on C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1983), 33–36. 11. For descriptions of this alternative way of thinking about the aesthetic lifeview, see John J. Davenport, “The Meaning of Kierkegaard’s Choice between the Aesthetic and the Ethical: A Response to MacIntyre,” in Kierkegaard After MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, ed. John J. Davenport and Anthony Rudd (Chicago: Open Court, 2001), 75–112; Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 12; Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 25. 12. On some ways of differentiating between Kierkegaard’s spheres of existence, the deliberate choice to live immediately would push a person into the ethical sphere. This does not entail that he or she counts as ethically good, just that his or her actions can be evaluated in terms of the ethical categories of praise and blame. For defense of this view, Davenport, “The Meaning of Kierkegaard’s Choice.” 13. For example, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 68–89. 14. Joakim Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 265. 15. For Kierkegaard’s views on primitivity, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 236; Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” 265; Daniel Watts, “Kierkegaard and the Search for Self-Knowledge,” European Journal of Philosophy 21, no. 4 (2013): 525–49.

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16. See Rick Anthony Furtak, “The Virtues of Authenticity: A Kierkegaardian Essay in Moral Psychology,” International Philosophical Quarterly 43, no. 4 (2003): 423–438. 17. Cheshire Calhoun, “Standing for Something,” The Journal of Philosophy, 1995, 235–260. 18. Simon Feldman, Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn’t Be Yourself (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 98. 19. Hölderlin connects the process of uncovering our natural drives with that of getting in touch with our original childlike state. Herder and, more recently, Rilke associate it with getting in touch with the divine aspects of ourselves. For further discussion, see Guignon, On Being Authentic, x–xi, 53, 57–58; Söderquist, The Isolated Self, 205; Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 27–29. 20. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 167. 21. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 65; Guignon, On Being Authentic, 76. 22. Denis Diderot, Rameau’s Nephew and Other Works, trans. Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2001). For discussion of the relationship between Diderot’s work and theories of authenticity, see Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity; Bernard Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” in Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 172–205. 23. Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” 189. 24. Diderot, Rameau’s Nephew, 8. 25. Ibid., 74. 26. Ibid., 8–9. 27. Ibid., 47. 28. Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” 189. 29. Patrick Stokes, “The Problem of Spontaneous Goodness: From Kierkegaard to Løgstrup (via Zhuangzi and Eckhart),” Continental Philosophy Review 49, no. 2 (2016): 139–59. 30. I am not the first to raise a moral objection against the inner sense model. For other discussions that proceed from a Kierkegaardian perspective, see Frazier, Rorty and Kierkegaard, 129; Anthony Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 79–99; Söderquist, The Isolated Self, 139–72. For general philosophical discussions of the moral objection, see Calhoun, “Standing for Something”; Feldman, Against Authenticity, 95–126; Guignon, On Being Authentic, 27, 46–47, 92, 159–63; Khawaja, The Religion of Existence, 31–32; Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 27–29, 43, 55; Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 13–18. 31. Rob Compaijen, Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of View (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 157–234; Ryan S. Kemp, “Kierkegaard’s ‘A,’ the Aesthete: Aestheticism and the Limits of Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms, ed. Katarina Nun and Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 17 (New York: Routledge, 2015), 1–25; Walter Wietzke, “The Single Individual and the Normative Question,” The European Legacy 18, no. 7 (2013): 896–911. 32. Bernard Williams, “Persons, Character and Morality,” in Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 1–19. 33. John J. Davenport, “What Kierkegaardian Faith Adds to Alterity Ethics: How Levinas and Derrida Miss the Eschatological Dimension,” in Kierkegaard and Levinas: Ethics, Politics, and Religion, ed. J. Aaron Simmons and David Wood (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 169–72; John Lippitt, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling (New York: Routledge, 2003), 142–52. 34. It is not quite accurate to read Silentio or Williams as saying that identity trumps morality. A better interpretation is to see them as calling into question a restrictive conception of morality that assigns too little importance to personal identity. They are pushing us toward a “higher” conception of morality that allows room for holding onto our identities even when they conflict with crude general rules. Thus, Silentio

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says, “[I]t does not follow that the ethical should be invalidated; rather, the ethical receives a completely different expression” (FT 70/SKS 4:162). For further discussion, see Davenport, “What Kierkegaardian Faith Adds,” 169–72. 35. Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 49–50. 36. Evans, Kierkegaard, 87–89. 37. Walter Wietzke points out that the connection between morality and a person’s intrinsic motivational set may be indirect. People who do not care about morality itself may still care about things from which moral considerations flow. Thus, although direct appeals to moral concerns may not gain traction with them, it may be possible to show them how morality is bound up with concerns that do gain traction with them. On Wietzke’s view, this is what Judge William is trying to do for A. See Walter Wietzke, “Practical Reason and the Imagination,” Res Philosophica 90, no. 4 (2013): 533; for further discussion, see Compaijen, Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of View. 38. For other discussions of the unity problem, see Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” 259; Guignon, On Being Authentic, 112, 123, 152; Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” 191–98. 39. Christine M. Korsgaard, The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 59n52; Korsgaard repeats the story in Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 169. 40. John Michael Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 41. Kierkegaard discusses the importance of having continuity and coherence in our lives in a number of places (EO 2:160, 265/SKS 3:157-58, 252; SLW 10/SKS 6:18; UDVS 7-154/SKS 8:123-250; CD 81-92/SKS 10:89-90; SUD 30-42/SKS 145-57). 42. For support and discussion, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1999, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1999), 96–109; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 44–45. 43. Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 95; see also John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012), 97, 110; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 43. 44. For example, see Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 115; Anthony Rudd, “Kierkegaard, MacIntyre and Narrative Unity—Reply to Lippitt,” Inquiry 50, no. 5 (2007): 545. 45. For further discussion, see Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 78, 115. 46. For discussion of these criticisms, see John Lippitt, “Getting the Story Straight: Kierkegaard, MacIntyre and Some Problems with Narrative,” Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2007): 34–69; “Kierkegaard and Moral Philosophy: Some Recent Themes,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 504–27. 47. Lippitt, “Getting the Story Straight,” 54. 48. For a defense of this criticism, see Philip L. Quinn, “Unity and Disunity, Harmony and Discord: A Response to Lillegard and Davenport,” in Kierkegaard After MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, ed. John J. Davenport and Anthony Rudd (Chicago: Open Court, 2001), 327–38. 49. Here I draw on Galen Strawson’s distinction between an episodic and a diachronic self-experience; see “Against Narrativity,” Ratio 17, no. 4 (2004): 428–452. 50. Lippitt, “Getting the Story Straight,” 52. 51. Ibid., 56–57. 52. Carl Henrik Koch, “F. C. Sibbern,” in Den Danske Idealisme: 1800-1880 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004), 87–160; Hartmut Rosenau, “I. H. Fichte: Philosophy as the Most Cheerful Form of Service to God,” in Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries,

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Tome I: Philosophy, ed. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 6 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 49–66; Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 31–46. 53. Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 19; for further discussion, see Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 45–48; Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” 192. 54. Both Davenport and Korsgaard develop a more elaborate defense of this point. They argue that inner unity is necessary for autonomy, and autonomy in turn is necessary for selfhood. Korsgaard puts the key premise as follows: “Unity is required for agency because in order to see our movements as actions, we have to see those movements as arising from ourselves as a whole, rather than from something merely working in us or on us. To act is, as it were, to put yourself fully behind your own movements, and you can do that only to the extent that you are unified” (“SelfConstitution and Irony,” in A Case for Irony [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011], 76; see also Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 18–26; Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 91–130). 55. There is an unfortunate ambiguity here regarding the meaning of the phrase, “having an authentic self.” On the one hand, the phrase can refer to having an identity that is one’s own as opposed to an identity that has been pushed on one by others or society at large. On the other hand, it can refer to actually having an identity as opposed to merely appearing to have an identity. The trouble with the inner sense model, according to Kierkegaard, is that it threatens not to give us an authentic self in the second sense. Of course, if we do not have an authentic self in the second sense, then we cannot have one in the first sense either. 56. For further discussion of this general line of argument in Kierkegaard’s writings, see Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 15, 45–49; Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet,” 105; Frazier, Rorty and Kierkegaard, 122–23; Lippitt, “Kierkegaard and Moral Philosophy: Some Recent Themes,” 508–9; Anthony Rudd, “Reason in Ethics Revisited: MacIntyre and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard After MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, ed. John J. Davenport and Anthony Rudd (Chicago: Open Court, 2001), 138–39; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 17–25. 57. See, for example, Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 74–83. 58. Shelly Kagan, Death (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 130–31.

TWO The Constitution Model The Self as an Artistic Creation

Partly because of the problems discussed in the previous chapter, many early advocates of the ideal of authenticity abandoned the inner sense model. They rejected the idea that our true selves are things we can discover by looking within ourselves. Instead, they maintained, our authentic identity is something we must create or constitute. “One’s self,” as Khawaja describes this new idea, “is not locked up or hidden beneath layers of social distortion. It is not there to be discovered and expressed. It is the new product of an active, original choice on the part of the individual.” 1 In the current chapter, I will discuss the merits of this alternative "constitution model" of authentic selfhood. 2 I will begin by explaining how it has advantages over the inner sense model and thus rightly deserves some praise. Even so, drawing once again on Kierkegaard’s writings, I will maintain that we should reject it. 3 For it suffers from its own share of problems, including versions of the ones that damage the inner sense model. First, I will argue, the constitution model does not give us enough guidance. It tells us to create our identities for ourselves, but it does not provide us with any instructions about how to go about this daunting task. In addition, the constitution model does not do enough to rule out constructing immoral identities for ourselves, allowing that even monstrous people can be authentic. Finally, the constitution model comes up short because it leaves us with a sense of self that lacks stability. Thus, like the inner sense model, it suffers from the unity problem.

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OVERVIEW OF THE MODEL The constitution model takes several forms. One well-known version, developed by the German Romantics and later embraced by Sartre, relies on artistic and literary metaphors. Our selves are said to be works of art we must shape and mold; they are stories we must tell. 4 Developing the latter metaphor helps us to understand the use of the language of authenticity here. We count as authentic on the constitution model to the degree that we are the author of our own stories or narratives. Being the author of the story of our lives is a complex process. It requires going beyond the kind of passive acceptance of our natural and spontaneous thoughts and desires recommended by the inner sense model. Instead, we must sort through and discriminate among these inner states. Some of them we must select as worthy of endorsement; others we must discard as undeserving. Next, we must bring these judgments into harmony with each other. To iron out the inevitable conflicts that arise, we have to identify some things as more important to us than others. We have to pick out what is most fundamental to our lives and then create our own individual value hierarchy. The struggle to express this value hierarchy is what gives our lives narrative unity. It is the project that ties together the disparate aspects of our lives into a single, cohesive story. In the end, this story is who we really are on the constitution model. It is our true identity, our authentic self. As was the case with the inner sense model, Kierkegaard accepts several aspects of the constitution model. He agrees that authenticity requires more than passive acceptance of our natural thoughts and desires; we must shape and mold ourselves to some degree. 5 For instance, Judge William says we must take responsibility for ourselves by “choosing ourselves” (EO 2:214–15, 250–51/SKS 3:205–6, 239–40). Elsewhere the judge adds that we must “give birth to ourselves” (EO 2:259/SKS 3:246). Moreover, when speaking in his own voice, Kierkegaard often describes the self-shaping process in artistic terms. As Sylvia Walsh points out, he praises Socrates for being an existing work of art (JP 6:126/SKS 21:293). 6 Climacus picks up this way of talking in Postscript, where he says that day-to-day living is an art. “The subjective thinker is not a scientist-scholar; he is an artist,” he claims, and thus “to exist is an art” (CUP 1:351/SKS 7:320; see also CUP 1:303/SKS 7:276). Sometimes Climacus expresses this idea in specifically literary terms. He likens the great individual to a creative writer who gives style to his or her character (CUP 1:86, 357/SKS 7:85, 326). Drawing on these and other passages, Anthony Rudd and John Davenport argue that Kierkegaard embraces a narrative conception of the self. 7 He believes that the story we tell about our lives defines who we are. Some scholars have held that Kierkegaard outright endorses the constitution model. 8 I believe this is a mistake, however. Aspects of it may

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have appealed to him, but on the whole he finds it wanting. This comes out most clearly in Sickness Unto Death. There Anti-Climacus, the pseudonym with whom Kierkegaard most closely identifies, asserts that trying to create our own identities is a form of despair: “[T]he self in despair wants to be master of itself or to create itself, to make his self into the self he wants to be, to determine what he will have or not have in his concrete self. . . . The self [on this model] is its own master, absolutely its own master, so-called; and precisely this is the despair” (SUD 68–69/SKS 11:182–83). 9 In the rest of the chapter, I will explain some of the reasons why Kierkegaard ends up rejecting the constitution model despite its initial appeal. THE GUIDANCE PROBLEM Kierkegaard’s most influential objection is what I will call the guidance problem. 10 The crux of the problem is that the constitution model does not offer any concrete instructions about how to constitute the story of our lives. It does not tell us which first-order thoughts and desires to endorse and which ones to reject. Nor does it specify which values to emphasize and which to downplay. As a result, an endless number of options confront us. We could make our lives revolve around anything whatsoever, from counting blades of grass to helping the poor, from collecting pieces of lint to creating works of art. 11 All these paths would be fine as far as the constitution model goes. The resultant lives would be equally authentic, provided we endorsed them sincerely. What we need—and what the constitution model does not give us—is a principle to help us discriminate among our options. We need a criterion or standard for determining which path is better and which one is worse (see SUD 79–80/SKS 11:193–94; JP 1:171/SKS 17:141; JP 2:108/SKS 21:76). 12 Without a criterion provided for us, there is nothing left to do but proceed arbitrarily—or come up with our own criterion, of course. In fact, this latter option captures one common way of thinking about the constitution model. 13 The model requires us not only to author our own story but also to develop the principles that will inform how we do so. In other words, we have to develop our own rules for sorting through our firstorder inclinations and deciding which to endorse and which to reject. Yet, here too we face many options. Suppose, for instance, we have equally strong first-order inclinations toward practicing the cello and playing Dungeons and Dragons with our friends. Yet given the constraints on our schedules, we lack the time to pursue both hobbies in a meaningful way. We could make our decision based on what we find more fun and go with the role-playing game. Or, we could choose based on what brings the most beauty to the world and go with cello playing. Here is another example. Suppose we find ourselves attracted to both

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corporate accounting and social work, but we cannot realistically pursue more than one of these as a career. We could choose the option that will provide our family with more financial security and go with accounting. Or, we could take the path that promises to bring more happiness to more people and select social work. And so on and so forth for every decision in our lives. Not only are there an indefinite number of options before us, but there are also an indefinite number of second-order principles we could use to discriminate among these options. What we need, therefore, is a third-order principle that will help us determine which second-order principles to follow. Yet, there are bound to be many of these as well. So, the problem returns. Moreover, we cannot go on this way forever, always appealing to some still higher-order principle, on pain of an infinite regress. At some point, we will have to choose our guiding principles arbitrarily. But if our guiding principles are arbitrary, so too will be the story of our lives that we construct on their basis. Thus, to summarize, following the constitution model is problematic because ultimately it makes our identity arbitrary. 14 Not all philosophers have regarded this arbitrariness as a serious issue. Some have dismissed it out of hand as a misplaced worry. 15 Whether we should follow suit, I believe, depends on whether we can make mistakes when constituting our identities. Is it possible to choose the wrong project around which to structure the story of our lives? Is it possible to emphasize or downplay the wrong first-order desires and inclinations? If we can go astray when constituting our identities, then finding guidance is important. For we would like some way to tell when we are going wrong and some assistance with pinpointing what the right path would be. On the other hand, if mistakes are impossible, then the request for guidance is indeed misplaced. If there is no such thing as the right or wrong way to constitute our identities, if all that matters for authenticity is that we author our own stories and not how, then asking for help with how to do it rightly makes no sense. We merely need to come to terms with the fact that some of our choices will be arbitrary. In what follows, I will examine both sides of the issue. Radical Freedom In “Existentialism Is a Humanism” and other texts, Jean-Paul Sartre develops a version of the constitution model according to which it is (almost) impossible to make mistakes when constituting our identities. 16 Sartre maintains that we worry about making mistakes only because we (perhaps tacitly) buy into the idea that each of us has one true self. We accept the notion that there is a single determinate thing that each of us really is. This belief is a product of our religious heritage, according to Sartre. As a society, we have internalized the traditional Augustinian view that God has a plan for each of us and made us in accordance with

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this plan. He has created us as a craftsperson creates a pen-knife in accordance with a blueprint. 17 In sum, according to Sartre, the fear of making mistakes has its roots in the religious worry that we will fail to be who God intended us to be. Sartre, like most advocates of the constitution model, rejects the traditional Augustinian view. He does not believe in God, and certainly not the kind of God who has a specific plan for each of our lives. 18 But without God on the scene, Sartre thinks, there is no one to determine what our true self would be. So, the question of how to construct our identity is left to us. We are whoever we think we are. “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself,” as Sartre puts it. 19 To frame the point in Albert Camus’s way, if there is no God, then Ivan Karamazov is right and everything is permitted. 20 We can endorse or reject any firstorder beliefs and desires we please. Any life-defining project is acceptable and any story we tell about ourselves is fine, provided we are the ones who choose it. If this view is correct, then we enjoy what Sartre calls the “radical freedom” to create ourselves however we want. Such freedom may make us anxious, of course. We may not like that who we are is up to us. We may wish there were right and wrong ways to go or definitive guidance to be had. That is partly why Sartre says we are “condemned” to be free. 21 But there is not much use complaining about the point. It is just the way things are, according to Sartre. We are free and we might as well get used to it. Indeed, if we work at it, Camus claims, we may even learn to take pride in not being crushed by the fact of our freedom. 22 Facticity Sartre’s version of the constitution model might sound too extreme. It might seem like an exaggeration to say I can be whomever I want and tell my life story however I want. Such “decisionism” ignores the harsh realities of life. We can develop this criticism in several different ways. I will begin in this section with the most basic one. The reason I cannot constitute my identity in just any old way is that there are limits imposed on me by the cold, hard facts. My choices are constrained by what is sometimes called my “facticity.” I cannot correctly identify myself as a loving husband, for instance, if I neglect or abuse my spouse. Or, to use one of Kierkegaard’s examples, if I want to regard myself as a Christian, it cannot be the case that I never go to church and never think about God except when I curse (PV 41/SKS 16:23–24). This idea has worked its way into our everyday language. We have ways of referring to people whose view of themselves is inconsistent with the facts about their lives. We call them frauds, phonies, impostors, or posers. Of course, sometimes these people are just trying to pull the wool

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over our eyes. They do not actually believe they are who they present themselves as being. But not all cases are like this. Some people sincerely take themselves to be someone they cannot be given what they have done or how they live their lives. Consider the following example, which I have adapted from Jonathan Lear. 23 Say I take myself to be a teacher, and a good one at that. I do so because I get positive reviews from my peers and my students. I especially pride myself on the glowing comments beneath my name at RateMyProfessor.com, touting them to my friends and sharing selections on Facebook. I have even once received a nomination for my college’s teacher of the year award. The truth of the matter, however, is that my good reviews are not based on how much anyone learns in my classes. I am an easy grader, which goes over well, and I take my students out for coffee every few weeks. I crack lots of jokes, hand out prizes for games we play in class, and throw a pizza party at the end of every semester, something I make sure to mention right before handing out student evaluation forms. When colleagues come to observe my class, I prepare more than normal and tell my students to be on their best behavior. The teaching award nomination came from an old friend in my department whom I had agreed to nominate in return. To make matters worse, since my evaluations are strong, I do not see fit to make changes to my teaching style or devote much effort at improvement. I certainly do not take the time to go to teaching conferences or read up on college pedagogy. Worst of all, I never step back to reflect on whether anything I do really counts as “good teaching” or whether such a thing could be measured by student ratings and one-off peer assessments. If I ever did cast a skeptical eye on my teaching habits, if I ever scrutinized my concept of pedagogical excellence with the same care I devote to other concepts in my research, it would become clear to me that I am nothing but a fraud. Kierkegaard would say I am suffering from an "illusion." 24 He supplies several examples of this disorder all his own. The most well-known concerns “Christendom,” his term for the masses of people in nineteenthcentury Denmark who wrongly consider themselves Christians (PV 41–44/SKS 16:23–27). They have this view of themselves because “everyone” in Denmark is a Christian. It is the state religion, after all, and citizens are required by law to get baptized and become members of the church. Moreover, what religion would they be if they were not Christians (see CUP 1:50–51/SKS 7:55–56)? There are no Muslims in Denmark at this time, and virtually no Jews, let alone Hindus or Buddhists. The problem, Kierkegaard alleges, is that despite regarding themselves as Christians, the members of Christendom live their lives in “entirely different categories” (PV 41/SKS 16:24). They “never once go to church” and “never think about God” (PV 41/SKS 16:24). Or, if they do go to church on some Sundays, what they say at the service is not reflected in their behavior the rest of the week (CUP 1:467–71/SKS 7:424–27). During the profes-

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sion of faith, for instance, they join with the others in thanking God for absolutely everything. But outside on the street they proclaim themselves to be self-made men and women. Or, they praise God when the pastor speaks of the forgiveness of sins and they nod in agreement to the biblical passage about how we should forgive each other seven times seven times. But then they go right home to scream at their neighbor for an insignificant transgression. In short, the members of Christendom are phonies. They are not who they take themselves to be. If Sartre’s version of the constitution model were correct, this kind of error would be impossible. There would be no such thing as being a fraud or suffering from an illusion. We would be whomever we took ourselves to be. Experience suggests, however, that this is not right. The world is filled with phonies and frauds. Indeed many of us worry about being such things ourselves. It follows that the constitution model as Sartre sets it up has to be mistaken. This is a common line of objection to Sartre. 25 But there is a tendency for it to underestimate just how radical our freedom is on his account. On one way of interpreting him, I do not only get to choose my identity. I also get to choose the framework I use to interpret the world around me. That is to say, I get to choose the meaning of the concepts I deploy or—as Heidegger might put it—the being or essence of the things I encounter. I get to decide what it is to be a Christian, a good husband, or a good teacher. It is up to me what counts as “going to church,” “being faithful,” or “helping students learn.” There is no objective fact of the matter about these things to which I must adhere, according to Sartre. There may be social conventions, of course. There may be a consensus about what it takes to be a good husband or a genuine Christian. But I do not have to accept this consensus. I am free to depart from it if I please. Our ability to define for ourselves the essence of things has far-reaching consequences. If I get to define for myself what it is to be a Christian, then I can identify as a Christian even though I never go to church and never think about God except when I curse. Moreover, I can do so without making some mistake—without ignoring the harsh realities of life or violating the limits imposed on me by the cold, hard facts. This is all the more true once we recognize that I not only get to define for myself what it is to be a Christian but also what counts as “church” or “god.” I also get to decide for myself what it is for something to be “true” or “false” as well as “correct” or “mistaken.” Once we appreciate these points, the notion that we have to construct our identities in accordance with the cold, hard facts ceases to be much of a limit. Nevertheless, there remain at least some restrictions on the project of self-constitution. Ivan Karamazov is wrong; not everything is permitted. For instance, I may get to decide what counts as being a Christian for me. But I do not get to decide what counts as being a Christian for other people or for the community as a whole. So, if my community determines that

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baptism is necessary for Christian status, as many communities do, then I cannot rightly identify as a Christian in my community’s sense if I have not been baptized. Similarly, perhaps I get to decide what counts as being baptized for me. But I cannot guarantee my community will follow suit. So, if my community holds that a “true baptism” must be done by full immersion in a specific church meetinghouse by an ordained minister— as some nineteenth century Baptist denominations did—I cannot rightly regard myself as having been baptized in their sense just because I sprinkled myself with some water from Lake Superior one breezy afternoon and said a prayer in my head. 26 Still more fundamentally, it may well be that because I get to decide what counts as a “church,” I also get to decide whether the building in front of me constitutes a church rather than a brothel. But I do not get to decide whether a building exists in front of me at all. Nor do I get to dictate its size, shape, and mass. I also do not get to choose how other people have used the building in the past or will use it again in the future. So, if I choose to believe—not unreasonably—that a church is any place where people gather to worship God, but no group ever goes to the building in front of me to worship God, then I cannot rightly regard it as a church even in my own sense. Value Realism In sum, there are at least some limits to our freedom. There are certain bedrock facts with which we must contend even on the most radical version of the constitution model: facts about the physical world around us and facts about how others interact with this physical world. If we refuse to accommodate these facts in our attempts to constitute ourselves, then we are delusional. Like A at the end of Either/Or, our identity is unmoored from reality. Most defenders of the constitution model concede the possibility of making mistakes in this sense. Sartre himself talks about it under the heading of “bad faith.” 27 But even for someone such as Christine Korsgaard, who embraces a more moderate version of the constitution model than Sartre does, this is not a major concession. 28 For, Korsgaard points out, to admit that there are wrong ways to constitute our identity is not to admit there is any particular right way. 29 In fact, the limits imposed on us by our facticity do not constrain us much at all. They do not reduce the number of options for understanding ourselves to just one or even a select few. We are always left with a wide variety of ways to conceive of who we are. Within this broad domain, the defender of the constitution model can say, there is no right way to go. 30 There are “no definitive signposts hammered in,” as Adam Buben puts it, “only a series of wellworn paths that one can somewhat arbitrarily choose between.” 31

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Now I do not wish to commit myself to the idea that there is only one right way for each of us to construct our identity. But I do believe there are more limits on our options than defenders of the constitution model typically admit. In particular, there are more ways of going astray than just failing to accommodate the facts about the world. We can also make mistakes of value. We can err by structuring our lives around things that are not valuable or by failing to appreciate things that are. The best way I have to support this claim is not by way of abstract philosophical argument, however. It is rather by appealing to common experience. When we think back on our lives, most of us see ourselves as having cared about things that do not matter or the reverse. Some concrete examples, adapted from Susan Wolf’s Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, help bear this out. 32 It is easiest to think of cases where we made mistakes in the shaping of our lives because we cared about things that did not actually matter. Indeed, for many of us, such missteps dominated our juvenile years. Looking back at our middle school and high school careers, we shake our heads at how we wasted energy trying to be cool or fit in with a popular clique. What is important for my purposes is that we do not regard ourselves as having arbitrarily changed our minds in our older years about the worthiness of the pursuit of popularity. We do not think we have shifted to a different but equally valid way of viewing the endeavor. We believe our sense of what matters in life has improved. By leaving concerns about coolness behind, we see ourselves as having corrected a youthful blunder. Another kind of error that dominates our lives is having failed to find valuable what was in fact valuable. Examples here are also not hard to come by. Some of the most obvious ones have to do with past relationships. Looking back at our interactions with old partners, we sometimes think of ourselves as having taken them for granted. We did not realize the good things about them until they were gone. What matters, once again, is that we do not regard ourselves as having arbitrarily changed our minds about these past relationships. We do not believe that our view at the time was just as legitimate as our view now. We believe we were wrong before to think the person lacked interest or value. We did not see things for what they really were, and now we do. We encounter another example of this kind of error if we turn our focus to periods of depression. When we are depressed, it is easy to think our labors our pointless. Whatever we are doing with our lives seems not to matter. These negative judgments can lead us to make monumental decisions. We quit our jobs, drop out of school, leave our relationships, or abandon our religion because we cannot see why these things are worth the effort. In the worst of times, we cannot get out of bed because nothing we can do seems of consequence. We may even regard our lives as worth ending for this reason. But if we are fortunate, and if we have strong

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support from family and friends, we pull out of our depression. We stop feeling that everything is insignificant and stupid. We come to believe that our life projects are worthwhile after all. What is important, to reiterate my theme, is that when we pull out of our depression we do not see ourselves as arbitrarily shifting conceptual frameworks. We believe we have had a kind of awakening. We have moved from a warped vision of the world to a clearer and more accurate one. Our endeavors actually were meaningful during the time of our depression; we just could not see it. Because of our mental illness, we were missing the value that really was there. In conclusion, our attitudes toward our lives reveal that we are committed to the existence of objective values. It is an ineluctable part of our everyday thinking that some things matter and others do not. It follows that we are also committed to the possibility of making mistakes in the constitution of our identities. We can structure our sense of self around projects that are pointless. We can also shape the story of our lives in ways that lack sensitivity to those relationships and activities that are worthwhile. If mistakes are possible, however, then requesting guidance is reasonable. It is fair to ask of a model of selfhood that it help us discern which paths through life we should take and which ones we should avoid. Thus, the failure of the constitution model to give us such guidance is a serious shortcoming. THE MORAL PROBLEM Because the constitution model does not give us any rules for how to construct our identities, it also suffers from a version of the moral problem. If all we must do to become authentic is author our own stories, there is nothing that prevents us from doing so in evil ways. If all that matters is determining for ourselves the projects around which we will structure our lives, there is nothing stopping us from choosing projects that harm or endanger other people. This is a real threat. Take the much-discussed case of the painter, Paul Gauguin. 33 He abandons his family, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves, because he wishes to go to Tahiti to depict scenes of native life there. Gauguin proceeds in accordance with the constitution model. He lives by his own principles and pursues his own ideals. But doing so leads him to act with callous disregard for the suffering of those around him. And Gauguin’s story is a mild one. As Patricia Huntington notes, the arbitrary “decisionism” endorsed by the constitution model leaves open darker options. 34 A person could choose to base his or her identity on membership in the Nazi party or participation in a terrorist organization. It is important to see that the problem here is not just that moral monsters can live up to the standard of authenticity set by the constitu-

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tion model. The deeper issue is that the constitution model gives us no reason to prefer the life of the saint to the life of the monster. Provided both are self-chosen, the life of Hitler is no better or worse than that of Mother Theresa. They are equally authentic. A good model of selfhood would provide us with resources to discriminate among these options. It would offer us grounds for excluding monstrous paths from consideration. A Constructivist Response Korsgaard is familiar with this line of objection and she maintains that it is possible to overcome it. The constitution model can be set up so as to rule out constituting our identities in an immoral fashion. The way to install such moral guardrails, she argues, is to draw on a broadly Kantian theory of ethics or what is sometimes referred to as a constructivist theory of ethics. 35 The starting point for a constructivist defense is to note that the constitution model requires us to place a high value on our creative will. In fact, nothing is more important, according to the constitution model, than using our creative will to tell the story of our lives. There is nothing particularly special about our own individual will, however. It is the same as everyone else’s. If we value our own will, therefore, consistency requires us to value the wills of others. We must regard everyone else’s will as just as worth caring about as our own. Equal respect for the free and creative will of all people is the foundation of a powerful ethical system. It rules out using other people as a mere means to our own ends. It requires not harming or even endangering anyone else as we undertake the projects around which we have chosen to structure our lives. Such harm or endangerment would amount to a failure to respect the freedom of others as much as we do our own. It would be an unjustified privileging of ourselves. Thus, a constructivist theory of ethics seems to solve the moral problem. It seems to enable defenders of the constitution model to forbid monstrous identities after all. These identities are off the table because embracing them would require adopting an irrational attitude toward the value of creativity that lies at the heart of the constitution model. The author of a monstrous identity would have to respect creativity as it exists within himself or herself but not as it exists within others. The Inadequacy of Constructivism There is much to say in favor of constructivist theories of ethics. It is better to have the constraints they introduce than to have none at all. Still, constructivist theories do not do enough to save the constitution model from the moral problem. They do not rule out all the lives we want ruled out. For it is possible to have the respect for others’ free will that a con-

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structivist theory requires without the kind of concern for others’ wellbeing that a morally decent human being possesses. In other words, a person can live up to the demands of a constructivist theory of ethics and still be morally deficient. In “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons,” Sarah Buss develops a powerful version of this criticism of constructivism. 36 She makes her case by drawing on a fictional example from Kierkegaard’s writings. In particular, she appeals to “The Diary of the Seducer” from the end of part I of Either/Or (EO 1:301–445/SKS 2:291–432). The diary purports to belong to a young man named Johannes. Its contents include his account of his carefully orchestrated seduction of a young woman named Cordelia. Over the course of their affair, Johannes manipulates and deceives Cordelia. He lies to her about his intentions and goals, and he puts her in contrived situations that lead her to respond how he wants. Once he has enjoyed the dance of seduction to its fullest, he abandons her (EO 1:444–45/SKS 2:431–32). Buss maintains that, although Johannes manipulates and deceives Cordelia, he does not undercut her autonomy. In particular, he does not prevent her from constituting her identity as she sees fit. 37 For Johannes is a peculiar type of seducer. His goal is not the usual one of tricking a woman into consenting to have sex with him. His aims are more cerebral. What interests Johannes is not Cordelia’s physical body as much as her creative will. He is excited by observing her develop and express her creative powers. More specifically, Johannes is a devotee of the constitution model of selfhood, and the purpose behind his machinations is to help Cordelia engage in the constitution process too. 38 He wishes to maneuver her into a position where she no longer passively accepts the sense of self she has inherited from her family but instead constructs the story of her life according to her own principles. 39 Thus, far from undermining Cordelia’s powers of self-determination, Johannes supports them. He helps her become more independent, more self-creative. His aim comes out in the following diary entry: She must become stronger in herself. . . . She herself must be developed inwardly; she must feel her soul’s resilience, she must test the world’s weight. . . . She must owe me nothing, for she must be free; love exists only in freedom, only in freedom are there recreation and everlasting amusement. . . . Between the two of us must prevail only the proper play of freedom. 40

Despite Johannes’s evident regard for Cordelia’s freedom, his treatment of her is disturbing. As soon as her development is complete, he jilts her. He has enjoyed her progress as much as he can, and so it is time to move on to the next woman. The sudden break leaves Cordelia in a state of emotional distress; she is devastated by the relationship’s sudden end (EO 1:312/SKS 2:301–2). But Johannes does not care. He is not bothered by

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the unhappiness he has caused her. It is on to the next thing for him (see EO 1:306–7/SKS 2:296–97). This lack of concern for Cordelia’s well-being is what makes Johannes a dubious figure, according to Buss. He is not unethical because he fails to respect her free will. He is unethical because he cares about her free will and nothing else. He has no further regard for whether her life goes well or poorly, for whether she is happy or sad. 41 If we accept Buss’s argument, and I think we should, the upshot is that drawing on a constructivist theory of ethics does not enable the constitution model entirely to avoid the moral problem. True, it does justify some moral constraints on how we can author the story of our lives. In particular, using others as a mere means to our own ends is forbidden. This restriction is important; it is better to have it as part of the constitution model than not. But ruling out the use of others as a mere means does not guarantee that adherents of the constitution model will be decent human beings. 42 For it does not prevent them from becoming people like Johannes who have little regard for the happiness of those who come into their orbit. Thus, to the degree we care about ruling out such a life, we need resources beyond what the constitution model gives us. THE UNITY PROBLEM It was easy to see back in chapter 1 how the unity problem arose for the inner sense model. The inner sense model said that who we are is a function of our natural and spontaneous thoughts and desires. Since these inner states are prone to vacillation, it followed that the identity we end up with when relying on them will also be prone to vacillation. The story of how the unity problem affects the constitution model is more complicated. For the constitution model says that we get to determine who we are; the content and contours of our identity are up to us. Thus, if we want a unified self, it would seem we could just choose one. The source of the unity problem for the constitution model is the fact that we can always change our mind about who we think we are. Even though in the past we said that we were x, we can decide right now that we are not x but y or z. We can abandon the beliefs, desires, values, and projects that have defined us so far and pick up new ones. We can rewrite the story of our lives in a radically different way. Indeed, since who we are is entirely up to us on the constitution model, we can rewrite the story of our lives as often as we please. We can turn our identity on and off or twist it this way and that way whenever we see fit. 43 Of course, we could try to secure the continuity of our identity by making a resolution. We could pledge ourselves to a specific project, or we could commit ourselves to a particular way of thinking about our story. This strategy seems promising, and it is the one both Korsgaard

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and Hubert Dreyfus recommend. 44 But Kierkegaard believes it will not work. It will not ensure that our lives possess inner unity. The key to Kierkegaard’s position is a much discussed journal entry: “If there is nothing higher than me that is binding, and I am supposed to bind myself, whence shall I, as A who does the binding, acquire the strictness that I lack as B, who is the one bound—when after all A and B are the same self” (JP 1:76/SKS 23:45). Michelle Kosch explains Kierkegaard’s point as follows. 45 Commitments are binding only if the person to whom they are made chooses to regard them as binding. It is always in the power of the promisee to let the promisor off the hook. Thus, a promise or commitment I make to myself is binding only if I decide to regard it as such. The problem is that I can always change my mind about the matter. I can always decide now to regard as insignificant a promise I took seriously in the past. Thus, according to Kierkegaard, it is impossible for me to make binding commitments to myself, including ones about how I should think about my identity in the future. In sum, whatever identity we create for ourselves, there is always the possibility that we will tear it down at a later moment. Our sense of self is “subordinate to the dialectic that rebellion is legitimate at any moment” (SUD 69/SKS 11:183). Indeed, if we follow the constitution model, we can press the reset button and start over again as often as we please. As AntiClimacus concludes in Sickness Unto Death, “In despair the self wants to enjoy the total satisfaction of making itself into itself, of developing itself, of being itself. . . . And yet, in the final analysis, what it understands by itself is a riddle; in the very moment when it seems that the self is closest to having the building completed, it can arbitrarily dissolve the whole thing into nothing” (SUD 69–70/SKS 11:183). Can We Choose Our Beliefs and Desires? The objections to the unity problem discussed in chapter 1 could be raised here as well, and we could deal with them in similar ways. 46 But there is also a new objection worth considering, one peculiar to the version of the unity problem that affects the constitution model. To wit, the unity problem as it arises here presupposes that we can always change our minds about who we are. It is not clear we have this ability, though. Who we are, on the constitution model, is a function of our core beliefs and desires—the ones we stand behind and reflectively endorse. It follows that we can change our mind about our identities at the drop of a hat only if we can change our core beliefs and desires at the drop of a hat. But often it seems we cannot do so. Such “voluntarism” does not reflect our lived experience. 47 Once a particular belief or desire finds a place at the center of our worldview, it becomes resistant to change. And the longer it remains there, the more fixed its place becomes. At some point,

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we lose the power to reject a belief or desire even though we freely took it on board in the first place. This may be pushing things a bit too far, of course. A more modest way to develop the objection would be to say that while we could change our core beliefs and desires, most of us would not do so. Evidence for this claim is all around us. Few people in our society ever actually do change their core commitments. Such things, as Dreyfus notes, just have a tendency to stick with people. 48 So, Kierkegaard’s worry about the everpresent possibility of our overturning the applecart of our own lives seems overstated. It is not as much of a threat as he makes it sound. In addition, even if we could and would change our identities, it is not clear that would be so bad. Constant, wild flip-flopping might be a problem, as discussed in chapter 1. But, in general, embracing the possibility and actuality of change sounds like a virtue. Knowing we can always start over again with our sense of self can be liberating. It means never being stuck with an identity that is unhealthy or that we dislike. Moreover, actually undergoing shifts in our identity can be exhilarating. It can be part of the adventure of life. 49 Camus goes so far as to describe it as the centerpiece of the good life. In a world where there is no one right path, our goal should be to experience as many paths as we can. “What counts is not the best living but the most living,” he concludes. 50 Guarding Against Our Own Inconstancy I acknowledge that Kierkegaard has a tendency to exaggerate our freedom. There are passages that suggest he thinks we can believe whatever we want. In Philosophical Fragments, for instance, Climacus says, “[B]elief is not a piece of knowledge but an act of freedom, an expression of will” (PF 83/SKS 4:282). He adds a page later, “[T]he conclusion of belief is not a conclusion but a resolution” (PF 84/SKS 4:283). Taken at face value, these lines imply the view that belief is a matter of choice. Such extreme voluntarism is probably mistaken. We seem saddled with more limitations than it allows. Nevertheless, we need not cede too much ground here. After all, some people do change their minds about issues of central importance to their lives. So, it is at least possible. We also must remember that there several ways in which we can try to alter our beliefs. Drawing on the direct force of our will—trying to make ourselves believe or disbelieve by fiat—is not the only option. There are also indirect approaches, such as the one advocated by Pascal. He instructs those of us who cannot bring ourselves to believe in God to go to mass, take the holy water, and say the traditional prayers. If we devote enough energy to acting as if we believe, Pascal predicts, we will eventually find ourselves with belief. 51 Kierkegaard may be thinking about this kind of indirect voluntarism when he says that belief is a matter of will.

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We could further debate the merits of voluntarism at this point. But in a sense it does not matter. Defenders of the constitution model will eventually have to come down in favor of voluntarism. They will have to grant that we have significant control over the content of our beliefs and desires. For the constitution model revolves around the idea that we can be the author of our own stories. Pushing the anti-voluntarism line too hard would entail that such self-creation is impossible. We would be unable to do what we need to do to become authentic. Thus, it is the very nature of the constitution model, with its emphasis on freedom and choice, which generates Kierkegaard’s worry about changing our minds. This brings us to a deeper issue. Why is Kierkegaard bothered by the possibility of our changing our minds in the first place? Why is this a major issue for him? To answer this question, it helps to turn to a parallel issue discussed by Judge William. The judge points out in part II of Either/Or that many of us structure our identities around projects that can fail through no fault of our own (EO 2:180–91/SKS 3:175–85). The professor who derives meaning from teaching philosophy to his or her students can get fired because of budget cuts. The parent whose self-definition revolves around supporting his or her child can lose that child to tragic illness. When calamities such as these hit, Judge William says, we often despair (EO 2:192–95/SKS 3:186–89). We are overcome by that blend of sadness and bewilderment that accompanies not knowing who we are any more and not knowing whether we can go on. Of course, some people are fortunate enough never to experience despair. They live and die without the external conditions of their lives being pulled out from beneath them. Yet the judge considers the lives of these lucky few to be just as problematic as their unlucky counterparts. If both lives depend on things beyond the person’s control, there is no essential difference between the one who escapes despair and the one who does not (EO 2:191–92/SKS 3:185–86). Separated by nothing but the accidents of fate, they deserve the same judgment. Judge William concludes that we should set up our lives to rule out even the mere possibility of despair. We should make it so that our identities do not rely on external conditions and so cannot be destroyed against our will (EO 2:212–19/SKS 3:204–10). Judge William’s advice may sound extreme, but it is actually not far removed from common practice. Most of us are worried about the possibility that our life-defining projects will be undermined by forces beyond our control. And most of us take steps to head off this possibility. We may not avoid all outside risks whatsoever. But we will do things to reduce them. We will make sure our children wear their seat belts, for example, or get the medical attention they need. And we will advocate the importance of our discipline within the university so administrators are less likely to cut our positions in future budget crunches.

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It is in this light that we can understand Kierkegaard’s objection to the constitution model. As he sees it, following the constitution model introduces a new kind of risk. In addition to the external threats to our lifedefining projects that vex Judge William, we now have to contend with internal threats. Not only do we have to worry about the possibility of someone or something else destroying what we care about. We also have to worry about the possibility of those things being destroyed by ourselves—or at least by future versions of ourselves. Derek Parfit tells a well-known story about a Russian nobleman that gets at the heart of what concerns Kierkegaard. 52 The nobleman is a young socialist who in a few years will inherit vast estates. Because of his socialist ideals, he wants to give the lands to the peasants. But he worries that he may become more conservative when he gets older, as people sometimes do. He fears his desire to give away his lands may fade and he may elect to hold on to them after all. To rule out this possibility, he draws up a legal document, which will automatically emancipate his lands when he inherits them, and which cannot be revoked without his wife’s consent. He then tells his wife never to give him this consent. He says, “I regard my ideals as essential to me. Thus if I lose these ideals, I want you to think that I cease to exist. I want you to regard your husband then, not as me, the man who asks you for this promise, but only as his corrupted later self.” 53 The situation of the Russian nobleman is a metaphor for the one we all face if we follow the constitution model. The constitution model says we alone must decide what matters in our lives. We alone must choose in which projects to invest and around what values to structure our identities. But since we can always change our minds, there is always a possibility that future versions of ourselves will not care about what the present versions of ourselves do. Our own inconstancy may spell the doom of our greatest hopes and dreams. It seems reasonable to follow in the footsteps of the Russian nobleman and do something about this fact. Just as we guard against the threat of despair when it comes from an outside source, so too should we guard against the threat of despair when it comes from within. The problem, according to Kierkegaard, is that as long as we rely solely and completely on ourselves, there is nothing we can do. No matter how deeply we commit to a particular cause, we are always free to change our minds. We can always leave our current project behind and strike off in a new direction. Thus, the Russian nobleman has the right idea. Securing what we care about requires looking beyond ourselves for help. We need to lash ourselves to an external support (JP 1:76–77/SKS 23:45–46). As Anti-Climacus repeatedly says in Sickness Unto Death, if we want to avoid the threat of despair, we have to depend on an external power (SUD 14, 49, 131/SKS 11:130, 164, 242).

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Yet not just any old outside power will do. Many outside powers are themselves unstable. We serve ourselves poorly, for instance, if we look to popular culture or mass media. We do better if we rely on intimate friends and family members, as the Russian nobleman does. But the best option, at least in Kierkegaard’s mind, is to head in a religious direction. For the most dependable external power is the unchanging will of God (see SUD 79/SKS 11:193). Indeed, if we rely on God for our sense of self, Kierkegaard believes we can avoid all the problems plaguing the traditional models of selfhood. We will be free not just from the “care of vacillation” but all the “cares of the pagans” (CD 13–91/SKS 10:25–98). To use Rick Furtak and Sharon Krishek’s words, “Kierkegaard presents faith as the best possible response to our precarious and uncertain condition, and as the ideal way to cope with the insecurities and concerns that his readers will recognize as common features of human existence.” 54 I will explore this religious approach to selfhood in the next chapter. NOTES 1. Noreen Khawaja, The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 39. 2. The name for this model comes in part from Harry Frankfurt, who writes, “the person, in making a decision by which he identities with a desire, constitutes himself” (“Identification and Wholeheartedness,” in The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays, ed. Harry G. Frankfurt [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988], 170). The name also comes from Christine Korsgaard, who defends a modern version of it in her The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 3. For other discussions of Kierkegaard’s view of the constitution model, see John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012), 15, 38–90; Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2014), 40–45; Anthony Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 26–50; K. Brian Söderquist, “Irony,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 358–60. 4. For other accounts of the constitution model, see Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (New York: Psychology Press, 2004), 68–70, 130–32; Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 60–69. 5. For support, see Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 11–25. 6. Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994), 196–201. 7. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 131–49; John J. Davenport, “Selfhood and ‘Spirit,’” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 241–43; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 79–99; for additional discussion, see Patrick Stokes, The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 166–97. 8. For example, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1999, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1999), 96–109; Hubert L. Dreyfus and Jane Rubin, “You Can’t Get Something for Nothing: Kierkegaard and Heidegger on How Not to Overcome Nihilism,” Inquiry 30, no. 1–2 (1987): 33–75; Hubert L. Dreyfus and

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Jane Rubin, “Kierkegaard, Division II, and Later Heidegger,” in Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 283–340; Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 69–100; see also Michael O’Neill Burns, “The Self and Society in Kierkegaard’s Anti-Climacus Writings,” The Heythrop Journal 51, no. 4 (July 1, 2010): 625–35; Harrison Hall, “Love, and Death: Kierkegaard and Heidegger on Authentic and Inauthentic Human Existence,” Inquiry 27, no. 1–4 (1984): 179–197. 9. Here Kierkegaard admits that he is following Hegel (CI 275/SKS 1:311), who also rejected the Romantic view of the subject or self as that which “knows itself to be within itself the Absolute” (Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995], 507). For discussion, see Jon Stewart, Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony, & the Crisis of Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 87–110. 10. For other discussions of this objection to the constitution model, see R. Lanier Anderson, “On Marjorie Grene’s ‘Authenticity: An Existential Virtue,’” Ethics 125, no. 3 (2015): 815–819; Marjorie Grene, “Authenticity: An Existential Virtue,” Ethics, 1952, 266–274; Guignon, On Being Authentic, 44, 116, 141–43, 157; Charles Guignon, “Authenticity,” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 2 (2008): 277–290; Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 36–39, 68; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 100–125. 11. For the source of these examples, see David O. Brink, “The Significance of Desire,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics 3 (2007): 24; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 432. 12. For additional support, see Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 111; Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 36–45. 13. For example, see Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 23, 25, 209. 14. Perhaps the earliest version of this objection was raised—wrongly, by my lights— against Kierkegaard himself. See Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 36–50. 15. For example, Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 23. 16. Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Penguin, 1975), 345–69. 17. Ibid., 290. 18. Ibid., 290–91. 19. Ibid., 291. As Sartre puts it elsewhere, “I am nothing other than my work, I am a destiny for myself” (Notebooks for an Ethics, trans. David Pellauer [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992], 107). 20. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 67. 21. Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” 295; see also Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1956), 653. 22. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 122. 23. See Jonathan Lear, A Case for Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 17–19. 24. I develop a more robust account of Kierkegaard’s notion of illusions elsewhere; see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion,” in The Point of View, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary 22 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010), 295–324. 25. For discussion of this objection, see Khawaja, The Religion of Existence, 55. 26. William H. Brackney, The Baptists (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 59. 27. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 86–118. 28. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 209. 29. Christine M. Korsgaard, “Self-Constitution and Irony,” in A Case for Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 81. 30. In his later work, Sartre holds the more modest view that our freedom is limited but not entirely undermined by our facticity. For support, see Antony Aumann, “Sartre’s

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View of Kierkegaard as Transhistorical Man,” Journal of Philosophical Research 31 (2006): 361–372. 31. Adam Buben, Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger: Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2016), 132. 32. Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 43–44. 33. The details of Gauguin’s life are more complex than I suggest here, and they may mitigate the moral charge against him. 34. Patricia J. Huntington, “Heidegger’s Reading of Kierkegaard Revisited: From Ontological Abstraction to Ethical Concretion,” in Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, ed. Martin Matuštík, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 56. For further discussion of this objection, see Cheshire Calhoun, “Standing for Something,” The Journal of Philosophy, 1995, 235–260; Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet,” 106; Khawaja, The Religion of Existence, 35. 35. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 133–76. 36. Sarah Buss, “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons: Manipulation, Seduction, and the Basis of Moral Constraints,” Ethics 115, no. 2 (2005): 195–235. 37. Ibid., 202. 38. In this sense, Johannes is an adherent of the constitution model. For support for this interpretation, see Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, “Historical Introduction,” in Either/Or, part I, Kierkegaard’s Writings 3 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), ix; Walsh, Living Poetically, 65. 39. Buss, “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons,” 201. 40. Here I cite the Hannay translation for emphasis: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, trans. Alastair Hannay (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 299 (cf. EO 1:360-61/SKS 2:349-50). 41. Buss, “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons,” 230–31. 42. Ibid., 196. 43. For other discussions of Kierkegaard’s version of the unity objection, see Robert Merrihew Adams, “Vocation,” Faith and Philosophy 4, no. 4 (1987): 456–57; Karen L. Carr, “Kierkegaard and Atheistic Existentialism,” in Kierkegaard and Human Nature, ed. Roman Kralik et al., Acta Kierkegaardiana 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013), 72–73; Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality, 116; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 72–75, 86–87; Stokes, The Naked Self, 185; Söderquist, “Irony,” 359, 361. For general discussions of the unity objection, see Guignon, On Being Authentic, xii, 44, 144–45, 152; Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 36–39, 68–69. 44. Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet”; Korsgaard, Self-Constitution, 25. 45. Michelle Kosch, Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 155–78. 46. For another objection to the importance of unity, see Marya Schechtman, “Making Ourselves Whole: Wholeheartedness, Narrative, and Agency,” Ethical Perspectives 21, no. 2 (2014): 175–198. 47. For discussions about whether Kierkegaard accepts direct voluntarism about belief, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 299–309; Kosch, Freedom and Reason, 187–99. 48. Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet,” 108. 49. For discussion of this point, see John Lippitt, “Getting the Story Straight: Kierkegaard, MacIntyre and Some Problems with Narrative,” Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2007): 52. 50. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 61. 51. Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. W. F. Trotter (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), sec. 233. 52. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 327–28. 53. Ibid., 327. 54. Sharon Krishek and Rick Anthony Furtak, “A Cure for Worry? Kierkegaardian Faith and the Insecurity of Human Existence,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 72, no. 3 (2012): 158.

THREE Kierkegaard’s Religious Model Receiving Ourselves from God

One of Kierkegaard’s contributions to existentialism is that he diagnoses the underlying problem with the popular models of authenticity we have been inspecting. As he sees it, the reason they encounter so many difficulties is that they prescribe self-reliance. They recommend that we base our identity on resources found within ourselves. The inner sense model, for instance, makes who we are a matter of our own spontaneous thoughts and feelings. The constitution model directs us to construct our sense of self by using our own creative powers. These kinds of attempts at selfreliance are misguided, according to Kierkegaard. When it comes to determining who we are, we cannot go it alone. We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. This is what he means when he says, “real self-doubling without a constraining third factor outside oneself is an impossibility” (JP 1:76/SKS 23:45). 1 Readers familiar with Kierkegaard know that he pushes this insight in a religious direction. He asserts that while we must rely on others to succeed at selfhood, not just any others will do. We must turn to a specific other—namely, the transcendent other, God. Only from “the power that established [us]” can we learn who we are (SUD 14, 49, 131/SKS 11:130, 164, 242). In sum, on Kierkegaard’s view, our identity is not something we can discover on our own by looking within ourselves. Nor is it something we can manufacture for ourselves in a burst of artistic creativity. Our identity is something we have to receive from an outside source and, in particular, from God (EO 2:177, 216–17/SKS 3:172, 207–8; UDVS 93/SKS 8:198). 2 There is much to say in favor of Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood, and I will offer a qualified defense of it in this chapter. I will 59

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argue that Kierkegaard is right to hold that turning to God partly allays the problems with the traditional models of selfhood. What will hold me back from a full endorsement of Kierkegaard’s view is his belief that we can enjoy the existential benefits of turning to God only if we possess a radical brand of faith. Notional assent to the idea that God exists is not enough, by Kierkegaard’s lights. We must cultivate within ourselves an unconditional commitment to God, a willingness to cleave to him even in the darkest of moments. 3 And there will be dark moments, according to Kierkegaard. There will be times when it does not appear as though God is helping us even though we are pursuing him wholeheartedly. There will be occasions when it does not seem as though he is leading us toward a good or unified sense of self—or even providing us with any guidance at all. In light of these practical difficulties, I will conclude that Kierkegaard’s religious model is not a live option for everyone. The demands it makes are too much for some people. OVERVIEW OF THE MODEL It is easy to misinterpret Kierkegaard’s views here. I have said that he believes we cannot succeed at selfhood if we go it alone. But there is evidence to suggest he thinks the opposite is true. There are times when Kierkegaard appears to embrace self-reliance or individualism. Indeed, the most famous line in his entire authorship is Climacus’s assertion that “subjectivity is truth” (CUP 1:203/SKS 7:186). Moreover, in another oftquoted passage, he writes, “The crucial thing is to find a truth that is a truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die” (JP 5:34/SKS 17:24). Finally, he dedicates or addresses many of his books to “the single individual” (e.g., UDVS 4/SKS 9:121; WA 3/SKS 11:9). Indeed, he says his goal is “to prompt, if possible, to invite, to induce the many to press through this narrow pass, the single individual” (PV 118/SKS 16:98). Emphasizing such passages is not wrong, but they tell only part of the story. For Kierkegaard frequently qualifies what they say. A few pages after we hear “subjectivity is truth,” for instance, Climacus hedges by adding that there is a sense in which “subjectivity is untruth” (CUP 1:207/ SKS 7:189–90). This second statement fits with the core message of Philosophical Fragments, the earlier book penned under the Climacus pseudonym. There we learn that Socrates was wrong to think the truth lies within us. Because our hearts and minds are corrupt, the truth must come to us from a transcendent source (PF 13–19/SKS 4:222–30). A similar rejection of self-reliance lies behind the theme of dying to oneself, which we encounter in various places throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship (e.g., FSE 82/SKS 13:103; CUP 1:472/SKS 7:428). As Adam Buben explains, dying to oneself for Kierkegaard refers to “a disregarding, or hatred of the

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worldly self, which includes one’s selfishness, self-confidence, self-reliance.” 4 Finally, we encounter an explicit rejection of self-sufficiency in Sickness Unto Death. In the opening pages of this book, Anti-Climacus asserts that the self is a “derived, established relation” (SUD 13/SKS 11:130). He adds that the goal is to reach a place where “the self rests transparently [i.e., self-consciously] in the power that established it” (SUD 14/SKS 11:130). An accurate interpretation of Kierkegaard must accommodate both sides of the story. It must reflect the fact that in one sense subjectivity is truth and in another sense it is untruth. We can meet this desideratum by arguing that Kierkegaard is recommending a two-step movement or what he sometimes calls a “double movement.” The first step or part of the movement is to recede inward into ourselves. We must retreat from the crowd and leave behind the system of values we have inherited from society. We must get in touch with our innermost feelings, thoughts, and desires. Yet, such inwardness or subjectivity cannot be the final resting spot or terminus. We cannot satisfy ourselves with uncovering our own inner world. We must push beyond ourselves and look for outside help. It is at this second step or second part of the movement that Kierkegaard’s view becomes religious. He thinks that we are not to look for help from any old source. We are not to “rest transparently” in any old power. We must turn to and rely on God in particular (SUD 82/SKS 11:196). The path for Kierkegaard is thus as it was for Augustine more than a millennium before: “inward and upward.” 5 Only by looking to the heavens can we find or rather receive our true selves (EO 2:177, 216–17/SKS 3:172, 207–8). In sum, who we really are is not up to us, on Kierkegaard’s account. Our true identity is not something we can compose on our own. It is something God composes for us (CI 280–81/SKS 1:316–17; CUP 1:258/ SKS 7:234). We can shed more light on Kierkegaard’s view by noting how he draws on each of the traditional models of authenticity. From the inner sense model, he takes the idea that we find answers when we look within. He has Judge William say, “What [the individual] wants to actualize is certainly himself, but it is his ideal self, which he cannot acquire anywhere but within himself” (EO 2:259/SKS 3:247). Yet, we are not to turn inward because we encounter our own true voice there. Rather it is because that is where we encounter God. If we wish to discover God’s message for us, to learn who he wants us to become, we must separate ourselves from the busyness of everyday life. We must block out the noise of the crowd and enter into quiet, solitary contemplation. We can do so in prayer at home or at church, or by walking through the forest as Kierkegaard often did (JP 5:433/SKS 20:316–17). In these and similar settings where we find ourselves free from worldly distractions, we will be able to hear God speaking to us (UDVS 128–34/SKS 8:222–33).

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From the constitution model, Kierkegaard inherits the narrative view of personal identity. 6 He agrees with the Romantics that the story or narrative of our lives determines who we are. In addition, Kierkegaard accepts that for our stories to make sense, they need inner unity. They must be woven together around a set of fundamental goals or core values. What distinguishes Kierkegaard’s view from the constitution view is his belief that these fundamental goals and values must not be of our own choosing. We have to receive them from above. Indeed, on Kierkegaard’s account, God does not just offer us a set of generic principles to follow, such as the Ten Commandments. He assigns us a distinct vocation. God gives us a concrete task or project that is unique to us and cannot be deduced from the circumstances of our lives (JP 3:489–90/SKS 26:346–47). 7 Kierkegaard writes: “But this I do believe (and I am willing to listen to any objection, but I will not believe it), that at every person’s birth there comes into existence an eternal purpose for that person, for that person in particular. Faithfulness to oneself with respect to this is the highest thing a person can do” (UDVS 93/SKS 8:198). To summarize, in Joachim Garff’s words, God is “the true narrator” according to Kierkegaard, “the transcendent narrator, who can endow human beings with identity.” 8 THE TRADITIONAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD The success of Kierkegaard’s model of selfhood depends in part on how it handles the problems he himself raises for the traditional models of selfhood. We can begin with the guidance problem. At first pass, Kierkegaard’s religious approach seems to offer a promising solution. If God assigns us a unique vocation, then we do not face an indefinite number of paths among which we cannot discriminate. The paths before us are not all equally good. Instead, there is only one path that is right—namely, the one God has chosen for us. So, if we want to become who we really are, we just have to follow that path. Kierkegaard’s model also provides prima facie solutions to the other two problems with the traditional models of selfhood. First, like most theists, Kierkegaard believes God is morally perfect. So, if we let God fill out the content of our identity, we need not worry that pursuit of selfhood will lead us to harm or endanger others. A good God would not have us structure our lives around such evil projects. 9 Second, Kierkegaard follows the long Christian tradition of thinking that God is unchangeable (TM 263–81/SKS 13:321–39). Thus, we need not fear that he will alter his plans and leave us with a disjointed life. On the contrary, as Eleanor Helms has argued, we have reason to hope the story of our lives will eventually come together (UDVS 238/SKS 8:338–39; EUD 121/SKS 5:125–26). 10 In sum, for Kierkegaard, if we structure our lives around the

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vocation God assigns us, we can trust that we will end up with stable and coherent identities. We will be free from the “cares of the pagans,” as he says in Christian Discourses (CD 3–91/SKS 10:19–98). THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS DOUBT These initial solutions to the traditional problems of selfhood may comfort some people. More than a few may agree that faith is “the cure for worry,” to use Rick Furtak and Sharon Krishek’s expression. 11 But not everyone will share this sentiment. Among the reasons for hesitation is the simple fact that Kierkegaard’s model is religious. Buying into it requires taking on board the belief that God exists. Moreover, it requires accepting that God has a specific plan for each of us that he communicates to us. These theological dimensions to Kierkegaard’s view are subject to doubt. First of all, as Kierkegaard has Climacus admit, God’s existence is uncertain (PF 39–44/SKS 4:244–49; CUP 1:21–57, 209–10/SKS 7:29–61, 192–93; see also PC 26–31/SKS 12:40–45). From an objective point of view, there is a lack of compelling evidence that God is real. We do not have the sort of decisive proof that would convince all right-thinking people. Thus, objectively speaking, doubting whether God exists is reasonable. Doubts about God’s existence are a problem for Kierkegaard because they give rise to doubts about models of selfhood that rely on God’s existence. If we cannot be certain God exists, then we cannot be certain he can help us with the problems of selfhood. In particular, we cannot be sure any communications that seem to come from God actually do so. We must remain open to the possibility that the promptings of conscience are not God’s voice, as Kierkegaard holds, but internalized social norms, unconscious desires, or even madness. Even if we were certain about God’s existence, though, we still might have good reasons to question the viability of Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood. After all, many devoutly religious people do not experience themselves as receiving the sort of divine guidance that Kierkegaard’s model promises. They pursue a relationship with God, but he does not send them any messages. He does not supply them with a specific vocation around which to structure their lives. Or, so it seems to them. Indeed, they may even feel forsaken by God, as the Israelite people do at times in the Hebrew Bible and Jesus does in the Garden of Gethsemane. 12 Moreover, when God’s guidance does come, it does not always produce stability and coherence in our lives. As Climacus points out, God’s intrusion can result in radical changes. It can give rise to a conversion experience that transforms our vision of the world such that nothing is the same for us anymore (PF 9–20/SKS 4:218–28). Like Saul on the road to Damascus, God can ask us to perform an about-face in how we think

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about ourselves and our relationship to others. 13 And even if this never happens to us, even if God never actually commands us to upset the apple cart of our lives, the mere fact that it is an ever-present possibility is enough to make a life of adhering to God’s guidance feel unstable. 14 Finally, God’s guidance does not always appear to devotees to lead them toward what is morally good. Some knights of faith even experience him as instructing them to do what they consider horrendous evil. So it goes with Abraham on the interpretation provided by Johannes de Silentio in Fear and Trembling. God’s command that he sacrifice his son comes across as morally abhorrent. “Humanly speaking,” Silentio says, what Abraham sets out to do on Mount Moriah is “murder” (FT 30/SKS 4:126). KIERKEGAARD’S RELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY Kierkegaard is well aware of these problems. Part of his response strategy is to argue that it would be wrong of us to wait for better evidence before committing to God. It would be a mistake to postpone our decision until we acquired certainty of God’s existence (CUP 1:21–34, 199–202/SKS 7:29–40, 182–85). 15 We ought to pursue a relationship with God regardless of how much evidence we have at present. We should take a leap of faith—a fitting phrase even though Kierkegaard never actually uses it—beyond what objective reason supports (CUP 1:98–100/ SKS 7:97–99; JP 2:536/SKS 20:79–80). The rationale behind Kierkegaard’s recommendation that we take a leap of faith is not always clear. On an old interpretation, and one that continues to have some adherents today, there is no logical basis for the leap. 16 Kierkegaard is a fideist. He thinks religion comes down to faith, not reason. Thus, if the existence of God defies understanding, or if it goes against everything we know, this should not put us off. We should cling to God even if doing so makes no sense to us—or perhaps because it makes no sense to us. We should believe “by virtue of the absurd,” as Silentio says (FT 119/SKS 4:206). Although there are texts that support a fideist reading of Kierkegaard, I do not think it is the best way to read him. More persuasive by my lights are the increasingly popular interpretations that treat him as at least somewhat friendly to reason. 17 On one such interpretation, defended by Stephen Emmanuel and Robert Adams, Kierkegaard is a kind of pragmatist. 18 A la Pascal and William James, he thinks theoretical reason cannot decide the question of God’s existence. We will never have decisive evidence one way or the other because new evidence can always come in that would necessitate reversing our earlier findings. Thus, if we insist on waiting for absolute certainty, we will end up postponing our decision forever (CUP 1:21–34/SKS 7:29–40). Such

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postponement would put us in a bind. We need to determine what to do with our lives today. We need to choose whether right now in this very moment we will pursue God. The agnostic option of refusing to commit one way or the other is not a way out here. For it is in effect to decide not to follow God for the time being. Given this situation, Kierkegaard thinks, it is rationally permissible to let pragmatic considerations guide us. In other words, we are rationally justified—we act in accordance with the norms of reason and so cannot rightly be criticized—if we make our choice based on what we stand to gain or lose practically speaking. 19 And we stand to gain quite a bit by cleaving to God, according to Kierkegaard. Doing so will provide us with hope for an eternal happiness, as Climacus stresses in Postscript (CUP 1:16/SKS 7:25). It will also supply us with solutions to the traditional problems of selfhood, as Anti-Climacus argues in Sickness Unto Death (SUD 49/ SKS 11:164). C. Stephen Evans and K. Brian Söderquist present a second attractive way of interpreting Kierkegaard as friendly to rationality, one that fits loosely with the pragmatist reading. 20 On their account, Kierkegaard holds that our attitudes and beliefs affect how we see the world. What things stand out to us and what connections we make depend on our preexisting mindset. Kierkegaard pushes this point most frequently regarding love. The beloved looks different to the lover than to other people, he says. Indeed, the beloved may have attributes that only the lover can see. Non-lovers may be blind to some of his or her good-making features. 21 What is interesting for our purposes is that Kierkegaard also applies this point to our search for God. He thinks that it matters whether we look for God through the eyes of faith. Just as the lover detects virtues in the beloved that others overlook, so too the believer detects evidence of God’s presence that non-believers miss (JP 2:536–37/SKS 21:172). Thus, it is not quite true that there is no proof of God’s existence. This is just how things seem from a disinterested or objective standpoint prior to taking the leap of faith (see PC 116–17/SKS 12:123–24). 22 Once we commit ourselves to God, everything changes. We experience a kind of awakening, Climacus declares at a pivotal juncture in Postscript. The result of this awakening is that “it is possible to see God everywhere” (CUP 1:246–47/SKS 7:224). “No gaze is as sharp-sighted as that of faith,” Kierkegaard confirms, which enables one to “see God” even when he is invisible to ordinary human reason (WA 132/SKS 11:268; see also UDVS 238/SKS 8:338–39). Kierkegaard concludes that the religious beliefs that appear irrational to the worldly person do not appear so to the knight of faith (JP 1:5–6/SKS 23:176–77; JP 1:7–9/Pap. X-6 B 79). 23

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THE TRANSCENDENCE OF GOD One of the more peculiar features of Kierkegaard’s view on Evans and Söderquist’s reading is that it renders religious belief immune from criticism by outsiders. Any objection raised by atheists or agnostics can be dismissed out of hand by claiming that such people do not get it; things look differently from the perspective of faith. Yet, there is one kind of attack Kierkegaard cannot so easily bat away. Opponents can push against his position by appealing to the experience of those we might refer to as disappointed insiders or would-be insiders. I have in mind here those who have sought God but not found him or who have turned to God for guidance only not to receive it. Of course, some who do not “see God everywhere” are not looking hard enough, and some who fail to receive a message from God are not paying attention. But not every disappointed insider falls into one these categories. There are at least some people who passionately pursue God in the way Kierkegaard describes—who take the leap of faith—but never have a religious experience. Or they have one, but it does not amount to much. It does not include the detailed existential guidance promised by Kierkegaard’s religious model. Indeed, many earnest seekers do not hear God speak to them about how to carry on with their lives beyond what they find in the sacred texts. They do not receive a communication from him about what in particular their professional vocation should be or how exactly they ought to structure their identity. Kierkegaard is free to respond to this challenge by insisting that everyone who does not experience God’s guidance is somehow resisting it. There are no “non-resistantly unaware” people, to use J. L. Schellenberg’s expression. 24 We certainly find passages where Kierkegaard talks this way. We read in his journals that “there [has] never been an atheist, even though there certainly have been many who have been unwilling to let what they know (that god exists) get control over their minds” (JP 3:662/ Pap. V B 40). Kierkegaard’s idea here, Mark Tietjen explains, is that all of us have some sense of the divine; we all have an inkling of God’s presence and what he wants from us. 25 Those who say they do not are in denial. They are purposefully looking away from what God is doing in their lives; they are intentionally closing their ears to what God is saying to them. They “want to be deceived,” as Kierkegaard repeatedly laments (TM 45/SKS 14:175; JFY 139–40/SKS 16:192–93; CD 170–71/SKS 10:181–82). There is some reason to doubt how steadfastly Kierkegaard holds to this line of response, however. It is not a particularly charitable position for him to adopt toward other people. Indeed, it cuts against the grain of the ethics of love he puts forward in Works of Love. One of the core principles of this ethics is that we ought always to believe the best about others. We should embrace the most optimistic interpretation of them possible (WL 225–45/SKS 9:227–45). 26 Asserting that everyone who thinks God

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has not communicated to them is simply self-deceived would seem to fall short of this ideal. Fortunately, Kierkegaard does have a way to handle the existence of people who are non-resistantly unaware of God’s presence. He makes an argumentative move analogous to the one made by skeptical theists in response to the problem of evil. According to the skeptical theist, our inability to see reasons that would justify God in allowing evil does not entail that there are no such reasons. 27 We may just not be in a good position to see them. So too, Kierkegaard holds, our inability to see God’s presence in our lives does not entail that he is not there, and our inability to detect God’s guidance does not prove that he is not providing it (see PC 127–33/SKS 12:132–37; CUP 1:243–47/SKS 7:221–25). Similarly, it does not follow from our inability to discern how God is directing us toward a good and unified life that he is failing to do so. In all these cases, we may simply lack the capacity to see what God is actually doing. Kierkegaard justifies this move by appealing to God’s radical transcendence. As Simon Podmore has discussed, Kierkegaard thinks there is an “infinite qualitative difference” between the divine and the human (WA 100/SKS 11:104; PC 28–29/SKS 12:42–43; SUD 117/SKS 11:229). 28 The abyss between God’s nature and our own nature has a number of epistemological implications. First, God may work in ways that are incomprehensible to us human beings. His actions may even appear absurd or nonsensical to human reason (see FT 46–59/SKS 4:142–52). “God’s wisdom is beyond all comparison with yours,” Kierkegaard writes in Works of Love, “and God’s governance has no obligation of responsibility in relation to your sagacity” (WL 20/SKS 9:28). Second, God may work in ways that are undetectable to human beings. In fact, Kierkegaard avers, he will almost never be immediately recognizable. He will almost never be like “a rare, enormously large green bird, with a red beak, that perched in a tree on the embankment and perhaps even whistled in an unprecedented manner” (CUP 1:245/SKS 7:222). Instead, for the most part, God will appear “incognito” (PC 127–33/SKS 12:132–37). Believers who recognize these theological points will give up many of their expectations about God (EUD 27/SKS 5:35–36). 29 In particular, they will not expect to perceive God’s guidance when he is giving it. They will concede that he may not communicate to them in obvious ways; it will not always be like Moses and the burning bush. In addition, people of faith who appreciate the “infinite qualitative difference” between the divine and the human will not expect to comprehend God’s guidance even when they do perceive it. They will admit that God may be directing them toward the good even when it seems a great calamity is about to befall them (see CD 188–201/SKS 10:198–210). 30 These concessions will enable knights of faith to make their peace with it if God does not work in their lives in ways they find supportive (see FT 49/SKS 4:143). Indeed, they will give up all “self-willfulness” in

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their relationship with God, Kierkegaard says (CD 64/SKS 10:73; see also WL 20/SKS 9:28). They will not demand that God assist them in any particular way; they will “not insist that God shall help [them] in any other way than God wills” (CD 64/SKS 10:73). Their attitude will instead be one of “silent receptivity and trust.” 31 They will possess a quiet confidence in God’s goodness and power that enables them to live with the uncertainty that comes from his hiddenness. THE PROBLEM OF DIVINE HIDDENNESS There is something unsatisfying about Kierkegaard’s position here. He may be right that the hiddenness of God will not bother ideal believers. Such people may indeed make their peace with their apparent lack of divine guidance by remembering how God’s ways are higher than their ways. Still, we might wonder why anyone has to cope with this problem in the first place. Even if there is an “infinite qualitative distance” between the divine and the human, why does this have to result in God’s being hidden from us? A being whose power and wisdom infinitely outstrips our own would seem to have the ability to limit himself to using ways and means that we could grasp. That is to say, it would seem possible for God to act in a manner that was intelligible to us. It also would seem possible for him to communicate through mediums we found clear and obvious. Indeed, Kierkegaard admits as much (JP 3:121–22/SKS 26:337–38; see also CUP 1:243/SKS 7:221; PC 128–29/SKS 12:133). Thus, the outstanding question facing Kierkegaard is why would God set up the world so even knights of faith cannot sense his presence or understand his guidance. God is not deistic in nature, on Kierkegaard’s view. He is not indifferent to our existence, happy to let our lives unfold in a haphazard fashion. The Kierkegaardian God loves us and wants “an intimate relationship” with us (UDVS 129/SKS 8:229). Moreover, he wants to guide us toward what is good for us (WL 3–4, 113/SKS 9:11–12, 116–17). Why, then, does he not do so in a clear and straightforward fashion? Why does he make it so even those with great faith sometimes feel forsaken by him? Why does he hide himself even from those who passionately pursue him? Human Freedom Kierkegaard is permitted to avail himself once more of God’s infinite transcendence. He could argue that we humble human beings are not in a position to understand God’s reasons for hiding himself (WL 20/SKS 9:28). But Kierkegaard does not always resort to this move. In several places, he responds to the problem of divine hiddenness by appealing to

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human free will. He argues that if God were to present himself in an obvious fashion, he would be irresistible. Similarly, if God were to communicate his will for our lives in a transparent way, we would be unable to do anything but follow it. God’s sublime majesty would be too overwhelming. When confronted with it, we would have no choice but to give in. 32 Both Climacus and Anti-Climacus conclude that God must hide from us; he has to be “incognito” rather than “immediately recognizable” (CUP 1:243–47/SKS 221–25; PC 94–96, 123–44/SKS 12:103–5, 128–47). That is to say, when God appears, he must take an ambiguous form such that we cannot tell whether what stands before us is indeed God (PC 124–27/SKS 12:129–32). In addition, Climacus and Anti-Climacus maintain, God has to refuse all direct communication with us. He must not tell us unequivocally what he wants us to do with our lives. Instead, he must work as an “indirect communicator” who keeps his distance, offering us at most hints about the direction we should go (CUP 243/SKS 7:221; PC 139–40/ SKS 12:142–43). In sum, according to Kierkegaard, God hides himself because it is the only way he can preserve human free will. He expresses his power not by forcing us to follow him but by letting us decide for ourselves whether to do so. “[H]e refuses to intervene forcibly, he omnipotently constrains his own omnipotence,” Kierkegaard says in his journals, “because it has pleased him to want to see what will become of this whole existence” (JP 2:153/SKS 26:340) Thus, Kierkegaard continues, “God is like a maieutic in relation to the learner. He certainly has the ability to tell the pupil the right answer immediately, but instead he constrains himself” (JP 2:153/ SKS 26:340; see also JP 2:62–63/SKS 20:57–58). An Exegetical Issue for Kierkegaard Scholars It is worth pausing at this point to note a difficulty in Kierkegaard interpretation. I have been maintaining that, according to Kierkegaard, God has a detailed plan for each of our lives. There is a specific way he wants each of our stories to unfold or a specific identity-defining vocation he wants each of us to adopt. Thus, on my reading, Kierkegaard’s God recedes from view only insofar as it is necessary to allow us to make up our own minds about whether to accept the identity he assigns us. Some scholars have pushed for a more radical interpretation of Kierkegaard. They argue that Kierkegaard’s God allows greater room for human freedom than I have acknowledged. For instance, Evans claims that, according to Kierkegaard, God does indeed assign each of us a vocation. 33 But this vocation will involve having us exercise our freedom. In fact, we may have to make so many choices that we end up determining most of the content of our identity. Evans writes, “It is plausible that part of my calling will include demands on God’s part that I make some difficult decisions for myself, relying on principles and values that I must

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personalize, interpret and apply to the particular situation in which I find myself.” 34 John Davenport develops a similar view. He agrees that, for Kierkegaard, “each person has a distinct and divinely ordained calling.” 35 But he adds that the content of this calling is not determined by God prior to our coming into existence. Instead, it is determined coincidentally with our own free choices, just as the spin of sub-atomic particles is determined coincidentally with our observation of them. 36 In sum, on this alternative interpretation of Kierkegaard, we do not merely choose whether or not to submit to God’s plan for our lives. We help construct this plan. We are “God’s coworkers” in the process of defining the contours of our identities (UDVS 199/SKS 8:295). 37 I concede that Kierkegaard’s views on this subject are not always clear. There certainly are places where he seems to allow as much room for human freedom as Evans and Davenport claim (e.g., UDVS 124–25/ SKS 8:224–25; EO 2:258–59/SKS 3:246–47). But it is important not to lean too far in the direction of their interpretation. The more we say that God allows us to dictate who we are, the more we remove the difference between Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood and the constitution model. So, if we wish to avoid saddling Kierkegaard with the objections he levels against the Romantics, we cannot take Evans and Davenport’s position to the extreme. We cannot read Kierkegaard as claiming that God leaves our identities totally up to us. We must place weight on passages, such as the one quoted earlier in the chapter, where he suggests that God works out the content of our identities for us: “at every person’s birth there comes into existence an eternal purpose for that person, for that person in particular. Faithfulness to oneself with respect to this is the highest thing a person can do” (UDVS 93/SKS 8:198; see also JP 3:489–90/ SKS 26:346–47). To repeat the point from The Concept of Irony also referenced earlier, the bulk of the task for Kierkegaard cannot be how we will poetically compose ourselves but rather whether we will freely choose to let God poetically compose us (CI 280–81/SKS 1:316–17). Life as a Test Appealing to human freedom does not entirely solve the problem of divine hiddenness, however. It may explain why God does not always communicate in an entirely clear fashion. But we often find ourselves worse off than that. God not only fails to communicate himself clearly; he often seems not to communicate himself at all. It sometimes appears to even the most devout followers that God abandons them. This extreme level of hiddenness does not seem necessary for preserving human freedom. It would seem consistent with human freedom for God to offer hints about his existence or clues about the nature of his guidance. In other words, there is a vast middle ground between the overwhelming self-disclosure God must avoid and the complete absence many people

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experience. We need an explanation for why God does not occupy this middle ground. This challenge leads us to the second main part of Kierkegaard’s solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. In addition to holding that God recedes from view to protect our freedom, Kierkegaard maintains that God hides himself to test us. (Indeed, Kierkegaard regards all earthly existence as a divine test or examination [JP 1:457/SKS 21:129; PC 183/SKS 12:182–83].) More specifically, God keeps his majesty from view to determine our level of devotion. It is his way of discerning—and helping us to discern—whether we are committed to him wholeheartedly or only for the sake of the benefits he provides us (see UDVS 36–121/SKS 8:148–222; CUP 1:427/SKS 7:388). Climacus develops this line of thinking in Philosophical Fragments by way of a story (PF 26–30/SKS 4:233–37). 38 Suppose there is a king who loves a peasant girl, Climacus says. The king wishes to learn whether the girl loves him in return, but he worries it may be difficult to get an honest answer. If he appears before her in all his majesty, she may not be inclined to disclose her heart. She may agree to become his queen out of deference to his authority and not because she really wants him in her life. Or, she may profess to love him because she desires what she would gain by being with him or fears what might befall her if she turns him down. Climacus says that the king can discover the truth only if he encounters the peasant girl incognito. He must appear lowlier than he really is. Indeed, he must come across as a peasant himself. If the girl believes there is nothing to gain by lying and nothing to lose by telling the truth, her true feelings are more likely to come out. The story about the king and the maiden is of course a metaphor for God’s relationship with us. For Climacus, God declines to make himself known in all his grandeur and hides his guidance from view as a test. He wants to see—and help us see—whether we are willing to follow him only when the path is easy and obvious. He wants to determine—and help us determine—whether we would submit to his plan even if it went against human reason or what society says is right. In short, God hides himself to assess whether we live up to the biblical ideal of unconditional commitment (PC 250/SKS 12:242–43). “[God’s] immediate obviousness is denied in order to test faith,” Kierkegaard writes in his journals (JP 1:64/ SKS 23:36). Johannes de Silentio draws on the idea that life is a test of our devotion to explain the particular case of God’s difficult command to Abraham. As the biblical story has it, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his beloved child, Isaac. 39 The request goes against everything Abraham takes to be right and good. Sacrificing Isaac would be murder as far as he can understand it (FT 30/SKS 4:126). Silentio explains away the command by saying that it is a test (FT 21, 31/SKS 4:118, 127). God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac not because he actually wants Abraham to do it. He does

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not, as evidenced by the fact that he sends the angel to stay Abraham’s hand at the last second. God simply wants to know and to let it be known how committed Abraham is to him. (Hence the angel’s words at Genesis 22:12, “Now I know that you fear God.”) If God only asks Abraham to do what independently makes sense, it will not be clear whether Abraham clings to God more than his own human reason. Uncovering the level of Abraham’s commitment requires commanding him to do something that violates all standards of reasonableness (see CUP 1:231/SKS 7:210–11; JP 4:265–66/SKS 22:105–7). THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM One final problem with Kierkegaard’s religious model deserves our attention. Kierkegaard offers the model as a solution to the traditional problems of selfhood. It is supposed to be a way to overcome the worries and anxieties that plague the more popular secular alternatives. In Furtak and Krishek’s words, faith for Kierkegaard is supposed to be the cure for despair, “the best possible response to our precarious and uncertain condition.” 40 Yet, from a practical point of view, the cure seems not much better than the disease. A knight of faith may trust that God is lending assistance with the project of selfhood. He or she may believe in his or her heart that God is directing him or her toward a good and unified sense of self. But, as a test, God may make it seem as though he is providing none of these things. Thus, adherents of Kierkegaard’s religious model may not experience themselves as better off than adherents of the inner sense or constitution models. Relying on a God who hides his help may feel no different than trying to go it alone. This objection to Kierkegaard’s model of selfhood is not theoretical in nature. We can even concede, as I think we should, that theoretically speaking the model works. It solves the unity and moral problems that plagued the other models of selfhood. It also solves the guidance problem—provided we extend Kierkegaard enough leeway with his explanations of why God hides his help. The concern at hand is a practical one. It has to do with the first person experience of following along with Kierkegaard’s model. Given how Kierkegaard sets things up, adherents will not always experience themselves as enjoying the benefits that the model offers. It will not always seem to them as though God is providing guidance, even though he is. It will not feel to them as though God is directing them toward a good and unified sense of self, even though that is what is happening. Somewhat surprisingly, Kierkegaard acknowledges this concern. He admits that the religious path is not very practical. He agrees that it is not the way that the sagacious or worldly-wise person would choose. In fact, Anti-Climacus declares that the existential difficulties

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associated with the religious model are so extreme that adhering to it seems like lunacy. He writes, “What is Christianity, then, and what is it good for? People seek help from it, are willing to thank it beyond measure, and then the very opposite happens and they come to suffer on account of it—so there really seems to be nothing for which to give thanks. Now the understanding is brought to a halt at the possibility of offense. The help looks like a torment, the relief like a burden; everyone who stands outside must say: He must be mad to expose himself to all that” (PC 114/SKS 12:122). Not everyone will consider these practical concerns a decisive blow against Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood. One thing some of those who downplay the problem may say is that God gives them what they need to get by. They may not experience God as speaking to them or guiding them all the time. But on occasion they do. God does not remain completely hidden. And these intermittent religious experiences are enough to get them through the tough times when God feels absent. This response may work for the great knights of faith. But what about the rest of us? What should we do if we find that God has not given us enough to get by? No doubt, Kierkegaard would tell us to keep trying; God will never give us more than we can bear. (He often cites this maxim of Paul’s when discussing existential difficulties.) 41 But at some point this tough-love rejoinder starts to sound callous. Eventually, charity requires us to trust the testimony of those who protest that they cannot go on. It is this trust that leads me to conclude that some people are rationally justified in looking beyond Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood. If in their experience what God offers is not enough, it is reasonable for them to seek out secular sources of support. This brings us to a longstanding question in Kierkegaard scholarship. 42 What does Kierkegaard have to say—besides “keep trying”—to those who cannot get on board with his religious solutions? Does he have anything to offer readers who long for a secular alternative to the help God is supposed to provide? I think so. Despite how it sometimes sounds, he does not insist that we have to satisfy ourselves with God and God alone. He allows that human others can also lend us assistance with the project of selfhood. Indeed, his own authorship, which he undertakes precisely in order to help his audience make progress toward authenticity, reveals the emphasis he places on reliance on other people. Of course, Kierkegaard regards dependence on human others as an ancillary supplement rather than a full-blooded alternative to dependence on God. Still, his suggestion can be used in the latter way as well. In the next chapter, I will explore this idea in more detail.

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NOTES 1. For discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on the importance of depending on others, see C. Stephen Evans, “Who Is the ‘Other’ in Sickness Unto Death? God and Human Relations in the Constitution of the Self,” in Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 268–72; Joakim Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 252–72; Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 75–100; K. Brian Söderquist, The Isolated Self: Irony as Truth and Untruth in Søren Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel, 2007), 134–37, 168–70, 190–93, 206. For general discussions about the importance of relying on others for the project of selfhood, see Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (New York: Psychology Press, 2004), 34, 151, 164–67; Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 58, 91. 2. For further support, see Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen, “The Posited Self: The NonTheistic Foundation in Kierkegaard’s Writings,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2015, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2015), 29–42; Edward F. Mooney, “Kierkegaard on Self-Choice and Self-Reception: Judge William’s Admonition,” in Either/Or, part II, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary 4 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995), 5–32; Elizabeth A. Morelli, “The Existence of the Self before God in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death,” The Heythrop Journal 36, no. 1 (1995): 15–29; Anthony Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 26–48; Söderquist, The Isolated Self, 137, 155. 3. For example, Kierkegaard writes in his journals, “Christianity wants unconditional obedience as a disposition” (JP 3:359/SKS 23:171; see also JP 4:508–9/SKS 23:462–63; UDVS 87/SKS 8:192–93; CUP 1:200/SKS 7:183). For further support, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication” (Indiana University, 2008), 61–62. 4. Adam Buben, “Christian Hate: Death, Dying, and Reason in Pascal and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard and Death, ed. Patrick Stokes and Adam Buben (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 68, see also 71. 5. See Guignon, On Being Authentic, 17; Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 134. 6. For support for the narrativist reading of Kierkegaard, see John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012); Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative. 7. For further discussion, see Robert Merrihew Adams, “Vocation,” Faith and Philosophy 4, no. 4 (1987): 448–462. 8. Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” 267. For further discussion, see John J. Davenport, “Selfhood and ‘Spirit,’” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 230–46; John Lippitt, Humour and Irony in Kierkegaard’s Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 27–46; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 29, 50, 172; Söderquist, The Isolated Self, 205, 212; Mark C. Taylor, Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 234–38. 9. The Euthyphro problem lurks here. For Kierkegaard’s response, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 10. Eleanor Helms, “The End in the Beginning: Eschatology in Kierkegaard’s Literary Criticism,” in Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self, ed. John Lippitt and Patrick Stokes (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 113–25. 11. Sharon Krishek and Rick Anthony Furtak, “A Cure for Worry? Kierkegaardian Faith and the Insecurity of Human Existence,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 72, no. 3 (2012): 157–75.

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12. Psalm 22:1; Isaiah 49:14; Matthew 26:36–46. 13. Acts 9:1–22. 14. Thanks are due to an anonymous reviewer for pushing me on this point. 15. For further discussion of the so-called “postponement argument,” see Robert Merrihew Adams, “Kierkegaard’s Arguments Against Objective Reasoning in Religion,” The Monist 60, no. 2 (1977): 233–35; Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication,” 80–84; C. Stephen Evans, Faith Beyond Reason: A Kierkegaardian Account (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 1998), 12, 108–9. 16. See, for example, Brand Blanshard, “Kierkegaard on Faith,” The Personalist 49, no. 1 (1968): 5–23; Adam Buben, “Neither Irrationalist Nor Apologist: Revisiting Faith and Reason in Kierkegaard,” Philosophy Compass 8, no. 3 (2013): 318–326; Karen L. Carr, “The Offense of Reason and the Passion of Faith: Kierkegaard and Anti-Rationalism,” Faith and Philosophy 13, no. 2 (1996): 236–251. 17. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s epistemology, see M. G. Piety, Ways of Knowing: Kierkegaard’s Pluralist Epistemology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010). 18. Adams, “Kierkegaard’s Arguments Against Objective Reasoning in Religion,” 242–43; Steven M. Emmanuel, “Kierkegaard’s Pragmatist Faith,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51, no. 2 (May 1, 1991): 279–302. 19. There are well-known passages where Kierkegaard says we should not care about rewards and payoffs. We should do the good—or follow God—for its own sake (UDVS 36–121/SKS 8:148–222; see also CUP 2:136–37/SKS 7:127–28). Yet, there are other passages where Kierkegaard takes this back. He says that it is too much to ask us to pursue God for his own sake; the proper attitude is to admit that we need him. For example, we read in Christian Discourses, “[T]he fundamental and primary basis for a person’s love of God is completely to understand that one needs God, loves him simply because one needs him. . . . You are not to presume to love God for God’s sake. You are humbly to understand that your own welfare eternally depends on this need, and therefore you are to love him” (CD 188/SKS 10:198–99). A viable pragmatist interpretation of Kierkegaard will require addressing this tension in his texts. 20. Evans, Faith Beyond Reason, 78–113; “Can God Be Hidden and Evident at the Same Time? Some Kierkegaardian Reflections,” Faith and Philosophy 23, no. 3 (August 1, 2006): 241–53; K. Brian Söderquist, “On Faith and Reason(s): Kierkegaard’s Logic of Conviction,” in The Kierkegaardian Mind, ed. Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms, and Patrick Stokes (New York: Routledge, 2019). 21. For further discussion, see Rick Anthony Furtak, Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 48–50; Rick Anthony Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. Edward F. Mooney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 59–66. 22. Kierkegaard writes in his journals, “Away with all this world history and reasons and proofs for the truth of Christianity: there is only one proof—that of faith” (JP 3.663/SKS 22:108). 23. What Daniel Garber says about Pascal applies equally to Kierkegaard: “Pascal’s God doesn’t ask for a blind faith, it is a faith supported by reasons. But these reasons can only be appreciated after I am in a particular state of mind: only after I am committed to him, in a way, after I have already dedicated myself to the search for God, only after God has moved my heart” (What Happens After Pascal’s Wager: Living Faith and Rational Belief [Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2009], 17). For further discussion of this view, see Paul K. Moser, The God Relationship: The Ethics for Inquiry about the Divine (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 24. J. L. Schellenberg, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s New Challenge to Belief in God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 25. Mark A. Tietjen, Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016), 130. 26. For further discussion of this issue, see Antony Aumann, “Self-Love and Neighbor-Love in Kierkegaard’s Ethics,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013, ed. Heiko

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Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), 197–216; M. Jamie Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving: A Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 142–44. 27. Stephen J. Wykstra, “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance,’” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16, no. 2 (January 1, 1984): 73–93. 28. Simon D. Podmore, Kierkegaard and the Self Before God: Anatomy of the Abyss (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011). 29. For discussion of whether Kierkegaardian faith requires hoping for specific things from God, see Ryan S. Kemp and Michael Mullaney, “Kierkegaard on the (Un)Happiness of Faith,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2017, 1–23. 30. For support, see Krishek and Furtak, “A Cure for Worry?,” 167. 31. Ibid., 170. 32. Schellenberg finds other responses to the problem of divine hiddenness in Kierkegaard’s writings. Most notably, he points out how Climacus holds that the only kind of faith worth having is a deeply passionate kind (CUP 1:29-31, 131-32/SKS 7:3637, 123-24). But being deeply passionate involves being willing to take major risks, including the risk of committing to God in the face of uncertainty about his existence (CUP 1:203-4/SKS 7:186-87). If God’s existence were obvious, no such risk could be taken (CUP 1:424-26/SKS 7:386-88). Schellenberg objects to this argument on the grounds that the conception of faith in play is too demanding. Pursuing God with the kind of passionate intensity Kierkegaard idealizes would come at the cost of “many other good things in life, which a loving God might wish us to experience and enjoy” (The Hiddenness Argument, 162–64). For further discussion of this particular argument, see Adams, “Kierkegaard’s Arguments Against Objective Reasoning in Religion,” 235–42. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s response to the problem of divine hiddenness in general, see Evans, “Can God Be Hidden and Evident at the Same Time?” 33. Evans, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love, 25–27. 34. Ibid., 26. 35. John J. Davenport, “What Kierkegaardian Faith Adds to Alterity Ethics: How Levinas and Derrida Miss the Eschatological Dimension,” in Kierkegaard and Levinas: Ethics, Politics, and Religion, ed. J. Aaron Simmons and David Wood (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 172. 36. Ibid., 178, 190n16. 37. For further discussion, see Krishek and Furtak, “A Cure for Worry?,” 163. 38. For further discussion, see David R. Law, Kierkegaard’s Kenotic Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 234–38. 39. Genesis 22:1–19. 40. Krishek and Furtak, “A Cure for Worry?,” 158. 41. Kierkegaard alludes to 1 Corinthians 10:13 in a number of upbuilding discourses (e.g., EUD 88, 111, 332/SKS 5:94, 116, 321). 42. For further discussion of the secular relevance of Kierkegaard’s writings on selfhood, see Michael O’Neill Burns, “The Self and Society in Kierkegaard’s AntiClimacus Writings,” The Heythrop Journal 51, no. 4 (July 1, 2010): 631–34; Karen L. Carr, “Kierkegaard and Atheistic Existentialism,” in Kierkegaard and Human Nature, ed. Roman Kralik et al., Acta Kierkegaardiana 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013), 65–74; Arnold B. Come, Kierkegaard as Humanist: Discovering My Self (Montreal: McGillQueen’s Press, 1995), 12–14, 465–74; Larsen, “The Posited Self: The Non-Theistic Foundation in Kierkegaard’s Writings”; George Pattison, “Philosophy and Dogma: The Testimony of an Upbuilding Discourse,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard: Philosophical Engagements, ed. Edward F. Mooney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 155–62; René Rosfort, “Kierkegaard in Nature: The Fragility of Existing with Naturalism,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2014, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2014), 79–110; Anthony Rudd and Patrick Stokes, “The Soul of a Philosopher: Reply to Turnbull,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013,

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ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), 475–94; Patrick Stokes, The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 19–21, 226–29; Jamie Turnbull, “Saving Kierkegaard’s Soul: From Philosophical Psychology to Golden Age Soteriology,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2011, ed. Jon Stewart, Heiko Schulz, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2011), 279–302; Jamie Turnbull, “Kierkegaard and the Limits of Philosophical Anthropology,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2015), 468–79.

FOUR The Dialogical Model A Secular Alternative

I began the last chapter by arguing that Kierkegaard’s religious model of selfhood had promise. It seemed, at least initially, to offer solutions to the standard problems of identity. It appeared to enjoy advantages not possessed by the secular models considered previously. In the end, though, Kierkegaard’s approach proved unsatisfying. His recommendation that we turn to God for help showed itself to be less fruitful than he suggests. For, by his own admission, God often remains hidden from us; even knights of faith do not always experience themselves as receiving divine guidance. Thus, at the end of the chapter, I said that it would behoove many of us to look elsewhere for support. In particular, we should consider asking other human beings for assistance with the project of selfhood. I am not the first to push the discussion about selfhood in this direction. Several others, notably Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, have argued that we would do well to develop our identity in community with others. 1 The goal of the present chapter is to establish that we can recruit Kierkegaard to this cause. He too believes that entering into dialogue with other people is a productive way to approach the task of figuring out who we really are. This project might strike some readers as wrongheaded. Indeed, there is an old criticism of Kierkegaard, forwarded by Theodore Adorno, Martin Buber, Louis Mackey, and others, according to which Kierkegaard allows no room for personal relationships with others. He demands that we stand alone before God and pay no regard to those around us. 2 Since the middle of the last century, however, the tide has turned against this individualistic interpretation of Kierkegaard. A growing chorus of commentators has argued that he encourages us to care in a deeply personal 79

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way about other people. 3 He does not rule out intimate friendships or deny the value of community. Recently, Edward Mooney, Anna Strelis Söderquist, and others have connected such pro-community readings of Kierkegaard to his discussions about selfhood. 4 They have proposed that, for Kierkegaard, other people may play a role in helping us work out our identity. Up until now, however, this idea has remained for the most part just a provocative suggestion. My project here is to work out the details. In the rest of this chapter, I will develop a Kierkegaardian account of what it looks like to develop our sense of self in dialogue with human others. OVERVIEW OF THE MODEL To say we can depend on human others for help with selfhood is not to imply that anything goes. Instituting no restrictions at all would open the door for mindless deference to the crowd. It would bring back into play the kind of mass mentality against which Kierkegaard rails. Any plausible Kierkegaardian account of the importance of human others must rule out this possibility. 5 Accordingly, I maintain that the human others we turn to for guidance and support ought to be intimate and virtuous friends. (At least this is so in the typical case. I will qualify my position somewhat at the end of the chapter.) As friends, the others we depend on must be people who care about us and want to promote our well-being. As intimate friends, they must be people who know us well. They must have a sense for our abilities, limitations, past histories, and present circumstances. Finally, as virtuous friends, they must be wise people with integrity. They must be capable of insight into our lives and deserving of our respect. Our friends can help us with the project of selfhood in many ways. One of the most important things they can do is converse with us about our identities. They can listen to us talk about our sense of who we are and provide us with feedback. There is no single template for how these discussions must go. They might begin with our offering up our current take on our life story. We might speak about where we see ourselves coming from and where we see ourselves going. Alternatively, we might trace the outlines of one of our central life projects, or point to the core values lying behind it. Rarely will we share our existing vision of ourselves all at once, though. Our story will likely come out piecemeal, in fits and starts. Moreover, because our story is ongoing, it will never form a seamless whole. It will be fragmented or disjointed; its direction and shape will be tentative or vague. Finally, we typically will not speak with our friends about our sense of self when all is well. We will approach them when we have questions, hesitations, and concerns. We will bring up our identity when we are having trouble fitting together disparate

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projects, struggling to reconcile competing values, or wrestling with how to interpret some troubling event. What our friends will provide when at their best is an external perspective on our life stories. They will let us know how things look from their point of view. This will include indicating both where they believe we go aright and where we go astray. They may note, for instance, where our narrative fits the bare facts as they see them and where it does not. They may also speak to whether our projects reflect our own underlying values. Finally, they may tell us whether they think our values are worth accepting in the first place. The most helpful friends will not give us only a thumbs up or down about our projects, values, and narratives. They will assist with the process of working through the problems that arise along the way. They will suggest or help us decide among alternative possibilities—alternative projects to pursue, values to embrace, and frameworks within which to interpret our lives. In the end, if we follow the dialogical model, what we will acquire is a sense of who we are that has been shaped by and checked against the insights of those who know us the best and care about us the most. Relying on Friends: Some Initial Clarifications Three points about the dialogical model deserve clarification. First, we are not to seek only recognition and validation of our existing beliefs from our friends. This is the approach Hegel recommends on some readings of the Phenomenology of Spirit, but Kierkegaard criticizes it in Sickness Unto Death and for good reason (SUD 79–80/SKS 11:193–94; see also EUD 24/SKS 5:33). 6 Sincere affirmation can be beneficial when it comes, of course. It can bolster our confidence during periods of self-doubt and stabilize us during times of psychological upheaval. We probably need it more than we admit. But affirmation is only part of what we ought to seek from our friends according to the dialogical model. We also need to know when our friends disagree with us and have insights we have overlooked. Thus, contrary to what Judge William says, the most helpful friends may not be those who share our worldviews (see EO 2:319–22/ SKS 3:301–4). In fact, some of the benefits of the dialogical model require consulting people of a different bent. As I will elaborate below, if we speak only with like-minded folk, we may end up in an echo chamber of our own bad opinions. Second, the dialogical model does not recommend treating our friends as absolute authorities. We are not to use their judgment as the sole standard against which to measure our own. That is to say, we are not to embrace a particular project or value just because our friends recommend it. Nor are we to abandon one we hold dear just because our friends

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object to it. Our friends’ assent should be neither necessary nor sufficient for our own. That would make them out to be gods, which they are not. The proper approach is to balance our friends’ points of view against our own. There are several ways to cash out this ideal. One attractive way is to count it as a defeasible mark in favor of an idea if our friends endorse it and a defeasible mark against an idea if our friends oppose it. In other words, we should treat our friends’ judgments as important but not all-swamping considerations to take into account. This rule does not require us to follow any particular recommendations our friends happen to offer. Thus, it does not preclude departing from what they say if we think they are wrong. In Silentio’s language, the path of the single individual that swings off from the way of others remains open (FT 76/SKS 4:167). Nevertheless, if we always reject our friends’ advice, then it is unlikely we are balancing things in the right way. Respecting our friends’ intelligence requires viewing them as capable of insight and sound reasoning. Humility about our own intelligence, which Kierkegaard identifies as a central virtue, requires viewing ourselves as susceptible to erroneous judgments and fallacious thinking. 7 So, if we are at odds with our friends, the right response is to admit the mistake might lie with us and reconsider position. We should go back over how we came to think what we do. We should investigate whether we have overlooked important pieces of evidence, relied on unfounded assumptions, or taken unjustified leaps in our reasoning. If upon reconsideration we always still go with our own initial impulse rather than that of our friends, we are probably suffering from hubris. It is more likely that we sometimes give ourselves too much credit than that we are always the smartest person in the room. This is in part why Kierkegaard counsels us to be more suspicious of ourselves than of others (WL 382/ SKS 9:375). 8 Third, the dialogical model does not ask us to abandon our religious commitments. We can embrace the dialogical model if we have religious beliefs. We can even maintain, as Kierkegaard does, that God provides each of us with a divine calling. Thus, although the dialogical model is distinct from the religious model, the two are compatible. For example, if we share Kierkegaard’s belief that God assigns us a vocation, our friends can assist us with the interpretation of this vocation. They can offer insights about how best to integrate what God has asked us to do into our daily lives. They can also help with the thorny issue of whether we have received a calling at all. That is to say, they can share their perspectives on whether we are dealing with a genuine revelation or simply a burst of human ingenuity, as Kierkegaard does for Pastor Adolph Adler (BA 51–87/SKS 15:173–244). 9 Finally, our friends can support us by encouraging to remain true to our religious commitments. They can inspire us to become more steadfast in our devotion or chastise us when we fall short

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of the ideal of faith. Indeed, this is one of the ways Kierkegaard aims to help us in his upbuilding discourses. THE TRADITIONAL PROBLEMS OF SELFHOOD Kierkegaard would no doubt prefer that we integrate the dialogical model into his religious model. But the dialogical model also has appeal as a free-standing, secular alternative. When viewed in this way, a few crucial differences from Kierkegaard’s religious model emerge. Relying on our friends is unlike relying on God in that we must not treat our friends as absolute authorities or use their views as the sole criterion against which to measure our own views. We also cannot receive from our friends final answers about who we are or who we should become. Thus, our friends are not a “power that establishe[s] [us],” and we should not “transparently rest” in them, as Anti-Climacus says we should rest in God (SUD 14, 48, 131/SKS 11:130, 164, 242). It is worth asking about the cost of these departures from the religious model. What do we lose when we free ourselves from religious assumptions and support ourselves on secular footings alone? Is it possible to retain the benefits that Kierkegaard’s religious approach allegedly enjoyed? Can we still overcome the problems with the traditional models of authenticity? Let us consider the matter with care. The Guidance Problem To begin, the dialogical model is like the constitution model in that it does not tell us exactly who we are. It does not specify what values or projects we should use to fill out the content of our identities. Nor, at least in principle, does it place any restrictions on the kind of values or projects we can draw upon. Thus, the dialogical model appears to suffer from a version of the guidance problem. It seems to leave us with too many options and no good way to sort them. 10 Yet, unlike the constitution model, the dialogical model does not leave us completely empty-handed. It offers us a procedure for sorting our options. We are to begin by consulting our own initial intuitions and instincts about how to set up our identity. Then, we are to run the result past our friends. We are to ask them to consult their intuitions and to offer us their advice and suggestions. Finally, we are to embrace the projects, values, and interpretations of our life stories that emerge from these discussions. This dialogical process may not be as simple as doing whatever God tells us to do. It also may not lead to the same kind of clear-cut answers about who we are. But it is a non-random way of sorting and ranking the

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paths before us. Thus, if we adhere to it, we will not suffer from a vicious version of the guidance problem. The Moral Problem Critics might worry about the fact that the dialogical model asks us to rely on our intuitions. As noted in chapter 1, our intuitions can go astray; they can lead in immoral directions. Of course, the dialogical model installs a buffer against the petty, cruel, and selfish tendencies of our intuitions by requiring us to run them past our friends. But if our own intuitions can go astray, so too can our friends’. Indeed, history supplies no shortage of examples of groups led by honest conscience to do horrible things. Thus, the dialogical model might seem to suffer from a version of the moral problem. Now it is true that the dialogical model depends on the assumption that our intuitions are somewhat reliable. But this assumption can be justified on pragmatic grounds. Total skepticism here would result in paralysis. We have to trust our intuitions sometimes and to some degree or else we would have trouble making any decisions at all. Indeed, we could not count on ourselves to perform even basic reasoning processes. For such processes rely on principles most of us accept intuitively rather than because we grasp their underlying foundations. Moreover, notice how modest the assumption is here. To say we must regard our intuitions as somewhat reliable is not to say we must treat them as infallible. Indeed, if our intuitions were perfectly trustworthy, we would not need any friends. We would be fine going it alone. We could even return to the inner sense model if we wanted. 11 This leads to the heart of the dialogical model’s response to the moral problem: our friends need not be perfect in order to benefit us. They do not even need to be wiser or more insightful than we are. For our friends help us primarily because their minds are different from ours. They see different considerations, make different connections, and imagine different possibilities. As a result, they are able to fill in the gaps in our thinking; they have the ability to tell us what points we have overlooked or taken for granted. In addition, our friends are unlikely to make exactly the same errors in reasoning we do. Thus, they can supply an independent check on our calculations, judgments, and interpretations. In short, they can catch our mistakes. It is in this respect that two or three fallible minds are better than one. There is no guarantee of success, of course. The fact that wise friends support our ways does not entail that we are headed in the right direction. Even groups of wise friends can go astray. Thus, the dialogical model does not reduce ethics to what is socially acceptable. It does not demand that we think the good is whatever our community says. The

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point is just that, with friends by our side, we are less likely to make mistakes, including moral ones. A critic might object that sometimes things get worse when people band together. The most obvious example, and the one Kierkegaard himself cites, is crowds or mobs (PV 106–12/SKS 16:86–92). When part of a mob, people who act decently as single individuals turn nasty. The masses around them make them forget their moral obligations and so their vicious tendencies are exacerbated rather than checked. The dialogical model, however, is set up in a way that ameliorates this concern. It does not ask us to gather together with nameless others in an enormous crowd but rather to form a small group with those who know us well. The intimacy that arises in such a group reduces the feeling of anonymity that is among the causes of mob behavior. 12 The dialogical model also addresses the moral problem in one further way. It requires us to respect our friends and care about them. We must treat them with moral regard, eschewing projects that harm or endanger them. More positively, we must include among our projects the promotion of the good of our friends. The reasoning here is straightforward. If we do not care about our friends, they are unlikely to help us in return. They are unlikely to invest the time and energy required to talk with us about our identities. This is not to say the dialogical model requires an egoistic approach to friendship. 13 It is not asking us to care about our friends only because or insofar as they benefit us in return. Quite the contrary. Embracing the dialogical model actually requires us to love our friends for their own sake. The reason is that other people notice when we treat them in a strictly instrumental fashion, and, for the most part, they do not like it. They back away or refuse to engage when they see it happening. The upshot is that, if we wish to enjoy the benefits of friendship for selfhood, we cannot aim at them directly. It is fine if these benefits are among our motivations for engaging with our friends. Not even Kierkegaard demands that we be totally without self-regard. After all, he points out, we are commanded by God to love our neighbor as ourselves (WL 22–23/SKS 9:30–31). But egoistic payoffs must not be our sole motivation for engaging in dialogue with others—and probably not even our primary motivation. The classical paradox of egoism applies here. The more we aim at egoistic payoffs in our interactions with our friends, the less likely we are to enjoy them. Of course, there is more to morality than loving our friends. Stopping here leaves open the question of how we ought to treat strangers and enemies. After all, it is possible to do well by one’s friends and be callous or downright vicious to others. Thus, a person could embrace the dialogical model and yet fail to be a decent human being. Nevertheless, insisting that we love at least a few others is an important step in the direction of

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morality. It is certainly a step beyond what either the inner sense or the constitution model demands of us. The Unity Problem Finally, let us turn to the third problem facing traditional models of authenticity, the unity problem. The benefits of engaging in dialogue with our friends are most obvious here. Supporting words from our friends can sustain us during moments of doubt. Their affirmation can shore up our commitments to our values when they waver. It can also keep us going when we start to worry about whether our projects are worthwhile. This point is especially clear when we think about periods of depression and sorrow. We often cannot recognize the worthiness of our goals during such times. We cannot see for ourselves why they matter. Thus, if all we had to go on were our own judgments, we would abandon our goals. There would be nothing left to buoy us. The same is not true if we work out our goals in conversation with our friends. For then our goals are not just the product of our own judgments. They are also underwritten by the judgments of others whom we respect. This external support gives us reason to continue with our projects even when we have our own personal doubts about them. The dialogical model also helps with the unity problem in a subtler way. The very process of cultivating the sort of friendships that are likely to help us with selfhood leads us to become more stable. 14 To see why, notice that the most beneficial friendships are with people we can count on. We want friends we can turn to when the going gets tough. We want to be able to ask for advice not just when our identities are holding together but when they are breaking down. It is difficult to count on extremely erratic people in this way. If their behavior is all over the map, they may not be there when we need them. If their values are unpredictable, their help may not be beneficial even when it does come. Of course, other people think the same way. They too prefer friends they can depend on, and they too find it harder to depend on people whose character lacks inner unity. Thus, our mutual pursuit of friendship moves all of us in the direction of continuity and coherence. We all become more stable (a change that may not be fully conscious) so we can reap the benefits of others’ stability in return. THE PROBLEM OF COMMUNITY Kierkegaard’s Negative Views of Community I claimed at the outset of the chapter that the dialogical model is a Kierkegaardian model. It is an approach to selfhood we can read Kierkegaard as supporting. This is a contentious claim, though. On the face of it,

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the dialogical model seems at odds with some of Kierkegaard’s most well-known ideas. Most prominently, it appears to conflict with his view that each of us ought to become a “single individual.” Indeed, in Point of View, Kierkegaard asserts that becoming a single individual is the sine qua non of authenticity. All of us must “press through this narrow pass” if we want to become who we really are (PV 118/SKS 16:98). 15 Kierkegaard’s emphasis on individuality led several early twentieth century critics to conclude that he rejects all social and communal dimensions of selfhood. 16 Numerous texts support these critics’ reading. In Stages on Life’s Way, for instance, we read, “[E]thically-religiously one cannot essentially benefit another” (SLW 344/SKS 6:320). Postscript contains a similar line: “You and I, we are to be alone in this; all your efforts are to mean nothing at all to any other human being” (CUPH 114/SKS 7:128). Anti-Climacus goes even further in Practice in Christianity. He declares that friendship is a temptation or “danger,” and so those who “will the good in a more than ordinary way” should “above all exercise the caution not to have a friend” (PC 118/SKS 12:125; see JP 2:79/SKS 20:115). Later he adds, “‘[F]ellowship’ is a lower category than ‘the single individual,’ which everyone can and should be” (PC 223/SKS 12:218). Finally, Kierkegaard writes in his journals, “[T]he task is precisely to work oneself out of sociality more and more” (JP 2:403/SKS 21:105). Thus, “sociality is essentially retrogression” (JP 2:413/SKS 23:443). At first blush, these passages seem devastating to the thesis that Kierkegaard supports the dialogical model of selfhood. But there is more to Kierkegaard’s views on this topic than meets the eye. As several recent commentators have argued, he is not quite as antagonistic toward sociality and community as it sounds. 17 Indeed, he is actually amenable to the suggestion that other people can play a role in helping us work out our identity. 18 In the following sections, I will develop my own case for this position. Kierkegaard’s Positive Views of Community We can start by noting that there are several good reasons to think Kierkegaard is not a complete and utter individualist. First, in some passages, he explicitly allows for entering into community with others. He writes in a journal entry from 1847, “They will probably bawl out that I do not know what comes next, that I know nothing about sociality. The fools!” (JP 5:363/SKS 20:86) A year later, he confirms that it would be too much to demand that people go through life by themselves. “It is not good for man to be alone, it is said, and therefore woman was given to him for community. But it is true that being alone, literally alone with God, is almost unendurable for a man, is too frightfully strenuous— therefore man needs community” (JP 2:109/SKS 21:104). Kierkegaard goes a step further in one of his upbuilding discourses, saying it is per-

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missible to “deliberate on alternatives with your wife and friends” provided you recognize that “ultimately the action and the responsibility are yours alone as the single individual” (UDVS 131/SKS 8:230; but cf. PC 225/SKS 12:219–20). Second, Kierkegaard’s personal life shows that he was not averse to consulting others. It is true his most famous relationship involved a refusal of intimacy. (I speak here of the jilting of Regine.) But there were other people who were important to Kierkegaard. He was on close terms with Emil Boesen until the end, often sending him letters and seeking his counsel (e.g., LD 159–60/SKS 28:177–78). Indeed, Boesen was the one in whom Kierkegaard confided about the break with Regine. 19 In return, he offered Boesen condolences in times of sickness and “advice, ideas, assistance or the like” during moments of depression (LD 166/SKS 28:184; see also LD 161/SKS 28:176). This is not the behavior of someone who seeks “no partnerships” with others. There is also a third piece of evidence that Kierkegaard permits relying on others. To wit, he does not leave us to fend for ourselves when it comes to the project of selfhood. Instead, he pens volumes upon volumes trying to help us (PV 5–20/SKS 13:11–27; CUP 1:251–300/SKS 7:228–73). He writes in a careful way, of course, always trying to respect our autonomy. He claims to speak “without authority” and often hides his views behind pseudonyms (PV 12/SKS 13:19; CUP 1:625–30/SKS 7:569–73). But the mere fact that he—a human being—attempts to help us in some way entails that he thinks receiving help from other humans is acceptable. After all, it would make no sense if he considered it good to lend assistance to others but bad for others to receive this very same assistance (see WL 274–75/SKS 9:272–73). The Ideal of the Single Individual How are we to reconcile these three pieces of evidence with the passages in which Kierkegaard endorses individuality? We can make progress on an answer by observing that Kierkegaard talks about the ideal of being a single individual in two different ways—a stronger way and a weaker way. On the weak version of the ideal, being a single individual is a matter of being autonomous. 20 Kierkegaard’s views on autonomy are famously complex. 21 But, in general, we qualify as autonomous agents for him when we make up our own minds about what to do or believe. In other words, we are autonomous when we decide for ourselves what is best rather than letting others make the decision for us. This view of autonomy fits much of what Kierkegaard says about being a single individual. For example, he describes the single individual as someone who takes responsibility for his or her own choices rather than deferring responsibility to others (PV 107, 110/SKS 16:87–88, 90; UDVS 131/SKS 8:230; see also EO 2:248, 251, 260/SKS 3:237, 239–40,

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247–48). He also contrasts the single individual with the “mass man” who mindlessly or cravenly accepts the beliefs of the crowd rather than deciding for himself what to think (SUD 34/SKS 11:149; TA 90–95/SKS 8:86–91; UDVS 127–39, 327/SKS 8:227–37, 418–19). Finally, Climacus often depicts the single individual as someone who does not require the approval of others before acting but is willing to go his or her own way if he or she thinks it is right (CUP 1:66, 76, 101, 244/SKS 7:68, 76–77, 99, 222). On the strong version of the ideal, being a single individual has to do with being independent from others. To be independent in the relevant sense, it is not enough that we make up our own minds. Our decisionmaking process must not be influenced by others’ attitudes and beliefs. We must not rely on any social input or support when making judgments about what is right and good. This requirement does not entail that we have to separate ourselves physically from other people (JP 3:214–15/SKS 24:513–14). But it does imply that we must be “indifferent, utterly indifferent” to their attitudes and opinions about us and our situation (PC 210/ SKS 12:206). The strong sense of being a single individual also enjoys textual support. For instance, Climacus says the single individual “declines partnerships” (CUP 1:69/SKS 7:71; see also FT 71/SKS 4:163) and wants “nothing to do” with other people (CUP 1:65/SKS 7:67; see also PC 225/SKS 12:219–20). Judge William claims that, as a single individual, he makes choices in “complete isolation”; he “separates himself” from his relations to the world (EO 2:240/SKS 3:229). Similarly, Silentio asserts that the path of the single individual is lonely. Indeed, it is so lonely one does not encounter another single individual along it (FT 71, 76, 80/SKS 4:163, 167, 171; see also SLW 180–81/SKS 6:168–69). Finally, Kierkegaard himself often connects being a single individual to being socially isolated and describes association with others as a temptation (CD 238/SKS 10:245; JP 1:45–46/SKS 24:410–11, JP 4:120/SKS 26:186; PV 107/SKS 16:88; TA 106/ SKS 8:100–101). The two ways of talking about being a single individual initially appear distinct. It seems one could be a single individual in the weak sense without being one in the strong sense. In other words, autonomy does not seem to require independence from others. It seems possible to seek the advice of friendly counselors without ceding all responsibility to them. This might be true in theory, Kierkegaard allows, but it is not how things go in practice. In practice, consulting friends about what to do or think often ends up being a way to avoid responsibility. Sometimes we turn to other people so we do not have to make up our own minds. We follow the guidance of our advisers so we do not have to take a stand on what we ourselves think is right or good. Other times, as Derrida develops the worry, we turn to others in order to gain “the security and dependability of the majority vote” (CUP 1:76/SKS 7:77). 22 We seek out

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people to talk to not because we are honestly interested in their input but merely because we want to win them over to our side. In the most insidious case, we only consult those whom we suspect already agree with us. What motivates these strategies is typically cowardice. We are afraid of having to take the blame if something goes wrong. To handle our fear, we find reasons to point our fingers at other people—to identify them as the culpable ones. We shift responsibility onto our friends by saying we were just following their advice. Or, we diffuse our own responsibility by claiming a lot of other people agreed with the decision we made. Matters might not be so bad if it were easy to tell when we are falling prey to the foregoing temptations. But, Kierkegaard thinks, it is not easy to tell. Introspection does not always reveal the truth about whether we are using our friends to avoid responsibility or honestly seeking their advice to help us make our own decisions. We have a tendency to lie or deceive ourselves about this issue (JFY 139–40/SKS 192–93; CD 170–71/ SKS 10:181–82). We like to tell ourselves we have reached the high bar of autonomy when we actually have fallen short of it. Kierkegaard holds that there is only one surefire way to rule out self-deception on this point. We must put ourselves in a situation where we simply cannot rely on others. To wit, we must “decline all partnerships,” have “nothing to do with others,” and make our choices in “complete isolation” (CUP 1:65, 69/ SKS 7:67, 71; EO 2:240/SKS 3:229). We should “above all exercise the caution not to have a friend” (PC 118/SKS 12:125). In sum, to guarantee our autonomy we must become independent from others. To use Kierkegaard’s terms, to make certain we become single individuals in the weak sense, we have to become single individuals in the strong sense. Reconciling Kierkegaard’s Position With the details of Kierkegaard’s position in view, it is now possible to explain how to reconcile those passages that require independence with those that allow a place for community. The key lies in one of Kierkegaard’s manuscripts from 1849–1850: And insofar as there is the religious “community” or “congregation,” this is a concept which lies on the other side of “the single individual”; “the single individual” must have intervened with ethical decisiveness as the middle term in order to make sure that “community” and “congregation” are not taken in vain as synonymous with public, the crowd, etc. (JP 1:241/ Pap. X-5 B 245; cf. TA 106/SKS 8:100–101)

Kierkegaard acknowledges in this passage that there is a place for community. 23 It just lies “on the other side” of becoming a single individual. This suggests a version of the two-step movement or “double movement” described at the beginning of the last chapter. One must first leave others behind to become a single individual. Afterwards one can return to

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friends, family, and intimate others. In other words, Kierkegaard is saying it is permissible for us to engage in dialogue with other people about important topics, such as selfhood. But we must already have taken the time to discern what we think about the matter for ourselves apart from anyone else’s influence. This picture reflects the structure of the dialogical model provided we make a few qualifications. Most importantly, the first movement must involve the development only of an initial conclusion about what to do or believe. By an “initial conclusion,” I mean one that is tentative and revisable—a sense of how to proceed given what we know but that we are willing to change in light of additional input. In other words, the first step must not be a matter of settling the question at hand once and for all in our minds. It must merely be a matter of arriving at a preliminary take. If the first movement did require us to make up our minds once and for all, our subsequent return to community would be a charade. Our conversations with others would amount to nothing more than idle chatter that had no effect on our beliefs or actions. Making the second movement more than just a charade requires being receptive to what our friends and fellow community members have to say. We must be willing to listen to them in such a way that their comments can at least potentially make a difference in our decision-making process. Taking other people’s insights into account does not mean following them dogmatically, of course. We must always end by taking responsibility for our own views. After discussing a particular topic with our friends, we must retreat again into solitude. We must take the time to be alone with our thoughts once more so that we can decide where we stand apart from the influence of others. Thus, the first movement is not one we ever leave behind. It is rather one we are continually making. Viewing the two movements as parallel phases of an ongoing process allows us to do justice to both sides of the story Kierkegaard tells about individuality and community. It enables us to reap the benefits of consulting people who see the world differently than we do. But it also protects against the risks associated with entering into a community by requiring us to take the measure of our own opinions. This is what Kierkegaard means when he says “the single individual” is the “middle term” that allows us “to make sure that ‘community’ and ‘congregation’ are not taken in vain” (JP 1:241/ Pap. X-5 B 245). THE PROBLEM OF COMMUNICATION The ideal of the single individual is not the only theme in Kierkegaard’s authorship that creates problems for the dialogical model. For not only does Kierkegaard say we ought to go through life alone, but sometimes he adds that we do in fact go through life alone. We do not know one an-

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other very well, he claims. We lack the kind of intimacy we need to engage in meaningful conversations about our identities. Thus, it might seem that for Kierkegaard the dialogical model of selfhood is not a live option. Kierkegaard’s claim about our existential loneliness comes in various strengths. Sometimes the barrier between people seems contingent and so capable of being overcome. For instance, Climacus suggests many of us just lack the courage to be vulnerable before others (CUP 76/SKS 7:76–77; see also CD 232/SKS 10:239–40; SUD 33–34/SKS 11:149–50). We do not open up or share our secrets because we are worried about what people might think. We are afraid they might reject us if we let it be known who we really are. Thus, to avoid the possibility of social ostricization or public condemnation, we remain closed within ourselves [indesluttet]. We use silence to shut ourselves off from those around us (FT 87–88, 110–13/SKS 4:177–78, 199–200; SLW 230/SKS 6:215). In other passages, the barriers between people appear insurmountable. It seems as though Kierkegaard believes it is impossible for us to share our lives with others. For example, Climacus says that the content of our reflections about ourselves is “essentially a secret”; it “cannot be communicated directly” (CUP 79–80/SKS 7:79–80). Similarly, Silentio claims that one knight of faith cannot communicate the content of his life even to another knight of faith. He declares, “The single individual simply cannot make himself understandable to anyone” (FT 71/SKS 4:163; see also FT 76, 80/SKS 4:167, 171), a sentiment echoed by Judge William in Stages on Life’s Way (SLW 180/SKS 6:168). Scholars interpret these statements in different ways. Some, including Geoffrey Hale and Daniel Berthold, read them as making a point about the limits of language. 24 They take Kierkegaard to be saying that words are not effective vehicles for transferring meaning from one person to another. I admit there is something to this interpretation, and I have discussed the details elsewhere. 25 But I find it more helpful to frame the issue as Katherine Ramsland does. 26 She claims what Kierkegaard has in mind is a point about first-person or subjective experience. The reason we have trouble communicating with each other, on Ramsland’s reading, is that I cannot know what it is like for you to experience the world and vice versa. The only experience each of us fully understands is the one with which we are directly acquainted—namely, our own. As Climacus puts it, “the only actuality there is for an existing person is his own ethical actuality” (CUP 1:316/SKS 7:288). What drives this claim about subjective experience is, among other things, Kierkegaard’s commitment to the epistemological principle that “like is only known by like” (JP 1:18/SKS 19:397; CUP 1:52–53/SKS 56–57). 27 Kierkegaard endorses this principle in a variety of contexts. He talks about how only someone who has suffered knows what it is like to suffer and only someone who has loved knows what it is like to love (CD

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223–24/SKS 10:231–32; WL 16/SKS 9:24; PF 25/SKS 4:232). His most wellknown discussion of the idea, however, concerns Christianity. In Postscript, Climacus allows that anyone can know what Christianity is. But he goes on to say that only a Christian can know what it is like to be a Christian (CUP 371–72/SKS 7:337–39). Kierkegaard reaffirms this point in Christian Discourses. Therein he proclaims that “pagans” (i.e., nonbelievers) cannot understand how the Christian sees the world (CD 17, 31/SKS 10:29, 42). The justification for the “like is only known by like” principle is not always clear. Kierkegaard’s version of it often seems motivated by the idea that our first-person experience of the world cannot be reduced to a set of discursive statements that we could convey to other people in speech or writing (JC 168/SKS 15:55; JP 3:7/SKS 22:380). This is not to imply we cannot describe our experiences. Clearly, we can. The point is rather that even our best descriptions fail to do our experience justice. This is so for two reasons. First, there is always more to our experience than any manageable set of statements could capture. Preserving all the details—every background color and angle of movement, every smell of every breeze—would take too long. Thus, for expediency’s sake, we engage in a bit of “foreshortening” (CUP 1:420–21, 441–45/SKS 7:383, 401–6). We leave gaps in our narratives and omit details we think others will take for granted. Second, even our best descriptions are somewhat abstract. They inevitably leave out some of the immediacy or raw feel of the first-hand experience (JC 168/SKS 15:55). As Sartre puts the idea in his recounting of Kierkegaard’s view, there is always an “irreducible remainder” after everything that can be said about our lives has been said. 28 The “like is only known by like” principle creates a problem for the dialogical model. For it appears to place limits on the kind of people with whom we can have meaningful dialogues. Because we cannot describe our lives perfectly, most people will not be able to understand us fully. Unless they have had relevantly similar experiences, their take on our lives will be full of gaps (CD 223–24/SKS 10:231–32). Thus, if we want to converse with someone who truly grasps our way of being—as we often do when it comes to something as personal as our identity—we will either have to turn to God, who is omniscient, or someone who is like us. If we are depressed, we will have to seek out other depressed people. Similarly, if we are aesthetes, we will have to seek out other aesthetes, and if we are Christians, other Christians. Kierkegaard sometimes pushes this line of argument a step further by emphasizing the particularity of our lives. Although at a certain level of abstraction many of us occupy the same circumstances and have the same experiences, at the most concrete or fine-grained level everyone’s life is unique. No two people go through exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. There are always differences in the details. All Christians may know what it is like to be a Christian, but they do not all know what

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it is like for me to be a Christian. Only I know that. So too for everything else that might be true for me, from being depressed to being a professional philosopher, a son, a cello player, or a divorcee. This is what Climacus is getting at in the aforementioned passage where he says that the only actuality we know is our own actuality (CUP 1:316/SKS 7:288). It is also what stands behind Silentio’s statement that one knight of faith cannot understand another (FT 71/SKS 4:163). Two knights of faith may be familiar with what it is like to be tested by God. But neither will know the unique fear and trembling the other experiences or the precise intimacy with God the other enjoys. The upshot is that between any two people there will always be an empathy gap. No matter how similar their lives or worldviews, they will never fully know what it is like for the other to experience the world. This is why Judge William describes the path of the single individual as lonely (SLW 180/SKS 6:168). It is not just the knight of faith who never encounters another person who fully understands him or her. None of us ever does. Our uniqueness—our irreducible singularity—isolates us from one another. The Possibility of Mutual Understanding There is some plausibility to what Kierkegaard says about the loneliness of existence. But he overstates the problem. He makes it sound as if our uniqueness entails we cannot understand each other at all. Yet, this conclusion does not follow from everything else he says. Even if we are unique individuals, that does not mean we have nothing in common. In fact, Kierkegaard admits we share a common human nature and goes to great lengths to describe it. 29 We all have pasts and futures. There are things about which we have regrets and things for which we hope. There are things we look back on with fondness and things on the horizon that make us worry. Moreover, all of us have minds and bodies. We experience pleasure as well as pain, happiness as well as sadness; and, when given the choice, we tend to prefer the former item in these pairs. In virtue of these characteristics we hold in common, the “like is only known by like” principle entails that we are never completely in the dark about each other’s experience of the world. We always understand each other somewhat or to some degree. It is also important here not to underestimate the power of descriptions. Kierkegaard suggests our experience of the world cannot be reduced to a set of statements about it. No matter how well we describe what we have gone through, there will always be an irreducible remainder; there will always be a leftover part of our experience that our descriptions fail to capture. This much seems true. But it does not follow that our descriptions reveal nothing. A failure to provide our conversation

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partners with perfect knowledge of our lives is not the same thing as leaving them empty-handed. There is a sense in which Kierkegaard appreciates this point. It is why he offers us so many careful accounts of lived experience in his own writings. He takes the time to compose narratives about the lives of concrete individuals because he thinks such narratives can be illuminating (CUP 251–300, 464–65/SKS 7:228–73, 422–23). This view also stands behind his praise of Thomasine Gyllembourg’s work. He claims her novels are valuable on account of the fact that they supply us with insightful pictures of what life looks like from the inside (TA 18, 22/SKS 8:21, 25). Of course, reading works of literature will not provide us with perfect knowledge of the lives they depict. 30 I cannot rightly say after perusing Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me that I now know what it is like to suffer through racist bigotry in the United States. Nor can I justifiably maintain upon finishing the final pages of Robert Stone’s A Flag for Sunrise that I now understand what it is like to be brutalized. Still, in both cases, as John Gibson argues, my understanding of the experiences in question is at least somewhat richer than it was before. 31 Finally, note that authors do not always have first-hand knowledge of the lives they describe. Take Kierkegaard, for example. He could not possibly have occupied every stage on life’s way that we encounter in his writings. Even if we disbelieve his assertion in Point of View that he was religious from the beginning (PV 33–37/SKS 16:18–22), as Henning Fenger and Joakim Garff say we should, he could not have gone through every nuanced version of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious life. 32 There are simply too many of them. Thus, Kierkegaard must have made up some of his content. The fact that some of his stories are fictional, however, does not entail that they are any less revelatory. In fact, one of the reasons we hold him in such high regard as an author is that his imagination was robust enough to illuminate spheres of existence he himself did not walk through. There is an important lesson here for us all. Just as through the power of his imagination Kierkegaard can gain a sense for ways of life other than his own, so too can we. In the end, that is what makes the project of selfhood possible. We can become better versions of ourselves only because we are able to envision alternative forms of existence in our minds. We have the ability to see what it would be like to be someone other than who we are right now (SUD 31/SKS 11:147; PC 186/SKS 12:186). 33 BEYOND FRIENDSHIP: OTHER SOURCES OF SUPPORT In conclusion, we are not as isolated from others as Kierkegaard’s writings sometimes make it sound. It is not the case that we are able to understand our own lives and no one else’s. Of course, Kierkegaard’s

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attestations about our existential loneliness are not completely wrongheaded. The fact that we are unique individuals prevents us from being understood perfectly by human others. But this concession does not undermine the dialogical model of selfhood. For we need not understand each other perfectly in order to help each other with selfhood. Complete empathy is not a necessary prerequisite for providing meaningful guidance. People who fall short of this ideal can still offer us much help. In fact, we do not even need to wait for someone who “gets us.” Experience reveals that friends of all levels of intimacy are capable of offering insights that are beneficial to us as we struggle to determine who we really are. This leads me to the adjustments to the dialogical model promised at the start of the chapter. I have focused on the importance of friends because they are the people to whom we most often turn for help with questions about our identity. It is now clear we must widen the circle. People on the periphery of our lives also can provide assistance. Indeed, sometimes the input of acquaintances and strangers strikes us more forcefully than that of our friends. Our friends can be too close to the details of our lives to see the big picture. Or they can be too emotionally involved to risk telling us the way it is. This is also why therapists— another group we must add to the circle—are helpful. 34 There is also another respect in which we must expand the dialogical model. It is not just necessary to recognize that people other than friends can help us. It is also crucial to appreciate that they can help us through means other than extended dialogue. One-off conversations, one-sided interactions, and off-hand remarks can all serve as stimuli for thinking deeper and better about ourselves. A single word from the right person at the right time can be earth shattering or life sustaining. Drawing on a suggestion from Climacus, Edward Mooney notes how even the silence of another person in certain contexts can speak volumes to us about who we are. 35 Finally, support with the project of selfhood does not have to arrive in the form of a face-to-face encounter. People can help us at a distance. One of the more striking ways this happens is through works of art, especially literature. This view has a long pedigree. We see it in the title of works such as Frederick Maurice’s The Friendship of Books and Bradford Torrey’s Friends on the Shelf. In fact, across the centuries, thinkers as diverse as David Hume, Wayne Boothe, and Berys Gaut have all proposed viewing books as would-be friends. 36 In the next chapter, I will argue that Kierkegaard endorses a version of this position. He too holds that one of the primary reasons art matters is that it can play a role in our individual self-development. Like good friends, good works of art can teach us about ourselves (TA 17–18/SKS 8:20–21). 37 They can “inspire or provoke self-awareness about the state of

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one’s existence,” to use Peder Jothen’s words. 38 In fact, for Kierkegaard, art is often the best instructor when it comes to selfhood. NOTES 1. Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Duckworth, 1988), 98; Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 35. The view in question is sometimes referred to as “communitarianism.” For discussion, see Andrew Jason Cohen, “Communitarianism, ‘Social Constitution,’ and Autonomy,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 80, no. 2 (1999): 121–35. 2. Theodor W. Adorno, “On Kierkegaard’s Doctrine of Love,” Zeitschrift Für Sozialforschung 8, no. 3 (1939): 413–29; Martin Buber, “The Question to the Single One,” in Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor-Smith (New York: Routledge, 2002), 46–97; Louis Mackey, “The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard’s Ethics,” The Review of Metaphysics 15, no. 4 (1962): 602–620. 3. For example, see George B. Connell and C. Stephen Evans, eds., Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community: Religion, Ethics, and Politics in Kierkegaard (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992); M. Jamie Ferreira, Love’s Grateful Striving: A Commentary on Kierkegaard’s Works of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert L. Perkins, ed., Works of Love, International Kierkegaard Commentary 16 (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1999); Steven Shakespeare and George Pattison, eds., Kierkegaard: The Self in Society, 1998th ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998). 4. Edward F. Mooney, “Dependence and Its Discontents: Kierkegaard on Being Sustained by Another,” MLN 128, no. 5 (2013): 1038–60; Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 31–46. For other sources of the idea that, for Kierkegaard, we can develop our identities in relation to human others, see C. Stephen Evans, “Who Is the ‘Other’ in Sickness Unto Death? God and Human Relations in the Constitution of the Self,” in Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 269–72; C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 46–50; Brad Frazier, Rorty and Kierkegaard on Irony and Moral Commitment: Philosophical and Theological Connections (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 146; Joakim Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 253; Arne Grøn, “The Embodied Self Reformulating the Existential Difference in Kierkegaard,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 11, no. 10–11 (2004): 36–37. 5. For support, see Garff, “Formation and the Critique of Culture,” 269–70. 6. For discussion, see Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 585; Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 108. 7. For support, see John Lippitt, “Kierkegaard’s Virtues? Humility and Gratitude as the Grounds of Contentment, Patience, and Hope in Kierkegaard’s Moral Psychology,” in Kierkegaard’s God and the Good Life, ed. Stephen Minister, J. Aaron Simmons, and Michael Strawser (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), 95–114. 8. For additional discussion, see Antony Aumann, “Self-Love and Neighbor-Love in Kierkegaard’s Ethics,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), 197–216. 9. For a summary of Kierkegaard’s view on the distinguishing features of a revelation, see Julia Watkin, Kierkegaard (New York: Continuum, 2001), 88. 10. The dialogical model is a procedural or “process-oriented” theory of selfhood, to use James Bennett’s term (“Selves and Personal Existence in the Existentialist Tradition,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 37, no. 1 [1999]: 136). As such, it is consistent

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with a number of different substantive commitments regarding selfhood. In particular, it does not presuppose that each of us has one true self or that there is only one right way for each of us to go through life. It is consistent with the notion that there are several right ways between which we must arbitrarily choose—provided there are also some wrong ways. As a result, the dialogical model is consistent with some versions of the constitution model. It is also consistent with some versions of the inner sense model. 11. The moderate position defended here reflects Kierkegaard’s own view. He is of course most well-known for his negative comments about our natural instincts and inclinations. In Philosophical Fragments, for instance, he has Climacus reject the thesis that the truth lies within us. Indeed, we are naturally “outside the truth” or “polemical against the truth,” according to Climacus (PF 13, 15/SKS 4:222, 224). A similarly negative view pervades Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Christian Discourses. Both texts contain the refrain that we cannot do anything good or get anything right without God’s help (CUP 467–71/SKS 7:424–27; CD 63–65, 298–300/SKS 10:72–74, 323–25). Yet, as Anthony Rudd argues, these are not Kierkegaard’s only words on the matter (“The Moment and the Teacher: Problems in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments,” Kierkegaardiana 21 [2000]: 92–115; Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012], 50). In Fragments, for example, Climacus admits that we have the ability to recognize God when he arrives. We would not have this power if we were completely hopeless with respect to the good. In Sickness Unto Death, Anti-Climacus asserts that the human problem is not ignorance of the good, as Socrates claimed; it is also willful rejection of the good (SUD 94–95/SKS 11:206–7). But our wills could not be set against the good if we lacked awareness of the good. Kierkegaard makes a similar comment in the unpublished Lectures on Communication: “The ethical presupposes that every person knows what the ethical is, and why? Because the ethical demands that every man shall realize it at every moment, but then he surely has to know it” (JP 1:271/SKS 27:394). Taking into account all these passages, it seems best to interpret Kierkegaard as holding the moderate position that our instincts and intuitions regarding goodness are somewhat but not entirely reliable. 12. Deindividuation theory as an explanation of crowd behavior is controversial. For discussion, see Tom Postmes and Russell Spears, “Deindividuation and Antinormative Behavior: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 123, no. 3 (1998): 238. 13. For further discussion, see Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education, 37–38. 14. For a similar argument, see Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (New York: Psychology Press, 2004), 152–54; Bernard Williams, “From Sincerity to Authenticity,” in Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 192–93. 15. Walter Kauffman, in the introduction to his well-known anthology of existentialist texts, points to “perfervid individualism” as the thread that ties together all existentialist writers, including Kierkegaard (“Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre,” in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, Revised and Expanded [New York: Penguin Books, 1975], 11). 16. For examples of this criticism, see Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (Routledge, 2003), 46–97; Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, “Modernity, Mass Society and the Media: Reflections on the Corsair Affair,” in The Corsair Affair, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990), 23–61; Louis Mackey, Points of View: Readings of Kierkegaard (Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida, 1986), 152; Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2013), 262–67; Mark C. Taylor, Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 179. 17. For example, see Anthony Imbrosciano, “Kierkegaard’s ‘Individual,’” International Philosophical Quarterly 33, no. 4 (1993): 443–48; Louise Carroll Keeley, “Subjectivity and World in Works of Love,” in Foundations of Kierkegaard’s Vision of Community, ed. George Connell and C. Stephen Evans (Princeton, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992), 96–109; George Pattison and Steven Shakespeare, “Introduction: Kierkegaard, the In-

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dividual, and Society,” in Kierkegaard: The Self in Society, ed. George Pattison and Steven Shakespeare (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), 1–23; Domingos Sousa, “Kierkegaard’s Anthropology of the Self: Ethico-Religious and Social Dimensions of Selfhood,” The Heythrop Journal 53, no. 1 (2012): 37–50; J. Michael Tilley, “Kierkegaard’s Social Theory,” The Heythrop Journal 55, no. 5 (2014): 944–59. 18. For example, see Mooney, “Dependence and Its Discontents”; Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education, 31–46. 19. Joakim Garff, Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 199–206. 20. For the different senses of Kierkegaard’s notion of “the single individual,” see Lydia B. Amir, “Individual,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts, Tome IV: Individual to Novel, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, and Resources 15 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 1–7. 21. For discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on autonomy, see John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012). 22. Jacques Derrida, “Whom to Give to (Knowing Not to Know),” in The Gift of Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 53–81. 23. I draw here on George Willis Williams III, “Irony as the Birth of Kierkegaard’s ‘Single Individual’ and the Beginning of Politics,” Toronto Journal of Theology 28, no. 2 (2012): 315–16. 24. Daniel Berthold, The Ethics of Authorship: Communication, Seduction, and Death in Hegel and Kierkegaard (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011); Geoffrey A. Hale, Kierkegaard and the Ends of Language (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); see also Roger Poole, Kierkegaard: The Indirect Communication (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993). 25. Antony Aumann, “The ‘Death of the Author’ in Hegel and Kierkegaard,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 32, no. 2 (2011): 435–447; for additional discussion, see Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 40–45. 26. Katherine M. Ramsland, “Grice and Kierkegaard: Implication and Communication,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48, no. 2 (1987): 327–34; Katherine M. Ramsland, Engaging the Immediate: Applying Kierkegaard’s Theory of Indirect Communication to the Practice of Psychotherapy (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1989). 27. For discussion of the philosophical foundations for Kierkegaard’s commitment to the “like is only known by like” thesis, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication” (Indiana University, 2008), 142–55. 28. Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Singular Universal,” in Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Josiah Thompson, trans. Peter Goldberger (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972), 233; for discussion, see Antony Aumann, “Sartre’s View of Kierkegaard as Transhistorical Man,” Journal of Philosophical Research 31 (2006): 361–372. 29. I take up the topic of Kierkegaard’s views on human nature in chapter 5. 30. For development of this objection, see John Carey, What Good Are the Arts? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 108–9. 31. John Gibson, “Cognitivism and the Arts,” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (2008): 582–83. 32. Henning Fenger, Kierkegaard, the Myths and Their Origins: Studies in the Kierkegaardian Papers and Letters, trans. G. C. Schoolfield (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 21; Joakim Garff, “The Eyes of Argus. The Point of View and Points of View with Respect to Kierkegaard’s Work as an Author,” in Kierkegaard: A Critical Reader, ed. Ree Jonathan and Chamberlain Jane (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 75–102. For criticism of Fenger and Garff’s reading of Point of View, see Mark A. Tietjen, Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue: Authorship as Edification (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 61–85. 33. Kierkegaard sometimes questions the degree to which we are able to imagine what it is like to have experiences other than our own. For discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on this topic, see Daniel W. Brinkerhoff Young, “Kierkegaard on Time and the

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Limitations of Imaginative Planning,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94, no. 1 (January 1, 2017): 144–69. 34. I am not the first to mention the importance of therapists in connection with Kierkegaard’s views on selfhood. For other references, see Jonathan Lear, A Case for Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 3–71; Gordon D. Marino, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 2018); Ramsland, Engaging the Immediate; Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative, 228–36. In a sense, the connection to therapy is natural. Kierkegaard saw himself as a kind of therapist or “physician of the soul” (SUD 23–24/SKS 11:139–40). He sought to diagnose the psychological maladies that beset the people of his age, and he views his writings as attempts to provide a cure. 35. Edward F. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007), 211, 227–43. 36. Wayne C. Booth, The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 169–98; Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 109–14; David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste,” in The Philosophical Works of David Hume, ed. Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose, vol. 3, 4 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, 1874). 37. In the introduction to Two Ages, Kierkegaard praises the novel, A Story of Everyday Life, because the author “enter[s] into an almost personal relationship with his readers in a cozy, friendly way” (TA 17/SKS 8:20). 38. Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2014), 206.

II

On Art

FIVE The Value of Art An Indirect Method of Communication

Questions about the value of art are nothing new. Lovers of art have been asked to explain its importance at least since the time of Plato’s Republic. We encounter one common line of defense in the writings of Kierkegaard. Like many nineteenth-century thinkers, including the leading figures of the Idealist and Romantic movements, Kierkegaard embraced a “cognitivist” picture of the arts. 1 That is to say, he located the value of art partly in its ability to teach or educate—to provide us with “cognitive” benefits. 2 As hinted at the end of the last chapter, Kierkegaard’s version of cognitivism has a predictable existentialist twist. He is not as interested as Hegel or Schelling, for instance, in whether art can express general truths about the spirit of the age. Nor is he as concerned as Kant with whether art manages to provide us with concrete representations of abstract ideas. Rather, Kierkegaard focuses his attention on art’s ability to teach us about ourselves. Works of art matter to him in large part because they can help us discover who we are as single individuals. More pointedly, works of art matter because they can assist us with the project of selfhood. 3 Despite the popularity of cognitivism, it also received considerable pushback in Kierkegaard’s day. Some critics complained that what art accomplishes does not exactly amount to “teaching.” Others conceded that art might manage to “teach” in some loose sense of the word, but they objected that art does not do so as well as philosophy or the sciences. The lessons communicated through art, they claimed, are never as clearcut or well-supported by reasons. The goal of this chapter is to explain how Kierkegaard turns these objections on their heads. I will argue that he does so by making two key 103

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moves. First, he maintains that works of art do not teach “directly” by telling us truths and offering us evidence. Instead, art educates us in an “indirect” fashion by helping us make our own discoveries. Second, the fact that art does not teach in a straightforward manner is not a defect. On the contrary, it is precisely because art teaches indirectly that it often teaches better than philosophy and the sciences manage to do. AESTHETIC COGNITIVISM Two Classic Objections To appreciate Kierkegaard’s contributions to the cognitivist tradition, we must set them against the backdrop of two well-known challenges. The first challenge is the “no assertions” objection. It states that, on a more or less traditional view, educating people involves giving them truths they need to know. The problem with most works of art is that they do not try to impart any truths. They do not even make any claims or assertions about the way the world goes. Thus, they cannot be said to teach in the traditional sense. Consider pure instrumental music, such as the famous Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 (1717–1723) and Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Five Rackets for Trio Relay (2000), or abstract expressionist art, from Barnett Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimus (1950–1951) to Agnes Martin’s more recent With My Back to the World (1997). These works are non-representational. They do not depict the world as being any particular way let alone assert that their way of depicting the world is the right one. Alternatively, take works of fiction. We can think here about novels, such as Goethe’s Faust (1790–1832) and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), or paintings, such as El Greco’s Laocoön (1610–1614) and Tarsila do Amaral’s A Cuca (1924). Although representational, these works also do not make any claims about the world. At least not about the actual world. They relate how some imaginary world appears in the mind of the author or artist who conjured it up. Of course, works that do not explicitly assert truths may nonetheless convey them implicitly. Vir Heroicus Sublimus, Laocoön, The Bluest Eye, and Faust all might fit in this category. Faust, for instance, could be read as suggesting that humanity can save itself through moral striving. This brings us to the second challenge to the cognitivist view of art, the “no reasons” objection. It points out that teaching is more than offering people truths. Real teaching requires providing people with knowledge. And people possess knowledge only when they have justifications for what they take to be true. Thus, the deeper problem with works of art is that, even when they do convey truths, they often fail to support them with justifications—that is, reasons, arguments, or evidence. 4

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These two objections have received much attention of late. But they are not peculiar to our day. Their pedigree extends back to Plato’s argument in the Republic for thinking art should be banished from the ideal city. 5 They also stand behind the view held by many philosophers in the modern era that art is not as reliable a path to truth as science. 6 Finally, we catch glimpses of the two objections in the reasoning presented by Hegel for his famous “end of art” thesis. Despite the educational function art has served throughout history, Hegel claimed, it ultimately must be replaced by philosophy. For philosophy is a more transparent medium for communicating truths. 7 It should not surprise us, therefore, that Kierkegaard alludes to these two objections in his writings. At times, he even does so sympathetically. Sylvia Walsh calls our attention to passages in Either/Or, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Works of Love that characterize art as a deficient teacher, one that fails to present the world as it actually is. 8 Elsewhere, as George Pattison and Peder Jothen note, Kierkegaard describes a passion for art as an undesirable preoccupation with a realm other than our own (SUD 77–78/SKS 11:191; CUP 1:387–90/SKS 7:352–56). 9 In his most critical moments, Kierkegaard even appears to agree with Plato. “The poet is, in a godly sense, the most dangerous of all,” he writes toward the end of his life (TM 225/SKS 13:281). Such passages lead Kai Hammermeister to conclude, “Kierkegaard associates the aesthetic more or less with deception and corruption.” 10 Kierkegaard’s Version of Aesthetic Cognitivism Kierkegaard’s negative comments about art should not unduly color our interpretation. For he usually restricts them to particular kinds of art or specific approaches to art. 11 When we take a holistic look at his writings on the subject, it becomes apparent that he has a positive conception of the role art can play in human life. As suggested at the outset of the current chapter, we can think of Kierkegaard as falling in line with the Idealists and Romantics on this issue. However much he disagrees with them elsewhere, he shares their view of the importance of art. He too believes art matters because it has the power to educate us about the world and especially about ourselves. As Howard and Edna Hong put it, “the great question for him was how the artistic could be used in a higher service, for example, in upbuilding or edifying literature” (JP 1:529). Hints of Kierkegaard’s cognitivist view of the arts appear in his account of Thomasine Gyllembourg’s early novel, A Story of Everyday Life. He praises the book because it reveals the way life actually is. It offers readers “an explanation of life or a strengthening of their understanding of it” (TA 22/SKS 8:25). To some, it is even “a guide” (TA 22/SKS 8:25). Kierkegaard’s cognitivism also comes across in his account of the difference between an “essential author” and a “premise author” in the unpub-

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lished Book on Adler. The former, he declares, has a definite perspective or view to communicate (BA 13–14/SKS 15:98–99). “The essential author is essentially a teacher,” he adds, who “nourishes” his or her readers (BA 15/SKS 15:101). Further evidence for Kierkegaard’s cognitivism comes from what Ettore Rocca describes as his “second aesthetics,” according to which the poet expresses new ideals for living (see JP 2:288–89/SKS 24:82–83). 12 Kierkegaard’s clearest statements on the cognitive value of art, however, occur in the context of his defense of his own attempts at literature. He turns to a literary or poetic format because he considers it often the best way to help readers learn. Indeed, when it comes to ethics and religion, he thinks good instruction has to be artistic (CUP 1:79, 242–43/SKS 7:29, 220–21; PV 43, 54/SKS 16:25–26, 35; PC 94, 123, 133–44/ SKS 12:103, 128–29, 137–47). In sum, George Connell is correct when he declares, “Kierkegaard takes the position that the task of the author is not simply to entertain but, more fundamentally, to communicate a view of life that will, directly or indirectly, clarify reality for his readers.” 13 Kierkegaard is an important member of the cognitivist tradition for several reasons. Chief among them is that his version of cognitivism contains a couple of insights that allow him to avoid the two objections described in the previous section. His first insight is that philosophers often presuppose a narrow view of teaching. They tend to assume that teaching involves imparting truths and supporting these truths with reasons. To use Kierkegaard’s terminology, when philosophers talk about teaching, they restrict their focus to the “communication of knowledge” or “direct communication” (JP 1:281/SKS 27:404). If the “direct” model of teaching were the only one, the standard objections to cognitivism would typically go through. Art would be an impoverished educator because it seldom follows the “truth plus justification” pattern. But, and this is Kierkegaard’s second insight, the direct model of teaching is not the only legitimate model. It may reflect the stereotypical way instruction occurs in philosophy or the ideal pursued in the sciences, but it does not capture how instruction happens in art. When works of art teach, they tend to do so indirectly rather than directly. They tend to educate us without asserting truths or offering reasons to believe them. Kierkegaard’s writings contain several accounts of art’s indirect method of instruction or what he calls “indirect communication” (e.g., JP 1:267–93/SKS 27:390–434; CUP 1:72–80, 242–99/SKS 7:73–80, 220–73; PC 123–44/SKS 12:128–47; PV 41–56/SKS 16:23–36). The details of these accounts differ, but the central idea remains the same. Rather than straightforwardly telling us the truth, art indirectly teaches us by empowering us to uncover the truth for ourselves. 14 It provides us with the tools, training, and background resources we need to make discoveries on our own. For this reason, Kierkegaard describes indirect communication as “the communication of capability” rather than “the communication of knowl-

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edge” (JP 1:281–90/SKS 27:404–14). The implication here is that the indirect method of teaching does not involve giving people new information to know. Instead, it involves helping people cultivate the ability to learn new things on their own. The aim, as Kierkegaard puts it, is to help the learner “stand alone” (JP 1:280/SKS 27:403; WL 274–75/SKS 9:272–73). To explain indirect communication further, Kierkegaard draws on Socrates’s metaphor of midwifery or “maieutics” (PV 7–9/SKS 13:13–15; CUP 1:80/SKS 7:80; JP 1:274–80/SKS 27:397–403). 15 The maieutic teacher does not give birth to his or her own knowledge and then pass it along to the learner. He or she rather helps learners “give birth” to their own knowledge, just as the midwife draws the infant from the mother. More perspicuously, the maieutic teacher induces learners to arrive at the relevant lesson on their own rather than straightforwardly telling it to them. One crucial qualification to this standard picture deserves our attention. Although Kierkegaard often associates art with indirect communication, especially in places such as “A Glance at a Contemporary Effort in Danish Literature” (CUP 1:251–300/SKS 7:228–73), he does not identify the two. 16 He does not reduce art to indirect communication or indirect communication to art. It is possible, he says, to teach indirectly without using artistic means. One prominent example comes from Socrates. His question-asking method counts as indirect communication even though it does not amount to fine art, according to Climacus (CUP 1:277–78/SKS 7:251–54). For it too prompts learners to reason under their own steam to a conclusion rather than handing the conclusion over to them as a finished product. In addition, Kierkegaard claims that some works of art attempt to teach us directly rather than indirectly. They are didactic by nature, sometimes even beating us over the head with their theses and badgering us into accepting their points of view (see TA 34–35, 41/SKS 8:34–35, 41). Finally, Kierkegaard acknowledges that many artworks do not teach us at all. Some attempt to assist us with the learning process but ultimately fail. The tools, training, or resources they offer us are flawed. Other works of art do not even try to help us. They serve as diversions from the task of learning rather than occasions to pursue it. Works of these last two sorts are among the targets of Kierkegaard’s negative remarks about art mentioned in the previous section. (I will revisit this point at the end of the next chapter.) ARTISTIC METHODS OF INDIRECT COMMUNICATION Imaginary Constructions Art can indirectly teach us in many different ways, according to Kierkegaard. One way is by providing us with “imaginary constructions.” 17 An imaginary construction presents a possibility or set of pos-

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sibilities. It depicts via figures, shapes, characters, or narratives how we could think or could be. It supplies us, in other words, with concrete representations of specific ways we could live in the world or particular attitudes we could adopt toward the world (see CUP 1:251–300/SKS 7:228–73). Included here are attitudes we could take toward ourselves, such as ways we could interpret our pasts or envision our futures. Imaginary constructions are not mimetic in the Platonic sense of imitating the actual world. The characters and situations they represent are fictional rather than factual or historical (R 302, 310–11/SKS 15:67–68, 75–76; BA 15–16/SKS 15:101–2). 18 In addition, imaginary constructions are not dictatorial in nature. They do not present the ways of thinking or being they depict as normative. That is, they do not encourage us to embrace or avoid them. Instead, imaginary constructions leave it for us to decide how to respond (CUP 1:289/SKS 7:263). The purpose of imaginary constructions is to help us explore our thoughts and feelings about our options. They enable us to envision the paths before us more concretely or in greater depth than most of us could on our own. Thus, even though they do not offer overt guidance, we leave them in a better position to make up our minds about how to proceed. In some cases, the characters and situations depicted in imaginary constructions open up new options. They set before us ideals or standards of excellence we have not yet considered (JP 2:288–89/SKS 24:82–83; JP 6:304/Pap. X-6 B 82). 19 In other cases, they remind us of bypassed possibilities or make familiar ones more vivid (see CUP 1:275–76n/SKS 7:249n). That is to say, they render afresh possibilities we have come to take for granted or prompt us to reconsider ones we have too quickly dismissed. 20 Kierkegaard presents his own authorship as a case in point. His writings do not describe new ways to live. Instead, they offer us new ways to think about paths we already know but about which our knowledge is superficial (CUP 1:629–30/SKS 7:572–73; WA 165/SKS 12:281). One concrete example is Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. As described previously, it contains the papers of two fictional characters, each of whom occupies a familiar lifestyle. Part I acquaints us with the musings of A, a young man who leads an aesthetic life centered on the pursuit of enjoyment. In part II, we encounter the work of Judge William. He is an older married man who embraces an ethical lifeview that emphasizes taking personal responsibility for one’s choices. What makes Either/Or a paradigm of indirect communication is that it does not favor one life over the other (CUP 1:252–54/SKS 7:229–31). The book does not tell us whether the judge’s letters persuade A to become ethical. Nor do we learn if the judge ever abandons his family and career to avoid missing out on the excitement of the aesthetic life. Kierkegaard just depicts the two lifestyles or “spheres of existence” as clearly as he

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can. He leaves it to us to decide which one is better. That is not to say Kierkegaard lacks an opinion. As we learn in Postscript, he thinks A’s lifestyle is “perdition” or “ruination” (CUP 1:297/SKS 7:270–71). But Kierkegaard does not express this opinion within the confines of Either/ Or. He leaves room—a maieutic gap—for us to arrive at our own judgment (CUP 1:252, 263–64/SKS 7:229, 239–40). Cognitive Tools John Gibson claims that the lives portrayed in works of art are not always real possibilities for us. 21 This seems right, and Kierkegaard himself admits as much (see SLW 191/SKS 6:179–80). I cannot live exactly like A from Either/Or, for instance. Unlike him, I am not wealthy enough to abandon my job the moment it becomes boring. For related reasons, I cannot become Don Juan, Doctor Frankenstein, or Sherlock Holmes. These characters occupy worlds or have abilities too far removed from my own. Yet, works of art that depict unrealistic or unattainable possibilities can still be instructive. We can see in them abstract character traits and general ways of being that we can instantiate in our own way. We can look through them, so to speak, to discover new patterns of living and new ways of understanding existing patterns of living. This brings us to a second way art indirectly teaches us. Rather than representing possible ways to approach life, many works of art give us “cognitive tools” or “instruments of enlightenment” we can use to enhance our understanding of our lives. 22 In particular, many works of art help us by offering us lenses through which to see ourselves better or prisms through which to view the world around us afresh. These lenses or prisms can focus our attention on considerations we have overlooked. They also have the power to structure and organize our conception of the world in ways we could not have imagined on our own. Kierkegaard’s way of expressing the point is to say works of art can serve as mirrors for ourselves (FSE 25–26, 40–4/SKS 13:53–54, 66–70). 23 He is most explicit about this way of framing the idea when it comes to his own literary writings. Indeed, as the motto for one of his books, he uses the quotation from Lichtenberg, “Such works are mirrors: when an ape looks in, no apostle can look out” (SLW 8/SKS 6:16). Kierkegaard’s idea here is that, if we attend carefully to the stories he gives us, we can see reflections of ourselves in the characters they describe. Unlike how others develop the idea, however, Kierkegaard believes what we encounter in the mirror of art is not an image of our common humanity. 24 Instead, we find a vision of our own individual lives (PC 126–27/SKS 12:131). Works of art that serve the kind of mirroring function Kierkegaard has in mind may not themselves contain much knowledge. The standard philosophical objections may be right that they offer us little in the way of truth-plus-justification. Thus, Kierkegaard admits in his

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journals that in many cases of indirect communication “there is no object” or “the object drops out” (JP 1:270–71/SKS 27:395). What he means to say here is that there is no piece of knowledge or bit of information conveyed from teacher to learner. Nevertheless, works of art that serve a mirroring function still have cognitive value because we can use them to acquire knowledge about the world and ourselves. In fact, like ordinary mirrors, they may enable us to discover things we would otherwise miss. They may reflect back to us truths about ourselves we are too myopic to see on our own. ART AS MIRROR OF THE SELF Kierkegaard’s idea that works of art can serve as mirrors for ourselves is a fruitful one. Although not always owing to his influence, it is also one that has received attention in aesthetics circles today. 25 Perhaps the most illuminating account of the art-as-mirror-of-the-self view occurs in the recent work of Elisabeth Camp. 26 It is worth taking a moment to explain her view. Camp distinguishes between two ways we can see ourselves in the characters we encounter in works of literature. The first, called “pretense,” involves using our imaginations to transform ourselves into the figures being described. When reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, for example, I engage in pretense if I contemplate what it would be like to live in Anna’s shoes. I mentally pull myself out of my own situation and put myself into hers. In the most radical version of this exercise, I strip off all my character traits—everything that makes me who I am— and replace them with the traits Tolstoy has given Anna. I attempt to think, feel and experience the world as she does. Camp calls the second way of seeing ourselves in literary characters “metaphorical seeing-as.” It brings us closer to the idea Kierkegaard has in mind. Instead of putting myself in Anna’s shoes so I can understand her life, I use Tolstoy’s description of Anna to help me understand my life. Her story becomes a pattern for structuring and organizing my own. I come to see my troubles in terms of her troubles and my choices in terms of her choices. As a result, my image of myself becomes “transfigured,” to use Arthur Danto’s word. I gain a new picture of who I am. New aspects of my identity come to the forefront and new connections between moments in my life solidify. It may become apparent, for example, that like Anna I too can be driven to fits of jealousy when my goals are threatened, or that I too have pursued romantic love to the detriment of my own well-being. In sum, even though Tolstoy does not explicitly say anything about my life, I can indirectly learn much about my life from his novel if I approach it in the manner Camp describes.

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Metaphor To fill out Camp’s account of metaphorical seeing-as, we can draw on Max Black’s seminal analysis of how metaphorical understanding works in general. 27 According to Black, metaphors have a source domain and a target domain. In the typical subject-predicate form—Thomas is a wolf, Jane is a bulldozer, no man is an island, and so on—the target domain is the subject term and the source domain is the predicate term. When working out the meaning of a metaphor, we begin by focusing on attributes commonly associated with the source domain. We then mentally hunt for parallel or matching properties in the target domain. The result is that new features of the target domain are raised to prominence or made more vivid. Consider the famous metaphor Shakespeare bequeaths to Romeo, “Juliet is the sun.” To understand what Romeo means, we first attend to properties we associate with the sun. This may include its being the source of life, the point around which the world revolves, or a symbol of purity. We then try to discern how these “commonplaces” might fit Romeo’s view of Juliet. What we discover is that Juliet occupies a central place in Romeo’s life, she is the source of everything that matters to him, and he regards her as virginal or perfect. It is not always so easy to spell out what a metaphor reveals about its target domain. We may even find it impossible to specify what we have learned in some cases. This is the source of the common belief that metaphors cannot be paraphrased. It is also (at least in part) what stands behind Climacus’s assertion that some messages defy direct communication (CUP 1:79/SKS 7:79). 28 The difficulties here may be due to the fact that there is no end to the lessons we learn through some metaphors. Or it may be that the lessons are too vague to specify. It is also possible, as Donald Davidson holds, that a metaphor offers us less a set of lessons than a new image of the target domain. 29 We receive a picture that cannot be exchanged for words or an impression that cannot be “reeled off by tutors,” to use Climacus’s phrase (CUP 1:68, 75/SKS 7:69, 76). David and Bathsheba Kierkegaard provides us with several of his own examples of metaphorical seeing-as. One of the most revealing occurs in For Self-Examination, where we find his rendition of the story of David and Bathsheba from the Hebrew Bible (FSE 37–39/SKS 13:64–65). The outlines of the story are well-known. Although King David has many wives, he becomes smitten by the beautiful Bathsheba, who is herself already married to another. Unwilling to resist her charms, David has Bathsheba brought to the palace so he can sleep with her. As part of the cover up for his

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adultery, he arranges to have Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, moved to the front lines of a battle where the fighting is fierce and he is soon killed. God sends the prophet Nathan to help David see the error of his ways. But rather than coming right out and admonishing David, Nathan offers him a parable. It is a tale about a rich man who must prepare a meal for a traveler. In a fit of selfishness, the rich man decides to forgo slaughtering any of his own many animals for the feast. Instead, he seizes upon his poor neighbor’s one and only ewe lamb, which the neighbor has loved and treated like a daughter. On Kierkegaard’s retelling of the Biblical account, David becomes enamored with Nathan’s tale. He praises its literary richness and even offers Nathan advice about how to make it more interesting. Then, Nathan utters those famous words—“thou art the man”—and David’s perspective shifts. He suddenly sees himself as the metaphorical target of the parable. The rich man’s actions and his callous insensitivity to how his greed harms the less fortunate become a lens through which David sees himself. They structure how he understands his own life. They focus his attention on his own selfishness with Bathsheba and his own insensitivity to the suffering of Uriah. With his sins now in full view, David repents. Setting aside Nathan’s famous final words—which no doubt constitute a bit of directness—the parable provides us with a paradigm example of indirect communication in art. 30 The story about the rich man and his poor neighbor does not openly state the lesson David is supposed to learn. In fact, it does not directly present David with any knowledge at all. Nathan’s parable is a work of fiction that does not make any overt claims about the way things go or ought to go in the real world, let alone support such claims with explicit arguments and clear evidence. Thus, the cognitive value of Nathan’s parable is not internal to the parable. It lies in the parable’s afterlife, as Peter Kivy would say. 31 David acquires the crucial insight about himself by using the situations and characters Nathan describes to reframe his view of his own life. In Kierkegaard’s terminology, the story about the rich man and his poor neighbor works as a mirror that reflects back to David his own story so he can see it as others do. It is important to stress that, although the cognitive benefits of Nathan’s parable lie in the afterlife of David’s appreciation of its aesthetic properties, they are not independent of his appreciation of these aesthetic properties. David cannot reflect on his own life in light of the story about the rich man and his poor neighbor unless he first attends to the story itself. This is analogous to the point made above that “Juliet is the sun” will reveal little to us about Juliet unless we antecedently possess knowledge about the commonplaces associated with the sun. (To put the point in terms of Black’s theory of metaphor, we cannot use the source domain to structure our grasp of the target domain unless we first understand the source domain.) Moreover, David must attend to Nathan’s story careful-

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ly. If his understanding of it is superficial or misguided, then it will not serve as a helpful mirror for his own story. In fact, it seems unlikely that David will be able to perform the act of metaphorical seeing-as that gives rise to his discovery about himself unless he first engages in what Camp calls pretense. That is to say, until David puts himself in the shoes of the rich man’s poor neighbor—and perhaps in the shoes of the rich man too—he will not be capable of deeply appreciating how the parable contains an illuminating metaphor for his own life. Nathan’s parable occupies a central place in Kierkegaard’s authorship for another reason. It serves as a model for how Kierkegaard himself proceeds. It itself constitutes a metaphor for his literary practice, especially his early pseudonymous writings. As Mooney puts it, in works such as Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, and Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard seeks to become the Nathan to our David. 32 He attempts to construct characters and narratives that mirror our faults back to us. Moreover, he wishes us to use these mirrors as David does Nathan’s—namely, to gain a deeper and more accurate understanding of who we are (see CD 235/SKS 10:242). Beyond Literature Kierkegaard, like Camp, focuses on literature when making his case for the cognitive value of art. 33 He is less sanguine about other types of art. Following an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century trend, his comments about the revelatory powers of painting and sculpture in particular are negative (EO 1:49–57/SKS 2:57–65; EO 2:133–39/SKS 3:132–37). 34 I believe it is a mistake on Kierkegaard’s part to downplay the power of painting and sculpture. They too can provide us with lenses or prisms that help us restructure our vision of ourselves. They too can work as mirrors that reflect back to us transfigured images of our lives—images that afford us new ways to conceive of who we have been, who we are, and who we might become. Consider one of Caravaggio’s last and most beautiful paintings, The Denial of Saint Peter (1610). It depicts a scene found in all four gospels from the final day of Jesus’s life. After Jesus is betrayed and arrested, Peter follows him into the courtyard of the high priest. Over the course of the evening, three people accuse Peter of belonging to Jesus’s group of disciples. Peter rebuffs the charge each time. He thereby fulfills Jesus’s prophesy that he would be denied thrice before the cock crows. 35 In The Denial of Saint Peter, Caravaggio paints one of the three accusations. He has close-cropped three figures—an indicting servant girl, an inquiring soldier whom the girl has summoned, and Peter himself. The light is cast such that the girl and the soldier are in the dark. We barely see the questioning finger of the soldier or the two pointing fingers of the servant girl, which together may reference the three denials. 36 Instead,

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Caravaggio highlights Peter’s indignant scowl along with his hands, which Peter has folded inward toward his chest as if to say, “Who me?” The power of the painting lies in its ability to communicate more than just Peter’s physical appearance. As explained by Keith Christiansen, the curator of the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where the painting hangs, Caravaggio “probes with unparalleled poignancy a dark world burdened by guilt and doom.” 37 He has rendered Peter’s outward visage in such a way that it provides a window into his inner mental state. We see in Peter’s defiant facial expression an anticipation of his coming remorse. When we contemplate Peter’s emotional state, our mirror neurons fire, leading us to empathize with his distress. The terror-cum-regret that overcomes him washes over us as well. These powerful emotional tremors pave the way for associated memories. We find ourselves thinking of moments when we too have denied the ones we love in order to save ourselves. In this way, Caravaggio sheds light not only on the life of Saint Peter but indirectly on our lives as well. His painting works as a mirror that reflects back to us viewers the truth about who we are. Thus, we

Figure 5.1. Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da) (1573–1610), The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610. Oil on canvas, 37 x 49 3/8 in. (94 x 125.4 cm). Gift of Herman and Lila Shickman, and purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1997 (1997.167). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY.

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discover in Peter’s denial of Jesus our own failings, just as David saw his failings in the sins of the rich man from Nathan’s parable. Emotion and Cognition As we start to see in The Denial of Saint Peter, art indirectly teaches us about ourselves not only because of what it represents but also because of how it does so. Works of art rarely depict their subject matter from a dispassionate point of view. They portray it as it appears through an emotional lens. They offer us not neutral but affectively charged representations of the world. The emotional or affective component of these representations plays a crucial role in capturing and focusing our attention. Our emotional responses to art function in a way that resembles how metaphors do. 38 They structure our perception and conception of the work before us, leading us to frame it in terms of a particular gestalt or whole. Certain features of the work or its subject matter are brought to the forefront of our minds. Other features are pushed to the background. Specific connections between these features are highlighted while others are downplayed. The ability of emotion to shape cognition sheds further light on how art other than literature manages to teach us. It is one of the ways we learn from music, for instance. Music, especially pure instrumental music, does not educate us by imparting new truths. In most cases, it does not impart any truths at all. But instrumental music does evoke profound emotions in us. From these emotional heights we often come to see the world afresh. In some cases, we discover ways of thinking about the world that we otherwise would have missed. 39 It is not only music that relies on the power of emotion for its cognitive payoff. Much avant-garde painting and sculpture does so as well. One example is Robert Rauschenberg’s multi-media work, Monogram (1955–1959). The base of the piece is a collage of oil-painted fabric and printed paper organized on a stretched canvas, which Rauschenberg has laid on the floor. Buried amidst the fabric and paper are bits of an old tennis ball along with a rubber shoe heal. Upon the canvas stands a stuffed Angora goat, whose face Rauschenberg has smeared with paint of various colors. A worn-out rubber tire encircles the goat’s abdomen. At the time of Monogram’s construction, Rauschenberg was working with taxidermied animals. He came across the goat in a second-hand office supply shop. Initially, he considered putting it in front of a painting that hung on the wall. He decided against this strategy because the goat overwhelmed the painting. Laying the canvas flat on the ground and setting the goat on top of it worked better. But, still he was dissatisfied, claiming it looked “like art with a goat rather than a unified piece.” So, he put a tire around the goat, and “then everything went to rest, and they lived happily ever after.” 40

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Figure 5.2. Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Monogram, 1955–1959. Combine: oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas with oil and rubber tire on Angora goat on wood platform mounted on four casters. 42 x 63 1/4 x 64 1/2 in. (106.7 x 160.7 x 163.8 cm). Purchase 1965 with contribution from Moderna Museets Vänner/The Friends of Moderna Museet. Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. Image copyright © Moderna Museet. Image courtesy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York, NY.

The piece first appeared at the Castelli Gallery in New York, where dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer encountered it. She reports the work’s having had a transformative effect on her life. After the seriousness of Abstract Expressionism, the irreverence of Rauschenberg’s work was refreshing. “I always say I nearly rolled on the ground with laughter,” she remembers. But the value of Monogram for Rainer was not just in what it meant for the progression of art history. The piece was a wonderful metaphor for thinking about life itself. The silliness of that stupid goat provided a window for Rainer into how silliness has a place in our dayto-day existence. It enabled her to see how not everything has to be so intense all the time. Laughter is important—laughter at ourselves and at the world that greets us. “I think my own sense of humor and irreverence

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began when I saw that show,” Rainer concludes. “It opened up a whole new set of possibilities.” 41 ART VERSUS SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY I have been expanding on Kierkegaard’s cognitivist view of the arts. In particular, I have been elaborating what he means when he says art teaches us indirectly rather than directly. But there is another feature of Kierkegaard’s view that deserves attention. Kierkegaard does not merely maintain that art’s mode of instruction is different from the one we typically find in philosophy and the sciences. He also holds that art’s mode of instruction is often better. Kierkegaard here inverts another popular line of thinking. Many philosophers have held that, insofar as art teaches us at all, it does so in a deficient manner. It would be better if artists were more straightforward about their lessons, if they came right out and told us what we needed to know and gave us clear reasons for why we should believe them. Indeed, this is why Hegel thought that the messages communicated in works of art need to be clarified and justified by philosophy and the sciences. Kierkegaard’s insight is that Hegel and likeminded thinkers have it backwards. Art is not held back by its indirect method of instruction but is better because of it. Art’s indirectness, in other words, is not a defect but a virtue. It is something that often makes art’s mode of instruction superior to that provided by philosophy and the sciences. Kierkegaard’s writings contain several defenses of this claim. In some places, he argues that art’s indirect method of instruction is morally superior to alternative direct methods. It is more respectful of people’s autonomy to let them arrive at their own conclusions than to press conclusions upon them. This is true even if the pressing occurs by way of reasons and arguments (PV 50–53/SKS 16:32–34; CUP 1:74, 260–64, 277–78/SKS 7:74–75, 236–40, 250–54). 42 In other places, Kierkegaard defends the superiority of indirect communication on logical grounds. He wishes for his readers to become personally interested in and passionately engaged with his ideas. Thus, if he presented these ideas in the impersonal and dispassionate style characteristic of philosophical and scientific treatises, he would be contradicting himself. 43 What he says would conflict with how he says it (CUP 1:75–80/SKS 7:75–80). I will return to these arguments in chapters 7 and 8. In the remainder of the present chapter, I will focus on a further argument that has received attention in the literature. According to Kierkegaard, art’s indirect approach to instruction is often pedagogically superior to direct approaches. It is often a more effective way to help people learn. This conclusion rests on two premises. First, in general, an indirect method of teaching is often better than a direct method because it requires learners

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to become more actively engaged in the learning process. 44 In line with current educational theory, Kierkegaard holds that a lesson is more likely to hit home and stick with us if we have to discover it for ourselves than if it is handed to us. In Kierkegaard’s language, we are less likely to end up with “rote understanding” this way (PV 41–55/SKS 16:23–36; CUP 1:72–80, 277–78/SKS 7:72–80, 251–54; TDIO 37–38/SKS 5:416). Second, although there are several ways to undertake the indirect method of instruction, artistic ways are often the best. The reason is that artistic instruction is more responsive to our nature as human beings (PV 54/SKS 16:35). In particular, it better accommodates the fact that we are not computers or robots who process ideas in a strictly logical way. 45 Our passions, emotions, and imaginations all play roles in our decision-making processes. The value of art over philosophy and the sciences is that it has the ability to engage us on all these levels. Art addresses “the whole person,” as the popular phrase has it. Or, to use Jothen’s turn of phrase, “[A]rt offers a means of communicating truth that speaks to the aesthetic dimensions of the becoming self.” 46 Appreciating the force of this claim requires a detour through Kierkegaard’s account of human nature. INTERLUDE: KIERKEGAARD ON HUMAN NATURE The centerpiece of Kierkegaard’s view of human nature is that we are not purely rational creatures. Proof of this claim lies in the kinds of errors we commit. If we were purely rational, Kierkegaard avers, incoming information would always perfectly translate into action and belief (CUP 1:22/ SKS 7:30; SUD 92–96/SKS 11:205–8). We would always do what we took to be good and believe what appeared to us to be true. Thus, any mistakes would be the result of a lack of education. We would do evil only because we did not yet know what the good really was. So too, we would believe falsehoods only because we had not yet been taught what was actually right. All sin, to put the point how Anti-Climacus does in Sickness Unto Death, would be a matter of ignorance (SUD 95/SKS 11:207). But this is not how things go in the world. Our problem as human beings is not always a lack of knowledge or education (CUP 1:242, 249–50/SKS 7:220, 226–27). We sometimes fail to do what we take to be right or intentionally do what we know to be wrong (SUD 90/SKS 11:203; TDIO 100/SKS 5:467). In addition, we find ourselves believing what deep down we are aware is false or failing to believe what in a sense we recognize is correct. These possibilities—weakness of will, radical evil, and self-deception—all show that we are not purely rational creatures. Other faculties play a role in our decision-making and belief-forming processes.

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Passion To be a human being, for Kierkegaard, is also to be a passionate being (TA 61–69/SKS 8:59–66; CUP 1:33, 130–31, 311/SKS 7:39, 122–23, 283–84). 47 In other words, a genuinely human existence is one that involves caring about things. It is a matter of taking things to be of significance and regarding them as worth structuring our lives around. We are passionate in the relevant sense, Climacus says in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, if we are willing to take risks for things, venture for them, or pursue them at great cost to ourselves (CUP 1:200–204/SKS 7:183–86). To say we are passionate beings is not to say we are all already properly passionate. The problem with many of us is that we do not have enough passion. Indeed, Kierkegaard often complains, his age is a tepid one (TA 68/SKS 8:66). “What our age needs is pathos,” he writes in his journals, “just as scurvy needs green vegetables” (JP 3:428/SKS 20:119). Climacus goes so far as to say that most people have forgotten what it is to be passionate and thus what it is to be human (CUP 1:242/SKS 7:220). Contrary to some readings, Kierkegaard does not recommend that we be passionate about just any old thing. 48 Although he does suggest caring about something is better than caring about nothing, he thinks the object of our cares matters (CUP 1:201/SKS 7:184; JP 3:427/SKS 18:217). For instance, he laments that some people place too much emphasis on abstract reflection (CUP 1:249/SKS 7:226–7). He chastises others for being preoccupied with mundane worldly affairs (SUD 48/SKS 11:163; CD 124/SKS 10:135). Perhaps Kierkegaard’s favorite whipping boy, however, is the person who obsesses over what “the public” or “the crowd” thinks, something that ought not to concern us at all (PV 106–12/SKS 16:86–92; UDVS 95–96/SKS 8:199–200). In Kierkegaard’s mind, what we ought to care about are ethical and religious matters. We ought to devote ourselves to doing the good, loving our neighbor, and abiding by God’s will (UDVS 24–30/SKS 8:139–48; WL 44–60/SKS 9:51–67). Relatedly, we should care about developing our identities in an ethical and religious direction. We should focus our attention on the goal of becoming ideal versions of ourselves (CUP 1:130/SKS 7:122; EO 2:178/SKS 3:173–74). Emotion Kierkegaard advocates the importance of passion not only in the sense of care or devotion. He also regards passion in the sense of emotion or feeling as a crucial component of human nature. In fact, one of the mistakes Kierkegaard harps on is the attempt to bracket our emotions from our intellectual inquiries (CUP 1:32–34, 350–51/SKS 7:38–40, 320–21). 49 Under the sway of the Platonic tradition, he thinks we often attempt to approach issues from a dispassionate point of view (CUP 1:253/SKS

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7:230). In part, this means we try not to let our own personal interests and agendas—our “passions” in the first sense of the term—interfere with our judgments about what is right or true. But it also means we try to keep our emotions out of it. We aim to think and reason with an even-keeled or placid disposition. Kierkegaard has two problems with our pursuit of this sort of objectivity. First, he maintains that being completely dispassionate and disinterested is impossible. We never approach anything with perfect neutrality. Indeed, it is a fundamental feature of human consciousness that we are always in some way “interested” in the issues we think about (JC 170/SKS 15:57). 50 We always approach them against the backdrop of preexisting concerns and so we always possess a variety of emotional attitudes toward them (EO 2:164/SKS 3:161). 51 Thus, he writes, “a perfectly disinterested will (equilibrium) is a nothing, a chimera” (JP 2:59/SKS 19:393). Second, Kierkegaard believes that to the degree that it is possible to become dispassionate, doing so is often a mistake. As Rick Furtak has shown, Kierkegaard embraces a perceptual theory of the emotions according to which our emotions can help us see the world better. 52 They can serve as lenses that focus our attention. In particular, they can put in sharp relief the value or significance of what we encounter. 53 Kierkegaard goes so far as to say, “[F]undamentally all understanding depends upon how one is disposed toward something” (JP 4:354/SKS 23:24–25). As such, “a person’s inner being . . . determines what he discovers and what he hides” (EUD 60/SKS 5:70). Kierkegaard refers to this theory of emotion in several contexts. He says in The Concept of Anxiety, for example, that being in the right mood is necessary for conducting certain intellectual inquiries (CA 14–15/SKS 4:321–22). In his journals, he adds that we must have an anguished conscience (as Luther did) if we wish to understand the doctrine of the atonement (JP 3:63–64/SKS 20:69; see also CD 204/SKS 10:213). But perhaps Kierkegaard’s most famous discussion of the perceptual nature of emotion concerns love. “It is generally true,” he writes, “that something manifests itself to the one who loves it. We see here that to love and to know are essentially synonymous” (JP 2:537/SKS 21:172). He applies this point most forcefully to the case of understanding other people. What we see in other people depends on how we look at them, he claims. In particular, it depends on whether we look at them through the eyes of love (EUD 59–60/SKS 5:69–70). 54 Imagination One final faculty receiving Kierkegaard’s attention is the imagination. He identifies it as the ability to see possibilities or make images of possibilities (SUD 31/SKS 11:147). 55 Of particular importance for Kierkegaard

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is the role our imaginations play in helping us come up with possible ways to live. Included under this umbrella is possible ways to think, reason, feel, and care. In this respect, our imagination shapes and delimits what we can do with all our faculties. It is “the capacity instar omnium [for all capacities],” Anti-Climacus says (SUD 31/SKS 11:147). Indeed, as we read in The Sickness Unto Death, “When all is said and done, whatever of feeling, knowing, and willing a person has depends upon what imagination he has” (SUD 31/SKS 11:147). Kierkegaard’s respect for the power of imagination leads him to worry about its misuse. For instance, Anti-Climacus notes with consternation how many of us get caught up in fantasies about ourselves. We let ourselves be seduced by stories about who we are that are loftier (or lower) than the facts allow. Those of us who succumb to such illusions are said to suffer from “the despair of infinitude” (SUD 30–33/SKS 11:146–48). This phrase is meant to capture the idea that we have failed to ground our identity in the finite realm of the actual world. Kierkegaard thinks we also err on the opposite side. We go astray not because of an excess of imagination but because of a lack of imagination or a failure to use our imaginations adequately. In the most troubling case, we become small-minded about our own possibilities (SUD 33–35/ SKS 11:149–51). We wrongly restrict our sense of what we can do with our lives to what society tells us. We confine our vision of who we might become to the options the media or the public deems acceptable. As a result, we fail to pursue paths that might be more appropriate for us as unique individuals. A related error of imagination occurs when we contemplate only in abstraction the possibilities before us. Kierkegaard thinks this is a common mistake. Many of us try to view our options “sub specie aeternae [under the aspect of eternity]” or “from the point of view of nowhere,” to use Thomas Nagel’s phrase. We do so because we hope it will enable us to avoid the biases inherent in any individual cultural or historical point of view. But, as with our attempts to be perfectly disinterested, our attempts to look at the world purely abstractly are doomed to failure, according to Kierkegaard. No matter how hard we try, traces of our own personal perspective remain (JP 5:69/SKS 27:166; CUP 1:301–10/SKS 7:274–82). 56 Moreover, to the degree we can look at the world in a purely abstract manner, Kierkegaard thinks it is often a mistake (CUP 1:301/SKS 7:274). 57 For it often leads us to erroneous judgments. Tasks that sound easy in abstraction can prove not to be so when confronted concretely. Goals that seem attractive when considered from the point of view of nowhere can end up being off-putting when encountered in the context of everyday life (CD 95/SKS 10:107). One of Kierkegaard’s favorite examples here is skepticism. In both Postscript and the unpublished Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitan-

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dum Est, the eponymous Climacus admits that the way of the skeptic seems compelling when considered in abstraction. There is a certain appeal to the Danish Hegelians’ mantra, “everything must be doubted.” What ultimately defeats such skepticism is imagining what it looks like in concrete, everyday life (JC 144–72/SKS 15:36–59; CUP 1:255/SKS 7:231). The ludicrousness of trying to doubt the existence of the external world while walking to work on a Tuesday morning, or the ridiculousness of trying to doubt the existence of other minds while speaking with one’s neighbor, reveals skepticism to be a nonstarter in practice. THE SUPERIORITY OF ART With Kierkegaard’s view of human nature in hand, we are in position to appreciate his argument for the pedagogical superiority of art. His guiding insight, once again, is that teachers ought to use a mode of instruction that is responsive to our nature as human beings. He concedes that if we were purely rational creatures, it might be appropriate to engage us on an entirely rational level (PV 53–54/SKS 16:35). It might be fitting to adhere to the ideal of direct communication and offer us only theses and justifications. For we could be counted on to transform this information into right action and right belief. As it happens, though, we are not purely rational creatures. Passion, emotion, and imagination also play important roles in our decision-making and belief-forming processes. Therefore, we need a mode of instruction that engages us on all these levels as well. It is here that art comes into play. Works of art are powerful educators, for Kierkegaard, because they do not engage us only on a rational level. They help us to imagine what it would be like to occupy perspectives other than our own, as we see in the cases of Either/Or and Anna Karenina. Works of art also evoke powerful emotions in us, and these emotions focus and refine our view of the world. They disclose aspects of it we would miss if we remained entirely dispassionate. Moreover, because art conveys ideas in an emotional medium, these ideas get embedded in our minds. They sink in more deeply than they would if they had been conveyed in a prosaic manner. This is why Caravaggio’s painting, The Denial of Saint Peter, has such staying power. The vision of life it affords lingers in our minds because it reaches us on an affective level. Finally, because art engages our imaginations and emotions, it also moves our passions. The parable Nathan offers David shows how, more effectively than the street corner evangelist’s harangues, art has the power to make us care in new ways about new things (PV 41–53/SKS 16:23–36; BA 16/SKS 15:101–2). 58 We can now see why Kierkegaard regards Hegel’s view as backwards when it comes to art. The very features of art that led Hegel to say it was an ineffective guide compared to philosophy and science are what make

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it so potent in Kierkegaard’s mind. Art’s engagement with our passions and emotions is not a reason to be suspicious of its ability to teach us. Quite the opposite. It is precisely why art is often the superior mode of instruction compared to philosophy and the sciences. 59 A Conceptual Objection One prima facie problem with Kierkegaard’s position is that it seems to presuppose we can distinguish between art and philosophy. This might not be possible. The boundary between art (especially literary art) and philosophy is vague. There is vast middle ground here populated by difficult-to-resolve cases. Moreover, the concepts of art and philosophy are themselves vague. The line between art and non-art as well as the one between philosophy and nonphilosophy are hard to specify. Indeed, more than a few scholars have concluded we should give up hope of defining these concepts. 60 If we follow their lead, Kierkegaard’s view seems to collapse. If we cannot state in a precise manner what art and philosophy are, and if we cannot draw a clear distinction between them, then saying one teaches better than the other does sounds meaningless. What, exactly, is being said to be better than what? Kierkegaard does not offer us—nor do I myself have—fully satisfying definitions of art and philosophy. At least, not in the sense of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for each of these concepts. Nevertheless, it is possible to sidestep the worry created by this situation. The most provocative way of expressing Kierkegaard’s view—saying he inverts Hegel’s thesis that philosophy is superior to art—may well imply a firm division between art and philosophy. But we can re-frame Kierkegaard’s position so it does not carry this implication. What ultimately interests him is not the difference between art and philosophy per se. It is rather the difference between a set of properties he associates with art and another set he associates with philosophy. On the one hand, Kierkegaard privileges art because it tends to teach us indirectly and by engaging faculties other than our reason. On the other hand, he downgrades philosophy because it often educates us directly and by addressing our reason alone. Provided we have a good grasp of the relevant properties here, Kierkegaard need not supply us with clear definitions of art and philosophy in order to make his position work. As an aside, it is worth noting that there are exceptions to the foregoing associations. Kierkegaard admits that some philosophers instruct in an indirect fashion. He has Socrates in mind here, but other examples abound (CUP 1:277–8/SKS 7:251–4; see also JP 6:154/SKS 22:30). In addition, owing to his familiarity with the Romantics, Kierkegaard accepts that some philosophical texts do not engage only our powers of discursive reasoning. They speak to us also on an emotional level. Finally, Kierkegaard is aware of how some works of art educate us in a direct

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fashion. They present their message in a didactic manner rather than helping us discover it for ourselves (TA 34–35, 41/SKS 8:34–35, 41). 61 These exceptions cause us no trouble, however. Kierkegaard’s view, stated precisely, is that works that teach indirectly by engaging our passions, emotions, and imaginations are pedagogically superior to works that teach directly by engaging our reason alone. Since art tends to proceed in the former way and philosophy in the latter way, he can say art is better than philosophy. This thesis is correct, I believe, provided we remember it is just a generalization and not a universal rule. It allows that some philosophy (namely, that which teaches indirectly or by dint of emotional engagement) is better than some art (namely, that which teaches didactically). I will return to this point in chapter 8. An Empirical Objection A second potential problem with Kierkegaard’s defense of the value of the arts is that it proceeds a priori. 62 When he says art is a more effective teacher than philosophy because it is more responsive to human nature, he speaks from the armchair. We might like to know whether the empirical evidence supports his position. We might like to know whether art benefits us in practice as Kierkegaard supposes it does in theory. Education research may support the efficacy of the indirect approach to teaching in general. It may show that learners are better off when required to be active rather than when allowed to be passive. 63 But what of the claim that art in particular is an effective way of going about the indirect approach? In What Good Are the Arts?, John Carey argues that the results so far are not promising. Meta-analysis of recent studies shows that the arts do not make a positive impact on education. 64 People who engage art with regularity tend not to be better off intellectually than those who do not. Nor do they tend to be better off morally speaking. Everyday observation supports these negative conclusions, according to Carey. If there were a strong link between artistic engagement and moral improvement, the most cultured people would be the most virtuous. In addition, the most cultured parts of society would be morally the best. But this is not what we find. The most artistically cultured people and parts of society tend to be those with the most money and power. And those with the most money and power tend to be the most oppressive and so the most wicked. 65 There are several ways to defend Kierkegaard against this attack. 66 One option is to say that empirical objections do not apply to his defense of the arts because the kind of benefits he has in mind are not empirically testable. Kierkegaard’s claim is not that art will make us more productive members of society. Nor does he hold that it will help us to perform better on some standardized exam. Kierkegaard’s view is that works of

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art teach us about ourselves. They are useful for helping us determine who we are or what our practical identity is. This benefit will not always lead to observable differences in how we act toward others, take part in society, or perform on some test. It will often be a matter of “hidden inwardness,” to use Kierkegaard’s term. We could of course ask people whether their engagements with art have moved them further along the path toward authentic selfhood. We could develop a survey that tests for correlations between reading novels or going to museums and possessing a well-developed sense of identity. But self-reports on this topic are unlikely to be reliable. As Climacus notes, outward attestations of inward states are often influenced by our desire to impress others (CUP 1:76/SKS 7:76–77). Still, Kierkegaard might concede Carey’s underlying point. He might agree that there is no necessary connection between art and existential improvement. 67 The mere fact that someone regularly engages with art is no guarantee he or she will become more authentic. Indeed, Kierkegaard sometimes comes across as frustrated with the failure of his own literary attempts to improve people. This may be why he resorts to a more straightforward mode of communication in the works published at the end of his life, such as The Moment. Why, then, does art benefit or fail to benefit people when it does? The answer, for Kierkegaard, lies in the fact that works of art help us indirectly. Art tends not to give us clear answers or final solutions to our problems. Instead, it provides us with tools we can use—or choose not to use—for our own benefit. So, if our interactions with art fail to lead to existential improvement, it may say more about us than about the art we enjoy. It may reveal we are not appreciating art in the way we must if we are to get out of it what is valuable about it. In short, if we do not benefit from art, we ourselves may be to blame. We should not place all the blame on ourselves, though. Part of the problem, as Kierkegaard sees it, is the norms for art appreciation we have inherited. Under the sway of a venerable tradition, many art critics and theorists have accepted the notion that art appreciation ought to be disinterested. On this view, when engaging a work of art, we should set aside any personal interests we have in the work. This includes any interests we have in using the work for our own personal ends, such as the end of our pursuit of authenticity. Instead, as the view has sometimes been developed, we ought to restrict our focus to the work itself. We should value the work for its own sake and not for any instrumental benefits that it might provide us personally. Kierkegaard believes that following this rule requires us to bracket the very things about art that make it important for human life. To get at the value of art, therefore, Kierkegaard needs to introduce a new norm for art appreciation. He needs to develop a new ideal for engaging works of art,

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one that encourages us to attend to their personal significance for our lives. In the next chapter, I will tell this story in more detail. NOTES 1. Allen Speight, “Philosophy of Literature in the Nineteenth Century,” in Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature, ed. Noël Carroll and John Gibson, 2015, 30–39; Rachel Zuckert, “The Aesthetics of Schelling and Hegel,” in The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy, ed. Dean Moyar (New York: Routledge, 2010), 165–93. 2. For other defenses of the view that Kierkegaard embraces a broadly cognitivist picture of the arts, see Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2014); Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016). 3. Kierkegaard was hardly alone in embracing an existential version of cognitivism. In a sense, he was simply following the lead of Romantic thinkers who emphasized the value of art for Bildung or self-development. This emphasis comes out inter alia in their support for the tradition of the Bildungsroman or development novel. For discussion of how the Bildugnsroman tradition influenced Kierkegaard, see Joakim Garff, “Andersen, Kierkegaard–and the Deconstructed Bildungsroman,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2006, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist, trans. K. Brian Söderquist (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2006), 83–99; Joakim Garff, “Kierkegaard’s Christian Bildungsroman,” in Kierkegaard, Literature, and the Arts, ed. Eric Ziolkowski (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 85–95. 4. For further discussion of this objection, see Noël Carroll, “The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature, and Moral Knowledge,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60, no. 1 (2002): 4–7; Gregory Currie, “Literature and the Psychology Lab,” The Times Literary Supplement, August 31, 2011, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/literature-and-the-psychology-lab/; Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 234, 237. 5. Plato, Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), l. 607d. 6. For discussion of this point, see Noël Carroll, “Aesthetics and the Educative Powers of Art,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, ed. Randall Curren (New York: Blackwell, 2003), 365–383; Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 84–119. 7. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 10–11; for discussion of Hegel’s view on this issue, see Frederick C. Beiser, Hegel (New York: Routledge, 2005), 286–97; Stephen Bungay, Beauty and Truth: A Study of Hegel’s Aesthetics, vol. 97 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 71–89. 8. Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994), 170–73. 9. Pattison writes, “Art is in this way a paradigmatic case of the human subject’s flight from freedom, an almost irresistible mechanism of repressing the consciousness of what we are called to be” (Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992], 61). For Jothen’s views on this aspect of Kierkegaard’s philosophy of art, see Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood, 25–27, 204–36. 10. Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 130. 11. It is important here to distinguish between Kierkegaard’s remarks on aesthetics understood as a stage on life’s way and his remarks on aesthetics understood as the philosophy of art. This distinction has received considerable attention from Kierkegaard scholars. See Theodor W. Adorno, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans.

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Robert Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 1989), 14–16; George Pattison, “Kierkegaard: Aesthetics and ‘The Aesthetic,’” British Journal of Aesthetics 31, no. 2 (1991): 140–151; Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood, 11–27; Eric Ziolkowski, The Literary Kierkegaard (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011), 5–19. 12. Ettore Rocca, “Kierkegaard’s Second Aesthetics,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1999, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1999), 278–92; see also William McDonald, “Aesthetic/Aesthetics,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts, Tome I: Absolute to Church, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, Jon Stewart, and William McDonald, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 15 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 26; Walsh, Living Poetically, 226. 13. George B. Connell, To Be One Thing: Personal Unity in Kierkegaard’s Thought (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985), 24. 14. The line between direct and indirect communication is not always clear. There are difficult borderline cases, such as pointing to something. In previous work, I sought to precisify this distinction by articulating the conditions for each kind of communication (“Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication” [Indiana University, 2008]; “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion,” in The Point of View, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary 22 [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010], 295–324). I no longer consider this undertaking to be productive. Part of the reason is that I am no longer sure it can succeed. Another part is that I am no longer persuaded that we need to draw a clear-cut distinction between two concepts in order for that distinction to be useful. In the present case, despite the obvious vagueness, it remains illuminating to talk about the difference between giving someone a piece of information and helping him or her acquire that information on his or her own. Indeed, much of the literature in education theory today trades on this difference. 15. For further discussion of the maieutic theme in Kierkegaard’s authorship, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication,” 31–40; Aumann, “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion,” 297–305; Benjamin Daise, Kierkegaard’s Socratic Art (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999). 16. For further support, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication,” 30–57; Aumann, “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion.” 17. In Stages on Life’s Way, “imaginary construction” has a narrower sense than I discuss here. I present the broader sense of the term found in Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Repetition. For an explanation of the different senses of “imaginary construction” in Kierkegaard’s writings, see Martijn Boven, “Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Psychological Experiment,” in Volume 15, Tome V. Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Objectivity to Sacrifice, ed. Jon Stewart, Steven M. Emmanuel, and William McDonald (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 159–65. 18. For further support, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication,” 160–68. 19. For further discussion, see Edward F. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007), 201; Noël Carroll, “Fictional Characters as Social Metaphors,” in Questions of Character, ed. Iskra Fileva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 397. 20. For further discussion and defense of this point, see Noël Carroll, “Art, Narrative, and Moral Understanding,” in Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 143–53; Noël Carroll, “Philosophical Insight, Emotion, and Popular Fiction: The Case of Sunset Boulevard,” in Narrative, Emotion, and Insight, ed. Noël Carroll and John Gibson (University Park, PA: Penn State University, 2011), 54; John Gibson, “Cognitivism and the Arts,” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (2008): 585–86; Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, 251.

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21. For further discussion, see Gibson, “Cognitivism and the Arts,” 583–84. 22. In some respects, the view I attribute to Kierkegaard resembles the one developed more recently by Alva Noë. Kierkegaard would certainly agree with Noë’s assertion that the tools of art allow us “to investigate ourselves” (Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature [Macmillan, 2015], 30). For further discussions of how art can provide us with cognitive tools, see Elisabeth Camp, “Metaphors in Literature,” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature, ed. Noël Carroll and John Gibson (New York: Routledge, 2015), 334–46; Carroll, “Fictional Characters as Social Metaphors”; Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, 239–41; Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Routledge, 1970), 34, 65. 23. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s mirror metaphors, see Patrick Stokes, “Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: The Immediacy of Moral Vision,” Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2007): 70–94; Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 111–33. 24. Zuckert, “The Aesthetics of Schelling and Hegel,” 173. 25. The point of origin for many current discussions of the mirror metaphor is Arthur Coleman Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). 26. See Elisabeth Camp, “Two Varieties of Literary Imagination: Metaphor, Fiction, and Thought Experiments,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33, no. 1 (2009): 107–30. 27. See Max Black, “Metaphor,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55, no. 1 (1954): 273–294; Max Black, “More about Metaphor,” Dialectica 31, no. 3–4 (1977): 431–457. Camp has her own theory of metaphor, developed in among other places “Contextualism, Metaphor, and What Is Said,” Mind & Language 21, no. 3 (June 1, 2006): 280–309; “Metaphor in the Mind: The Cognition of Metaphor,” Philosophy Compass 1, no. 2 (March 1, 2006): 154–70. 28. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard, 203–4. 29. Donald Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” Critical Inquiry, 1978, 47. 30. For further discussion of how Nathan’s parable is an instance of indirect communication, see George Pattison, “The Theory and Practice of Language and Communication in Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding Discourses,” Kierkegaardiana 19 (1998): 81–94. 31. Kivy, Philosophies of Arts, 131–34. 32. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard, 38n4. 33. Kierkegaard also emphasizes the cognitive value of theater (see R 154/SKS 4:30). For, just as in literature, “in the theatre the young person is presented with a manifold of personalities that serve as models with whom he is able to identify or as whom he is able to imagine himself to be” (George Pattison, “Art in an Age of Reflection,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 91). 34. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on painting and sculpture, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and Content,” Philosophy Today 57, no. 4 (2013): 376–78; Michael Fried, Menzel’s Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 141–66; David James, “The Significance of Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of Don Giovanni in Relation to Hegel’s Philosophy of Art,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16, no. 1 (2008): 147–62. 35. Keith Christiansen, “Low Life, High Art,” The New Republic, December 30, 2010, https://newrepublic.com/article/79749/life-art-paintings-carvaggio. 36. Thomas P. Campbell, ed., The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012), 255. 37. Keith Christiansen, “The Denial of Saint Peter,” Exhibition Catalogue: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437986. For a similar point about other works of Caravaggio, see Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 133–36. 38. For support, see Noël Carroll, “Art, Narrative, and Emotion,” in Emotion and the Arts, ed. Mette Hjorte and Sue Laver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 190–211;

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Jenefer Robinson, Deeper than Reason: Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 105–35, 154–94. 39. See Antony Aumann, “Emotion, Cognition, and the Value of Literature: The Case of Nietzsche’s ‘Genealogy,’” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 45, no. 2 (2014): 182–95; for related defenses of the cognitive value of music, see Stephen Davies, “Profundity in Instrumental Music,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 42, no. 4 (2002): 343–56; James O. Young, “The Cognitive Value of Music,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, no. 1 (1999): 41–54. 40. “Robert Rauschenberg. Monogram. 1955-1959,” Museum of Modern Art, 2017, https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/40/648. 41. Ibid. 42. For support, see Daniel Berthold, The Ethics of Authorship: Communication, Seduction, and Death in Hegel and Kierkegaard (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 26–28, 30, 59–61, 140. 43. For an explanation of exactly how a contradiction arises here, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and Content.” 44. To some degree, even the most direct method of teaching will require active engagement on the part of the learner in order to be successful (see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 42–45). For instance, we will learn nothing from the direct teacher unless we interpret his or her words accurately in our own mind. And this is something no teacher can do for us. Some postmodern readers of Kierkegaard have emphasized this point. Michael Strawser, in particular, has argued that it entails that all communication must be indirect for Kierkegaard (Both/and: Reading Kierkegaard: From Irony to Edification [New York: Fordham University Press, 1997], 181–83; see also Geoffrey A. Hale, Kierkegaard and the Ends of Language [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002], 24; Nerina Jansen, “Deception in Service of the Truth: Magister Kierkegaard and the Problem of Communication,” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments”, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary 12 [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997], 125). There is something to Strawser’s position. I am against framing Kierkegaard’s view as he does, however, because it comes at the cost of obscuring the crucial distinction between giving someone a piece of information and helping him or her discover it for himself or herself. For additional discussion of this issue, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion,” 297–305. 45. For a similar argument, see Cora Diamond, “Anything but Argument?,” Philosophical Investigations 5, no. 1 (1982): 23–41; Martha C. Nussbaum, “Fictions of the Soul,” in Love’s Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 245–260. 46. Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood, 208. 47. For further support, see Evans, Kierkegaard, 21–22; Walsh, Living Poetically, 200–202. 48. For example, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, “Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1999, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1999), 96–109. 49. For further support and discussion, see Evans, Kierkegaard, 57, 113; Rick Anthony Furtak, Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 45–51; Rick Anthony Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific Postscript”: A Critical Guide, ed. Rick Anthony Furtak (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 98–99; Anna Strelis, “The Intimacy between Reason and Emotion: Kierkegaard’s ‘Simultaneity of Factors,’” Res Philosophica 90, no. 4 (2013): 461–80. 50. For further discussion of the role of “interest” in Kierkegaard’s theory of consciousness, see Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 47–60. 51. For further support, see M. Jamie Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 125–27; Rick An-

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thony Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. Edward F. Mooney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 59–71. 52. Furtak, Wisdom in Love, 48–50; “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” 59–66; “Love as the Ultimate Ground of Practical Reason: Kierkegaard, Frankfurt, and the Conditions of Affective Experience,” in Love, Reason, and Will: Kierkegaard After Frankfurt, ed. Anthony Rudd and John J. Davenport (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 228–29. 53. Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” 62; “Love as the Ultimate Ground of Practical Reason: Kierkegaard, Frankfurt, and the Conditions of Affective Experience,” 226. 54. For further support and discussion, see Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” 48, 63; David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 76–79, 106–7; Robert C. Roberts, “Existence, Emotion, and Virtue: Classical Themes in Kierkegaard,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon Marino (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 179–84, 189–92. 55. For further discussion, see Arne Grøn, “Imagination and Subjectivity,” Ars Disputandi 2, no. 1 (2002): 89–98; Maughan-Brown Frances, “Imagination,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome III: Envy to Incognito, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, Jon Stewart, and William McDonald, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 15 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 195–202; Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 73–94. 56. For further support, see Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy,” 94–95; Evans, Kierkegaard, 56. 57. For further support, see Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” 67–68. 58. For further discussion of this claim, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication, the Crowd, and a Monstrous Illusion,” 317–24. 59. In holding this view of the comparative value of art and philosophy, Kierkegaard follows Lessing, Gottsched, and to some degree Schelling. See Frederick C. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 193. 60. Owing to the influence of Wittgenstein, anti-essentialism about art has received much attention. The seminal work here is Morris Weitz, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15, no. 1 (1956): 27–35. 61. There is a fourth possible category: works of art that attempt to instruct only by engaging our reason and not our emotions, passions, or imaginations. But few if any examples come to mind. 62. For development of this objection, see John Carey, What Good Are the Arts? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 100–109. 63. Elizabeth F. Barkley, Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 2009). 64. Carey, What Good Are the Arts?, 100–102. 65. Ibid., 100–109. 66. One option is to challenge Carey’s empirical evidence. Since the publication of Carey’s book in 2006, some work has shown that to some degree art engagement does improve us. For example, see Jessica E. Black and Jennifer L. Barnes, “The Effects of Reading Material on Social and Non-Social Cognition,” Poetics 52 (2015): 32–43; David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano, “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind,” Science 342 (2013): 377–80; Kelly Leroux and Anna Bernadska, “Impact of the Arts on Individual Contributions to US Civil Society,” Journal of Civil Society 10, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 144–64; Keith Oatley, “Fiction: Simulation of Social Worlds,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 20, no. 8 (August 1, 2016): 618–28. 67. Palmer quoted in Carey, What Good Are the Arts?, 109.

SIX The Nature of Art Appreciation Overcoming the Tradition of Disinterest

It is a truism that we will get out of art what is valuable about it only if we appreciate it in the right way. Our mode of engagement with art has to be keyed to the benefits art has to offer us. Thus, any attempt to resuscitate art’s reputation by explaining its value to society needs to be paired with a corresponding account of how art appreciation ought to proceed. Unfortunately, finding the right fit here is more difficult than it might seem. For the most popular ways of thinking about art appreciation do not always line up with the most compelling accounts of why art matters. This is the problem facing Kierkegaard. According to the tradition he inherits, we ought to appreciate art in a disinterested fashion. 1 That is to say, when engaging a work of art, we should set aside any personal interests we might have in it. This includes any interests we might have in using it to gain knowledge about ourselves. Instead, as the idea was sometimes developed, we ought to focus on the work of art itself. We should value it for its own sake, not for the sake of its instrumental benefits. The ideal of aesthetic disinterest conflicts with Kierkegaard’s account of the value of art. As we saw in the last chapter, Kierkegaard follows other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thinkers in embracing a cognitivist view of art’s value. Art matters in his eyes because it can educate or instruct. Of course, Kierkegaard’s version of this theory contains a twist. As he sees it, works of art do not teach us directly by offering us new bits of knowledge. Instead, they help with the learning process indirectly by providing us with cognitive tools. In particular, they supply us with lenses or mirrors we can use to see ourselves in new and different ways. 131

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But herein lies the rub. Adhering to the ideal of aesthetic disinterest requires setting aside all such personal uses of art. We have to disregard any instrumental value art might have for our individual attempts to pursue the project of selfhood. In sum, the tradition of disinterest demands that we pass over the very things that, for Kierkegaard, make turning to art worthwhile in the first place. Thus, Kierkegaard is in a bind. The tradition of art appreciation he inherits does not align with what he considers most valuable about art. More specifically, he is caught between the historically influential idea that we should appreciate art in a disinterested manner and the intuitively attractive view that art matters because it speaks to our interest in selfknowledge. 2 The goal of this chapter is to explain how Kierkegaard handles this problem. I will argue that he does so by developing a new account of art appreciation, one that opens up room for taking personal interest in works of art. Kierkegaard’s new account does not involve a complete rejection of the tradition of disinterest, however. Instead, it continues to preserve a place for disinterest alongside interest, albeit a slightly different one than is traditionally held. THE TRADITION OF AESTHETIC DISINTEREST According to lore, disinterest became an important concept in aesthetics starting in the early part of the eighteenth century. 3 It owed its rise to prominence to Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, with whom the idea originated, and to later thinkers, including Kant and Hegel, who defended the idea as well. Yet, this standard tale is somewhat misleading. Or at least it is oversimplified. 4 For one thing, prior to Kant, disinterest was not as central to aesthetics as the story suggests. In addition, to the degree that Shaftesbury and Hutcheson did discuss disinterest, they did not agree about its meaning and significance. Nor did a consensus about the matter arise among the theorists writing in their wake. Instead, each thinker developed the concept in his or her own way, molding it to fit his or her views on a range of other topics. Disagreements about the meaning and significance of disinterest persist to this day. 5 Thus, providing a definition of the term is inevitably contentious. Even so, we can identify two general ways of thinking about disinterest that were adopted by some of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries and that continue to have currency today. I will refer to them as the strong view and the weak view of aesthetic disinterest. Strong Disinterest According to strong disinterest, when we appreciate a work of art, we must set aside all our other interests and concerns. Most obviously, this

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means we must bracket any personal or private interests we have in possessing the work or using it for our own individual gain. But it also means we must disregard our broader human interests—those we share with the other members of our species, such as our interests in morality, religion, and truth. Another way to put the point is to say that strong disinterest requires that our attitude toward art not be utilitarian. We must ignore any further end or purpose to which the work before us might be put. Instead, we must restrict our attention to the work itself, striving to value it for its own sake. Theorists have defended strong disinterest in a variety of ways. One approach has been to ground the view in an empiricist approach to aesthetics. Hutcheson, for example, held that our aesthetic responses are strictly a matter of immediate sensation. 6 When we take pleasure in the beauty of a mountain or the elegant movement of a ballet dancer, we are responding directly to the sensory properties of the object before us. Crucially, according to Hutcheson, rational reflection plays no role here. 7 We do not see the dancer’s plie as graceful because we judge that it falls under some general rule that holds for other graceful movements as well. Nor do we regard the mountain as beautiful because we determine that some concept applies to it that would explain why it is beautiful. 8 It is easy to see how strong disinterest follows from Hutcheson’s empiricist doctrine. If there is no room for rational reflection in aesthetic appreciation, then a fortiori there is no room for rational reflection on whether our personal interests or broader human interests are being served. 9 Insofar as our enjoyment of the object is underwritten by consideration of such interests, we are not appreciating it aesthetically. We are appreciating it rather in some other way. The case for strong disinterest does not rest only on aesthetic empiricism. The idea also has received approval because it counteracts society’s obsession with instrumental value. 10 There is a tendency for many of us to care about things only insofar as they serve some further purpose. We will refuse to devote time or resources to an activity or object unless we can see how it contributes to some worthwhile end. Yet, insisting that everything be justified in this fashion has an undesirable consequence. It leads us to overlook the fact that some things have worth in and of themselves—they have intrinsic value and not just instrumental value. The ideal of strong disinterest helps here because it forces us to focus on intrinsic value. It demands that we set aside instrumental concerns and attend to how works of art are worth having around even if they contribute nothing more to the world than themselves. We find a version of this argument in Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics. 11 Hegel admits that there are times when it is necessary to defend the arts on instrumental grounds. But he considers this approach inferior because it does not elevate the arts to the place they deserve. Hegel writes, “[A]rt is not by this means made any worthier of scientific discussion, since it

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always remains a servant . . . . Indeed, to put it simply, in this service, instead of being an end in itself, it can appear only as a means.” 12 Ultimately, Hegel concludes that art must “cut itself free from this servitude.” 13 Like science, it must “raise itself, in free independence, to the truth in which it fulfills itself independently and comfortably with its own ends alone.” 14 A related line of support for strong disinterest comes from the fact that critics and theories have sometimes regarded aesthetics as its own field of inquiry. 15 Indeed, following the work of Charles Batteux, Alexander Baumgarten, and others, it has become somewhat common to think of art as a domain separate and distinct from ethics, religion, politics, economics, and so forth. Seeing aesthetics as “autonomous” in this way requires attributing to it its own set of norms. There has to be distinctly aesthetic values and distinctly aesthetic ways of realizing these values. It is necessary, in other words, to differentiate aesthetic values and ways of valuing from ethical ones, philosophical ones, and so on. One strategy here is to treat beauty as the quintessential aesthetic value and to add that beauty has nothing to do with goodness or truth. 16 So it is that aesthetic appreciation sometimes becomes a matter of attending to the beauty of a work and nothing else. Any interest in the work’s moral, philosophical, or economic import has to be set aside. Some examples fill out the idea. Suppose we wanted to appreciate aesthetically Plato’s famous dialogues. According to the ideal of strong disinterest, we would have to restrict our focus to the gracefulness of Plato’s prose, the elegance of how he structures the interplay between characters, and similar features. Any questions about whether Plato’s ideas were true or his arguments valid would have to be pushed out of our minds. So too would we have to set aside any consideration of the impact of Plato’s views on the history of Western thought. This is not to say such things are unimportant. It is only to say they have nothing to do with the appreciation of Plato’s dialogues qua art, to use Peter Lamarque’s expression. 17 Or take a more modern example. Suppose we wanted to appreciate aesthetically Elizabeth Catlett’s series of linoleum cut prints entitled, The Negro Woman 1946-1947 (retitled The Black Woman, 1989). The prints depict well-known historical figures, including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Phyllis Wheatley. Each is engaged in the activities that made them of historical note. Tubman is leading slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Truth is delivering her abolitionist and feminist speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” Wheatley is writing her book of poetry, the first published by an African American woman. 18 Strong disinterest would require us to suppress our natural inclination to think about the moral and political nature of Catlett’s work. We would have to stop ourselves from wondering about the role it might have played during the Civil Rights Era by bringing to prominence the

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Figure 6.1. Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), In Harriet Tubman I helped hundreds to freedom, from the series The Negro Woman, 1946–1947 (retitled The Black Woman, 1989), 1946, printed 1986. Linoleum cut: sheet (irregular), 10 1/4 x 7 3/4 in. (26 x 19.7 cm); image (irregular), 9 1/8 x 7 1/16 in. (23.2 x 19.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 95.194. Art copyright © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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Figure 6.2. Elizabeth Catlett (1915–2012), In Sojourner Truth I fought for the rights of women as well as Negroes, from the series The Negro Woman, 1946–1947 (retitled The Black Woman, 1989), 1946, printed 1986. Linoleum cut: sheet, 10 1/4 x 7 3/8 in. (26 x 18.7 cm); image, 8 7/8 x 5 15/16 in. (22.5 x 15.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 95.195. Art copyright © Catlett Mora Family Trust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Image courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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often-ignored labor of black women. We also would have to forestall an inquiry into the place of the prints in the history of modern art. We would have to refrain from thinking about the degree to which Catlett may have influenced or been influenced by other artists who were using art as a form of social criticism. Instead, we would have to focus our attention solely on the beauty of each linoleum print and questions pertaining thereto. We could consider only such things as whether its compositional elements were well-balanced and its use of black lines against a white background was striking. Weak Disinterest Weak disinterest is a more permissive and thus more popular ideal. 19 Unlike strong disinterest, it allows us to attend to how works of art speak to our broader human interests, such as those we have in morality and truth. Yet, weak disinterest does institute some constraints. In particular, it requires that our engagement with a work be disconnected from any strictly personal or private interest we might have in the use or possession of the work. In other words, it demands that we ignore any significance the work may have for our own individual lives. 20 We must pay no mind to its potential implications for the idiosyncratic causes we happen to believe in or its potential uses for the pet projects we happen to pursue. Defenders of weak disinterest sometimes have supported the position by drawing on more modest versions of the arguments used to support strong disinterest. For example, some eighteenth-century thinkers were not averse to instrumental justifications tout court. Their objection was rather to egoistic justifications in particular. They took issue with the Hobbesian rule that calculations of self-interest ought to determine how we interact with the world. So it was with Shaftsbury. When he spoke out against interest in aesthetics, he was not telling readers to set aside their general human interest in goodness or truth. Indeed, as a good Platonist, he saw beauty as connected with goodness and truth. Shaftesbury’s position was simply that aesthetic appreciation ought to be “independent of any calculations of personal advantage or private interest.” 21 Arguments for weak disinterest have also proceeded in ways that are unrelated to the arguments for strong disinterest. In particular, whereas strong disinterest has been grounded in empiricism about aesthetics, weak disinterest has been grounded in rationalism about aesthetics. For example, defenders of weak disinterest sometimes claim that art appreciation is not the same thing as taking subjective enjoyment in art. That is to say, it is not the same thing as cherishing a work or deriving pleasure from the experience of it. Rather, art appreciation is about “sizing up” the work or appraising its merits. It is a matter of making a rational judgment about whether the work meets a particular standard. The relevant standard may be an external one, such as some generally agreed upon ideal

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of beauty. Or it may be derived from the work itself. For example, on the version of the view defended by Noël Carroll, art appreciation is a matter of assessing whether a work achieves the goals it sets for itself. 22 In other words, art appreciation is about judging whether the aspects of a piece work together to accomplish the purpose set for it by the artist who created it. If the artist intends to convey some truth (as in the case of Plato’s dialogues) or further some political cause (as in the case of Catlett’s linoleum prints), then our broader human interests will come into play as part of the process. At this point, the defender of weak disinterest can draw an analogy between the rational judgments made in aesthetic contexts and those made in moral and legal contexts. 23 Just as the latter ought to be neutral or unbiased, so too ought the former. Our verdict regarding a work should not be influenced by our own individual worldviews. It should not be dictated by the unique set of beliefs and values we happen to hold. In addition, it should be divorced from the question of whether we ourselves happen to like the work. We should be able to appraise a work of art highly even though we ourselves do not find it attractive and vice versa. 24 Finally, our assessment of a work’s merits should not be affected by any ramifications this assessment might have for our own personal projects. As Norman Kreitman puts it, aesthetic judgments ought to be “independent of any material or social gains or losses, or any other kind of advantage, for the person making the judgment.” 25 This is where weak disinterest becomes important. It ensures that we live up to the ideals of neutrality and objectivity at stake here. To prevent our judgment of a work of art from being warped by our personal beliefs and values, we must set them aside. We must put out of our minds what we care about or are interested in on a personal level. To use Jerome Schiller’s expression, we must engage in “self-effacement.” 26 As much as possible—and this may require some practice—we must erase from conscious awareness our own life story and everything that makes us the unique individuals we are. As a result, there will be no danger of our personalities coming between the work and our perception of it. We will have the clarity of vision needed to see the work for what it is. THE PROBLEM FOR AESTHETIC COGNITIVISM We can now see seriousness of the problem raised at the beginning of the chapter. There is a tension between the cognitivist account of art’s value defended in the last chapter and the view of art appreciation as disinterested discussed so far in this chapter. The tension is most apparent in the case of strong disinterest. On the one hand, cognitivism holds that works of art matter because they can educate or instruct. They deserve our attention because they can provide us with cognitive benefits. On the

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other hand, the ideal of strong disinterest asks us to care about works of art simply for their own sake. This requires setting aside all their instrumental benefits, including those pertaining to cognition. In sum, adhering to the norm of strong disinterest involves ignoring the very thing that makes art worth caring about on a cognitivist view. 27 Retreating to weak disinterest might seem to help here. For it allows us to take into account our broader human interests, such as our interests in truth and knowledge. This move might save cognitivism in general. But it will not save the specific brand of cognitivism that Kierkegaard endorses. On Kierkegaard’s view, art matters because it can teach us about ourselves. Works of art are valuable for him because we can use them to explore who we are as individuals. The problem with weak disinterest is that it demands that we set aside any significance a work might have for our individual lives. We must leave ourselves behind or efface ourselves when appreciating a work of art. Thus, it is hard to see how someone could embrace the ideal of weak disinterest and still reap the personal benefits of art that Kierkegaard touts. To summarize, Kierkegaard and like-minded thinkers such as myself, face a dilemma. On the one hand, we can adhere to the traditional norms of art appreciation and engage works of art in at least a weakly disinterested fashion. But insofar as we do, we will have to ignore art’s existential payoffs. We will have to set aside its meaning for us as individuals. As a result, we will fail to get out of art what seems most valuable about it. On the other hand, we can pursue the existential payoffs of art trumpeted by Kierkegaard; we can embrace art’s significance for our individual pursuits of selfhood. If we select this option, however, we will have to leave behind aesthetic appreciation as traditionally understood. We will have to abandon the appreciation of art qua art, as Lamarque puts it. 28 Thus, we must choose. We can appreciate art in the traditional fashion, or we can enjoy what makes art worth attending to in the first place, but not both. KIERKEGAARD’S ANALYSIS OF DISINTEREST We might think Kierkegaard would happily reject the tradition of disinterest in favor of clinging to art’s existential benefits. But this is not what we see happening in his works. At least not at first pass. Instead, Kierkegaard seems to embrace disinterest. Indeed, he and his pseudonyms repeatedly describe aesthetic appreciation as “disinterested [interesseløs]” (e.g., TA 97/SKS 8:92; CUP 1:313n, 318, 322, 357/SKS 7:285n, 290, 294, 326). Moreover, in one passage, Climacus asserts that “aesthetically, the highest pathos is disinterestedness [Uinteresserethedens]” (CUP 1:390/SKS 7:356). 29

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I will say more about Kierkegaard’s surprising move here in a moment. First, though, it is necessary to discuss the sense of disinterest he has in mind when he associates it with aesthetics. Unfortunately, Kierkegaard never offers us an extended definition of disinterest. But his understanding of the concept seems to fit the weak sense described above. One piece of evidence is that, on his view, being interested in something has to do with caring about it in a certain way. It is a matter of being concerned with the ramifications of the thing for oneself and so constantly returning to oneself while attending to the thing (see BA 99–100/SKS 15:256). 30 If being interested is about being self-concerned, then being disinterested must be about eradicating self-concern. It must be about setting aside the relationship between the object and one’s own existence. This interpretation fits what we read about art and disinterest in Postscript. Climacus writes, “Art and poetry are not related in an essential way to one who exists, for the contemplative enjoyment of them, ‘joy over the beautiful,’ is disinterested, and the spectator is contemplatively outside himself qua existing person” (CUP 1:313n/SKS 7:285n). The idea that disinterest is about extinguishing self-concern also aligns with what Climacus says about abstract thought. When we consider a topic in abstraction, he claims, we do not concern ourselves with its implications for our own personal lives. We set aside our existence and all that relates to it (CUP 1:302, 313–15/SKS 7:275, 285–87). In Climacus’s own words, “[T]he aesthetic and the intellectual are disinterested. But there is only one interest, the interest in existing; disinterestedness is therefore the expression of indifference to actuality” (CUP 1:318/SKS 7:290). Further support comes from the work of Jamie Ferreira and Gordon Marino. 31 They point out that Kierkegaard associates interest and disinterest with subjectivity and objectivity (CUP 1:21–22, 33/SKS 7:29–30, 39; BA 99–100; JP 4:346–47/Pap. VI B 19). This insight helps because Kierkegaard says more about the latter pair of terms than the former pair. In particular, he claims that subjective reflection is a matter of thinking about the significance of an idea for me (FSE 36–44/SKS 13:63–70; CUP 1:21–22, 129–30, 351/SKS 7:29–30, 121–22, 321). By contrast, objective reflection is a matter of considering an idea apart from its implications for my existence (CUP 1:21–22, 192–93/SKS 7:29–30, 176). Consider what we read in For Self-Examination regarding David’s approach to Nathan’s parable. As long as David attends only to the parable’s aesthetic properties, Kierkegaard says he is being objective (FSE 38/SKS 13:65). It is once David realizes “he is the man” and shifts his focus back onto himself that he qualifies as being subjective (FSE 38/SKS 13:65). Practice in Christianity contains one final passage relevant to Kierkegaard’s views on disinterest. It speaks directly to the question of how art appreciation works:

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When ones shows a painting to a person and asks him to observe it, or when in a business transaction someone looks at, for example, a piece of cloth, he steps very close to the object, in the latter case even picks it up and feels it—in short, he comes as close to the object as possible, but in this very same movement he in another sense leaves himself entirely, goes away from himself, forgets himself, and nothing reminds him of himself, since it is he, after all, who is observing the painting and the cloth and not the painting and the cloth that are observing him. In other words, by observing I go into the object (I become objective) but I leave myself or go away from myself (I cease to be subjective). (PC 233–34/ SKS 12:227–28)

When appreciating a work of art, Anti-Climacus is saying, we forget ourselves or leave ourselves behind. In so doing, we become objective. Since objectivity is a synonym for disinterest, it follows that, for AntiClimacus, aesthetic appreciation is essentially disinterested. THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEREST FOR AESTHETIC JUDGMENTS We can return now to our question about Kierkegaard’s acceptance of the tradition of disinterest. Given the problems that it creates for his account of art’s value, why does he embrace it? Why does he not reject it? Here is one initially tempting story. We know that Kierkegaard inherited the popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century idea that art appreciation involves making judgments. In particular, he accepted the view put forward by Lessing and developed by Hegel that art appreciation is a matter of judging whether a work’s form fits its content (EO 1:49–57/SKS 2:57–64; EO 2:133–39/SKS 3:132–38). 32 As noted before, such aesthetic judgments were often considered analogous to ethical and legal judgments in Kierkegaard’s day, and it was generally agreed that they ought to be disinterested for similar reasons. 33 Thus, perhaps Kierkegaard was just following suit. Perhaps he clung to the ideal of disinterest because, like many of his contemporaries, he thought it ruled out the distorting effects of personal bias. This story has to be partly mistaken, however. For it does not account for the fact that Kierkegaard often rejects the idea that our judgments ought to be disinterested. We see this negative view in his take on how we ought to do philosophy. As discussed in chapter 5, he argues that an impersonal approach to philosophical questions leaves us with an imperfect grasp of what is at stake. We overlook considerations we would appreciate if we cleaved to a subjective approach. Thus, in the philosophical arena, disinterested judgments are often mistaken (CA 14–15/SKS 4:321–23; CUP 1:301–18/SKS 7:274–89). 34 Kierkegaard holds a similar position when it comes to practical ethics. The accuracy of our judgments about other people, he claims, depends on how we look at them (EUD

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59–60/SKS 5:69; JP 2:537/SKS 21:172). 35 If we examine a person’s character with cold objectivity, we miss virtues that an intimate lover would detect. What I will argue in the coming sections is that Kierkegaard’s general dissatisfaction with disinterest carries over to his account of art appreciation. Just as disinterest leads to errors elsewhere on his view, so too it leads to errors here. More specifically, Kierkegaard thinks that we end up with a superficial grasp of many works of art if we approach them in a disinterested fashion. We must engage them in an interested manner if we wish to understand them deeply. And a deep understanding of works of art is what we need if we are to judge accurately whether their form fits their content. In sum, on my interpretation, Kierkegaard does not accept the tradition of aesthetic disinterest. He rejects it. 36 This reading begs an obvious question, though. Why does Kierkegaard repeatedly describe aesthetic appreciation as disinterested if this is not his view? The answer is that Kierkegaard talks about aesthetics in a manner that resembles how he talks about ethics. In several places, he identifies the ethical as the universal—that is, as that which applies to all people at all times and in all situations (EO2 255, 302, 304/SKS 3:243, 285, 287; FT 54–56, 68/SKS 4:148–49, 160; SLW 169–84/SKS 6:158–71). But Kierkegaard does this not because he thinks ethical rules actually are universal. Rather, the idea that the ethical is the universal is a popular view he wants to challenge (JP 2.224/SKS 23:63). Thus, in the very same texts that describe ethical rules as universal, we find objections to this idea. And these objections pave the way for a new account of ethics—his “second ethics”—that is not predicated on universality but rather on the individual’s relationship with God (see CA 20–21/SKS 4:328–29). In the same way, I propose, when Kierkegaard describes art appreciation as disinterested, he is not articulating his own point of view. He is expressing a point of view popular among his contemporaries that he wishes to attack. These attacks open the door for a new account of art appreciation that emphasizes the importance of interest. Taking a cue from Ettore Rocca, we can refer to this new account as Kierkegaard’s “second aesthetics.” 37 AUDIENCE-IMPLICATING CONTENT We can find in Kierkegaard’s writings two arguments for the importance of interest in aesthetic appreciation. The first is that many works of art are about their audiences. They make or imply claims about who their listeners or viewers are, how they should live, or what they should think. In short, many works of art possess audience-implicating content. Grasping this content requires the audience to think about themselves. It requires them to become “interested” in Kierkegaard’s sense of the word.

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One example is the story that the prophet Nathan tells King David. Nathan’s tale is not just about what it seems to be about. It is not just about a fictional rich man and his mistreatment of his poor neighbor. It is also about David and the sins he has committed. Thus, David does not fully understand Nathan’s tale unless he applies it to himself. He must bring its details to bear on his own personality and his own individual history. Kierkegaard’s early pseudonymous writings are the same way. Like Nathan’s parable, they are about their intended audiences. That is, they are about us. We make a mistake, Jamie Lorentzen points out, if we read Either/Or as merely about the life of A and the musings of Judge William. 38 Kierkegaard sets up these characters as metaphors for our lives. Their errors are meant to reflect ones we ourselves make. A robust understanding of Either/Or thus requires considering to what degree the stories of A and the judge reflect our own stories. We miss part of the book’s meaning unless we keep in mind one of Kierkegaard’s favorite mantras: de te narratur fabula [the tale is told of you] (SLW 478/SKS 6:440; UDVS 123/SKS 8:223–24). 39 What is true of Either/Or holds for other works too. Anna Karenina, for instance, is not just about the characters described within it. It is not merely a story about Anna, Vronsky, Kitty, Levin, and the others. Tolstoy’s novel is also about Russian society in the 1870s and how the conflicting social pressures of that time and place affected those who lived through it. Thus, readers of the Russian Herald, where serial episodes of the work first appeared, would rightly recognize it as being about themselves. Part of Tolstoy’s greatness, however, lies in the fact that the considerations he discusses are not peculiar to any time or place. They are ones with which every modern society wrestles: “the relationship between men and women, the dominance and rivalry between centres of power . . . the conflict between city and country, the varieties of religion and unbelief, the exercise of firm and often faceless government, and the anarchic forces of latent revolution.” 40 Thus, insofar as we today are members of such a society, Tolstoy’s novel is about us as well. 41 Anna Karenina is not unusual in this regard. What I have said about it reflects a broader tradition in novel reading and novel writing. As Richard Freadman and Seumas Miller argue, it is conventional for authors to intend—and for readers to take them as intending—the fictional worlds they create to represent aspects of the real world. 42 Arthur Danto concurs. Works of literature, he says in The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, frequently contain metaphors for our lives. They offer us images of our worlds and ourselves. Thus, Danto concludes, “You are what the work is ultimately about, a commonplace person transfigured.” 43 Danto’s point does not just apply to literature. Much of the non-literary art popular among curators and critics today is about us in some way or other. Take Dread Scott’s A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday (2015).

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It is a solid black flag across which Scott has printed the titular words in block white letters. 44 The flag is an allusion to a similar one containing the words “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday” that hung above the Manhattan headquarters of the NAACP in the 1920s and 1930s. Scott made the work in response to the 2015 killing of Walter Scott. He intended for it to raise awareness about the police brutality against blacks that occurs in the United States today. 45 Those of us who are United States residents cannot fully grasp its significance without thinking about our culture— and what it means to live in our culture—given the discrimination rampant within it. That is, we cannot fully understand A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday without thinking about our own lives. Or, consider an example that does not have the moral and political overtones of Scott’s work, Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés (1967). The Tate Modern in London, where the works appeared in 2007 as part of an exhibit entitled “The Body of Colour,” describes them as “capes, flags, banners and tents made from layers of painted fabric, plastics, mats, screens, ropes, and other materials.” 46 Oiticica thought of these items as “wearable sculptures” and designed them to be draped around one’s body while moving or dancing to music. 47 In accordance with his intentions, visitors at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where the Parangolés reappeared in 2017 as part of a retrospective of Oiticica’s work, are instructed to put on a piece of their choosing and walk around the room. By engaging the Parangolés in his or her own way, each visitor contributes to the meaning of the work. They cease to be idle spectators and instead become “participators,” as Oiticica liked to call his intended audience. 48 This term would likely have received Kierkegaard’s approval. For it captures the idea that we fail to fully appreciate many works of art as long as we adopt a disinterested attitude toward them. We have to engage them in a personal way—and, in the case of the Parangolés, a bodily way. KIERKEGAARD’S EPISTEMOLOGY OF ART Not all art is like Kierkegaard’s, Scott’s, or Oiticica’s, of course. Some works are not intended to be about their viewers or listeners. Some novels, for instance, are just supposed to be good stories. Some songs are just supposed to be catchy tunes. Finally, some photos, paintings, and sculptures are just supposed to be beautiful to behold. To insist that all such works contain messages that are indirectly or implicitly about us is worrisome. As John Gibson puts it, “One always has the nagging feeling that ‘implicit’ just means ‘not really there.’” 49 Fortunately, Kierkegaard has another argument for the importance of interest that does not rely on the assumption that artworks are about their audiences. This second argument begins with the banal claim that

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Figure 6.3. Dread Scott (1965–), A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday, 2015. Nylon. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Dread Scott.

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Figure 6.4. Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980), P15 Parangolé Cape 11, I Embody Revolt (P15 Parangolé Capa 12, Eu Incorporo a Revolta) worn by Nildo of Mangueira, 1967. Photograph by Claudio Oiticica. Image copyright © César and Claudio Oiticica. Image courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica.

we can understand a work of art only if we grasp the ideas at play in it. By way of example, consider once more Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina. Two of its central themes are loyalty and loneliness. The Kierkegaardian claim here is that we can understand Tolstoy’s work only if we know what loyalty and loneliness mean. This point does not apply only to literary works. After all, many nonliterary works of art also involve ideas in some way. Take Caravaggio’s painting, The Denial of Saint Peter, which we discussed in the last chapter. It has to do with both guilt and remorse. Thus, on a Kierkegaardian view, we can understand it only if we have a good sense of the struggles associated with these emotions. Similarly, Robert Rauschenberg’s multimedia work Monogram is partly about humor and irreverence. So, Kierkegaard would say, we cannot fully grasp it unless we understand the nature of these concepts.

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This brings us to the key premise in Kierkegaard’s second argument. He thinks our understanding of an idea remains impoverished unless we see how it applies or could apply to our own personal lives. This claim resembles the one made by logical positivists, such as Moritz Schlick, that an idea is meaningless unless we can verify it empirically. 50 Kierkegaard’s position is slightly more modest, though. He is not saying that an idea is in itself meaningless but rather that it is meaningless for us unless we see how it pertains to our own experience of the world (see SLW 438–39, 478/SKS 6:405–6, 440; TDIO 99–100/SKS 5:467; SUD 90/SKS 11:203; CUP 1:275n, 283, 293/SKS 7:249n, 258, 267). This includes being able to tell how the idea fits with what has happened or could happen in our lives. For example, on Kierkegaard’s view, our understanding of loyalty remains meaningless to us unless we can identify times when we have been loyal or can imagine what it would look like for us to be so. Degrees of Understanding What lies behind Kierkegaard’s view is a memorable line from Sickness Unto Death. Near the end of the book, Anti-Climacus states that “to understand and to understand are two different things” (SUD 90, 92/SKS 11:203, 205). 51 The upshot, as C. Stephen Evans points out, is that understanding comes in levels or degrees. 52 Two people can know the same thing, but one of them can know it in a better or deeper way. Kierkegaard develops this point by drawing on the notions of subjectivity and objectivity discussed earlier (CUP 1:72–80/SKS 7:73–80). 53 Those who grasp an idea merely in an objective manner are said to possess a superficial level of understanding. They may not be clueless, of course. Mere objective knowers may be able to talk about the idea in abstraction or answer general questions about it. They also may be able to appreciate how it applies to other people’s lives. The shortcoming of objective knowers is just that they cannot see how the idea pertains to themselves. The facility they display elsewhere does not translate to the most important arena, their own experience of the world. By contrast, those who become competent in this domain—those who become capable of seeing how the idea in question applies to their own experience of the world—are said to grasp the idea subjectively. Kierkegaard categorizes this as the deeper level of understanding (CUP 1:165–69/SKS 7:154–57; FSE 36/SKS 13:63; TA 9/SKS 8:14; WL 361/SKS 9:355). 54 The unfortunate truth is that we often stall out at the objective level of understanding. We fail or refuse to consider the personal significance of the things we think about. When we get stuck in this way, Kierkegaard uses a special term to describe us. He calls us “rote knowers” or says we suffer from “rote understanding” (CUP 1:170, 244, 255–56, 264/SKS 7:157, 222, 232, 240; TDIO 101/SKS 5:468; JP 4:392/SKS 22:393; JP 6:126/SKS 21:293). 55 Postscript contains several examples of this disorder. The most

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famous concerns death. Suppose I know many facts about death, Climacus says. I know the things that can kill a person: drowning, coal gas, sulfuric acid, and so forth. I am acquainted with the ways a person’s death can be viewed, from heroic to ludicrous to inconsequential. Moreover, I am familiar with the things said by the clergy and the poets when a person dies. Even if I possess this “almost extraordinary knowledge,” Climacus argues, “I still cannot regard death as something I have understood” (CUP 1:166/SKS 7:154). Deep understanding of death, as opposed to mere rote understanding, requires more than knowledge of these facts. It requires grasping the significance of these facts for me. I have to appreciate that I too will die and indeed may die at any moment (CUP 1:167–69/SKS 7:155–57). Tolstoy’s short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, illustrates the mindset of the rote knower. 56 Ilych is said to recognize general truths about death. He can make sense of the classical syllogism, for instance, “Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal.” 57 Ilych’s problem is that he cannot see what these general truths have to do with him. That Caius— an abstract human being—should die seems acceptable in Ilych’s mind. “Caius was certainly mortal, and it was right for him to die,” he thinks. 58 But Ilych himself is not an abstract human being. He is a concrete person with a mother and father. He has a history: he went to school, grew up, fell in love, and presided at legal sessions. He has a mind filled with a whole range of thoughts and emotions. “It cannot be that I ought to die,” Ilych says to himself. “That would be too terrible.” 59 Ilych’s inability to come to terms with his own death reveals that he is suffering from rote knowledge. His understanding of the subject is meaningless to him; it has no significance for his life or how he lives it. Rote Understanding of Art We are now ready to see the implications of Kierkegaard’s account of understanding for his theory of art appreciation. For Kierkegaard, if I merely have rote understanding of some idea, this hinders my ability to appreciate any work of art in which that idea comes into play. Take the first couplet of Emily Dickinson’s famous poem: “Because I could not stop for Death — / He kindly stopped for me —.” Or, consider the opening lines of John Donne’s well-known sonnet: “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” I will not have a deep grasp of what Dickinson or Donne is saying unless I have a deep grasp of death. If, like Ilych, my understanding of death stalls out at the rote level—if I have no sense of what it is for me to die or I cannot come to terms with the fact of my death—then my understanding of their poems will also be no more than rote. The same holds for other ideas. Suppose my understanding of “happiness” is merely objective and so somewhat superficial, as it unfortunately

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is for some of us. I can see what it is for my friends to be happy and identify when they are so. I can also talk in abstraction about happiness itself. I have even written discourses on the subject. But I have trouble recognizing what happiness amounts to in my own day-to-day existence. Thus, I seldom think of myself as happy even when I am so and vice versa. It follows that my grasp of any works that speak of happiness will be impoverished. My eyes may be able to scan Tolstoy’s memorable line, for instance: “[A]ll happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But on a deeper level what I am reading will be meaningless to me. It is worth noting here that there are ideas at play in works of art other than the simple ones picked out by individual words, such as “death” and “happiness.” The words contained in poems or novels usually work together to describe characters or situations. These characters and situations constitute complex concepts. They are mental constructs we can use to organize and structure our conception of the world. Our knowledge of these complex concepts comes in degrees, just as it does for simple concepts. So, it is possible for us to stall out at a superficial level of understanding of them as well. In fact, this is not unusual. Most of us have had students who are able to talk about Ivan Ilych in abstract terms without this talk having deeper meaning for their lives. They have no sense for how Ilych’s story fits with their own experience of the world. They cannot see that they too are Ilyches in their own way. We find another example of Kierkegaard’s point if we think about King David’s reaction to the parable told to him by the prophet Nathan. 60 David initially grasps the parable well enough to comment on it intelligently. He can pick out the major theme of selfishness and appreciate how the rich man’s actions reflect this vice. But David has no more than a superficial understanding of the concept in play. Like Ilych when it comes to death, his grasp of selfishness lacks depth. He can only speak about it in abstraction or as it pertains to others. Any sense of how the concept applies to his own life is lacking. He cannot see that he too has been selfish and that his actions are no different from the rich man’s actions. In sum, at least at the outset, David possesses only rote understanding of Nathan’s tale. Deep Understanding of Art According to Kierkegaard, it is Nathan’s pointed assertion, “thou art the man,” that pushes David beyond rote knowledge (FSE 38/SKS 13:65). The accusation forces David to abandon his initial objective approach; it causes him to cease considering the story in an impersonal way. Instead, he starts to head in a subjective direction, thinking about how the parable applies to his own life. He considers how the flaws of the rich man reflect

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his own personal shortcomings. These deliberations bring David to the deeper understanding of Nathan’s tale that he has been lacking. What Kierkegaard says about King David reflects a general rule. As long as our engagement with a work of art remains merely objective— as long as we have no concern for its significance for ourselves—our understanding of the work will remain superficial. 61 We will stall out at the level of rote understanding. Deep understanding of a work of art requires a subjective turn. Like David, we must take the time to reflect on how the ideas at play in the work apply or could apply to our own lives. In other words, robust art appreciation cannot be purely disinterested. It must be at least somewhat interested in Kierkegaard’s technical sense. This rule does not just hold for the simple concepts we encounter in works of art, such as selfishness or death. It also holds for the complex concepts—those picked out by the characters, plots, and situations represented in the works. Grasping these concepts in a deep way requires thinking about their application to our own experience of the world. To use Camp’s terminology, we have to view ourselves through the lens of the characters we encounter. 62 We must contemplate whether and how we too possess the traits they exhibit or struggle with the problems they face. In Kierkegaard’s language, moving beyond rote knowledge of a work of art requires using it as a mirror for ourselves (see FSE 25–26, 35, 43–44, 50–51/SKS 13:53–54, 62, 70–71; SUD 37/SKS 11:152). 63 In sum, on Kierkegaard’s view, art appreciation does not demand that we set aside the benefits of art for the project of selfhood. On the contrary, appreciating a work of art requires attending to these benefits. We must approach the work in a personal rather than impersonal manner, making an effort to consider its significance for our own lives. Then and only then will we acquire a deep understanding of the work’s content. And that is what we need in order to make the judgments about form-content unity that stand at the center of art appreciation for Kierkegaard. (I will say more about the notion of form-content unity in chapter 8.) THE FATE OF DISINTEREST At the outset of the chapter, I asserted that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the importance of interest does not entail a complete rejection of disinterest. I wish to return to that point now. In this final section of the chapter, I will lay out three respects in which the tradition of disinterest continues to occupy an important place in Kierkegaard’s aesthetics (although not quite the place envisioned by some of the tradition’s more vociferous defenders).

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Disinterest as Part of Double Reflection It is tempting to think of interest and disinterest as mutually exclusive. We can be either interested or disinterested—subjective or objective—but not both (CUP 1:193/SKS 7:177). This is true, however, only if we think about the matter synchronically. At any particular instant, when engaging a work of art, we must choose between going away from ourselves and coming back to ourselves. But if we spread out these activities over time, it is possible to engage in both. We can be objective at one moment and subjective at the next. 64 This insight provides the foundation for one way Kierkegaard makes room for disinterest. Despite how he sometimes talks, he does not want to replace disinterest with interest. Instead, he seeks to incorporate interest into a larger process within which disinterest also exists. To be more precise, art appreciation on his view has two stages. There is an initial objective stage at which we grasp the content of the work as it is in and of itself. Then, there is a second subjective stage at which we reflect on the significance of this content for us as individuals. (These two stages may form a hermeneutical circle.) Thus, Climacus describes the ideal form of engagement as a “double reflection” that includes objective and subjective components (CUP 1:73–74/SKS 7:73–74). Now it is true that Kierkegaard often downplays the objective stage of art appreciation. But he never dispenses with it entirely. Indeed, he cannot do so. To see why, we can return once more to metaphor. As discussed in chapter 5, metaphorical understanding involves seeing a target domain through the lens of a source domain. Yet, it is impossible to perform this “seeing through” without a prior understanding of the source domain. Take Anne Bezuidenhout’s classic example, “Bill is a bulldozer.” 65 When we work out the meaning of this metaphor, we begin by focusing on the attributes commonly associated with the predicate term, bulldozer. We then try to find parallel properties in the subject term, Bill. The result is that new features of Bill are raised to prominence or existing ones are made more salient. What is important for our purposes is that we cannot gain this new understanding of Bill unless we already know what bulldozers are. We must first have a sense for these machines as they are in and of themselves before we can see Bill through the lens of their peculiar characteristics. The same point applies to the kind of metaphorical seeing-as Kierkegaard regards as essential to art appreciation. King David, for instance, cannot see himself as the rich man in Nathan’s parable unless he takes a moment to understand the rich man. So too, in order to see myself as the character of A in Either/Or, I must first learn who A is. I must first study the text and pay close attention to the details of A’s life therein described. Such “scholarly preliminaries,” Kierkegaard says in For Self-Examination, are a “necessary evil” (FSE 27/SKS 13:55). 66

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It is at this initial scholarly stage that disinterest comes into play. To the degree we can, we must let the work of art speak for itself. We must refrain from imposing our own meaning upon it, and we must prevent our biases from warping our sense of what it has to say. The best way to do these things is to set aside our own personal agendas. In short, we must become objective or disinterested. Then and only then can we profit from taking a personal interest in the work of art before us. 67 Disinterest as an Escape The preceding discussion makes disinterested appreciation of art sound like nothing more than a temporary weigh-station. It is something we have to attend to briefly but ultimately need to move beyond. In Peder Jothen’s words, the appreciation of art for Kierkegaard seems to be nothing more than “a relative good, merely tangential to the highest art of co-producing oneself as a subject.” 68 Its value depends on using it “as one means to pursue subjectivity.” 69 This is not entirely correct, though. Art appreciation on a Kierkegaardian account does not always have to culminate in subjective reflection. Occasionally stopping at the objective or disinterested stage is permissible. Part of the reason is that some works of art are not amenable to subjective reflection. They do not have any content that could be appropriated in a personal way. (We can think here of Carmen Herrera’s minimalist geometric paintings or Clara Schumann’s solo piano compositions.) But even when it is possible to engage a work of art in a subjective fashion, doing so is not always necessary according to Kierkegaard. Let me explain. The motivating idea comes from Schopenhauer but has been defended recently by Ronald Hepburn and others. 70 It begins with the insight that life is filled with suffering. The project of selfhood only adds to our stresses. Thus, many of us crave an escape from our lives, at least on occasion. One benefit of disinterested art appreciation is that it affords us such an escape. When we lose ourselves in works of art, we gain a momentary release from the demands of existence. We experience a “sense of liberation,” to use Kreitman’s expression, that it is hard to get elsewhere. 71 In addition, if we permit ourselves these periods of rest from time to time, we may be better off in the long run. We may proceed farther along the way to selfhood than if we pursued it at every moment of every day. Attributing this view to Kierkegaard might seem wrongheaded. After all, in his dissertation, he attacks a version of the art-as-escape view that he attributes to the German poet, Ludwig Tieck (CI 301–8/SKS 1:334–40). 72 Moreover, Kierkegaard often seems to encourage us to embrace suffering rather than shrink from it. He writes discourses on why “adversity is prosperity” (CD 150–60/SKS 10:158-66) and “the joy of it

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that the school of sufferings educates for eternity” (UDVS 248–63/SKS 347–60). All of this is not to mention that Kierkegaard describes the demands of selfhood as infinite. In Postscript, we read how we must constantly strive to become our ideal selves (CUP 1:92, 122, 164/SKS 7:91, 117, 152). Selfhood is not a goal we are to pursue in episodic fashion, picking it up for an hour every now and then like a hobby. As a striking passage from Works of Love has it, one is “to be so turned in thought that continually, at every moment, one is conscious, conscious of one’s own state during the thinking or what is happening in oneself during the thinking” (WL 361/SKS 9:355). 73 These do not sound like the words of someone who would condone losing ourselves in art in order to escape the burdens of selfhood. Yet, appearances mislead here. However we take the preceding passage from Works of Love and the related ones from Postscript—whether we read them as hyperbole or as speaking about something other than what they seem, as Patrick Stokes argues 74 —we cannot interpret them as forbidding existential holidays. For Kierkegaard explicitly and repeatedly allows for such holidays. This even happens in Postscript, one of his most demanding texts. The ideal individual, Climacus says, will not avoid innocent delights and diversions. He or she will go to the amusement park to enjoy himself or herself. “[I]t is the humblest expression of the God-relationship to admit one’s humanness,” he writes, “and it is human to enjoy oneself” (CUP 1:493/SKS 7:447). 75 Frater Taciturnus makes a similar point in Stages on Life’s Way. He says it is permissible to take time away from the struggles associated with selfhood. “It is not wrong of the spectator to want to lose himself in poetry; this is a joy that has its reward” (SLW 461/SKS 6:426). Finally, Kierkegaard also carves out room for using art as an escape when writing under his own name. In his review of Thomasine Gyllembourg’s work, he praises her novel, A Story of Everyday Life, not only because it teaches us about ourselves but also because it offers us a “consolation and healing” (TA 22/SKS 8:24). It gives us “a place of rest” in troubled times (TA 21/SKS 8:23). Thus, we must interpret Kierkegaard as a pluralist about artistic value. Art matters to him because it teaches us about selfhood, as I have emphasized. But it also matters to him because it offers us an escape from the demands of selfhood. Of course, Kierkegaard does not assign these two values equal weight. He does not think losing ourselves in a work of art (disinterested appreciation) is just as important as appropriating its meaning into our lives (interested appreciation). For one thing, it is less crucial to the good life. For another, it leaves us with a lesser understanding of the work before us. In sum, unlike some of his contemporaries, Kierkegaard does not hold that disinterested appreciation of art is the ideal form of art appreciation. But he does allow us to undertake it from time to time, even when it is not just a precursor to interested appreciation.

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Disinterest as an Ideal for Artists Up to this point, I have focused on the place of interest and disinterest in Kierkegaard’s views on art appreciation. Yet these concepts also play a role in a related topic, his account of art creation. Attending to what he says here will open up a new set of questions. In his journals, Kierkegaard claims to create in part for himself. He writes not only for the betterment of his readers but also for his own edification. He says, “I came to understand myself by writing” (JP 6:39/ SKS 21:45), and “I regard my whole work as an author as my own upbringing or education” (JP 6:385/SKS 24:249). In sum, Kierkegaard seeks to be personally interested in his artistic creations. Moreover, he holds this up as an ideal for all authors and artists. Whenever we create something, he says, we must reflect on the implications of what we have created for our own lives (CUP 1:72–76, 169–70/SKS 7:73–77, 156–58). Yet, there is also a sense in which Kierkegaard sees disinterest as the proper ideal for artists. He inherits this view from another one of his predecessors, Friedrich Schiller. Like Kierkegaard, Schiller believes art matters because it can help us with the project of selfhood. He thinks art can make us better versions of ourselves. 76 But in attempting to improve us, Schiller argues in On the Aesthetic Education of Man, artists must not violate the central principle of self-development—namely, autonomy. 77 They must make room for and even encourage us to exercise our freedom as we explore who we are and who we will become. 78 One consequence of this rule, according to Schiller, is that works of art must refrain from being didactic or preachy. They must avoid the temptation to push their audience in the direction of a particular belief or course of action. 79 But this is just to say that creating art requires a kind of detachment or disinterest on the part of artists. To wit, artists must set aside any interest they may have in getting us to respond to their work in one way rather than another. Kierkegaard embraces Schiller’s view on this point. He believes works of art ought to help us with the project of selfhood; that is what makes them worth attending to in the first place. But however they attempt to do so, it must be in keeping with the ideal of autonomy. The good artist must assist the learner in a way that permits him or her “to stand alone” (JP 1:45/SKS 24:410; JP 1:273/SKS 27:396) or “to go his own way” (CUP 1:277/SKS 7:251). 80 In other words, there must be a “gap” between the artist and the audience that permits the latter to develop their subjectivity as they see fit (CUP 1:263/SKS 7:239). We have encountered this view of Kierkegaard’s before. It appeared in chapter 5 in the context of a discussion about letting people make their own discoveries. But the point there had to do with pedagogy. It was about how best to help people learn, not about respecting their right to autonomy. This new moral dimension of Kierkegaard’s view still needs

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to be unpacked. We need to investigate how far artists are morally permitted to go in their attempts to benefit us. To what extent can they make use of art’s power to capture and direct our attention? Can they push us down a particular path or toward a particular truth if they think it would help us? I will turn to this and related questions in the next chapter. NOTES 1. Sylvia Walsh refers to disinterest as the crux of “traditional aesthetics” in Kierkegaard’s day. See Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1994), 6. 2. Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms often speak out against the importance of knowledge (e.g., CUP 1:249/SKS 7:226–27). This does not include self-knowledge, however. In his unpublished lectures on communication, Kierkegaard writes, “In a certain sense there is something horrible about contemplating the whole mob of publishers, book-sellers, journalists, authors—all of them working day and night in the service of confusion, because men will not become sober and understand that relatively little knowledge is needed to be truly human—but all the more self-knowledge” (JP 1:269/SKS 27:393). 3. We owe this standard story to Jerome Stolnitz. See, for example, Jerome Stolnitz, “On the Origins of ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20, no. 2 (1961): 131–143; “‘The Aesthetic Attitude’ in the Rise of Modern Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 36, no. 4 (1978): 409–22, https:// doi.org/10.2307/430481. 4. For criticism of Stolnitz’s historical account, see Paul Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 48–50; Miles Rind, “The Concept of Disinterestedness in EighteenthCentury British Aesthetics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 40, no. 1 (2002): 67–87. 5. Most famously, George Dickie raised a number of objections to disinterest, culminating in the claim that “disinterested attention is a confused notion” (“The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude,” American Philosophical Quarterly 1, no. 1 [1964]: 61). For some time, Dickie’s criticisms were considered decisive. Yet, recently, several scholars have sought to defend the notion from Dickie’s attacks. For example, see David E. W. Fenner, The Aesthetic Attitude (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996); Gary Kemp, “The Aesthetic Attitude,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 39, no. 4 (1999): 392–99; Bence Nanay, “Aesthetic Attention,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 22, no. 5–6 (2015): 96–118; Richard Westerman, “Intentionality and the Aesthetic Attitude,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 58, no. 3 (2018): 287–302. 6. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design, ed. Peter Kivy (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), 35–37. Hutcheson’s position appears similar to the view known as “aesthetic empiricism” that Gregory Currie and others have defended. According to Currie, what is aesthetically valuable in a work of art can be detected merely by perceiving it. Features that cannot be so detected are not aesthetic ones (An Ontology of Art [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989], 17). As David Davies glosses the idea, the aesthetic empiricist holds that art appreciation is concerned with “only properties available to a receiver in an immediate perceptual encounter with an object or event that realizes the work” (David Davies, Art as Performance [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004], 26–27). For further discussion of aesthetic empiricism, see Peter Lamarque, Work and Object: Explorations in the Metaphysics of Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 122–38. 7. Hutcheson, Francis Hutcheson, 32. For discussion, see Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 58–60. 8. Kant’s view is different from Hutcheson’s view. Yet, Kant agrees with Hutcheson that we do not take pleasure in beautiful objects because we judge that they fall

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under some determinate concept. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2000), sec. 7. The upshot, for Kant, is that the perception of beauty does not give rise to the desire to use the object for a specific purpose. Nor does it give rise to the desire to seek other objects of the same kind that would afford us the same pleasure. Perception of the beautiful gives rise only to the desire to continue perceiving the object itself (ibid., sec. 8). In this respect, Kant accepts something similar to what I have called strong disinterest. For further discussion of Kant’s views on aesthetic disinterest, see Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 97–116; Nick Zangwill, “Unkantian Notions of Disinterest,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 32, no. 2 (1992): 149–52; Rachel Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the “Critique of Judgment” (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 262–66. 9. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 59–60. 10. For discussion of this argument, see Arnold Berleant, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness,” Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003); Ronald Hepburn, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness,” Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003); Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), 264–67; James Shelley, “The Concept of the Aesthetic,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Winter 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2017/entries/aesthetic-concept. 11. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 3–7. 12. Ibid., 1:4. 13. Ibid., 1:7. 14. Ibid. 15. For discussion of this argument, see Berleant, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness”; Hepburn, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness”; Peter Lamarque, “Cognitive Values in the Arts: Marking the Boundaries,” in Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, ed. Matthew Kieran (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 261–64; Stolnitz, “On the Origins of ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” 131; Jerome Schiller, “An Alternative to ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 22, no. 3 (1964): 296. 16. For a version of this view, see William H. Gass, “Goodness Knows Nothing of Beauty: On the Distance between Morality and Art,” Harper’s Magazine, April 1987, 37–44. 17. Lamarque, “Cognitive Values in the Arts,” 127. 18. My discussion of Catlett’s work draws on Aliza Schvarts, “Utopian Aesthetics from Andy Warhol to Laura Owens” (Learning Series Lecture, Susan and John Hess Family Theater, Whitney Museum, New York, November 29, 2017). 19. Guyer claims that it was uncommon in the eighteenth century for thinkers to hold that aesthetic appreciation must be disconnected from all other human interests (Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 49, 103). However, many philosophers did accept that aesthetic appreciation requires us to set aside our own personal or private interests (ibid., 55). To put Guyer’s point in my terminology, weak disinterest was more popular in the eighteenth century than strong disinterest. 20. For discussion of this view of disinterest, see Norman Kreitman, “The Varieties of Aesthetic Disinterestedness,” Contemporary Aesthetics 4 (2006); Schiller, “An Alternative to ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” 295; Stolnitz, “On the Origins of ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” 131–34. 21. Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 52–53. See Anthony Ashley Cooper third earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 126–27. 22. Noël Carroll, “Art Appreciation,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 50, no. 4 (2016): 1–14. The view Carroll defends was not unheard of in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For instance, George Berkeley has a character in one of his dialogues say, “And, to make the proportions just, must not those mutual relations of

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size and shape in the parts be such as shall make the whole complete and perfect in its kind? . . . Is not a thing said to be perfect in its kind when it answers the end for which it was made? Consequently, beauty . . . is an object not of the eye, but of the mind” (“Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher,” in The Works of George Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, vol. 3 [London: Nelson, 1950], 124). 23. For discussion of this argument, see Kreitman, “The Varieties of Aesthetic Disinterestedness”; Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, 269–70. 24. For support, see Carroll, “Art Appreciation,” 6–7. 25. Kreitman, “The Varieties of Aesthetic Disinterestedness.” 26. Schiller, “An Alternative to ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness,’” 295. 27. There are ways for a defender of strong disinterest to avoid the problem. For instance, on a Kantian view, the experience of freedom from outside constraints that aesthetic appreciation affords us is itself cognitively valuable. For it gives us as symbol of the kind of freedom we must respect in moral domains. See Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, sec. 59. Guyer explains Kant’s view as follows: “For Kant . . . aesthetic response could serve the interests of practical reason or morality in the long run, as the critics of Hutcheson demanded, only if it were to remain free of any direct constraints of theoretical as well as practical reason in the short run, as Hutcheson had suggested” (Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 50). 28. Lamarque, “Cognitive Values in the Arts,” 127. 29. It is passages such as these that lead Frank Burch Brown to assert that Kierkegaard regards aesthetic appreciation as incompatible with his religious brand of existentialism: “Given Kierkegaard’s own manifest verbal artistry, why would he regard an artistic approach to the religious as necessarily callous? Because the religious as such is supposedly irrelevant to the aims of art, which are aesthetic. Religion calls for a change of life, he believes, whereas art calls for disinterested appreciation, or what later theorists would call aesthetic distance” (Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 31). 30. Kierkegaard distinguishes “interest” from “the interesting,” the latter of which is an aesthetic category that he sets in opposition to “the boring” (EO 1:9/SKS 2:17; for discussion, see Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self and Moral Vision [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009], 19–26). Kierkegaard also distinguishes between “the aesthetic” as a way of life, one that revolves around the pursuit of enjoyment rather than personal responsibility, and “aesthetics” in the sense of the philosophy of art. For discussion of this latter point, see William McDonald, “Aesthetic/Aesthetics,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts, Tome I: Absolute to Church, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, Jon Stewart, and William McDonald, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 15 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014); George Pattison, “Kierkegaard: Aesthetics and ‘The Aesthetic,’” British Journal of Aesthetics 31, no. 2 (1991): 140–51. 31. M. Jamie Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 125–26; Gordon D. Marino, “Søren Kierkegaard: The Objective Thinker Is a Suicide,” Philosophy Today 29, no. 3 (1985): 205–6; but cf. Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 49–51. 32. For further support and discussion, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and Content,” Philosophy Today 57, no. 4 (2013): 376–87; David James, “The Significance of Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of Don Giovanni in Relation to Hegel’s Philosophy of Art,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16, no. 1 (2008): 147–62; George Pattison, Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 16–18, 36–37, 96–99; Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 210–14. 33. For support, see Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 48–130. 34. For further support, see Rick Anthony Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific Postscript”: A Critical Guide, ed. Rick Anthony Furtak (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 87–110.

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35. For further support, see Rick Anthony Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. Edward F. Mooney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 59–71. 36. For a different defense of this claim, see Peder Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood: The Art of Subjectivity (New York: Routledge, 2014), 203–37. 37. Ettore Rocca, “Kierkegaard’s Second Aesthetics,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1999, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1999), 278–92; see also McDonald, “Aesthetic/Aesthetics,” 26. Rocca’s version of Kierkegaard’s “second aesthetics” differs from my own in that his emphasizes the role of Christianity whereas mine emphasizes the role of subjectivity or interest. 38. Jamie Lorentzen, Kierkegaard’s Metaphors (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001), 111–14. 39. For further discussion, see Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 124–29. 40. W. Gareth Jones, “Introduction,” in Anna Karenina (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), xx. 41. Thanks to Julianne Chung for pushing me on this point and bringing this example to my attention. 42. Richard Freadman and Seumas Miller, “The Power and Limits of Literary Theory,” in Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent, ed. Daphne Patai and Will H. Corral (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 86. Authors are often explicit on this point. For example, Sebastian Faulks says about his novel, Human Traces: “My aim as a novelist is, by examining these themes [about mental health], to see what they can tell us about all of humanity and the way in which all our minds work in sickness and in health” (Nick Triggle, “Literature’s Love Affair with the Mind,” BBC News, September 10, 2005, sec. Health, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4220290.stm). 43. Arthur Coleman Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 172–73. 44. Dread Scott, “A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday,” accessed January 4, 2018, http://www.dreadscott.net/works/a-man-was-lynched-by-police-yesterday/. 45. “Dread Scott, A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday, 2015,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018, https://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/AudioGuides/1867. 46. Philomena Epps, “Hélio Oiticica, Parangolés 2007, Case Study,” in Performance At Tate: Into the Space of Art, Tate Research Publication, 2016, http://www.tate.org.uk/ research/publications/performance-at-tate/case-studies/helio-oiticica. 47. “Hélio Oiticica, Rio Parangolés,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2017, http://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/AudioGuides/60. 48. Ibid. 49. John Gibson, “Cognitivism and the Arts,” Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (2008): 581–82. 50. Moritz Schlick, “Positivismus und Realismus,” Erkenntnis 3, no. 1 (1932): 1–31. 51. See also Kierkegaard’s distinction between “what” you know and “how” you know it (CUP 1:88, 202, 323/SKS 7:87–88, 185, 294; JP 1:317–18/SKS 23:91–92). 52. C. Stephen Evans, “Wisdom as Conceptual Understanding: A Christian Platonist Perspective,” Faith and Philosophy 27, no. 4 (November 1, 2010): 372. 53. For further explanation, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1983), 96–102. 54. The distinction between objective and subjective understanding resembles but is not exactly the same as the one often drawn between theoretical and practical knowledge. The reason the two distinctions do not map onto each other perfectly is that Kierkegaard thinks it is possible to see how a concept applies to practical situations that concern other people but not to practical situations that concern oneself. He reserves the label of subjective understanding for those who have the ability to do the latter. 55. Kierkegaard uses two different Danish expressions here. The first is “at lære udenad,” which means to learn by heart or by rote. The second is “at ramse op,” which

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literally means to reel or rattle off, but which the Hongs often translate as “to know by rote” or something similar. See H. Vinterberg and C.A. Bodelsen, Dansk-Engelsk Ordbog, 4th ed., Gyldendals Store Røde Ordbøger (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1998), s.v. “udenad,” “remse.” 56. For other discussions of the relationship between Kierkegaard and Ilych, see Evans, “Wisdom as Conceptual Understanding,” 372; Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy,” 106–7; Patrick Stokes, “Death,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 369. 57. Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 137. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. 1 Sam. 12. 61. At least this is true for artworks that have representational or propositional content; not all artworks do. 62. Elisabeth Camp, “Two Varieties of Literary Imagination: Metaphor, Fiction, and Thought Experiments,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 33, no. 1 (2009): 107–30. 63. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s use of the mirror metaphor, see Patrick Stokes, “Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: The Immediacy of Moral Vision,” Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2007): 70–94; Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 111–33. 64. It may turn out that pure objectivity is impossible—and pure subjectivity as well. Thus, it may be more accurate to say we can lean in one direction at one moment and in the opposite direction at the next moment. 65. Anne Bezuidenhout, “Metaphor and What Is Said: A Defense of a Direct Expression View of Metaphor,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2001): 157. “Bill is a bulldozer” also becomes a central example in Elisabeth Camp’s work. See Elisabeth Camp, “Contextualism, Metaphor, and What Is Said,” Mind & Language 21, no. 3 (June 1, 2006): 284; Camp, “Two Varieties of Literary Imagination: Metaphor, Fiction, and Thought Experiments,” 108. 66. Kierkegaard speaks here of reading the Bible, but his point is the same as the one I am making about art appreciation. Our ultimate goal when reading the Bible, he maintains, should be to apply what the scriptures say to our own lives. In order to do so, however, we must learn what scripture is saying. And this may take some work. For instance, since the Bible was written in a tongue other than my own, it first has to be translated into a language I can understand. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on interpreting scripture, see Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 114–25. 67. This is especially true in cases where a robust understanding of a work of art requires more than just a passing acquaintance with its surface properties. For instance, to have a deep grasp of Anna Karenina, I have to put myself in Anna’s shoes. I have to try to experience the world how she does. I cannot do this, however, without stripping away my own properties, values, and interests. In short, I cannot do so without becoming disinterested. 68. Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood, 204. 69. Ibid. 70. See John E. Atwell, “Art as Liberation: A Central Theme of Schopenhauer’s Philosophy,” in Schopenhauer, Philosophy and the Arts, ed. Dale Jacquette (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 81–106; Hepburn, “An Exchange on Disinterestedness”; Ronald Hepburn, “Freedom and Receptivity in Aesthetic Experience,” Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics 3, no. 1 (2006): 1–14. 71. Kreitman, “The Varieties of Aesthetic Disinterestedness.” This idea also arises in the work of Clive Bell, who writes, “Art transports us from the world of man’s activity to a world of aesthetic exaltation. For a moment we are shut off from human interests . . . we are lifted above the stream of life” (Art [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987], 27).

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72. Some scholars depict Kierkegaard as against the disinterested approach to art precisely because it amounts to an escape from actuality. For example, see Jothen, Kierkegaard, Aesthetics, and Selfhood, 208–9; Anna Strelis Söderquist, Kierkegaard on Dialogical Education: Vulnerable Freedom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), xvii. 73. In Khawaja’s words, “Living one’s conversion as a task creates an inexhaustible demand, one that claims presence—in both the temporal and phenomenal senses of that word—at every instant” (The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016], 218). 74. Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors, 2009, 53–56. 75. For further discussion, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 130. 76. Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, trans. Keith Tribe (London: Penguin Books, 2016), sec. 9; Frederick C. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 191, 195. 77. Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, sec. 11. 78. Ibid., sec. 21; Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 155. 79. For support, see Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom, 116–17, 120. 80. For further support, see Walsh, Living Poetically, 185.

SEVEN Rules for Art Creation Two Moral Considerations

THE POWER OF ART Kierkegaard often speaks of art appreciation as if it were something we actively do. We are to use works of art in a particular way to get a particular result. The plausibility of this view depends on remembering that it is a normative one. It is a take on how we ought to engage with art in order to get out of it what is valuable about it. It is not meant as a description of how our encounters with art always actually go. In fact, what is striking about our actual encounters with art is that they often do not conform to the ideal Kierkegaard lays out. In particular, they are often less a matter of our actively doing something than of something’s happening to us. We find ourselves overcome by works of art or transfixed by them. They captivate our minds in ways we did not expect; they absorb and direct our attention in ways we did not anticipate. Never is this clearer than in our responses to beauty. The appearance of the beautiful entrances us. We feel ourselves unable to look away and craving to see more. Elaine Scarry illustrates the point with an example about natural beauty. She calls to mind how a bird’s dazzling brilliance induces us to follow it. We move and reposition ourselves so we can “continu[e] to see [it] five seconds, twenty-five seconds, forty-five seconds later—as long as the bird is there to be beheld.” 1 Beauty in human beings has a similar effect on us, Scarry adds. She relates an anecdote about Leonardo, who, “as though half-crazed, used to follow people around the streets of Florence once he got ‘glimpses of [beauty] in the strange eyes or hair of chance people.’ Sometimes he persisted until sundown.” 2 What Scarry says about natural beauty applies to beauty in 161

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works of art as well. When struck by a particular painting, we want to come closer and remain in its presence. Upon hearing a moving melody, we want to turn up the volume or hit replay. In sum, beauty has a kind of power over us. This fact gives rise to a worry, however, an ancient one that goes back to Plato. Artists familiar with the power of aesthetics can draw on it for nefarious ends. They can use it to seduce us into pursuing evil or believing falsehoods—or just to manipulate us into doing what they want us to do. We see this in commercial advertising and political propaganda, both of which play major roles in determining our society’s values and beliefs. Indeed, it is largely because of their influence that the struggle for authenticity is so hard. We constantly have to fight against what popular culture—through the medium of art—presses us to think or do. Kierkegaard appreciates this problem. He often alludes to the power of art in his writings. It is the music from Don Giovanni, for instance, that carries A away from his gloomy apartment and makes him “intoxicated with joy” (EO 1:41–42/SKS 2:50). Similarly, it is “the magic of the theater” that “enthralls” Constantin and sweeps him away into the realm of imagination (R 154/SKS 4:30). Kierkegaard also criticizes people for exploiting the power of art. He condemns those who would draw on it to push people down any particular path in life (CUP 1:49/SKS 7:54). To foreclose this possibility, Kierkegaard institutes a rule regarding the use of art to teach or instruct. When communicating through art, he says, we must do so in a way that respects our audience’s autonomy. We must not seek to induce others to go our own way but rather “urge [them] to go [their] own way” (CUP 1:277/SKS 7:251; see also WL 274/SKS 9:272). In sum, for Kierkegaard, artists ought to embrace the ideal of disinterest we saw Schiller defend at the end of the last chapter. The current chapter will investigate the limits of Kierkegaard’s rule that artists must respect their audience’s autonomy. I will argue for two claims. First, there is a sense in which the rule goes too far. Without further qualification, it excludes certain legitimate uses of art. Indeed, artists are often justified in violating their audience’s autonomy in order to teach them important lessons. Thus, we need to clarify the conditions under which these exceptions obtain. Second, there is a sense in which Kierkegaard’s rule does not go far enough. Without supplementing it in some way, it fails to exclude all the morally problematic ways artists can draw on the power of art. To remedy this problem, I will propose a further rule for art creation. In addition to respecting their audience’s autonomy, artists must also care about their audience’s overall well-being. I will accuse Kierkegaard of failing to adhere to this supplemental rule in the final sections of the chapter.

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RESPECT FOR THE AUDIENCE’S AUTONOMY To orient ourselves toward the relevant issues, we can return to our discussion of friendship. From time to time, our friends may commit what we regard as mistakes. These perceived errors may on occasion have to do with their attempts at selfhood. In their efforts to become authentic, our friends may embrace identities we find fraudulent, for example. They may ignore facts about themselves to which we think they should attend, or they may define themselves in terms of projects we believe unworthy of their efforts. We do not wrong our friends in these situations if we bring our concerns to their attention. On the contrary, this is one way we can help them with their pursuit of selfhood (insofar as they have such a pursuit—see below). Yet, setting aside cases where our friends’ errors harm or endanger others, we tend to think it is impermissible to pressure our friends into taking the path we think is right for them. 3 We should not insist that they embrace the sense of self we believe fits them best. That is to say, even if we disagree with our friends about how they ought to structure their lives, we should respect their decisions. Kierkegaard concurs with this liberal position. He considers it not only permissible but also downright beneficent to help each other as we struggle to become who we are (WL 274–76/SKS 9:272–74). He allows that this may include criticizing one another at times. (This is the crux of the dialogical model defended in chapter 4.) Yet, for Kierkegaard, there are limits on the kind of assistance we ought to provide our friends. These limits come into focus in the context of Climacus’s discussion of how God relates to human beings. Climacus asserts that God does not force us to commit to him. Instead, he gives us the space we need to make up our own minds about whether to live the religious life (CUP 1:243–44/SKS 7:221–22). Climacus argues that we should follow God’s lead in this respect. Each of us should “acknowledge the given independence in every human being and to the best of one’s ability do everything in order truly to help someone retain it” (CUP 1:260/SKS 7:236). It follows that trying to compel people to become religious is wrong. Climacus writes, “[A]ll those who in that way want to give a rhetorical push in order to bring one into Christianity or even help one into it by a thrashing—they are all deceivers—no, they know not what they do” (CUP 1:49/SKS 7:54). Climacus does not apply this principle only to religious decisions. He regards it as a general rule constraining how we ought to communicate with other people. In a famous passage from Postscript, we read: To stop a man on the street and to stand still in order to speak with him is not as difficult as having to say something to a passerby in passing, without standing still oneself or delaying the other, without wanting to induce him to go the same way, but just urging him to go his own

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In sum, according to Climacus, we ought to respect other people’s autonomy. Manipulating them into doing what we think they should do is morally wrong. “[A]ll such things are a misunderstanding,” he writes, “in relation to the truth a forgery by which, according to one’s ability, one helps any number of people to acquire a semblance of truth” (CUP 1:247/ SKS 7:225). The ideal of respecting others’ autonomy is defended not only by Climacus but also by Kierkegaard himself. Recall from chapter 4 that he regards becoming autonomous as an essential part of becoming a “single individual” (PV 107, 110/SKS 16:87–88, 90; UDVS 131/SKS 8:230). In addition, recall that he describes the goal of his authorship as being to help others become single individuals (PV 118/SKS 16:98). It follows that one of Kierkegaard’s aims is to promote his readers’ autonomy. This conclusion fits what he describes in Works of Love as the greatest thing one person can do for another: “But also in the world of spirit, precisely this, to become one’s own master, is the highest—and in love to help someone toward that, to become himself, free, independent, his own master, to help him stand alone—that is the greatest beneficence” (WL 274/SKS 9:272). Kierkegaard confirms this point a few pages later when speaking about Socrates, who often serves as a model for him: “This noble rogue [i.e., Socrates] had understood in the profound sense that the highest one human being can do for another is to make him free, help him to stand by himself” (WL 276/SKS 9:274). Kierkegaard’s views on autonomy affect how he thinks about art creation. In particular, they rule out creating didactic art—that is, art that is overly preachy or pushy about its message. Climacus writes, “[J]ust as the subjective existing thinker has set himself free . . . so the secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free, and for that very reason he must not communicate himself directly” (CUP 1:74/SKS 7:74–75, my emphasis). The proper alternative is an indirect approach (CUP 1:259/SKS 7:235). Rather than straightforwardly asserting the lesson we want others to learn, we should provide our audience with the background resources, training, and tools they need to discover the lesson on their own. This strategy will ensure we do not ride roughshod over their right to make up their own minds about what to do or believe. Herein lies the basis for much of the praise Climacus heaps on Kierkegaard’s writings. Climacus asserts that their value lies in the fact that they “refrain from the didactic” and instead employ a “contrastive form” or “indirect form” that allows readers to go their own way (CUP 1:252–56, 259, 262–64, 280, 300/SKS 7:229–32, 235, 238–40, 255, 273). As Daniel Berthold notes, what is at stake here is not only the pedagogical point discussed in

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chapter 5—namely, that the indirect approach embodied in many works of art makes them effective educators. It is also the moral point that artists should prefer an indirect approach because it is more respectful of their audience’s autonomy. 4 KIERKEGAARD’S PROJECT OF DECEIVING PEOPLE INTO THE TRUTH I said earlier that our friends could err by choosing a self that is the wrong self. They could embrace identities that fail to fit the facts about themselves or that revolve around projects not worth their while. But there is also another way our friends can go astray vis-à-vis the project of selfhood. They can err by not taking up the project in the first place. They can be uninterested in examining their own lives, for instance, or engaging in what Kierkegaard calls subjective reflection. They can be unconcerned with who they really are or what their identity truly is. In sum, our friends can fail to become authentic simply because they are not trying to become authentic. Now if, like Kierkegaard (see CUP 1:163, 346/ SKS 7:151, 316–17; SUD 33, 35/SKS 11:149, 151), we consider authenticity an important part of the good life, we might find it appropriate to encourage friends who commit this error to change their ways. We might take it upon ourselves to persuade them to think about themselves more deeply. We might even call their attention to considerations about their personal identity in order to jump-start the process of selfhood. As before, however, a liberal principle puts a limit on this undertaking. Just as we should not pressure our friends to pursue any particular path of selfhood, so too we should not pressure them to pursue selfhood in general. If it becomes apparent that they do not want to take up the project, we ought to respect their decision. We ought to refrain from cajoling, browbeating, or otherwise manipulating them into trying to become authentic against their will. This is true even if we consider their abdication of the project of selfhood misguided. 5 For the liberal principle states that we ought to respect our friends’ right to make up their own minds not only when we think their decisions are right and rational. Indeed, respect for people’s autonomy that covers only cases where we agree with them is worth little. To be significant, it must extend to cases where we disagree with them as well. (The exception, of course, is cases where our friends’ choices harm or endanger others. More on this shortly). Somewhat surprisingly, Kierkegaard abandons the liberal position here. Although he objects to compelling people down a particular path of selfhood, he finds it unproblematic to compel them toward selfhood in general. If people are failing to think about themselves—the crucial first step toward becoming an authentic self—he considers it permissible to make them do so. It is fine to force people to become self-aware, in other

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words. Kierkegaard is explicit about this point. Take the following section title from Point of View: “Even though a person refuses to go along to the place to which one is endeavoring to lead him, there is still one thing that can be done for him: compel him to become aware” (PV 50/SKS 16:32). He reaffirms this position in the body of the section: But this [helping a person to become religious] is not in my power; it depends upon very many things and above all upon whether he himself is willing. Compel a person to an opinion, a conviction, a belief—in all eternity, that I cannot do. But one thing I can do, in one sense the first thing (since it is the condition for the next thing: to accept this view, conviction, belief), in another sense the last thing if he refuses the next: I can compel him to become aware. (PV 50/SKS 16:32) 6

Kierkegaard acknowledges that by “compelling [a person] to become aware” he may make the person “infuriated, ragingly infuriated—infuriated with the cause, with me” (PV 50/SKS 16:32). Yet, he insists, there is “no doubt” what he is doing is “a good deed” (PV 50/SKS 16:32). Kierkegaard’s language of “compelling [at tvinge]” people to examine their lives is hyperbolic. When someone speaks of compelling another person to do something, we tend to envision a dramatic scene. We think of holding a gun to the person’s head or threatening him or her with untoward consequences. Kierkegaard’s meaning is not so radical. Moreover, it would be absurd for him to hold that works of art—the means by which he proposes to “compel people to become aware”—could do this much. One can always look away from a picture or put down a book. What Kierkegaard has in mind is what we might rather call seduction. He wishes to use the power of art to draw, induce, or entice us toward greater subjectivity and inwardness. We find the details of this strategy in part II of Point of View. Here Kierkegaard predicts that directly confronting his audience would not have much effect. He would not get very far if he came right out and told readers to become more authentic. They would just dismiss or ignore him (PV 42–43/SKS 16:24–26). To succeed at “the art of helping” (PV 45/SKS 16:27), he must find a way to “gain [people’s] attention” or “ensnare” them (PV 43–44/SKS 16:25–26). In the words of Anti-Climacus, “such a communication must secure for itself a something by which it draws attention to itself, by which it occasions and invites a heeding of the communication” (PC 125/SKS 12:130). Indeed, “there must be something that makes it impossible not to look” (PC 126/ SKS 12:131). What is the most effective way to entice people to pay attention? Kierkegaard’s answer is clear: “with an esthetic piece” (PV 44/SKS 16:26). The way “to win and capture” an audience, he reiterates a few pages later, is “by means of an esthetic portrayal” (PV 51/SKS 16:33). Kierkegaard elaborates this point by saying that, in order to compel his readers to become aware of what matters, he must “portray the esthetic with all

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its bewitching charm, if possible captivate the other person, portray it with the kind of passionateness whereby it appeals particularly to him, hilariously to the hilarious, sadly to the sad, wittily to the witty, etc.” (PV 46/SKS 16:28). Now Kierkegaard himself does not characterize this process as seduction. He describes it instead as “deception [Bedrag].” “All [my] esthetic writing,” he confesses, “is a deception” (PV 53/SKS 16:35). Indeed, the goal of his art, we read in several places, is “to deceive people into the truth” (BA 171/Pap. VIII-2 B 12; see also JP 1:288/SKS 27:411; PV 53/SKS 16:36). 7 Making sense of this striking claim requires some clarification. Kierkegaard is not here talking about truth in the sense of a statement or proposition that corresponds to the world. His aim is not to use the power of art to seduce readers into believing a particular doctrine or theory. That would violate the part of the liberal position he accepts. Rather, what Kierkegaard has in mind is the sort of “truth” Climacus refers to when he says, “subjectivity is truth” (CUP 1:203/SKS 7:186). Possessing the truth in this sense is not a matter of believing the right thing but of believing in the right way. It is not about what we believe but how we believe it, to use Climacus’s terminology (CUP 1:202/SKS 7:185). The specific requirement is that we care or are passionate about our beliefs. And the first step toward caring properly is to examine our lives and thus come to know ourselves (CUP 1:352–53/SKS 7:322–23). Do our actions reflect the values we profess? Do our lives embody the ideals we purport to pursue? In sum, what Kierkegaard is attempting to do is to use the power of art to make us engage in what I described in the last chapter as “subjective reflection.” SEDUCTION AND DECEPTION IN WORKS OF ART Either/Or supplies us with a concrete example of Kierkegaard’s strategy. On the surface, it concerns a pair of characters each of whom struggles with existential problems brought on by his particular approach to life. Part I focuses on A, an individual who desires to live a life free from the burdens of responsibility. A succeeds at this project to some degree. But his success comes at the cost of boredom (EO 1:20, 25, 37, 285–86/SKS 2:28, 33, 46, 275–76). Because he has no responsibilities, nothing really matters. There is nothing worth getting excited, worried, sad, or happy about in his life. As a result, A constantly struggles to avoid succumbing to a lackluster or prosaic existence (EO 1:23, 29/SKS 2:32, 38). In part II of Either/Or, we encounter A’s older friend, Judge William, who takes the opposite approach to life. Rather than seeking to avoid responsibilities, he embraces them. Indeed, the judge tries to take responsibility for everything, including the presuppositions of his own existence (EO 2:216–17, 251, 260/SKS 3:207–8, 239, 247–48). The result is an “ethical”

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life that revolves around taking seriously his professional obligations at work, his civic obligations in the community, and his familial obligations at home. The judge argues that his form of life possesses the meaning and significance A seeks. Thus, A should join him in the ethical sphere (EO 2:155–333/SKS 3:153–314). However, the judge often comes across as overly confident about his lifestyle. A is on to something when he says the life of the serious person is the most boring and ridiculous of all (EO 1:25/SKS 2:33; EO 2:280/SKS 3:266). Moreover, questions arise as to whether the judge can live up to all his responsibilities and how he will handle it when he fails. These worries are underscored by the pastor’s sermon at the end of part II, which expounds the maxim that “in relation to God, we are always in the wrong” (EO 2:341/SKS 3:321). Either/Or operates as a depth charge in the lives of its readers. 8 We are “anaesthetized” by the book’s droll stories about A and the judge, to use David Novitz’s term. 9 The fact that these “imaginary constructions” seem not to concern us “reassures us” (BA 15–16/SKS 15:101–2) and “puts us completely at ease” (CD 235/SKS 10:242). Only after we are taken in by Either/Or does it start to dawn on us that the book is not entirely what it seems. It is not just about the lives of a pair of fictional characters. It is also about us. We ourselves are versions of the characters we have come to enjoy. Their virtues are our virtues, and their vices are our vices. Thus, when we look up from the book, we unexpectedly find ourselves kneedeep in the waters of subjective reflection. Kierkegaard describes how he hopes the process will go: “One tells him a story. This now puts him completely at ease, because he understands well enough that since it is a story the discourse is not about him. A few words are introduced into this story that perhaps do not immediately have their effect but sometime later are suddenly transformed into a question of conscience” (CD 235/ SKS 10:242). 10 If this account of Either/Or resembles the story of David and Nathan, that is no accident. As mentioned before, Nathan’s approach to David serves as a template for how Kierkegaard approaches his readers. 11 But Nathan’s famous parable is not the only precedent for Kierkegaard’s strategy. The ancient Roman poet Lucretius also defended a version of it known as “the sugarcoated pill theory of poetry.” 12 Lucretius compared his philosophical insights to medicine that, although healing, was bitter to swallow. Thus, like the pediatric physician whose young patients spat out the unpleasant wormwood they needed, Lucretius added a sweetener. To entice readers into paying attention, he coated his message with the honey of the muses. He ensconced it in the alluring beauty of rhythm and rhyme. Literature is not the only medium artists have used to “deceive people into the truth.” Take the work produced by the German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer during the 1960s and 1970s. Kiefer worried that the German public was trying to suppress their white nationalist past. 13

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The denazification effort of the post-war years was leading to a “collective amnesia” about what had taken place in the 1930s and 1940s. Kiefer believed this self-forgetfulness was problematic and had to be counteracted. He took the project upon himself by making a series of paintings he hoped would call people’s attention to their painful history. One striking example is Winter Landscape (1970). The work draws on the slogan “Blut und Boden” (Blood and Soil), which had occupied an important place in nineteenth century German nationalism and had been revived by authors such as Richard Darré in the twentieth century during the rise of Nazi Germany. 14 The expression suggests an idyllic connection between a particular ethnic group (blood) and a specific physical location (soil). In Kiefer’s hands, however, the connection is anything but idyllic. Unlike popular nineteenth-century German landscapes, such as Casper Friedrich’s painting of the same title from 1811, which depicts nature as sublime and peaceful, Kiefer’s painting represents the earth as bleak and roughly hewn. 15 The fields are covered with snow and almost completely barren. The few trees in the background are sparsely leaved. A disembodied female head rises hauntingly above the landscape as drops of her blood stain the soil beneath. Her tortured face symbolizes how mother earth herself has suffered or perhaps even been martyred at the hands of the German movement. Upon viewing the painting, Nan Rosenthal observes, “it is difficult to escape the evocation of the wounds of World War II.” 16 Winter Landscape possesses an undeniably beauty. That is partly why it is so successful at grabbing hold of us. The bleakness of the fields, however, as well as the bloody head that dominates the top third of the canvas, provide occasion to note that beauty is not the only powerful aesthetic property. Works of art can also captivate our minds and compel us to pay attention in virtue of being jarring, unsettling, chaotic, and harsh. Consider in this regard Faith Ringgold’s monumental six foot by twelve foot painting, American People Series #20: Die (1967). It is a “frenzied spectacle” of black and white men and women beating, stabbing, and shooting one another. 17 The victims—injured, dying, or already dead—are on both sides of the racial divide. “[T]here are people who have already attacked somebody,” Ringgold says by way of description, “and they’re trying to beat them down. And then there’s people looking for somebody, running after each other and screaming and carrying on against that background.” 18 Two small children, a white boy and a black girl, sit huddled together just off-center. Their wide-eyed stares and twisted grimaces reflect the horror of what transpires around them. Ringgold depicted this terrifying scene in hopes of bringing to public consciousness her own experience with racial violence in the 1960s. 19 She wanted to document the “spontaneous rioting and fighting in the street and . . . killings of African American people, and great racism,” which were being suppressed on television and ignored in the mass media. 20

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Figure 7.1. Anselm Kiefer (1945–), Winter Landscape, 1970. Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper. 16 7/8 x 14 in. (42.9 x 35.6 cm.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Denise and Andrew Saul Fund, 1995 (1995.14.5). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Art copyright © Anselm Kiefer. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY.

A NON-PATERNALISTIC JUSTIFICATION I have been discussing the liberal view that we ought to respect other people’s autonomy. We should allow them to make decisions for them-

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Figure 7.2. Faith Ringgold (1930– ), American People Series #20: Die, 1967. Oil on canvas, two panels; 72 x 144" (182.9 x 365.8 cm). Purchase; and gift of The Modem Women’s Fund. The Museum of Modem Art, New York, NY, U.S.A. Art copyright © 2018 Faith Ringgold, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY. Image copyright © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, New York, NY. Image courtesy of Art Resource, New York, NY.

selves about how to live even if we think their decisions are poor ones. There are two dimensions of this view as it pertains to selfhood. First, we should let people choose for themselves what specific sense of self to embrace. Second, we should let people choose for themselves whether to pursue selfhood at all. That is, we should let them decide whether to take seriously the question of their identity, engage in subjective reflection, and the like. Kierkegaard, as we have seen, accepts the first dimension of the liberal position. He agrees it would be wrong to push readers down a particular path of selfhood. Yet, he seems not to accept the second dimension. He appears to have no scruples about compelling people to take up the project of selfhood in general. Kierkegaard is not alone here. The examples from the previous section show how many artists are willing to leverage the power of aesthetics to make their audiences think about themselves more carefully than they would like. Thus, we must ask, whence the difference in attitude toward these two dimensions of the liberal view? One possibility is that Kierkegaard et alia are not really treating the two dimensions differently. Recall that the first dimension of the liberal view does not state a universal rule. Even Mill, a champion of liberty, would admit that people do not have the right to choose whatever sense of self they please. 21 There are limits here. In particular, a person’s choice is not protected if the well-being of others is on the line. Thus, it is permissible to push someone away from a given identity if pursuing it would harm or endanger those around him or her. Forcing a young Hit-

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ler to abandon the racist worldview in terms of which he defines himself would be unproblematic, for example. A similar exception obtains for the second dimension of the liberal view. The rule is not that we must refrain from pushing people toward selfhood against their will. It is that we must refrain from doing so unless the well-being of others is on the line. The authors and artists discussed in the last section may be relying on this exception. They may be compelling us to take up the project of selfhood because they think something besides our own well-being is at stake. Our failure to engage in subjective reflection may be leading us to harm or endanger those around us. Consider once again the story of Nathan and David. The reason Nathan tells David the parable about the rich man is that David’s inauthenticity includes a refusal to acknowledge his own immorality. This willful ignorance (or willful misinterpretation) of his misdeeds prevents him from repenting. It blocks him from apologizing and making restitution for the harm he has done to Bathsheba, Uriah, and their loved ones. A related thought process lies behind Kiefer’s Winter Landscape. Kiefer is concerned not only about how the failure of the German public to own up to their past may be bad for them. He thinks their ignorance endangers others because it makes them more likely to repeat their misdeeds in the future. We can say the same thing about American People Series #20: Die. Ringgold creates this painting because she wants to counteract American society’s resistance to acknowledging the prevalence of racism. Our obstinacy on this point hinders us from atoning for the harms racism has already caused. It also leads us to perpetuate our racist tendencies going forward. Thus, it is a matter of deep moral significance. A PATERNALISTIC JUSTIFICATION Non-paternalistic defenses of the foregoing sort would work for many 22 instances of using art to “deceive people into the truth.” What is striking about Kierkegaard’s case, however, is that he does not avail himself of such a defense. Unlike Nathan, Kiefer, and Ringgold, Kierkegaard’s motivation is not an ethical one. That is, it does not have to do with our interactions with others. Kierkegaard does not use art to push us toward authenticity because he is worried about what might happen to other people or society in general if we remain inauthentic. He does it because he thinks it would be good for us. In a word, Kierkegaard regards his literary undertaking as paternalistic. Of course, Kierkegaard sometimes frames the project of selfhood in deontological terms. He describes becoming a self as a “task” assigned to all of us. It is not just something we can do but something we must do. We read in Postscript, “[T]o become subjective should be the highest task assigned to every human being” (CUP 1:163/SKS 7:152; see also CUP

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1:346, 356/SKS 7:316–17, 325; EO 2:261–62/SKS 3:248–49). Similar lines exist in Sickness Unto Death: “for the self in potentiality does not actually exist, is simply that which ought to come into existence” (SUD 30/SKS 11:146; my emphasis) and “the self has the task of becoming itself in freedom” (SUD 35/SKS 11:151). These passages suggest that, for Kierkegaard, we have an obligation to become who we are (see PV 115–17/SKS 16:95–97; UDVS 128/SKS 8:228). Yet, Kierkegaard never grounds this obligation in deeper concerns about the well-being of others. He does not say we must fulfill our duty to become authentic because our inauthenticity would harm or endanger the people around us. What grounds the obligation is simply concern for our own individual welfare. Accordingly, Kierkegaard describes the act of helping a person become a self as one of “beneficence” (WL 274/SKS 9:272). It is something we do for him or her rather than something we do to protect others. This paternalistic interpretation of Kierkegaard’s project leaves our central question unanswered. Why does Kierkegaard find it acceptable to compel people toward selfhood in general for their own good but not acceptable to compel people toward a particular kind of selfhood for their own good? For instance, he holds that becoming a Christian is in his readers’ best interest. It benefits them to follow the paradigm of Christ because their own eternal happiness is at stake (CUP 1:16/SKS 7:25; JP 1:438/SKS 25:443). Yet, Kierkegaard insists it would be wrong for him to manipulate his readers into becoming Christians (CUP 1:49/SKS 7:54). What explains the difference in judgment here? The answer is that Kierkegaard does not think “deceiving people into the truth” amounts to violating their autonomy. Of course, he recognizes his strategy involves making people do something they do not want to do. He knows he is refusing to respect his reader’s wishes (PV 41–55/SKS 16:23–36). Yet, for Kierkegaard, failing to respect someone’s wishes is not the same thing as violating his or her autonomy. As Davenport has argued, Kierkegaard embraces a “hierarchical” theory of autonomy akin to the one forwarded by Harry Frankfurt. 23 On such a theory, autonomy is not a matter of being able to follow our immediate urges and desires. To be autonomous, we have to step back from our immediate inclinations and reflect on them. From this higher-order vantage point, we must select some as worthy of endorsement and others as worthy of rejection. We must then strive to cultivate the inclinations to which we have reflectively committed ourselves. The crucial point here is that we cannot become autonomous on Kierkegaard’s view unless we engage in subjective reflection. We must take the time to think about what our values and beliefs are as well as what we want them to be. It follows that if we are not already devoting attention to ourselves, and someone forces us to do so, then he or she is not violating our autonomy. On the contrary, he or she is helping us become autonomous.

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Given that autonomy is good for us, Kierkegaard can conclude that compelling us to engage in subjective reflection is “a good deed” (PV 50/SKS 16:32). This is what stands behind his assertion in Works of Love that “deceiving people into the truth” is “the greatest beneficence” (WL 274–77/SKS 9:272–75). It is also what Quidam is getting at in Stages on Life’s Way when he says, “Through what I have thought about this, I have reached the conclusion that I benefit a person most by deceiving him” (SLW 343/SKS 6:319). CONCERN FOR THE AUDIENCE’S WELL-BEING In earlier work, I objected to Kierkegaard by arguing that it is possible for someone to choose a life devoid of subjective reflection in an autonomous manner. Thus, compelling people to engage in subjective reflection can violate their autonomy in some situations. 24 There is more to say about this objection, but I wish to set it aside for now. Instead, I wish to forward a new criticism of Kierkegaard’s practice of “deceiving people into the truth.” It will build on our earlier discussion of the ethics of seduction and manipulation. In chapter 2, I brought up the case of Johannes the Seducer’s treatment of Cordelia. A peculiar fact about this case was that, although Johannes manipulated Cordelia, he did not actually violate her autonomy. On the contrary, his machinations served to develop her autonomy—to cultivate her ability to make up her own mind (see EO 1:360–61/SKS 2:349–50). More specifically, Johannes enabled Cordelia to transcend the norms she unthinkingly inherited from society so she could choose for herself how to live her life. Nevertheless, Johannes’s behavior toward Cordelia was morally dubious. The fact that he supported rather than undermined her autonomy did not let him off the hook. His particular error was that he did not care about Cordelia’s wellbeing aside from the question of whether she was autonomous. He was unconcerned with whether she was otherwise happy or sad, joyful or depressed, or generally lived a life that was good or bad for her. 25 My new criticism of Kierkegaard is that he treats his readers how Johannes treats Cordelia. Like Johannes, he aims to help his target audience become autonomous. Yet, the way he undertakes this project exhibits a lack of concern for his audience’s well-being beyond their autonomy. He too displays a callous indifference toward whether, as he pushes people to engage in subjective reflection, they become worse off in other regards. The Costs of Inward Deepening It is worth describing some of the ways subjective reflection can make us worse off even though it augments our autonomy. Most obviously, scrutinizing ourselves can lead to unpleasant discoveries. We may dislike or even hate what we see when we focus on our identities. Suppose, to

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return to another example from chapter 2, inward deepening results in the realization that my view of myself as a good teacher is misguided. I am a phony, a fraud. I am not a good instructor but a mediocre one who has made little use of what abilities he possesses. Or, to draw on the case that exercises Kierkegaard, suppose subjective reflection produces the epiphany that my sense of myself as a Christian is an illusion. I am not actually committed to emulating Jesus. I just say I am so I can feel good about myself. Indeed, every time following Jesus would require something difficult of me, I misinterpret the demand so it aligns with my preexisting selfish desires. Of course, such realizations can inspire us to get our act together. Recognizing we are phonies can make us want to become the real deal. We may look for ways to become better teachers, for instance, or explore options for holding ourselves accountable for our Christian beliefs. Thus, even though Kierkegaard’s meddling may initially be unpleasant, we may be grateful for it in the end. We may thank him for giving us the jolt we needed to become authentic versions of ourselves and retroactively consent to his interference in our lives. 26 Yet, things do not always work out this way. Awakening to the fact that we are not who we think we are may be depressing rather than motivating. We may become enervated rather than energized. Explanations as to why will vary. We may respond poorly because of our life situation. Death may not be far off, and so it may be too late for us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We may not have time to transform ourselves into the person we have always imagined ourselves to be. Alternatively, we may suffer from mental health disorders or just be innately fragile individuals. As a result, the dark truths disclosed by subjective reflection may crush us. They may leave us with low judgments of ourselves that we cannot shake. In sum, for one reason or another, we may need our flattering illusions and pleasant fictions in order to be happy. Our subjective sense of well-being may depend on our being inauthentic. 27 Finally, even if subjective reflection does not actually lead to any unpleasant discoveries, the possibility that this could happen at any moment may make us anxious. Incessantly examining who we are and unflinchingly holding our lives up to critical evaluation may raise our stress levels. We may lose sleep and become physically unhealthy, or just generally more irritable. Thus, as we become more authentic, we may become more miserable. Once again, our subjective happiness may require avoiding the sort of introspection Kierkegaard pushes us to undertake. The Artist’s Responsibility The preceding discussion reveals that whether subjective reflection makes us happy or unhappy depends on contingent factors. Whether the process inspires us or crushes us is a function of our situation in life, our

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psychological makeup, and so forth. 28 It might not be fair for us to ask Kierkegaard and like-minded artists to be responsive to these considerations. We might be demanding more of them than is reasonable. Here we hit on one respect in which the analogy between artists and friends breaks down. Our friends know us. They are familiar with the details of our lives, including those that have to do with our psychological makeup. As a result, they are in good position to predict whether a push toward selfhood will be more than we can handle. Artists are a different case. Unlike friends, they tend not to be in the business of helping specific other people. Nathan aside, most authors and artists address their work to the anonymous public. There is no way for them to know the intimate details of the life of every person who interacts with their creations. 29 Yet, this is not quite the right framework for thinking about the matter. It may well be that whether inward deepening does a person more harm than good depends on contingent facts about his or her life. So, we cannot rightly expect artists to know for any given person whether he or she will suffer on account of being “deceived into the truth.” Yet, that some person or other will suffer is something they ought to know. A passing familiarity with human psychology discloses this much. Indeed, we would find it odd if an artist declared surprise at readers or viewers’ becoming unhappy because he or she compelled them to face up to unpleasant truths about themselves. Kierkegaard is a good example here. He believes none of us wants to be who we really are; all of us find our true selves disconcerting. Despair is the universal human condition, to use Anti-Climacus’s phrase (SUD 22–28/SKS 11:138–44). Thus, Kierkegaard knows that by compelling us to face up to the truth about ourselves he is making life hard for us. Indeed, that is exactly how Climacus describes the project in Postscript: it is a matter of “creating difficulties” for people (CUP 1:187/SKS 7:172). Kierkegaard uses even more strident language in Christian Discourses. Herein he describes his upbuilding project as “crushing” and “terrifying” (CD 96/ SKS 10:108). “Wherever there is nothing terrifying whatever and no terror whatever,” he says, “there is nothing that builds up either, no upbuilding whatever” (CD 96/SKS 10:108). Later, Kierkegaard goes so far as to say that his aim is to “wound [readers] from behind” (CD 161/SKS 10:171). This remark captures the intent behind not only Christian Discourses but also Kierkegaard’s entire corpus. For when discussing how best to wound readers from behind, he references the strategy of deceiving people into the truth (CD 234–36/SKS 10:241–43). Thus, it is no exaggeration when Kierkegaard admits that what he is doing may make his readers “ragingly infuriated” (PV 50/SKS 16:32). Kierkegaard’s awareness of the costs of “deceiving people into the truth” renders his use of the strategy morally problematic. He recognizes not just the mere possibility that what he is doing might harm a few

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random people. He knows it will harm many people. Indeed, he knows virtually every reader with whom his strategy succeeds will end up suffering. Yet, he goes through with it anyways. This is the basis for the objection that, like Johannes the Seducer, Kierkegaard is a callous human being. In his attempt to help us become more authentic, he is wrongly indifferent to the trade-offs elsewhere in our lives. A FINAL MORAL APPRAISAL OF KIERKEGAARD’S PROJECT Kierkegaard is not ignorant of this objection, and we find two lines of defense against it in his writings. First, Kierkegaard believes subjective reflection and inward deepening are of supreme importance. He regards subjectivity as necessary for autonomy and thus in turn as necessary for authentic selfhood. Authentic selfhood itself is the central task of existence on Kierkegaard’s view. It is the chief end or telos assigned to us by God (CUP 1:163, 346/SKS 7:151, 316–17; SUD 33, 35/SKS 11:149, 151). As our chief end, it swamps all other ends we might pursue, including the end of our own happiness (see CUP 1:387–94/SKS 7:352–59). 30 From Kierkegaard’s vantage point, it would be better for us to become authentic and unhappy than the reverse. There is nothing as bad as losing oneself, as Judge William puts it (EO 2:160/SKS 3:158). Thus, Kierkegaard’s project of using the power of art to compel us to become authentic may come at the cost of our unhappiness. But this trade-off is worth it in his mind. Second, Kierkegaard denies that the conflict between selfhood and happiness is absolute. 31 It is true that he says the process of becoming a self may make us unhappy. 32 He writes in the margins of his personal copy of Either/Or that “‘to choose oneself’ is no eudaimonism” (JP 5:223/ Pap. IV A 246). When Kierkegaard makes these remarks, though, he has in mind either a superficial kind of happiness or simply happiness in this earthly life. At least, that is a natural way to read him. 33 For Kierkegaard also asserts that our struggle to become authentic in his Christian sense will be accompanied by a deep kind of joy. 34 Indeed, he pens several discourses outlining the joys of Christian striving (UDVS 213–341/SKS 8:309–431; CD 93–159/SKS 10:99–166). Moreover, Kierkegaard has faith that those who become authentic in his Christian sense will experience joy in the afterlife. Even though we may suffer here and now on account of our Christian labors, we will delight in the bliss of companionship with God in heaven. 35 This is partly what he means when he says our “eternal happiness” is on the line when we decide whether to become who God wants us to become (CUP 1:16/SKS 7:25; JP 1:438/SKS 25:443). It also stands behind his maxims that “what you lose temporally you gain eternally” (CD 134/SKS 10:144) and “the happiness of eternity still outweighs even the heaviest temporal suffering” (UDVS 308/SKS 8:401).

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Both of these defenses depend on Kierkegaard’s religious commitments. The idea that selfhood is the chief human end is based on his belief that God assigns it to all people as their chief end. 36 The notion that the highest forms of happiness are not at odds with the struggle to become authentic is grounded in his pietistic interpretation of Christianity. 37 These commitments might be mistaken, however. They are certainly subject to objections from a secular point of view, as we saw in chapter 3. Challenges arise from religious corners as well. Some Mahayana Buddhists, for example, regard the self as an illusion we need to escape. 38 Some Daoists see the self as an obstacle we need to overcome. 39 Neither group would consider intensive subjective reflection as conducive to the good life. Finally, there are factions within Christianity that would dispute Kierkegaard’s religious commitments. Liberal denominations that embrace universal human salvation would deny that our eternal happiness depends on whether we struggle to become authentic in this life. So too would conservative denominations that accept the Calvinist view that nothing we human beings can do will affect our eternal fate. This line of objection is unlikely to bother Kierkegaard, of course. He is bound to think his brand of Christianity is correct. A more troublesome problem for him arises internally within his own worldview. Kierkegaard’s defense of “deceiving people into the truth” relies on the assumption that all of us ought to become authentic selves. Yet, one hallmark of Kierkegaard’s thinking is his insistence on the possibility of exceptions. In the face of purported universal rules, he repeatedly asserts that there may be people for whom these rules do not apply. This is one of the messages of Fear and Trembling, and it is repeated in Either/Or as well as in Stages on Life’s Way (FT 54–67/SKS 4:148–59; EO 2:328–38/SKS 3:309–14; SLW 170–84/SKS 6:159–71). Kierkegaard applies this policy on exceptions to the question of how we should pursue the project of selfhood. He denies that all of us should become the same kind of person. We are not all to grind ourselves down into the same shape, to use Anti-Climacus’s language (SUD 33/SKS 11:149). But what about the question of whether we should pursue the project of selfhood at all? Is this the one place where there are no exceptions—where everyone must do the same thing? There are two reasons Kierkegaard likely would not endorse this position. First, he embraces the Pauline doctrine that God will not give us more than we can handle. Our trials and temptations will never exceed our abilities (see EUD 88, 111, 332/SKS 5:94, 116, 321). As he says in his journals, God indexes the requirements for each person to his or her unique situation (JP 4:530–31/SKS 25:474–75). This is important because some people lack the mental capacity to engage in the sustained higherorder reflection necessary for Kierkegaardian selfhood. In addition, some people do not have the psychological or emotional wherewithal to endure the stresses that accompany intense introspection. According to the Pauline doctrine, God would not ask such people to become authentic.

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Second, Kierkegaard regards God as radically transcendent (WA 100/SKS 11:104; PC 28–29/SKS 12:42–43; SUD 117/SKS 11:229). In part, this means God’s ways will not always be scrutable to us. He may assign people tasks that make no sense on our thinking. Thus, even though Kierkegaard may not be able to understand God’s reasons, his theology compels him to admit that God may ask some people to do something with their lives other than become authentic selves. In conclusion, by Kierkegaard’s own lights, he is not in position to say what we ought to do with our lives. This includes not only what particular kind of selves we should become but also whether we should become selves at all. Both matters are between the individual and God, as Climacus would say (CUP 1:78–79/SKS 7:78–79). Of course, Kierkegaard believes that God sends apostles to us from time to time with revelations about what we ought to do (see CUP 1:243/SKS 7:221). But Kierkegaard denies that he is such an apostle. He claims to write “without authority” about how we should live our lives (e.g., WA 99n/SKS 11:103n; FSE 3/SKS 13:33; PV 6n, 12/SKS 13:12n, 19; JP 6:62/Pap. X-6 B 41). It follows that just as it is wrong for him to use the power of art to push us toward a particular kind of selfhood, so too is it wrong for him to use the power of art to push us toward selfhood in general. The distinction he draws between these two cases in order to justify his project does not withstand scrutiny. NOTES 1. Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 6. 2. Ibid. 3. The locus classicus of this view is John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” and Other Writings, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 1–116. For discussion, see Richard J. Arneson, “Mill versus Paternalism,” Ethics 90, no. 4 (1980): 470–89. 4. Daniel Berthold, The Ethics of Authorship: Communication, Seduction, and Death in Hegel and Kierkegaard (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 26–28, 30, 59–61, 140. 5. For support, see Arneson, “Mill versus Paternalism,” 474, 485; Mill, “On Liberty” and Other Writings, 13. 6. We encounter similar language in Postscript: “The poet becomes absorbed in the portrayal of the passion, but for the upbuilding speaker this is only the beginning, and the next is crucial for him—to compel the stubborn person to disarm, to mitigate, to elucidate, in short, to cross over into the upbuilding” (CUP 1:257n/SKS 7:233n). 7. As Jamie Lorentzen has pointed out to me, Kierkegaard is once again following what he takes to be God’s approach. He writes in journals, “[S]o it is in fact with God’s upbringing: he deceives a man into the truth” (JP 4.8–9/SKS 24:331–32). For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s use of deception, see M. Holmes Hartshorne, Kierkegaard, Godly Deceiver: The Nature and Meaning of His Pseudonymous Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Nerina Jansen, “Deception in Service of the Truth: Magister Kierkegaard and the Problem of Communication,” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments”, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard

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Commentary 12 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 115–28; Mark L. McCreary, “Deceptive Love: Kierkegaard on Mystification and Deceiving into the Truth,” Journal of Religious Ethics 39, no. 1 (2011): 25–47. 8. At least, Kierkegaard intends for Either/Or to operate as a depth charge in our lives. In practice, it may not always do so. 9. David Novitz, “The Anaesthetics of Emotion,” in Emotion and the Arts, ed. Mette Hjorte and Sue Laver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 246–62. 10. Marcia Robinson argues that here Kierkegaard draws on Johan Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853). She writes, “Tieck’s insights about allegories and fairy tales . . . help [Kierkegaard] to see that storytelling is a kind of Socratic play in which a master storyteller weaves existential themes and issues into the magic and immediacy of a narrative’s details, so that an audience might have an entertaining, engaging, yet nonthreatening way to deal with their fears and questions about life and to develop morally and religiously” (“Kierkegaard’s Existential Play: Storytelling and the Development of the Religious Imagination in the Authorship,” in Kierkegaard, Literature, and the Arts, ed. Eric Ziolkowski [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018], 76). Robinson’s take on Kierkegaard’s use of stories is ultimately more positive than my own. 11. Edward F. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007), 38n4. 12. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, trans. Martin Ferguson Smith (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2001), ll. 943–950. 13. “Provocations: Anselm Kiefer at the Met Breuer,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/anselm-kiefer. 14. Richard Walther Darré, Neuadel aus Blut und Boden [A new nobility based on blood and soil] (Munich: Lehmann, 1930). 15. “Anselm Kiefer, Winter Landscape, 1970,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/486573; Sam Phillips, “How to Read Anselm Kiefer,” The Royal Academy of Arts, November 19, 2014, https:// www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/how-to-read-an-anselm-kiefer. 16. Nan Rosenthal, Anselm Kiefer: Works on Paper in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 22. 17. “Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967,” Museum of Modern Art, 2018, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/199915. 18. “Audio Guide for Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967,” Museum of Modern Art, 2018, https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/26/612. 19. Thomas J. Lax, “How Do Black Lives Matter in MoMA’s Collection?,” Inside/ Out: A MoMA/MoMA PS1 Blog, July 9, 2016, https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2016/07/09/how-do-black-lives-matter-in-momas-collection/; “Audio Guide for Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967.” 20. “Audio Guide for Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967.” 21. Mill, “On Liberty” and Other Writings, 56. 22. A non-paternalistic defense will not work for all instances of “deceiving people into the truth.” The reason is that, while our inauthenticity often leads us to harm or endanger those around us, it does not do so in every case. For a defense of this claim, see Simon Feldman, Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn’t Be Yourself (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), 95–126. 23. John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012), 100–110. 24. Antony Aumann, “A Moral Problem for Difficult Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Forthcoming. 25. For support, see Sarah Buss, “Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons: Manipulation, Seduction, and the Basis of Moral Constraints,” Ethics 115, no. 2 (2005): 230–31.

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26. Gerald Dworkin appeals to the notion of retroactive consent, or what he calls “future-oriented consent,” when discussing parents’ paternalism toward their children. See Gerald Dworkin, “Paternalism,” The Monist 56, no. 1 (1972): 76–77. 27. For further support, see Feldman, Against Authenticity, 44. 28. For further discussion, see Ibid., 31. 29. I thank Anthony Rudd for pushing me on this point. 30. For further discussion see, Roe Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good: Virtue, Happiness, and the Kingdom of God (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 94–116. 31. For further support, see Roe Fremstedal, “Søren Kierkegaard (on Eudaimonism and Autonomy),” in Perfektionismus Der Autonomie, ed. Douglas Moggach, Nadine Mooren, and Michael Quante (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2018). 32. As Fremstedal explains, the details of Kierkegaard’s view shift over the course of his life (ibid.). His early view appears to be that the relationship between virtue and happiness is contingent in this life (FT 27, 63/SKS 4:123, 156; CUP 1:134/SKS 7:126). By contrast, his later view appears to be that virtue is necessarily at odds with happiness in this life (JP 1:954/SKS 20:249; JP 1:956/SKS 20:293; JP 1:958/SKS 27:486; UDVS 217–341/SKS 8:319–431; PC 167/SKS 12:170). 33. For support, see Carson Webb, “Kierkegaard’s Critique of Eudaimonism: A Reassessment,” Journal of Religious Ethics 45, no. 3 (2017): 442–43. 34. For support, see Noreen Khawaja, The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 220–21. 35. For further discussion of Kierkegaard’s views on eternal salvation, see Roe Fremstedal and Timothy P. Jackson, “Salvation/Eternal Happiness,” in Volume 15, Tome VI. Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Salvation to Writing, ed. Jon Stewart, Steven M. Emmanuel, and William McDonald (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), 1–8. 36. For support, see Anthony Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 146–61. 37. For support, see Khawaja, The Religion of Existence, 70–112, 199–229. 38. For support, see Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, and Dan Zahavi, Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–26. 39. For support, see Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-Wei As Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 16–17, 175–215.

EIGHT Art, Selfhood, and the Role of Academic Philosophy

DIRECT COMMUNICATION ABOUT INDIRECT COMMUNICATION In a work of philosophy such as the present one that praises the cognitive value of art, there is danger of a certain sort of irony. If literature and poetry are as potent as I have suggested—if their ability to instruct outstrips that of philosophy—why have I written in a philosophical manner? Would it not have been more consistent on my part to forsake the customary philosophical treatise in favor of something more artistic? Worse, might my refusal to leave behind academic philosophy reveal that I do not find my own defense of the arts persuasive? This line of questioning is not foreign to Kierkegaard scholarship. 1 There is a history of wondering about the appropriateness of writing in a direct fashion about his commitment to indirect communication. 2 Worries on this front have been especially acute among those, such as myself, who aim not merely to report Kierkegaard’s views but to defend them. Apologies are not unheard of here as a way to deflect the accusation that one has failed to practice what one preaches. 3 Adding fuel to the fire are Kierkegaard’s own objections to scholarly discussions of his works. In Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, he protests against analysis and criticism of the book. Such modes of engagement reflect a misunderstanding of its purpose, he claims (TDIO 5/ SKS 5:389). Across the pages of Postscript, Climacus frets about how assistant professors someday will reduce his contributions to “a paragraph in the system” (CUP 1:299/SKS 7:273). “The subsection plow”—his euphemism for academia—will churn him into bits. Indeed, he laments, such a fate has already befallen his forerunners, Hamann and Jacobi (CUP 1:250/SKS 7:227–28). Other pseudonyms echo these concerns (FT 8/ 183

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SKS 4:103–4; R 225–26/SKS 491–92), and at least one of them requests there be no reviews of his work (SLW 191/SKS 6:179; CUP 1:283/SKS 7:257). Finally, when Kierkegaard’s contemporaries do start to devote scholarly attention to him, when paraphrases and summaries of his writings begin to appear in the academic literature of the day, he “takes exception” to the undertaking (JP 6:506/Pap. XI-3 B 13; see CUP 1:79n, 274–75n/SKS 7:79n, 249n). This final chapter of the book will address the nest of interrelated issues at stake here. I will argue that Kierkegaard is right to raise questions about the methodology I (and others like me) deploy. There are indeed serious philosophical issues at stake. Nevertheless, I will maintain that Kierkegaard draws the wrong conclusion. He is mistaken in thinking that we must abandon our scholarly approach. We do not have to resort to literary or poetic alternatives, as he exhorts us to do. There remains a legitimate place for philosophical writing on Kierkegaard as done in the academy today. Explaining why will provide occasion for some final remarks about the other main topic of this book, the project of selfhood. UNITY OF FORM AND CONTENT The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Tradition The story I wish to tell begins deep in the history of German and Danish aesthetics. As noted before, it was common in Kierkegaard’s day to hold that art ought to exhibit “unity of form and content.” That is to say, the form of a work should fit or complement its content. Arm-in-arm with this view was the equally widespread notion that certain artistic media are more suitable than others are for representing certain subject matters. Lessing and Mendelssohn, for instance, argued that painting and sculpture are ill suited to represent motion. 4 Since motion is extended in time, depicting it requires a medium such as drama that is itself extended in time. Similarly, Lessing and Mendelssohn held that painting and sculpture are not conducive to representing the inner stirrings of the heart. Capturing this invisible dimension of human existence requires a medium that is itself not visual, such as poetry. These ideas were adopted and developed in more elaborate ways by Hegel and his followers. 5 Heiberg, for instance, held that depicting different kinds of love required the use of different kinds of poetry. 6 These theories might not strike us as terribly plausible today. They seem to reflect an overly rigid take on the nature of artistic representation and a lack of imagination about what artists can do in their chosen medium. It seems possible, for instance, to capture the essence of an ongoing activity in a static medium. Michael Fried supports this intuition by pointing to Adolph Menzel’s realist drawing, Moving Out of a Cellar

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(1844). 7 Menzel’s careful depiction of piled up furniture, heaped apparently at random though in fact with a certain order, evokes a sense of lived time passing extensively, hour after hour. Another example might be Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912). In this work, Duchamp eschews the direct realism of Menzel. Instead, he uses the cubist strategy of simultaneously presenting multiple perspectives. This technique allows Duchamp to convey the impression of motion by plotting the static phases of a moving subject in a manner akin to timelapse photography. 8 We err, however, if we dismiss Lessing and Mendelssohn’s aesthetics out of hand. Their views about art flow out of a more fundamental insight that is itself quite plausible. This insight is that our communicative ends ought to inform our communicative means. In other words, what we aim to convey to our readers, listeners, and viewers should inform how we go about doing so. Or, simply put, the rules of practical rationality apply to our communicative enterprises. This principle makes good sense. Communication—whether through speech, writing, or nonlinguistic artifacts—is an action like any other. So, as with all actions, means and ends must not be paired haphazardly here. The former must be made to suit the latter. This principle of practical rationality had ripple effects elsewhere in eighteenth and nineteenth century philosophy. Most importantly for our purposes, it influenced German and Danish attitudes toward philosophical writing. Just as it was common to hold that artists should adopt the medium best suited to their subject matter, so too it was popular to accept that philosophers ought to embrace the writing style that best fit their philosophical agenda. In The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing, Jon Stewart explains how this idea played out in the work of the German Idealists. 9 Many of the Idealists accepted a type of holism, he notes. They believed that we can grasp a given concept adequately only if we view it in light of the larger whole of which it is a part. 10 Attempting to understand a concept in isolation “invariably leads to misunderstandings and confusions.” 11 The Idealists concluded that providing an adequate account of a concept requires developing an all-encompassing system. Moreover, vaguely hinting at the existence of this system is not good enough. The entirety of the system—the so-called Absolute—has to be presented in a way that can be grasped by discursive human reason. This project led many of the Idealists to embrace a “rigid and disciplined form of writing.” 12 To make sure they left nothing out of the system, they discussed topics in a carefully sequenced manner. They divided their works “into elaborate sections and subsections with numbered paragraphs to make the systematic relations as clear as possible.” 13 Concerns about fit between means and ends also influenced the writing style of the German Romantics. Many of them agreed with their

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Idealist counterparts about the importance of grasping the Absolute. What they denied is that we can achieve this goal by way of discursive reason. Owing to the finitude of our minds, any attempt to grasp the Absolute discursively will come up short. Yet, at least some of the Romantics held on to the possibility of acquiring a sense for the Absolute. They believed we might be able to intuit, feel, or sense the all-encompassing whole, even if it eluded the strictly rational parts of our minds. These philosophical disagreements with the Idealists led to stylistic differences. The Romantics tended to eschew a systematic form of writing. They preferred instead a fragmentary style that reflected the partial nature of our understanding of all concepts. In addition, the Romantics often abandoned the arid prose typical of Idealist treatises. They favored a poetic approach that could evoke the visceral feeling or intuition of the Absolute that we need. 14 Kierkegaard’s Acceptance of the Tradition Kierkegaard was a thinker of his time when it comes to these matters. 15 In his early writings, he often speaks about how art ought to adhere to the ideal of form-content unity. The two main characters in Either/ Or, for instance, rely on this view when discussing painting and sculpture (EO 1:49–57/SKS 2:57–65; EO 2:133–39/SKS 3:132–38). A even cites Lessing’s account of the limitations of different artistic media at one point (EO 1:169/SKS 2:167). Postscript also draws on the notion of unity of form and content. Although Climacus does not explicitly talk about Lessing and Mendelssohn’s aesthetic theory, he does commit himself to the principle of practical reasoning that lies behind it. He asserts that the “how” of our communication must fit the “what” of our communication (CUP 1:202; 612–16/SKS 7:185, 556–59; see also JP 1:317–18/SKS 23:91–92). 16 For if it does not, we “contradict ourselves” (CUP 1:75, 170/SKS 7:75, 157). Climacus’s commitment to means-ends rationality comes across in a fictional story he relates early on in Postscript. In a section devoted to “the dialectics of communication,” he asks us to imagine a man who is convinced that people should not have followers. Such relationships with others, the man thinks, would be “treason to both God and men” (CUP 1:75/SKS 7:76). The problem is that the man gets worked up about this idea and decides to tell others about it. He announces it to audiences far and wide, inspiring many with his “unction and pathos” (CUP 1:75/SKS 7:76). In the end, he acquires his own set of followers who agree to help him proclaim his doctrine “for a free shave each week” (CUP 1:75/SKS 7:76). Climacus derides the man for being obtuse. The man fails to see how the content of his message constrains the manner in which he should deliver it. As a result, he betrays his own cause. Just as it does for his contemporaries, Kierkegaard’s commitment to practical rationality influences his writing style. The principal end that

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shapes his means is a “therapeutic” one. He wishes to help his readers become more authentic; he seeks to offer us guidance as we struggle to become who we are. Kierkegaard has a particular diagnosis of what is holding us back. He thinks many of us—especially those of us who are scholars—fail to make progress toward selfhood because we get caught up in abstract reflection and rational deliberation. We endlessly mull over arguments for and against different theories; we interminably debate with one another how to interpret various texts and ideas (CUP 1:344/ SKS 7:314–15). All the while, we never get around to asking how we should live our ordinary, everyday lives (CUP 1:606/SKS 7:550). We never pause our scholarly ruminations long enough to consider who we are as individuals. Thus, even though in one sense our lives are consumed with thought, in another sense we live a thoughtless existence (CUP 1:120/SKS 7:115–16). 17 As Climacus puts it, because of our great love for knowledge, we “have entirely forgotten what it means to exist and what inwardness is” (CUP 1:242/SKS 7:220). In Kierkegaard’s mind, people who suffer from this ailment cannot be helped in just any old way. Certain means are inappropriate. In particular, if he wishes to assist us, he must refrain from addressing us in the abstract and disinterested style typical of participants in an academic debate. Such an approach would be counterproductive. It would draw us further into the domain of abstract and disinterested thought and so further away from ourselves (CUP 1:249–50/SKS 7:226–27). So too he must shun the sort of systematic rational argumentation usually found in scholarly treatises. This also would just contribute to our problem. It would encourage more of the sort of endless debate that is distracting us from the project of selfhood. Again, in Climacus’s words, “In my view, the true interpretation of the confusion of our age is that there must not be didactic instruction, since the confusion arises simply because of the excess of the didactic” (CUP 1:280/SKS 7:255). In the part of Postscript that surveys Kierkegaard’s other writings, Climacus explains the situation by way of analogy (CUP 1:275n/SKS 7:249n). He describes a man who is starving to death for an unusual reason. The man is dying of hunger because his mouth is so full of food that he cannot swallow. The last thing the man needs is for someone to stuff even more food in his mouth. But that is what Kierkegaard would be doing, Climacus says, if he offered his readers yet another scholarly treatise with yet another round of philosophical argumentation. He would not be improving our situation. He would be making it worse. The proper alternative, Climacus avers, is to turn to the arts and, in particular, to the literary arts (CUP 1:259–65/SKS 7:236–40). To assist us with the project of selfhood, Kierkegaard should write in a poetic way that engages not just our reason but our passions and emotions as well. For passion and emotion are what break the cycle of endless reflection (CUP 1:33/SKS 7:39). It also behooves Kierkegaard to take up the mantle of literature and

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compose narratives for us (JC 117/SKS 15:16). He should make his ideas come to life in the form of stories about the everyday existence of concrete individuals (CUP 1:251, 259, 269/SKS 7:228, 235, 244). By directing our attention to the concrete and the everyday, he will prompt us to leave behind the realm of abstract reflection in which we have become lost. THE PROBLEM OF PARAPHRASE I said a moment ago that the primary goal of Kierkegaard’s authorship is to help readers become who they really are. But this is not his only goal. In addition to his therapeutic project, he has a philosophical one. 18 He not only wishes to inspire us to become more subjective or inward. He also wishes to defend the importance of subjectivity and inwardness. In other words, Kierkegaard does not merely seek to call our attention back to our concrete, everyday lives. He also seeks to argue for the importance of cultivating such a focus. These arguments are not always overt. Especially in his early pseudonymous writings, he tends to embed them in stories about various characters wrestling with their own existential problems. But the arguments are there. Kierkegaard tacitly acknowledges as much when he describes himself as not only a poet but also a dialectical thinker and philosopher (JP 3:158/Pap. IX B 63; JP 5:447/SKS 20:364; JP 6:62/Pap. X-6 B 41). Part of what I have attempted to do in this book is to distill Kierkegaard’s philosophy out of its literary solvent. I have tried to provide accurate paraphrases, summaries, and explanations of what Kierkegaard presents to us in poetic fashion. Much of the recent scholarship on Kierkegaard has sought to do likewise. A brief glance at the titles of influential works in the field supports this claim: Alastair Hannay’s Kierkegaard: The Arguments of the Philosophers, Louis Pojman’s The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion, and C. Stephen Evans’s Kierkegaard’s Fragments and Postscript: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus. A closer look at the writings of Marilyn Piety, John Davenport, Patrick Stokes, Roe Fremstedal, Adam Buben, and others would reveal that they too share my agenda. 19 Commentators of today are not alone in discerning the presence of arguments in Kierkegaard’s literary writings and seeking to reconstruct them in a straightforward and rational way. The “paraphrase project,” as we might call it, has a long history in Kierkegaard scholarship. Indeed, it was well underway while Kierkegaard was still alive. One example is the work of Rasmus Nielsen (1809–1884), to which I will now turn. Kierkegaard’s Attack on Rasmus Nielsen Like many other philosophers, Nielsen’s interests often focused on the Climacus texts. They caught his eye in part because he thought they contributed to an ongoing debate in Denmark about faith and reason.

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Several Danish Hegelians had been claiming that philosophy could provide benefits for religious life. Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–1884) in particular had defended this view by noting that what frustrates many of us about religion is that it asks us to believe things that we cannot understand. 20 Christianity, for instance, requires us to accept the Incarnation and the Trinity, two doctrines that on the surface appear internally contradictory. Martensen thought certain developments in Hegelian logic could help here. In particular, he believed that by drawing on Hegel’s rejection of the law of non-contradiction, he could explain how these apparently incoherent Christian dogmas ultimately make sense. 21 Martensen concluded that Christianity does not require us to sacrifice our reason in the name of faith after all. If we take a page from Hegel, we can become Christians and live with “a harmony in our beings.” 22 Nielsen read Postscript as rebutting Martensen’s view. On his interpretation, Climacus refuted not only the possibility of providing a rational foundation for Christian dogmas but also the desirability of doing so. Thus, in a series of lectures and publications, Nielsen did his best to summarize and develop Climacus’s arguments (see chapter 3). In some of these works, Nielsen presented Climacan ideas as if they were his own. 23 In others, however, including Magister S. Kierkegaard’s “Johannes Climacus” and Dr. H. Martensen’s “Christian Dogmatics” (1849), Nielsen provided long quotations from Postscript together with careful paraphrases. He also supplied extended commentary that situated Kierkegaard’s views within the Danish debate about faith and reason. 24 Kierkegaard knew Nielsen quite well from their time together as students at the university, but the two had a complicated relationship. 25 Early on, Kierkegaard was dismissive of Nielsen’s intellectual abilities and ridiculed him in the company of others. 26 Owing to their shared interests, however, there was a stretch of time when Kierkegaard considered Nielsen a friend and even a protégé (JP 6:278/Pap. X-6 B 121). 27 In fact, to some degree, Nielsen’s view of Fragments and Postscript stemmed from face-to-face conversations he had with Kierkegaard during regular Thursday evening walks (JP 6:48–50/SKS 21:58; JP 6:341/Pap. X-6 B 94; LD 352-53/B&A 1:273). Given the intimacy of the two—and given that Nielsen sided with Kierkegaard against Martensen—it is surprising that Kierkegaard did not have a high opinion of Nielsen’s writings. Quite the opposite. In a draft of a letter to Nielsen, he writes, “with regard to every single one of your public performances (your writings), I have most firmly told you that from my point of view I could not approve of them” (LD 351/B&A 1:275). In a later journal entry, Kierkegaard is even more emphatic: “Lest my silence be misinterpreted as consent, just a word: from my point of view I not only cannot give approval but must categorically take exception to Professor Nielsen’s books” (JP 6:506/Pap. XI-3 B 13). The reasons for Kierkegaard’s disapproval of Nielsen’s writings are important. Kierkegaard admits that for the most part Nielsen does not

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get his views wrong. By and large Nielsen has accurately captured the content of Fragments and Postscript. 28 Thus, because of Nielsen’s efforts, the Climacan ideas have reached a wider audience (JP 6:274, 342/Pap. X-6 B 121, 94). Kierkegaard’s objection—other than Nielsen’s being unoriginal (JP 6:155/SKS 22:32)—has to do with the style of Nielsen’s writing. Because Nielsen sees himself as contributing to an academic debate, he writes in an academic fashion. His prose is dry, dispassionate, and abstract. It addresses itself to his readers’ intellect and reason alone. We find in Nielsen’s works none of the literary trappings or narrative elements that permeate Fragments and Postscript. As Kierkegaard puts it, “His presentation, his address, are more or less direct teaching, especially if compared with the pseudonym’s” (JP 6:273/Pap. X-6 B 121). That is to say, because the “professionally serious” Nielsen attempts to enter into “a learned dispute with the eminent Professor M[artensen],” he has settled on a “less consistent form” than the one Climacus used (JP 6:273–75/Pap. X-6 B 121). As a result, “the cause has retrogressed” (JP 6:273/Pap. X-6 B 121). To make sense of these remarks, we can return to the idea that the purpose of the Climacan writings is partly therapeutic. It is true they contain philosophical ruminations. But one of Kierkegaard’s aims in composing them is to push readers in the direction of authentic selfhood. He seeks to inspire his audience to move away from abstract, disinterested reflection and toward a personally engaged, subjective reflection. Nielsen’s academic writing style undercuts this agenda (see JP 6:312–13/SKS 23:264–65). Because it is abstract and impersonal, it encourages his readers to engage in further abstract and impersonal thought. Because it addresses itself exclusively to his readers’ rational faculties, it encourages them to continue to leave behind their other faculties. In sum, Nielsen commits the very error Kierkegaard seeks to avoid. He stuffs more food in the mouths of people who are starving to death because their mouths are too full to swallow (CUP 1:275n/ SKS 7:249n). 29 The Modern No Paraphrase Thesis There is a familiar ring to Kierkegaard’s critique of Nielsen. It is reminiscent of a point we often hear made in aesthetics circles today. At least since the dawn of New Criticism, it has been common for literary theorists to say that poetry defies paraphrase. 30 Proponents of this view— sometimes called “the heresy of paraphrase” or “the no paraphrase thesis”—defend it in a variety of ways. One of them is by arguing that paraphrases fail because they inevitably lack the power or force of the original poem. 31 True, they might capture the original poem’s propositional content, at least to the degree that the poem has such content. But this is not always good enough. For the propositional content of a poem is not always the most important part. What makes many poems matter

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is the way they move, inspire, and transform us as human beings. To use J. L. Austin’s language, a poem’s value often lies in its perlocutionary effects. And it is these effects that prose paraphrases struggle to preserve. What is striking about this argument is that it sets the bar for a successful paraphrase very high. In fact, as Peter Kivy famously objects, it seems to set the bar too high. 32 Kivy points out that a paraphrase is not supposed to be a substitute for the original poem. That might be an appropriate goal for translation. But paraphrasing is a different project. The function of a paraphrase is not to reproduce the total effect of the original. It is merely to capture the original’s propositional content (if it has such content). And this much often seems feasible. 33 Kivy’s point opens up a promising line of defense for Nielsen. Kierkegaard’s criticism appears to presuppose the lofty standard for success stipulated by advocates of the no-paraphrase thesis. Kierkegaard is not satisfied with the fact that Nielsen captures the content of his works. He thinks Nielsen has to reproduce their effect as well. Nielsen needs to inspire people to become more authentic or to take steps toward greater subjectivity just as Climacus does. Nielsen’s failure to do so “takes away precisely what is most important” (CUP 1:283/SKS 7:257). Nielsen could reply a la Kivy that Kierkegaard is being too demanding (see JP 6:308–9/SKS 23:219–20). Nielsen’s books are not intended to be surrogates for Kierkegaard’s such that those who read them no longer have to pick up Fragments or Postscript. Nielsen wants merely to use the ideas in Kierkegaard’s books to contribute to a debate about faith and reason. Accomplishing this goal requires only getting the content of these books right. It does not require also preserving their perlocutionary effects. And getting the content right is something Kierkegaard grants that Nielsen does. THE RATIONALE BEHIND KIERKEGAARD’S LITERARY STYLE At first blush, there is something to this defense of Nielsen. It seems unfair to criticize him for failing to achieve the therapeutic goals of Postscript. Accomplishing them is not on his agenda. Of course, Kierkegaard might retort that all works should share his therapeutic goals. Every text ought to encourage its readers to become more authentic. 34 But such a demand seems unreasonable. Even if authenticity is essential to human well-being, it seems too much to ask that we encourage others to head down this road in every interaction we have with them. 35 Yet, this response on behalf of Nielsen relies on an important assumption. It presumes we can tease apart the different aspects of Kierkegaard’s project. In particular, it presupposes we can separate out his philosophical goals from his therapeutic ones. In other words, a Kivy-style defense of Nielsen’s paraphrases assumes that the propositional content of Frag-

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ments and Postscript is not bound up with their perlocutionary effects. But Kierkegaard rejects this assumption. As he sees it, the philosophical project of communicating a lesson about the importance of subjectivity depends on the therapeutic project of getting readers to become more subjective. It is not possible to succeed at the former without undertaking and succeeding at the latter. 36 There are two reasons Kierkegaard holds this view. Both build on ideas discussed in earlier chapters. Engaging Readers’ Nonrational Faculties The first reason has to do with Kierkegaard’s account of human nature. As noted in chapter 5, Kierkegaard does not regard us as purely rational creatures. We are beings for whom emotion, passion, and imagination also play crucial roles. It is noteworthy that these nonrational faculties are important not just when it comes to practical matters. They are essential not just to making and enacting decisions about how to live. Our nonrational faculties are significant also when it comes to theoretical matters. In particular, according to Kierkegaard, they play a role in our belief-forming processes. Having good evidence is not always enough to generate convictions within us (CUP 1:22/SKS 7:30; SUD 92–96/SKS 11:205–8). In many if not most cases, our passions also must be engaged. We must care about an idea before we shift from indifference to endorsement (CUP 1:29, 33–34/SKS 7:36, 39–40). In addition, Kierkegaard maintains, our nonrational faculties assist us with comprehension. What we see about a person, place, thing, or idea hinges on what we feel about him, her, or it (JP 4:354/SKS 23:24–25). Often we will grasp what stands before us only if we are in the right mood or our emotions are activated in the right way (CA 14–15/SKS 4:322–23; JP 2:537/SKS 21:172). 37 Thus, when Kierkegaard chooses to write in a poetic style, he does not only have practical ends in mind. His use of narrative, irony, humor, and the like do of course serve the goal of helping us become more authentic. But this is not the only goal they serve. Kierkegaard’s stylistic choices are made also with an eye toward helping us learn about the nature and importance of authenticity. He writes in a way that speaks to our emotions, passions, and imaginations because doing so is necessary for getting us to understand and accept his philosophical ideas about the topic. In Marcia Robinson’s words, for Kierkegaard, “the moral and religious ideal cannot be separated from the feeling it induces or the aesthetic form through which it is communicated, since this very feeling and this very form are what allow the reader to be alive to the compelling power of this ideal.” 38 It follows that when Nielsen rejects the poetic approach of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings in favor of the impersonal and dispassionate approach characteristic of academic treatises, he does not only undercut Kierkegaard’s practical goals, as noted before. He also short-

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changes Kierkegaard’s theoretical goals. He fails to address his readers how they must be addressed if they are to internalize the message of Fragments and Postscript. True, Nielsen might articulate the content of the these two books accurately. He might even articulate it more clearly than Climacus does. Given the kind of creatures we are, though, the clear articulation of an idea is not enough to communicate the idea to us. It will not get us fully to grasp the idea let alone adopt it. Helping Readers Become Subjective There is a second reason Kierkegaard’s therapeutic goals are connected to his philosophical goals. As discussed in chapter 6, Kierkegaard holds that a disinterested or objective approach to a given topic will provide us only with rote knowledge of that topic (CUP 1:244, 254–56/ SKS 7:222, 231–32). Deeper knowledge requires something else. We must also contemplate the topic’s significance for our own everyday lives. In other words, to move beyond rote knowledge, we must engage in subjective reflection (JP 6:126/SKS 21:293; CUP 1:165–70/SKS 7:153–58; TA 9/ SKS 8:13; FSE 36–40/SKS 13:62–66). This theory provides an additional explanation for why Kierkegaard offers us concrete narratives about the everyday struggles of individual characters. Such stories draw us out of the realm of abstract and impersonal thought. They turn our attention back to the concrete and the everyday. That is, they encourage us to shift from objective to subjective reflection. I have noted before how this shift is integral to Kierkegaard’s therapeutic goal of helping us become authentic. We can now see that it is essential also to his philosophical goal of communicating ideas to us about the topic of authenticity. It follows that, when Nielsen spurns concrete narratives for impersonal abstractions, he does not only fail to further Kierkegaard’s therapeutic agenda. He also fails to accomplish Kierkegaard’s philosophical agenda. Of course, if Nielsen’s paraphrases are accurate, they may appear to accomplish this agenda. They may appear to supply us with knowledge of the content of Fragments and Postscript. But this knowledge will be only of an insignificant, rote sort. As Furtak puts it, works such as Nielsen’s leave us not with real understanding but rather a chimera. 39 IS KIERKEGAARD SCHOLARSHIP BANKRUPT? These criticisms of Nielsen take hold only if Kierkegaard’s theories about knowledge and human nature are correct. That is to say, Nielsen’s abstract, disinterested, and dispassionate writing style is inadequate for communicating Kierkegaard’s philosophical ideas only if deep knowledge of these ideas requires both emotional engagement and subjective

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reflection. Should Kierkegaard turn out to be wrong here—should abstract and impersonal reflection be capable of providing deep understanding—then scholarship of the sort Nielsen undertakes would be unobjectionable. 40 Thus, a special problem arises for commentators such as Nielsen and (to some degree) myself who seek not only to report Kierkegaard’s views but also to defend them. When we write in an academic fashion about the ideas we find in Kierkegaard’s texts, we do not only risk failing to achieve the twin goals of helping others toward authenticity and imparting philosophical knowledge to them about authenticity. We also contradict ourselves. For we end up advocating positions that entail that our method of advocating them is wrong. Hence the worry voiced at the outset of the chapter that either we do not understand what we are saying or we do not believe it. What should we do if we find ourselves in this predicament? Is the project of defending Kierkegaard’s ideas in an academic fashion bankrupt? Should those of us who attempt it abandon our work? I do not think so. In what follows, I will argue that even if we accept Kierkegaard’s views about the importance of art, there remains a place for philosophy. And this includes academic philosophy done on Kierkegaard’s writings. The first point to make here comes from Furtak. He notes that Kierkegaard’s attacks are not directed against philosophy tout court. 41 The objections he develops target a very specific way of doing philosophy. They aim at the style of philosophy that begins and ends with abstraction or that never moves beyond cold and impersonal rational deliberation. But not all philosophy is like this. Consider how a lot of work in ethics today includes anecdotes and examples that serve to test our intuitions or set up further discussion. Bernard Williams’s appeal to the (fictionalized) life of the painter Paul Gauguin in his discussion of moral luck is one example. 42 Another is the famous story about the diseased violinist whose circulatory system has been plugged into yours told by Judith Jarvis Thompson as part of her defense of abortion rights. 43 Alternatively, take the norms embraced in philosophy of art. Good writing in this subfield does not proceed only on an abstract level. It discusses how particular theories apply or fail to apply to specific works of art and devotes attention to the details of these works along the way. One example here is Berys Gaut’s discussion of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. 44 It is a novel about the inner life of a pedophile, Humbert Humbert, which Gaut uses to explore the question of whether the moral features of a work affect its aesthetic value. Just as not all philosophy is hopelessly abstract, so too not all philosophy is cold and dispassionate. Some is, of course. We can think here of the articles and books in formal epistemology that rely on the tools of math and logic. But many of the greatest works in the discipline are not

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this way. To verify, we need look no further than the moving rhetoric of Descartes’s Meditations or the impassioned speeches in Plato’s dialogues. We could also point to the elegant prose of Quine and Russell. 45 In all these cases, we find a kind of philosophy that ought to escape Kierkegaard’s ire (see CUP 1:308–9, 352–53/SKS 7:281–82, 322–23). The field of Kierkegaard studies has its own share of philosophical writing that is neither abstract nor dispassionate. One striking case is the work of Edward Mooney, especially his On Søren Kierkegaard. 46 Perhaps because Mooney writes so much about literature, he imbues his work with a distinctive literary style. His prose has a musical quality reminiscent of Thoreau or Wallace Stevens, whom Mooney himself praises in this regard. 47 As a result, it moves and inspires readers in a way sterile arguments rarely do. Another example is Gordon Marino’s recent book, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide. 48 Marino’s writing is not as lyrical as Mooney’s. Yet, it has the virtue of constantly bringing us back to everyday life. Marino is never content to ruminate in abstraction about death, despair, or anxiety. He applies Kierkegaard’s insights on these topics to our personal struggles with the psychological challenges of existence. Something similar is true of Mark Tietjen’s work, Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians. 49 Like Marino, Tietjen does not report Kierkegaardian esoterica. He takes Kierkegaard’s message—in particular, Kierkegaard’s critique of the Danish church—and reads it as an indictment of Christianity today. He then interweaves popular examples to illustrate what Kierkegaard has to say. The result is an accessible book that speaks directly to the practical problem of trying to have faith in the modern world. This sort of text should not trouble Kierkegaard. At least, it avoids the particular worries he has about Nielsen’s writings. THE INSTRUMENTAL VALUE OF ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY Pointing to alternative ways of doing philosophy will save only a portion of existing scholarship. Much work in philosophy today, including much work in Kierkegaard studies, does not follow the pattern of Mooney or Marino. It conforms more or less to the stereotypical academic ideal of abstract, impersonal, and dispassionate writing against which Kierkegaard rails. The books and articles published by Stephen Evans and Marilyn Piety fit this description. So too do those put out by Patrick Stokes, Amy Laura Hall, and others. The present book belongs to this camp as well. Would Kierkegaard have us send all such material to the garbage heap? I think not. To see why, we can return to what he says about art. Kierkegaard claims that art matters because it can help us with the project of selfhood. Yet, art’s benefits for selfhood do not accrue to us automatically. To reap them, we must appreciate works of art in the right

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way—namely, we must appreciate them in a personally interested or subjective manner. This position, however, does not lead Kierkegaard to dismiss the importance of disinterested art appreciation. On the contrary, he continues to embrace the legitimacy of disinterest. Recapping the reasons why will reveal two further ways of saving academic philosophy. Academic Philosophy as a Precursor to Inwardness First, for Kierkegaard, disinterested appreciation of art can serve as a precursor to interested or subjective appreciation of art. How so? Well, before we can use a work of art to shed light on our lives, we have to understand the work. We have to grasp its point, purpose, or meaning. To return to the example discussed throughout the book, in order for David to use Nathan’s parable to reframe how he thinks about his own behavior, he must understand the parable. He has to comprehend what Nathan is saying about the rich man and his poor neighbor with the one ewe lamb. An attitude of disinterest may be necessary here. To ensure David does not read something into the parable that is not there—or find in it only what flatters him—he must set aside his personal beliefs and values. He must consider the story as it is in and of itself. We can make a similar point about academic philosophy. The abstract and disinterested reflection characteristic of academic philosophy can serve as a precursor to the concrete and passionate reflection Kierkegaard regards as necessary for deep understanding. It may be true, as Kierkegaard says, that moving beyond rote knowledge of an idea requires applying it to our own concrete experience. But in order to apply an idea, we first have to know what it is we are applying. We need a preliminary sense of what the idea is in and of itself. Acquiring this may necessitate engaging in abstract and disinterested reflection. 50 Take Kierkegaard’s example of skepticism. Kierkegaard thinks that to understand skepticism in more than a rote fashion, we must consider what it would be like to live as skeptics (CUP 1:255/SKS 7:231). We can imagine the life of a skeptic, however, only if we antecedently grasp what skepticism is—as well as what doubt and truth are. Acquiring this background knowledge will require some amount of abstract theorizing on our part. It is thus noteworthy that when Kierkegaard attacks skepticism in Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est, he does not just describe Johannes’s attempts to doubt everything. He also has Johannes engage in traditional philosophical reflection about what it is to doubt (JC 144–72/SKS 15:24–59). What holds for skepticism also applies to the other key concepts in Kierkegaard’s authorship, from faith and selfhood to anxiety and despair. We ultimately need to think about these topics on a subjective level. But, before we can do so, we must grasp them objectively. Hence,

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Climacus speaks of a “double reflection” that includes an objective component (CUP 1:72–80/SKS 7: 73–80). 51 It is at the stage of objective reflection that Nielsen’s paraphrases—as well as those of other scholars—come into play. They can help us gain the preliminary understanding of Kierkegaard’s ideas we need in order to undertake the subsequent project of inward deepening. 52 They can clarify and explain the content of his works so we can then apply it to our lives. In sum, Kierkegaard may be right that academic philosophy does not give us the deepest sort of knowledge. But it gets us part of the way there. And that is a worthwhile accomplishment in its own right. Academic Philosophy as an Escape Yet, even this argument will not save all academic scholarship on Kierkegaard. Consider Noreen Khawaja’s award-winning book, The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre. 53 It is a masterful piece of historical scholarship in which Khawaja retells the story of how Kierkegaard fits into the existentialist tradition. Because she takes care along the way to analyze concepts such as authenticity and asceticism, she provides some of the preliminary knowledge we need for the project of selfhood. But this is not her book’s primary contribution. Its value lies in the fact that it reshapes how scholars ought to view the relationship between Kierkegaard and the thinkers who followed him. Thus, it would not be right to treat Khawaja’s book simply as a propaedeutic to inward deepening. That is not the kind of text it is. Yet, it is possible to defend The Religion of Existence and similar works on Kierkegaardian grounds. Returning to the analogy of disinterested art appreciation holds the key. Recall that Kierkegaard does not embrace disinterestedness only because it can prepare the way for selfhood. He also holds that disinterested appreciation of art matters because it affords us an escape from the stress of existence. The task of becoming who we are places a burden on us, according to Kierkegaard. And although he sometimes suggests we should not set down this burden even for a second (CUP 1:85/SKS 7:84–85; PC 225/SKS 12:220; WL 361/SKS 9:355), there are reasons to think this is an exaggeration. Most notably, Kierkegaard acknowledges the importance of rest and even cites art as an occasion for it (CUP 1:493/SKS 7:446–47; TA 22/SKS 8:24). 54 When viewing a painting or reading a novel in a disinterested manner, we are able to forget ourselves for a while. We are able to take a break from the struggle toward selfhood so we can return to it refreshed later on. The disinterested reflection we undertake while reading works of academic philosophy can provide a similar escape. It too can afford us a brief respite, a momentary distraction from the pains that accompany wrestling with our identity. There is a danger here, of course. We may lose ourselves in philosophical abstraction. But a similar risk arises in the case

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of disinterested art appreciation, and its existence does not lead Kierkegaard to reconsider his view. I see no reason for him to treat the case of academic philosophy any differently. 55 THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY The forgoing arguments build on Kierkegaard’s idea that disinterested art appreciation has instrumental value. It can serve either directly or indirectly to further the goal of self-becoming. There is something odd about this point, though. Being disinterested is a matter of setting aside instrumental concerns. To engage a work of art in a disinterested fashion, we must bracket any interest we have in using the work for our own personal projects. We must focus on the work itself and appreciate it for its own sake. We cannot appreciate a work of art for its own sake, however, if it is valuable only insofar as it contributes to something else. The work has to be valuable in its own right. It follows that Kierkegaard’s endorsement of disinterested art appreciation presupposes that art has intrinsic value. If this conclusion is correct, it opens up a new avenue for defending art. We need not always justify our continued affection for art by appealing to its usefulness. If a given work has intrinsic value, we can say attending to it is worthwhile whether or not it offers us any instrumental benefits. This argumentative move allows us to save works of art that otherwise might be hard to save. After all, some art does not contribute anything to the world besides itself. It does not serve our broader human interests in morality, truth, selfhood, and so on even in an indirect way. Thus, if the only possible defense were the one Plato allows in the Republic—explaining art’s usefulness to individuals and society—we would have to banish much art from the ideal city as Plato recommends. 56 The same point applies to academic philosophy. Up until now, I have defended academic philosophy on the grounds that it serves our practical interests. This is a common strategy. Almost every philosophy department has a website or contains links to a website extolling the practical value of philosophy. Moreover, the literature on the subject is replete with attempts to show how philosophy furthers some broader human good. 57 It would be unfortunate if this were our only justificatory strategy, however. For there is some academic philosophy that fails to contribute to our society in an instrumental way. To save it, we must rely on the notion of intrinsic value. We must maintain—as I think is true—that doing philosophy, like appreciating art, is worthwhile even if it lacks any connection to our broader human concerns. 58 There is one final point to make here, and it brings us back to the other main topic of the book, selfhood. As discussed in the opening chapters, becoming an authentic self on Kierkegaard’s view is partly a matter of

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being able to tell a unified story about who we are. We have to be able to weave together the various parts of our lives into a coherent narrative. The way to meet this standard, according to Kierkegaard, is to structure our lives around a set of worthwhile projects. What I propose at the end here is that doing academic philosophy can be one such project. 59 It can be one of the things that give our lives the coherence they need. Thus, we do not have to see academic philosophy as something that takes us away from authentic selfhood. Nor do we have to see it as something that serves authentic selfhood in a merely instrumental fashion. Instead, doing academic philosophy can be constitutive of authenticity; it can be a matter of being who we really are. NOTES 1. For example, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and Content,” Philosophy Today 57, no. 4 (2013): 376–87; W. S. K. Cameron, “[Writing] about Writing about Kierkegaard,” Philosophy Today 39, no. 1 (1995): 56–66; Clare Carlisle, Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2006), 43–44; Steven M. Emmanuel, “Reading Kierkegaard,” Philosophy Today 36, no. 3 (1992): 240–55; Patrick Goold, “Reading Kierkegaard: Two Pitfalls and a Strategy for Avoiding Them,” Faith and Philosophy 7, no. 3 (1990): 304–15; Poul L. Holmer, “On Understanding Kierkegaard,” Orbis Litterarum 10, no. 1–2 (1955): 93–97; Edward F. Mooney, “Pseudonyms and Style,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. John Lippitt and George Pattison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 191–210; George Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2015), 1–7. 2. For example, see C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript”: The Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1983), 14; Nerina Jansen, “Deception in Service of the Truth: Magister Kierkegaard and the Problem of Communication,” in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments”, ed. Robert L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary 12 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 116–17; Poul Lübcke, “Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication,” History of European Ideas 12, no. 1 (1990): 31. Note that Kierkegaard himself seems embarrassed about his use of direct communication to talk about indirect communication in his unpublished lectures on communication (JP 1.300-1/SKS 27:42627; see also JP 1.288/SKS 27:411). Climacus makes the same point in Postscript: “With regard to my dissenting conception of what it is to communicate, I sometimes wonder whether this matter of indirect communication could not be directly communicated . . . . But this seems to me an inconsistency” (CUP 1:277-78/SKS 7:251-52). 3. For example, see Hermann Diem, Die Existenzdialektik von Sören Kierkegaard (Zurich: Evang. Verlag, 1950); Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1968), 5; for further discussion, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication” (Indiana University, 2008), 25–29; Lübcke, “Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication,” 31. 4. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, trans. Edward Allen McCormick (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Moses Mendelssohn, “On the Main Principles of the Fine Arts and Sciences,” in Philosophical Writings, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 5. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 102, 490; for discussion, see David James, “The Significance of Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of Don Giovanni in

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Relation to Hegel’s Philosophy of Art,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16, no. 1 (2008): 147–62. 6. For support, see George Pattison, Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 16–18, 36–37, 99; Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 210–12; Jon Stewart, The Heiberg Period: 1824-1836, A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, Tome I (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 2007), 178–82. 7. Michael Fried, Menzel’s Realism: Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 141–42. 8. Ann Temkin, Susan Rosenberg, and Michael Taylor, Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000), 27. For further discussion of Duchamp’s technique, see Julian Street, “Why I Became a Cubist,” Everybody’s Magazine 28 (June 1913): 816. 9. Jon Stewart, The Unity of Content and Form in Philosophical Writing: The Perils of Conformity (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 81–97. 10. Ibid., 86. 11. Ibid., 85. 12. Ibid., 84. 13. Ibid. 14. For support, see Frederick C. Beiser, The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 18, 34, 73–87, 128–30; Charles Larmore, “Holderlin and Novalis,” in The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, ed. Karl Ameriks (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 156. 15. For further discussion of how Kierkegaard appropriates the ideal of form-content unity that dominated the nineteenth century German and Danish aesthetic scene, see Nathaniel Kramer, “Kierkegaard and the Aesthetics of the Danish Golden Age,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2015), 311–23; George Pattison, “Kierkegaard and Genre,” Poetics Today 28, no. 3 (2007): 475–97. 16. For further support, see Pattison, Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious: From the Magic Theatre to the Crucifixion of the Image, 37. 17. For further discussion of this criticism, see Antony Aumann, “Kierkegaard’s Case for the Irrelevance of Philosophy,” Continental Philosophy Review 42, no. 2 (2009): 223–24; John Lippitt, Humour and Irony in Kierkegaard’s Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 13–18; Robert C. Roberts, “Thinking Subjectively,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11, no. 2 (1980): 88; Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, 486. 18. For further support, see C. Stephen Evans, “The Role of Irony in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge, vol. 2004 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2004), 63–79; Alastair Hannay, “A Kind of Philosopher: Comments in Connection with Some Recent Books on Kierkegaard,” Inquiry 18, no. 3 (1975): 354–65; Alastair Hannay, “Kierkegaard and What We Mean by ‘Philosophy,’” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 8, no. 1 (2000): 1–22; Anthony Rudd and Patrick Stokes, “The Soul of a Philosopher: Reply to Turnbull,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2013), 475–94. 19. For example, see M. G. Piety, Ways of Knowing: Kierkegaard’s Pluralist Epistemology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010); John J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012); Patrick Stokes, The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Roe Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good: Virtue, Happiness, and the Kingdom of God (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Adam Buben, Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger: Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2016).

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20. Hans L. Martensen, “Rationalism, Supernaturalism and the Principium Exclusi Medii,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2004, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and Jon Stewart, trans. Jon Stewart, vol. 2004 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2004), 588–93; for further discussion of Martensen’s views, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard’s Case for the Irrelevance of Philosophy,” 224–29; Carl Henrik Koch, Den Danske Idealisme: 1800-1880, Den Danske Filosofis Historie (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004), 282; Arild Waaler and Christian Fink Tolstrup, “Philosophical Fragments—in Response to the Debate between Mynster and Martensen,” in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2004, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and Jon Stewart (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2004), 208–34. 21. Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, 349–51; Waaler and Tolstrup, “Philosophical Fragments—in Response to the Debate between Mynster and Martensen,” 215–16. 22. Koch, Den Danske Idealisme, 375 (my trans.). 23. For support, see Joakim Garff, Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 585. 24. Rasmus Nielsen, Mag. S. Kierkegaards “Johannes Climacus” og Dr. H. Martensens “Christelige dogmatik”: En undersøgende Anmeldelse (Copenhagen, DK: Reitzel, 1849); for further discussion of Nielsen’s work, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and Content,” 380–82. 25. For an extended account of Kierkegaard’s relationship to Nielsen, see Jon Stewart, “Rasmus Nielsen: From the Object of ‘Prodigious Concern’ to a ‘Windbag,’” in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, Tome I: Philosophy, Politics and Social Theory, ed. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 7 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 179–213. 26. Kierkegaard’s youthful disdain for Nielsen comes across in some of Hans Brøchner’s recollections. See Bruce H. Kirmmse, ed., Encounters with Kierkegaard: A Life as Seen by His Contemporaries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 235. 27. For further support, see Garff, Søren Kierkegaard, 582–83. 28. Starting in 1849, Kierkegaard drafted (but never published) a series of articles attacking Nielsen (e.g., JP 6.273-80/Pap. X-6 B 121). These polemics do include a few minor philosophical points of disagreement. For discussion, see Stewart, “Rasmus Nielsen,” 204–7. 29. Climacus offers a similar criticism of Andreas Beck’s anonymous review of Philosophical Fragments. Climacus writes of Beck, “His report is accurate and on the whole dialectically reliable, but now comes the hitch: although the report is accurate, anyone who reads only that will receive an utterly wrong impression of the book. This mishap, of course, is not too serious, but on the other hand this is always less desirable if a book is to be discussed expressly for its distinctive character. The report is didactic, purely and simply didactic; consequently the reader will receive the impression that the pamphlet is also didactic. As I see it, this is the most mistaken impression one can have of it” (CUP 1:274–175n/SKS 7:249n; see JP 5:284/SKS 18:259). For further discussion of Beck’s review, see Paul Muench, “The Socratic Method of Kierkegaard’s Pseudonym Johannes Climacus: Indirect Communication and the Art of ‘Taking Away,’” in Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s), ed. Poul Houe and Gordon D. Marino (Reitzel, 2003); K. Brian Söderquist, “Andreas Frederik Beck: A Good Dialectician and a Bad Reader,” in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries: Philosophy, Politics and Social Theory, ed. Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources 7 (New York: Ashgate, 2009), 1–12. 30. For example, see A.C. Bradley, Poetry for Poetry’s Sake (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901); Cleanth Brooks, “The Heresy of Paraphrase,” in The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry, 1947, 192–214; Angela Leighton, “About About: On Poetry and Paraphrase,” Midwest Studies In Philosophy 33, no. 1 (2009): 167–76. 31. For examples of this argument, see Brooks, “The Heresy of Paraphrase,” 184; Max Black, “Metaphor,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55, no. 1 (1954): 293;

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Gordon Graham, “Aesthetic Cognitivism and the Literary Arts,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 30, no. 1 (1996): 3; Leighton, “About About,” 170–71. 32. Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 104–16. 33. As David Hills notes, the fact that authors occasionally provide paraphrases of their own metaphors seems to suggest that paraphrasing is at least sometimes possible. See “Problems of Paraphrase: Bottom’s Dream,” Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 3, no. 1 (2007): 20–24. 34. Consider in this context what Anti-Climacus states in Practice in Christianity: “every moment [a person] is turned outward is wasted, and if the moments become numerous, then all is lost” (PC 225/SKS 12:220). For an interpretation of Kierkegaard that emphasizes the importance of perpetual striving for authenticity, see Noreen Khawaja, The Religion of Existence: Asceticism in Philosophy from Kierkegaard to Sartre (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 89. 35. For discussion, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication,” 18–19. 36. For a similar argument regarding Nietzsche’s literary writing style, see Christopher Janaway, Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 3–5, 12, 48–50, 202–12. 37. For further support, see Rick Anthony Furtak, Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 48–50; Rick Anthony Furtak, “Love and the Discipline of Philosophy,” in Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard, ed. Edward F. Mooney (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 59–66; David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 76–79, 106–7; Robert C. Roberts, “Existence, Emotion, and Virtue: Classical Themes in Kierkegaard,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon Marino (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 179–84, 189–92. 38. Marcia C. Robinson, “Kierkegaard’s Existential Play: Storytelling and the Development of the Religious Imagination in the Authorship,” in Kierkegaard, Literature, and the Arts, ed. Eric Ziolkowski (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018), 76. 39. Rick Anthony Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific Postscript”: A Critical Guide, ed. Rick Anthony Furtak (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 92. 40. As Martha Nussbaum expresses the point, which style of writing is appropriate for doing philosophy depends on which theory of mind is right. See “Fictions of the Soul,” in Love’s Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 245–46. 41. Furtak, “The Kierkegaardian Ideal of ‘Essential Knowing’ and the Scandal of Modern Philosophy.” 42. Bernard Williams, “Moral Luck,” in Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973-1980 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 20–39. 43. Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (1971): 47–66. 44. Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 194–202. 45. These examples come from Alexander Nehamas. See Costica Bradatan et al., “Of Poets and Thinkers: A Conversation on Philosophy, Literature and the Rebuilding of the World,” The European Legacy 14, no. 5 (2009): 14. 46. Edward F. Mooney, On Søren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007). 47. Edward F. Mooney, “Literature, Philosophy, and the Classroom: An Interview,” The Vitalist, July 8, 2012, https://edmooneyblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/25/interview/. 48. Gordon D. Marino, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 2018).

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49. Mark A. Tietjen, Kierkegaard: A Christian Missionary to Christians (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2016). 50. We read in Postscript: “Therefore, when one considers an abstract thinker who is unwilling to make clear to himself and to admit the relation his abstract thinking has to his being an existing person, he makes a comic impression, even if he is ever so distinguished, because he is about to cease to be a human being” (CUP 1:302/SKS 7:275, my emphasis). Notice that Climacus does not here ridicule the abstract thinker simply because he engages in abstract thinking. He ridicules the abstract thinker because he stops with abstract thinking—that is, because he never gets around to thinking in an interested manner. This seems to suggest that abstract thinking is permissible provided it is not the only kind of thinking we undertake. 51. For further support, see Evans, Kierkegaard’s “Fragments” and “Postscript,” 96–100. 52. There are places where Kierkegaard rejects this solution. For discussion of Kierkegaard’s ambivalence on this point, see Aumann, “Kierkegaard’s Case for the Irrelevance of Philosophy.” 53. Khawaja’s monograph won the 2017 American Academic of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Constructive-Reflective Studies. 54. For further discussion, see Antony Aumann, “Is Kierkegaard an Ascetic Thinker?,” Existenz, forthcoming. 55. We can push this general line of argument in other directions as well. For instance, one way of defending disinterested art appreciation is by arguing that it involves the exercise and cultivation of skills crucial for self-development (see, for example Gregory Currie, “Realism of Character and the Value of Fiction,” in Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, ed. Jerrold Levinson [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 161–81; Martha C. Nussbaum, “‘Finely Aware and Richly Responsible’: Literature and the Moral Imagination,” in Love’s Knowledge [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990], 148–67). This kind argument also works in the case of academic philosophy. Even though the results of academic philosophizing may not be important, the skills cultivated while engaging in academic philosophy are important. 56. Plato, Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), l. 607d. 57. For example, see Colleen K. Flewelling, The Social Relevance of Philosophy: The Debate Over the Applicability of Philosophy to Citizenship (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005); John Lachs, The Relevance of Philosophy to Life (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995). 58. This argument will not save all academic philosophy. For not all academic philosophy has intrinsic value. Some of it is junk. This is one of Daniel Dennet’s points in “Higher-Order Truths about Chmess,” Topoi 25, no. 1–2 (2006): 39–41. 59. Would Kierkegaard concede that God might assign someone the vocation of academic philosophy? He cannot rule it out. Recall from chapter 3 that Kierkegaard views God as radically transcendent. God’s ways are unimaginably higher than our own ways. Thus, however bizarre Kierkegaard might find the prospect of God’s telling someone to become a Hegelian—as Adolph Adler believed was true in his own life (see BA 28–50/SKS 15:116–73)—this is not a possibility he can dismiss. For what seems absurd from Kierkegaard’s finite human perspective might not be so from God’s infinite and eternal perspective.

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Index

A (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Either/Or Abraham: Fear and Trembling and, 24–25, 26, 64, 71–72; life as test and, 71–72 Absolute, presentation of, 185–186 abstraction, 194; disinterest and, 121–122; imagination and, 121–122; Postscript and, 140, 203n50; skepticism as, 121–122 abstract unity, unity problem with inner sense model and, 31–34 Adams, Robert, 64 Adler, Adolph, 203n59 aesthetic cognitivism, 1–2, 2, 5, 103–104, 105; art as mirror of the self and, 109–117; cognitive tools, art providing, and, 109–110; Connell on, 106; disinterest as problem for, 131–132, 138–139; emotion and, 115–117, 122–123; essential author and, 105–106; Gyllembourg and, 105; Hegel and, 105, 117, 122; Hong, H., and Hong, E., on, 105; imaginary constructions, art providing, and, 107–109; indirect communication and, 106–118, 122–126; low art and, 2; “no assertions” objection to, 104–105; “no reasons” objection to, 104–105; Plato and, 105; premise author and, 105–106; Rocca on, 106; second aesthetics and, 106; selfdevelopment and, 126n3 aesthetic stage: Either/Or and, 20, 24; inner sense model and, 19–21; pursuit of enjoyment and, 20; selfdevelopment lacking in, 20; Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits and, 21, 25 affirmation, friendship and, 81

American People Series #20: Die (Ringgold), 169–170, 171, 172 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 110; audienceimplicating content and, 143; epistemology of art and, 144; understanding, degrees of, and, 159n67 Anti-Climacus (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Practice in Christianity; Sickness Unto Death art: cognitive tools provided by, 109–110, 128n22, 128n33; deep understanding of, 149–150; imaginary constructions provided by, 107–109; instrumental value of, 133–134, 198; intrinsic value of, 133–134, 198; philosophy distinguished from, 123–124; practical benefits of, 124–126, 130n66; rote understanding of, 147–149, 158n55. See also indirect communication; specific topics art, power of, 161; beauty and, 161–162; deception and, 162; Either/Or and, 162; seduction and, 162 art appreciation, 131, 161; beauty and, 134–137, 155n8; Carroll on, 137–138, 156n22; disinterest and, 5–6, 125–126, 131–141, 150–153, 195–196, 203n55; interest and, 6, 140, 141–150; rational reflection and, 133, 137–138; religion and, 157n29; unity of form and content and, 141 art as mirror of the self, 109–110, 113–117; Camp on, 110, 150; metaphor and, 110–113; pretense and, 110, 113 art creation: audience autonomy and, 6; constitution model and, 40; disinterest and, 154; interest and, 221

222

Index

154 artists: disinterest as ideal for, 154, 162; responsibility of, 175–176 audience autonomy, 162–163, 165, 174; art creation and, 6; Postscript and, 162, 164; Works of Love and, 164 audience-implicating content, 158n42; Anna Karenina and, 143; Danto on, 143; Either/Or and, 143, 168; interest and, 142–150; A Man Was Lynched Yesterday and, 143–144; Parangolés and, 144 Austin, J. L., 191 authenticity, 4, 12n7; Either/Or and, 17; God and, 4–5; happiness versus, 177–178, 181n32; irony and, 17–18; Rousseau on, 4 authority, of friends, 81–82, 163 autonomy, 154, 170–171; Davenport on, 173; deception and, 173–174; friendship and, 163; independence from others required for, 89–90; individuality as, 88; Mill on, 171–172; moral problem with constitution model and, 50–51; Postscript and, 88, 163–164; Schiller, F., on, 154; unity problem with inner sense model and, 38n54. See also audience autonomy beauty: art, power of, and, 161–162; art appreciation and, 134–137, 155n8; Berkeley on, 156n22; Scarry on, 161 Beck, Andreas, 201n29 Bell, Clive, 159n71 Bennett, James, 97n10 Bennett, Jonathan, 7 Berkeley, George, 156n22 Berthold, Daniel, 92, 164–165 Bezuidenhout, Anne, 151 Bible, 159n66. See also David and Bathsheba Bildung. See self-development Black, Max, 111 The Black Woman, 1989. See The Negro Woman 1946-1947 Boesen, Emil, 88 Brown, Frank Burch, 157n29 Buben, Adam, 46, 60–61

Buss, Sarah, 50–51 Calhoun, Cheshire, 21 Camp, Elisabeth, 110, 150 Camus, Albert, 43, 53 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, 113–114, 114, 115, 122, 146–147 Carey, John, 124, 130n66 Carroll, Noël, 137–138, 156n22 Catlett, Elizabeth, 134–137, 135, 136 Christendom, phoniness of, 44–45 Christian Discourses (Kierkegaard), 25; compelling and, 176; deception and, 176; religious model and, 62, 75n19; subjective experience and, 92; unity problem with inner sense model and, 33 Christianity: compelling others toward, 163, 173; Pauline doctrine in, 178; Postscript and, 92; rationality and, 188; selfhood as chief end in, 177–179 Christiansen, Keith, 114 Climacus, Johannes (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Concluding Unscientific Postscript; Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est; Philosophical Fragments Coates, Ta-Nehisi, 95 cognitive tools, art providing, 109–110, 128n22, 128n33 commitment: first-order versus higherorder, 32; friends encouraging, 82–83; religious model requiring, 60, 74n3, 75n23; unity problem with constitution model and, 51–52, 55; unity problem with inner sense model and, 28, 29, 32 communication problem, with dialogical model, 91, 96; Fear and Trembling and, 92, 93; language, limits of, and, 92; “like is only known by like” principle and, 92–93, 94; mutual understanding and, 94–95; Postscript and, 92–93; Ramsland on, 92; Stages on Life’s Way and, 92, 94; subjective experience and, 92–95

Index community: constitution model and, 46; individuality reconciled with, 90–91; necessity of, 87–88; negative views of, 86–87; positive views of, 87–88 community problem, dialogical model and, 86–91 Compaijen, Rob, 23–24 compelling: Christian Discourses and, 176; to Christianity, 163, 173; Point of View and, 166; Postscript and, 176, 179n6; to subjective reflection, 165–167, 170–179. See also deception; seduction The Concept of Anxiety (Kierkegaard), 120 The Concept of Irony (Kierkegaard), 18 Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments” (Postscript) (Kierkegaard), 109, 152, 167; abstraction and, 140, 203n50; audience autonomy and, 162, 164; autonomy and, 88, 163–164; Christianity and, 92; communication problem with dialogical model and, 92–93; compelling and, 176, 179n6; constitution model and, 40; disinterest and, 140; double reflection and, 151; escape and, 153; friendship and, 163; independence from others and, 89; indirect communication and, 107, 111, 164, 199n2; individuality and, 87; intuitions and, 98n11; inwardness and, 125; Nielsen and, 189, 191, 193; paraphrase and, 183, 189, 191, 193; passion and, 119; religious model and, 65, 69; skepticism and, 121–122; subjective experience and, 92; subjective reflection and, 172; understanding, degrees of, and, 147–148; unity of form and content and, 186–188 concrete unity, unity problem with inner sense model and, 32–34 conformity, inner sense model and, 19 Connell, George, 106

223

constitution model, 39, 59, 70; art creation and, 40; Buben on, 46; community and, 46; despair and, 41, 54; dialogical model versus, 83; Either/Or and, 40, 46, 54; Frankfurt on, 56n2; God, in the absence of, 42–43; guidance problem with, 41–48, 83; Korsgaard on, 27, 38n54, 46, 49, 51–52, 56n2; moral problem with, 48–51; narrative conception of self and, 40, 62; narrative unity required by, 40; Postscript and, 40; Sartre and, 42–43, 45, 46; Sickness Unto Death and, 41; unity problem with, 51–56 constructivism: Buss on, 50–51; inadequacy of, 49–51; moral problem with constitution model and, 49–51 contextualism: history of philosophy and, 7–8, 14n31; Stewart on, 8 crowds, 119; dialogical model and, 85 Currie, Gregory, 155n6 Danto, Arthur, 110; audienceimplicating content and, 143 Davenport, John J.: autonomy and, 173; narrative conception of self and, 40; religious model and, 69–70; unity problem with inner sense model and, 38n54 David and Bathsheba (Biblical story), 122, 168; disinterest and, 196; interest and, 140, 143; metaphor and, 111–113, 151; subjective reflection and, 172; understanding, degrees of, and, 149–150 Davidson, Donald, 111 Davies, David, 155n6 The Death of Ivan Ilych (Tolstoy), 148, 149 deception, 167, 179n7; art, power of, and, 162; autonomy and, 173–174; Christian Discourses and, 176; Either/ Or and, 167–168; non-paternalistic justification for, 170–172, 180n22; painting and, 168–170, 172; paternalistic justification for, 172–173; self-, 3; Stages on Life’s Way

224

Index

and, 173; Works of Love and, 173 decisionism, moral problem with constitution model and, 48 The Denial of Saint Peter (Caravaggio), 113–114, 114, 115, 122, 146–147 depression: friendship and, 86; value realism and, 47–48 Derrida, Jacques, 89 descriptions, of subjective experience, 94–95 despair: constitution model and, 41, 54; Sickness Unto Death and, 176 determinate personality, necessary for self, 30, 33–34 diachronic unity, unity problem with inner sense model and, 28, 30 dialogical model, 5, 73, 79–80; communication problem with, 91–96; community problem and, 86–91; constitution model versus, 83; crowds and, 85; double movement in, 90–91; egoism incompatible with, 85; Fear and Trembling and, 82; friendship and, 80–83, 96; guidance problem and, 83–84; individuality and, 86–91; intuitions and, 83, 84; moral problem and, 84–86; as procedural theory, 97n10; religious model compatibility with, 82–83; social acceptability, not reducible to, 84–85; therapy and, 96, 100n34; unity problem and, 86 Dickie, George, 155n5 Dickinson, Emily, 148 didactic art, 107, 164 Diderot, Denis, 22 direct communication, 127n14; didactic art and, 107, 164; engagement and, 129n44; about indirect communication, 183–184, 199n2; indirect communication as superior to, 117–118; philosophy, teaching of, as, 106, 117–118, 123–124 disinterest: abstraction and, 121–122; aesthetic cognitivism, as problem for, 131–132, 138–139; art appreciation and, 5–6, 125–126, 131–141, 150–153, 195–196, 203n55;

art creation and, 154; artists, as ideal for, 154, 162; criticism of, 119–120, 121–122, 125–126; David and Bathsheba and, 196; Dickie on, 155n5; double reflection, as part of, 151–152; empiricism and, 133, 155n6; as escape, 152–154, 159n71–160n72; Hutcheson and, 132, 133, 155n6; instrumental value of art counteracted by, 133–134, 198; Kant and, 132, 155n8, 157n27; Kreitman on, 138; metaphor and, 151–152; objectivity and, 137–138, 140–141; Postscript and, 140; Practice in Christianity and, 140–141; selfconcern, as extinguishing, 140; selfdevelopment and, 203n55; selfeffacement and, 138; Shaftesbury and, 132; strong, 132–137, 138–139, 157n27; weak, 137–138, 139, 156n19 divine hiddenness: human freedom and, 68–69; indirect communication and, 69; life as test and, 71–72; maieutic method and, 69; religious model and, 68–72, 76n32, 79; Schellenberg on, 76n32 divine transcendence, 67–68, 178, 203n59 Donne, John, 148 Doris, John, 27 double movement: in dialogical model, 90–91; in religious model, 61 double reflection: disinterest as part of, 151–152; Postscript and, 151 Dreyfus, Hubert, 52, 53 Duchamp, Marcel, 185 egoism, dialogical model incompatible with, 85 Either/Or (Kierkegaard), 26, 177, 180n8; aesthetic stage in, 20, 24; art, power of, and, 162; audience-implicating content in, 143, 168; authenticity in, 17; constitution model and, 40, 46, 54; deception in, 167–168; friendship and, 81; independence from others and, 89; indirect communication and, 108–109; inner sense model and, 20, 24, 27–29, 30, 61; metaphor

Index and, 151; moral problem with constitution model and, 50–51; seduction and, 174; unity of form and content and, 186; unity problem with inner sense model and, 27–29, 30 Emmanuel, Stephen, 64 emotion, 187, 192; aesthetic cognitivism and, 115–117, 122–123; The Concept of Anxiety and, 120; Furtak on, 120; human nature and, 119–120; love as, 65, 66, 120 empiricism, disinterest and, 133, 155n6 engagement: direct communication and, 129n44; indirect communication and, 117–118; unity of form and content and, 192 epistemology of art: Anna Karenina and, 144; The Denial of Saint Peter and, 146–147; interest and, 147–150; Monogram and, 147 escape: disinterest as, 152–154, 159n71–160n72; philosophy as, 197; Postscript and, 153; Stages on Life’s Way and, 153 essential author, premise author versus, 105–106 ethical: Fear and Trembling and, 24–25, 26; teleological suspension of, 24–25, 26; as universal, 142 ethical sphere, inner sense model and, 35n12 Evans, C. Stephen, 22, 25; pseudonymity and, 9–10, 10–11; religious model and, 65, 69–70; on understanding, degrees of, and, 147 facticity: guidance problem with constitution model and, 43–46; Sartre on, 57n30 Faulks, Sebastian, 158n42 Faust (Goethe), 104 Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard): Abraham and, 24–25, 26, 64, 71–72; communication problem with dialogical model and, 92, 93; dialogical model and, 82; ethical, teleological suspension of, in, 24–25, 26; independence from others and,

225

89; inner sense model and, 24–25, 25–27, 36n34; religious model and, 64, 71–72 Fenger, Henning, 95 Ferreira, Jamie, 140 fideism, 64 For Self-Examination (Kierkegaard), 111, 140, 151 Frankfurt, Harry G., 29, 56n2, 173 Frater Taciturnus (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Stages on Life’s Way Freadman, Richard, 143 Fried, Michael, 184–185 Friedrich, Casper, 169 Friends, 2 friendship: affirmation and, 81; authority of friends in, 81–82, 163; autonomy and, 163; commitment and, 82–83; depression and, 86; Derrida on, 89; dialogical model and, 80–83, 96; Either/Or and, 81; external perspective provided by, 81; Hegel on, 81; Postscript and, 163; responsibility in, 89–90, 176; Sickness Unto Death and, 81; stability provided by, 86; vocation and, 82 Furtak, Rick, 193, 194; emotion and, 120; religious model and, 56, 63, 72 Garber, Daniel, 75n23 Garff, Joakim, 95 Gauguin, Paul, 48, 58n33, 194 Gaut, Berys, 194 Gibson, John, 95, 109, 144 God, 9; authenticity deriving from, 4–5; constitution model without, 42–43; transcendence of, 67–68, 178, 203n59; unity problem with constitution model and, 56. See also religious model Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 104 guidance problem: dialogical model and, 83–84; religious model and, 62, 63–64, 66–68 guidance problem, with constitution model, 41, 42, 83; facticity and, 43–46; infinite regress and, 42; objectivity and, 48; phoniness and,

226

Index

44–46; radical freedom and, 42–43; value realism and, 46–48 Guyer, Paul, 156n19, 157n27 Gyllembourg, Thomasine, 95, 153; aesthetic cognitivist view of, 105 Hale, Geoffrey, 92 Hammermeister, Kai, 105 happiness, authenticity versus, 177–178, 181n32 Hegel, G. W. F., 57n9, 141; aesthetic cognitivism and, 105, 117, 122; friendship and, 81; instrumental value of art and, 133–134 Heiberg, Johan Ludvig, 184 Helms, Eleanor, 62 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 18–19, 36n19 high art, 2 history of philosophy: collegial approach to, 7; contextualism and, 7–8, 14n31; literary form and, 11–12; pseudonymity and, 9–11; secularization and, 8–9 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 36n19 Hong, Edna, 105 Hong, Howard, 105 human freedom: divine hiddenness and, 68–69; religious model and, 68–72 human nature: emotion and, 119–120; imagination and, 120–122; indirect communication suited to, 118; passion and, 119; rationality and, 118, 122, 192 Huntington, Patricia, 48 Hutcheson, Francis, 132, 133, 155n6 imaginary constructions, 127n17; art providing, 107–109 imagination: abstraction and, 121–122; human nature and, 120–122; Sickness Unto Death and, 120–121 independence from others: autonomy requiring, 89–90; Either/Or and, 89; Fear and Trembling and, 89; individuality as, 89; Postscript and, 89 indirect communication, 127n14, 165; aesthetic cognitivism and, 106–118,

122–126; art as mirror of the self and, 110–117; direct communication, as superior to, 117–118; direct communication about, 183–184, 199n2; divine hiddenness and, 69; Either/Or as paradigm of, 108–109; engagement and, 117–118; human nature, as suited to, 118; logical superiority of, 117; maieutic method and, 107, 109; moral superiority of, 117; music and, 115; painting and, 113–114, 114, 115, 115–117, 116; pedagogical superiority of, 117–118, 122–126; Postscript and, 107, 111, 164, 199n2; sculpture and, 113, 115–117, 116. See also art individuality, 98n15; autonomy and, 88; community reconciled with, 90–91; dialogical model and, 86–91; independence from others and, 89; Point of View and, 86; Postscript and, 87; Practice in Christianity and, 87; Stage on Life’s Way and, 87 infinite regress, guidance problem with constitution model and, 42 inner sense model, 18, 35n8, 38n55, 59; active versus passive dimensions of, 19; aesthetic stage and, 19–21; conformity and, 19; Diderot and, 22; Either/Or and, 20, 24, 27–29, 30, 61; ethical sphere and, 35n12; Fear and Trembling and, 24–25, 25–27, 36n34; Herder and, 18–19, 36n19; Hölderlin and, 36n19; Khawaja on, 19, 39; moral problem with, 21–27, 36n34, 37n37; Rousseau and, 18, 33, 35n3; self-development and, 20; Trump and, 24; unity problem with, 27–34, 38n54; Williams and, 22, 24, 25, 36n34 instrumental value of art: disinterest counteracting, 133–134, 198; Hegel on, 133–134; Plato and, 198 instrumental value of philosophy, 195–197, 203n55 interest: art appreciation and, 6, 140, 141–150; art creation and, 154; audience-implicating content and,

Index 142–150; David and Bathsheba and, 140, 143; epistemology of art and, 147–150; interesting versus, 157n30; subjectivity and, 140 interesting, interest versus, 157n30 intrinsic value: of art, 133–134, 198; of philosophy, 198 intuitions: dialogical model and, 83, 84; Philosophical Fragments and, 98n11; Postscript and, 98n11; reliability of, 84, 98n11 inward deepening, costs of, 174–175 inwardness: philosophy as precursor to, 196–197; Postscript and, 125; Practice in Christianity and, 202n34 irony: authenticity and, 17–18; The Concept of Irony on, 18 Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est (Kierkegaard), 121–122; skepticism and, 196 Jothen, Peder, 8, 96, 105, 152 Kagan, Shelly, 34 Kant, Immanuel, 132, 155n8, 157n27 Kauffman, Walter, 98n15 Kemp, Ryan, 23–24 Khawaja, Noreen, 12n7, 160n73, 197; inner sense model and, 19, 39 Kiefer, Anselm, 168–169, 170, 172 Kierkegaard, Søren. See specific topics Kivy, Peter, 112, 191 Korsgaard, Christine: constitution model and, 46, 56n2; moral problem with constitution model and, 49; unity problem with constitution model and, 51–52; unity problem with inner sense model and, 27, 38n54 Kosch, Michelle, 52 Kreitman, Norman, 138, 152 Krishek, Sharon, 56, 63, 72 Lamarque, Peter, 134, 139 language, limits of, communication problem and, 92 Lear, Jonathan, 44 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 141; unity of form and content and, 184

227

life as test, 71–72 “like is only known by like” principle, 92–93, 94 literary form, 14n34; history of philosophy and, 11–12; paraphrase and, 6–7, 11–12, 183–184, 189–191; Plato and, 134 Lorentzen, Jamie, 179n7 love, 66, 120; religious model and, 65 low art, as educational, 2 Lucretius, 168 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 79 maieutic method: divine hiddenness and, 69; indirect communication and, 107, 109 A Man Was Lynched Yesterday (Scott), 143–144, 145 Marino, Gordon, 140, 195 Martensen, Hans Lassen, 188–189 Mendelssohn, Moses, 184 Menzel, Adolph, 184–185 metaphor: art as mirror of the self and, 110–113; Bezuidenhout on, 151; Black on, 111; David and Bathsheba and, 111–113, 151; Davidson on, 111; disinterest and, 151–152; Either/ Or and, 151; paraphrase and, 111; source domain versus target domain in, 111 Mill, John Stuart, 171–172 Miller, Seumas, 143 mobs. See crowds Monogram (Rauschenberg), 115–117, 116, 147 Mooney, Edward, 96, 113, 195 moral problem, dialogical model and, 84–86 moral problem, religious model and, 62, 64 moral problem, with constitution model, 48, 48–49; autonomy and, 50–51; constructivist response to, 49–51; decisionism and, 48; Either/ Or and, 50–51; Gauguin and, 48; Huntington and, 48; Korsgaard on, 49; seduction and, 50–51 moral problem, with inner sense model, 21–23, 25–27, 36n34, 37n37;

228

Index

as external criticism, 23–25 motion, representations of, 184–185 music, indirect communication and, 115 mutual understanding, communication problem and, 94–95 Nabokov, Vladimir, 194 Nagel, Thomas, 121 narrative conception of self, 40, 62, 198 narrative unity, constitution model requiring, 40 The Negro Woman 1946-1947 (The Black Woman, 1989) (Catlett), 134–137, 135, 136 Nielsen, Rasmus: paraphrase and, 188–190, 191, 193–194; Postscript and, 189, 191, 193 “no assertions” objection, to aesthetic cognitivism, 104–105 Noë, Alva, 128n22 “no reasons” objection, to aesthetic cognitivism, 104–105 objective reflection, philosophy as, 196–197 objectivity, 159n64; disinterest and, 137–138, 140–141; guidance problem with constitution model and, 48; understanding, degrees of, and, 147–150, 158n54 Oiticica, Hélio, 144, 146 painting: deception and, 168–170, 172; indirect communication and, 113–114, 114, 115, 115–117, 116; motion represented by, 184–185 Parangolés (Oiticica), 144, 146 paraphrase, 188, 194–195; literary form and, 6–7, 11–12, 183–184, 189–191; metaphor and, 111; Nielsen and, 188–190, 191, 193–194; Philosophical Fragments and, 189, 191, 193, 201n29; poetry and, 190–191; Postscript and, 183, 189, 191, 193 Parfit, Derek, 55 Pascal, Blaise, 45, 75n23 passion, 122, 187, 192; human nature and, 119; Postscript and, 119

Pattison, George, 14n34, 105, 126n9 Pauline doctrine, 178 Philosophical Fragments (Kierkegaard): intuitions and, 98n11; Nielsen and, 189, 191, 193; paraphrase and, 189, 191, 193, 201n29; religious model and, 63, 71; subjectivity and, 60; unity problem with constitution model and, 53. See also Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments” philosophy: art distinguished from, 123–124; as escape, 197; instrumental value of, 195–197, 203n55; intrinsic value of, 198; inwardness, as precursor to, 196–197; as objective reflection, 196–197; teaching of, 106, 117–118, 123–124; as vocation, 203n59. See also history of philosophy phoniness, 3, 17, 174–175; Christendom and, 44–45; guidance problem with constitution model and, 44–46 Plato: aesthetic cognitivism and, 105; instrumental value of art and, 198; literary form and, 134; poetry and, 12n1, 105 poetry, 179n6, 184; paraphrase and, 190–191; Plato on, 12n1, 105; understanding, degrees of, and, 148 Point of View (Kierkegaard), 95; compelling and, 166; individuality and, 86; seduction and, 166–167 Postscript. See Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments” practical problem, with religious model, 72–73 practical rationality, unity of form and content and, 185, 186–187 Practice in Christianity (Kierkegaard): disinterest and, 140–141; individuality and, 87; inwardness and, 202n34; religious model and, 69, 72–73; seduction and, 166 pragmatism, religious model and, 64–65, 75n19 premise author, essential author versus, 105–106

Index pretense, art as mirror of the self and, 110, 113 problem of evil, skeptical theism on, 67 procedural theory, dialogical model as, 97n10 pseudonymity, 14n32; Evans on, 9–10, 10–11; history of philosophy and, 9–11; Stewart on, 10 pursuit of enjoyment, aesthetic stage and, 20 radical freedom: Camus on, 43; guidance problem with constitution model and, 42–43; Sartre on, 42–43, 57n30 Rainer, Yvonne, 116–117 Ramsland, Katherine, 92 rationality: Christianity and, 188; human nature and, 118, 122, 192; practical, 185, 186–187; religious model compatible with, 64–65 rational reflection, art appreciation and, 133, 137–138 Rauschenberg, Robert, 115–117, 116, 147 religion, art appreciation and, 157n29 religious doubt, 63–64 religious epistemology, 64–65 religious model, 59; Christian Discourses and, 62, 75n19; commitment required by, 60, 74n3, 75n23; Davenport on, 69–70; dialogical model compatibility with, 82–83; divine hiddenness and, 68–72, 76n32, 79; divine transcendence and, 67–68; double movement in, 61; Evans on, 65, 69–70; Fear and Trembling and, 64, 71–72; fideism and, 64; Furtak and Krishek on, 56, 63, 72; guidance problem and, 62, 63–64, 66–68; human freedom and, 68–72; love and, 65; moral problem and, 62, 64; Philosophical Fragments and, 63, 71; Postscript and, 65, 69; practical problem with, 72–73; Practice in Christianity and, 69, 72–73; pragmatism supporting, 64–65, 75n19; rationality compatible with,

229

64–65; religious doubt and, 63–64; religious epistemology and, 64–65; Sickness Unto Death and, 65, 83; Söderquist, K. B., and, 65; subjectivity and, 60–61; unity problem and, 62; vocation and, 62, 63, 69–70; Works of Love and, 67 responsibility: of artists, 175–176; of friends, 176; friendship, ceded in, 89–90 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 36n19 Ringgold, Faith, 169–170, 171, 172 Robinson, Marcia, 180n10; unity of form and content and, 192 Rocca, Ettore, 106, 142 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: authenticity and, 4; inner sense model and, 18, 33, 35n3 Rudd, Anthony, 14n31, 25; narrative conception of self and, 40; unity problem with inner sense model and, 31 Sartre, Jean-Paul: constitution model and, 42–43, 45, 46; facticity and, 57n30; radical freedom and, 42–43, 57n30 Scarry, Elaine, 161 Schellenberg, J. L., 66, 76n32 Schiller, Friedrich, 154 Schiller, Jerome, 138 science, teaching of, as direct communication, 117–118 Scott, Dread, 143–144, 145 sculpture, 144; indirect communication and, 113, 115–117, 116; motion represented by, 184 second aesthetics, 106, 142 second ethics, 142 secularization: history of philosophy and, 8–9; Turnbull on, 8 seduction, 167; art, power of, and, 162; as compelling, 166–167; Either/Or and, 174; moral problem with constitution model and, 50–51; Point of View and, 166–167; Practice in Christianity and, 166 self, determinate personality necessary for, 30, 33–34

230

Index

self-concern, disinterest as extinguishing, 140 self-deception, 3 self-development, 96; aesthetic cognitivism and, 126n3; aesthetic stage, lacking in, 20; disinterest and, 203n55; inner sense model and, 20 self-effacement, 138 selfhood: as task, 4. See also specific topics self-knowledge, 155n2 Shaftesbury (Earl of), 137; disinterest and, 132 Shakespeare, William, 111 Sickness Unto Death (Kierkegaard), 118, 178; constitution model and, 41; despair and, 176; friendship and, 81; imagination and, 120–121; religious model and, 65, 83; subjective reflection and, 172; subjectivity and, 61; understanding, degrees of, and, 147; unity problem with constitution model and, 52, 55 Silentio, Johannes de (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Fear and Trembling single individual. See individuality skeptical theism, on problem of evil, 67 skepticism: as abstraction, 121–122; Johannes Climacus and, 196; Postscript and, 121–122 social acceptability, dialogical model not reducible to, 84–85 Söderquist, Anna Strelis, 5 Söderquist, K. Brian, 65 source domain, in metaphor, 111 stability, friendship providing, 86 Stages on Life’s Way (Kierkegaard): communication problem with dialogical model and, 92, 94; deception and, 173; escape and, 153; individuality and, 87 Stewart, Jon: contextualism and, 8; pseudonymity and, 10; unity of form and content and, 185 Stokes, Patrick, 8, 14n31, 23, 153 Stone, Robert, 95 Strawser, Michael, 10, 129n44 subjective experience, 99n33; Christian Discourses and, 92; communication

problem with dialogical model and, 92–95; descriptions of, 94–95; Gyllembourg describing, 95; Postscript and, 92 subjective reflection: compelling others toward, 165–167, 170–179; David and Bathsheba and, 172; inward deepening, costs of, and, 174–175; Postscript and, 172; Sickness Unto Death and, 172; unity of form and content and, 193 subjectivity, 159n64; interest and, 140; Philosophical Fragments and, 60; religious model and, 60–61; Sickness Unto Death and, 61; understanding, degrees of, and, 147–148, 158n54 synchronic unity, unity problem with inner sense model and, 28, 29 target domain, in metaphor, 111 Taylor, Charles, 79 theatre, 128n33 therapy, 96, 100n34 Thompson, Judith Jarvis, 194 Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Kierkegaard), 183 Tieck, Johan Ludwig, 152, 180n10 Tietjen, Mark, 66, 195 Tolstoy, Leo, 110, 143, 144, 148, 148–149, 159n67 Trump, Donald, 24 Turnbull, Jamie, 8 Two Ages (Kierkegaard), 100n37 understanding, degrees of, 147; Anna Karenina and, 159n67; David and Bathsheba and, 149–150; The Death of Ivan Ilych and, 148; deep understanding of art as, 149–150; Evans on, 147; objectivity and, 147–150, 158n54; poetry and, 148; Postscript and, 147–148; rote understanding of art as, 147–149, 158n55; Sickness Unto Death and, 147; subjectivity and, 147–148, 158n54 unity of form and content: Absolute, presentation of, and, 185–186; art appreciation and, 141; eighteenth

Index and nineteenth century tradition on, 184–186; Either/Or and, 186; engagement and, 192; Lessing and, 184; Mendelssohn and, 184; Postscript and, 186–188; practical rationality and, 185, 186–187; Robinson on, 192; Stewart on, 185; subjective reflection and, 193. See also literary form unity problem, dialogical model and, 86 unity problem, religious model and, 62 unity problem, with constitution model, 51, 52–53, 54–55; Camus and, 53; commitment and, 51–52, 55; Dreyfus on, 52, 53; God as response to, 56; Korsgaard on, 51–52; Kosch on, 52; Philosophical Fragments and, 53; Sickness Unto Death and, 52, 55; voluntarism and, 52–54 unity problem, with inner sense model, 27, 51; abstract unity and, 31–34; autonomy and, 38n54; Christian Discourses and, 33; commitment and, 28, 29, 32; conceptual motivation for, 30–34; concrete unity and, 32–34; criticisms of, 29–30; Davenport on, 38n54; diachronic unity and, 28, 30; Doris and, 27; Either/Or and, 27–29, 30; as external criticism, 30; as internal criticism, 31; Kagan on, 34; Korsgaard on, 27, 38n54; psychological motivation for, 28–30;

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Rudd on, 31; synchronic unity and, 28, 29; Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits and, 32–33; wholeheartedness and, 29 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (Kierkegaard): aesthetic stage in, 21, 25; unity problem with inner sense model and, 32–33 value realism: depression and, 47–48; guidance problem with constitution model and, 46–48 Varga, Somogy, 18 vocation: friends assisting with, 82; philosophy as, 203n59; religious model and, 62, 63, 69–70 voluntarism: Pascal on, 45; unity problem with constitution model and, 52–54 Walsh, Sylvia, 6, 40, 105 wholeheartedness, 29 Wietzke, Walter, 23–24, 37n37 William (Judge) (Kierkegaard pseudonym). See Either/Or; Stages on Life’s Way Williams, Bernard, 194; inner sense model and, 22, 24, 25, 36n34 Winter Landscape (Kiefer), 169, 170, 172 Wolf, Susan, 47 Works of Love (Kierkegaard), 66, 152–153; audience autonomy and, 164; deception and, 173; religious model and, 67

About the Author

Antony Aumann is associate professor of philosophy and coordinator of the religious studies program at Northern Michigan University. He has previously held positions at The Ohio State University, St. Olaf College, and Fordham University in the Bronx. Aumann’s research engages both the continental and analytic traditions of philosophy, and he specializes in issues related to aesthetics, existentialism, and religion. His work has appeared in journals and collections such as The Kierkegaardian Mind, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Continental Philosophy Review, Heythrop Journal, and the Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook.

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