Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology 1412853869, 9781412853866

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Kierkegaard Rise °f Modern Psychology

and the

Kierkegaard Rise of Modern Psychology

and the

Sven Hroar Klempe With a foreword by Jaan Valsiner

O Routledge

S^^ Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2014 by Transaction Publishers Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2014 by Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2013042995 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Klempe, Sven Hroar. Kierkegaard and the rise of modern psychology / Sven Hroar Klempe. pages cm. -- (History and theory of psychology) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-4128-5386-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Kierkegaard, Soren, 1813-1855. 2. Psychology and philosophy. 3. Psychology--History. I. Title. B4377.K57 2014 198’.9--dc23 2013042995 ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-5386-6 (hbk)

To my elder brother Øystein, who raised me intellectually.

Contents Series Editor’s Foreword Jaan Valsiner Preface

ix xiii

I

Kierkegaard and Experimental Psychology

1

1

Repetition (1843): A Core Text

3

2

The Concept of Anxiety (1844)

15

3

Stages on Life’s Way and Guilty/Not Guilty (1845)

35

4

The Sickness Unto Death (1849)

53

II

Psychology in Terms of the German Enlightenment

67

5

Kierkegaard and a Period of Change

73

6

Psychology as a Part of Metaphysics

89

7

Empirical Psychology, Aesthetics, and Natural Sciences

107

8

Kant and the Rejection of Psychology as a Science

123

III

How to Understand Kierkegaard’s Psychology Today

149

9

Kierkegaard and Modernity

155

10

Kierkegaard and Modern Psychology

179

11

Kierkegaard and Modern Science

203

12

The Actuality of Kierkegaard’s Psychology

233

References

243

Name Index

251

Subject Index

255

Series Editor’s Foreword Psychology at Point Zero: Guilty or Not Guilty? This book puts our contemporary psychology to trial. Its author raises the accusation that the discipline is guilty of crimes against humanism in the building of a science, and that it has been involved in that crime over the last two centuries. As his key witness, he brings to the stand a sophisticated observer of the human condition of the past: the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard, whose literary contributions to philosophy are well recognized, albeit outside the science of psychology. Yet his thinking was psychological at its best, and it is our psychology of today that can be accused, a century and a half later, of trivializing the human psyche and commercializing the soul. Psychology is today, like two centuries ago, at Point Zero. Or better— it has been moving around in the labyrinth of the garden of scientific delights, not finding its own place, and ending up in the same location. Despite the ever-growing flow of empirical studies that contribute to “the literature,” precious little new general theory has been produced. The prevalence of inductive generalization as a socially accepted via regia in psychology is likely to blame for this. Psychology is still in need of a general synthesizer of basic ideas—one like Charles Darwin, Dmitri Mendeleev, or Albert Einstein—to set up its basics as a general science. There are good reasons for psychology’s struggle to be a science and losing its focus on the psyche in the process. According to the author, “Psychology as a science has to live with the irreconcilable conflict between objectivity and subjectivity manifested in what man is living in, namely culture. And this is exactly what Kierkegaard’s psychology is concerned with—no matter how much strain, stress, and worry this may

ix

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evoke, not only for those who want to define psychology as a science, but even more so for each one of us who wants to understand actual life.” This verdict was true in Kierkegaard’s time and continues to be so today. Pushing consenting research participants head-on into a MRI machine does not illuminate our understanding of their subjective life experiences, even if it allows researchers to display colorful snapshots of their functioning brains. It is the need for understanding culture—a notion incredibly difficult to clarify theoretically (Valsiner, 2012a), while easily accepted in use in everyday life—that has been the obstacle for psychology. Looking for the “objectivity” that is so much needed in science has not been helped by selecting maze-running white rats, pecking pigeons, salivating dogs, or even gesturing higher primates as targets for investigation of the human psychological functions. Such declarations of “proxy species” to stand in for our fellow Homo sapiens in the vaudeville of science-building in psychology have been good for transient fashions—from behaviorism to cognitivism (and beyond)—but not for basic breakthroughs in the new Wissenschaft. Hence, a contemporary look at the ironic view of Kierkegaard on the psychology and philosophy of his time is refreshing. One is just left guessing what kind of treatment the famous psychologists of the twentieth century—such as Watson, Vygotsky, Piaget, Skinner, Seligman, Kahneman, and others—would have received from the insightful Danish observer. We will never know. The addition of this book to our series of treatises in the History and Theory of Psychology domain at Transaction links our efforts well with the wider social sciences focus that is the home ground of the publisher. Klempe’s analysis of Kierkegaard, and his elaboration of new ways of doing psychology, resonates well with the phenomenological efforts (Clegg, 2009, 2013) and search for new methodology (Abbey and Surgan, 2011). New ways of thinking are very much needed in the discipline, and a careful new look at a classic philosopher can provide us with new insights. This book on Kierkegaard comes right after a series of treatises on the key theorists of the twentieth century—Svend Brinkmann on Dewey (Brinkmann, 2013), Eric Charles on E. B. Holt and “New Realism,” and Eduardo Martí and Cintia Rodriguez (2012) on Jean Piaget. Kierkegaard’s Advice: Dialectics beyond Hegel As it becomes clear from the analysis of Kierkegaard’s observations of his contemporaries in this book, his ironic and incisive presentation of the fashions of his time was constructive. While the scholars in his neighboring German lands were busily taking sides in the mortal combat x

Series Editor’s Foreword

of ideas between Naturphilosophie and materialistic convictions, Kierkegaard penetrated the essence of Hegelian dialectics and saw its shortcomings—too much talk around complex issues of multi-level and self-inclusive organization. After him, two centuries of on-and-off efforts to bring dialectical thought into psychology have failed (Valsiner, 2012b)—partly because of the resistance of social traditions, but also because of the underdevelopment of the ideas themselves. Hegel failed in the end to specify his own ideas—the fluidity of dialectical phenomena gave rise to the unbounded nature of dialogical theories. The latter were easy to exploit for political purposes—and they were (Valsiner, 1988). Dialectics as the most flexible system of thought—of all versions of logic—became historically the most fixed in the political orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. The demise of that political Minotaur in the twentieth century of course indicates the reality of dialectical overcoming of even the seemingly powerful social system that seemed unready to crumble. It did. Yet the precise mechanisms of such overcoming remain out of our theoretical focus. In contrast, Kierkegaard’s nuanced and playful look at the dialectical dynamics of phenomena could be developed further in new ways. Which these can be is something a careful reader may find out from this book. Hroar Klempe—through a venture into Kierkegaard’s voluminous contributions—has created a labyrinth of intellectual efforts in which to look for the Minotaur of non-reflexive and empirically accumulative psychology. He also offers an invisible intellectual thread to navigate the labyrinth. Whether the reader reaches the end—and decides whether psychology is really guilty of the crime against humanism—may remain an open question. In this, the present book is Kierkegaardian par excellence. Jaan Valsiner Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Aalborg, Denmark July 2013 References Abbey, E. and Surgan, S. (Eds.) (2011). Emerging Methods in Psychology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Brinkmann, S. (2013). John Dewey: Psychology in a Changing World. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Charles, E. C. (Ed.) (2011). A New Look at New Realism. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Clegg, J. (Ed.) (2009). The Observation of Human Systems: Lessons from the History of Anti-reductionistic Empirical Psychology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. xi

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———. (2013). Scientific Self Observation. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Martí, E., and Rodríguez, C. (Eds.) (2012). After Piaget. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Valsiner, J. (1988). Developmental Psychology in the Soviet Union. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Valsiner, J. (Ed.) (2012a). The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. Valsiner, J. (2012b). A Guided Science: History of Psychology in the Mirror of Its Making. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

xii

Preface Much has been written and much has been commented on the works of Søren Kierkegaard, and this wealth of critique is not without reason. He was one of the most mysterious and fascinating figures in Europe in the nineteenth century, partly because his perspectives still appear original and unique, but probably even more so because he was a stylist whose work touches something deep within the reader. In one sense, he was a philosopher, but he was certainly not a traditional one. No traditional philosopher would ever write a “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” a footnote running to around five hundred pages, where the “footnote” is almost five times longer than the work on which it comments, which, moreover, bears the no less awkward title Philosophical Crumbs. His writings are filled with irony from bottom to top, and it is not easy to conclude whether the author is truly serious about philosophy or not. Possibly he is not, and this may be why many prefer to read him as a novelist instead. And this works, of course. To read, for example, The Seducer’s Diary is to be whirled into a storm that makes the reader both hot and cold at the same time. The seducer’s considerations are both so strange and so familiar that we simply have to continue reading to see if all the paradoxes and contradictions presented really meet with some kind of reconciliation by the end. But they do not. And therefore there is strong reason to continue reading—by, for example, completing the whole of Either/Or, of which The Seducer’s Diary is only a small section. Then we realize that behind the stormy literary style, behind all the witticisms and pearls of wisdom, a rickety philosophical scaffold appears that can stand on its own but seems to be as open and as unsteady as only a scaffold can be. I realized this for the first time when I approached his work at the age of sixteen. I felt as if I had received a personal invitation from Kierkegaard himself to put all my teenage battles into words. Although there were exactly one hundred years between his death and my birth, xiii

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology

I immediately identified with all the neurotic struggling he had endured over his fiancée, Regine Olsen. The unacceptable behavior he exhibited was immediately regarded as an inevitable result of the fact that the other sex was attractive, for sure, but at the same time completely unapproachable. So to handle this in a way to allow one to survive was by staying clear of the other sex and hiding oneself in the cave of literary wisdom. So I followed Kierkegaard, not only by drinking from the cup of wisdom, but by doing so in exactly the same way that he did: by falling headlong into it. And I actually did find him still swimming in there. He not only dealt with the problems with approaching the other sex, but also with other critical issues in the same seductive manner. Religious questions were attacked from the most rebellious angle, and in philosophy he turned everything upside down by highlighting subjectivity. The latter was not only a rebellious act; it also allowed for an unrestrained revolution. Yet this was like most philosophical revolutions: fascinating but quite impossible to immediately integrate in a fully systematic way of thinking. This is probably the way many have experienced Søren Kierkegaard. He is highly respected for his work, and he is regarded as a good source for quotations to be applied in many situations. Thus his name may show up in speeches and greetings all over the world, on almost all kinds of occasions, and he is, of course, very well known, both among scholars and others. However, this is probably also his writings’ destiny: simply to be an endless source of words of wisdom and wit to be applied on both festive and solemn occasions. With some very important exceptions, Kierkegaard now is only mentioned en passant even among scholars, preferably in a footnote that focuses on his shortcomings. Even Theodor W. Adorno, who actually represents one of the important exceptions, did not fully accept the “religious turn” (Waggoner, 2005). Kierkegaard was regularly evoked in German thinking between the two world wars. And Adorno’s counterpart, Martin Heidegger, who is often recognized as one of those who really were highly inspired by Kierkegaard, is the most striking example of someone who only mentions Kierkegaard in a footnote that focuses primarily on his limitations. To build up a full understanding of Kierkegaard’s work is probably an impossible task. Yet after having explored the role of psychology, specifically psychologia empirica in German thinking in the eighteenth century, some new perspectives appeared to me. The understanding of psychology in that century has some similarities to our present understanding of psychology, but it is also radically different. Yet there xiv

Preface

is a continuous line between the two centuries in the sense that they represent the two ends of the historical development of psychology as a science. Thus a “contemporaneous perspective” on Kierkegaard’s psychology came up as a clue to pursue a fuller understanding of Kierkegaard. So this book is not primarily about the psychology of today, but it is hopefully something the reader will recognize as a background for the psychology of today. Yet this background is not restricted to Kierkegaard’s private psychological struggles, and his relationship with his fiancée, Regine Olsen, is not an issue in this book, nor is his relationship and contributions to theology and philosophy. It is primarily about Kierkegaard’s understanding of the role of psychology, specifically psychologia empirica as a basis for his philosophy, theology, and life. The role of psychology in early modernity has been greatly ignored and to a negligent degree, if I may say so. There are several reasons for this. One is definitely Immanuel Kant. The fact that he banished psychology from the good company of the sciences had an immediate and immense impact on the destiny of psychology. We are still struggling with this part of our inheritance from Kant. It is still hard to decide if psychology is to be regarded as an exact science or not, and in this respect Kierkegaard represents a counterpoint to Kant. In opposition to him, Kierkegaard did not aim at restoring objectivity after the fall of metaphysics. He wanted rather to pursue the reasons for its fall, which was first of all subjectivity, which had been actually introduced by psychologia empirica. This is why psychology became so important for Kierkegaard, and this is also why Kierkegaard’s discussions on psychology are still so important today. He is surprisingly clear when it comes to this: psychology contradicts the other sciences completely in the sense that it is about subjectivity, whereas the other sciences are not; and psychology permeates Kierkegaard’s whole authorship. Several of his books deal with psychology more explicitly, and these are Repetition, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life’s Way, and The Sickness Unto Death. Thus this study primarily focuses on these four books. Although this study is a monograph, there are several people and institutions that have contributed to make this real. The person that deserves most attention in this respect is the editor of this series, Prof. Jaan Valsiner. He not only invited me to write this book, but he also opened up the gates to an unforgettable sabbatical year at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA (2010/2011), during which the draft of this book was written. In this respect, I would also like to thank xv

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology

the staff at Goddard Library, Giuseppina Marsico, Nikita A. Kharlamov, Kenneth R. Cabell, Craig Gruber, Kirill Maslov, Martin Dege, Johanna Vollhardt, Roger Bibace, Marianne Wiser, Virginia Swain, and Liu Bangchun, for their encouraging support during this phase of the work. I would also like to thank my own institution, the Department of Psychology at NTNU, which has made this project feasible, and my good colleagues Torbjørn Rundmo, Dankert Vedeler, Richard Allapack, Vegar Jordanger, Samar Albarghouthi, Arne Vikan, Berit Johannessen, Bente Berg, and Ivar Bjørgen, who have all contributed immensely by taking part in discussions on historical and theoretical issues. I will also thank Alastair Hannay for encouraging discussions. Yet the person that has made this book readable is Paddy Mahony, to whom I am deeply indebted. And a similar, if not greater, debt is owed to my wife, Jorid, who has selflessly allowed this project the highest priority over the last couple of years. Trondheim December 4, 2012

xvi

I Kierkegaard and Experimental Psychology Kierkegaard has always been of interest to psychologists, and some would say that he contributed to modern psychology long before modern psychology was even established. However, many probably have not recognized the fact that the term “psychology” appears in different forms in the subtitles in several of his publications and that Kierkegaard was, in truth, quite conscious of the psychological content of his authorship. The most fundamental question to pose, therefore, concerns the content of his psychology. What is it about, and does the term have any relevance to the psychology we describe today in the early years of the twenty-first century? The only way to answer these questions is to go back to the books that explicitly state to be about psychology, of which there are four, representing different stages in his authorship from the eighteen-forties. We can trace the first publication of this nature to 1843. This was the first year Kierkegaard was published, but it was also the most productive year of his life. The book of interest from this year is Repetition, with the subtitle An Essay in Experimental Psychology (Kierkegaard, 2009a) or A Venture in Experimenting Psychology (Kierkegaard, 1983). The original Danish title lies somewhere in between the two translations, and literally it would have been something like “An Experiment in the Experimenting Psychology” (“Et forsøg i den experimenterende Psychologi”) or “An Experiment in Experimental Psychology” (Tang, 2002, p. 93). Just two years after his thesis on Socratic irony, a touch of irony is also perceptible in this subtitle, and that is probably the reason why this text is not taken as a significant contribution to the field of psychology or included in the history of experimental psychology. Kierkegaard wrote even more books about psychology, and the one that has been taken much more seriously by psychologists is The Concept of Anxiety (1844). This book carries a subtitle, which 1

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology

translated into English is presented as A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin (Kierkegaard, 1980a). This translation reveals the probable reason why the subtitle has been ignored, but the original in Danish is not so illuminating either. The year after saw Stages on Life’s Way, and the subtitle of the third part—Guilty/Not Guilty—is probably even clearer than the title itself: A Passion Narrative, a Psychological Experiment by Frater Taciturnus (Kierkegaard, 1945), or, in a more recent translation, A Story of a Suffering, an Imaginary Psychological Construction by Frater Taciturnus (Kierkegaard, 1988). The final publication, The Sickness unto Death from 1849, is probably also understandable; its subtitle is A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening (Kierkegaard, 1980b), although this is a formulation that likely would not have been applied today. In this section, I will go through these books with a certain perspective in mind, and psychology will be the main subject. The term “psychology,” however, is not very clear. This is explicitly demonstrated by the major study of 1972 by the Danish Kierkegaard expert Kresten Nordentoft (Nordentoft, 1972). This most thorough analysis is entitled Kierkegaard’s Psychology, but “psychology” is here narrowly restricted to psychoanalysis. In this respect, however, the study is highly recommended, but it was definitely not psychoanalysis that Kierkegaard was referring to fifty years before the term was coined. Thus the objective of this work is to take a historical approach. It seems that psychology was a more open question at the time Kierkegaard lived, and it is also astonishing that Kierkegaard would even refer to a form of “experimental psychology,” which brings the associations to mainstream psychology of today. To put him in that category would of course be a failure, but he has used the term, although some translators have tried to avoid it, and that is exactly what evoked my curiosity—how and why did Kierkegaard do that?

2

1 Repetition (1843): A Core Text To give an adequate overview of the small work Repetition is not that easy. Because of many digressions, it is so easy to get lost in all the details. The digressions, however, do not represent weaknesses of the book; rather they must be considered as some of its strengths. Thus those who have gotten confused by this text often find themselves in a rather enjoyable situation. The reason is quite simply that the book is intended to be enjoyable, and it can be enjoyed in all its devious and unpredictable devices because of its ironic undertone. When one thing is said and something else is communicated, the real meaning becomes an open question. Two contradictory statements presented at the same time call for a choice. This requires strategies for interpretation, and the strategy that will be followed here is to go into Repetition for the purpose of finding out if it can lead us into Kierkegaard’s understanding of what psychology is about. As a first step in this process, it would of course be of value merely to get an overview of the book from this perspective. The easiest start is to look at its overall organization or its abstract form. Although this may appear as unclear and even unsatisfying at first sight, it is definitely not as loose as it initially seems to be. In musical terms, it would probably be appropriate to state that it follows the ABA form but ends with a huge coda. This implies that it starts with a presentation of the main subject, namely the author’s curiosity about an understanding of the term “repetition.” But he moves on very quickly into another story, which is about a strange, depressive young man he accidentally met and ended up taking care of. This story, however, is effectively a digression from the objective of the book, which is to investigate the content of the term “repetition.” So the author returns to the main topic before he follows up and fulfills his own plans for an investigation of the term. This is the total content of the first A, which therefore also can be divided into a sub-tripartite form: a-b-a. 3

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology

The second part, the major B, is about the author Constantin Constantius’s arrival and stay in Berlin. The experiment is implemented and fulfilled in this section, and this is the main part, both in regard to content and form. Although this calculation depends on the particular edition of the book, the B part accounts for about thirty pages, whereas the first A accounts for about twenty pages, yet the final A accounts for only around ten pages. The coda, however, contains a series of letters from the young depressive man, signed “Your Nameless Friend” and addressed to “My Silent Confidant!” Seen from a musical point of view, the overall form coincides very much with the organization of music from the same time. The overall tripartite form dominated (Rosen, 1988), and the balance between them was exactly as above. The first A had to be longer than the final A, and the middle became huge and dominating, throughout the nineteenth century. This tendency started with Beethoven, and his music was also dominated by presenting two contrasting themes in the first A, followed by reinforcing the conflict, then bringing reconciliation in the central B (developmental section). Even the coda was of huge dimensions, especially after Beethoven. In other words, this text of Kierkegaard is not only enjoyable because of its content, but probably even more so because of its eloquent composition in form. To mention music here is not an incident of digression. It is brought in for strategic purposes. The formal analysis of music is a consequence of the problems in translating its content into words. Despite the fact that it is almost impossible to say what a piece of music is about, we enjoy it anyway, not at least because of its form. We probably are in the same situation when it comes to Repetition. The text is too complex to see very clearly what it is about. Consequently, the many attempts to understand it really have many different directions. Some say it is a novel but also a meta-novel, in the sense that it is about literature as well (Dalton, 2001). Some would say it is about philosophy (Mooney, 2009), and others would say it is about existential-theological problems (Lindhardt, 2001). Not so many, but at least one (Tang, 2002), would say it is about experimental psychology. Yet the author of Repetition insists that this is exactly what it concerns. These almost contradictory perspectives and statements of what this book is about make it necessary to find common ground. The overall form is such a ground, and this ABA-coda form tells us that the book is organized in a rational and symmetric order, although with some dramatic effects provided by the enlarged B and coda sections. 4

Repetition (1843)

So if we should dare to go into the content, we have to be cautious and take just one step at a time. The formal analysis will probably help us here. The first A section was divided into a tripartite a-b-a form, which was derived from the disposition of the content. Thus the first a was supposed to be a presentation of the main topic, namely the term “repetition.” Yet the author does not start with the term, but instead he presents the conflict between the Eleatics, who denied motion, on the one side, and Diogenes, who demonstrated the impossibility of this kind of statement, on the other (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 3). The humorous way of presenting this conflict, by referring to Diogenes’s demonstrative and silent walk as the only argument against the statement of the Eleatics, makes the opening brilliant from several perspectives. The humorous form invites the reader to take part, the striking argument presented by Diogenes signals an obvious direction of the conclusion, but the declination of motion appears as mysterious and appears as an unsolved premise for the whole text. This conflict obviously has something to do with the core term: repetition. Yet this connection is astonishing in the sense that the declination of motion is something very Platonic, first of all because Plato repeats this Eleatic argument in his dialogue Parmenides, but also because the Platonic world of the ideas has almost nothing to do with our everyday life; whereas repetition, on the other hand, is very recognizable. Anyway, this conflict between stasis and movement forms a ground for the core term “repetition,” which is presented next. A: Introductory Considerations B: The Experiment A’: Final Considerations Coda: Correspondences between Constantius and the Young Man What the Experiment Concerns Despite Diogenes’s self-evident argument, the solution of the conflict between him and the Eleatics is not that easy to discover. Even the name of the author contradicts Diogenes. “Constantin Constantius” is unavoidably associated with constancy. And that is exactly what Kierkegaard’s perspective on the term “repetition” contains. Although he admits there are changes in the world, his concern is rather focused on the opposite by saying to himself, “You can go to Berlin, since you were there once before, you could in this way learn whether repetition was possible and what it meant” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 3). 5

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology

In other words, repetition is a term that focuses on what is experienced as repeated. Thus this can be tested: if a repetition of an act is perceived as a repetition, then one can conclude that repetition exists. This is what the announced experiment concerns: namely, to see if a recollected memory can be repeated. It also sounds psychological in the sense that it is strongly related to perception and experience. Even predictability is something that Constantius adores and aims to prove. Accordingly, “repetition’s love is in truth the only happy love” (p. 3), and this stands in opposition to the unrealized hope of love, which is strongly associated with anxiety because the outcome is so unpredictable. Constanin Constantius, therefore, has much more in common with the Eleatics than Diogenes. The young, nameless man presented in part b in the first A, however, is the opposite. He is a restless soul that has fallen in love with a young, attractive girl. “He lowed with love” (p. 7), says Constantius. He admits that he “ordinarily [. . .] relates to other people merely as an observer” (p. 5). Yet in this case it appears to be impossible to maintain that position. Thus he involves himself with this person and becomes almost a part of the tragedy that gradually unfolds. This young man cannot accept that love, even the most intense love, has to be related to recollection. His understanding of this makes him regard his own love as if it is just a memory. Like an old man, the young man cites a poem by the Danish author Poul Møller: There comes a dream from the spring of my youth To my old easy chair I feel a passionate longing for you My queen with the golden hair (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 7)

To realize that love, already from the beginning, is just a memory drives him into a deep depression. Thus Constantius concludes that this man’s refusal to accept love as a memory, and that it must be so, will end up with a “terrible explosion” (p. 8), which will ruin his love, himself, and the girl. As subject of the final a in part A, Constantius returns to the term “repetition.” Although he insists that the story about the young man is also related to the term, it is simply in a negative manner. In this final a part he tells the reader how relevant the term is for “modern” philosophy, and Hegelianism is mentioned, but several other philoso6

Repetition (1843)

phers from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are also in his mind. He focuses on the term “mediation,” which in Hegelian philosophy refers to the synthesis of the thesis and the antithesis in a dialectical process. “Repetition [Gjentagelse] is a good Danish word” (p. 18), he says. By this he means that repetition is the phenomenon that unites multiplicity in the world. In other words, Constantius is, in many respects, an Eleatic himself, and he supposes that the term “repetition” would be the best argument against Diogenes. When Diogenes walked around, he also repeated his movements, whether he walked in circles or to and fro. Constantius wants to demonstrate that the Eleatics’ term “recollection” prevails in a modern form as the term “repetition”: “Repetition and recollection are the same movement, just in opposite directions” (p. 3). Without recollection or repetition “all of life dissolves into an empty meaningless noise” (p. 19). Chaos will take over if we cannot say that repetition exists, and metaphysics will vanish. So repetition is a necessary condition for our existence, he claims. With these reflections in mind, Constantius goes to Berlin. This forms the major B section of the book. Thus the experiment consists of repeating his previous journey. He finds his old lodgings, and his plan is to follow the same program as the last time he was there. The conclusion of the experiment, however, arrives very early. After having described his experiences in less than a page, his conclusion is very clear and definite: “But no! Repetition was not possible here” (p. 21). The landlord had changed by being married, and Constantius’s impressions of the city were remarkably different. The season was not the same, and salient traits from the last time did not reappear, whereas important impressions this time appeared as totally new. This conclusion is so crystal clear that Constantius almost leaves the topic and talks about a lot of other subjects instead. He is especially interested in telling us about the farces in the Königstädter Theater. He elaborates on what he thinks about this so extensively that this dominates the whole discussion. In addition, there is a lot of sense in what is said, thus there are no problems in understanding why some would say this work is primarily about the farce as a literary genre (Dalton, 2001). Even this focus on the Königstädter Theater includes an aspect of repetition. He visits the theater several times during his stay in Berlin. Yet it was certainly not this aspect he was primarily looking for: “After several days’ repetition of this, I became bitter, so tired of repetition 7

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that I decided to return home” (p. 38). What he experiences during this experiment, in other words, is that a repetition of an act is something different from the experience of the same act. He goes to the same theater day after day, but the experiences he has in the theater change profoundly. By realizing the impossibility of repetitions, he also changes his opinions about life, and by this he also changed his own perspective on the young man. Subsequently Constantius goes home to a “monotonous and uniform order” (p. 44). This return forms the final A section of the text. Then his young friend shows up again, not in person this time, but through letters. The girl now becomes the object of Constantius’s observations. Her reactions to the young man’s sudden disappearance are of certain interest to Constantius. He concludes that she acts acceptably by at first fearing something terrible has happened to the young man, but after a while her fear changes into pain. Hence the guilt for the couple’s misery is, according to Constantius, to be solely addressed to the young man. Nevertheless, he has sympathy for the young man as well, especially because the young girl has not been deceived; rather she has become a victim of the young man’s aims to live up to his own ideals. Yet there is another reason why Constantius sympathizes more and more with the young man. The young man’s situation could possibly tell him more about the content of the term “repetition.” This is exactly the nature of the coda. It opens with a silent (but ends up with a clearly articulated) acceptance of the fact that the young man represents an alternative but probably more adequate understanding of the term “repetition.” In the first letter in the coda, the young man merely attacks Constantius by stating how provocative his attitude appears to him. He wants to escape from him, but he is unable to manage to forget him. Everything reminds him of everything in the past: “My name is enough to remind me of everything” (p. 56). He realizes that, in any case, recollection is a determining factor. Hence in his second letter he attacks his destiny and compares his situation with the biblical Job, who has lost everything he had: “I need you, a man who knows how to complain loudly” (p. 59). In the third letter, the young man reveals what he is complaining about, namely being a part of the world and of existing: “How did I come to be involved in this great enterprise called actuality? [. . .] Am I not free to decide?” (p. 60). This is the core aspect of the young man’s situation: the conflict between his ideals that are universal and eternal on the one hand and, on the other, his existence in time, which makes all his experiences as some8

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thing that just passes by and disappears. Simply by being born he has lost all his relationship with the absolute and universal. Hence in the fourth letter he repeats his admiration for Job, which is followed up in the fifth letter. Here he analyzes Job’s existential situation by stating, “The whole thing is a test [prøvelse]” (p. 67). The young man goes deeper into the term “test,” which in Danish, like in English, has some connotations of the term “experiment.” Yet the relationship between the two terms is broken by a loose connotation. “Test” is, first of all, an occasion when human beings in the world meet Almighty God. That is its mythical formulation, which also introduces Job as the most typical example. Job is a man who had everything in this world but who lost it all. A philosophical translation of this situation is that Almighty God represents the universe and eternity, whereas Job’s situation represents the particular and temporal. Here is in principle an unbridgeable gap that the human being has to deal with. On the one hand, humans have a conception of the universal, but on the other hand they are determined to live their lives in the temporal, with, naturally, limited particularity. Immanence and Transcendence There are two terms that have been mentioned in this respect: “immanence” and “transcendence.” These two terms have appeared in the text from the very beginning, where Constantius defines repetition in terms of immanence. Hence “immanence” stands for the generic aspects of life, which include stability and predictability. “Transcendence,” on the other hand, stands for the opposite: instability and unpredictability. The term “test” is solely related to the latter: “This category—test—is [. . .] completely transcendent” (p. 68). The fundamental question in this text is how to understand the term “repetition” in the perspective of immanence versus transcendence. The answer appears in the next letter from the young man, the sixth, dated January 13. After Job had gone through all his trials, he became restored: “Job is again blessed ‘and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.’ That is what I call a repetition” (p. 69). In other words, repetition for the human being has no connection with the appearance of the same, which is immanence. It is, in fact, the opposite. Repetition too includes changes and therefore is primarily connected with transcendence. This is what Constantius has to admit after having done the experiment. Just before he gives the word to the young man by presenting the young man’s letters, he anticipates the young man’s 9

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main thesis: “Repetition, on the other hand, is transcendence” (p. 50). At this stage of his investigation, Constantius thinks that repetition is strongly connected with movement, and this is why he uses the term “on the other hand.” In this context he is discussing contemporary philosophy, which principally refers to Hegel. His point is that Hegelian philosophy pretends to take movement into account by apparently describing a process by the terms “thesis,” “antithesis,” and “mediation.” If, however, the world is so predictable that everything can be described through these terms, then they do not grasp the process in which our lives unfold, but only its stable parts. They do not include transcendence, simply immanence. So the young man is waiting for a remarkable change. This is what he calls a “thunderstorm” in the seventh letter, dated February 17. Yet this term is at the same time related to repetition: “I wait for a thunderstorm—and for a repetition” (p. 70). Despite the fact that Constantius admits that repetition has to be something other than monotony and predictability, he considers the young man with indulgence. Hence there is a lengthy comment addressed to the reader, which is placed just before the eighth and final letter from the young man. Constantius feels sorry for the young girl, who must have experienced so much pain on account of the effectively theatrical behaviour of the young man. One thing is to have discovered something important, but another is to let other people suffer for it. The young man explains his character by the fact that he is a poet, and a “poet is born to be a fool for girls” (p. 72). In the final letter, he also regrets that the girl has suffered because of him. Yet what is mainly depicted in this letter is that the girl is married to another and that the young man has returned to a kind of departure point: “I am back to my old self. This is repetition.” (p. 74). It is possible to make a comparison with Job, but this is not ideal. Job experiences his trials and gets twice his worldly wealth back, whereas the turmoil the young man has gone through has nothing to do with wealth. It is spiritual, which also implies a stronger relationship to the other sides of the repetitive aspects of Job’s trials. Neither Job nor the young man has to start from the beginning, but they both grow because of their experiences. The young man learns something valuable, and he will probably never start up a new affair with another young girl merely to confess that his considerations were right; rather, he expresses the opposite. He has overcome his depression, and he praises the situation: “Long live the wave that slings me up again over the stars” (p. 75). 10

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The Universal and the Particular Once more Constantius finds it appropriate to address himself directly to the reader to finish off this section. He still treats the young man with indulgence, but he points out some important points the young man has made him aware of. First of all, the young man has served as an example of something. He has demonstrated how dramatic conflict really is. This conflict is not between people, like that between the girl and the young man, or even that between the young man and Constantius. The conflict is between the universal and the particular. Constantius is afraid that even the reader might ignore how crucial and central this conflict is in this book. The particular, however, is termed as the exception in this text, just to enforce the dramatic effect of this conflict. The reason is quite simple. What counts in a discussion is the general validity of a statement: the more general it is, the better. This allows Constantius to acknowledge that “one tires of the interminable chatter about the universal and the universal, which is repeated until it becomes boring and vapid” (p. 78). The young man has taught him that there are exceptions. Thus the challenge is not to explain the universal but the exceptions. “If one cannot explain [the exceptions], then neither can one explain the universal” (p. 78). His point is to underline that the universal is just as big a mystery and astonishing phenomenon as is the exception, in this case represented by the young man. “One generally fails to notice this, because one does not normally grasp the universal passionately, only superficially. The exception, on the other hand, grasps the universal with intense passion” (p. 78). This formulation is primarily dialectical and, in that sense, also slightly ambiguous. Yet the point is just to underline how dramatic the situation is for the human being, who is drawn between knowledge of the universal on the one hand and situated in particularity on the other. This is not only the destiny for the poet but for human beings in general. So what has all of this to do with psychology? There are certainly no easy answers to this question. Nevertheless, there are some clues that request to be pursued. First of all, one must say that we have been presented with a profound psychological drama in the sense that the young man goes through considerable conflicts in his life. Yet the drama that he experiences probably does not have an immediate appeal to a person of today. It is hard to grasp the ideals he is following and even 11

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harder to understand why these ideals oblige him to break up with the girl. Some premises for understanding this drama are obviously missing, so it would probably be more advantageous to start in another corner. This could possibly be the experimental aspect of the story. Indeed, Constantius presents a hypothesis he wants to test: “Repetition exists.” This hypothesis is operationalized in terms of certain initial conditions: “by repeating a certain act, the act will also be experienced as a repetition,” and it is tested out by repeating a journey to Berlin. The hypothesis is even falsified, and it could therefore be called H0. The initial condition implies that this is a psychological experiment in the sense that focus is not on the physical aspects of the repetition but on the experience of it—and self-reported narratives in the text present the data. Nevertheless, even this perspective seems to be leading to a dead end. First of all, it seems to conclude with certain self-contradictory aspects. Setting up hypotheses normally implies an understanding of the world that presupposes its predictability, whereas the conclusions in this short work point directly to an opposite conclusion—that the world is not predictable. This is probably telling us a lot about the aim of this book. The whole story presents a critique against the position Constantius introduces at the beginning. He suggests that the world is predictable and that this fact is reflected in the term “repetition.” Thus to call this work an “essay in experimental psychology” (as Kierkegaard does in its title) sounds reasonable in the sense that events in the world have to be predictable when experimental research is to be carried out. Tang emphasizes the fact that not only in this book, but also in Northern Europe in the first part of the nineteenth century, “the concept of repetition goes hand in hand with that of experiment” (Tang, 2002, p. 95). He is also referring to Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–1779), who in his book that pretends to be an introduction to all kind of sciences (Sulzer, 1786) defines empirical psychology as “the psychology of experimental physics” (“Psychologie die Experimental-Physik”) (Tang, 2002, p. 95). This implies that psychology as a science was regarded as being highly related to physics and the natural sciences. In nature there are some events that certainly repeat themselves in a very predictable way, such as the transition from day to night, the lunar cycles, and the year’s seasons, for example. In this sense, Constantius’s argument seems to have support from our daily experiences. Thus focusing on the term “repetition” indicates some of the core issues in the text. But the universal aspects of the physical nature are one thing; our experiences of them, on the other 12

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hand, are something quite different. Thus one thing that Kierkegaard certainly wants to inform us of in this text is that psychology is about our immediate experiences of the world. There is, however, another feature that also has to be taken into account, and that is precisely about the world out there, which may stand in direct opposition to how it is experienced. What Kierkegaard is focusing on in this text is the protagonist’s expectations of what aspects the term “repetition” may imply. Two of these are certainly stability and predictability. In other words, the drama Constantius goes through by means of his journey to Berlin and his dialogue with the young man is firstly that there are two aspects of the term that are contradictory and do not succumb to any kind of reconciliation. On the one hand is the idea of the universal and stable aspects, and on the other, the immediate experience of events that occur in the world. According to this text, psychology can tell us something about the latter, whereas the former aspect seems to go well beyond the field of psychology. Thus the text explicitly focuses on the experiences undergone by both Constantius and the young man, and it highlights their own experiences of the term “repetition.” To what extent psychology can tell us something about universals is partly an open question; however, the story tend to argue strongly for the fact that it cannot.

13

2 The Concept of Anxiety (1844) Pursuing the term “psychology” chronologically through Kierkegaard’s published titles may lead us to quite unexpected results. One such unpredictable aspect of this arises from the method applied in this present investigation. Starting from a formal perspective was necessary in approaching a text that appeared to be more united by digressions in all directions than any other obvious unifying feature. This resulted in some form of understanding, which, however, is certainly not comprehensive when it comes to all the layers that may be revealed in Repetition. On the other hand, we must admit that the ambiguity in this term “repetition” intuitively seems to have much to do with the nature of psychology itself—such that if Kierkegaard’s “psychology” primarily refers to the relationship between experiences and their representations, the term seems to fit very well with a conceptualization of what psychology is seen to be about today. This forms at least a point of departure for the next investigation, for The Concept of Anxiety must be regarded as a totally different text. It was written under the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis, normally translated as “the watchman of Copenhagen” (Dunning, 1985, p. 11), and he is definitely a different kind of narrator than Constantin Constantius. The latter tells a story with a twinkle in his eye, whereas Haufniensis presents a thorough and severe thesis. Yet the two books have several aspects in common: first of all, the references to psychology in the subtitles, but even more interesting is the fact that Haufniensis presents several references to both the book Repetition itself and how it was received. Thus the creator of both books, namely Kierkegaard himself, probably intended to form a connection between the two works. If this is so, the suggestion that “psychology” can be a fruitful clue to pursue is somewhat enforced. A minor aspect that may point us in the same direction is the fact that The Concept of Anxiety is dedicated to Poul Martin Møller, the author of the poem the young man cites in Repetition to illustrate his feelings about his real love. 15

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When Metaphysics Becomes Stranded So what is The Concept of Anxiety about? Although the introductory formulation in the introduction is rather cryptic, Haufniensis is quite clear and leaves no doubt. This book is primarily about the psychological aspects of all the theological and existential issues it aims to pursue, which we will eventually come to. And it doesn’t stop there: supplementary information is equally as important. The premise is that psychology as a science certainly does have its limits, such that when the borders are crossed, dogmatics, theology, and metaphysics have to take over. The sense in which the subject of our deliberation is a task of psychological interest and the sense in which, after having been the task and interest of psychology, it points directly to dogmatics. (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 9)

This is how the text begins, and it is also how it ends, for a simpler version of the same statement is formulated as the last sentence of the complete work: “Here this deliberation ends, where it began. As soon as psychology has finished with anxiety, it is to be delivered to dogmatics” (p. 162). Despite the fact that a large majority of commentators on this book have focused on its theological aspects, the author very clearly states that this is not what the book is primarily about. This does not indicate that the book is not relevant to theologians. On the contrary, the book continually refers to the theological aspects of “hereditary sin”; i.e., original sin. Yet this is just an aspect the text has in mind, which does not necessary imply that this is its prime purpose: “The book has set as its task the psychological treatment of the concept of ‘anxiety’ but in such a way that it constantly keeps in mente [in mind] and before its eye the dogma of hereditary sin” (p. 14). Why theologians have overruled this precision and read the book almost solely as a contribution to theology is inexplicable, other than by realizing and accepting how dependent modern theology has become on psychology. The content of the term “psychology” in this particular context is still an open question, but obviously the author of this book has in mind enlightening us somewhat about the very same. First of all, the author regards psychology as a science. This is a notion taken as an unquestionable truth, and it appears in the introductory sentence of the thesis. What is more important for the author, however, is to discuss its limits. Yet this is a general question that concerns all sciences: one has to define where a science starts and where it ends, 16

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as also one must define which science has to take over when the first ends, and so on. Anyway, when something is regarded from a psychological perspective, it is necessarily an object for observation. This is similarly true when it comes to sin as a phenomenon. “If sin is dealt with in psychology, the mood becomes that of persistent observation” (p. 15). The author does not exhaustively follow this up, however, first of all because Kierkegaard has some problems with the observational attitude in general. This was a position shared by Constantius, who had to revise this approach, and through this change he demonstrated very well the double meaning of observation. On the one hand, the term refers to the observer’s participation in a situation, but on the other, it implies that there is a distance between the observer and that very situation. There is an almost unavoidable element of subjectivity in observation, such that the observer has to include his or her own perspective when something is being observed, but there is a tendency to more or less ignore the private character of the observation and instead stress that it includes some element of objectivity. The subjective aspect is a necessary condition for making observations, whereas objectivity is not. Objectivity is rather a contingent compensatory strategy in an attempt to diminish the subjective aspect of observation. In this respect one of the few books in psychology the author refers to is by Karl Rosenkranz, published in 1837, which goes by the title Psychology, or the Science of the Subjective Spirit (Rosenkranz, 1843). This is a book the author does not only refer to; he also recommends it highly, and he even presupposes that the reader should know about it (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 147f ). If this is so, specifically that psychology is the science of subjectivity, one can imagine how important psychology must be for Kierkegaard. He is the philosopher of subjectivity, and few philosophers, if any, have focused as much on subjectivity as he has. Yet so far nothing has been said here about the content, neither with respect to psychology nor to subjectivity. There is a hope to the reader, however, that Kierkegaard’s book on anxiety will at least reveal some kind of framework for how the two terms are to be understood. One of the more illuminating comments in this respect is presented in the introduction, as a footnote. This refers both to Fear and Trembling and Repetition. The former says something about sin, the latter about psychology and subjectivity. These terms are linked together in this comment, and the linkage between them is a third term, namely “interest.” In Repetition, however, this aspect of interest is also applied 17

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to another category of science, namely metaphysics. This is exactly what makes this book so witty—specifically that something belonging to one science is applied to another where it does not belong. Although this does not concern the term “repetition” in itself, the problems start when it becomes related to interests. “Repetition is the interest of metaphysics, and also the interest upon which metaphysics comes to grief ” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 18). This is even a quotation from Repetition, in which another translation is also closer to the original because it uses the formulation “the interest upon which the metaphysics becomes stranded” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 19). This is exactly the intended message: that metaphysics contradicts and undermines itself as soon as interests are involved. Interests are connected to subjectivity— the acting individual—whereas metaphysics is about universals and objectivity. In this sense Repetition does not tell us anything about the relationship between psychology and metaphysics, just that they are different and that there are some dilemmas connected to the relationship between them. Yet it tells us also that if the dilemmas are not cleared up and the two fields are confused, the situation may very soon appear as humorous. The Psychological Perspective One hidden formulation at the end of the introduction to The Concept of Anxiety probably says a lot about Kierkegaard’s understanding of psychology: “This science, which indeed more than any other is allowed almost to intoxicate itself in the foaming multifariousness of life” (p. 23). This formulation is effectively cryptic; however, it is a part of a longer sentence, which is primarily a polemical attack on how badly psychology is understood by the author’s contemporaries. Thus the quoted part reveals how psychology should be understood. In other words, psychology is about a multifold life unfolded over time. Yet the quotation says something more. It points to a life full of unbounded experiences in terms of lust, drives, and euphoric richness. Psychology does not focus on ethical principles; it does not focus on principles at all. It is rather oriented toward the manifold particularity unfolded over time, which is the individual’s life itself. This is why the author very often refers to the limits of psychology, especially when we come to one of the main topics of the book, namely sin. This topic has almost nothing to do with psychology, because it is primarily an ethical category, and psychology is outside ethical considerations. These considerations are much more grounded in metaphysics 18

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and dogmatics, which both deal with universal and eternal principles. This stands in contrast to psychology, and both ethics and the term “sin” must be placed somewhere in between. This placement of the term “sin” is the core issue in this investigation by Haufniensis, and therefore he has to deal with all the specters of sciences, especially those that form the extremes, namely psychology and dogmatics. “Psychology has been called the doctrine of the subjective spirit. If this is pursued more accurately, it will become apparent how psychology, when it comes to the issue of sin, must first pass over into the doctrine of the absolute spirit” (p. 23). The subjective spirit, in other words, contrasts with the absolute spirit, and the former is about the individual’s mental life, whereas the latter is about the universal God and creator of this world. Sin is necessarily related to both parts and cannot be explained by psychology alone. All the terms Haufniensis investigates in this thesis are regarded in the light of these extremes. On the one hand, they are relevant to discuss from a psychological point of view, but on the other hand, they may have nothing to do with psychology. “If sin is dealt with in psychology, the mood becomes that of persistent observation, like the fearlessness of a secret agent, but not that of a victorious flight of earnestness out of sin” (p. 15). Therefore there is a comical conflict. It is the same with the term “anxiety”; it is partly an object for psychological observations, but it is not explained adequately by psychology. Psychology cannot treat these aspects with the kind of respect the terms require. In this sense psychology has something in common with aesthetics. “Thus when sin is brought into esthetics [sic], the mood become either light-minded or melancholic” (p. 14). Aesthetics also focuses on the experiences of sin, which are either “comic or tragic” (p. 14). Thus neither psychology nor aesthetics can treat the terms seriously enough, and they both concentrate on experiential aspects. There are no reasons to go deeper into the connection between psychology and aesthetics; it is best just to leave them and conclude that they are related in the sense that they both deal with certain aspects of experience. The author even applies the term “esthetic-psychological treatment” in one place (p. 73). This study of this section, however, will have psychology as its focus, despite the fact that “aesthetic” is a very important term in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. Both psychology and aesthetics contrast highly with the sciences that deal with generic universals, such as dogmatics and metaphysics. These regard everything from an eternal perspective, which implies that dogmatics and 19

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metaphysics can probably say something about the origin of both sin and anxiety, but they appear to be incapable of depicting the way they are experienced. The Moment As mentioned earlier, generic sciences such as dogmatics and metaphysics are challenged by the fact that there is a subject given in its particularity, which more or less demolishes them (or is at least something they are threatened by). This is the message in Repetition. This problem is fundamental, and it also concerns psychology. If psychology is the science of subjectivity, it is at the same time the science of the individual self. Nonetheless, to define the individual self in scientific terms appears as a modus operandi full of self-contradictions. The reason is quite simple: expressing something in scientific terms implies being general. “No science can say what the self is without again stating it quite generally” (p. 78). This is not a question of which scientific method is applied. This is a consequence of how language works: the concepts we use are generic and therefore unable to catch the specificity in the individual self. “The point about the particular is precisely its negative relation to the universal and its repellent relation to it. But as soon as a person thinks the particular away it is cancelled, and as soon as it is thought, it is altered” (p. 78f ). Hence it is not only quantitative research in psychology that faces problems with generalizations; as long as a situation is thought about and formulated in concepts, the situation is transformed into something general. This was regarded as a generally accepted truth, but it is also a fundamental premise for traditional logical inferences. Hegel’s dialectics were very much based on this aspect of logic and the antagonistic relationship between the concept and its reference, which is the same distinction as between the universal and particular. “The point about the particular is precisely its negative relation to the universal and its repellent relation to it” (p. 78). This was more or less taken as a presupposition. What Kierkegaard criticizes Hegel—but also Schelling—for is that they do not take this antagonistic relationship between the particular and universal seriously enough. If the historical development of the world is described in terms of the triadic movement, there is no development, simply immanent repetition. The fundamental problem here is that Hegel is applying logic to an area in which it (i.e., the logic) is alien. The dynamic processes in the actual do not belong to logic, which is static. The result is once again humorous: 20

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If anyone would take the trouble to collect and put together all the strange pixies and goblins who like busy clerks bring about movement in Hegelian logic [. . .], a later age would perhaps be surprised to see that what are regarded as discarded witticisms once played an important role in logic, [. . .] which made Hegel’s logic something of a miracle and gave logical thought feet to move on, without anyone’s being able to observe them. (p. 12)

Yet the objection to Hegel is not that he brings in the aspect of movement, but that he does not place it correctly; he places it in logic instead of in the actual. By this displacement, movement in the world is, naturally, not conceptualized properly, and of course we cannot see the feet that logic is supposed to be moved by. It is from this perspective that Haufniensis brings in the term “moment.” It is a term that reflects both the temporal and the eternal, but it is primarily connected to transition. It is of importance that the author is referring to Plato and his dialogue Parmenides. In this respect, the term is also very much related to the one versus the many (p. 83). This implies that the moment is not only connected to time, but also to space. To illustrate how the author conceptualizes the term “moment,” he makes a point of the fact that Plato in his discussion of the same term ends up with the Greek word ατοπον, which signifies “that which has no place” (p. 83). The Greek word ατοπον “lies between motion and rest without occupying any time, and into this and out from this that which is in motion changes into rest, and that which is at rest changes into motion. Thus the moment becomes the category of transition” (p. 83). The point is that this transition is grounded in neither the temporal nor the eternal but is even more the encounter point for the two extremes. Thus to live in the moment does not imply enjoyment of every second of one’s lifespan. It rather represents a glimpse of eternity in time. Since man is a “synthesis of the temporal and the eternal” (p. 85), the moment becomes very important, because it is one of the few places a person can be aware of his or her own contradictory condition for living. It is not the time but eternity that becomes present through the moment. However, it is also through this fact that the moment is the atom of the eternity—that man becomes sufficiently aware of sensuousness and temporality in life (p. 84). Posing the temporal and eternal as two extremes that have almost nothing in common, except in the human mind, which takes part in both of them, is the only explanation for movement and transition in the world. 21

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This is why psychology becomes so important to the author: not because it is able to explain very much about this situation, but rather the opposite. The author very often stresses that psychology is unable to explain anything about this. Rather, psychology is the only science that thematizes man’s experiences of being a part of existence’s two extremes. It is important to underline, though, that psychology does not challenge metaphysics and dogmatics as long as they are separated. Yet if that is done properly, which is one of the core aims of the work of Haufniensis, psychology is regarded as depending on them. Thus the opposite also must be true, namely that both metaphysics and dogmatics also depend on psychology. This is revealed on two levels. The first is by the fact that it is sensuousness and temporality that confirm eternity, and the second is that both metaphysics and dogmatics are sciences developed by human beings. Hereditary Sin from a Psychological Perspective The author is very clear when it comes to hereditary sin and psychology. They have, as a point of fact, nothing to do with each other. Psychology does not represent the science in which hereditary sin can be explained. “As psychology now becomes deeply absorbed in the possibility of sin, it is unwittingly in the service of another science that only waits for it to finish so that it can begin and assist psychology to the explanation. [. . .] This science is dogmatics” (p. 23). Hereditary sin cannot be explained by observing the subjective spirit, only by focusing on the absolute spirit, which is, of course, not at hand for observation in the same manner. When the author then goes through the different aspects of hereditary sin, psychology is totally absent. It refers much more to what is and what is not thinkable instead of actual situations. Yet dogmatics implies a lot of problems and challenges in this respect, and theologians have been commenting on these for centuries. Yet the author is much more concerned with the contributions of his contemporaries than what has been said earlier. In this respect, dogmatics seems to have been involved in popular and mythical understandings of more pedagogical purposes. Thus, the author’s project is the same here as when it comes to psychology: to say something about what dogmatics is or is not about. Although the aim of this presentation is outside the discussion of Kierkegaard’s dogmatics, it will, in any case, enlighten our understanding of his psychology to touch on just one aspect of his approach to dogmatics, which is when he considers it as conceptualized, in a way, when it goes beyond its own borders. This 22

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violation is revealed on two levels: when dogmatics becomes mythical and when it becomes psychological. The mythical understanding of hereditary sin is connected with the mythical figure Adam. By focusing on this historical figure as an individual that has sinned—once and for all—as an explanation for how hereditary sin came into the world, is not only unbelievable, but also against all sound logical thinking. If he was without sin from the beginning, he is so different from the human race that he must stand outside it. One who stands outside the human race can never be a cause for something that appears in the human race. The author/narrator has a lot of fun with this fantastic figure of Adam, and he generates even more fantastic explanations of the sin. “Pious feeling and fantasy got what they demanded, a godly prelude, but thought got nothing” (p. 25). Placing Adam and the explanation of hereditary sin outside historical sin will not have any clear reference to humanity. If the concept of sin still prevails, it is not by necessity, but by coincidence. This implies that it is up to a coincidentally given individual to take the role of an accuser, whether this person is an educated priest or not. Yet the result is that sin becomes an object for gradation relative to this person’s understanding of it, and piety is also given in accordance with the same relativity. The competition between the different confessions in Christianity is only possible because sound thinking is put on hold. “If with this in mind one reviews the different confessions, a gradation appears in which profound Protestant piety is victorious” (p. 26). What the author wants to underline is that hereditary sin has to be understood in terms of definitive principles. These are given by the fact that man is both an individual and a part of something more general, namely his species. “What is essential to human existence [is] that man is individuum and as such simultaneously himself and the whole race, and in such a way that the whole race participates in the individual and the individual in the whole race” (p. 28). This is a contradictory situation for the individual, but it does not mean that the situation has to be explained in contradictory terms. Yet the only solution to this is to define different sciences that explain different aspects of this state of mankind. Dogmatics explains generic aspects, whereas psychology explains the particularities. Dogmatics explains also how dramatic this situation is in generic terms, and it is in this respect that hereditary sin becomes a part of dogmatics. This science is an ideal science and stands in contrast to psychology by representing ideal requirements, which the individual in his particularity is not able to meet. Thus hereditary sin is 23

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not related to certain acts that have once taken place in the particular, but to a very special situation that humanity exists in. This situation is not particular, but general. This is why we will find the explanation for the situation in dogmatics and not in psychology. Nevertheless it is easy to bring in psychology in an attempt to explain the situation. The reason is that psychology is already a part of the situation. Thus Haufniensis refers to one of them himself, namely the Swiss theologian Leonard Usteri (1799–1833), who attempted to explain the Fall of Man in psychological terms. “Usteri’s explanation is to the effect that it was the prohibition itself not to eat of the tree of knowledge that gave birth to the sin of Adam” (p. 39). Haufniensis’s objection to this explanation is that it is not psychological. It brings in the term concupiscentia, which is evoked by the prohibition. This term refers partly to a desire, but the desire is understood theologically in the sense that it is something given as a part of hereditary sin, but as “a determinant of guilt and sin antecedent to guilt and sin, and yet it is not guilt and sin, that is, introduced by it” (p. 40). This objection shows how subtle the distinction can be. In other places the author himself talks about “psychological concupiscence” (p. 20). Yet it is because concupiscentia is a theological term, and by this brings in a general aspect of inordinate desire, which makes it not an appropriate psychological term. If “drive” or “desire,” on the other hand, had been applied, they would certainly have been appropriate to psychology. One must, in addition, say that the whole thesis of Haufniensis is very much an instruction in how to analyze theological matters from a psychological point of view. Thus, Kierkegaard himself has contributed to looking at theological problems from the perspective of psychology. This is not an objection, just an attempt to say that the borderlines between these two disciplines are not easy to draw in practice, but very simple at a theoretical level. Anxiety from a Psychological Perspective When the author goes on to define the term “anxiety,” it is closely related to the term “perception.” He separates three different forms of perception due to three different mental states: “Awake, the difference of myself and my other is posited; sleeping, it is suspended; dreaming, it is an intimated nothing” (p. 41f.). This distinction is highly important, as is also the way they are formulated. In the first form, when someone is awake, there is a mental state in which consciousness can be aware of something in the world. This is perception. Perception, in other words, is defined in terms of the distinction between the other and 24

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oneself. Yet here, the term “my other” is applied, which implies that in perception the perceiver invests something of him- or herself in the other. This can be a certain perspective, but it can also be the process of integrating the perceived with already acquired representations in the mind of an individual. This is a process that makes the other a part of oneself. Yet the point of departure is still the same, namely that the one (the perceiver) is in contact with the other. The awareness of the other can be of differing clarity. It was Leibniz who systematized this in his “monadology.” The narrator does not mention Leibniz, but he is obviously aware of the philosopher (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 112). Yet there is another perspective the author wants to concentrate on by bringing in dreaming, as the state in which intimation is a factor. Yet the state of dreaming is more or less used as a metaphor to depict how intimation works in the awake state. The point is that anxiety is defined in terms of this metaphor of intimation: “Anxiety is a qualification of dreaming spirit” (p. 41). This is also why “it has its place in psychology” (p. 41). There are a couple of reasons why psychology is so necessarily related to the state of dreaming. Dreaming refers first of all to the subject, it is a highly sensory process, dreams are diffuse, and dreaming is an unpredictable sensory process. It is especially this ambiguity of dream content that relates it metaphorically to anxiety. Thus anxiety is primarily related to a state man considers him- or herself to be in, and this state is ambiguous in itself. This is hereditary sin, which is nothing less than both the universal and the particular (representing a fundamental contradiction) taking part in man. When they contradict each other, they become unclear and as good as “nothing.” No person is guilty of having brought him- or herself into this situation, but everyone feels the guilt, precisely because it is an unpleasant situation. This is the kernel of the concept of anxiety; that is, realizing that oneself exists in a contradictory situation without knowing why or how to get out of it. “What, then, is man’s relation to this ambiguous power? How does the spirit relate itself to itself and its conditionality? It relates itself as anxiety” (p. 44). Anxiety is man’s strategy to deal with this ambiguity, and it is also very powerful. “There is nothing in the world more ambiguous” (p. 43). Psychology is the science that deals with man’s experiences of anxiety, but also ambiguity in general. Thus psychology is the most important science to explain man’s experiences of this situation. Yet psychology is not able to explain why sin, as such, is a part of man’s life. The sin of the Fall is a qualitative leap, and psychology can tell us nothing about this. Psychology is not theology. On the 25

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other hand, it seems to be more debatable as to what extent theology can exist without psychology. The situation man is in is typical only of man. It is absurd to talk about sin when it comes to beasts, because they cannot observe themselves. This implies that they do not manage to conceive the conflict between the universal and the particular. As long as intimation is connected with this situation, it has nothing to do with Leibniz’s understanding of vague perceptions. According to him, this is what characterizes the beasts and all other living things (Leibniz, 1998). “Anxiety is not found in the beast, precisely because by nature the beast is not qualified as spirit” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 42). Yet there is another aspect of anxiety that makes it important to maintain this distinction. This is the concept of freedom. This is crucial but not thoroughly explored in this context. The discussion of the term is spread out and often more negatively defined. It is related to the inner content of the term, which is, like anxiety, a consequence of the situation man is in. It is exactly because man is in a contradictory situation that freedom appears as a necessity. Mankind has the option of moving between and uniting the universal and the particular in its own way. Because there are no connections between the extremes, there are no rules that tell us how to unite them. This situation opens up a limitless amount of possibilities. This is what freedom is: that possibilities are given by choices between the two extremes. Yet this freedom does not represent a preferable situation, and this is what anxiety is about. “Anxiety is defined as freedom’s disclosure to itself in possibility” (p. 111). The content of this formulation is repeated several times within the text, although more or less cryptically. The reason for the more cryptic formulations is exactly the paradoxical genesis of freedom. It is something that is given by necessity; but on the other hand, necessity, as such, is demolished by the ambiguity, which is a necessary consequence of these two contradictory aspects of existence given at the same time in man: the universal and the particular. This contradiction opens up many possibilities, and freedom is to have possibilities. Anxiety is man’s psychological reaction to all these possibilities, which are not precisely defined. All this makes the individual ambivalent to anxiety. This is why anxiety is something quite different from fear, which refers to “something definite” (p. 42). Despite the fact that anxiety also represents an unpleasant emotional state, it is not something we necessarily refuse or want to avoid. When it comes to anxiety, one may say the situation is quite the opposite. There is a kind of attraction as well. We, therefore, have 26

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an ambivalent relationship with anxiety. “Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy” (p. 42) or both “sympathetic and antipathetic” (p. 103) at the same time. Hence both desire and aversion are included in the term, and it is natural to talk about drives and feelings as central components of it. “Flee away from anxiety he cannot, for he loves it; really love it, he cannot, for he flees from it” (p. 43). In this sense the subjective and psychological aspects of anxiety are highlighted, especially by this ambivalence. Although subjectivity is almost a point of departure for this study, the narrator still makes a distinction between the subjective and the objective aspects of anxiety. “By objective anxiety we understand [. . .] the reflection of the sinfulness of the generation in the whole world” (p. 56f ). Objective anxiety, in other words, has almost nothing to do with psychology. It is about the state of sinfulness in the world, and in this sense it is to be subsumed by dogmatics (p. 58). Subjective anxiety, on the other hand, is the individual’s experiences of it, and this brings us back to psychology once more. The Demonic and Inwardness There are two terms that should be highlighted in this context, namely the demonic and inwardness (inderlighed). Both are closely related to anxiety, but from different directions. The demonic is, first of all, “anxiety about the good” (p. 118), whereas inwardness is more or less the opposite, in the sense that it refers to a deeply heartfelt openness. Yet both terms refer to a certain subjective state that man is in, and as such they are both of psychological interest. The English term “inwardness” may appear as slightly problematical in this context. It probably conceals some aspects of the original Danish term “inderlighed” that have to be taken into account. The demonic is also a key notion in Kierkegaard’s philosophy in general, so a closer look at both terms would probably be of value. The demonic, says Haufniensis, “is inclosing reserve [det indesluttede] and the unfreely disclosed” (p. 123). When he says that it is the “unfreely disclosed,” it means that this state is quite obvious when someone is in it, and that the person is unwilling to be in this situation. It is primarily characterized by silence: “Inclosing reserve is exactly muteness” (p. 124). Other negative symptoms may also occur, such as hypochondria, monomania, and capriciousness (p. 124). The author admits that the demonic can be regarded as a psychological problem (p. 123), but it refers also to something much more. It is also related to freedom, and in that sense, it 27

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touches more ontological aspects of man’s existence—for example, the good. Thus according to Haufniensis, a state has a lot of psychological implications, but it is not univocally defined as psychological. A state is, first of all, something that stands still, and in this sense “demonic” is regarded as a state from a psychological point of view. The demonic does not provide much for change and movement. Thus, when the author discusses the term, it is primarily understood psychologically. Inwardness (inderlighed), on the other hand, stands in opposition to the demonic. Whereas the latter is characterized by muteness, the former is recognized by its communicative qualities. The Danish word inderlighed is more associated with terms such as “fervor,” “sincere,” or “heartfelt.” The term is primarily connected with a certain form of understanding, in the sense that there is an understanding with empathy. It is one thing to understand words and formulations; it is quite another to apprehend the deeper meaning and the whole idea behind what is being formulated. Although inderlighed implies a certain investment and that the addressee is active in the communicative process, it is also connected to a kind of self-reflection, such that it is a reflection of one’s own role and attitude in the communicative process. This has some ethical consequences, but it is a certain state that must be characterized as being on the same level as anxiety, because inderlighed “is therefore eternity or the constituent of the eternal in man” (p. 151). In other words, this form of sincerity or empathy is a state similar to anxiety. Both states mirror certain fundamental aspects of existence given by the conflict between eternity and temporality, but inderlighed is experienced by the individual as a heartfelt openness to what this existence is about. In this respect it involves freedom, but it is primarily a psychological term, as is “demonic.” The Conception of Psychology as a Science After having gone through some aspects of this study by Haufniensis, we have certainly found some clues that can help us to apprehend how he understands psychology as a science. This is precisely what he talks about. He refers to several different sciences, and the most important of these are metaphysics, dogmatics, and psychology. In addition, he mentions ethics and logic. Yet the narrator is mainly concentrating on the borderline between dogmatics and psychology. Without going further into what dogmatics is about, it is appropriate to state that it includes theological and confessional doctrines. In short, dogmatics is about the universal and objective truths in theology. Psychology is about 28

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almost everything that is not this. It is about subjective particularity. To what extent one can talk about “truth” in this respect is normally an open question. Yet as far as the sciences are about “truths,” psychology has to be understood in the same way, namely that it is a science about subjective truths. This is, of course, a core issue in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, specifically that subjectivity represents truth in a certain sense. Yet we have seen so far that psychology is very much understood in terms of being a sort of negation of the objective sciences. This implies that psychology has to be understood as a separate science, but it must also be regarded as having a kind of dependency on the objective sciences. The content of this dependency is debatable, but it is obvious that Haufniensis has problems with defining psychology without referring all the time to dogmatics or other sciences that deal with universals. Psychology may also be about subjectivity and particularity, but it seems also to be governed by some principles that reflect both objectivity and the universal. Thus psychology may include a sort of ambiguity in this respect. There is no doubt, however, that the narrator follows up the German philosopher Karl Rosenkranz’s understanding of psychology as the science of subjectivity. In this respect, psychology is primarily about an individual’s life unfolded over time. This invites psychology to “intoxicate itself in the foaming multifariousness of life” (p. 23), which implies that psychology deals with the unpredictable multitude of events that occur within one’s life. It is the only science that deals with this, despite the fact that it aspires to be ruled by some principles and aims at predicting something, especially our feelings. The unpredictability of man is, of course, strongly connected with freedom. Despite the fact that freedom may have a religious origin, the spirit of man is not necessarily religious. Thus spirit in this respect is secular, and psychology is a science that is limited to regarding life in its secularity. Even religious experiences are restricted to being understood in a secular framework, for the explanations psychology can provide are merely secular. In this respect psychology is a science that certainly gives explanations, but they are limited to the secular aspects of life. This has certain implications when it comes to the main issue the author addresses. When anxiety is discussed from a psychological point of view, it is completely regarded from a secular perspective. The author is very clear about this, in the sense that the individual does not have to realize anything about the origin of his or her experiences of anxiety. It is sufficient for a psychological investigation to conclude 29

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that anxiety is experienced, and then to address core aspects of what this experience is about. In this sense, psychologically, anxiety is an emotional state a person is in. Yet it is not a univocal emotional state. It is both a pleasant and an unpleasant state. In other words, it mobilizes the whole spectrum of emotions, which implies that the reactions will be individual and unpredictable. In this sense, the term “anxiety” is a core term in psychology because it is to be regarded as the mother of all other emotional states, so to speak. Yet the overall category that the author is focusing on is the state of the individual, which also includes the state called “inwardness” in the translation of Thomte and Anderson (Kierkegaard, 1980a). As mentioned, this is hardly an appropriate term to be equivalent to the Danish inderlighed, which reflects the innermost parts of the self, although it represents the strength one needs in order to show empathic forms of external orientation. This is psychology on two different levels; on the one hand it focuses on the individual’s experiences of a certain state, but on the other it includes how this individual state is related to other people in a communicative process. Another aspect that relates this thesis to psychology is the role of observation. Thus far we may conclude that observation can have at least two very different meanings. One is the more distant observation, and the other is observation with empathy. The former is represented by Constantius’s scientific attitude. He even admits that this is a part of his personality, such that he prefers to observe other people at distance. In his relationship with the young man, this changes after a while. He builds up a sort of empathy, and the observation transforms gradually from distance to proximity. So when Kierkegaard gives the word to Haufniensis as “inwardness” or inderlighed, this is an aspect that has to be taken into account when it comes to science. This, however, is not limited to psychology, but to all forms of science. “That science, just as much as poetry and art, presupposes a mood in the creator as well as the observer, and that an error in the modulation is just as disturbing as the development of thought, have been entirely forgotten in our time, when inwardness has been completely forgotten” (p. 14). This “mood,” in other words, is simply “inwardness” or inderlighed (p. 14; see also the Danish version, Kierkegaard, 1997, p. 322). The reason why inwardness has to be a factor in the objective sciences is indicated in this quotation. It is because they are also related to human beings. Despite the fact that they are about universals, they are apprehended under the same conditions as man is in, because man himself formulates them. This implies that scientific observations and all other 30

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sciences require a certain attitude by the researcher, and this is the heartfelt form of empathy that is included in the term “inwardness.” There is, however, one more fundamental aspect of observation, and this aspect unites its two meanings. This is sensation. All observations are made through the senses. Yet impressions through sensations represent a synthesis of the ideal spirit and reality, mediated through the bodily senses. This implies that there is a connection between sciences in which observation is a part, on the one hand, and sexuality on the other (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 49). Nevertheless, these aspects form the two extremes of a continuum, which is held together by the term “interest.” This is what makes the author introduce what he calls “new science” (p. 18ff ). This term is not directly specified or defined, since it refers to at least two different phenomena that are closely related. One of these is psychology, which is the science that really breaks the harmony among the objective sciences by focusing on man’s orientation in reality through senses. The other, however, includes all objective sciences that cannot be totally isolated from the conditions of humanity, and a new perspective has invaded these sciences because of psychology. This also implies that interest has become an inappropriate aspect of these sciences, and psychology is the only science that can thematize and systematically deal with this inappropriateness. Psychology, in other words, is regarded as a focal point for all sciences, but it definitely has its limitations, and these are related to the fact that psychology is primarily about subjective sensations. Another recurring subject Kierkegaard focuses on in both these books is the relationship between the one and the many. This is, of course, the old philosophical controversy between the Eleatics and others, such as Heraclitus, who highlighted the multiplicity of the world. There are reasons to say that this conflict forms a point of departure for Kierkegaard’s presentations of psychology, in the sense that in Repetition this controversy is presented at its very outset, and in The Concept of Anxiety it is referred to several times, not least as a premise for his brilliant discussion of the moment as such (Kierkegaard, 1980a). What Kierkegaard does in these two books, nonetheless, is to take up this controversy seriously in discussion. This implies that he regards both positions as valid, but they refer to different spheres. It is in this respect that psychology comes in, simply to define one of these two spheres. The terms Haufniensis uses to apprehend these spheres are “immanence” versus “transcendence.” A scientific way of thinking is characterized by immanence; i.e., a logical way of reasoning. “Every 31

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science lies either in a logical immanence or in an immanence within a transcendence that it is unable to explain” (p. 50). Hence some sciences are about this immanent sphere, while others are about the transcendent sphere. Although psychology is primarily about the immanent sphere, it is also the most obvious science for apprehending the transcendent sphere, for it is the only science that addresses change and multiplicity as its subject. The reason is quite simply that in the process of perception, what happens is that one (the perceiver) is confronted with the other (the perceived). In physics and other natural sciences, both the perceiver and the perceived are also present, but the focus will be on the perceived, and there will be attempts to reduce the role of the perceiver. In other words, the natural sciences aim at obtaining oneness. These sciences present nature as if it is coherent and united, which is no part of the aspirations of psychology; it is rather oriented toward differences and the big gap that actually exists between the perceiver and the perceived. For psychology, the situation becomes really challenging when the differences between the perceiver and the perceived seem to be absent. This is why ambiguity is so central to psychology. How the perceived will be understood by the perceiver is quite unpredictable, because there are always two contradictory perspectives the perceiver may apply. One perspective is whole and united, provided by thinking, which attempts to unite everything in universals. The other is particular and fragmented, provided by immediate sense impressions. Yet in practice they are both present. This is what creates anxiety; i.e., that neither the perceiver nor anyone else knows which perspective will dominate the understanding of the next sense impression. Thus unpredictability in this sense creates ambiguity, and anxiety is more or less defined in terms of ambiguity. According to Haufniensis, psychology is actually quite happy with the role that ambiguity has in psychology, because this is what psychology is about. While psychology is not only about immediate sense impressions and their representations, it also has to deal with two perspectives that contradict each other. Even when they apparently coincide, the conflict appears as soon as the representation is mediated by terms. In this moment the impressions in particular will be transformed into generality: “when mediacy appears, in that same moment it has annulled immediacy” (p. 37). Thus ambiguity is a necessary consequence of the perceiver being related both to the particular and to the universal. 32

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So what about the psychological experiment that was announced in the subtitle in Repetition? Can that be regarded as a scientific experiment? There are also many references to experimenting in The Concept of Anxiety. The narrator states quite frankly that he is sceptical of knowledge that is solely experimental. The English translations do not apply the term “experimental,” despite the fact that this is the term used in the Danish original, but the meaning still remains in the English translation: “We have always protested against all merely imaginatively constructed knowledge” (p. 112; see also Kierkegaard, 1997, p. 414). Yet this does not mean that an experiment will not result in any knowledge. On the contrary, it is a device through which one can certainly achieve knowledge. Yet this knowledge is always abstract and taken out of context. In this respect, the author talks about “experimenting dialectics” as a procedure he applies in his discussion of the moment. In this respect, the English translation once again avoids the term “experimenting” and replaces it with the term “imaginatively constructing” (p. 83; see also Kierkegaard, 1997, p. 386). Thus the meaning of the term “experiment” is not that far from how we understand it today, yet it is a form of construing knowledge that is not very recommendable, unless it is applied to abstract matters, such as logic. It is quite illustrative how a mixture of the abstract and the concrete is regarded when the author brings in some elementary statistics, and he shows what “ridiculous abracadabra” (p. 63) it would be if that were applied to human sinfulness, for example. The point is that this might be fruitful in “purely empirical sciences,” but it becomes quite useless when it is applied to man’s existential situation, which, incidentally, is sometimes done by physicians. The narrator refers to a situation in which a patient has died, and when it comes to the next patient with a similar disease, “the physician would promise to issue a report as soon as possible, along with a tabulated statistical survey in order to determine the average” (p. 122). This polemical treatment of the experimental and statistics probably tells us that the narrator wants to make a clear distinction between sciences about the universal and sciences about the particular. Since psychology is of the latter kind, we should be cautious about bringing in methods and reasoning from sciences that have universals as their objects. Another core aspect of the scientific discourse is the role of explanations. The author/narrator frequently refers to explanations as the aim of sciences, but he treats the term quite carefully. He makes very clear the limitations of explanations in the sense that each science can only 33

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provide a certain kind of explanation. Psychology, for example, cannot say anything about why hereditary sin exists in the world. This belongs to the realms of theology. Neither can it say anything about temporality and eternity. These belong to metaphysics. On the other hand, it can say a great deal about how these theological and metaphysical aspects are experienced by man, and by this it can explain how certain feelings and behavior may arise. This is exactly what Kierkegaard does in most of his writings. In this sense, one may conclude that his objective in writing is, among many other things, to be highly psychological, even in a scientific sense.

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3 Stages on Life’s Way and Guilty/Not Guilty (1845) Kierkegaard continued producing books referring to psychology at the rate of approximately one book a year. When it comes to Stages on Life’s Way, however, it is not the book’s title that alludes to psychology. This book consists of three parts, seemingly written by three different authors, and only its third section refers explicitly to psychology—the piece written by Frater Taciturnus. This is a considerable proportion of the book, however, accounting for more than 250 pages out of 480. Stages on Life’s Way is, in fact, an immense book, indeed longer than both Repetition and The Concept of Anxiety put together. Although generally different from these two works, it has some traits in common with Repetition, not least that both can be subsumed under the term “fiction,” as the Danish literary critic Kresten Nordentoft has put forward after addressing the use of the term “experiment” (1972, p. 32ff ), which is probably a valid perspective. Yet after having seen how Haufniensis discusses the term, one may remark that “experiment,” as Kierkegaard views it, also refers to something more, and he is certainly critical of experimentation as a scientific method. And this is especially true when it comes to experimenting on man, which, in fact, psychology is about. On the other hand, it should also be clear by now that science appears to be important matter for Kierkegaard. His point is, however, that science must be clarified to be properly understood. Science operates in general terms, and if an experiment is carried out, it must also be of general value. This is why he talks about “experimenting dialectics,” which is more to be understood as a procedure for working out thought experiments. This is exactly the procedure that is applied in Repetition and repeated in Guilty/Not Guilty, and the term “thought experiment” is even used by one of the speakers in the first part of Stages on Life’s Way (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 46). 35

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There is a double sense to this book, though. On the one hand, these three most entertaining stories are told apparently separately, yet there is an underlying message that unites them. This is, first of all, related to the three different stages that became so important to Kierkegaard and what the book’s title refers to, which we have yet to go into. In this book, the content of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious stages is revealed. The term “stage,” however, will be slightly misleading if it gives the impression of implying a phase of development in a person’s life. This is not what it is about. For at the end of this work, the author talks instead about “three existence-spheres” (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 430). This implies that we are still dealing with existential conditions for human life. These are described by different sciences, in which psychology only can say something about how man perceives these conditions and, to a very narrow extent, say something about the conditions themselves. Yet this is exactly what Stages on Life’s Way is about; it describes how the different existence-spheres are perceived by the characters involved. In this respect, it is necessary to take the first two parts of the book into consideration as well. When this is done, one realizes very easily that each part reflects and is concerned with the different existencespheres. The first part is written by William Afham and bears the frank and outspoken title In Vino Veritas. It is about a banquet in which all the guests are requested to hold a speech. The speeches must be given under two conditions: no one should be sober (p. 41), and the speeches have to “deal with love or with the relationship between man and woman” (p. 45). That the second part deals with the ethical sphere is also clearly indicated by the title as well as by the pseudonym: Various Observations about the Marriage in reply to Objections by a Married Man. In this respect, the title of the third part, Guilty/Not Guilty, written by Frater Taciturnus, probably appears as more conceivable. It is strongly related to the religious sphere, in which the question of guilt appears the most central. The three parts are “collected, forwarded to the press and published by Hilarius Bookbinder”—in other words, a quite insignificant character. In Vino Veritas That the three stages represent existence-spheres and not stages in a life span is probably best illustrated by the first part. At the banquet five different persons are gathered, and they represent very different 36

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personalities. Two of them we have met already: Constantin Constantius and the young man from Repetition. Simply by involving these characters in the banquet, it can be envisaged that the aesthetic does not represent a stage in one’s life span. It demonstrates also that the aesthetic is not primarily related to a certain personality, despite the fact that some personalities are very close to this sphere. One of the participants in the banquet is such a person, namely Johannes, nicknamed the Seducer, and he is probably the only one. Neither Victor Eremita nor the one called “Ladies’ Tailor” is simply searching for enjoyment and happiness in the same way as Johannes is. So these five gentlemen are gathered and challenged to give speeches under the influence of wine; i.e., “when wine vindicates the truth and the truth vindicates the wine” (p. 41). It must also be said that it was Constantius who had initiated and made the invitations to this gathering. No doubt he wanted to make some fresh observations. The young man is the first speaker, and he does not refute his position in Repetition: “What I would point out here is that love is comic” (p. 48). The reason is that the comic always appears when contradiction is revealed, and erotic love must be characterized as the greatest contradiction one can imagine. On the one hand, love is characterized by an immediate sensuality, but on the other it is regarded as if it were a part of eternity, despite the fact that love sours. “Behold for this reason I have renounced love, for to me my thought is all in all” (p. 59). There is no room for discussion at this banquet, so the floor is granted to the next speaker, who is Constantius. With his distance from other people, he prefers to see love primarily from an ethical perspective. He has few original contributions, so he just follows up the young man’s speech about the comic, but he explains it by the asymmetry between men and women, in which the “woman is an incomplete form” (p. 67). If a man looks at a woman just because of her beauty, he will very soon be a victim of the comic situation himself, he states. If instead he looks at her from an ethical perspective, he will still stay in control. Victor Erimita does not value women much more highly: “If I were a woman, I’d rather be sold by my father to the highest bidder, as an orient [sic.]. What a misfortune to be a woman!” (p. 70). This does not mean that he will preach in favor of the monastic life. On the contrary, he holds for the right to be immediate, and his credo is devotion to the “higher immediacy.” In this respect, he is a radical aesthete. All this disrespect to women provokes the Ladies’ Tailor, but he admits that they have some points when it comes to the understanding of women. 37

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His experiences with his own fashion house have let him know woman from the inside. A fashion house, he says, is as “irresistible to a woman, as the Venusberg is to man” (p. 76). His point is that women are so interested in all other things but their husbands that a marriage is merely to be regarded as an illusion. A woman is independent of her husband, and “she doesn’t belong to him, even if she doesn’t belong to any other man” (p. 79). He concludes “[a] man is fortunate if he never takes up with any woman” (p. 79). But all this makes Johannes the Seducer angry: “You talk like undertakers, your eyes are red with tears and not with wine” (p. 81). He adores women, of course: “It is my joy that the female sex, far from being more imperfect than man, is, on the contrary, the most perfect” (p. 83). Yet most important for Johannes is that women know what life is about. “In the case of man, the essential is the essential and therefore always the same; in the case of woman the accidental is the essential, hence the inexhaustible variety” (p. 88). Thus his conclusion is that women have much richer lives than men. Before the banquet starts, the narrator refers to what Victor Eremita had said beforehand. His focusing on the immediate is something the narrator obviously wants to highlight. “To be good, a thing must be at once, for ‘at once’ is the most divine of all categories” (p. 39). The banquet is supposed to provide this kind of immediacy by means of drinking wine. Censorship will be freed, and the truth will appear. Yet this is not an objective truth; it refers to what everyone has in his mind. This immediacy is truly a core aspect of the aesthetic. The best example of a personification of the immediate is the composer Mozart, who is praised highly by Victor: “Immortal Mozart, to whom I owe all!” (p. 43). When music is brought up, there are reasons to dwell somewhat on a formulation of its function: “I require chamber-music, strong and subdued, and I require that at every instant it shall be an accompaniment to me” (p. 41). Music, in other words, is supposed to have the function of confirming oneself. This is also an aspect of the sensory, namely that it is a confirmation of oneself. But music does not only have this function, and Mozart is a good example of a composer who may have created complex structures that apparently flow in a sphere without any kind of friction at all. This double effect of music is something the author wants to draw attention to when it comes to sensation as well. Sensation is not univocally something negative, or a sort of primitive stage in life; it is, on the contrary, life itself, with all its ambiguity and hidden depths. This is also something that characterizes language. It is obvious that language regarded from an aesthetic point of view emphasizes 38

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the aspect of sound. This is a salient trait of the banquet. By shouting and putting words into each other’s mouths, the meaning in language almost disappears. However, this is exactly what the participants in the banquet enjoy: “How poor a thing is language compared with the unmeaning yet significant combination of clangorous sound in a battle or at a banquet, which not even a theatrical rendering can reproduce, and for which language possesses but a few words!” (p. 45). Language, in other words, is not a proper device for capturing all the details embedded in the sound of a banquet or similar situations, such as a battle. This must be seen from the perspective of what has been said so far about language. As long as we talk about the content of language, it is general, and we are unable to grasp the details in the particular. If life is unfolded in the particular, then the content of language is alien to life as lived. Although language takes part in lived lives too, it is primarily the sound of it, and not its content, that is present as a sensory entity. This relates language to music in one specific sense. The content of music is not captured very precisely by language either. This defines, at the same time, the differences between music and language. Whereas language contains concepts that are general, this is not what music contains. It may contain many other things than pure sound, but concepts are out of instrumental music’s domain. One of the critical issues that has to be addressed in this context is the relationship between aesthetics and psychology. This relationship is apparently very close in all the three books referred to so far. Both terms refer to sensory experiences, and despite the fact that they are probably not comprehended as synonyms, it is problematical to identify the exact differences. The most striking distinction, however, is the level of generality. Psychology is defined as a science, whereas aesthetics is not. It is necessary to underline that this is according to the authors of these books, since in the eighteen-forties aesthetics was regarded as a science by many, as it certainly is today. Although this distinction seems to be clear, there are complicating factors. The most critical is demonstrated in this first section of this book. By presenting so many different and partly contradictory personalities in a discussion of the term, the aesthetic does not appear as a certain stage, but as a state in which everyone is confronted with the sensory. This confrontation evokes certain reactions, thinking patterns, and behaviors, and these reactions are regarded as objects for psychology. In other words, the aesthetic refers to a certain state, which is impossible to avoid, and which is characterized by the sensory aspects of the state. Psychology, 39

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on the other hand, is the science that tells us about the patterns of reaction, not only in the aesthetic state, but also when it comes to the ethical and religious. In his introduction to this banquet, William Afham delivers a rather peculiar discussion. He focuses on the relationship between recollection and memory. On the one hand, this may make sense simply because he has to recollect what really happened that summer night. One must admit, on the other hand, that a reflection of ten pages on this subject evokes a need to find a stronger argument. Anyway, there is a certain difference between the two terms, and according to the author, “memory is immediacy and comes immediately to one’s aid, whereas recollection comes only by reflection” (p. 30). When William Afham wants to give a report of what happened that summer night, it has to be presented as a recollection, which means that some reflection is involved. This reflection is first of all about recollection, which also was a core issue in the previous book, Repetition, yet its discussion there was from another perspective. Constantius brought up the status of recollection in one’s life, he wanted to demonstrate with his experiment that repetition was just recollection “in the opposite direction” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 3). He thought that in the same way as one can look backward and recollect what happened earlier in one’s life, one should also be able to predict what will happen in the future, just because a recollected life appears as if it just consists of repetitions. In this sense, recollection presents stability in life and therefore also mirrors the eternal: “In recollection a man draws a check upon eternity” (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 28). This is, of course, one very good reason why the author concentrates on these terms in the introduction. However, there is another reason as well. Although recollection represents stability and the essential things in life, it may differ greatly in its content. “A man pursues one thought [. . .], another is an author in five sciences [. . .], they live the same length of time [. . .], who has the most to recollect?” (p. 29). In other words, despite the fact that there are obvious differences between memory and recollection, and recollection reflects eternity, there are individual differences when it comes to what each one of us recollects. This is not only a question about how much one remembers; it is even more about what one actually recollects. So when the author additionally says, “Recollection is ideality” (p. 28), even the ideals will vary with the individual. This is exactly what is revealed through the speeches at this banquet. Yet the most important message that is communicated through all of these different speeches is how the individual is dragged 40

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or drawn toward two contradictory spheres, namely the universal and the particular—the eternal and the temporal or the ideal and the actual. This creates an impossible situation for the individual. Despite the fact that it is almost impossible to be consistent, each one manages to create his own life as consistently as he can, and these five speeches reveal how these five persons have established their own consistency in each one of their lives, especially when they relate themselves to the aesthetic sphere. Various Observations about Marriage in Reply to Objections Despite the fact that “psychology” only appears in the third part of Stages, there is a psychological perspective lying behind each section. This is explicitly stated by a Married Man, which is the pseudonym of the narrator of this second part. This is an apologia for an ethical perspective on life. This apologia is formulated in only one voice, which illustrates very well by itself the most essential aspects of this ethical stage—not because there is no diversity of opinion about the ethical, but because the ethical is primarily characterized by a consistent life in accordance with that very special decision that one, once upon a time, made when one got married. This situation definitively has its ontological features, but what this author focuses on is the psychological aspects: “I have wished merely to sketch the psychological presuppositions” (p. 176). And these “psychological presuppositions” are, first of all, to work out a recipe for how to have a comfortable and good life. On the one hand, there is a need for excitement in life, and the author understands that very well. Even though there is a fundamental need for adventures of different kinds, the solution is, on the other hand, to get married. “In case thou hast not time and opportunity to spend half a score of the years of thy life in travelling around the world to see everything the globe-trotter gets to know, in case thou hast not talent of [. . .] practice in a foreign tongue [. . .]—then go and get married; and in the case thou hast time for the first [and] talent for the second [. . .] then go and get married all the same” (p. 97). To get married is the only right thing to do, whoever you are or whatever you really want to do. It is a duty everyone has to adjust his or her life to. The individual’s adjustment to what is graded as highly ethical is the content of what the author calls “psychological presuppositions.” Thus the aim of this author’s text is to persuade the reader to understand how spectacular and adventurous a married life can be. To realize this is solely a matter of attitude, so his objective is to specifically establish an 41

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appropriate attitude within the reader. One of the aspects he highlights is that marriage “transforms [the insignificant things] into significance for the believer” (p. 97). A successful marriage is very much a question of belief, and the belief is even truer and deeper for a married man than for a religious believer. So the significance of the insignificant is one of those things a believer in marriage must accept. But this is not just an acceptable illusion. Motherliness is the best example of the thoroughness of the insignificant becoming significant. “Insignificant—oh, yes, but it is precisely in the insignificant situations that motherliness is essentially beautiful” (p. 140). This does not mean, however, that the Married Man has so many good arguments in his defense of this standpoint. He postulates more than he presents arguments, as a matter of fact, and some of the arguments are definitely not arguments at all. Some sorts of objections against marriage are answered best “by saying Bah!” (p. 100). And the author brings in this argument a couple of times (p. 104), but he prefers just to postulate by concluding with “period,” which is actually done, at least indirectly in a discussion about the equality between the genders: “woman is quite as good as man—and with that enough has been said” (p. 127; see also the Danish original Kierkegaard, 1999, p. 117). Thus the ethical is primarily a question about accepting the duty one has and realizing that one has no choices when it comes to being committed to a marriage. The keyword for the ethical is, in any case, to make a resolution. “All of man’s ideality consists first and last in resolution” (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 113). On the one hand, the ethical is grounded in certain values, and in that sense it is ideal. But on the other, the ethical is primarily about actual life, and in that sense it is much related to temporality. “The ideality of the true resolution consists therefore in a resolve which is just as temporal as it is eternal” (p. 116). The contradictory conditions, which imply that a human being has to relate him- or herself both to the eternal and the temporal at the same time, make the situation paradoxical. Provided there is no room for critical objections, the formulations have to end up more or less self-contradictory, which is exactly the case when the author concludes, “The more concrete a man becomes in ideality, the more perfect the ideality is” (p. 118). Of course the ideal can never be concrete, which is one of the main premises for Kierkegaard’s understanding of psychology. Yet the paradox makes sense because man’s existence is embedded in this paradoxical situation. However, from a logical point of view, the sentence is totally absurd. The same can be said for some other statements this author presents. 42

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On the one hand, he states that the beauty of a young woman is not essential, but rather the true beauty that after years “develops before the husband’s grateful eyes” (p. 134). Alternatively, or maybe as a continuation to this, the author admits about his wife, “I do not know to this day quite certainly whether she is slender” (p. 128). Thus there is a very open question how concrete this ideality could be, if concrete at all. The ethical position appears slightly comical, as it stands between two extremes but with feet solidly planted in both. Guilty/Not Guilty The aesthetic is so closely related to psychology that it is problematical to separate them. They both concern sense impressions, and the aesthetic will likely also include representations. The latter seems not to be the case in Kierkegaard’s understanding, and psychology represents therefore an overall category in which both sensations and representations are included, whereas the aesthetic only includes the former. The ethical, on the other hand, may very well be regarded as a category all on its own, but it is not. It is strongly related to the aesthetic, at least in the sense that it is about how to control and regulate sensuality in this world. In this respect, some general principles necessarily emerge, and the point is that the ethical is the most problematic and contradictory perspective one can have on life. It is not only in Kierkegaard’s work that this ends up producing comical situations. The moralist is often an extraordinary and amusing character, whether in literature or in real life, and the humor is usually connected to inappropriateness in ethical principles. The more stubbornly the character follows his or her principles, the more comical he or she becomes. This fundamental conflict between principles and aesthetics has several psychological implications, and in this respect psychology is highly relevant to the understanding of the ethical. The immediate reaction to the conflict between principles applied in a specific situation may appear as comical, but not necessarily. That depends on how obvious the conflict and the inappropriateness are. Other feelings can also be mobilized in this situation, such as relief, anger, or disappointment. The reaction to such a situation may evoke quite strong feelings, and they can go in different directions. Psychology, in other words, is primarily about the emotional reactions to this divided existential situation. When it comes to the religious aspect, one could say that the role of psychology is less clear. In this respect, the two core terms here “guilty” and “not guilty” are primarily theological terms. They have to 43

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do with the sin of the Fall and the role of Adam, which is also discussed in The Concept of Anxiety. The author’s theological point is primarily to demonstrate the distinction between these two concepts. The author regards the differences between them as being so enormous that “guilty” and “not guilty” effectively cannot be compared. If one is in the state of innocence, one does not know anything about guilt, as “innocence is ignorance” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 41). Thus “innocence” cannot be understood as “not guilty,” but instead as something quite different. This is the qualitative difference between them. Yet if innocence at the same time is ignorance, original sin is principally related to knowledge. How this transition from innocence to guilt takes place from a theological point of view is a very open question, and this problem seems to be similarly unresolved for the author. It is at this moment that the author of The Concept of Anxiety introduces “anxiety,” which is a psychological concept. It appears that the terms “guilty” and “not guilty” are so overwhelming, if seen from a theological point of view, that they almost transcend what can be expressed in language. So what we are left with to put into words are just man’s experiences of the ontological differences between them. This is why psychology has become so important to theology. Psychology appears to be the only science that can say something about the situation, despite the fact that the only way psychology can say anything is by indicating. Psychology can say something about man’s reactions to this situation. It is theology that should have described this situation directly, but it seems to go beyond what words can capture. Thus nothing comes out of a theological discussion about guilt and innocence and the relationship between them. The substance of this lack of meaning is highly present, but it goes in two different directions: Not having knowledge is one sort of nothingness, and to realize ignorance is another sort of nothingness, despite the fact that this ignorance is a result of having acquired knowledge, specifically being aware of the ignorance. The latter is a kind of nothingness because it gives man an understanding of what he or she does not know anything about. All this nothingness is the origin of anxiety because anxiety is the fear of having nothing. In this perspective, psychology appears to be the most adequate science to provide a broader knowledge about the religious stage or sphere. But the implications of a certain stage may go in many different directions. Unpredictability is exactly one of the most important implications of the contradictory situation man is in. Thus the different factors and consequences have to be sorted out if we are to have 44

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any chance of learning anything about this situation. This is exactly what an experiment is about. It is part of the scientific method, by which unpredictable factors are reduced to help the experimenter gain control of the situation. This is necessary to finding out what effect a cause, or an independent variable, has upon a person or a situation—the dependent variable. In this sense, there are a lot of similarities between a modern understanding of a psychological experiment and the experiment Taciturnus, the author of this third part of Stages, is referring to. But there is one important difference. This is that Taciturnus, and also Constantius, are both implementing thought experiments. This is not because the authors do not know of other ways to carry this out: “An experimental psychologist has no use for tabulated statistics” (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 433). Observations of other persons and statistical processing reveal only trivial information that anyone can get. What counts is to formulate the most crucial and important choices and possibilities one has. So the reason he chooses thought experiments instead of real experiments is just because it allows one to go deeper into these possibilities, and especially extreme ones. Consequently, thought experiments are also chosen for ethical reasons. The implementer of this experiment is demonstrating an extreme situation in which the central character goes through a lot of aches and pains. In addition to this, he may even appear as a comical figure in the same sense, as already mentioned. For these reasons the author concludes, “Fortunately my hero does not exist outside my thought-experiment” (p. 367). Yet there is also another reason why the author is happy with a nonexistent person in the experiment. He thinks then it will not be his task “to dispute with him or to dialecticize him out of his dialectic difficulty” (p. 367). There are at least two points hidden in this formulation. One, and the most important, is that the psychological thought experiment is characterized by a method, which is about arguing in a certain way. One has to outline the natural and logical consequences of a certain situation and how a person would react and act under some specified circumstances. These scenarios have to be contrasted with their opposites to reveal alternatives and a control so that all eventualities are taken into account. This is the dialectical method that was mentioned in The Concept of Anxiety and referred to as “experimenting dialectics” (or “imaginatively constructing dialectics,” as the English translation has it: Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 83). Thus experimenting dialectics amounts to implementing thought experiments, in Kierkegaardian 45

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terminology. And this is what the experiment in Guilty/Not Guilty is concerned with. But the other point that is hidden in the formulation referred to above is that it is difficult to get a clear and definite result from experiments that follow this method of experimenting dialectics. The method opens up an endless process, such that “my experiment is not finished,” the author states, and he adds, “So there is no result” (p. 399). The reason is quite simply that the existential conflict is not eliminated or diminished by this experiment. The conclusion is rather the opposite; the experiment has confirmed the conflict. This is probably the most crucial and immediate objection one may have to thought experiments, or “experimenting dialectics,” namely that the experimenter may produce the results he or she wants to achieve, without any resistance. But it does not have to be exactly like that. Taciturnus refers to Repetition as an example of an unsuccessful thought experiment. The reason why the experiment did not succeed was that the main character, the young man, was driven by a conflict that did not transcend the aesthetic sphere: “The collision that through a girl a man becomes a poet and therefore cannot become her husband lies within the aesthetic” (p. 367). The author’s point is mainly to emphasize that the premises for an experiment have to be developed in accordance with what is required in a broad perspective. In other words, writing a novel is not just a question of what the author thinks is a likely and a desired acting pattern by his or her characters. The author also has to think about how the reader and all other persons would expect the characters to act. Thus the author must almost forget his or her own need for controlling the characters, and instead let all possible expectations he or she can think of be the leading thread for how the characters in a novel develop. This is what experimenting dialectics is about: forming a certain situation that involves human beings. The experimenter must first of all declare all thinkable constraints that have to be taken into account as a part of this situation. Then the experimenter has to work out all the behavioral patterns that are doable within the space of acts that are at his or her disposal. This is exactly what Taciturnus does when it comes to the I-person and his fiancée in Guilty/Not Guilty. Taciturnus is quite conscious of this, and therefore he presents an “Epistle to the Reader” at the end of the experiment, in which he explains what the experiment is about. The experiment itself has the form of a diary. It is an immense diary with almost a hundred pages covering a time span from January 3 till July 7 in the same year. The I-person is again a young man that has fallen in love with a young girl, 46

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but when the girl answers his love, the young man experiences trouble with accepting the situation. In this diary he reports the passions he has in his love for the girl, but he also reports his pangs of conscience, which develop into an unbearable pain for him. The only likely outcome of this is a break in their engagement, as it was in Repetition. Yet the premises for the young man’s pain and the pair’s breakup this time are not connected to the aesthetic sphere but the religious. Thus these spheres are regarded as constraints in a situation not only for this couple, but also for everyone. That is the main hypothesis in this experiment, and the theoretical background for this hypothesis is presented in The Concept of Anxiety. Thus what is left is just to work out a thought experiment in which the premises are defined in terms of these spheres. In addition to the three constraining spheres that form the premises for the couple’s situation, the experimenter has to work out some likely scenarios. In this respect, there are many possibilities: simply combining the three spheres with two persons involved presents nine. In addition, the characters may have different patterns with respect to their emotions. These open up a near-endless number of scenarios. Thus the experimenter has to select certain scenarios of combinations that are expected to be of interest. Taciturnus has selected five different scenarios, and he goes through them, not only as an extra service to the reader, but to involve the reader in the experiment by revealing how many variables have been applied. The first scenario is defined this way: “He is closely resolved/she cannot possibly be so” (p. 387). This scenario is a consequence of the spheres in which they have already been defined. Although many different combinations could have been applied, the experimenter has already chosen those he thinks are the most interesting. The girl is placed in the aesthetic sphere, and she more or less remains there. The young man is in the religious sphere, but he can go in and out. She cannot be closely reserved, because it contradicts her immediate personality. To be closely reserved is a result of reflection, which has no space in the aesthetic sphere. In addition, there are a lot of other aspects that may justify the likeliness of this scenario. Yet what is mentioned is sufficient to exemplify that logic is a constraining factor when these scenarios are worked out. The second scenario is this: “He is melancholy/she is light hearted.” Although this constellation may generate different results, the author lines up a specific one, and this is a consequence of the fact that this melancholy is related to the religious sphere: “Although he himself is brought to naught, the pain of sympathy on her account still prevails, 47

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and he resolves to leave her, without any presentiment that precisely this must be of help to him. On the whole, his concern for this girl is pure fanaticism, in itself ludicrous, tragic because of his suffering, comic for the fact that he does the thing in the craziest way” (p. 389). The number of factors enlarges the options numerically, but the result is more the opposite, as there is a difference between calculated and actual possibilities. The reason is that norms, stereotyped acting patterns, and others’ expectations narrow the choices one has at hand. These are, of course, related to a certain time and culture. According to this author’s understanding there are two crucial factors that could have changed such an absurd situation. One is that they could have talked together. Yet they do not speak the same language, and a closely reserved individual normally does not win such a dispute, and the result would have been that he would have had to give up his interests in the religious sphere. As stated by the author, this would have been a really tragic outcome, both for the experiment and for the person himself. So the only option that remains is that he realizes the horror of the situation. That would have put an end to the continuous pain for both him and for her, but it would have resulted in a very dramatic situation, which would have increased immediate pain. Precisely such an extreme is the situation for both of them; it is dreadful because the constraining spheres are in so deep a contradiction to each other that disaster is unavoidable when they meet. It is in this context that the question of guilty or not guilty comes in. The third scenario depicted is this: “He is essentially a thinker/she is anything but that” (p. 390). He is also innocent in the sense that he is not experienced, neither when it comes to this world nor in contact with the other sex. To the author this is a prerequisite for the whole experiment. So when he is a thinker, he is at the same time in an awakening process in realizing what the world and the other sex is about. This knowledge is what bothers him, mainly because it tells him that the world and the other sex are something different from what he had expected. This is what produces the feeling of guilt: having taken a step to acquire a kind of knowledge that it would be better not to have at all. She, on the other hand, is still without any form of guilt, because “what preoccupies him is entirely beyond her ken” (p. 391). Thus he has a double burden, because he not only feels sorry for his increase in knowledge, but also for the fact that he has brought her to this situation, which relates her to him. The fourth scenario covers this aspect by saying, “He is ethico-dialectic/she aesthetically immediate” (p. 392), and 48

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this forms the background for the fifth scenario: “He is sympathetic/ she is innocently self-loving in the sense of immediacy” (p. 392). This asymmetric constellation suggests that his guilt will increase, whereas she will remain in her innocence. However, it is not easy to read and interpret this situation. She is apparently the victim here, and he is the perpetrator when he breaks off the relationship. Yet it is rather the opposite, says the author: “He is the passive sufferer, who would not venture to do what she did, to lay such a heavy responsibility upon another person” (p. 393). Despite the fact that the experiment is neither fulfilled nor completed, there are some results, states the author: “The result of the whole process of misunderstandings is that after all they do not love” (p. 395). This is the factor that has been there from the very beginning. Yet the situation for each one of them is different: “He fails to love because he lacks immediacy” (p. 395) and love cannot exist without a certain degree of immediacy. In other words, the aesthetic level is not regarded as a primitive stage in a life span; it has to be a part of the lived life. In this sense the aesthetic is a necessary condition for love, but it is not sufficient. She is the best example to confirm this. She lacks the ability to acquire his perspective, and, in this respect, the ethical aspect is missing from her. Thus the ethical is not a certain stage one grows into or passes through later on in life. It is like the aesthetic: an aspect of life that counts as a necessary condition for the capability to love. Without it one ends up just loving oneself, and that is exactly what she does. If this is the result of the experiment, it has not only told us about the three stages on life’s way, but also about love. This is totally about psychology, and through this experiment Taciturnus has also revealed some aspects of how his creator, Kierkegaard, conceptualized psychology. Yet the psychology of the narrator stands in a peculiar context, and this is not easy to follow. However, at the very beginning of his presentation Taciturnus does manage to give us a few clues. He presents a peculiar story in his “Advertisement,” in which he refers to one of his own experiences in his real life. It is about a friend of his, a natural scientist, who happened to be in the area and invited Taciturnus to join him while he was making some observations upon marine plants. The year this happened, says Taciturnus, was 1751, and he adds that this was “the memorable year in which Gregory Rothfischer was converted to Lutheranism” (p. 184). For a modern reader, this reference to Rothfischer must probably sound like an unimportant detail, or even like irony, as it does to the translator: “The sagacious reader will not 49

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expect to be told who Rothfischer was, for he will recognize that the whole thing is a satire upon Hegel’s philosophy of history, which had such vogue in its time” (p. 184 fn4). It might be that there is an aspect of irony involved by mentioning this name, but irony always has two aspects: one ridiculous and one serious, and in the Danish commentary one can read about its serious aspect. It says that Roger Ignatius Rothfischer (1721–1755) was a Catholic theologian bearing the Catholic name “Gregory,” who among the Roman Catholic theologians was the first to base his theology on the system of the German enlightenment philosopher Christian Wolff (1679–1754). This is highly interesting in this context. Wolff was the first modern scholar to publish a thesis bearing the title Psychologia Empirica, in 1732, and the fact that Wolff was a central person for Kierkegaard while he was growing up is very well documented (Hannay, 2001, p. 36). Mentioning Rothfischer in this context reveals a couple of additional aspects. It introduces a direct link to psychology in terms of the German enlightenment, but it also underlines how closely this psychology was related to a kind of confessional position. This is something we will return to after having gone further into Kierkegaard’s final work that refers to psychology in its subtitle. Some Concluding Remarks One may say that Stages on Life’s Way is very much about the existential situation man is in. Through pseudonyms Kierkegaard demonstrates three different stages, and they are supposed to be decisive in everyone’s life. Although these stages were presented in Either/Or from 1843 (Kierkegaard, 1992), there are some additional aspects in Stages. One aspect is that he achieves a better narrative, and the book therefore can be read as good fiction. More important, though, is that it demonstrates quite explicitly the role of psychology as the core argument and basis of Kierkegaard’s existentialist standing. Although his allusive formulations are not easy to understand, they are more or less directly referring to the debate about the role of psychology, especially in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century in Europe. These clues, which bring us back to Christian Wolff and his Psychologia Empirica from 1732, are not just about the relationship between psychology, philosophy, and theology. Wolff’s book could also be read as an argument for introducing observation as a reliable tool in scientific approaches, which is something that will be dealt with later in this book. If these connections are valid, the coincidences between the references to a natural scientist, the year 1751, and a psychological 50

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experiment are not arbitrary. It is observation that links these traces together. Thus Kierkegaard is discussing not only theological, but also scientific, questions. It is in this perspective that psychology forms a core issue. So how is psychology to be understood after having gone through the book Stages? First of all, psychology deals with sensation, as was stated in The Concept of Anxiety. Yet Kierkegaard regards psychology as a science. This is why he is making such a clear distinction between the aesthetic and psychology. Both are about sensation, yet the aesthetic is solely connected to immediacy, whereas psychology includes considerations and reflections, which are rooted in some sorts of ideality. This implies that psychology is deeply embedded, but also that the science is able to unveil the fundamental paradox of life, which attracts Kierkegaard’s full attention. Yet this paradox is not just an issue of experience; it fundamentally permeates both theology and all sciences—even from a theoretical or purely logical perspective. This is why the thought experiment is so interesting for Kierkegaard. It is a procedure that can disclose the reprehensible aspects of the aesthetic, the comic games of minds in the ethical, and the tragic outcomes of the religious. Moreover, the experiment in Guilty/Not Guilty is a psychological experiment, but what he investigates is the consequences of being consistently in the religious sphere, in contrast to being consistently in the aesthetic sphere. The boy is in the former, and the girl is in the latter. The five scenarios deal with different aspects of this encounter between the two extreme spheres. Thus the scenarios are not so important from a psychological point of view, but rather from a theological one. What is more important, however, is that this psychological experiment reveals the same paradox as has been revealed in the aesthetic and ethical spheres. In other words, the purpose of presenting this experiment is to reveal how psychology is the science that is able to uncover the paradox in these spheres, no matter if it is based on theology, philosophy, morality, or even the pure enjoyment of life. Kierkegaard demonstrates that to be human is to have two contradicting thoughts in one’s head at the same time, and both ideality and actuality are constraining factors in all these spheres. Yet science in general, and the science of psychology in particular, is the best way to illustrate this precisely. In this respect, Kierkegaard reveals the origin of free will: as a necessary outcome of the fact that both eternity and temporality form the constraining framework for everyone’s existence. This was one of the outcomes of the investigations made in The Concept of Anxiety. If man 51

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is also governed by rational choices, there are two outcomes from these factors. One is that ideality, particularity, or a sort of combination of the two, governs human behaviour, and the other is that a combination of the two ends up as a sort of unpredictability in human behavior, or even a sort of irrationality. Although the final outcomes of choices are open and unpredictable, there are some patterns that can be traced. These patterns are exactly what are pursued in a thought experiment, and if the constraining factors really count, a thought experiment should be sufficient to disclose the patterns of human behavior. In other words, by accepting the huge and irreconcilable gap between the general and the particular, the basic existential conflict in life is primarily based on a logical—that is, a theoretical—paradox. The consequences of this conflict are regularly experienced and present in everyone’s life anyway, yet to disclose the possible behavioral patterns the conflict produces, one has to apply logic. This is exactly what fiction authors do when they write novels. They have to follow the logical consequences of a certain conflict. The author makes certain choices on behalf of the characters, and the readers are the evaluators of the choices made. The reader realizes immediately whether a novel is “realistic” or not. This is exactly what thought experiments are supposed to be about too. They demonstrate exactly what is the natural outcome of a certain conflict. And they can do so because the fundamental conflict is above all a logical conflict, in which our lives are deeply embedded.

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4 The Sickness Unto Death (1849) After having presented two psychological experiments and one theological thesis with a psychological perspective, Kierkegaard returned to the latter form four years after Stages with The Sickness Unto Death (Kierkegaard, 1980b). The subtitle to this work, “A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening,” indicates that Kierkegaard was again aiming at concentrating on theological aspects. The use of the term “psychology,” and the form this term receives in the subtitles of the four different books, is worth going deeper into. First of all, it is of interest to say more about the form used in the first book, Repetition. We have encountered three different translations of this book’s subtitle. One is “An Essay in Experimental Psychology” (Kierkegaard, 2009a), and the other is “A Venture in Experimenting Psychology” (Kierkegaard, 1983). However, we ended up with a more literary version: “An Experiment in Experimental Psychology” (“Et forsøg i den experimenterende Psychologi,” see also Tang, 2002). Now we are in a position to say something more about the significance of these nuances. We may conclude that in Repetition and in Stages, Kierkegaard wanted to present two experiments that are quite similar. They are both thought experiments, and they are both about a young man and a young girl that are under almost identical constraints. When the subtitle in the first book refers to an experiment in experimental psychology, it is something that has to be tested, so as to implement a psychological experiment. Yet the psychological experiment is not a real experiment but a thought experiment, which, in fact, is quite unusual. And in The Concept of Anxiety, we find the reason why the term “experimental” is applied. This is because it refers to a kind of game that is beyond reality. The author says in that work: “The transition from innocence to guilt merely through the concept of temptation brings God into an almost imaginatively constructed [in the original, experimenterende; 53

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i.e., “experimental”] relationship to man” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 39f ). The author refuses this understanding of the situation because it makes God effectively amoral. Thus the term “experimental” connotes this unethical play with other people that might be carried out in thought experiments without violating any ethical rules, whereas in the real world it would. Although the narrator of Stages, Taciturnus, reveals that the psychological experiment failed when it was performed by Constantius, he is quite sure that his methodology is both ethically acceptable and within the genre of a scientific experiment. Thus he calls it, in contrast to Constantius, “A Psychological Experiment.” The psychological aspect of The Concept of Anxiety is of a quite different order. This book is not about a psychological experiment. It is a purely theoretical work that aims at finding out what role psychology as a science may have in a discussion of original sin. The latter is the main subject of the thesis, and this is not an object for psychology; it is a part of dogmatics. The problem is, however, that original sin does not exist in a human’s world unless as an effect, specifically through the state of anxiety. Yet anxiety is a psychological and not a theological term. In this sense, dogmatics and theology are almost required to go into the field of psychology for us to obtain an understanding of what meaning original sin has to man. In this sense, the subtitle to The Concept of Anxiety gives its meaning, in any case. We have to start with the end of the formulation: “A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin.” This leaves no doubt: original sin is a dogmatic issue. The original Danish version, however, uses the term “problem,” which indicates that original sin is a problem for dogmatics. This is why psychology is brought in from the cold to underline that psychology is not the principle science in The Concept of Anxiety. Yet here comes the irony: the considerations are nevertheless psychological. The psychological reflections on anxiety are necessary to obtain a full understanding of what original sin is about. In this sense, dogmatics fully depends on psychology, which can be regarded as its complete opposite. In other words, psychology is on the way to replacing dogmatics in telling man about his existential situation. Kierkegaard, or at least Anti-Climacus, the narrator of The Sickness unto Death, is not happy with the outcome from Anxiety, and therefore he tries with a new thesis on the same theological basis, but with clearer theological aims. He puts the scientific aspirations aside, and therefore this book becomes a book mainly for “upbuilding and awakening.” This author wants to underline that the only thing that 54

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counts is knowledge that highlights the value of a decent Christian life. “The kind of scholarliness and scienticity that ultimately does not build up is precisely thereby unchristian” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 5). He divides this book into two, in which the first part is about some inevitable psychological aspects, whereas the second is devoted to the Christian spiritual life based on dogmatics. The crucial question is, however, whether he consistently manages to maintain this announced distinction between the two parts. The Self as Point Zero It is obvious that from the very beginning Kierkegaard had problems with how this book should communicate with the reader. Thus he starts the preface by announcing that the text may seem to be “too rigorous to be upbuilding and too upbuilding to be rigorously scholarly” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 5). The book certainly varies in form, from going deeply into some basic problems in psychology, to having the function of evoking the religious spirit. In this sense, the term “spirit” is essential. In a modern understanding, it is normally associated with religiosity, but here the author applies it with a double sense. It refers both to religious feelings and to the self, which might be regarded as highly secular, and this double reference certainly influences the text, which, with its rhetorical style, may remind one of a priest’s sermon. The main body of text starts by referring directly to the part of Scripture in which it is told how Christ awakened Lazarus from death. The point in this “sermon,” however, is to underline that there are different forms of sickness: some that do not lead to death, and some that really do. And the narrator wants to concentrate on the latter. Thus he also has the preacher’s motivation to work out the meaning of this text. This introductory part of The Sickness Unto Death is meant to be taken as a warning against this sickness that really leads to death. The problem is that this sickness is probably totally unavoidable. In contrast to this sermon, the first part of the next section appears as something quite different. With no warning or other form of moderating bridge, the author goes directly into the middle of a highly philosophical speculation of what the self is supposed to be. The keyword in the author’s understanding of the self is “relationship.” A self cannot appear unless there is a relationship between it and something. In other words, a self is not a static entity but something highly dependent on other factors. This is obvious enough, but even so, it is quite cryptically formulated by the narrator when he says, “The self is not the relation but 55

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is the relation’s relating itself to itself ” (p. 13). There are several aspects the author probably wants to underline by this formulation. Firstly, it is very dialectical, which is the style Kierkegaard wants to apply in all his discussions and writings. This style is, in itself, a highly dynamic form of expression, which undermines all static tendencies, not only in the self, but also generally in life. Hence the style itself illustrates more imaginatively the dynamic aspects of the self. Yet the semantics in this formulation is still an open question. One of the most central aspects of a lived human life is sensation, which also implies a relationship. It is through sensation alone that the individual is in touch with the outside world. Even the Eleatics and Plato would have agreed with this. Kierkegaard, however, is interested in real life, in which consciousness of sensation is a prerequisite for all the problems that have been discussed in the three previous books presented here so far. When consciousness and sensation are operating in combination, we call it perception. If “relation” in the quotation above is replaced with “perception,” then we probably are left with a more understandable formulation: “The self is not just perception but consciousness of the self perceiving, not only the outside world, but also itself.” If this is an adequate rephrasing and interpretation of the narrator’s understanding of the self, then this understanding fits very well with how the soul was understood in eighteenth-century psychology, especially how it was conceptualized by Wolff, who has already been referred to indirectly by Taciturnus in Stages. This reformulation implies that the self, by perceiving, is given not only another, but also itself. This understanding of the soul is merely a point of departure for the author. He wants to take the understanding of the soul a step further, and this step is exactly what was developed in The Concept of Anxiety, specifically that the “human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 13). If the understanding of the soul presented above can be accepted, then there is nothing new being added by the narrator Anti-Climacus, except that the soul is able to perceive itself as divided by these extremes. One may say that the soul, then, represents a synthesis; but on the other hand, the infinite and the finite are not united in the human soul—rather the opposite. They are forces that drag the human soul into utmost pain. In this sense, the human soul is neither temporal nor eternal but something else, and this is nothing less than the perceived rivalry within oneself. Thus the soul cannot exist without this aspect of perception, because it is perception that constitutes consciousness 56

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of the rivalry within oneself. Since the outcome is unpredictable, this rivalry creates a form of freedom, but this is limited to not avoiding this rivalry. In this respect, freedom does not exist unless its negation is present at the same time. As long as all these aspects are operating at the same time, there is an almost limitless potential of freedom. This makes it meaningful to bring in the term “spirit,” and this is exactly what the author does: “A human being is spirit” (p. 13). But at the same time, even before he has started exploring the problem of the soul, he concludes that “Spirit is the self ” (p. 13). Yet this is a meaningful conclusion, because the unpredictable aspect of the soul leads naturally to the association of a free spirit. By going directly into a discussion of the soul from the very beginning, a certain perspective on the whole presentation is quite clearly addressed. It is a psychological perspective that forms the “point zero” in this discussion. Yet the narrator then goes rapidly into another perspective. He states that the relationship referred to here must either have established itself or “have been established by another” (p. 13). He is quite clear about what the conclusion must be: that the relationship is established by “another.” He does not present many arguments for this conclusion, but one factor is that the author trusts dogmatics. This says that there is a creator that stands behind, and it is as if Kierkegaard is saying that not only do we have a concept of eternity, but in addition we are ruled by this ontological aspect in our daily lives. This counts as a sufficient reason for saying that there is a God behind this world. In this respect, his philosophy does not break with the tradition given by metaphysics, but rather it supports it. Yet this is not a subject that is going to be pursued here, and probably it is not the most interesting feature of Kierkegaard, either. What is even more fascinating is to what extent his thinking almost forces him to allow philosophy to be replaced by psychology. The beginning of this book reveals that this is exactly what subsequently will happen. Despair as the Main State People have attempted to prove the existence of God in different ways. Both metaphysics, in general, and dogmatics, more specifically, primarily follow logical analysis. The author reproduces this, in a sense, by effectively repeating the Aristotelian argument for God’s existence as the prime mover. A relationship is always related to another relationship, and the relationship as a cause forms an endless regression. Thus the narrator refers to a power that stands behind all relationships. This 57

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point, however, is not very important to the narrator, who instead wants to concentrate on the state of despair. Again he transcends philosophy, theology, and logic and ends up with psychology as the main science that can tell us something about what theology (but also philosophy) is saying, especially when it comes to the question of God’s existence. His existence is nothing that can be grasped directly, only indirectly through the analysis of certain psychological states. Anxiety is one, and despair is another. In other words, if God’s existence can be proven, it is through the experience of psychological states rather than by means of logic. Despair is related to the self. This also means that despair is a consequence of relationships, and this is revealed in a double sense. In addition to being related to the self, despair is also a consequence of the fact that the self itself is a relationship. One important consequence of the self as a relationship is that it is unstable. This means that it is changeable and, in that sense, also unpredictable. This unpredictability implies that the self is difficult to grasp and even to recognize. The self might, in other words, be an avoidable entity, and this situation—an undefined feeling of avoiding or lacking oneself—is, of course, the most fundamental cause for being in a state of despair. The author depicts three different variants of this situation, in which a person is disconnected from oneself: one may not be conscious of having a self; one may not be willing to accept the self one has; and one may not be able to be the self one has. All three variants are related to what the author refers to as sickness. To what extent they lead to death, however, is a more open question. From a Christian point of view, death is just a passage from this life to a better life in paradise, but this is not an obvious outcome. The most natural view is to regard death as the final end, and by facing this as reality, the psychological reaction is necessarily a state of despair. In other words, these three different variants of lacking one’s own self are not only as if death is the necessary outcome, but also as if it has already come. It is in this respect that despair is the sickness unto death. There is a close relationship between despair and anxiety. They are both symptoms of a deep contradiction in the human condition. They are also both consequences of a type of ignorance of this situation. “The relation between ignorance and despair is similar to that between ignorance and anxiety” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 44). Nevertheless, there are some distinctions. Firstly, despair is related more to the self than to existence. In this respect, anxiety is a more fundamental term related 58

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to an ontological situation, which is the conflict between eternity and temporality—the universal versus the particular. Despair is related to the self, which is a consequence of this ontological contradiction. In this sense, despair is mediated through the soul. This implies that “despair” is regarded as an even more appropriate psychological term, because psychology is primarily about the self. Yet in this work there is no consistent use of the terms in this respect. In fact, it is rather tempting to say the opposite. The Sickness Unto Death aims at being a more devout book than The Concept of Anxiety. Both narrators affect to say something essential on something other than psychology, despite the fact that both end up with discussions that primarily belong to the realm of psychology. In this respect, the contradiction between pretensions and reality is even greater in The Sickness Unto Death. In other words, both “anxiety” and “despair” are terms that depict psychological reactions to the dreadful situation that man is in, but none of the narrators go further into what kind of ontological state this really is. They are simply stating these terms as symptoms of what they describe as an ontological situation and a theological situation. Other Emotional States Several emotional states are depicted in this book. Most of them are used to illustrate what despair is related or stands in contrast to. In this sense, the narrator concentrates heavily on the more depressive sides of emotional life. But this is not the only perspective addressed, as he also refers to positive emotional states such as happiness, hope, courage, and comfort. None of these is elaborated upon in the same way as despair and anxiety, of course, but even so, they are mentioned. Happiness, for example, is an emotional state that stands in stark contrast to despair. The best example the narrator can give of happiness in this respect is a young, beautiful, and lovable woman in perfect harmony and full of joy (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 25), and this emotional state was investigated in the two psychological experiments in Repetition and Stages. The female characters in both experiments are almost identical, but they are clearly not the same person. What was demonstrated in these experiments, however, was that this state of happiness was not to be regarded as ideal. This was particularly highlighted in Guilty/Not Guilty, in which it was concluded that her state made her unable to love another person. She would have to change her aesthetic perspective to be able to love another person. This change would destabilize her harmony 59

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and demolish her happiness. This is why Anti-Climacus regards happiness as being double-edged: “Deep within the most secret hiding place of happiness there dwells also anxiety” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 25). He goes even further by stating, “All immediacy is anxiety” (p. 25). By this he relates immediacy to two different aspects that have to be taken into account. One is the aspect of ignorance that characterizes the aesthetic, and the other is the brutal change that occurs when immediacy has to be encountered by reflection. Both are highly related to anxiety, because anxiety is the fear of nothingness. Nothingness is present in ignorance in general, and also at the crossroads between immediacy and reflection, because the “immediate” character has no idea what reflection is about. In Kierkegaard’s publications the more joyful aspects of life are not to be found very easily. This is partly a consequence of the dialectical approach, which is not just a technical device related to terms. The dialectical approach certainly has some ontological implications in the sense that man’s ontological destiny is revealed through psychological states. These are characterized by complexity, and because of this they do not correspond directly to the words we want to apply. There is a gap between our expectations of how normal language should work and the content of these psychological states. Our expectation of language is that we can quite easily understand what is referred to when a certain term is applied, whereas a psychological state signals ambiguity. The dialectical use of language enables us to capture this ambiguity, thereby more adequately referring to the psychological state. But on the other hand, this use of language contradicts our expectations of how normal language should be applied. The Sickness Unto Death is one of Kierkegaard’s works that really goes deeply into this dialectical approach, and that is why it is so difficult to read, not only at the sentence level, but also when it comes to the aims of the book as a whole. As already mentioned, one aim of this book is not primarily to be psychological, but rather theological; yet dialectically it does end up being a psychological discussion. However, his clarification of the psychological premises for a theological discussion is also highly mixed up with theological premises. The term “despair” is a good example, in the sense that it is defined in terms of some theological premises, such as God representing the universal and human representing the particular. Yet finding out what this theological situation is about is almost impossible unless we go into the psychological state of despair. This is the pathway that this book follows: by going into the different 60

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emotional states as more or less a confirmation of how man is related to God. Happiness ends up in this perspective, and the same can be said of the other positive terms mentioned above. Hope is probably related to a religious desire for salvation, but courage and comfort must also be understood within the deeply religious framework constituted in this book. The problem is that this framework is not explicitly presented by discussing the emotional state of despair. Despair is, however, not only an emotional state. Neither is it only a religious state. As mentioned, it is primarily related to the self and three relationships one may have with oneself: not being conscious about having a self, not willing to be oneself, and willing to be oneself but not managing it. The last is the most demanding, but even this represents not only a single state. There are at least two layers to this position. One is defiance, and the other is the demonic, and they are related to each other. The former is to disobey or ignore “suffering in the earthly and the temporal” (p. 70). This form of despair includes consciousness of oneself but, at the same time, resists accepting that oneself is subdued by the temporal. The result of this situation is that the person in despair “is always building only castles in the air, is only shadowboxing” (p. 69). This is what the narrator in the original Danish version calls being “experimental” (see also Kierkegaard, 2006, p. 182f). This is to live a life construed upon hypotheses as if one is an experimental god (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 69). The understanding of an “experiment” in this context is exactly the same as it is in all the three previous books referred to. The difference here, however, is that the experiment is not only part of the scientific method. In The Sickness Unto Death this scientific method is elevated to a certain variant of despair. It is a strategy for survival in the temporal, in which two aspects of consciousness occur as vital for the individual: consciousness of eternity and consciousness of oneself. This is hardly a Christian position, since this avoidance of the temporal is at the same time a rejection of salvation. By reaching this stage, we are not only talking about defiance but also about the demonic. This elaboration of the demonic is due to how it was defined in The Concept of Anxiety, in which it was related to “anxiety about the good” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 118). In that work, Haufniensis paid more attention to the symptoms of the demonic. In this work, Anti-Climacus brings the term into a new perspective by defining more profoundly what it is about. Haufniensis describes the behaviour of the demonic as “inclosing reserved” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 123). This is understandable after having heard Anti-Climacus’s explanation of the state. If one wanted to avoid earthliness and the temporal, it would not be natural to be very talkative. 61

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On the other hand, it is also natural to strive to build up an alternative world in which it would be possible to communicate. The most natural outcome for a demonic person, therefore, is to become a poet or an author. The Theological Second Part—Only Theological? In the second part of The Sickness Unto Death, the author is very clear when it comes to the role of psychology: “There is no room or place for a psychological delineation in this part” (p. 77). This is a constrictive framework for the understanding of this section. The self is no longer understood from a secular perspective but from a religious one. The self is closely related to a conception of God. This is probably also the reason why the self at the beginning of this book was defined in terms of relationships and not in terms of perception. God is not perceivable, despite the fact that he is something out there. He is, on the other hand, conceivable, and in this sense someone to whom one can relate. This sort of relationship, however, is quite similar to what was described as a defying strategy for survival in this world. It is a question about escaping the earthly parts of one’s existence and instead being devoted to the heavenly aspects of it. The narrator describes this existence as a “poet-existence” (p. 77). This existence is still a question of building castles in the air, and it does not abolish sin, but it brings in the religious aspect because it is an existence appearing to be in front of God. Despite the fact that this poet-existence is a quite problematic position from a Christian point of view, the narrator regards it as the most optimal, as it includes a willingness to be oneself without excluding religiousness. The narrator is so excited by this state that he declares it to be the final triumph over psychology: “Who cares about these high-powered psychological investigations to the nth degree?” (p. 78f ). The reason for this gloating dismissal of psychology is that religiousness stands in opposition to secularity, and psychology is the science of the earthly parts of life. The triumph is also for beating Taciturnus, who implemented a psychological experiment on the religious stage in Guilty/Not Guilty. In this respect, Anti-Climacus has been affected by too much pride and has become a sort of “demonic” under a religious label. This is exactly what Kierkegaard also says about Anti-Climacus in his Papers. Anti-Climacus is slightly reckless in his religiousness and similarly in his attempts to overcome psychology (Kierkegaard, 1996, p. 368). The underlying question, not only for this investigation, but apparently also for Kierkegaard himself, is to what extent Anti-Climacus 62

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manages to live up to his aspirations and pretensions. His success in this respect may quite simply be measured by the avoidance of psychological issues and terms. This is probably not sufficient to falsify his project, but it would be an indicator of the level of success, and as a matter of fact he does manage to reduce the attention to psychological issues. Very many of the emotional states referred to above are not mentioned in this second part of The Sickness. Nevertheless, despair is still the main topic in this section, but it is exclusively related to sin, which is not a psychological but a theological subject. The understanding of sin here is the same as in The Concept of Anxiety; it is related to knowledge. There is continuity from guilt to sin in the sense that both are results of knowledge of something. Yet Anti-Climacus adds that there is an important distinction between the two. Guilt is related to knowledge of the contradictory living conditions presented by temporality and eternity, whereas sin takes place when the guilty individual has a consciousness of being in the virtue of God. By this addition Anti-Climacus manages to transform the psychological state of despair into a theological framework, as he also manages when it comes to the understanding of the self. There is, however, another emotional state introduced in this second part. This is the Danish term forargelse (Kierkegaard, 2006, p. 196ff ), which in Hong and Hong’s translation appears as “offense” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 83ff ). The English term used here is not so obviously an emotional state, and in this respect the translator is faithful to Anti-Climacus’s expectations for this second part. Yet the Danish term forargelse is without doubt an emotional state, and a more adequate English term would probably be “annoyance,” “exasperation,” “grief,” or something similar. The Danish term is highly related to a state of irritation, and that is why Anti-Climacus relates the term to envy, and here the author anticipates both Nietzsche and Freud by saying that offense, annoyance, exasperation, or whatever we may call forargelse is “an envy that turns against the person himself ” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 86; see also Kierkegaard, 2006, p. 199). It is definitely an emotional state, and according to the title of this chapter, Anti-Climacus almost reluctantly admits, “the definition of sin includes the possibility of offence” (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 83). This brings us back to the beginning of this book, which underlines that theological dogmas are primarily revealed by certain emotional states, which are described in psychological terms. The theological framework seems to be the same one as both Constantius and Haufniensis regarded metaphysics to be in with regard to repetition. On the one hand, 63

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metaphysics cannot exist without the term “repetition,” so it is of metaphysical interest to go more deeply into this term. Yet by doing this, by analyzing the term “repetition” in an earthly and situational context, metaphysics is, at the same time, stranded (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 19; Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 18). It is the same situation for theology. Dogmatics has an interest in going into “the absurd, the paradoxical,” which are crucial criteria for Christianity (Kierkegaard, 1980b, p. 83), but these criteria are revealed by secular emotional states, which are not described by theology but by psychology. This is also why theology is subsumed by psychology. A Summary of Kierkegaard’s Understanding of Psychology So far we have gone through four different investigations into psychology. They are all very different, but they also have something very important in common. Repetition presents a psychological experiment in which the relationship between stability and change should be decided. Philosophy, and especially metaphysics, presupposes stability, whereas real life demonstrates change. In this respect the psychological experiment became the instrument in deciding to what extent stability forms an experiential basis for real life, and the conclusion is clear: real life does not include any form of stability, and if we can talk about repetition, the repeated event will by necessity transcend itself. In this sense, the psychological experiment brings us close to real life, and it stands in opposition to philosophy, and metaphysics in particular. This background was taken into account in The Concept of Anxiety. The purpose of this thesis was rather to examine the relationship between psychology and dogmatics. The outcome of this investigation showed that the two sciences stand in opposition to each other and have almost nothing in common. Yet this examination demonstrated something more: specifically that there is an asymmetric relationship between dogmatics and psychology. Whereas psychology is completely independent of dogmatics, dogmatics is highly dependent on psychology. This is why anxiety becomes so crucial, because it is a psychological state through which some of the fundamental dogmas are revealed, such as eternity, stability, objectivity, and universality. This also makes it possible to define psychology in terms of the negation of dogmatics. Psychology, therefore, is about subjectivity, temporality, and the particular. This understanding of psychology is what is pursued in Stages. Although the psychological experiment is located in the third part, 64

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Guilty/Not Guilty, the whole book is permeated by finding out about the relationship between ideality and actuality in real life. The outcome is quite clear, and it confirms the conclusions of the previous books, specifically that a psychological approach is necessary to find out about the existential foundations of a real life, but ideality is at the same time a decisive factor. This makes life not only unpredictable but also contradictory, no matter whether the stage is aesthetic, ethical, or religious. This conclusion is so provoking that the issue is pursued once more in The Sickness Unto Death, but the conclusion still remains: that the existential experiences of religiousness are paradoxically revealed through psychological states. Thus psychology is the science of subjectivity, but it is also the science that reveals an objective foundation for the human being. So when Kierkegaard proclaims in the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” that truth is subjective, it is not because objectivity does not exist, but rather that it is only through subjectivity that it can be acknowledged. This is why psychology becomes so important, not only as a science of subjectivity, but also as a basic device for understanding the objective sciences. Before Kant, psychology was defined in terms of metaphysics and was regarded as a part of it. Kierkegaard’s four books on psychology represent four different arguments for regarding psychology as standing in opposition to metaphysics and the objective sciences. Yet this is not the most astonishing perspective, for as we will soon see, this was exactly what Immanuel Kant claimed sixty years before. The most astonishing contribution Kierkegaard presents is the argument that makes all kind of knowledge, even religious and all other sorts of “objective” knowledge, dependent on the subject. In this respect, psychology is the science that defines the premises for the subject and subjectivity, and therefore Kierkegaard can postulate in the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” that “truth is subjectivity” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 159). This is not because objectivity does not exist, but because it can only be revealed through subjectivity. Thus if psychology is the science of subjectivity, it is psychology that forms the basis for objective scientific knowledge. This is precisely what Kierkegaard indicates by bringing in the natural scientist as an introduction to the psychological experiment in Guilty/Not Guilty. Thus psychology is, according to Kierkegaard, the inevitable basis for understanding all kinds of human knowledge. And this is exactly what he has aimed to prove, particularly through the four books presented here. 65

II Psychology in Terms of the German Enlightenment How old psychology is as a discipline is relative to the reference applied, yet there is no doubt that Aristotle established certain perspectives on this subject that may still be regarded as valid. The idea that the sources for mind representations are sensation and thinking, which is proposed in On the Soul (De Anima, Aristotle, 1976), is one such perspective. However, his sharp distinction between sensation and thinking would probably not be that acceptable today. He is also responsible for the confusion between the terms “psychology” and “aesthetics,” if only because the Greek term for sensation is aisthesis. Thus, according to Aristotle, part of the approach to psychology is related to aesthetics. Yet aesthetics in such a sense is not limited to the experience of art and beauty. Kierkegaard relates aesthetics very much to art, but he also uses a broader interpretation of the term, which is appropriate to the aesthetic stage. This combination of meaning is unmissable in Either/Or, in which the aesthetic is very much discussed in relation to music (Kierkegaard, 2004). This is significant to Theodor W. Adorno who wrote his habilitation thesis on Kierkegaard in 1929–1930. In this thesis, Adorno found a basis for Kierkegaard’s philosophy of aesthetics. Despite all critical considerations and comments on Kierkegaard, the first sentence of this thesis coincides very much with aspects of Kierkegaard that have been highlighted here in this study: “Whenever one tries to understand the writings of philosophy as poetry, one has missed their truth.” (Adorno 1998). This is exactly the irony in Kierkegaard’s writing: the books can be read as novels, but in fact they are dealing with far deeper philosophical problems. When Adorno talks about “truth” in this context, he reveals a different understanding of the term from that of Aristotle, but it coincides very nicely with Kierkegaard. So something has certainly happened in the field since Aristotle. 67

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What psychology has always been concerned with since Aristotle’s De Anima is formulated in the scholastic doctrine, “Nothing is in the intellect which was not first in sense” (Nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu). Ernst Cassirer calls this phrase “the psychological axiom” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 99). This doctrine affirms the fact that representations in our minds are derived from sense impressions of the world. This forms an epistemological framework that is developed in the second book of De Anima. Despite the fact that John Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1689, made this thesis the main doctrine for his empiricism, it is important to underline that this was a common doctrine that addressed the fundamental role of psychology in epistemology. Aristotle introduced this perspective, but it was brought into scholastic thinking and defined as a part of metaphysics by Thomas Aquinas (Thomas Aquinas, 2001). Yet Aquinas did not replace Platonism with Aristotelianism; rather, he combined them. There are many references to Plato as well as to Aristotle in his metaphysics, and this combination was important with regard to what role psychology could achieve in metaphysics. In medieval thinking there was a certain hierarchy in which theology was at the top and Platonism at the second level. When Aquinas adjusted Aristotle into a Christian theological perspective, many aspects merged very well, especially the Aristotelian proof of God as the first mover. However, when it comes to the relationship between God and nature, Aristotle never gives “a satisfying explanation” (Copleston, 1962a, p. 67). In this respect, Platonism was superior because it operated with equivalence between the creator (God) and the created (nature). This is developed in the dialogue Timaeus (Plato, 1990). The combination of Aristotelianism and Platonism resulted in something more than just the sum of the two thinkers. The combination became crucial for the development of the rise of the modern perspective on the world, being something observable, but at the same time an opportunity to disclose God’s wisdom and order. Aristotelianism was founded in psychology, and Platonism legitimized psychology as a part of metaphysics. Aristotle stated that there was a division between sensation and reflection. What he did not say much about, however, was how they could be combined, not only in accordance with theological doctrines, but also in regard to rational thinking. This was a point of departure during the Age of Enlightenment; i.e., the effort to bridge 68

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sensation with reflection. This was a challenge, both for theology and logic. Sensation deals logically with the particular, whereas reflection deals with the general. It is logically impossible to infer the general from the particular, and consequently it is not logically valid to infer reflections from sense impressions. To infer the general from the particular is induction, which Aristotle rejected as a basis for acquiring scientific knowledge (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book 18, undated). In speeches, on the other hand, induction is fully acceptable, but simply as a rhetorical device to persuade the audience (Aristotle, Rhetoric, undated). As long as the scientific aim is to attain general knowledge, sense impressions represent a deep-seated logical problem. There is not only one solution to this problem, and consequently there is not only one side that encounters the issue. There were at least three different positions in the European enlightenment, and these can be more or less separated into those found in Great Britain, France, and Germany. There is a tendency to regard the Englishman John Locke as the principal contributor to the development of psychology after Aristotle. This tendency is not new, and Cassirer refers to the radical French empiricist Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780), who “in a brief survey of the history of psychology proceeds immediately from Aristotle to Locke declaring that, from a viewpoint of real contributions to the solution of psychological problems, all that lay between these two thinkers is insignificant” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 99). By this, Cassirer also highlights how close the connection was between the French and the British Enlightenments at a certain stage, although they definitely do have different points of departure. With Descartes’s rationalism on the one side and Locke’s empiricism on the other, the two sides meet each other in a common attempt to diminish the conflict between sensation and reflection, to try to “reduce all human knowledge to a single source” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 100). This does not imply that one or the other source is excluded, rather that they are merged. It is from this perspective that one aspect of psychology must be understood. By clarifying certain faculties as elements of the mind, an understanding of the elements will at the same time provide for the understanding of the mind. According to the encyclopedist Voltaire, Locke has “set forth human reason just as an excellent anatomist explains the parts of the human body” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 94). Thinking, in other words, was 69

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regarded by Locke as an empirically given entity that could be analyzed in the same way as nature was analyzed. It is interesting how Cassirer criticizes this perspective, especially by focusing on Locke’s solution to the conflict between sensation and reflection. Cassirer admits, on the one hand, that Locke made a great and important step by successfully attacking the concept of innate ideas, but then he draws back when it comes to the most crucial question, namely tracing the sources for “the higher functions of the mind—those of comparing, distinguishing, judging” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 100). Locke simply lists the faculties without mentioning on what they are based. In this respect the French tradition was much more nuanced before Condillac and Cartesian psychology presented an understanding of the higher functions of the mind. But the problem in Cartesian philosophy was, of course, how to understand the lower functions, such as sensation. It is in this respect that French psychology diverged during the eighteenth century. One wing moved toward British empiricism, and the other in the direction of German idealism. As Cassirer points out, Leibniz’s response to Locke was published too late, in 1765, to have any impact on this discussion, as it came out almost fifty years after Leibniz’s death in 1716. A philosopher that became important, not only in Germany, but also in France, was Christian Wolff (1679–1754), who systematized psychology with his two publications Psychologia Empirica (1732) and Psychologia Rationalis (1734). The former was translated into French in 1745 (Wolff, 1745/1998), twenty years before Leibniz’s New Essays on Human Understanding was published. Even the French philosopher Paul Mengal refers to Wolff as the main contributor to defining psychology as an independent scientific field in the eighteenth century, in his impressive study on the origin of psychology (Mengal, 2005, p. 29). Thus, psychology in terms of the German Enlightenment cannot be considered as merely a marginal contribution to the overall history of psychology. The reason why it became so important is quite simply that it managed to unite the two poles of sensation and reflection in a way that had not been achieved by either the British empiricists or the French rationalists. Leibniz regarded perception as fundamental in his monadology. His point of departure was to focus on the one versus the many, instead of reflection versus sensation. These contrasts are equivalent in the sense that reflection unites, whereas sensation generates multiplicity. By focusing on the contradiction between the 70

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one and the many, perception is regarded as the mediating instance. Perception is the doorway to the other, but it is also the first step toward a unification of both (Leibniz, 1998, p. 269, esp. point 14). This forms the basis for a philosophical system that encompasses contradictions without being self-contradictory. It is important to stress that it was psychology that introduced the conflict and by this challenged the role of philosophy, particularly metaphysics. This was exactly the point of departure for Kierkegaard’s philosophy: that there is a deep-seated and severe contradiction within philosophy, which is conveyed by psychology, and which is not necessarily solved by the development of purely philosophical systems.

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5 Kierkegaard and a Period of Change The association between psychology and Kierkegaard may be approached from at least two different standpoints. One is that he presented himself as being mentally unbalanced and therefore appeared as an individual with a serious need for psychological treatment. He himself regarded this as a consequence of his relationship with his father and what he had experienced as a terrible childhood. Although he loved his father, he later blamed him for not affording him a proper upbringing. His father’s fault, he said, was not lack of love but to “confuse an old man with a child” (Heiberg, 1895, p. 13), and there was no space for play and amusements. Thus there are obvious similarities between himself and the young man depicted in Repetition, who was described as “melancholy old” (p. 13). Many biographers have focused on these psychological aspects of his life. There are no doubts that his childhood was not particularly favorable, and both his brothers also had serious problems. His eldest brother, Peter Christian, lived an apparently successful life, but he finally ended up in a madhouse (Hannay, 2001). The next brother Niels, four years younger than Peter Christian and four years older than Søren, went to the USA and arrived in Boston in 1832. This emigration was not very successful, and he died in a hotel room in Paterson, New Jersey, in the fall of 1833. “A fictitious vignette of him during his stay in New York has him sitting in a bar, eyes shaded by the brim of a hat pulled well down over his eyes, feet resting on the edge of the gaming board. Niels is getting royal flushes all the time, and one after another his opponents give up. ‘What’s your name, stranger?’ they ask him. ‘Graveyard’ answers Niels with a selfironic grin, pockets his winnings, washes down the whisky and goes out into the sunlight and freedom.” (Hannay, 2001, p. 32.) A literal translation of the Danish word kierkegaard is “churchyard,” and it is also the Nordic term for “graveyard.” 73

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This duality in life, with success and emptiness combined, seems to have been a characteristic of all three brothers, and also of the father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, who was an unschooled intellectual, indeed a former shepherd. Nevertheless, and despite being the real melancholic in the family, the father did become a successful businessman, and he built up the fortune that Søren would live off for the rest of his life. Michael was especially interested in Christian Wolff; according to Hannay, his favorite reading was “Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele der Menschen auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Reflections on God, the World, the Soul of Man, and Things in General [1720]) in the original” (Hannay, 2001, p. 36). This work was one of many written by Wolff focusing on rationality (Vernünftige Gedanken) in different fields, including law or ethics, and illustrates very well how Wolff was a true philosopher of the Enlightenment. He wrote primarily in German on scientific issues, directed toward everyday people, including, naturally, Michael. And with his father so often explicitly referring to Wolff, it is no surprise that there was an effect on Søren. Note, for example, Kierkegaard’s reference to Rotfischer in Stages, the character who, in 1751, “converted to Lutheranism” on account of Christian Wolff ’s philosophy (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 184). The area Wolff preferred, however, was metaphysics, and he made the first attempts to place psychology as an independent science within this field. And this represents the second significant perspective on the association between Søren Kierkegaard and psychology: how psychology was conceptualized at the time he wrote the books referred to in this study. Without a doubt, Søren Kierkegaard was a very modern thinker who had a great impact on theology, philosophy, and psychology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But he also looked backward. With respect to psychology, the backward references are principally limited to the eighteenth century. This stands in opposition to his references to both theology and philosophy, where in the latter he primarily refers to ancient Greek thinkers. He was also highly influenced by the rather strange theologian and philosopher Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) and there are, in fact, many similarities between Kierkegaard and Hamann. Like Kierkegaard, Hamann wrote a thesis on the ironic aspects of Socrates; he also applied pseudonyms in a manner that made him rather difficult to grasp, and he presented quite controversial solutions to theological problems (Griffith-Dickson, 74

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2007). But Hamann is mainly regarded as a thinker that is representative of the Sturm und Drang era—the reaction to the Enlightenment. This implies that it was not the Enlightenment as such that probably attracted Kierkegaard, but rather the fact that psychology was fast growing into an independent science, chiefly due to Wolff. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard refers to other thinkers, and these are Karl Rosenkranz (1805–1879), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). These are the philosophers we will focus on in this chapter. Subjectivity in Philosophy: Kant and Fichte Subjectivity in philosophy is often associated with Kant, especially his Critique of Pure Reason, of 1781, and there are many reasons for this. The most crucial is, of course, the notion that philosophy can only say something about how the world appears to the perceiver, and almost nothing about the world per se. In this respect, Kant turns everything upside down by breaking fundamentally with one of the most basic doctrines in metaphysics, specifically that there must be some principles that imply that at least something in the world really exists. In this respect, Wolff ’s ontology forms a point of departure for Kant. Wolff based his ontology mainly on the principle of contradiction; i.e., that one thing cannot at the same be true and not true: when A is B, A cannot at the same time not be B (Wolff, 2005, p. 63.) Yet in his lectures on metaphysics, Kant referred regularly to a student of Wolff ’s, Alexander Baumgarten (1714–1762), who had published a one-volume publication on metaphysics in 1739, which was translated into German in 1766 by Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777) and which was used as a textbook of metaphysics at most of the German universities in the eighteenth century (Mirbach, 2004, p. IX). Baumgarten’s ontology follows that of Wolff by presenting the principle of contradiction as the first and most fundamental principle. Subsequently he presents the conditions for what is possible and not possible, in which reason is crucial for saying that something is possible (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 10f ). By these principles he ends up with a notion of what are clear and what are not clear representations. This criterion of clearness decides to what extent something exists or not. Thus Wolffian metaphysics sets forth a system where a single principle may explain whether something exists or does not exist. Kant’s critical philosophy fundamentally breaks with this unified perspective on the world. The differences between reflection and 75

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sensation are given, according to Kant, not gradually, but principally. The criterion of clearness, which also was important to both Descartes and Leibniz, makes no principal distinction between sensation and reflection, because the only difference is that representations are less clear when they are derived from sensation compared to representations derived from reflection, which according to Kant are clearer. Kant does agree that clearness is important, but, according to him, it is related to a question of either/or. This implies that only clear representations are acceptable, which also means that thinking is the only point of departure for acquiring knowledge. This is the core aspect of transcendental philosophy, which regards a priori knowledge as the only valid kind (Kant, 1974). This does not mean, however, that we cannot have any knowledge about nature. For this would be contrary to what Critique of Pure Reason is concerned with, which is to establish the criteria for the foundation of what kind of knowledge we may have about nature. This is why the difference between analytic and synthetic statements becomes so important in transcendental philosophy. Analytic statements only tell us what is obvious and evident from thinking, and are given by the symbolic form A = A, such that we do not develop new knowledge from analytic statements alone. The conception of God may illustrate this. Almost everyone may have a conception of God. Yet if God is just explained as “God is God,” then the explanation tells us nothing. Synthetic statements, on the other hand, bring in new knowledge because the symbolic form is A = B. If God is explained by “God is existence,” this explanation will trigger a lot of discussion, because the statement contains an assessment. One aspect of the discussion would be whether this statement is acceptable just by thinking or if it has to be tested empirically. All sense impressions, or a posteriori statements, are of course synthetic statements, but those are not of interest in Kant’s transcendental philosophy. What are of interest are synthetic statements made a priori. They are both obvious and based on thinking, and at the same time they are statements that can function as principles for acquiring new knowledge. There are several aspects of Kant’s philosophy that coincide with Kierkegaard. The most important is the fundamental distinction between reflection and sensation. By this Kant makes a break, not primarily with metaphysics as such, but more with the belief that metaphysics in particular and philosophy in general are about developing systems, where systems are regarded as unifying the world into a harmonious entity. This appears to be problematical, because it conceals 76

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the fact that there are fundamental conflicts. Kant and Kierkegaard have in common the application of written styles that intend to reveal the conflicts. Kierkegaard applies dialectics, and Kant expresses his thinking through antinomies. The two styles are approaches from different perspectives; in fact, as many perspectives as possible have to be taken into account. Kierkegaard does not criticize Kant; on the contrary, he refers to him positively. But it is obvious that there are many differences between the two thinkers. Kierkegaard focuses more on subjectivity. He is not at all interested in synthetic statements given a priori. Quite the opposite: he would rather regard these as obscuring the clear and radical conflict between the universal and the particular, the eternal and the temporal. Kierkegaard also would not accept thinking as the only basis for acquiring knowledge. Again, quite the opposite: he notoriously refers to experience as the main source for acquiring knowledge. It is only through experience that the severe conflict between eternity and temporality becomes a reality. The guiding thread to realize this is not through rational thinking, but by taking feelings seriously into account. In this respect, Kierkegaard would probably agree with Kant’s understanding of feelings; i.e., that they stand in contrast to reflection, but they are the subject’s compensatory strategy in meeting something that does not fit in with what is expected. Yet Kierkegaard will point out that experience, feelings, and perception are the pathways to acquire knowledge, whereas Kant excludes all these empirical aspects from the theory of knowledge. Thus there are some similarities between Kant and Kierkegaard, but even so, they must be regarded as two very different kinds of thinker. This is certainly true when it comes to their understanding of subjectivity. In Kant’s philosophy, subjectivity is something he accepts almost unwillingly, and in transcendental philosophy he manages to restore some aspects of objectivity by establishing the Twelve Categories. Someone who followed up Kant’s transcendental philosophy with even more emphasis on subjectivity was Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Although Kant never did fully accept Fichte’s philosophy as a development of his own, Fichte insisted that this was so. They also had a common interest in regarding the subject in terms of emancipation from the sphere of objects. Yet this was exactly the point of departure for Fichte’s philosophy. According to Fichte, Kant’s philosophy was not fully complete as a transcendental philosophy because it still operated with a clear distinction between sensation and reflection (Fichte, 2005); however, this was primarily a result of how he was understood, and 77

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not of what he had actually stated, since Fichte believed that he had simply stressed what Kant had really meant by focusing so much on the role of the subject. The aim of Fichte’s philosophical project was to overcome the gap between sensation and objectivity by underlining even more the role of the subject. What creates oneness in the world is the subject. This is the main message of Fichte’s philosophy, which therefore is about how the subject unifies the world. According to transcendental philosophy, the unifying act is the subject’s reflection upon itself. Investigation of the world is nothing less than an investigation of the subject itself, because the world is understood in terms of what the subject is able to understand. One can see very quickly that Fichte was aiming at developing a philosophical system, and he had no problems in admitting this. In a rhetorical question about what the science of knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) is concerned with (Fichte, 1975), he declares that it “is one of the possible philosophical systems” (Fichte, 2005, p. 23). This stands in contrast to earlier philosophical systems, which, according to Fichte, negate themselves because they all remain in deep contradiction between reflection and sensation. According to Fichte, this contradiction is mediated through the subject’s reflection upon itself, which is the starting point for talking about multiplicity in the world. The subject is one, but through the act of reflecting upon oneself, variety is established. Yet multiplicity is still a part of the one, and it is created when the subject is reflecting upon itself. Thus variety is not a result of sensation, particularity in the temporal world, but of this act of self-reflection. In this sense, Fichte was talking about a radical new philosophical system based on Kant’s transcendental philosophy. The problem is, however, that Kant did not accept these consequences of his philosophy. To him it was important to maintain the philosophical tension that appears as a result of the fundamental distinction between reflection and sensation. Also, when it comes to Kierkegaard, this distinction is so crucial that his philosophy is not even conceivable without it. This is, of course, why he denies philosophical systems that do not take into account this basic distinction. Nevertheless, according to Adorno, in his youth Kierkegaard did support Fichte’s critique of Kant (Adorno, 1998), but the deeper he went into Fichte’s subjectivity, the less adequate the “I” appeared to be, until at last it was transformed into a ghost, immortal but almost invisible (Adorno, 1998; see also Kierkegaard, 2002). Kant had an immense impact on the next generation of academic philosophy. This underlines to what extent Kierkegaard represented 78

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something quite different from the tendencies traced in the philosophy of his time. Another aspect of great importance in this context is the role of psychology. Since Fichte focuses so much on subjectivity, it would be natural for him to demonstrate an interest in psychology, but actually he does not. In the more than forty volumes of Fichte’s complete works there are just a few references to psychology. The few references cite other scholars that have written about psychology, particularly Christian Wolff. But this does not mean that psychological topics are not discussed at all in Fichte’s work. On the contrary, in almost every volume he discusses aspects of relevance to psychology, especially the role of the distinction between the so-called lower and higher faculties of acquiring knowledge (niedern und höhern Erkenntnißvermögen) (Fichte, 1976). This was a distinction first presented by Leibniz and further developed in Wolff ’s psychology, and it represents a systematic understanding of the relationship between sensation and reflection. In the forty volumes there are also many references to feelings, and these are even regarded as important in Fichte’s philosophical considerations (López-Dominguez, 1997). Thus, the psychological issues have not vanished but are merely regarded as subordinate and categorized under another label: transcendental philosophy. Psychology, and especially empirical psychology, is, according to Fichte, a self-contradictory part of the Wolffian system and therefore something that must be avoided. Hence his transcendental philosophy is a way of overcoming psychology, and in that respect, he demonstrated his success very well. Psychology is certainly not regarded as an independent science in the Fichtian system, although he was the principal spokesman for subjectivity around the turn of the nineteenth century. The reason is quite simply that he erases the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity and by this makes psychology superfluous. In the Fichtian system, psychology is again assimilated into philosophy. Hegel In contrast to Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel often referred to psychology. In fact he was also quite influential in the field until Wundt made his breakthrough in experimental psychology in the late 1800s. There was a dichotomy in nineteenth-century psychology, and it is very often presented as if Hegel were the only person to represent German idealism, with Wundt later standing in opposition to him. It is certainly true that Wundt was a contrast to Hegel, but it is not true that Wundt stood against German idealism. In fact, Wundt stressed that he 79

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had always admired Leibniz, the founder of German idealism, and he even wrote a book on him for the 200th anniversary of Leibniz’s death, in 1916 (Wundt, 1917). Nevertheless, German idealism in the nineteenth century was very much regarded as synonymous with Hegelianism, especially with regard to psychology. Yet despite his great influence on psychology, Hegel did not write much about it. Most of what he said about psychology can be found in The Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences as part three (Rosenkranz and Davidson, 1871; Hegel, 1894). But this text is intertwined with Hegel’s philosophical system, which is superior to everything—above all, as it were, even psychology. Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel has already been described in some respects. His analysis was presented indirectly in Repetition, in the sense that Hegel was suggested to be the person Kierkegaard referred to as one of those contemporaneous philosophers that pretended to take movement into account but, according to Kierkegaard, did not in practice. To describe movement in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis makes the world predictable in the sense that every event in the world, with no exceptions, will fit one of the three elements in such a description. When Kierkegaard talks about movement, changes, and transcendence, he is referring to what is not predictable. This critique of Hegel is more explicit and harsher in The Concept of Anxiety. “If anyone would take the trouble to collect and put together all the strange pixies and goblins who like busy clerks bring about movement in Hegelian logic [. . .], a later age would perhaps be surprised to see that what are regarded as discarded witticisms once played an important role in logic, [. . .] which made Hegel’s logic something of a miracle and gave logical thought feet to move on, without anyone’s being able to observe them” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 12). When a philosopher like Hegel is able to describe the whole world in terms of some unifying principles (such as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis), then the ambition is to build up a unifying philosophical system. This is what Kierkegaard is criticizing Hegel for: namely, ignoring the fundamental conflict that exists between the unifying process of thinking and actual life or existence. Logic has never included, and will never include, any kind of movement or temporality; it is about inferences, which are right or wrong, and nothing in between. Thus Kierkegaard’s objection is that Hegel does not take into account the contrast that really exists between the eternal and our existence in temporality, a fact that is not displayed in Hegel’s understanding of logic. Hegel’s tripartite of everything in thesis, antithesis, and synthesis 80

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always includes a mediation that conceals the unbridgeable gap between contrasting points of departure. Paradoxically enough, this system of contrasts will necessarily result in a harmonious whole with no contrasts at all. It is in this perspective that Hegel’s psychology must also be understood. He refers to how psychology normally is conceptualized by saying, “Psychology accordingly studies the faculties or general modes of mental activity” (Hegel, 1894, p. 59). Yet at the same time he emphasizes that it has to be regarded from a much broader perspective, and he introduces the term “mind,” which is crucial here. This term refers to the human mind but also to the absolute mind, which, in Hegel’s understanding, is the same as God. There are no borderlines in Hegel’s philosophy, and this likewise characterizes his psychology. According to Hegel, particular minds transcend their particularity in general thinking. As long as everyone can accept a general statement as obvious, minds are united by means of this general statement. Yet if thinking transcends the individual, there must be something that stands above the individual, and this is the absolute mind. The fundamental conflict in psychology, specifically that between reflection and sensation, goes through a similar transformational process. Sensations are elevated into intuitions, which are transmuted into representations or ideas, which are transmuted into thoughts (Hegel, 1894, p. 60). In other words, “mind is just this elevation above nature and physical modes” (Hegel, 1894, p. 59). There is a continuous line from the physical object to the mind, and it is a transformational process that changes everything into thought. “Hegel does not treat of substances, but of thoughts” (Rosenkranz and Davidson, 1871, p. 247). Thus this continuity can be pursued from physical objects, through individual minds, to the absolute mind. It is in this respect that freedom becomes an issue and is made real as a basis for man’s existence. The fundamental obstacle to this perspective is nature, which seems to contradict freedom, as nature is governed by strong causality. In the Hegelian universe, however, causality is not regarded as a physical necessity or entity, but rather as an aspect of our thinking and subjective understanding of nature. This is the conclusion that Kant made available. Since freedom primarily depends on thinking, our thinking about nature must also be characterized by freedom. Hegel’s psychology, therefore, merges into a totality that is held together by the concept of the mind. Hegel struggled greatly with finding an appropriate term, and “the mind” appeared quite late in his philosophy (Rosenkranz and Davidson, 1871). Yet there are no clear and obvious distinctions between “psychology” and “the mind” in Hegel’s 81

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philosophy. Thus it is hard to say if “the mind” should be understood in terms of psychology, or if psychology should be understood in terms of the mind. Both would be problematic from a Kierkegaardian or a Kantian perspective. If the mind should be understood in terms of psychology, it would end up in a sort of psychologism; i.e., all events could be explained as psychological phenomena. This is what David Hume ended up with by, for example, explaining causality as associations within our minds. Yet if psychology should be understood in terms of the Hegelian understanding of the mind, it would not have any independent life; i.e., it could not be defined as a specific science. Psychology would then, as in Fichte’s universe, be completely assimilated by philosophy. By introducing the term “mind,” Hegel goes a step further than Fichte. Hegel’s transcendental philosophy does not only absorb psychology, ethics, religion, and aesthetics, but also the philosophy of nature. In this respect the system is complete, and it stands in deep contrast not only to Kierkegaard, but also to Immanuel Kant. According to Kant, contradictions between thinking and sensation are unavoidable because of the limitation of the Twelve Categories of a priori understanding. The limitation of these categories is due to the fact that their connection to the world per se is an open question. Hegel also accepts contradictions as a point of departure, and in this sense Kant’s antinomies are developed further by Hegel’s dialectics, where the contradictions resolve themselves on a higher level. The contradictions in Hegel’s philosophy are unavoidable, but equally unavoidable is that they are resolved. If psychology became an independent science in the Wolffian system, this situation did not last very long. Due to the popularity of transcendental philosophy, psychology soon became subordinated to and totally absorbed by philosophy. This is especially true with regard to Hegelianism, which dominated much of the teaching of psychology at universities in the nineteenth century. But this is not the complete picture. There remained underlying and underestimated streams of psychological movements that still regarded psychology as an independent science. Kierkegaard was part of one such movement, and he was not the only one. Indeed, Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) was probably the most important contributor to defining psychology as an independent science after Kant, but Kierkegaard refers sparsely to him, and their interpretations of psychology were very different. Herbart followed 82

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Kant, but also Leibniz and Wolff, by attempting to define psychology as a mathematical science. Another figure that contributed significantly to psychology at this time was Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869). Despite the fact that he made the term “unconsciousness” popular by stating that “the key to understand the essentials of the conscious life of the soul lies in the unconsciousness” (Carus, 1866, p. 1), he was primarily a physiologist and did not regard the human soul as unique compared with other living creatures. This did not rest very well with Kierkegaard, who more or less ignored Carus and the concept of “unconsciousness” in his writings. Rosenkranz It is a paradox that Kierkegaard criticizes Hegel on the one hand and, on the other, praises one of his adherents, Karl Rosenkranz (1805–1879); however, this is justifiable. Hegel is not only an “enemy” of Kierkegaard; he also forms a point of departure for him. The dialectics that Kierkegaard applies in his works is the best proof of this. So in a sense, there was a love-hate relationship between Kierkegaard and Hegel. Another aspect to consider is that there were slight differences between Rosenkranz and Hegel’s interpretations of psychology. Hegel did not develop a fully worked-out psychology, and it is debatable as to how to understand what he did present with regard to details. Rosenkranz’s aim was to fulfill the psychology of Hegel. He was guided by an understanding of the Hegelian system, which led him in a direction that coincided with some crucial aspects of Kierkegaard’s understanding of what psychology is, and this is the principal reason why Kierkegaard acknowledges the Hegelian Rosenkranz but not Hegel himself. It is very easy to understand Hegel as if he were the philosopher to end all philosophers, so that after him there was nothing more left to say. His philosophical system is apparently so closed that it does not seem to open up for any alternative explanations at all, and this is very much the way Kierkegaard presents him. Rosenkranz, however, did open up another way of understanding. He stated that critique is an immanent part of transcendental philosophy, which implies that “Hegel’s philosophy is not the last one in the world history” (Rosenkranz, 1843, p. IX). Rosenkranz aimed at restoring and developing Hegel’s psychology, and his initial objective, at least, was to clarify how psychology could be defined as an independent science. 83

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Hegel was not alone when it came to constructing unifying philosophical systems in which all the different sciences could be understood in terms of a few unifying principles. This was exactly what Christian Wolff attempted to do. He suggested that all thinking is based on the principle of contradiction and the criterion of sufficient reason. This was exactly what metaphysics came to be about, namely identifying the unifying principles that permeate all disciplines of science. Kant tried to break with this way of thinking by discussing the problems that normally were treated in metaphysics from a critical perspective, which implies finding the fundamental criteria that may define the actual content of these problems discussed in metaphysics. Although he may have had the intention of building up a new system, he did not end there. This is exactly what Fichte criticized him for: specifically, ending up with contrasts, such as that between reflection and sensation, instead of principles that might actually reconcile these kinds of conflict. In essence, Fichte reintroduces the aim of metaphysics under a new headline, namely subjectivity. Hegel followed this up, but the headline was not “subjectivity,” but rather “the mind” and “dialectics.” In this respect, Kierkegaard is extremely radical. Even today it is natural to ask for the unifying principles on which psychology could have its ontological basis. Of course there were not many philosophers that Kierkegaard could refer to that maintained the conflict and contradiction between the sciences, and by these defined psychology as an independent and self-sufficient discipline. Rosenkranz was, in addition to Kant, one of these. Yet Rosenkranz is even more conscious about this aim of defining psychology as an independent science. Thus he has a need to refer to some contemporaneous scholars that stress the unifying aspects so strongly that it appears to be ridiculous. This is what Kierkegaard does with regard to Hegel. Yet to Rosenkranz, Hegel does not appear to be ridiculous, hence as an example he refers to another scholar, a certain Mussmann (p. VII), who overstressed unification in his presentation of psychology, such that psychology was combined with more or less everything—for example, law, morality, and even religion. The small compendium was published in 1827, but with such an incomplete presentation of a complete system, the result appeared to be utterly ridiculous. Thus instead of unification, Rosenkranz focused on distinctions in his view of psychology, and he emphasized the differences between psychology and other sciences. This was of course one of the main problems at the time: to clarify what psychology was concerned with. Although psychology may seem to be related to law, 84

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ethics, and religion, they are at basis very different, and this difference is primarily related to the aspect of subjectivity. Religion, law, and ethics are all related to some sort of objectivity, in the sense that one of their aims is to mitigate the subjective factor. This is why Rosenkranz defined psychology as the science of subjectivity and by this made it different from all the other sciences. Even when it comes to the understanding of the soul, Rosenkranz does not focus on its coincidental aspects with the absolute mind, but rather the opposite. He makes a very subtle distinction between the immediate aspects of the soul and its reflexive parts. The immediate is what characterizes the human soul, and this stands in opposition to the absolute mind (Rosenkranz, 1843, p. 198). This is very much one of Kierkegaard’s main objectives: underlining the differences between the human and God, and it seems that Rosenkranz’s publication on psychology of 1837 inspired him to start on precisely this goal. Rosenkranz refers to Herbart as a point of departure in this respect. According to him, Herbart should have stated, “Every object requires a specific method” (Rosenkranz, 1843, p. XVII). For Rosenkranz, the language used in a certain investigation has to reflect the language spoken by the object. In other words, the method cannot be regarded as a universal device applicable to all the different situations that are to be investigated—it must be adjusted to the specific situation at stake. This perspective is not only true, but it is also productive, says Rosenkranz, and it is only in this way that multiplicity in the universe can be captured. The field of logic is totally different from the field of aesthetics, and they follow their own specific methods. This very much contradicts scientific investigation in the eighteenth century, which was highly characterized by applying a certain universal scientific method to all sciences. It also contradicts how the idea of philosophical systems was conceptualized in the nineteenth century. Rosenkranz himself seems to be of this tradition, but on closer inspection, it is obvious that he represents something quite different. Kierkegaard was quick to realize that Rosenkranz’s understanding represented an alternative, and he realized also to what extent it contradicted the understanding of Hegel conveyed by the majority of his adherents. Kierkegaard had no problem with announcing his appreciation of the Hegelian Rosenkranz and at the same time presenting himself as a vicious critic of Hegel. It is one thing to characterize psychology as an independent science; how to define its content is a different problem. In this respect, Rosenkranz went very much his own way. His psychology is divided 85

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into three areas: anthropology, phenomenology, and pneumatology. This distinction represents movements on three separate levels: from the general to the particular, from the outside to the inside, and from the lower to the higher faculties. To bring in anthropology as the first step implies that the field is centered on the human being. But this has a very broad perspective, in the sense that the human being is seen within its natural environment, which is defined by the sequential movements of the sun, the moon, and the earth. This implies that the seasons, the changes from day to night, and so on are all accounted for. Different races and different tempers are a consequence, and anthropology ends up examining feelings and how the individual expresses itself in different ways. Phenomenology is about sensation and perception. Whereas anthropology represents a movement in which the subject is circling, phenomenology focuses on how the individual relates itself to the world. This is supposed to be on a lower level where sensation is the core issue, and the immediate aspects of the soul are revealed in the anthropological and the phenomenological analyses. Pneumatology contrasts this by focusing on the higher faculties, which are primarily related to thinking. In this area, Rosenkranz discusses imagination, attention, association, fantasy, language, and so on. But he also touches on emotions, affections, passions, and drives in this section, primarily in relation to what he calls the practical spirit, which is a form of application of the theoretical spirit. This also explains the use of the term “pneumatology,” which at the time referred to the study of the soul. Both “pneumatology” and “soul” lost more and more of their mysterious connotations, which were completed by replacing both of them with the term “psychology.” It is, however, important to underline that anthropology, phenomenology, and pneumatology are all discussed from a certain perspective; i.e., in an attempt to define subjectivity. The three areas indicate different aspects of the subject: its environment, its connection with the physical environment, and its inner capacities. The three terms point both backward and forward, and they reveal the fact that psychology certainly was not clearly defined at this time. Rosenkranz’s method of systematizing psychology was not the only one. Another contemporary of Rosenkranz, namely Karl Ludvig Michelet (1801–1893), who published a book about psychology in 1840, approached this issue in a very different manner (Michelet, 1840). His psychology has much more in common with the old theory that the 86

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mind is divided into separate powers or faculties (faculty psychology), as he focuses on the lower and the higher faculties. Michelet also focuses on the history of psychology in addition to presenting a lifespan perspective on the individual, but he does not apply the terms anthropology, phenomenology, or pneumatology. Rosenkranz and Michelet referred to each other with respect, but they are very clear about the fact that their interpretations are different. What the two writers do have in common, however, is that they are both Hegelians, and they both define psychology as the science of subjectivity. Michelet is more traditional, nevertheless, and Rosenkranz’s systematization reveals a more future-oriented viewpoint: to a great extent, he manages to emancipate psychology from other sciences but also from Hegelian philosophy. This is probably why Kierkegaard referred to and gave his approval to almost no one among his contemporary scholars other than Rosenkranz.

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6 Psychology as a Part of Metaphysics Probably everyone has an opinion about metaphysics, but nobody knows the exact meaning of it. In addition, metaphysics suffers the destiny and indignity of being condemned by almost all, such that there is near-overall agreement on the need for psychology to be emancipated from it. This is probably valid, but what is even more important is to clarify why psychology has to be released. And this requires an understanding of the relationship psychology has with metaphysics (whatever it is!), and also of what psychology was supposed to be all about historically. The content of both metaphysics and psychology has changed over history. When Aristotle wrote his Metaphysics, he did not include psychology. Moreover, his psychology did not include questions about feelings and human nature. The tendency to combine all these issues appeared at a considerably later stage in history. Precisely when is almost impossible to say; it was something that developed gradually. Even the term “psychology” was not fully accepted as a denotation before the late Renaissance, and the term had appeared in many different forms before then (Mengal, 2005). So when Thomas Aquinas included psychology as a part of metaphysics, the latter was an umbrella term that included almost everything, and psychology was completely unspecified. A clear specification of what both metaphysics and psychology were concerned with only became an issue in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This was, as mentioned, not only in Germany with its Enlightenment, but also in other European countries. What is significant about the German Enlightenment, however, is the fact that the scholars in this tradition aspired toward regarding all human activity as being related to each other. This resulted in weighty philosophical 89

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systems but also specification of what the different subdisciplines in metaphysics were related to. The benefit of this was that it became slightly clearer what psychology was supposed to be concerned with. Metaphysics during the German Enlightenment One of the most interesting outcomes of philosophy during the German Enlightenment was its systematization, which to a large extent shed light on the boundaries of metaphysics. Yet the attempts to create complex philosophical systems must be regarded both as a prerequisite for this clarification, but also as subordinate to it. A side effect of the clarification was that how metaphysics should be considered had to be described. To this end, Christian Wolff was a major contributor. The subtitles of his books on metaphysics reveal very clearly how he felt metaphysics should be approached. In English, one example would be something along the lines of this: “Treated in accordance with scientific methods” (“Methodo scientifica petractata”) (Wolff, 1738). This brings in method as a feature of scientific discourse, which has to be regarded as one of the typical factors of Enlightenment thinking. Knowledge was not seen as something given, but something that had to be acquired in accordance with a certain principled method. Since metaphysics had always been regarded as the basis for all forms of acquired knowledge, the method referred to in this subtitle points in two directions. Even knowledge of metaphysics has to be acquired by following a certain method, and this represents a change from, and an alternative to, the previous speculative approach to the acquisition of knowledge (Effertz, 2005). Secondly, if knowledge that goes beyond metaphysics was to be regarded as scientific, it had to be acquired by following the devices pointed out in metaphysics. Thus metaphysics in the era of enlightenment must be regarded not as a speculative approach in contrast to science, but rather the opposite. Metaphysics was effectively the handbook for the scientific method. It was in this respect that Christian Wolff achieved something extraordinary in dividing metaphysics into four different areas, which together formed the totality of what was then called scientific knowledge. This was a project he launched in the middle of his career, after being very well prepared for this task on account of having accomplished his earlier popular works, particularly the favorite book of Kierkegaard’s father, Michael: Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, of 1720, which, in short, is basically about everything. After several books 90

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on rational thinking in various areas, the immense project on systematizing metaphysics opened, just as Aristotle had done, with The First Philosophy or Ontology (Philosophia prima, sive Ontologi), of 1730. The second volume, General Cosmology (Cosmologia generalis) came the year after, and the most important volume in this context was the third, namely Empirical Psychology (Psychologia empirica) of 1732. This publication was followed by Rational Psychology (Psychologia rationalis) two years later. The metaphysical project was completed by the two volumes of Natural Theology (Theologia naturalis), which were published in 1736 and 1737 respectively. So according to Wolff, metaphysics was defined as consisting of four different parts, namely ontology, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology, and the division became standard at this time. The best-known evidence for this comes from Alexander Baumgarten’s work on metaphysics of 1739, which is much shorter than Wolff ’s collection, being published in a single volume (Baumgarten, 2004). In addition, Immanuel Kant was not alone in using Wolff ’s and Baumgarten’s works as textbooks in metaphysics, and several other scholars published one-volume theses in metaphysics consisting of the same four divisions that Wolff had suggested—for example, the two more peripheral Norwegian scholars Jens Kraft (1752) and Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1757). The importance of metaphysics dates back to Aristotle, who coined the term, and the general understanding of metaphysics as the primary philosophy is a conception that was preserved during the Enlightenment. Baumgarten states that metaphysics is “the science of the primary causes of human knowledge” (“Die Metaphysik ist die Wissenschaft der ersten Erkenntnisßgründe in der menschlichen Erkenntniß,” Baumgarten, 2004, p. 6). In addition, the conception of knowledge implies primarily that it is general. This is a requirement that also goes back to Aristotle, who quite explicitly states that scientifically valid knowledge has to be based on some true principles, and these are general. “Demonstrative knowledge must rest on necessary basic truths” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics). It is worthwhile focusing on the expression “demonstrative knowledge,” which indicates very well how the particular is regarded by Aristotle. The particular has only scientific value as far as it can be explicitly derived from general basic principles. Demonstrative knowledge is an example of these principles in the sense that the principles are referred to indirectly. We have already mentioned how the Aristotelian principle of contradiction forms the basis for the Wolffian philosophical system. This is presented in Wolff ’s “Ontology,” 91

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the first section of his metaphysics, and very much describes how the rest of metaphysics is based. Cosmology demonstrates very well how metaphysics in the Enlightenment was transformed. In this respect, Baumgarten’s metaphysics is primarily referred to, as this was accepted as a textbook in metaphysics at German universities in the latter part of the eighteenth century (Mirbach, 2004). On the one hand, cosmology included principles of scientific knowledge from Aristotle, yet some Platonic perspectives were included. This is clear when Baumgarten states that an investigation of the world principally reveals a kind of mathematical order, by which it is governed (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 77, §265). This is also clear when he talks about a preestablished harmony (p. 98, §329). But Baumgarten also says that cosmology is divided into two subsets. The Aristotelian and Platonic principles are included in what he calls “rational cosmology,” cosmologia rationalis, (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 73, § 252). This represents our general understanding of the world, derived from the abstract concepts we have about it. On the other hand, he talks about “empirical cosmology,” cosmologia empirica (p. 98). This is the knowledge we have about the world through experience. This is effectively the same as what Aristotle designated “demonstrative knowledge,” yet there is a difference here. Whereas Aristotle attempts to diminish the scientific role of demonstrative knowledge, Baumgarten emphasizes the importance of empirical cosmology. Rational and empirical cosmologies are far from equal, and the empirical orientation is highlighted. What is even more in contrast to Aristotle is that cosmology, in a sense, is related to psychology (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 73, §253). He does not specify how, so this is something that has to be pursued. The distinction in cosmology is parallel to the distinction between empirical and rational psychology. Yet there is an important difference. Baumgarten seldom mentions empirical cosmology after initially presenting the term. When it comes to empirical psychology, this completely dominates the section devoted to psychology. The presentation of empirical psychology consists of 177 paragraphs, but only fiftyfour out of 231 are devoted to rational psychology. This is important concerning how to achieve an adequate understanding of metaphysics in the era of the Enlightenment. Empirical psychology is defined as the science of the principles that govern all our experiences, and by these principles we can explain what appears in the human soul (“Psychologia empirica est scientia stabiliendi principia per experientiam, unde 92

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ratio redditur corum, quæ in anima humana fiunt,” Wolff, 1738, p. 1). Empirical psychology is mainly about sense impressions and therefore about the particular. So when Baumgarten refers to empirical cosmology without elaborating on it, the content of empirical cosmology is left open. Yet by following up with such great emphasis on empirical psychology, he makes a connection between the two. Sense impressions include observations too. This implies that empirical psychology has many functions in metaphysics, and one of them is to demonstrate how observations in the world can be regarded as an acceptable scientific approach. This became more and more important in the eighteenth century by a gradually increased focus on empirical psychology at the expense of rational psychology. The fourth and final division of metaphysics cannot be ignored, firstly because natural theology may be regarded as an obstacle to scientific progress, and secondly because natural theology is the science that presents the most basic argument for why nature is worth exploring—as nature is the clearest proof of God’s creative power. “Every final entity is to be regarded as an instrument for acknowledging God’s intentions” (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 244, §733, a.t.). Since God represents the highest form of knowledge, science relating to him is the most perfect form of science (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 216, §648). This implies that natural theology must be regarded as a prerequisite for exploring nature, which, indeed, also includes human nature. Instead of regarding natural theology as an obstacle to science, it can even be indicated as its cause, or at least as having a legitimizing function for scientific activity. Yet natural theology is not the same as theology. This is because theology is a complete science that goes beyond metaphysics by including the element of faith, whereas natural theology is the science of how God is revealed without presupposing faith (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 201, §599). There is a difference, therefore, not only between natural theology and theology, but also between natural theology and dogmatics. This is why Kierkegaard makes such a clear distinction between the three sciences metaphysics, theology, and dogmatics. They are strongly connected but represent three distinct domains. The same can be said of the four divisions of metaphysics. They are four distinct sciences, but they strongly depend on each other. Different perspectives can be applied to the understanding of metaphysics when it is organized like this. One has been referred to several times already, being that Wolff and all his followers wanted to present a philosophical system that could embrace and 93

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unite all knowledge. If Wolff ’s metaphysics is regarded as a precursor to Fichte’s, Schelling’s, and Hegel’s philosophical systems, this understanding is highly relevant. But by regarding metaphysics as a methodological handbook, an alternative understanding is also suggested, as the four separate parts of metaphysics highlight this understanding. In addition, Fichte’s critique of Wolff implies that Wolff did not manage to unite all the subdisciplines in his metaphysics and therefore failed to build up a tenable philosophical system. Although Kant formed the basis for the large German philosophical systems, Kant could not approve the conclusions Fichte drew from them. One reason for this is the fact that Fichte ignored all the contradictions in our understanding of the world that require a dialectical approach, and a second reason is that Kant primarily wanted to formulate a basis for actual scientific knowledge and not simply build up a philosophical system. Kant’s philosophy has also been used in this way; that is, as a basis for how to achieve scientifically valid knowledge. Thus he seems to continue Wolff ’s pretensions of formulating textbooks in scientific methods, admittedly at a very abstract level, but nevertheless with some pointers as to how to be capable of acquiring scientific knowledge. In taking a closer look at the four divisions of metaphysics that became accepted during the German Enlightenment, it is most natural to focus on the final understanding of metaphysics in the German Enlightenment, which implies that metaphysics could not be regarded as a complete and tenable philosophical system, and the argument for this is simple. The Aristotelian requirement that scientific knowledge has to be general and universal was still valid, and only three out of the four parts of metaphysics could satisfy this requirement. The one that does not satisfy is psychology, and specifically empirical psychology. This is the science of the particular, because sensation deals exclusively with the particular. Aristotle stated this, and even today there are no tendencies to doubt the truth value of this statement. Thus there is a tension between ontology, in particular, and empirical psychology within metaphysics. Ontology is solely about universal truth. And when Baumgarten makes a distinction between rational and empirical cosmology, this tension is likewise present in the second division. He also explicitly refers to physics in this context (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 73, §253). This is likewise about the particular, if it is not regarded in terms of the general perspective given in cosmologia rationalis. However, it is equally important to highlight the double aspect of natural theology 94

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as well. Whereas theology and dogmatics deal with universal truths in Christianity, natural theology also deals with the particular. This is very much the sentiment in Baumgarten’s statement “Every final entity is to be regarded as an instrument for acknowledging God’s intentions” (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 244, §733, a.t.). Natural theology focuses on the “final entity” in the perspective of “God’s intentions,” which are given in other sciences, namely theology and dogmatics. In other words, metaphysics, and especially after its formulation by Baumgarten, during the German Enlightenment transformed from dealing solely with the universal to opening up more to deal with the particular. In this transformational process psychology seems to have acquired a key role, in the sense that it is precisely psychology that brings in sensation as a device for acquiring knowledge, and this allows for scientific observations and subjectivity. Yet it is important to underline that the new aspect here is not that psychology introduces this, but that psychology is now explicitly included in metaphysics, and it is because of this inclusion that metaphysics experienced a sea change during the German Enlightenment. Leibniz’s Psychology It is difficult to talk about Leibniz’s psychology, since he did not write very much about it. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why it is important to approach his work. One is that he is supposed to have formulated the philosophical background for German idealism (Woolhouse, 1998). Thus he forms the philosophical basis for almost all the scholars mentioned up until now. Another reason is that it is very often stated that Wolff did not produce anything original by himself, only the repetition of Leibniz’s philosophy (Copleston, 1964), although this cannot be the whole truth, as most of Leibniz’s writings were published after Wolff ’s death in 1765. However, it is true that Wolff helped with publishing the Monadology after Leibniz’s death in 1716, though Wolff did not appreciate the Monadology as Leibniz’s most important contribution to philosophy. The Monadology appears as an important part of Baumgarten’s metaphysics but also in other contributions to metaphysics from that time. The third and most important reason for dealing with Leibniz in this context is that he concentrates very much on perception in his philosophy. Thus he formed the basis for the development of modern psychology for 150 to 200 years, which, in the later stages, also included the rise of experimental psychology, especially with regard to Wilhelm Wundt’s contributions (Wundt, 1917). 95

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One paragraph in Leibniz’s Monadology may sum up his understanding of perception. That is point 14, which maintains, “The transitory state which incorporates and represents a multitude within a unity or within a simple substance is nothing but what we call perception” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 269). Perception, in other words, is regarded as essentially related to the multitude. In a letter from 1702 he states quite directly that “perception is the expression of a multitude in a unity” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 256). This is an important point of departure, and it can be explained by the influence of both Aristotle and Plato. Leibniz admits that he was brought up with Aristotelian thinking to such a degree that he regarded it as a burden that he at least managed to rid himself of (Leibniz, 1985a, p. 203). In this sense, he is taking into account the Aristotelian principle from De Anime that the soul can be compared with a blank tablet that can be written on. Yet he characterizes this as a mere “popular notion” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 79), which is something that typifies Aristotelian understanding. He then refers to Plato, whom he regards as going much deeper into the subject. Leibniz makes a distinction between ideas and notions. The former is what already exists in the soul, whereas the latter is what is apprehended. However, the apprehended does not always come from outside, and even our most immediate perception of what is outside us points at God. This is what lies behind his famous reply to Locke. Locke referred to the scholastic formulation that stems from Aristotle, “Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu” (“There is nothing in our understanding that does not come from senses”), as the argument for empiricism. When Leibniz then added “excipe: nisi intellectus ipse” (“except the understanding itself,” Leibniz, 1985b, p. 103), he is referring not only to ideas, but also to the inner perceptions of “myself and of my thoughts, and therefore of being, substance, action, identity and many others” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 79). According to Leibniz, perception is very much connected to his Monadology. Yet it does not have to be. Seen from a psychological point of view, it is even more interesting that perception is defined in terms of “multitude in a unity.” This coincides nicely with the understanding of core aspects of the psychology of today, especially when it comes down to personality and development, for example. In both areas, the combination of stability and change must be said to count as a core issue. Yet this is the paradox that psychology has been dealing with since Leibniz’s time—and this is why Kierkegaard started his first explorative study in psychology by contrasting the Eleatics and Diogenes (Kierkegaard, 2009a). This is also why there is a distinction between rational and empirical psychology. Although Leibniz does not 96

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explicitly refer to this distinction, it is there. Yet he focuses primarily on the rational aspects, in the sense that he continually near denies outer experience. If he has to take them into consideration, he defines them in terms of God as the object for immediate outer experience. This is natural theology. Leibniz does not present this as a distinct area, and neither does he for the other areas in metaphysics, which Wolff pointed out after him. In other words, Leibniz opens up for all the aspects and topics Wolff systematized in his metaphysics, but Leibniz regards almost all of them, including empirical psychology, in terms of universal aspects. In this sense, the modern dilemma between the universal and the particular is not fully acknowledged by Leibniz. As Aristotle did, he regarded scientific knowledge as universal. So his comments on those who carried out experiments in physics were that he denied that these would result in any new knowledge (Leibniz, 1985c, p. 309). There are, however, two more core terms in psychology that stem from Leibniz’s philosophy. These are apperception and appetition. The latter goes back to Aristotle, in particular his Nichomachean ethics, where he states that in the soul there are three functions on which moral action and truth depend: “Sense, Intellect, Appetition, whether vague Desire or definite Will” (Aristotle, 2007, Book VI, p. 99). There are at least two important aspects here. One is the fact that Leibniz underlines drive and volition as crucial factors in psychology. The other is the graduation Aristotle is suggesting by pointing out a vague desire at the one end and conscious volition, effectively intentions and purposes, at the other. This graduation implies the most valuable contribution in Leibniz’s Monadology, being the role of continuity in the understanding of the world. Yet it implies also a relationship between blind drives and articulated purposes. Moreover, it implies how the term “unconsciousness” came into psychology. This is not the most important term in this context, but it demonstrates very well to what extent Leibniz contributed to establishing psychology at least as a specific area, if not as a distinct science. What is even more important, though, is that appetition is primarily understood to be one of the causes for change. Perception is not a sufficient reason for change. There must, in addition, exist a drive toward the perceived other to produce change (Leibniz, 1998). The fact that it was Leibniz who introduced the term “apperception”’ amplifies this impression so that his contribution to psychology must be regarded as critical. One probably cannot think about the rise of experimental psychology without taking the term “apperception” into 97

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account. Although the meaning of the term has changed over history, the meaning Leibniz gave the term has more or less implicitly been presupposed. According to Leibniz, apperception is “the reflective knowledge of [the] internal state” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 260). This means that apperception is a kind of reflection and consciousness of one’s own existence. Not all living creatures have this ability. Yet it is typical of the human being to be able to reflect on one’s own situation, and especially one’s own thoughts must be said to be one of the key characteristics, not only for human beings, but also for the science of the mental aspects of human beings, namely psychology. It was Wolff, and after him Kant, who slightly changed the meaning of the term to designate the unifying aspects of the additive process of notions in the mind, and this meaning formed a point of departure for both Herbart’s and Wundt’s psychology. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) must be said to represent a third meaning, but the understanding of the term in this test is closer to Kant than to Leibniz. Wolff ’s Psychology Most of the psychological terms that stem from Leibniz appear also in Christian von Wolff ’s psychology. This does not imply, however, that Wolff simply reiterated Leibniz’s philosophy. Already one of Wolff ’s students, namely Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1693–1750) had described “Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy” (Copleston, 1964, p. 135). Yet he was referring primarily to certain aspects that characterized both of them. Importantly, this was the fundamental distinction between the two human capacities of acquiring knowledge, namely the higher and the lower forms. These correspond partly to the distinction between rational and empirical psychology. Leibniz formed the basis for these psychologies, but it was Wolff who developed them systematically. Another important difference between the two is that Leibniz ignored the potentiality that lies in the lower forms of acquiring knowledge; i.e., sensation. Wolff, on the other hand, was much more interested in this capacity of the human mind. Thus Wolff exploited the potentiality that was hidden in Leibniz’s philosophy, and by this he tended to turn Leibniz’s thinking upside down, or at least he prepared the ground for doing so. Wolff ’s explicit rejection of the Monadology is just one symptom of this. Others are the two psychologies that were published in 1732 and 1734 respectively, of which the empirical form came first and became an object for immense attention at that time. 98

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These publications were very well prepared for, however. For already in 1720 Wolff had published “Vernünftige gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt” (Wolff, 1747). This pet reading of Kierkegaard’s father was nothing less than an introduction to the field of psychology, and the title indicates exactly this. It mentions the soul as a key term, yet it is clearly subordinate to both God and the world, which also are mentioned. In other words, this publication is a first attempt at presenting metaphysics to a bigger audience than just specialist academic groups within the German reading arena, and the fact that it was written in German indicated patently that this was intended to be so. However, the work was not as systematized as was his series of publications that later appeared in the thirties. Almost all the subjects are more or less mixed together. It runs to almost eight hundred pages, divided into six chapters of vastly different lengths. The first is about how we acknowledge our existence and is just five pages. The second is about the basis for our knowledge about whatever it might be, and this chapter runs to one hundred pages. The third is about the soul in general and how it acquires knowledge. This is the longest chapter in the whole book and accounts for more than two hundred pages. There follows a chapter of around hundred and twenty pages about the world. The fifth chapter is of the same length, and in this the author follows up the discussion on the soul by defining its essence and its relation to other spirits. The last chapter is of one hundred and fifty pages and solely concerns God. We find, therefore, a tendency to present metaphysics with the ingredients ontology, psychology, cosmology, and theology, but where the topics are not as systematized as they become later. The relationship between empirical and rational psychology seems to be unclear and coincidental. Yet there is no doubt that any psychology here is primarily the empirical form. Even the term “metaphysics” is applied as a subtext, so there are no doubts about the close relationship between this publication and the series of publications that appeared later in the thirties. It is quite clear that psychology plays a key role from the very beginning of this book. To acknowledge our own existence we have to perceive, but we also have to reflect upon ourselves. The latter is what existence is all about, whereas perception is just a tool to bring into the mind what is reflected upon. Thus psychology indirectly forms the basis for a discussion of our existence. Even ontology, therefore, seems to be closely related to psychology. The principle of contradiction also forms a basic principle in this work, as it does in Wolff ’s Ontology 99

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of 1730. But it is its application to certain perceptual acts combined with self-reflection that almost brings psychology in here as a part of ontology as well. The Wolffian perspective is apparently similar to the Cartesian, but it is important for Wolff to point out differences. The most important is related to the combination of reflection and perception. According to Wolff, the Cartesian perspective focuses solely on conscious reflection. By bringing in the aspect of perception, the aspect of unclearness is additionally introduced. This aspect of unclearness is something that Leibniz demonstrated an interest in, and to him it is closely related to unconsciousness. Since perception is an aspect of the multitude in the world, it is also combined with different levels of clear awareness. Some creatures just register something, whereas others are conscious, not only of what they perceive, but also that they perceive. Yet even the human mind, which has this capacity to reflect upon itself, may sometimes have unclear understanding of what the perceived is about. In this respect, in 1712 Leibniz referred to music in a letter to the mathematician Goldbach, and he declared that by listening to music, the soul unconsciously does some arithmetic exercises (“Musica est exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerare animi” (Dammann, 1967, p. 79). And Wolff follows up this conception of unawareness or unconscious perceptions (Wolff, 1747, p. 110). This is not the most important point, however. What is even more significant in this book is how the author highlights the role of perception as a basis for more or less the whole of metaphysics. This key role of psychology in metaphysics is not revealed so obviously when it comes to the edition of Psychologia empirica of 1732. Here it is not even so obvious that it is a part of metaphysics at all. If Wolff ’s psychology is referred to at all, it is seldom, and simply as a part of metaphysics. This conceals the premises for it, and not least how radical this publication really was at that time. As previously mentioned, one of these premises was that metaphysics was regarded as a philosophical and methodological basis for scientific investigation. Since scientific knowledge is general, then it was a radical change of immense proportions to introduce the science of particularity and even to regard it as equal to and at the same level as the other sciences: ontology, cosmology, and theology. The fact that Psychologia Empirica was published as a separate volume underlines the importance of this very book, yet this also caused a misunderstanding of its role in metaphysics. Since metaphysics during the Enlightenment was regarded as a presentation of the philosophical and methodological basis for scientific 100

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investigation, the relationship between metaphysics and science was regarded as being more on the premises of science than on metaphysics. Thus when psychology was defined as a part of metaphysics, it was not an attempt at making psychology metaphysical; it was the opposite. The inclusion of psychology is probably the best indication of an attempt to make metaphysics scientific in a modern sense. As said, empirical psychology is predominately about sensations and the impressions that stem from the senses. Thus there is a certain relationship between what is sensed and the representation of the sensation. This relationship is quite complicated, and very often there are discrepancies between the object itself and what is perceived. Empirical psychology is the science that explains what kind of processes sense impressions go through on their way to becoming representations. These impressions are derived from two different main sources. One is the inner world, and the other is the outer world. The latter implies a focus on some physiological aspects connected to the five senses. Although physiological aspects of the five senses are significant, they simply form a point of departure in any attempt to explain how notions appear in the human mind. Different aspects of our capacity to think and imagine influence the inner sensations. The most important part of empirical psychology is to present all the different kinds of filters that sense impressions go through. These filters are presumed to have a great impact on the impressions and what is represented in the mind, and they are divided into three. One part consists of the five sense organs, a second consists of the feelings evoked, and the third part is how the mind is structured. Empirical psychology purports to say something about all these three instances, each of which can be divided into many aspects. The outcome represents an immense field, which explains why Wolff ’s Psychologia Empirica runs to eight hundred pages, and is of nearly a thousand paragraphs. There are two versions of Wolff ’s Psychologia Empirica. In addition to the original Latin version of 1732, there is also a French translation, which was published in Amsterdam in 1745. However, it is perhaps unfair to call it a true translation, for it is shorter than the original, with less than half the number of pages. Moreover, it contains fewer chapters and is more direct and concentrated. Nevertheless, except for these structural differences, the books coincide very much in content. Yet the anonymous translator is not afraid of going into a dialogue with Monsieur Wolff (M. W.), as he calls him, and this is exactly what happens when it comes to certain issues, linguistic or otherwise. One 101

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of the most crucial issues is how to translate the term “empirical” into French. The translator stresses his problems with applying the French term empirique, which “M. W.” applies, and instead suggests the more “appropriate” French term experimentale (Wolff, 1745, p. 32). This implies that empirical psychology became experimental in the 18th century by virtue of this very translation, probably among other factors. This is not just a question about words in different languages; it indicates more. As mentioned, empirical psychology was regarded as a handbook in scientific method. Thus the connection between the terms “empirical” and “experimental” became also substantial in the sense that empirical psychology opens up for scientific research, not only in psychology, but in physics, astronomy and other disciplines as well. The reason is that empirical psychology is the science of making observations. To make observations in physics and astronomy one has to follow the principles and rules presented in empirical psychology (Wolff, 1745, p. 23). Thus the French version underlines even more that empirical psychology has a superior function in defining the scientific steps a researcher has to follow. Empirical psychology is not very detailed in describing the methodological aspects of a scientific approach. What are more focused on in these books are rather all the sources of error that may influence an impression on its way from the sense organ to an idea. Some of the most influential sources in this respect are the emotions, which represent a necessary factor in the perceiving act. This act goes in two directions, namely outward and inward. Emotions represent necessity in the sense that there are no perceptions unless each one of them is accompanied by a certain feeling. The French version of Wolff, in particular, points out the close relation between perception and emotions. It presents emotions as the argument, not only for the fact that there is something out there, but also for the fact that the perceiver really exists. Everything perceived evokes a certain feeling. This implies also that the feeling refers to something perceivable. Moreover, the evoked feelings must be located within a certain individual. Thus to have feelings implies that an individual exists within the world. This is the syllogism Wolff presents in §16 in his empirical psychology (Wolff, 1747, p. 12; Wolff, 1745, p. 36f ). This underlines again the differences between Descartes and Wolff. “Cogito ergo sum” has been amended to “Sentio ergo sum”—“I sense, therefore I am.” Emotions are regarded as something the mind is producing, but they are located within the body. Thus the Cartesian clear and definite distinction between the mind and the body has been 102

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devastated by Wolffian empirical psychology. To bring in emotions as a part of psychology also represents a rupture with Aristotle, who did not refer to emotions in his psychology at all—emotions were treated by him in his Rhetoric. Wolffian empirical psychology may be regarded as a combination of the two theses of Aristotle, but it is certainly something much more as well. Empirical psychology is, first of all, an attempt to bring the discipline into the scientific area, and by this it opens up a great deal of new possibilities in modern times. In this perspective, emotions represent merely one aspect of the process of acquiring knowledge from sense impressions. Having notions represents another; our notions can be clear or obscure but also something in between these two extremes. The gradual transition from the clear to the obscure represents a source of error, in the sense that we have to sort out which notions are representing what. Terms like “complete” or “incomplete,” but also “adequate” or “inadequate,” describe the uncertainty of notions. The transition between these terms’ extremes is gradual. This implies that notions, and especially those that are in between, have to be assessed and evaluated in accordance with their clarity, completeness, and adequacy. This is even more important when it comes to the faculty of imagination. On the one hand, imagination is a faculty that is necessary when it comes to acquiring knowledge. This is especially so when our notions are incomplete, such that they have to be completed by the imagination. This can lead the notion into two directions, either as something completely inadequate or its opposite: an acceptable notion. Even the more inadequate notions are given detailed attention in Psychologia Empirica, where even dreams are treated quite thoroughly. There is a continuous line from the most adequate to the most incomplete notion, which implies that there are some elements of adequacy in the most incomplete notion. But what makes the notion acceptable or not is an open question. It is important to underline the fact that even a notion that is acceptable has to be completed by the imagination, and also the contrary. Even the most groundbreaking fantasy has an element of truth. This is exactly the case when it comes to art. Art is primarily about feigning and dissimulation, and occasionally we even recognize such representations of real life as more complete and adequate than real life itself. The different cognitive functions are, naturally, also important factors in forming our notions and ideas. The process of understanding has a significant influence on our notions, and Wolff categorizes three different aspects of the process. The first is a notion combined 103

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with simple comprehension. The second brings in judgment, and the third is a notion combined with reasoning (Wolff, 1745, p. 280). A notion combined with simple comprehension is simply the immediate understanding of what something is about—if this is a flower, its type, its color, etc. This is the immediate understanding of the particular. It is slightly connected to a general understanding, but the focus is on the particular sense impression. Some aspects of symbolic understanding also belong to this form of understanding, being mainly the immediate understanding of a certain signal. The next two levels of understanding underline this intervention of the general into the particular. Judgment is quite intuitive and takes the sense impressions into account, but it is not based on sense impressions. Judgment represents a comparison between different notions that are derived from sense impressions. Aesthetic experiences belong very much to this category. This implies that the sensory aspect is definitely still present, but everything is elevated to the level of comparison of notions. The third aspect also includes judgments, but reasoning also requires premises. It does not have to be a complete syllogism, and the use of enthymemes is symptomatic of reasoning in this sense. This also represents a process in which different notions are compared. Thus the sensory aspect is still there, but the level of generality is raised highly. It is important to note the order of the elements presented in empirical psychology. This starts with the most immediate sense impression and the particular, and it ends up with the more general aspects. Nevertheless, the author refers to ontology when it comes to the most universal of notions (Wolff, 1745, p. 292). Wolff’s Psychologia Empirica depicts a kind of bottom-up process, in which the immediate sense impression represents a point of departure, but where higher cognitive functions are more or less inseparably involved from the very beginning. Thus empirical psychology as a discipline verges into many areas: not only scientific methodology, but also the theory of knowledge, and not least, what we today still would define as belonging to the realm of modern psychology. One of those many terms that have become important in psychology over almost two hundred years is the Leibnizian concept of “apperception.” This is also a key term in Wolffian psychology (Wolff, 1738, p. 17, §25), and one may say it became even more important to Wolff, who expanded its meaning. In Leibniz’s terminology, 104

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apperception refers primarily to one’s ability to reflect upon oneself, and this aspect of self-reflection also prevails in Wolffian terminology. In addition, apperception is understood as something that brings the perceptions to order and unites the soul by creating a conviction about one’s own ability to have ideas and to think. In this respect, apperception is still very close to perception. The latter is the “act in which the soul represents an object” (Wolff, 1745, p. 41). Yet this representation is not isolated from the awareness of it and the fact that a notion or an idea represents the object, and even feelings play a certain role in this respect. The more vague a notion appears to be, the stronger is the feeling connected to it. Apperception therefore still refers to self-reflection, but many other aspects are involved in addition. The other aspects that count are memories and recollection. These abilities are preconditions for making comparisons. Another aspect that determines the level of clearness in perception is attention. The more attention, the clearer is the notion produced. Thus there are no clear differences between immediate perceptions and the role of intellect. They cooperate in the process of producing notions and ideas. Indeed, the differences between empirical and rational psychology are not very clear. If empirical psychology represents a bottom-up perspective of the soul, rational psychology represents a top-down perspective. The latter focuses on the more essential and general aspects, and Psychologia Rationalis opens with a long chapter on the nature and essence of the soul (Wolff, 1734, pp. 9–60). The immortality of the soul is also an important subject to discuss, and this belongs to rational psychology (Wolff, 1734, p. 621ff ). In addition, very many of the intellectual capacities that are presented in empirical psychology are also relevant to rational psychology. This is true when it comes to imagination, attention, and memory. Even sensation is pertinent to rational psychology, but from another perspective than that of empirical psychology, and the Aristotelian term “appetition” has to be pointed out in this context (Wolff, 1734, p. 395ff ). “Appetition” refers primarily to the drives in the soul. Yet in the same way as perception represents a gradual transition from unconscious awareness to intellectual reflection, appetition likewise may appear in several forms. One extreme is blind lust and the other is “higher purposes.” And as before, there is a gradual transition from the one to the other extreme. In between, for instance, we can find volition, which Wolff leaves undefined. 105

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Appetition is also related to perception and affect. And this relation underlines the fact that rational psychology is very closely connected to empirical psychology, resulting in Wolff ’s successors having the tendency to reduce the scope and significance of rational psychology. And Baumgarten is the best example. Whereas seventy pages in his Metaphysics present empirical psychology, rational psychology accounts for only twenty.

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7 Empirical Psychology, Aesthetics, and Natural Sciences The relationship between psychology and aesthetics is intimate, but as yet somewhat unexplored. However, there are a few remarkable examples that demonstrate this close relationship. Rudolph Arnheim (1904–2007) is probably the best known investigator that analyzed these two subjects in close connection to each other. There is also good reason to mention Daniel Berlyne (1924–1976) and the movement of experimental aesthetics. Yet some would probably say that experimental aesthetics died out after Berlyne’s death, but there are some laboratories around the world that are still following up his idea of developing an empirically based system of aesthetics. Berlyne, nonetheless, did not coin the term “experimental aesthetics.” It goes right back to Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887), who focused on the perception of art and was the first to apply the term, even as the title of one of his books (Fechner, 1871/1978). In addition, Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) declared experimental aesthetics to be one of the main areas in the experimental psychology that he and his colleagues developed in Leipzig at the end of the nineteenth century (Wundt, 1910, p. 293). Such researchers demonstrated an intimate connection between psychology and aesthetics. Yet they also underlined a difference between the two disciplines, without explicitly stating what underlies these differences, and this is why the term “psychological aesthetics” has been regarded as more applicable (Allesch, 2006). This term also has roots going back to the late eighteenth century. According to Allesch, this term was first applied as a scientific title on a book written by the German-born writer Johann Heinrich Zschokke (1771–1848) (Allesch, 2004). Allesch states that psychological 107

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aesthetics is more than just the “psychology of art”: it is the psychology of being aware of the environment and how the environment interacts with the human being by being perceived. Arnheim is very much understood as the person that revitalized this line of research, which has deep roots in the history of psychology. The difference between psychological aesthetics and psychology is that the latter is the overall scientific discipline and the former is more to be regarded as a subdiscipline. On the other hand, psychological aesthetics cannot simply be reduced to the psychology of art, for it is principally related to the perception of the environment, whether as a piece of art or nature. This broad understanding of aesthetics coincides very much with what Kierkegaard has to say on the subject. So does the understanding of the relationship between psychology and aesthetics. As mentioned, Kierkegaard regarded psychology to be superior to and broader than aesthetics, and as such, psychology is referred to as a science. Aesthetics is understood as something much looser and more vague, referring primarily to the enjoyment of the act of perceiving. According to Kierkegaard, the aesthetic is primarily a certain attitude and a way of living. Historically there is a strong connection between psychology and aesthetics, but this is also relatively new, in the sense that it was established in the eighteenth century by effectively a single person, namely Alexander Baumgarten. This makes the knowledge of the intimate connection between psychology and aesthetics only fifty or sixty years older than Kierkegaard himself. And Baumgarten is not only famous for publishing one of the most important presentations of metaphysics during the German Enlightenment; he is today even better known for having established what has been regarded as the first modern understanding of aesthetics (Croce, 1992; Cassirer, 1968). Baumgarten’s Aesthetics, in two volumes of 1750 and 1758 respectively, was written in Latin, and recently it was fully translated into German (Baumgarten, 2007). Thus what will be focused on here are the connections between Baumgarten’s presentation of empirical psychology of 1739 and these two volumes of Aesthetics. Aesthetics is just one bud that grew out of empirical psychology during the German Enlightenment. Another quite neglected outcome is the role of observation and the progress in the natural sciences over this period. In his introduction to the third part of Stages on Life’s Way, Kierkegaard is apparently quite unmoved when he refers to a friend about to make some marine biological observations in the neighborhood 108

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of the storyteller. This is also a part of the book that explicitly purports to be a psychological experiment. The name Linné is also mentioned en passant, for no apparent reason (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 365). But very few, if any, of Kierkegaard’s small stories or formulations can be read as purposeless or insignificant (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 365, footnote 4), and every name and place mentioned should be construed as being highly important in the interpretation of his argument. This must also be true in these two cases of seemingly obscure references. The Swedish botanist Carl von Linné (1707–1778) published his Systema Naturae in 1735. This work points out the importance of observation as a new and important method in natural science (Frankelius, 2007), and according to the commentaries in the Danish edition used as the basis for this presentation, Kierkegaard is here referring to the twelfth edition of Linné’s Systema Naturae, of 1766, in which on page 358 he demonstrates that so-called dragons cannot exist (Cappelørn et al., 1999, p. 331). In other words, Kierkegaard is also referring to actual natural science, and a close reading of the introductory parts of Linné’s Systema Naturae reveals that he has been very much influenced by the metaphysics outlined during the German Enlightenment. All four parts—ontology, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology—are present in Linné’s thesis, yet in a rather hasty and abridged manner. Linné corresponded with an immense number of individuals around the world. There were so many of his correspondents that the Swedish government decided to stop charging him for all the letters and packages he sent around the world, so that he would avoid financial ruin. One of those he corresponded with intensively from the 1760s was the Norwegian polymath Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1718–1773). Gunnerus had studied with Christian Wolff in Halle in the 1740s and published in 1757 a volume of metaphysics very much along the lines of Baumgarten’s metaphysics of 1739. Gunnerus founded the Royal Scientific Society of Norway in 1760 (Andersen et al., 2009), and in the announcement of this foundation he proclaimed that empirical psychology should be one of the scientific activities of the society (Gunnerus, J.E., 1758/1997, s. 30f.). The primary scientific activities, however, were to be botany, zoology, and geology, as well as linguistics, and they were united by the fact that they were all to be based on observation. During the German Enlightenment, empirical psychology therefore seemed to represent a great inspiration for intellectual creativity. This creativity was revealed in many almost unpredictably different 109

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directions. It is also obvious that empirical psychology represented something totally new, and that it triggered this creativity by redeeming an intellectual potential that had been dormant for a long time. The crucial aspect that empirical psychology introduced was the role of subjectivity, and because all previous intellectual inquiry had been governed by objectivity as an unquestionable premise, a focus on its counterpart opened up the most unforeseeable of consequences. In order to regulate these consequences, it became crucial that metaphysics outline the framework in which the role of subjectivity could be understood. Yet this was not sufficient to restrain the creativity that forced its way through, and Kierkegaard’s focus on subjectivity must be understood within this framework. He appeared at a later stage, precisely when the first storms surrounding the introduction of subjectivity had abated and subjectivity had been absorbed by philosophical systems that had neutralized the radical aspects of both psychology and subjectivity. Without saying so explicitly, he was going back to the pioneers in this discussion, simply to point out the premises and consequences of this argument. This is why he carries out psychological experiments, and this is why they touch on so many different areas, from theology via art to natural sciences, etc. For this reason, we shall take a closer look at two consequences, specifically those for modern aesthetics and natural science, starting with the former. Baumgarten and the Birth of Modern Aesthetics There are few other disciplines that can refer to a more exact birth than modern aesthetics. When Baumgarten published the first volume of his Aesthetica in 1750, a totally new understanding of beauty was presented. The classical understanding of beauty was intimately connected to the higher faculties of acquiring knowledge, in the sense that beauty was defined in terms of regularity and order, not only in art, but also in the world as a whole. Thus there were many overlaps between a classical understanding of art and the premises for natural theology during the Enlightenment. They are both derived from the Platonic perspective, but during earlier history and before the era of Enlightenment, this perspective was quite explicitly connected to art, if not restricted to it. One of the most complete version of Plato’s theory of art is found in his dialogue Timaeus. Yet this dialogue is not only a presentation of Plato’s thinking; it is also supposed to count as a presentation of what the philosophy of Pythagoras (ca. 580–500 BC) was about, and it remains one of the main sources for knowing anything about the 110

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philosophy of this man (Sundberg, 1983). One may therefore call the philosophy presented in Timaeus Pythagorean-Platonic and the classical understanding of art as the Pythagorean-Platonic perspective on art. This perspective is predominately characterized by the theory of equivalence or concomitance. According to Timaeus, the order we find in the world and in our minds is similar to the creator behind everything, the Demiurge, and all three, it is proposed, are regulated by the same order. So it is sufficient to refer to how the human mind is thinking in order to know how the Creator is thinking and how the world is organized. Applying this form of classical understanding to art, the experience of beauty is strongly connected to the experience of the concomitants between these three instances. In this tradition numbers, and especially the lower ones, are of the highest value. They signify order in our thinking, they may describe nature, and they form the basis of the beauty in art, especially in music. This focus on rationality in the experience of art principally activates the intellect, yet this does not mean that any sensory aspects must be excluded. Several dialogues of Plato, such as Symposium, Phaedrus, and Ion, focus precisely on sensory experiences. All three dialogues focus on sensation but also on exaltation as a result of divine inspiration given through sensation. In the first dialogue, exaltation is related to speeches and getting drunk on wine, in the second it is related to erotic love, and in the third exaltation is related to art, especially poetry. Yet there are some important premises for the experiences referred to in these three dialogues. Exaltation is considered a result of divine inspiration, and human intellect mirrors divinity. Beauty therefore is experienced as a result of the concomitance between intellectual activities and sensory experiences, and the former is seen to be superior to the latter. This combination of sensation and intellectual activity, and not least the correspondence between our understanding of the world and the world itself, is highly recognizable in Leibniz’s philosophy and especially his term “pre-established harmony,” which primarily refers to the concomitance between the body and the soul (Leibniz, 1998). Thus the premodern understanding of art is very much conceived in terms of the concomitance between intellectual activities and sensual experiences of art. And this understanding dominated for a long time: a period that included the life and works of Leibniz. There are, however, more recognizable aspects presented in these three dialogues. Two of the dialogues, namely Timaeus and Phaedrus, are very explicit about the soul. The former refers to the world soul, 111

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which is reflected in the human soul. This is another way of expressing the correspondence between rational thinking in the human mind and the organization of the world. As long as it is referring to the soul, it is at the same time about psychology. Yet this corresponds not with the content of empirical psychology, but rather with that of rational psychology. Even Baumgarten’s presentation of rational psychology mirrors this exactly by referring to the Leibnizian monadology, and Leibniz underlines that “created things have their perfections from their influence by God” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 273). Thus there is a direct link between Timaeus and the psychology of the Enlightenment, but this link is restricted to rational psychology. Phaedrus, on the other hand, refers to love (eros), which has many similarities with appetitio, in the sense that it focuses on erotic desire and attachment. Yet the message in the dialogue is without doubt to convince the protagonist, Phaedrus, of the superiority of intellectual love. What could have been some aspects of empirical psychology in this dialogue are very soon turned into rational psychology. Nevertheless, there are certain important connections between Plato’s dialogues and Kierkegaard. This is probably most obvious when it comes to Symposium, because Kierkegaard is more or less paraphrasing this dialogue in his Stages on Life’s Way. What is not so obvious, however, is that the core dilemma Kierkegaard is dealing with, specifically the conflict between the particular and the universal, is described with similar power in Timaeus. The differences, nonetheless, are also obvious, in the sense that Plato ignores the existential experiences of the conflict, and sensation is subordinated to intellectual activity. Baumgarten’s break with the Platonic tradition is definite when it comes to the role and the status of sensation. As Cassirer points out, Baumgarten “attributes new perfection to sensibility” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 341). This is exactly how Baumgarten defines aesthetic beauty: “The endeavour of Aesthetics is the perfection of sensory knowledge. This is beauty” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 21, §14, a.t.). By saying this, “the sensible is to be lifted to the dignity of knowledge” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 340). According to Baumgarten, aesthetics is not just about the experience of art, but it is also a science. And this premise is declared in §1: “Aesthetics (the theory of the liberal arts, the doctrine of the lower capacity of acquiring knowledge, the art of cognitive beauty, the art of analogies to reason) is the science of sensational knowledge” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 11, a.t.). This opening is a kernel formulation that reveals how highly ambitious Baumgarten was for this new science. Yet he never fulfilled 112

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the project. The two volumes of Aesthetica remain an incomplete body of what he had in mind. However, what he had in mind exactly is also an open question: “The purpose of his Aesthetica is still today unknown” (Schweizer, 1973, p. X a.t.). This situation must be regarded as typical of a time in transition. The major perpetrators themselves are not always fully aware of what they are participating in; they simply grasp opportunities that are at their disposal, and Baumgarten seems to be a very good example. Firstly he writes a thesis on metaphysics that really gets to the point of what Wolff’s metaphysics was aiming at. Then he takes a step further with the Aesthetica, which on the one hand seems to follow up the most radical aspects of Wollf’s metaphysics, in particular Psychologia Empirica, but on the other hand aims at establishing a foundation for a new science. This science is partly about art, in the sense that Baumgarten is primarily referring to the experience of literature and poetry. But it is presented as being much wider than that. All in all, this is probably the main purpose of the Aesthetica: to widen the understanding of what is and what is not scientific knowledge. This is probably why the first paragraph is so accomplished, concentrated, and distracting at the same time. It points in many different directions, but it does appear as if the author has a very clear understanding of the connections and similarities between them, whereas it is not that simple to realize this from the reader’s point of view. The formulation “the theory of liberal arts” is probably slightly confusing. It does not refer to the septem artes liberales—the classical seven liberal arts consisting of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music (the quadrivium), grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics (the trivium). This is too narrow, in a sense, if all forms of art are to be included. The Latin formulation is theoria liberalum artium, which refers to all forms of free artistic activity and their theoretical basis. Baumgarten is nonetheless following up the classical ideal of education by focusing on the liberal aspects. This is an aspect that has followed art from ancient times, and it may have had several and different interpretations during history; for example, activities for free citizens (not slaves), non-applied sciences, or activities with no utilitarian purposes. Hence the liberal aspect points toward a higher evaluation of the individual. This is exactly what empirical psychology opens up for and releases: an appraisal of the free individual and its subjectivity. And this perspective on the subject seems to reflect a point of departure for Baumgarten’s Aesthetica, and in this sense it may be acknowledged as an attempt at fulfilment of the classical educational ideal of freedom. 113

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The device for doing this, however, is perception. Thinking was regarded as the most superior source for acquiring knowledge, because it gives direct access to universals. Yet that is the only form of knowledge that thinking can provide. In this sense, perception is the only way particularity can come into the mind. Leibniz was the first to realize this, and it is why he also focused so much on perceiving oneself and introduced the term “apperception.” This is the only way he could explain multiplicity and diversity in the mind. Without perception everything would be one, which is not what we experience, even within the mind. Since oneness was an ideal for Leibniz, thinking represented the higher capacity of acquiring knowledge. In the first paragraph of Baumgarten’s Aesthetica, cited above, this capacity is not mentioned at all; in fact, the opposite is: the lower capacity of acquiring knowledge, which is sensation. This is even characterized as a doctrine, and the reason is that this is what empirical psychology is concerned with, and according to Baumgarten this is also what aesthetics is about. The differences between empirical psychology and aesthetics are not exactly clear, but there is no doubt that Baumgarten with his Aesthetica wanted to cultivate individual freedom in the process of acquiring scientific knowledge, and that this was primarily obtained by placing sensation at the center, and by this, giving this source of knowledge dignity. The third parenthetical explanation of aesthetics brings in the concept of beauty. Yet the term is not related to sensation but to cognition. This may sound something of a contradiction, and in one sense it is, but in another it is not. Despite the fact that Baumgarten’s aesthetics truly represents something new, it also follows a deep and long tradition. His intention was not so much to make a break with tradition but to explore the possibilities it provides. This is why beauty here is solely related to cognition, because this is what tradition forced him to do. Yet in his elaboration of beauty, this becomes more nuanced due to his aesthetics project. He mentions three different aspects of beauty, and all of them reflect a new perspective, but they all still confirm the importance of tradition. The first principle is about compliance between facts and thinking, and this is “the beauty of entity and cognition” (a.t. Baumgarten, 2007, p. 23, §18). The second connects sensation with order—also, sensation-based knowledge has to be governed by order; if not, it is neither perfect nor universal. This requirement is “the beauty of order” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 23, §19). This order is highly valued, not least as an important aspect in the experience of art. Thus 114

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this order is a precondition for calling something art, and also for a theory of art. A work of art follows certain rules, and a theory of art must be able to explain these rules (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 53, §68). The third aspect is “the beauty of signification” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 23, §20 a.t.). The sign applied has to reflect an order, as does what it refers to—its signification. Probably one of the most radical aspects of Baumgarten’s aesthetics is that it purports to be the art of analogies to reason. By this he is trying to expand the notion of science. The formulation refers to something that may appear as logical but is not based on pure logic. This represents an attempt at extending the concept of logic, not by violating it, but by bringing in additional aspects. An aesthetic approach can never be logical, because sensations deal with the particular, and the universal always forms the basis in logic. Admittedly, induction is based on the particular, but according to Aristotle and classical logic, particulars “cannot be objects of scientific knowledge” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book I, Part 18), which implies that induction is excluded from logic. In the Rhetoric, on the other hand, Aristotle refers to induction as one of the two ways of inferring what he calls “apparent proofs” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book 1, Part 2). The other method is the enthymeme, which is a syllogism missing some of the premises. Both are used for persuasive reasons, and they may provide knowledge, but this kind of knowledge cannot be called scientific. So when Baumgarten refers to aesthetics as a science, he must make some modifications of the criteria for what a science is by introducing new terms. One is what he calls “aesthetical truth,” which is about truth from sensation (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 403, §423). A whole chapter is devoted to this term, and this chapter is important because it includes the acceptance of what is termed “subjective truth” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 403, §424). It is also important because in this chapter Baumgarten presents the neologism “aestheticological” (aestheticologicam) (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 407, §427). This term implies exactly what is presently being focused on: specifically that the aesthetic way of reasoning is almost, but not fully, logical. Yet it is important to underline that there are objective reasons for accepting subjective truth. Baumgarten quotes Leibniz on the two principles that form the basis for both Wolff ’s and Baumgarten’s metaphysics, citing the principle of contradiction and the principle of sufficient reasons (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 403, §423). As long as the sense impression corresponds with and does not contradict thinking, this should count as sufficient reason for accepting it. 115

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With this metaphysically based and objective argument, Baumgarten allows an acceptance of subjective truth. Baumgarten, on the one hand, follows strongly the philosophical tradition going back to the ancient Greeks, but on the other, he exploits the possibilities of bringing in new perspectives. Where this ends is obvious neither to him nor to the reader, and the latter is excluded from developing a clear notion, because Baumgarten did not complete the work. Yet the underlying attempt at combining all these aspects is reflected in the work’s overall structure. It was designed to follow a tripartite division, with three overall chapters. These are mentioned in the table of contents but also as a part of the text (§13); they are entitled “Heuristics,” “Methodology,” and “Semiotics.” Yet Baumgarten only completed the first chapter, the heuristics. Despite the fact that the two volumes run to almost five hundred pages and 904 paragraphs, it might be that this was no more than a third of what the work was planned to be. This is a likely option, but there are of course several others that can be imagined. In any case, all we know is what was stated in the table of contents and what is mentioned in §13, which states that methodology is supposed to follow an “enlightening order” and semiotics is about how the sign can reflect a “beauty-arrayed way of thinking” (Baumgarten, 2007, p. 17f, §13 a.t.). According to these excerpts, he would not be reflecting much new understanding on these issues. According to the commentator Hans Rudolf Schweizer, this tripartite division is just following the old rhetorical tradition (Schweizer, 1983, p. XI). Thus heuristics, methodology and semiotics correspond to invention (inventio), disposition (dispositio), and style (elocutio), a division that goes back to Aristotle: “In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the style, or language, to be used; third, the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book III, Part 1). However, heuristics are not normally included in rhetoric. Nevertheless, heuristics are commonly applied for persuasive purposes, and they have much in common with induction, in that both are based on common sense. According to Aristotle, induction is the kind of practical knowledge a craftsman acquires because it is based on examples that have been experienced. We prefer to engage an experienced craftsman over a beginner because an experienced craftsman is able to transform the examples of experience into a system of rules. These rules are not strict rules; they are rules of thumb. This is where induction and heuristics meet: when examples are generalized so they can form a 116

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basis for approaching new situations and new challenges. This might be an explanation for why Baumgarten introduces the term “heuristic” as an overall label for his Aesthetica. First of all he wants to connect this work to the tradition of rhetoric. And this is why he announces the tripartite division of the whole project, as Schweizer points out. Second, by bringing in heuristics he is also highlighting knowledge from common sense. This demonstrates very clearly the ambition he has in broadening the understanding of science. Lastly, heuristics has in common with induction that examples may form a basis, and heuristics opens for particularity as a basis for knowledge. If these points are correct, then Baumgarten’s introduction of heuristics to Aesthetica is crucial. The term reveals one of the main aspects of the science of aesthetics; i.e., that sensation-based knowledge is sufficient for certain scientific activities. Therefore, according to Baumgarten, aesthetics does not have a single denotation. It is an open term, one with a definite point of departure away from empirical psychology. Aesthetics must be regarded as something separate from empirical psychology because it primarily focuses on sense impressions and does not deal with human nature and physiology. Yet aesthetics also brings in aspects that were not previously included in empirical psychology. This is mainly the rhetorical tradition, but also art in general. In addition, Baumgarten’s Metaphysics deviates slightly from other presentations at that time. Here he presents the faculty of writing and making poetry (Baumgarten, 2004, pp.134ff ). In this sense, he was preparing the ground for developing aesthetics when he was writing his Metaphysics. Yet, as mentioned, there are clear differences between empirical psychology and aesthetics. They both focus on sense impressions, but the former centers its attention on all the subjective factors that may have an impact, whereas the latter depicts a scientific landscape that opens up the humanities. This includes, of course, theories of art, but it includes much more. This is why aesthetics is almost impossible to define on the basis of Baumgarten’s contributions, and also when we take posterity into account. We can now see, importantly, that Kierkegaard had an understanding that did not mirror Baumgarten’s. It seems as if Kierkegaard was affected by the change Baumgarten’s Aesthetica represents when it comes to the understanding of art, but Kierkegaard changed the borderlines by not referring to it as a science, but instead as a style of living, and he underlines particularly the enjoyment of sensation when he applies the term. 117

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However, in German history there are a couple of examples that continue the line that follows Baumgarten’s interpretation. One of the most influential, but near forgotten nowadays, was Robert Zimmermann (1824–1898), who wrote an extensive work over several volumes on the history of aesthetics as a philosophical science (Zimmermann, 1858). In fact, aesthetics was an object of increasing interest during the nineteenth century, and almost all the German contributors to the history of psychology around the turn of the twentieth century gave their contributions, either understanding it as an extensive science, as a theory of the experiences of art, or as a theory of beauty. Not so many follow up Kierkegaard’s definition of aesthetics as a life style. Empirical Psychology and Natural Science Many highly significant developments took place in the eighteenth century, not only in the humanities, but also in the natural sciences. And these advances were not limited to a certain region or a certain time, but were instead a salient trait of overall Western thinking from at least the year 1600. The philosophical perspective changed with Descartes’s systematic doubts presented in his Meditations, and around the same time rhetoric invaded the quadrivium to create a new musical form, which was opera. Composers then attempted to focus on rhetorical qualities. In addition, the Copernican revolution changed the orientation of cosmology. All this modified the understanding of the role of universals in the world: where to find them and how a subject is related to them. “The highest energy and deepest truth of the mind do not consist in going out into the infinite, but in the mind’s maintaining itself against the infinite and proving in its pure unity equal to the infinity of being” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 38.). This quotation from Ernst Cassirer summarizes the ideological changes during the Enlightenment, but it could also stand as a summary of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. All these changes were not brought about by empirical psychology, but empirical psychology was certainly an instrument for systematically working out what all these changes were concerned with. This is why empirical psychology became an inspirational source for saying something about human nature, and it certainly broadened our understanding of science, not least by injecting a new vitality into the work on the natural sciences in Europe. We have already encountered the Swedish botanist Carl von Linné, or Linnaeus, and he is regarded as a prominent representative of the Enlightenment (Frankelius, 2007). Thus in addition to the fact that he was significant to Kierkegaard, he is also an interesting character 118

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to study to obtain information about the state of the natural sciences during the Enlightenment. However, it is not that easy to end up with a simple understanding of this, for Linné is also a good example illustrating how complex those far-off times really were. His principal work, Systema Naturae, was published repetitively, but over the years, in several different places. The first edition was published in Leiden, Holland, in 1735. This was natural, as Linné had earlier finished his studies in medicine in Holland, and he returned to defend Systema Naturae as his thesis for a doctoral degree at the same university. Also the ninth edition of 1756 was published in Leiden, but in between it had been published in Stockholm, Halle, Paris, and Leipzig. Thus it was not just a single region his name could be connected with, and in addition most of his worldly goods, particularly those related to his career in science, ended up in Great Britain. Leiden was a very special place at the time. After the Dutch philosopher and mathematician Willem Jacob ‘s Gravesande (1688–1742) became a professor at the university in 1717, it became a center for some of the most radical minds in Europe. ‘s Gravesande had stayed in England for a while, where he had become friends with Newton and other members of the Royal Society. He not only introduced Newton’s radical physics and thoughts to Holland, but in his inaugural speech he went a step further. He questioned the suggestion, which Newtonian mechanics also presupposed, of our ability to make predictions. This presupposes “the axiom of the uniformity of nature” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 61). By questioning this axiom he anticipated the scepticism of Hume, and Cassirer regards ‘s Gravesande as the link that unites Newton with Hume. Questioning this axiom jeopardized metaphysics, because it is only through metaphysics that the unity and predictability of nature is justifiable. Despite the fact that neither ‘s Gravesande nor Hume referred explicitly to empirical psychology, it was precisely the psychological aspects that they ended up with. The axiom was “no longer based on religious, but on purely psychological grounds; it springs from a purely immanent necessity of human nature” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 62). This was exactly what empirical psychology was about: human nature and its relation to the outer world received through the senses. Yet the German tradition included this as a part of metaphysics, and by this allowed a clear understanding of the role of the universal. The scepticism that ‘s Gravesande introduced was followed up by Hume and completed by some French scholars, 119

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particularly Diderot and d’Alembert. However, scepticism had nothing to contribute with respect to the role of the general and the universal. This is exactly why scepticism is not that noteworthy for an understanding of the forerunners to Kierkegaard, to whom the role of the general and universal was of the utmost interest. Linné, on the other hand, represented something quite different from ‘s Gravesande. The methodological introduction to Systema Naturae opens with an axiom suggesting the unity and predictability of the world, which ‘s Gravesande questioned. Linné declares in this thesis that no new species will occur today (Frankelius, 2007, p. 105). The reason he gives is that it should be obvious to everybody that every offspring is similar to its origin and forms of reproduction do not allow for any change. This unity, he says, must depend on an almighty living force, namely God. Thus the motto for the thesis is a quotation from the Bible: “O LORD, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (Psalms 104:24). This quotation expresses the substance of natural theology. Linné does not apply this term, but it is obvious that he represents a way of thinking in which theodicy guides and forms the basis for what exists in the world. By declaring what exists and does not exist, ontology is also outlined. Yet both natural theology and ontology are thinly sketched. This is because the methodological introduction to Systema Naturae is very short. It consists of twenty short paragraphs distributed over three pages. Nevertheless, it consists of all the elements that constituted metaphysics at that time. Cosmological aspects are also included, as Linné refers to the world as a whole. This whole consists of three different objects: the celestial bodies, the four elements, and the purpose of nature (Frankelius, 2007, p. 105). The most fascinating part of this introduction, however, is its presentation and evaluation of psychological aspects. These are presented from two different angles. One is from the role of sensation, and the other is from the role of observation. The first perspective focuses on the individual, who is forced to build up his or her understanding of the world through the outer sensation of it. This is the Aristotelian doctrine of tabula rasa. Linné adds that the purpose of nature is simple to sense, and this is exactly the reason why humans are equipped with senses. Through their senses they have been given the opportunity to praise the artist behind this magnificent work, the world. This sounds very much like a Pythagorean-Platonic perspective, similar to that presented in the Plato’s dialogue Timaeus, and this is probably not by coincidence. 120

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The Platonic perspective was very much an incentive to investigate nature, because the correspondence theory, in terms of presupposing concomitances between divine order, intellectual activities, and sensory experiences, gave observations of nature a theological foundation. Yet what this tells us more about is the fact that very different perspectives motivated the study of natural sciences in the eighteenth century. Another aspect of psychology Linné presents reveals that even Linné and ‘s Gravesande had something in common: they both regarded observation as a scientific device. This is an aspect that pervades the whole of Systema Naturæ. All the titles of the different sections of the thesis contain the term “observation,” since the thesis is all about observation. However, the difference between ‘s Gravesande and Linné in this respect is that the former makes observations to form a basis for scientific activity, whereas the latter regards them as an outcome. As long as the species are given, the scientific mission for Linné was simply to list them and then put the examples into appropriate categories. Observation is a necessary device to do that, and it is certainly challenging enough, because he experienced that personal observations are not that reliable (Frankelius, 2007, p. 107). Thus Linné followed an axiomatic method, which applies deduction, whereas ‘s Gravesande opened the door to induction in science. Yet one has to admit that Cassirer is completely right when stating that “Linnaeus’s Philosophy of Botany was shipwrecked” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 78) because it was old-fashioned. Compared to the research of some of his contemporaries, he was outdated. Thus Linné can be seen as an example that illustrates that intellectual history is not only one-dimensional. Systema Naturæ was re-edited and published thirteen times, and it is still of importance to present-day botany. This is not an argument for its correctness, of course, but it is an argument showing that it satisfied certain intellectual needs that were not met by the novel inductive methods in scientific thinking that appeared in the eighteenth century. These included not least the need for the universal and the general. Linné probably gave these aspects too much scope in his theory, but they certainly represented something that was highly valued in the natural sciences in Scandinavia. He became more or less a mentor for the activities of the members of the Royal Society of Science in Norway. Indeed, the founder of this society, Johan Ernst Gunnerus, took the wise initiative to stay in touch with Linné, and they corresponded intensively until Gunnerus’s death. The role Gunnerus gave to empirical 121

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psychology in this society demonstrates what kind of incentive there was for this discipline to enter into scientific research. Gunnerus was a bishop in Trondheim, and it was this combination of empirical psychology and natural theology that could justify a cleric devoting much of his time to scientific activities. The opening of his first letter to Linné illustrates very well this combination, and also what Linné and Gunnerus had in common: “Since Trondheim is so rich when it comes to nature, especially fish and seabirds, [. . .] I have started to collect almost everything that has come to me, and I have done my best to regard this as glory to the eternal name of God” (Amundsen, 1976, p. 1, a.t.). The metaphysical universals are present, but at the same time, room for observation appears, due to the fact that empirical psychology still belonged to metaphysics.

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8 Kant and the Rejection of Psychology as a Science In his lectures on metaphysics, Kant revealed that he was skeptical about empirical psychology. And with the enormous impact that Kant had on his contemporaries, the understanding he presented of psychology not only affected his own time but also many generations of philosophers to come, such that his interpretation is probably still a decisive factor in the understanding of psychology today. Kant’s philosophy is, in many ways, ground zero for a modern understanding of science in general. Despite the fact that a lot of contributors to philosophy have criticized Kant’s philosophy, his thoughts are still regarded as valid and relevant in discussions on our understanding of the sciences. In this perspective, it is important to clarify how Kant actually understood psychology, but this is not so straightforward. There are two primary phases in Kant’s general philosophy, namely the pre-critical, dogmatic, or metaphysical period and the critical one. However, when it comes to his discussions on psychology, one may talk about a third phase. In addition to the pre-critical and the critical, one may say that a late spring appeared in his authorship, in which he apparently completed his understanding of psychology by defining it in terms of anthropology. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (Kant, 1798/1974) is the last work he completed, and it was published in 1798, just six years before he died. Psychology in Kant’s Metaphysics Achieving a full understanding of Kant is a never-ending story. This is almost a necessary consequence of his philosophy, and he seems to have been quite aware of this fact. As mentioned, he could not accept the Fichteian system as a follow-up to his own philosophy, and he applied a dialectical understanding on several issues, especially in his critiques, since final answers are neither obvious nor self-evidently given. This 123

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understanding must also be applied to the distinction between the metaphysical and critical phases in his philosophy. The distinction is crucial, but it is primarily a systematic distinction, not a historical one. This suggests that the normal presentation of Kant’s awakening process from “dogmatic slumbers” to critical philosophy as a sudden revelation of the whole of critical philosophy is not strictly accurate, especially if this understanding should imply that metaphysics is regarded as not having been an issue for him during the critical phase. Yet it was admittedly himself who referred to this sudden awakening process, but his philosophical activity shows very clearly that all aspects of metaphysics were topics he dealt with for the whole of his productive life (Kant, 1783/1958, p. A13/118). Kant gave lectures on metaphysics during his whole career, even in the 1790s. According to the student notes we still have from this series of lectures, there is a very tight connection between metaphysics and his critical philosophy (Kant, 1997). And Heidegger was certainly correct when he “made a strong case that Kant’s traditional metaphysical concerns remained central even throughout his Critical period” (Amariks and Naragon, 1997, p. xiv). Indeed, Kant’s critical philosophy must be regarded as a process in which all the issues belonging to metaphysics should be analyzed from a new perspective. Heidegger’s observation was probably meant to point out a weakness in Kant’s philosophy. Yet this close connection between metaphysics and Kant’s critical thinking can be regarded as a strength as well. Kant’s thinking demonstrates that he took each element in metaphysics seriously and dealt with them in order to find out how best they could be transformed into a modern thinking pattern, and psychology is probably the best example to illustrate this process. It was a dominating feature of metaphysics during the German Enlightenment, but it is almost totally absent in Kant’s Critiques, where it only appears in effectively another form and under anthropology in the final pages. One may ask, therefore, if the anthropology he presented really is psychology or something quite different. In either case, his lectures on metaphysics very much dealt with psychology, from first to last. In other words, psychology was an issue that concerned him much more than what is exposed in his published authorship. The reason for not including psychology in his critical thinking is not that it was old-fashioned or too “metaphysical,” but quite the opposite. He regularly states that empirical psychology does not belong to metaphysics because metaphysics is about the general, whereas empirical psychology 124

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is about the particular. Thus empirical psychology must be regarded as the most modern part of metaphysics, and according to Kant, it appears as a monstrosity that does not fit in. Thus he introduces his lectures by stating that “empirical psychology belongs to metaphysics no more than empirical physics does” (Kant, 1997, p. 43). Statements such as this explain the dilemma surrounding empirical psychology. As already indicated, it was an inspirational source for individuals to study natural science by opening up the possibility of observation, and therefore it is comparable with empirical physics—and, again as indicated, empirical cosmology—as Baumgarten says. Yet there is a fundamental difference between empirical physics and empirical psychology, and this is why Kant does not overcome the dilemma surrounding empirical psychology. The latter concerns the subjective observation of the object, whereas the former concerns the object itself (see also Wundt, 1902). Thus empirical psychology takes the whole subjective process of scientific observation into account. One part of this is anthropology, and another part is natural science, but where to draw the borderline is a primary question. This was not an easy task for Kant, and that is why he dealt with empirical psychology for decades despite the fact that quite early on he declared that it could not be regarded as a science. The distinction between rational and empirical psychology was as crucial to Kant, as it was to Baumgarten and Gunnerus. Yet Kant’s interpretation of the distinction differs slightly. Baumgarten and Gunnerus emphasized empirical psychology at the expense of rational psychology, whereas in Kant there was a tendency to go in the opposite direction by paying more attention to rational psychology. This makes sense and is due to the fact that Kant had problems with defining what empirical psychology was actually supposed to be about. But it also underlines the fact that Kant is not so much interested in subjectivity in his attempts at defining the sciences. He was more interested in defining their objective and universal aspects, as we all, of course, still are, and this is exactly what rational psychology deals with. It is about a priori knowledge and “wholly independent of empirical principles” (Kant, 1997, p. 270). This is what is also pursued in critical philosophy: specifically, what is given as a priori knowledge, not only in terms of analytical statements, but also in terms of synthetic statements. This is probably the main reason why Heidegger concluded that metaphysical concerns remained central throughout Kant’s critical period as well. However, there is a clear change in Kant’s terminology, allowing him to dispense with metaphysics, which is to introduce the pairs of terms 125

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a priori/a posteriori and analytical/synthetic. The first pair refers directly to rational and empirical psychology respectively. One benefit of the new terms is, of course, to make the distinction between empirical and rational psychology clearer. However, these terms do not solve the main problems psychology deals with by themselves, these being the distinctions between knowledge produced by the mind and knowledge obtained by sensation. That is why he also introduces the distinction between analytical and synthetic statements as a device to clarify nontrivial knowledge that still stems from the mind. The source for this investigation is the two psychologies in metaphysics, and that is exactly why Kant dealt with both forms in his lectures throughout his life. Perhaps the most interesting series of Kant’s lectures in metaphysics is the one noted down by the eighteen-year-old, newly matriculated Christoph Coestin Mrongovius in 1782–1783, and there are several reasons why his notes are interesting. One is that they were made only a year after the first publication of the Critique of Pure Reason and when Kant was about to start revising it for the second edition, which was to be published in 1787. Another reason is that these notes are the most extensive ones we have, and a third is that the presentation of psychology seems to be quite complete. In the introductory section of these notes, the distinction between a priori and a posteriori is presented, and Kant defines metaphysics as “the science of the a priori principles of human cognition” (Kant, 1997, p. 112). And in the lectures the term “cognition” is consistently applied as a term equivalent to “knowledge.” Thus it is important to eliminate any other associations “cognition” may induce. This term is also applied in the presentation of the Leibniz-Wolffian distinction between the lower and higher faculties of acquiring knowledge. This distinction was the main reason why Wolff divided psychology into two parts, namely empirical and rational psychology. What Kant does is to preserve the distinction between these two forms of capacities, but he makes the distinction between them more precise: “There is a higher and a lower cognitive faculty. The former is understanding, the latter sensibility” (Kant, 1997, p. 247). Yet this difference is not sufficient to allow a full understanding of the distinction between empirical and rational psychology. Thus he starts the complete series of lectures by stating, “All cognition of things is twofold. Either they can be given through experience or not” (Kant, 1997, p. 245). When Kant is referring to cognition here, he is talking about pure cognition, which excludes that which is empirically based, and so he is not referring to empiri126

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cal psychology when he talks about experience in this statement. He refers to his understanding of what metaphysics is about, and the point is that even a priori knowledge can involve experience. In other words, experiential aspects are not equivalent to the empirical. This sounds like a radical change, but it goes directly back to Leibniz’s term “apperception,” which is a form of self-awareness and reflection. In its most rudimentary form, this is the same as understanding. Yet there is also a higher form of pure cognition, and that is reason, “which cannot be given in experience” (Kant, 1997, p. 245). In other words, the main terms we find in Kant’s critical philosophy are derived directly from metaphysics, and particularly from psychology. The main problem, however, is not solved by consistently sorting out the empirical aspects from metaphysics. That is exactly what Kant aims at, but he realizes very well that the issue is not fully resolved by this. Yet in this respect, it is not psychology that forms the point of departure, but cosmology instead. As already mentioned, Baumgarten introduced the term “cosmologia empirica” as being a part of metaphysics (Baumgarten, 2004, p. 7), but did not elaborate on it very much. Kant makes these things clear. General physics (physica generalis), as he calls it, concerns “bodily nature or objects of outer sense,” but they belong to metaphysics when our understanding of them rests “on a priori principles” (Kant, 1997, p. 245). Admittedly, this is a form of applied metaphysics (metaphysica applicata), but it is still part of it. Thus it is primarily the understanding of objects that belongs to metaphysics, and not the objects themselves. This distinction is easy to maintain when there is a clear distinction between the object and our understanding of it. Yet in psychology the object itself is the premise for our understanding, and this is precisely what complicates things. On the one hand, it deals with exactly what Kant aims at defining as the criteria for our understanding, but in addition it brings in human nature, with all its mental and physiological constraints. And the main question therefore remains, since it is one thing to sort out the criteria for pure reason, but it is another to conclude that this is the only factor that determines our understanding in science. Since Kant is aware of exactly this objection, he continues to give lectures on both empirical and rational psychology despite the fact that he continually refuses to accept empirical psychology as a part of metaphysics. This very much touches on a discussion that has yet to end, on Kant’s evaluation of introspection. It has been concluded quite categorically that Kant did not accept introspection, because psychological 127

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phenomena are not given in space, which is a necessary condition for talking about causality, which is a requirement for defining something as a science (Nayak and Sotnak, 1995; see also Gouaux, 1972; see also Woodward and Ash, 1982; see also Leary, 1982). This has been questioned thoroughly and rejected by Thomas Sturm by allowing that Kant can be very easily understood in this way, but the formulations that this conclusion are based on are not conclusive themselves; rather, they are tentative formulations that form a point of departure for something deeper (Sturm, 2001). Sturm prefers to focus on the mathematical claim that Kant is presenting in Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science from 1786. Yet even this claim cannot be taken as a final and definitive conclusion. It might be said that Kant is going through a process in which he follows up all the lines that might be drawn by taking different principles for cognition into account, in an attempt to test them against some realistic scenarios. In this dialectic process, the a priori aspects in metaphysics form a source for drawing all these lines, and they are tested against the content of empirical psychology. In this sense, empirical psychology defines the dialogue Kant is having with himself, but this dialogue was mainly presented in his lectures, and not so much in his published philosophy. All empirical sciences presuppose observation, and it is tempting to make a simple distinction between psychology and physics by stating that the former is a science based on the inner senses, whereas the latter refers to a science based on the outer senses. It is easy to read the introduction to the Mrongovius lecture notes on psychology this way. In the lectures, however, Kant restricts the objects for the inner sense to thinking. Hence the term “inner sense” is restricted to rational psychology as a point of departure. Yet the investigation cannot stop there, because the inner senses are not totally detached from the outer senses. This underlines exactly what the problem is: specifically that empirical psychology is not defined in terms of certain objects, but rather by how these objects are supposed to be perceived. This is the foundation for making observations. This is why the faculties are presented in empirical psychology (psychologia empirica) and not in rational psychology (psychologia rationalis), and these faculties are explored from two different angles. They may serve a role as objects, but they are also premises for observation. Yet observations through sensation are not only restricted to cognitive processes; they involve senses, which are given as physiological entities. “In empirical psychology we consider our I as soul and as human being. But we consider the body on the one 128

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hand as an organ of the soul which depends on the soul, but on the other hand as a lodging, since the soul also depends on it” (Kant, 1997, p. 246). There is a close and mutual dependency between the soul and the body. This is what Leibniz pointed out and Wolff followed up as far as he thought he could go, by focusing on perception as a precondition for diversity in the world. Thinking and understanding are instruments for clarifying this diversity, and for discovering what the differences and similarities are. In other words, it is body-dependent perception that forces the intellectual subject to think and try to understand diversity in the world, and not the other way around. It is perception and not thinking that causes diversity, and without perception all intellectual activity would solely consist of analytical statements given a priori, and the whole thinkable universe would be united in pure oneness. This body-dependent aspect of Kant’s project is not novel but rather an ignored factor that strengthens the need to find out what pure reason is about. Our capacities for cognition and sensation cooperate because all human capacities and faculties are human institutions that regulate both sensation and thinking. These faculties therefore are presented within the framework of empirical psychology, but there are very many different ways to organize them, and therefore many versions were devised in the German and Nordic traditions. Kant had several objections to most of his predecessors, including Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten. Yet most of these objections are not critical, but rather indicators of the problems there are in dividing and determining the different faculties. Even the English term “faculty” and the Latin term facultas are problematic, in the sense that they are not about cognitive institutions but human abilities. The most fundamental distinction is a good example of illustrating the broader meaning of faculties in this context. The distinction between understanding and sensibility is labeled in English as the distinction between “a higher and a lower cognitive faculty” (Kant, 1997, p. 247). This is the main distinction of faculties. Yet sensation is not cognition in terms of thinking, but rather something that has great influence on cognition. The next main faculty that we need to take into account probably illustrates the broad understanding of the term even more, namely “desire” (appetitio) (Kant, 1997, p. 247). This is also divided into two, in the sense that we can talk about certain purposes or motives as a higher form of desire, but also pure lust, which is a lower form of desire (Kant, 1997, p. 263). This distinction was very important for Leibniz, and it pervades the whole Monadology. What Kant underlines, however, is the close relationship 129

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desire has with the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, and he points out a clear distinction between them. Desire is not a feeling, although both the higher and the lower forms of desire are guided by the feelings of pleasure and displeasure. This is an important distinction because a feeling, according to Kant, is something that follows and guides all kinds of perceptions, both the inner and the outer. Thus feelings are not regarded as an isolated capacity but rather as something that follows all kinds of perceptions. They are comparable with time and space, in that they do not provide any understanding by themselves, but they accompany all understanding. In the same way, all perceptions and desires are accompanied and guided by feelings of either pleasure or displeasure. The former represents agreement, whereas the latter represents disagreements with our desires, which also include expected perceptions. This is an important topic that Kant dwells on, but he does have problems with formulating a clear statement. According to Kant, there are five different instances that interact in the process of perception. These are the subject, desire, feelings, objects, and life. Perception emerges from the subject, driven by desires, which are guided by feelings, which are directed toward objects in the world. In addition, Kant brings in the term “life,” which embraces the whole process (Kant, 1997, p. 261f ). In other words, by depicting the whole perceptual process, Kant ends up with an existential understanding by introducing the paramount term “life.” This is a presentation quite remote from his rigorous investigation of pure reason. Yet this is, of course, not the final analysis of the process of perception, but rather an example of how tentative Kant allows himself to be in his presentation of metaphysics and especially empirical psychology. What this analysis also indicates is the role of feelings as an unavoidable aspect of perception. Kant also refers to the more typical faculties we may recognize from Wolff and Baumgarten, such as imagination, signifying, understanding, judgment, and reason. According to the lecture notes, Kant also mentions “the fictive faculty,” or maybe we should call it “the fictional faculty” (facultas fingendi), which is “when my soul produces new representations through the power of imagination” (Kant, 1997, p. 252). What characterizes Kant’s viewpoint is the exploring form and attitude of his presentation. He suggests that imagination is closely connected with the fictional. Imagination (facultas imaginandi) is “the faculty of representing past states to oneself ” (Kant, 1997, p. 252). This faculty is tentatively divided into three. It can be related to the past, when it 130

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is reproductive, or it can be related to the future, when it is anticipating. In addition, it can be related to no time, which means that it is productive. All three are regarded as faculties, and the latter is also highly related to the fictive faculty. Imagination is also characterized as a power that helps us to loosen up our understanding of faculty as primarily a cognitive process. Desires underlie and form the basis for all these faculties, not only the higher form of desires, but also the lower. In this respect, the faculty of anticipation (i.e., to infer the future) is of interest, because this exemplifies how crucial feelings are in guiding and deciding when expectations and anticipations meet reality. If displeasure accompanies this meeting, it is not easy to predict whether the outcome will be a correction of the expectations or a denial of reality. As long as feelings are connected to all forms of perception, the perceived outcome has to be as unpredictable as the feelings are. In addition, there is an immense amount of possible combinations among the different faculties, which also implies an unpredictable outcome when it comes to how a certain phenomenon actually is perceived. If we return to the fictive or fictional faculty, the complexity does not decrease. This is “the faculty for producing representations of things that we have never seen” (Kant, 1997, p. 253). This is, of course, highly connected to the imagination. The relationship between the two exemplifies the impossibility of making a schematic sorting of the faculties previously mentioned. Imagination is presented as if it is a paramount faculty, in which the fictional faculty represents a subclass. But imagination also has an opposite role. The fictional faculty is, according to Kant, divided into two, namely imagination and fantasy. In other words, imagination is at the same time both superior and subordinated to the fictional faculty. This presentation does not, of course, represent the final systematization of the faculties made by Kant. This can be found in the three Critiques. It is important to remember that the source for all of this is only the lecture notes of a young student. And it is the more informal and inconsistent aspects of the notes that reveal how Kant thought, and that this thinking must be regarded as a process. The point is that this is not merely a question about preparatory work for the Critiques. This series of lectures was given after the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason came out, and other series of lectures on metaphysics were given even after the second edition was published. Thus these lectures were an arena for tentatively working out how knowledge is acquired, and the content of empirical psychology seems to represent an abundance 131

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of stumbling blocks. The fictional faculty, of course, is part of some of these blocks. By following the fantasy aspect of the fictional faculty, we end up with many delicate problems, particularly from a psychological point of view. Fantasies and imagination may very well be unbridled and not follow any rules, and if so, Kant defines them as abnormal, and the result is what he calls “frenzy.” Thus both fantasy and imagination are regulated by experience and rules. They have to be in accordance with some aspects of real life and the rules that govern our understanding of it. It is in this connection that Kant brings in dreams, clarity, and, not least, the unconscious. To Kant, dreams are products of the power of imagination but also a result of the fact that understanding is set aside. Understanding is not a creative faculty but simply an ability to sort and categorize sense impressions. Understanding does not contribute anything substantial; it is simply a formal device. Nevertheless, its presence is crucial, and dreams show exactly what happens with our impressions when understanding is absent. Dreams also demonstrate how the relationship between clarity and unconsciousness is to be understood. The two latter terms were important for Leibniz’s monadology, and so they are for Kant as well. But they are understood slightly differently. Clarity was for Leibniz as it had been for Descartes: a criterion for reliable impressions. Leibniz introduces the unconscious to underline that there are some impressions we get without being fully aware of them. When he refers to music as the unconscious calculation of the soul, it is exactly this asymmetry between clarity and awareness that is at stake (Dammann, 1967). Kant cannot accept this. His attack, however, is directed toward Locke and not Leibniz, but the point is the same: that “not to be conscious of something, and yet to know it, is a contradiction in the predicate” (Kant, 1997, p. 248). Something “unconscious” must therefore refer to something we do not know about. Dreams may give impressions that we do not register and therefore know nothing about, but they may also give very clear impressions. However, when we wake up, the very same clear impression can be totally absurd. Thus Kant rejects some important aspects of the term unconscious, and he also rejects clarity as a criterion for reliability. However, he rejects neither the fact that we may very well not be aware of all our impressions, nor that impressions may differ in clarity. There is no reason to go into all the faculties Kant discusses. The important thing here is to demonstrate how uncertain Kant genuinely was when he worked on the elements of empirical psychology. The aim 132

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of his investigation was, of course, to obtain a full understanding of all these questions, and his presentational style certainly communicated that he had achieved it. This is probably why he is presented as if he really did achieve a consistently schematized understanding of how we perceive and reflect upon the world. And to some extent he did succeed in doing so, but only in his presentation of rational psychology. Yet rational psychology is solely about a priori derived knowledge. This implies that what is said about rational psychology is just a question about what is acceptable with universal statements and what it is logically possible to derive from these. On these matters Kant definitely was number one. Nevertheless, this is not his main contribution to philosophy, and even less so to psychology. An exclusive focus on rational psychology is the main pathway for making psychology metaphysical in a narrow sense. This is a radical effect of bringing empirical psychology into metaphysics, specifically by breaking with solely focusing on the objective and universal and forgetting the subjective and the particular. So Kant’s greatest effort was that he combined his metaphysical knowledge and skills with seriously taking into account all the challenges that empirical psychology demands. This is why he repeatedly banishes empirical psychology from metaphysics but brings it in again and again in his lectures and thinking. Nevertheless, it is universal and objective knowledge that forms the basis for all of Kant’s philosophy, and that is why rational psychology is so important for him. This coincides with Kant’s transcendental idealism, because this is exactly about the universal in human cognition. In investigating rational psychology, certain aspects occur that are of serious interest. One is “the transcendental predicates of the soul” (Kant, 1997, p. 270). These are typical metaphysical questions, such as whether the soul can be defined as a substance or not, or to what extent it is a part of the finite or the infinite, etc. It is also about the relationship between the soul and the body, and this is of course not regarded from an a posteriori perspective, but from that of a priori. One last aspect of Kant’s lectures on metaphysics must be discussed, and that is his deliberations on free will. According to Kant, free will is highly dependent on the relationship between the objective and the subjective. The intellectual aspects of freedom give the objective. He states, “With a pure intelligence, objective necessity is at the same time subjective. So it is with God” (Kant, 1997, p. 263). This is not the same as determinism; it is a way of saying that objectivity coincides with analytical oneness and total predictability on rational grounds. This 133

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changes when subjectivity and objectivity are separated by the fact that the subject is not only guided by pure intelligence. Free will relies on the power of free choice, and a choice is highly dependent on desire. Thus sensation and particularity are also determinants. But freedom, according to Kant, is regulated by the two concepts “good” and “evil,” and therefore there is also intellectual regulation of freedom. This implies that freedom is related to the higher faculty of desire, namely motives. In other words, Kant regards freedom in terms of morality. Motives imply a certain end for the act, and when it comes to freedom, the acts are regulated by the norm, which says, “I desire nothing unless under the aspect of the good—and [I avoid] nothing unless under the aspect of evil” (Kant, 1997, p. 263). Thus Kant operated with the same kind of conflict as Kierkegaard followed up with, and they both defined freedom as a result of this conflict. Yet there is an important difference as well. Kant does not reserve freedom to this conflict, and by pointing out “good” as a regulating factor of choices, the conflict between objectivity and subjectivity is diminished to a minimum. Empirical Psychology and the Critique of Pure Reason Kant’s critical philosophy must be regarded as one of the most striking representations of modern revolution in Western thinking. Descartes’s methodological doubts started this revolution, and one may say that Kant’s critical philosophy fulfilled it. Descartes and Kant also have in common being inclined to the same commitment to scholastic and ancient thinking, but there is a difference in respect to what they preserve. Descartes merely presents doubts, and from these he builds a premodern perspective. This is true especially in his proofs of the existence of God, in which clarity of notion is a highly valued criterion for reliability. Kant’s doubts go further, in the sense that he does not rely on such a criterion, but instead he questions all criteria for our thinking. And that is how his critical philosophy has to be understood. It is not a critique of former philosophy; it is more a philosophy that attempts to take ancient thinking seriously, but by investigating it from a different angle, which is to formulate valid criteria for thinking. The terms “critique” and “criterion” are etymologically intimately related, and critical philosophy takes advantages of this relationship by opening up a kind of synonymy. By defining new criteria for thinking, the center and origin of philosophical thinking was changed. Thinking is a subjective activity created by the human mind. It does not have its origin in a demiurge or the universal, almighty, eternal, and endless 134

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creator of the world; thinking has its origin in the particular and finite subject. This was a Copernican change in philosophy, which implies that all philosophical thinking is based on the individual. We have already seen some factors that forced Kant to undergo this change in perspective. In addition to the skepticism of David Hume, one of the factors that certainly influenced him strongly was empirical psychology. Subjectivity in empirical psychology as a part of metaphysics is quite different from the skepticism of Hume. At the same time, it opens up observation in natural science. And this paradoxical combination of subjectivity and observation, of which the latter should be objective in the natural sciences, creates a severe dilemma that philosophy has to approach and attempt to solve. And this is exactly what Kant achieves in his three critiques. Yet they are not the only valuable contributions from Kant’s hand in this discussion. As we have seen, his deliberations on metaphysics, and especially the way metaphysics was formulated and systematized during the German Enlightenment by Christian Wolff, has to be regarded as having signal importance. By looking closer at the Critique of Pure Reason, we very soon recognize elements of metaphysics. He even admits very clearly in the preface to the first edition of 1781 that a major portion of the question he is investigating “is called Metaphysic” (Kant, 1974, p. 1). However, Kant is not only referring to metaphysics in the Wolffian sense, for he categorizes metaphysics differently from Wolff. At the conclusion of the Critique of Pure Reason, there is a most interesting discussion on the subject, and here he reveals how he would like to subdivide it. According to these divisions, it would still consist of four parts, but these are: “1. Ontology; 2. Rational Physiology; 3. Rational Cosmology and 4. Rational Theology” (Kant, 1974, p. 478f; A846f/B874f ). Thus psychology seems to be totally excluded from his understanding of metaphysics, but it is not entirely so. Psychologia rationalis appears together with physica rationalis as subdivisions of rational physiology. To allow rational psychology to appear under the headline of rational physiology tells a lot about the role of psychology in Kant’s philosophy: it forms the basis for the subjective revolution, but this is not explicitly announced, and it seems that he actually wants to conceal it. Here he also repeats that empirical psychology must “be banished from the sphere of Metaphysics” (Kant, 1974, p. 479f; A848/B876). This banishment of empirical psychology is not only from metaphysics itself, but also from his own Critique, in which it is only mentioned in these final 135

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pages and in one other place. And the few references he makes are not exactly positive for empirical psychology. He admits quite frankly that he does not know how to deal with it, and that “psychology is not as yet full enough to occupy our attention as an independent study, while it is, at the same time, of too great importance to be entirely excluded or placed where it has still less affinity than it has with the subject of metaphysics” (Kant, 1974, p. 480; A849/B877). This expresses exactly the shackles Kant has regarding psychology. On the one hand, he is very inspired by what may count as its objectives, but on the other hand he does not find a final answer for how to deal with it. The answer he gives at this point (given in the first edition and repeated in the second) is that empirical psychology “is a stranger who has been a long guest; and we make it welcome to stay, until it can take up a more suitable abode in a complete system of anthropology” (Kant, 1974, p. 480; A849/B877). So what is left is rational psychology, but even this is buried under the headline of “rational physiology.” The dilemma Kant refers to here is of great importance in the understanding of his Critique of Pure Reason. In the introduction to this discussion in the final pages, he asks and answers rhetorically, “What shall we assign to empirical psychology, [. . .] which in our time such important philosophical results has been expected [. . .]? [. . .] I answer: It must be placed by the side of empirical physics or physics proper; that is, it must be regarded as forming a part of applied philosophy” (Kant, 1974, p. 479; A848/B876). Two important aspects should be highlighted here. One is the fact that there really were high expectations of empirical psychology, not only when it comes to the understanding of human nature, but also as a philosophical and methodological basis for scientific research. The other is that psychology may also be regarded as an empirical science, but what this science is about is debatable. This is a question dealt with in the “Transcendental Dialectic.” As the title suggests, the point of this section is to focus on those aspects of the subject that are shared by all subjects, and these are presented in a logical form that invokes all kind of different perspectives—even contradictory statements. The topic of the first chapter in this part is to investigate the most fundamental proposition for an investigation of pure reason, being the Cartesian declaration “I think, therefore I am.” Kant says, “Thus the expression, I, as a thinking being, designates the object matter of psychology” (Kant, 1974, p. 234; A342/B400). However, the rational focus Kant assumes implies ignoring all empirical (i.e., sensory-based) forms of content. Even the smallest should end 136

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up subsumed in empirical psychology rather than rational psychology. Kant starts here with a perspective opposite to that of Leibniz, who defined multiplicity and diversity in terms of perception. What Kant is talking about is not multiplicity but the complete unity of the soul. He does so because pure reason is the same as understanding as such, and in order to get into what understanding is all about, it has to be defined in terms of unity, not diversity. This implies that all kinds of perception have to be avoided in this first phase of the investigation. “The smallest object of experience (for example, only pleasure or pain), that should be included in the general representation of self-consciousness, would immediately change the rational into an empirical psychology” (Kant, 1974, p. 234; A343/B401). Thus the thinking ego or cogito is not an object for observation in this context, because an observation would immediately change the cogito into an empirically given entity. The point is that empirical psychology cannot form a starting point in Kant’s investigation of pure reason, because then reason would suddenly not be pure anymore. This is why Kant only mentions empirical psychology in “Transcendental Dialectic,” just to emphasize that it is not valid as a point of departure for his investigation of pure reason. This does not mean that empirical psychology is impossible as a science. Kant still leaves the door for this possibility open, and here he even suggests that empirical psychology “would be a kind of physiology of the internal sense” (Kant, 1974, p. 236; A347/B405). In other words, Kant is still open to empirical psychology as a science, but he does not know exactly how to deal with it. It might be anthropology or a kind of physiology, but in any case empirical psychology cannot be defined as a pure science, only an applied one. All of this strengthens more and more the close and intimate connection between Kant’s transcendental approach and metaphysics. Yet there is an important difference, and that is where and how the criteria for knowledge are located. While metaphysics refers to theological premises, concomitant appearances, and clarity, Kant focuses solely on the thinking subject itself. This is why he also makes a terminological shift and introduces the terms a priori and a posteriori to depict the differences between pure and empirical knowledge. “Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge” (Kant, 1974, p. 26; B4). These are the criteria for a priori knowledge; i.e., it is given with necessity, and it is of universal value. These criteria do not stand in opposition to metaphysics but coincide with it. The difference is the perspective and 137

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location. Necessity and universality have to be parts of the mind itself; therefore, they belong to the field of psychology. As long as necessity and universality in the mind form a unity and are pure and analytical without a doubt, they belong to rational psychology. The main object of Kant’s investigation is, as mentioned, to find out to what extent there could be synthetic judgments that are given with the same necessity and universality as analytical statements. By this, Kant is exploring possibilities that go beyond rational psychology to face aspects of empirical psychology. Yet despite the fact that he started this movement, he is not open to including empirical psychology as a part of the investigation of pure reason. That is obvious from the title. However, empirical psychology forms a basis in this investigation, in the sense that it defines very much which direction the investigation shall take. Sensation is everywhere an implicit factor in Kant’s investigation, and throughout the thesis he moves along the borderline in which it would be natural to introduce empirical psychology. However, he avoids the term as much as he can. Thus when he discusses sensory aspects, he renames the field and calls it “aesthetics” instead, and there is a long chapter on transcendental aesthetics. He admits that his use of the term “aesthetics” contradicts the popular understanding of it, but in his opinion that is not his fault but the Germans’: “The Germans are the only people who at present use this word to indicate what others call the critique of taste” (Kant, 1974, p. 42; A21/B35f ). Kant admits that Baumgarten is an “eminent analyst” (Kant, 1974, p. 42; A21/B35f ) but claims that he failed in his achievements. He believed that he had formulated principles for beauty based on reason, but they were in fact empirical. This is why Kant does not talk about aesthetics in his discussion on beauty; instead he speaks about the ability to make judgments. In a comment on Baumgarten, he proclaims that he will reserve the term “aesthetics” “as designating [. . .] the science of the laws of sensibility” (Kant, 1974, p. 42; A21/B35f ) However, these laws are not given a posteriori, but a priori. The latter is the content of what Kant calls “Transcendental Aesthetics,” and the content of this is given by the two terms “space” and “time.” Both of these are given a priori, in that they are given by necessity, and they are universal. Yet they have no explanatory power; they are simply unavoidable forms in which all phenomena that are obtained through the senses are understood. The intuitively given forms of space and time are comparable with Kant’s understanding of feelings, yet a crucial difference must be stressed. Feelings are diverse and strongly related to the particular, 138

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whereas space and time have immediate universal significations. If it had been possible to sort out a unitary form of feelings, probably there would have been stronger similarities. However, this is neither possible nor thinkable. The reason is quite simply that feelings exist solely in the sphere of particularity. So to make a comparison with space and time is limited to one specific aspect, that being that they are given as necessary appendages to perceptions. “All that is practical, so far as it contains motives, relates to feelings, and these belong to the empirical sources of knowledge” (Kant, 1974, p. 40; A15/B29, quotation from the 1929 Norman Kemp Smith translation, Dutton, New York; http://www. hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/cpr/toc.html). Thus feelings are not an issue in the Critique of Pure Reason, although Kant signals very skillfully how they can be understood. They obviously stand in opposition to thinking, and therefore also to concepts, and they are mandatory in the perceiving process. Feelings seem to be understood as the subject’s reactions to the unpredictable aspects of the particular. This is even more clearly and more definitely articulated in the later Critique of Judgment: “To avoid misinterpretation, we shall call that which must always remain merely subjective, and can constitute absolutely no representation of an object, by the ordinary term ‘feeling’” (Kant, 1790/1972, p. 40). In other words, a feeling is the immediate reaction of the subject faced with an object without any representation of it. This understanding of emotions coincides very well with Dewey’s “discharge theory” (Dewey, 1894) and Mandler’s “interruption theory” (Mandler, 1985). Thus it is not just a reaction to particularity; the reaction in itself is immediate, without concepts, particular, and highly subjective. As long as the immediate reaction to an object is such as this, feelings are mobilized. This is also why they can be regarded as a necessary and an unavoidable part of perceptions; because they represent the subject’s reactions to an unpredictable situation, and they are themselves also unpredictable. These aspects form the reason why feelings do not belong to an investigation of the transcendental. The psychological term “apperception,” on the other hand, is highly relevant for an investigation of the transcendental mind. This term, introduced by Leibniz and adopted and elaborated by Wolff in his empirical psychology, plays an immense role in Kant’s investigation of pure reason. This is a term that brings Kant very close to the LeibnizWolff tradition and consequently represents a linkage between the two psychologies and the Critique of Pure Reason. On the other hand, this is a term that enables Kant to achieve the goal of his investigation, 139

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being to conclude that there really are some synthetic statements that are given a priori. As a point of departure he mentions the term succinctly in his investigation of transcendental aesthetics by referring to the same definition of the term as Leibniz had presented, specifically that apperception is “consciousness of self ” (Kant, 1974, p. 59; B68). Yet this is only mentioned in brief, and it only appears in the second edition. An investigation of this term goes far beyond an examination of the perception of objects. Thus the real presentation of the term takes place as a reflection around the deduction of the categories—the core part of the whole investigation (Kant, 1974, p. 93; A84/B116). In this deduction, unity forms a point of departure. As mentioned, pure reason is primarily characterized by unity. Multiplicity or diversity is chiefly a result of perception. So if perception is set aside, unity is what is left standing. Thus pure reason is mostly characterized by analytical statements, which are exactly what constitute unity in cognition. Kant’s investigation of pure reason produces twelve types of judgments or “categories,” which govern all our thinking and form the basis for objective knowledge. The twelve categories, which include our conceptions of unity, reality, causality, and existence, are all synthetic statements given a priori (Kant, 1974, p. 79, A80/B106). Thus the term “apperception” is what Kant introduces as an instrument to explain how something that is logically purported to contain unity and analytical statements can change to also include synthetic statements. His argument is that all understanding is about conjunction. An understanding is established when two elements are juxtaposed and when these elements represent the same and therefore form an analytical statement. This implies that as long as two elements are juxtaposed, an act of understanding will be the result. This conjunction or act of understanding, however, is at the same time an act of synthesis, no matter whether we are referring to synthetic or analytical statements. Understanding, in other words, represents a process in which the manifold is transformed into a “synthetical unity” (Kant, 1974, p. 93; B130). However, the term “understanding” is not the most appropriate choice to depict this process, because understanding refers more to a result. The term “apperception” replaces “understanding” here, because the process is mainly about consciousness of the representations that accompany a “thinking I.” This consciousness of representations (Vorstellungen) is apperception, and Kant even calls it “pure apperception.” The added word indicates that the process under discussion is still a feature of pure reason. So within pure reason there is a unifying 140

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process in which different representations are united, and this unity appears as the full understanding of a person. Without this process of “synthesis, the manifold in intuition [Bewusstsein] could not be united in one consciousness” (Kant, 1974, p. 97, B138). In short, consciousness has to be regarded as one whole, but it is supplied with new ideas all the time, and all these ideas are integrated by the process of apperception. Through this discussion of apperception, Kant expands the content of the term, and his understanding became very influential for subsequent philosophers. For instance, Kant’s successor in Königsberg, Johann Friedrich Herbart, made “apperception” a key term in his psychology and pedagogy. One reason why Herbart focused so much on this term is that learning is about changes, but to explain changes from a logical point of view is always challenging. This challenge is exactly what Kierkegaard faced and tried to solve through his existentialism. In Repetition, the conflict between the static and the universal on the one hand and change and the particular on the other formed a point of departure. In his more philosophically oriented thesis, the so-called Philosophical Crumbs (Kierkegaard, 2009a) of 1844, he follows up this problem with a definite emphasis on learning. He calls it “the absolute paradox,” and it is formulated quite simply as “to want to discover something it cannot think” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 111). This is exactly what learning is about, but not only learning: also philosophical activity and, not least, research. This concerns all kinds of intellectual activity. And it is precisely this paradox that Kant is dealing with. However, he is in opposition to Kierkegaard by not dealing with the paradox as such, but rather with its solution, which is his extended understanding of the term “apperception,” in the sense that it refers to the transformational process that changes diversity and multiplicity in our representations to concordance and unity in our minds. Kierkegaard cannot accept this assimilation process in the mind, because it obscures the existential situation man is in. Thus Kierkegaard never refers to the term “apperception.” Nevertheless, “apperception” did become an important term for Wundt and experimental psychology, and in his Outlines of Psychology (Wundt, 1902), a whole chapter is devoted to the term. He connects the term much more to his elementary way of thinking of the mind. And because of this elementary approach to psychological life, he depends even more on a term that can help him to unite inner psychological life. This is why “apperception” is an important term to him, and it implies that the Kantian understanding of the term very much forms 141

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the basis for his own understanding. There is, however, an immense extension of the meaning when Wundt discusses it compared with Kant. Whereas the latter emphasizes its pure aspects, being its role in pure thinking and reasoning, Wundt focuses much more on empirical aspects. Thus in one sense Wundt brings the term closer to the original meaning, with its intimate relationship with perception. Yet in another sense Wundt follows up Kant, in that he also highlights the empirical aspect. This is an implicit aspect in Kant’s discussion, and it is removed for systematic reasons. The empirical aspects are there since all new impressions and ideas have their origin in sensation. This is what Wundt follows up in his empirical psychology, so that he can be seen as a kind of synthesis of Wolff and Kant. The statement is fragile, but it has some support by the fact that Wolff focused on sense impressions in his empirical psychology, whereas Kant attempted to ignore them by focusing on pure reason instead. Wundt focused on both, and his achievement was precisely to explain the relationship between sensation and representations. In this attempt, “apperception” in the Kantian sense was a key term. Psychology as Something In Between Science and Anthropology “Apperception” is, without doubt, a key term. It is the term that enables Kant to complete his investigation of pure reason, and it is at the same time the notion that links his transcendental philosophy with psychology. Kant explicitly wanted to limit the relationship between the term and psychology, simply to allow the inclusion of rational psychology. Yet the reaction among his readers was that he really did not successfully manage to do so, and the immediate objection is that “the ‘I think’ of apperception can find expression only in an empirical judgment” (Smith, 1962, p. 322). Empirical psychology is not just about the outer senses, but also about observational acts in general, which includes the use of inner senses, an objection that was presented after the release of the first edition. This triggered Kant to write a new version of this part of his thesis, such that version B of 1787 is completely different from the original version with respect to the transcendental deduction about pure concepts of understanding (Verstandsbegriffe). According to the commentaries of Norman Kemp Smith, Kant avoids “the concept of the transcendental object” (Smith, 1962, p. 326) entirely in the second edition. This implies that there was an attempt to eliminate observational aspects, leaving Kant with simply transcendental and pure understanding. “Self-consciousness is therefore the representation 142

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of that which is the condition of all unity, and yet is itself unconditioned” (Smith, 1962, p. 326f ). Hence Kant emphasizes even more strongly the unifying aspects of the apperceptual process on perception. It is because of the fact that our ideas are unified that he can conclude by declaring that pure and transcendental synthetic statements exist, given a priori; i.e., as part of the twelve categories. The role of the term “apperception” is a much-ignored aspect in the discussion of Kant’s relationship with psychology as an empirical science. Instead, too much weight has been laid on a statement he made immediately before the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason was published. In the preface to the Metaphysiche Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science) of 1786, he declares, “Psychology—or ‘the empirical doctrine of the soul’— can never become ‘a natural science proper’” (Leary, 1982 p. 22; “Noch weiter aber, als selbst Chymie, muß empirische Seelenlehre jederzeit von dem Range einer eigentlich so zu nennenden Naturwissenschaft entfernt bleiben, erstlich weil Mathematik auf die Phänomene des inneren Sinnes und ihre Gesetze nicht anwendbar ist,” italics by the author; Kant, 1786, p. X). This statement very much coincides, of course, with the tendency that has been revealed here. In our analysis of both his lectures on metaphysics and the Critique of Pure Reason, certainly there has been an attempt to exclude empirical psychology from Kant’s definition of science. The reason is quite simply that in his first phase of critical philosophy, Kant is mainly interested in pointing out the basis for objective science. This contrasts necessarily with empirical psychology because psychology, and especially its empirical aspects, highlights subjectivity. In other words, it is not Kant that introduced subjectivity to philosophy. He is forced to take the consequences of the fact that subjectivity had already been introduced, not only in philosophy, but also in metaphysics through empirical psychology. Any “Copernican revolution” he presents is admittedly a radical change, but it is not a true revolution. It is rather a rescue operation at a time when philosophy was on the edge of losing its identity as an objective science. Thus Kant took this challenge seriously by taking empirical psychology critically into account. Yet as long as the aim was not to base his reasoning on subjective judgment, but the opposite, finding a basis for true objective knowledge, of course he had to lay aside empirical psychology. The question therefore is not so much what Kant did or did not understand, but how he was understood then and since. We have already seen with Fichte that Kant himself did not always positively 143

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accept the reception of his transcendental philosophy. It was also argued that Kant believed psychology could be defined as a science before this statement of 1786, which said that psychology can never become “a natural science proper” (Sturm, 2001). Yet according to Sturm, it was revealed in a letter from Kant to Christian Gottfried Schütz as late as the autumn of 1785 that psychology could be regarded as a science. In this letter he promised “that the Metaphysical Foundations will treat the metaphysical foundations of the ‘doctrine of the soul’ (Seelenlehre) in addition to that of matter [and] there is not the slightest suggestion that he [Kant] calls into question the very possibility of a scientific psychology” (Sturm, 2001, p. 164f ). Sturm concludes that he “changed his mind with regard to the scientific status of empirical psychology” (Sturm, 2001, p. 165). This might very well have been the situation, but on the other hand, in the second edition of the Critique he is very clear about regarding empirical psychology as a science in the sense that he regards it as “a pendant to empirical physics” (Kant, 1974, p. 480; A849/B877). In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant makes a clear and near-consistent distinction between pure and applied sciences, and empirical psychology is frozen out merely because he feels it must be defined as an applied science, and therefore it is not included in an investigation of the foundation for pure sciences. This distinction is very apparent when it comes to physics, in the sense that its pure aspects are connected to what we think about nature, whereas applied physics is about the physical objects out there. The problem with psychology, however, is that the borderline between the rational and the empirical is not so easy to draw. This is why Kant brings in and extends the content of the term “apperception,” exactly because he insists that this term belongs to rational psychology because it principally depicts a unifying process in the mind. This is not fully satisfying, and that is why Kant must be regarded as only near-consistent in his investigation, because the objection would be that apperception also includes an empirical counterpart, namely the perception of oneself. This is closely related to the fact that perception does not only create multiplicity and diversity but also has a unifying role, in the sense that the one in the perceiving process is also unified with the other; i.e., that which is perceived. The distinction between “the one” and “the other” is both confirmed and overcome during the act of perception. This ambiguity is also an unavoidable aspect of apperception. The difference is, however, that the perception is directed outward, whereas apperception is directed inward. 144

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The discussion above is intimately connected with a requirement of quantification in sciences in general and in psychology especially, and it was an important requirement in the first part of Kant’s critical philosophy. It satisfies exactly what he is looking for in the investigation of pure reason, because mathematical statements are synthetic statements, which are given a priori. Thus quantification is a sufficient reason for guaranteeing objectivity in a science. This does not imply, however, that quantification is a necessary condition for objectivity in science. According to Makkreel, who has focused on Kant’s understanding of the relationship between psychology and anthropology, there are several interesting movements that Kant went through on his way to write the phrase “a more suitable abode in a complete system of anthropology” (Kant, 1974, p. 480; A849/B877). Importantly, Kant’s work on the Critique of Judgment made some changes to his opinion of what is and what is not science. “Kant came to realize that although technique and culture have practical consequences, they are still part of a theoretical philosophy” (Makkreel, 2001, p. 190). What is important here is that culture is a factor for Kant, and he realized this while he was working on the Critique of Judgment. This work is also characterized by a kind of trial and error in its style, and it is far from being complete or without inconsistency. This is best illustrated by his evaluation of music, which differs from being regarded as superior to all other arts to quite the opposite. The reason why this differs is that he is not completely sure what produces knowledge and what does not. This is precisely the turning point that Makkreel highlights, as in the Critique of Judgment culture is defined “as the ultimate natural purpose of man” (Makkreel, 2001, p. 190). The reason for this turning point in Kant’s understanding of knowledge is mostly the aspect of free will. This pervades all his investigations and explains all the unpredictable turns that Kant makes in his writings. The final end of man is to realize freedom, and that is also a factor in the way Kant understands apperception. Yet in the Critique of Judgment he focuses on this factor even more explicitly, in the sense that one aim of this work was “to harmonize nature and freedom, not metaphysically, but for our mode of thinking” (Makkreel, 2001, p. 192). This work is a presentation of Kant’s aesthetics, but over the centuries it has also been read as an important contribution to the understanding of Kant’s theory of knowledge. One reason for this is that subjectivity is a determining factor in the process of acquiring knowledge, whether it is regarded as scientific or not, and that was exactly what empirical 145

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psychology did bring in. Thus the Critique of Judgment reintroduced some crucial elements that are of importance in this context. Another aspect Makkreel very wisely focuses on is Kant’s development in his approach to anthropological knowledge. It is one thing to conclude that anthropology is a part of “theoretical philosophy,” but it is quite another to work out a proper scientific method for its study. Particularly because the empirical aspects of psychology are strongly related to the particular, there is an endless array of hypotheses that could fit the event. Instead Kant turns the perspective by focusing on description. There are several ways of understanding the term “description,” and it is probably one of the most problematic terms in the philosophy of science. However, in this context it refers to a unique and singular event. This implies that it is directed toward a particular sense impression and only related to this. There are, however, several problems with this, mainly because it presupposes a neutral relationship between the event and the describer, which is highly problematic and probably impossible. And if it is impossible, then the description implies a judgment, and the latter is exactly what Kant introduces. Yet there is another problematic aspect with description, and that is its exclusion of general knowledge. One may ask if it is at all possible to have knowledge without any general value. Furthermore, if descriptive knowledge is made general, it also includes a judgment. This is why Kant takes another step that results in “judgment” becoming the key word in a theoretical approach to empirical psychology, which he renamed and called “anthropology.” “As long as there is no general law to which historical data can be subordinated, we can only be descriptive. Reflective judgment can then attempt to generate something more general from particular descriptions either inductively or analogically” (Makkreel, 2001, p. 192). This conclusion Makkreel draws is critical for several reasons. First, it places description where it belongs, specifically in terms of not having a theoretical basis and therefore being oriented solely to the particular. Second, the result of this form of approach is that general statements must be of inductive character, or rather hypothetical. A third aspect, however, is the fact that it is problematic to talk about induction in an understanding of history, and in this sense the judgments and understandings of science are much more adequately expressed by way of analogy. Makkreel regards Kant’s contributions to anthropology to be a part of critical philosophy. This is an important perspective because Kant’s critical philosophy was highly related to sciences that were included 146

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in the three critiques, as empirical psychology was not. In this sense, anthropology represents certain knowledge that is important for man, but obviously it does not belong to an investigation of pure reason. It seems Kant is almost redefining psychology as if it is the same as empirical psychology. However, this is not what he says at the end of the Critique of Pure Reason. Here he talks about a complete system of anthropology that can host empirical psychology. Anthropology, therefore, must be regarded as a framework in terms of which empirical psychology can be understood. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is the most complete presentation of Kant’s understanding of what anthropology was supposed to be about. However, the title indicates that it is investigated from only a practical point of view, which indicates that it is not as complete as he envisaged when he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason. So we are left with just a part of what empirical psychology and psychology in general are supposed to be concerned with, according to Kant. His thesis on anthropology is mostly a practical handbook about understanding the nature of man, and in this respect it is as brilliant as can be. His sharp-eyed characterizations of human nature can compete with every modern popular presentation in the same field, and he probably surpasses most of them. This indicates that this book is an important contribution to psychology, but it does not claim to cover the whole science of psychology, which was never Kant’s intention. Anthropology is limited to the “knowledge of man as a citizen of the world” (Kant, 1798/1974, p. 3). It still does not have any complete theoretical basis, and therefore knowledge is acquired by “a mere fumbling about with fragments and cannot give rise to science” (Kant, 1798/1974, p. 4). This does not mean that neither anthropology nor psychology can be a science, but rather that Kant admitted to being unable to give them the theoretical basis for defining them as such. Exactly this perspective, which takes all of Kant’s shortcomings into account, appears to be a prerequisite for understanding the destiny of psychology. Kant is very much understood as if he had found the final answer to how to understand psychology. Yet he certainly did not, which he admitted. What Kant did was to change the foundation and the perspective on theory of knowledge. This is quite explicitly articulated when, in the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, he refers to the changes Copernicus made with his new explanation of celestial movements. “When he found that he could make no progress by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, 147

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he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator revolved” (Kant, 1974, p. 12). Kant changed the perspective and the foundation for knowledge in that it is not the outer world that defines the premises for our knowledge of it, but the opposite; it is the subjective preconditions that define how nature and the outer world can be perceived. “If the intuition must conform to the nature of objects, I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge” (Kant, 1974, p. 12). Because of these very words, Kant is presented as if he represented a real Copernican revolution in the change from the objective to the subjective basis for knowledge (Smith, 1962). Yet this is not the whole truth. As long as psychology has been a part of metaphysics, subjectivity has partly served a basis for knowledge. However, it was by Wolff ’s explicit emphasis on empirical psychology that subjectivity became a real threat to objective knowledge. In this respect, Kant initiated more of a salvage operation with his critical philosophy. His contribution was not to deal with and elaborate subjectivity, but rather to reduce its role to a minimum, and by this he managed to present what kind of objective knowledge remains. This is exactly what the synthetic statements a priori and a posteriori represent. They say nothing about subjectivity, but they are presented as objective knowledge. Thus psychology was set aside, despite the fact that it was one of the most popular fields of study during the eighteenth century (Wundt, 1907). This aim of making subjective preconditions to a kind of objective knowledge was followed up by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, with the result that psychology was not regarded as a field of particular interest. Subjectivity was transformed into objectivity, and this is what Kierkegaard blames them for. Wundt states in a historical presentation of the development of psychology that “Fichte to Hegel represented a chain of aberrations” (Wundt, 1907, p. 17 a.t.), and Wundt himself certainly managed at least to emphasize that psychology primarily was about our subjective impressions of the outer world.

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III How to Understand Kierkegaard’s Psychology Today Irony is a signal characteristic of Kierkegaard’s writings, being a device that permeates almost all of his work. His first thesis, his dissertation for the “magistergrad” of 1841, was on irony and bore the title “On the Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates” (Hannay, 2001, p. 147). As the biographer Alastair Hannay points out, this focus on irony came gradually to him, and in the third part of his dissertation Kierkegaard applied irony itself as a rhetorical device in his analysis (Hannay, 2001, p. 147). Irony is a very powerful rhetorical instrument, and when it is applied, the outcome is almost completely out of control; you never know where it has begun or where it ends, and the exact amount of levels on which it can unfold is also difficult to appreciate. Irony represents in many ways absolute independence; it is up to the reader to decide who or what is targeted and to what degree. As such, it is a very modern maneuver in academic writing, and before this appearance, irony lived a free life, untamed and uncivilized, in folklore and popular entertainment, probably as long as the human race has communicated. However, by bringing irony into academic discourse, some radical changes ensued. These changes are traceable in different areas, but they are very much characterized by a common acceptance of doubt and skepticism of knowledge previously presented as if it were a given, such that it was replaced by a belief in the fact that each human being is an autonomous and independent, thinking individual. These changes were also characterized by a transformation in the understanding of religion, and it followed that religion did not depend on God’s actions and revealed existence, but rather on the individual’s faith. This is, in short, the rise of modernity, and Kierkegaard’s authorship is probably the most frank 149

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and outspoken work confirming when and that this radical change actually took place. From the very beginning, Kierkegaard considered his thesis as a broad perspective. According to Hannay, he had planned to present a “History of the human soul” (Hannay, 2001, p. 138), which was the formulation Kierkegaard applied in his notes of 1837. However, the term “soul” in these notes is specified in terms of “as it is in an ordinary human being” and as “in the continuity of mental states” (Hannay, 2001, p. 138). This precision emphasizes the fact that Kierkegaard is referring to empirical psychology and not to rational psychology, where the soul is a metaphysical entity. Kierkegaard focuses on the actuality in human life, and there is no doubt that empirical psychology forms the source that enabled him to do this. Anthony Giddens presents Kierkegaard as one of the primary sources in his attempts at defining what modernity is about (Giddens, 1991). Giddens tells us about the overall conception of modernity and how important Kierkegaard was in this formulation. Despite the fact that at least one third of Giddens’s highly influential work is on psychological issues, psychology itself is scarcely mentioned. Nevertheless, when there is reference to Kierkegaard—The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness Unto Death are seen as being highly important—these key sources of Kierkegaard’s psychology are a door to the definition of what modernity is (Giddens, 1991, p. 47ff ). In other words, psychology seems to form the premises for how modernity can be understood, but this is not reflected in the presentation of the origin of modern psychology. “Indeed there is a consensus that the dating of modern psychology [. . .] begins with the establishment of a research laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1879” (Benjamin, 2007, p. 2). If modern psychology is defined as having its starting point in 1879, there is an asymmetry between a general understanding of the development of intellectual history and the role of psychology in this very record. Psychology is one of the reasons why we can talk about modernity, but conversely modern psychology is not regarded as part of its early period. This is a contradiction in terms, which probably can only be explained by the fact that psychology in this respect has defined itself as standing outside a common understanding of the development of intellectual history and, by doing so, has downgraded its own importance. However, up until now in this investigation we have seen evidence allowing us to certainly conclude that psychology has had a major 150

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role in forming many premises for the development of modern intellectual history. One may even suggest that if it had not been for the reception of Kant—and certain other German empiricists and even German idealists—psychology probably would have been recognized as being more significant in the formulation of modern intellectual history. One thing that comes out of all of this is the important need to redefine what modern psychology is actually about. One of the reasons why modern psychology is seen to have had its birth in 1879 is based on several instrumental premises. The historian James H. Capshew concludes, “The enduring motif in the history of modern psychology is neither a person nor an event but a place—the experimental laboratory” (Benjamin, 2007, p. 2). Without doubt this was an event of immense importance. Yet a more fundamental question in this respect is to what extent the scientific activity in these laboratories really contrasted with earlier scientific thinking in psychology. And a deeper understanding of Wundt’s psychology is just the beginning. No one has ever managed to go through his whole extensive authorship, which probably amounts to more than fifty thousand printed pages, which is effectively three typed pages every day for half a century (Hergenhahn, 2001). Yet recent research shows a clear tendency in the direction of continuity rather than contrast with tradition (Rieber, 1980; Rieber and Robinson, 2001), and, as already mentioned, in Wundt’s own statements about the history of modern psychology he draws lines back to Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolff (Wundt, 1907). He also focuses much more on Herbart and Fechner than on Kant, who is barely mentioned. Another important aspect of his statements is his perspective on the relationship between experimental and folk psychology. Kant did not accept experimental psychology and defined it instead as anthropology. When Wundt established his laboratories, he redefined experimental psychology by making an apparent distinction between scientific psychology and anthropology. Those aspects of empirical psychology that Kant called “anthropology” were partly renamed “folk psychology” by Wundt. Yet the distinction Wundt made between empirical psychology and folk psychology was more systematic than substantial. Experimental psychology represented a bottomup approach by focusing on sensation, whereas folk psychology focused on norms, language, and beliefs (Wundt, 1902) and therefore represented a top-down approach. These were the new aspects of Wundt’s psychology, namely to achieve a systematic approach to psychology. Yet a systematic approach is not a criterion for modernity; it merely 151

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starts with the subject. This is an aspect Wundt takes into account by combining two different approaches in his psychology. “Experimental psychology on the one hand, and folk psychology on the other are both achievements of new psychology” [“Die experimentelle Psychologie auf der einen, die Völkerpsychologie auf der anderen Seite, sie sind beiden Errungenschaften der neuen Psychologie”] (Wundt, 1907, p. 51, a.t.). Wundt stated in 1907, exactly as he had stated in the 1880s (and even in the1860s), that there are no mutual exclusions between experimental psychology and folk psychology, but that these are two very different approaches to the same extraordinarily challenging scientific subject called psychology. This, in other words, must form a point of departure for defining psychology as a science, not by narrowing down this scientific field into being defined in terms of a certain limited number of scientific methods, but to open it up because psychology is probably the broadest subject we have, in the sense that it is not only oriented toward the objects outside the mind, but also on the subjective mind itself, which is defined in terms of how the objects are perceived. The third section of this work will focus on exactly these issues. The first chapter is about the relationship between Kierkegaard and modernity, and it focuses on the role of psychology in this respect. The underlying thesis in the discussion here is that Kierkegaard’s radical philosophy and theology had their basis in psychology. It was psychology that introduced the term “subjectivity” to metaphysics in particular and to philosophy in general, and we have seen that this was definitely not Immanuel Kant’s contribution to philosophy. He made no “Copernican revolution” in philosophy—one may even say he played more of a counterrevolutionary role. Admittedly he realized that subjectivity was a factor that had to be taken into account, but what his critical philosophy both aimed at and managed to achieve was to restore some aspects of objective knowledge based on the fact that subjectivity is only a point of departure for reflection. As a consequence, the roles of both Kierkegaard and psychology are quite simply underestimated, and their roles will form part of the content of Chapter 10. But this chapter will also draw attention toward the conceptualization of modern psychology, because this is a most urgent aspect to consider: the question of whether psychology existed in the premodern sphere before 1879. Was Kierkegaard the hand that formed the basis for the radical, modern way of thinking? Was it psychology that made him able to do so? And does his psychology have to be 152

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regarded as traditional and premodern? The answers to these questions should be obvious, and that is why the whole problem must be linked to a question about the conceptualization of modern science. That is the content of Chapter 11, which centers on a discussion about the relationship between how Kierkegaard saw it and a contemporary conceptualization of the criteria for scientific knowledge.

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9 Kierkegaard and Modernity Giddens and Modernity Modernity can be contrasted with premodernity in different ways. Anthony Giddens defines the differences in terms of how to cope with risk and where to find trust (Giddens, 1990). In this respect it is perceived risk and trust that are at stake. How risk and trust are perceived can certainly change, and according to Giddens there is a radical change in how these are perceived in post-feudal Western societies. Thus in modern societies looking forward, in terms of trusting the progress of society, is the way to cope with and mitigate risk. In premodern societies, on the other hand, looking backward to tradition was the coping strategy. Giddens regards “tradition as a means of connecting present and future” (Giddens, 1990, p. 102). This implies that tradition provided the ideas that enabled people in premodern societies to cope with risks in the future. Clarity was a criterion in this respect. The clearer the ideas were, the deeper they were rooted in the tradition, and the truer they were. Thus clarity was regarded as a sufficient reason for assessing ideas as trustful in premodern societies, whereas in modern societies there is distrust in clarity as a criterion for knowledge. In modern societies trust is provided by experience-based knowledge assessed by the individual. There is a “future-oriented, counterfactual thought as a mode of connecting past and present” (Giddens, 1990, p. 102) that gives trust to the individual in modernity. As Zygmunt Bauman has pointed out, this is not a subversion of order, yet the “order was to be made; there was to be no other order” (Bauman, 1991, p. xv). This combination of abstract order with a future-oriented perspective summarizes very much the content of the main perspective of an awakening scientific modernity, especially during the eighteenth century. It is difficult to define exactly when premodernity was replaced by modernity, and the historical change must be regarded as having happened gradually. In this respect, one of the most central transitional figures between premodernity and modernity, René Descartes, may 155

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count as an example. On the one hand, he presents his doubts, which may count as one of the main gates to modernity, but his theodicy and proofs for the existence of God point very much backward to a premodern mode of thought. According to Descartes, the idea of God counts as sufficient reason for the existence of God. This is probably one of the most striking examples of a premodern conceptualization of man’s relationship with God, being that our way of thinking reflects directly the order of the creator of the world—the Demiurge. This premodern perspective is probably even more obvious when it comes to his psychology. The sharp distinction he makes between the body and the mind is primarily connected to an emphasis on the mind. Although he refers to bodily experiences, such as different affects, these highly reflect a cosmic understanding, in the sense that they are effectively defined as universal and static states of the celestial bodies and the mind. This perspective dominates Descartes’s theories of music, which very much echo a Pythagorean-Platonic understanding. Thus to present Descartes as perhaps the only philosopher that represented idealistic psychology in early modernity is probably one of the most problematic fallacies in any presentation of the early history of psychology. Reflexivity It is of interest that Giddens focuses so much on reflexivity in his understanding of modernity. Yet it is important to underline that he uses this term as a technical one for understanding how sociology and the other social sciences arose. These sciences, he says, do not depend “on the inductive accumulation of proofs, but on the methodological principle of doubt” (Giddens, 1991, p. 21). In other words, sociology and the other social sciences are the consequence of wonder surrounding the radical changes of affiliation for the individual during the Age of Enlightenment. Giddens talks of a process of disembedding at different levels, in this respect. The new orientation in natural sciences opened up for a system of experts who were disembedded from popular knowledge. The individual was no longer affiliated with society as a whole, but instead to more local groups separated from the whole. New institutions were introduced that represented this new expertise, but they were inaccessible to laymen. Along with systematic doubting of traditional knowledge and the introduction of new institutions, there was a need to reflect upon the whole process of change in society. However, there are many that will have objections to Giddens’s understanding of the social sciences when he says that “they do not simply 156

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‘accumulate knowledge’ in the way in which the natural sciences may do” (Giddens, 1991, p. 20). Yet there would be no problem in accepting his statement, which says “social sciences play a basic role in the reflexivity of modernity” (Giddens, 1991, p. 20), especially when this reflection is closely related to a psychological reaction of the individual exposed to the “integral relation between modernity and radical doubt [which] is existentially troubling for ordinary individuals” (Giddens, 1991, p. 21). Giddens’s term “reflexivity,” which forms the basis of his conceptualization of modernity, should be understood as a psychological term. Yet we have already seen that reflexivity represents one of the core issues in psychology in the early Enlightenment through the term “apperception.” According to Leibniz, apperception “is consciousness, or the reflective knowledge of the internal state” (Leibniz, 1998, p. 260). “Apperception” refers to an awareness of and reflection upon oneself, and it refers at the same time to an inner observation of oneself. Hence reflection is inseparably connected to perception and observation, and the sharp distinction between natural and social sciences that Giddens attempts to make is problematic in this respect. Yet there is a distinction, and this is embedded and deeply intertwined within psychology as a discipline in the eighteenth century. Psychology is a science that should account for both observer and observation as such, and in this sense, it is a short path from reflections on objects and observations of the same objects. Nonetheless, as we have seen, there is a clear tendency to separate the activities of the natural sciences from empirical psychology, and this is at the same time a separation of objects from the process of observation and the nature of the observer. Accordingly, the natural sciences are separated from psychology. Yet psychology is intimately connected to a double and even contradictory aspect of subjectivity and objectivity. The point here is to underline that the concept of modernity is, in very many respects, based on psychology. A good instance is the fact that the emancipation of the natural sciences from theology presupposed a term for observation, which is derived from empirical psychology. Another is the fact that observation is intimately connected with the observer, which presupposes that subjectivity is introduced as a part of the scientific process. A third aspect is existential anxiety as a result of these changes of perspective on the process of acquiring knowledge, which is included in Giddens’s appreciation of reflexivity. Thus with Giddens the circle is closed, in that his reflexivity points backward towards the process of perception, which represented the 157

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core issue in both Leibniz’s monadology and empirical psychology in the eighteenth century. In this respect, there is an immense difference between Cartesian and German idealism, which stems from Leibniz. To apply Giddens’s terms, Cartesian idealism is past-oriented, whereas German idealism is future-oriented; Descartes restores a premodern conception of knowledge, while Leibniz’s conception of knowledge is modern, in the sense that perception and reflexivity form fundamental and determining aspects of knowledge. “Reflexivity” is a generic term that includes the act of reflection but also the passive, institutional aspect of mirroring a way of thinking. Thus the term makes a seamless transition from the individual acts to institutions. Yet the act of reflection implies several aspects that are related to modernity. First of all, it includes the methodological doubt that stems from Descartes. In addition, the consequence of both reflexivity and doubt is autonomy. However, the latter requires much personal courage on the part of the individual, as autonomy stands alone in the attempt to find appropriate answers to all the questions surrounding the existence of a human being. So we should not be surprised to discover that there was a gradual development of modernity; Descartes contributed, Leibniz took it a further step, and despite the fact that empirical psychology in principle completed the pathway to modernity, Wolff built up a safety net within his metaphysical system that moderated the content of empirical psychology in the sense that it was still tainted by several premodern perspectives. Thus modern autonomy requires a courage that very few people have, and therefore modern thinkers may still lean upon certain premodern ideas. This is why Giddens discusses the development of modernity in terms of trust and risk; there must be a balance between the doubts produced and the feeling of being ontologically secure if one is to find solutions to the existential situations of modern life. Hence Giddens brings in Kierkegaard, specifically because modernity implies an existential anxiety caused by the unavoidable asymmetry and imbalance between doubts and ontological answers, and Kierkegaard puts this situation into words in The Concept of Anxiety (Kierkegaard, 1980a). If Descartes initiated reflection on modernity and Leibniz and Wolff presented the next two steps, one may say that Kierkegaard in a sense fulfilled this progression in reflection. Simply by introducing the term “existentialism” Kierkegaard put into words what kind of situation modern man had been raised into; one is simply forced to reflect upon conditions and circumstances around one’s own existence and life. This 158

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was exactly what Kierkegaard realized, and he grasped the opportunity to put it into words. With his references to Kierkegaard, Giddens cites four different types of existential question one had to consider as a consequence of modernity. The first is about free will; the second is what Giddens calls the existential contradiction, which is the contradiction between time and eternity or the particular and the universal; the third is the existence of other persons; and the fourth is given by the chief term Giddens focuses on, namely “self-identity.” In addition to the fact that it was Kierkegaard that introduced the paramount term covering all these questions, namely “existentialism,” he also gave some answers to them, which Giddens also refers to. When it comes to freedom, for example, Giddens puts forward an explanation: it “is not a given characteristic of the human individual, but derives from the acquisition of an ontological understanding of external reality and personal identity” (Giddens, 1991, p. 47). This is existence itself, which Giddens describes in terms of risks and trust. Yet it may also be described in terms of possibilities, which is Kierkegaard’s perspective on freedom (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 44). All of the four categories of existential questions that Giddens refers to stem, in very many respects, from Kierkegaard’s discussions surrounding existential anxiety (Kierkegaard, 1980a). The Role of Psychology Kierkegaard introduced another argument, which is highly pertinent here, and this is the roles of the different sciences and the borderlines between them. Kierkegaard mainly focuses on theology in his attempt to describe the existential situation the human being is in. By highlighting the doctrines of dogmatics as its most essential part, Kierkegaard presents a critical perspective on man’s objective situation. As has been pointed out in the first section, Kierkegaard was not able to explain the whole situation for man through dogmatics and theological doctrines alone. The same is also true for metaphysics. Both of these sciences, however, focus on what may appear as objective possibilities in a description of the living condition of a human being. One of the main conclusions of the investigation in the first part was that neither dogmatics nor metaphysics was sufficient in an attempt to describe the existential situation that man was in; they had to be completed by psychology. Kierkegaard was very clear about the importance of psychology in this respect. Dogmatics and metaphysics can say something about what causes dilemmas for human beings, but 159

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only psychology can tell what the dilemmas experienced are about. As a matter of fact, Kierkegaard goes even a step further by almost dissolving both dogmatics and metaphysics, admittedly only by referring to metaphysics. By introducing the term “interest” in connection with metaphysics, he tears down the objectivity of metaphysics, because “interest” represents pure subjectivity. According to Kierkegaard, “repetition is the interest of metaphysics” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 18). Thus objectivity in metaphysics has to be regarded as an interest by those who develop metaphysics and develop its doctrines further. In other words, interest is traceable as a phenomenon in the objective sciences as well, and since this is so, they do not remain objective. What is left is a science that deals solely with subjectivity as such, and this is, according to Kierkegaard, just psychology and nothing else. This stands in opposition to Giddens. Giddens presents sociology more or less as the science of subjectivity. Psychology is admittedly mentioned, but en passant, and almost put aside completely by the comment: “Although [this book’s] main focus is on the self, this is not primarily a work of psychology” (Giddens, 1991, p. 1). Gidden’s reason for this is not simply to ignore psychology, but to find the basis on which sociology is built. Thus there is an extensive discussion on the content of sociology and how to define it, not least in terms of its history. He concludes, “The primacy of ‘society’ as the core notion of sociology is very broadly accepted” (Giddens, 1990, p. 13). The notion of “society,” however, is ambiguous, and it refers both to social organizations in terms of institutions and to the subjects that build them, fill them, and perceive them. Thus sociology may talk about objects in terms of institutions and social organizations, and in this sense sociology includes entities that can be studied in general. Yet these institutions and social organizations would not exist without acting subjects who have built and defined them. This is why Giddens primarily refers to psychologists such as, among very many others, Eriksson, Winnicott, Freud, Mead, and, not least, Kierkegaard, in his attempt to define the basis for sociology as a science of modernity. Since Giddens also regards the accumulation of objective knowledge as not forming the most important content of sociology, he focuses on social organizations and institutions as manifestations of the individual’s reflexivity on modernity. This is why he ends up with the psychological term for the self and says that this term forms the most essential aspect of sociology. Thus psychology, which is the science of subjectivity, forms the basis for how sociology is to be understood as a science of modernity. 160

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In these terms, modernity is not merely a question about focusing on individuality. It is even more connected to a certain form of reflexivity on individuality, which, according to Giddens, is a certain kind of awareness of the self, and Kierkegaard is regarded as being the first one that put this awareness into words. In this respect, the four books that we have concentrated on in this study can be regarded as playing a key role. Repetition concerns a core issue in the change from premodernity to modernity, in the sense that it addresses the conflict between stability in past-oriented reflectivity and unpredictability in future-oriented reflectivity. The Concept of Anxiety addresses the world-weariness that occurs as a result of future-oriented unpredictability, which is expressed through the psychological state of anxiety. Yet anxiety is not just a psychological state but also an ontological one, which is characterized by ambiguity. Ambiguity as a constraint of life is the main topic of Stages on Life’s Way, in the sense that the three stages (aesthetic, ethical, and religious) represent three contradictory spheres that are all included in everyone’s existence—admittedly with different blending, but with the result that everyone’s life is full of contradictions. Yet the core terms in Giddens’s understanding of modernity, namely reflections on the self, are exactly what The Sickness Unto Death is concerned with. Thus modernity is intimately related not only to the self and the identity of the self, but even more to how the self is conceptualized. A modern reflection on the self is by Giddens specified to include dynamic forces, future orientation, changes, narratives, time orientation, body orientation, self-actualization, authenticity, transitions, and self-referentiality. Thus Repetition must be regarded as a core text, not only from a psychological perspective, but also in terms of understanding modernity. One of the key formulations presented in this book has been, up until now, only touched upon briefly and then put aside because of its cryptic content. This is the statement that claims that repetition is just recollection “in the opposite direction” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 3). Time is supposed to just go in one direction: forward. Recollection, on the other hand, is time turned in the opposite direction, in the sense that memories always refer to the past. Yet when Kierkegaard talks about recollection, he is referring to an understanding that goes back to Plato and ancient Greece. According to Plato, recollection is not simply personal and private memories, but inborn common knowledge given to everyone. This kind of knowledge, which in Platonic terms is the ideas we have, is not given in time. This is why Giddens introduces Lévi-Strauss and Bergson’s notion of “reversible time” in a discussion 161

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on what the premodern is about: “Reversible time is the temporality of repetition and is governed by the logic of repetition—the past is a means of organising the future” (Giddens, 1990, p. 105). Thus repetition goes in two different directions. One way is based on recollection, and in this sense it is pointing to the past. The other is that repetition may also point to the future, by saying that the future is nothing more than repetitions of the past. In this sense, repetition is just recollection “in the opposite direction,” but also repetition must be regarded as an aspect of a sort of reversed time. The ambiguity of the direction of time is important but not decisive when it comes to the distinction between the premodern and modernity. What Kierkegaard highlights is that trust in stability is something that characterizes both ancient and modern times. The former refers to recollection and the latter to repetition, but as a matter of fact, they are both referring to the same thing, and that is the reversibility of time. There are several points of correspondence between Kierkegaard and Giddens, and these are, of course, the reasons why Giddens refers so extensively to Kierkegaard. Yet Giddens does not refer to Repetition, which obviously approaches some of the key concepts in his understanding of modernity. The term “repetition” is easily associated with “dynamic forces,” “changes,” “time orientation,” “transition,” “the self, and not least “risk” and “trust”.” However, Repetition focuses on how to deal with the love of a young couple. A quotation from the Danish philosopher, author, and friend of Kierkegaard Poul Møller is quite significant here: There comes a dream from the spring of my youth To my old easy chair I feel a passionate longing for you My queen with the golden hair (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 7)

These lines contain the reasons for the young man’s despair, namely that love is not given as lived but rather as a memory. The young man’s problem is that he wants to experience actual life through love, but what he realizes is that this is displaced by love experienced primarily as a memory. Thus there are no differences between Møller’s old man’s recollection of love and the young man’s actual love. The loving moments are so short, and they pass by so suddenly, that the paramount experience, even for the young man who is actually in love, is primarily related to recollections of these moments. What the young man expects, 162

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therefore, is that the sensual moments shall last, which is impossible, since sensuality appears in the short moments of irreversible time, while he would prefer them to exist in reversed time—outside time. What enables Kierkegaard to focus on this contradiction between sensory moments and the paramount experience of love is the only science that focuses on the immediate sensual impression, namely psychology. By contrasting psychology with all other scientific approaches, he manages to extrapolate this contradiction, not only in our existence, but also in thinking and in the sciences. It is first this contradiction that opens up for modernity, and it is psychology that enables Kierkegaard to focus on all these aspects that are crucial for talking about modernity. Repetition is only one approach, but it does present many of the premises for modernity. The most important contribution, however, is the ambiguity related to repetition when it comes to time. The psychological experiment presented in Repetition is probably the most crucial aspect when it comes to exemplifying the differences between premodern and modern perspectives. Yet it is Kierkegaard’s reflections on the ontological aspects of this experiment that really tell us what this revolution in intellectual history represented. These reflections are presented in The Concept of Anxiety. Kierkegaard refers to just a small quotation from Repetition in an extensive footnote in The Concept of Anxiety that tells us most about what this change is about: “Repetition is the interest of metaphysics, and also the interest upon which metaphysics becomes stranded” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 19). The aim of metaphysics is to overcome and avoid all kinds of interests. Thus interest was not a subject in metaphysics originally, but it was introduced to metaphysics when psychology became a part of it. Two persons have been mentioned in this present work that fully realize that the inclusion of psychology in metaphysics is a subversion of metaphysics. One is, of course, Kierkegaard, and the other is Kant. Both of them understood that metaphysics and psychology excluded each other because of the impossibility in reconciling subjective and objective perspectives. Maybe Leibniz also realized this, since he did not talk about psychology as a science, but Wolff certainly did not, despite the fact that it was he that introduced empirical psychology as an apparently independent part of metaphysics. Yet the independence of empirical psychology to Wolff was solely connected to the fact that it was published as an independent volume, and he regarded empirical psychology as a part of the metaphysical system in which the principle of contradiction and the condition of sufficient reason counted as 163

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uniting and reconciling principles. The philosophical systems are characterized by unity and reconciliation, which exclude taking into account the radical conflict between the subjective and the objective, which both Kant and Kierkegaard later focused on. This also explains why Kierkegaard could not accept Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel, because they did not emphasize the conflict between the subjective and the objective, but rather reconciled them in terms of exclusively focusing on subjectivity. Hence the cited footnote in The Concept of Anxiety emphasizes very clearly that the purpose of the psychological experiment presented in Repetition was to demonstrate that psychology and metaphysics would never achieve any form of reconciliation. The modern revolution is not only connected to subjectivity; it consists rather of a full understanding of the fact that this conflict really exists. Metaphysics did not include this conflict, because it ignored subjectivity, and the aim of the philosophical systems after Kant was to overcome the conflict, but by ignoring the importance of universals and objectivity. By ignoring the conflict, they also ignored anxiety, which appears as a core term in an attempt to describe this situation. Anxiety refers to a fundamental dilemma in which man is deeply involved. This is a destiny that causes despair, but at the same time it creates the most typical aspect of modernity, namely free will. This is the genius of Kierkegaard: being able to combine freedom and anxiety. Hence modernity is also ambiguous in the sense that it includes the unpleasant state of anxiety but also the pleasant state of freedom, and this ambiguity represents the underlying understanding of what this is all about. The existential situation of human beings is a fundamental paradox, in the sense that they have to combine subjectivity with objectivity. This was solved intellectually by premodern metaphysics because it simply ignored subjectivity. By including psychology in metaphysics, subjectivity is taken into account intellectually, and the outcome is that man also intellectually has been confronted with ambiguity. Thus anxiety becomes of intellectual interest, because anxiety is the ultimate expression of ambiguity: “There is nothing in the world more ambiguous” than anxiety (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 43). To grasp the state of modernity, psychology has to be presented as the pathway to understanding what it is about, and there are several reasons why psychology has this role. First of all, it is because psychology is the science that introduces subjectivity into intellectual history; secondly, because psychology, through this introduction of subjectivity, demolishes all intellectual stability; and thirdly, because this intel164

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lectual instability creates an unpleasant emotional state. Psychology therefore is so compounded and difficult to grasp because it “intoxicates itself in the foaming multifariousness of life” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 23). Nevertheless, Kierkegaard is very clear in his understanding of psychology, in the sense that it is an independent science with a very clear criterion of demarcation; it is the science of subjectivity. According to Kierkegaard, there are no other sciences that take subjectivity into account without being violated. This is exactly what Hegel did: he violated logic and made it something very different from what it was. Thus psychology must be regarded as an independent but also basic science when it comes to understanding how the movement toward modernity arose, but also when approaching a complete understanding of what it was about. This is why the sociologist Giddens refers almost more to psychology than sociology in his attempts to describe the appearance of modernity without acknowledging it. He exemplifies very well how unavoidable and basic psychology is in an attempt at conceptualizing it; he not only imports the psychological term “self” as a keyword, but he also refers quite extensively to instructive literature in self-therapy (Giddens, 1991, p. 70ff ). How to deal with the dilemmas related to modernity is exactly what Kierkegaard concentrated upon too. This is also the content of probably one of his most popular books, namely Either/Or (Kierkegaard, 1992). Here he discusses, among other things, how the ancient tragedy is reflected in the modern tragedy (Kierkegaard, 1992, p. 137ff ). Yet this is not so much about modernity in general, but rather about the survival of ancient elements. He also refers to what he calls “psychological entertainment” (Kierkegaard, 1992, p. 163), and this phrase very much points at what this is concerned with. The entrance of psychology onto the intellectual stage opens it up for irony, sarcasm, and many comical situations because of inconsistencies. However, the most important contribution in this book is the initial presentation of the three stages— aesthetic, ethical, and religious. These stages must be said to be the main source for enjoyable contradictory situations in a person’s life, and these situations are exactly what are focused on more deeply in Stages on Life’s Way. Despite the fact that all the different personalities, lifestyles, and attitudes are presented as being in competition with each other, there are no declared winners. The reason is quite simply that none of the stages is superior to another. On the other hand, we recognize all the stereotypes the narrators present in this book, not least in the opening section, “In Vino Veritas.” This is why the narrator, 165

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William Afham, makes such a subtle introduction of the relationship and differences between recollection and memory. The former is related to reflection, whereas the latter is related to immediacy. Recollection is an ideality and represents stability in the sense that it “seeks to assert man’s eternal stability in life” (Kierkegaard, 1945, p. 28). Memories, on the other hand, represent instability and change, and they recall contingent events in one’s life. Yet memories imply that we may recognize many personalities and events without necessarily acknowledging that they represent aspects of our own lives. In this respect, we go through stages of different kinds without acknowledging their position as central to our lives. They are still parts of our memories, though, but not parts of our recollection. So the stages in the title of the book are primarily all these parallel acts in our lives, which reflect different mixtures of the three “life-spheres” that Kierkegaard defines as “aesthetic, ethical, and religious.” Thus Kierkegaard is trying to make us aware of a selfdeception, in which we believe we have one, stable personality, whereas in fact we have several. And these have gone through even more, such that our personality is in an unceasing process of change. In this sense, Kierkegaard anticipates Erving Goffman’s understanding of the compounded presentation of the self and Giddens’s understanding of self-identity. The big difference, however, is that Kierkegaard is aware of the fact that his understanding of the changing self could not have been made without psychology being a science. Religiosity and Psychology The inevitability of psychology is even more obvious in The Sickness Unto Death. The title is based on biblical events, and it was planned to be an edifying book from a consistently religious perspective, despite its somewhat repulsive title. Yet by bringing in “the self ” as a core term, very much changes very fast. The definition of “the self ” is highly dependent on a relationship, despite the fact that the self is not the relationship. A relationship implies that there is a distinction between the one and the other, and according to Leibniz, it is only perception that can give us a notion of the other, because without perception, our mind would be a perfect unity. And it was not only Leibniz who emphasized this, but also Kant. Yet Kant approached the problem from a different direction. Whereas Leibniz presupposed a united mind, Kant had to rebuild it. In his critical philosophy, he was more interested in finding out how this united mind could be defined in terms of pure reason; i.e., how he could avoid perception and empirical psychology in his 166

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attempt to form a basis for scientific knowledge. Yet, as we have seen, he applied the term “apperception,” and it was commented that this term necessarily included an element of perception, despite the fact that Kant wanted to focus on the uniting aspects of the term. Kierkegaard goes straight into this discussion in The Sickness Unto Death, but he experiences quite another point of departure and comes up with a very different solution. The point of departure for Kierkegaard is not scientific knowledge but various religious dilemmas, and the solution is not to focus on unity but its opposite, the manifold, diversity, and multiplicity, which is included in the psychological state of despair. So when the self is examined from this perspective, it is defined in terms of relation, which presupposes perception. By this definition psychology, and especially empirical psychology, is the science that introduces and defines what the “multifariousness of life” really is. Kierkegaard, in other words, dared to follow up what Kant seems to have struggled with in his lectures on metaphysics. Kant never managed to follow up these struggling thoughts, because they could not create unity or consistent philosophical systems, but more a chaotic stream of thoughts, which precisely characterizes Kierkegaard’s literary style. Yet there is, of course, order in Kierkegaard’s authorship, but it seems to be quite obvious that psychology is not only important but probably the most important key for uncovering this order. According to Kierkegaard, the self cannot be understood unless there is an aspect of perception, and this perceptual constraint constitutes not only the self, but also Kierkegaard’s understanding of “sickness unto death.” It is correct when Giddens refers to consciousness of death as an important cause for this sickness (Giddens, 1991). Yet it is a superficial understanding of the sickness simply to reduce it to only consciousness of death. The sickness Kierkegaard is referring to is related to how the self is perceived and the mismatches that necessarily occur when one is either unaware of having a self, unwilling to accept the self one has, or unable to be the self one has, or a mixture of all three possibilities. This indecisiveness causes despair, because being conscious of the fact that the self is ambiguous and impossible to understand gives the impression of not having any self. This ambiguity occurs because the self is in between reflection and perception, and the relationship between reflection and perception is the same as the relationship between the general and the particular, because reflection is general, whereas perception is particular. In other words, the self is split into two, and this division is, naturally, impossible to reconcile. Yet the self cannot 167

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be described adequately in terms of reflection alone, but only in terms of the conflict between reflection and perception. Thus psychology is the only science that can say something about the divided self, which is regarded as a hallmark of the modern self. Nonetheless, it is not only psychology that has been ignored in an understanding of the modern self. Until Charles Taylor published his extended study on the “secular age” (Taylor, 2007), the role of theology in the conceptualization of modernity had also been highly underestimated. However, Taylor ends up in the same corner as Giddens, in which the role of psychology is ignored, not only when it comes to the development of modernity, but also when it comes to his understanding of the changes in theology during the secularization process over the last five hundred years in Western civilization. When Kierkegaard combined these two aspects in his analyses of the self, he probably targeted the notion of modernity even more adequately. Yet “modernity” as such was not an issue in his writing. The issue in Kierkegaard’s writing was more to describe and explain the conflict related to a religious life in a daily existence that is totally ignorant and indifferent to the fact that there may exist a religious life. Yet this ignorance and indifference is reciprocal, in the sense that theology is rather ignorant of and indifferent to the content of an actual daily existence, which is solely situated in the particular. From this perspective, it is highly relevant that Kierkegaard introduces the term “spirit.” This is relevant because the ambiguity in this term points in exactly those directions that modernity is supposed to be about. On the one hand, “spirit” refers to the divine aspect of the human being. On the other hand, it refers to the human being’s own “spiritual capacity,” which primarily refers to the secular aspects of each individual, which can be one’s personality but also one’s emotional states. Kierkegaard refers to both of these aspects, and therefore the term “spirit,” in a sense, unites the self. However, in real terms it does not cause any reconciliation, because “spirit” more highlights the conflict that characterizes the self. Yet the term “spirit” underlines even more in which directions this conflict goes; i.e., a finite and secular individual capacity that is contrasted with an infinite universal capacity. From a theological perspective, Kierkegaard presented a new understanding of religious life. This understanding is a consequence of, and therefore adjusted to, central aspects of modernity. This is why some theologians in the Lutheran Church have asked for new reforms by referring to Kierkegaard (Boman, 1972). As Charles Taylor has shown, 168

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the changes in religiousness over the last five hundred years show quite accurately how closely the modernization process in our thinking is related to changes in devotional behaviour and the understanding of religious institutions (Taylor, 2007). Three characteristics he describes as significant are the withdrawal of religiousness from public places, a decrease in general religious belief, and the shift in conditions for religious belief (Taylor, 2007, p. 2f ). These are all three constraints that Kierkegaard’s works relate to explicitly. Comments on institutions made by Kierkegaard are not an issue here, but he did present several of such in various articles and books. What is at stake in this context, however, is the role of psychology in this process of secularization. There are quite clear connections between the content of empirical psychology and some core aspects of the new religiousness Taylor describes. The withdrawal of religiousness from public spaces is a symptom of a growing privatization of religious belief, but it is also a symptom of a tendency to make religious belief more dependent on the individual. This new orientation has resulted in a focus on the nature of the individual, which requires a general understanding of human nature and also an understanding of individual differences. This is what empirical psychology contributed to; it was a science that focused on sensation, but it was also a science that could reveal something about all the disturbing factors in a sensory process. All these disturbing factors tell us a lot about human nature, and this is why Kant wanted to rename psychology “anthropology”: because he preferred psychology to focus solely on human nature. This he strongly demanded also from a theological point of view, because psychology—or anthropology—was thought to be a discipline that also could support reformed theology in its quest to understand what it meant to a modern human being to have a religious belief. This is what Kierkegaard contributed to as well, and it is also why he often has been read and interpreted primarily from a theological perspective. Yet Kierkegaard contributed much more, and the reason why he must be read in a much broader perspective is that psychology has never been simply a backup discipline to theology. As we have seen, Christian Wolff placed both rational and empirical psychology close to the other disciplines in metaphysics, which also included natural theology. Although the two disciplines should really be regarded as being opposites, natural theology was in practice the discipline that justified empirical psychology as a part of metaphysics: what we observe in nature is the glorious creation of God. As exemplified by 169

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both the Swedish scientist Carl von Linné and the Norwegian Johan Ernst Gunnerus, empirical psychology was also understood as the pathway to do research into the natural sciences. However, since empirical psychology included subjective observations of nature, it had to be compensated by an argument that stated that subjective observations could reflect something objective. This argument was given through natural theology, and Gunnerus’s letters to Linné exemplify very well how the balance between the two sciences was maintained. Kierkegaard was well aware of the contradictory relationship between empirical psychology and natural theology, and he made exactly this into a core issue by emphasizing the unbridgeable gap between the subjective and the objective. Kierkegaard’s psychology, therefore, is not a form of anthropology that tells Christians about the weaknesses of human nature in their attempts to preserve a Christian faith and by this achieve a faith that assimilates them with the objective God. Rather, he regarded psychology as an independent science, in which the object is completely subjectively given. Although Kierkegaard was able to maintain this understanding of psychology, many changes happened after Kant’s expulsion of empirical psychology from metaphysics. The expulsion was not the problem; Kierkegaard agreed upon the fact that metaphysics and psychology were incompatible sciences. And indeed, both Kant and Kierkegaard were against any attempts to unite them. However, Kant could not accept that subjectivity could be a part of a science, and to him psychology appeared as a contradiction if it had to be regarded as such. An illustrative example of the relationship between psychology and theology after Kant is the Norwegian philosopher Niels Treschow (1751–1833). He was highly influenced by Kant but also by the popularity of psychology at the time. In 1812 he published a book in Norwegian on psychology, entitled About Human Nature in General, in Particular Its Spiritual Aspects (Treschow, 1812). Treschow was originally a theologian, and the title suggests that there would be a great deal of theology included in this book, but there is not. The term “spirit” is understood as “mind,” and there is not a word of any Christian viewpoint. Sixteen years later, however, Treschow published a purely devotional book with the title The Spirit of Christianity or the Evangelical Doctrines Boldly and Impartially Presented (Treschow, 1828). This book, surprisingly, is highly psychological in the sense that it refers greatly to features of human nature. Psychology and theology have continually been intimately interwoven in the modern period, yet the relationship has gone through 170

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a radical change. This change is strongly connected to the process of secularization, and there are reasons for saying that psychology has been a major contributing factor to this process. The rise in emphasis on the individual when it comes to Christian faith has run parallel with the growth of psychology. If psychology is to be defined as the science of subjectivity, it is at the same time a science that starts with the individual. Hence it is quite natural that psychology became important for theology when theological attention turned away from the church and the human race as a whole, and toward the individual and his or her personal faith. The intimate relationship between theology and psychology became stronger during this process of secularization, but this relationship has been unilateral. Psychology became separated from theology quite early on, and the date can be connected to Kant and his abolition of psychology. Since that time, psychology has scarcely referred to theology. Yet when it comes to theology, the situation is quite the opposite. Since Kant, theological literature has become more and more interwoven with psychology. This fact also forms the premises for the reception of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard is very often understood as if he is formulating not only the psychological implications of the Christian faith, but also as if he is applying psychology as the basis for Christianity. Yet we have seen that this is plainly not so. He makes very clear distinctions between psychology and theology. In The Sickness Unto Death he even clearly states that he hopes to be able to present an “upbuilding” text without relying on psychology. The problem is that he failed to do this. The reason was not that psychology had replaced theology, but that the theological implications are predominantly revealed in an individual’s psychological states. Thus Kierkegaard never mixes the two disciplines, but rather emphasizes the differences between them. The two disciplines are regarded as complementary, in the sense that theology says something about the conditions for life, whereas psychology says something about how these conditions are experienced. However, since Kierkegaard is primarily interested in how these implications are experienced, psychology becomes, of course, of incredible importance to him when he discusses theological issues. The role of psychology becomes even more important, because the subjective impression of life is the core issue of existentialism, and in this sense he is developing a whole philosophy on the basis of psychology as the science of subjectivity. It is a paradox that Kierkegaard explicitly highlights psychology as a tool in his understanding of the conditions for modern human 171

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existence, yet psychology as a science has never been acknowledged as having this kind of status, and his theological and philosophical contributions are recognized as having caused a radical change in these disciplines. Paul Tillich summarizes this point very well: “Kierkegaard stands in the center of the theological just as much as of the philosophical discussion of the present. Evidence of this is, among other things, the quickly accumulating literature on him. From the theological side he has moved into the forefront through the so-called dialectical theology; from the philosophical side through the so-called existential philosophy” (Morgan, 2003, p. 8). Tillich was the person that supervised Adorno on Kierkegaard, and even in Adorno there is a sort of theological point of departure in his thesis on him. Yet Adorno had other motivations for focusing on Kierkegaard. One was the role of aesthetics, and another was the role of dialectics in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. However, one of the most important motivational factors was probably the way Kierkegaard handled the turmoil that came out of the philosophy of the Enlightenment over the question of how to objectify the role of subjectivity. Kant opened up the possibility of merging the objective and the subject through the a priori-given Twelve Categories. Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel completed this by objectifying the subject in their philosophical systems, whereas Kierkegaard represented an alternative by highlighting the contrast and accepting the contradiction and paradox between the subject and the object. This acceptance of the subjective and the objective as universal and not historically given entities was not acceptable to Adorno. Adorno criticized Kierkegaard for being too embedded in idealism and not acknowledging subjectivity and objectivity as historically given concepts. This is Adorno’s major objection to Kierkegaard, but it is also related to other aspects that Adorno wanted to distance himself from. One of the most important was the theological, which had a very diffuse relationship with the totalitarian Nazi regime that was taking shape in Germany at the same time he wrote his thesis on Kierkegaard. The same can be said of existentialism, particularly because of Heidegger’s problematic relationship with the Third Reich. Because of such factors, Adorno could not accept Kierkegaard uncritically. The political circumstances forced him to form an absolute requirement of knowledge as being historically given and fundamentally dialectical. And this is exactly the basis on which Adorno and Kierkegaard really have something in common. This is why Kierkegaard became so important to Adorno. Yet this is also why 172

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Adorno had to avoid subjectivity as the point for orientation and instead focus on society as historically given. By this switch of perspective, sociology took over as the main science in our understanding of modernity. Kierkegaard as the Unrecognized Contributor Although Kierkegaard actually did contribute to the solution of some of the most complicated questions in philosophy, he is scarcely recognized as having done so. Kant is identified as the individual that acknowledged subjectivity as a basis for knowledge, yet we have seen that Kant instead preserved some crucial aspects of objectivity in philosophy, rather than emphasizing subjectivity. Even though Fichte and Hegel tried to focus exclusively on subjectivity, they both ended up wiping out the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, which certainly did not bring any new perspectives on how to understand the differences between them. One of the few that directly followed up Kierkegaard’s project in this respect was Edmund Husserl in his phenomenology. Despite the fact that Husserl did not refer to Kierkegaard himself, he knew Kierkegaard very well. The Russian existentialist Lev Shestov (1866–1938), who published the book Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy: Vox Clamantis in Deserto in 1936, did not know about Kierkegaard before he met Husserl in 1928 and Husserl “practically forced him to read Kierkegaard” (Hanson, 2010, p. ix). Shestov’s understanding of the relationship between Kierkegaard and Husserl became quite clear after this meeting, and he later argued, “One cannot properly understand Husserl without coming to grips with his enthusiasm for Kierkegaard” (Hanson, 2010, p. ix). There is, of course, a link here, which goes deeper than just making a connection between Husserl’s phenomenology and the founder of existentialism. This deeper link is strongly related to psychology, in the sense that Husserl’s phenomenology is very much an outcome of the discussions about psychology and philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Husserl’s teachers in philosophy were Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf, who both are better known as psychologists rather than as philosophers. One of the main efforts in Husserl’s phenomenology was to formulate a subjective philosophy that avoided psychologism (Husserl, 1970). Such aims are very clear in Kierkegaard’s philosophical projects as well. Psychologism is connected to the tendency to reduce aspects of a non-psychological science to psychology. In attribution theory in social psychology, for example, some logical inferences are explained as merely psychological projections, and Hume made the same sort 173

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of reduction when he explained causality by the laws of psychological association. Kierkegaard’s approach to psychology was very much the opposite; psychology was regarded as an independent science that is very different from logic, metaphysics, and theology. For instance, in The Sickness Unto Death he tried to avoid psychology and deal with existential dilemmas in the light of theology alone, but this failed, not by replacing theology with psychology, but by stating that the consequences of the theological conditions can only be experienced by living life, and therefore they become objects for psychology. It is the same when it comes to logic, which Husserl also focused on. According to Kierkegaard, logic can never be replaced by psychology, but logic imposes the need for psychology as a science, because the unpredictability of life is a result of the fundamental logical paradox upon which human life is based. However, the unpredictability of life is not an object for logic, but for psychology. To maintain a clear distinction between logic and psychology is a rejection of psychologism, and this rejection is precisely what Kierkegaard’s philosophy and Husserl’s phenomenology have in common. The relationship between Kierkegaard and Heidegger, on the other hand, is of quite a different nature. Whereas few have found connections between Husserl and Kierkegaard, Adorno is not alone in linking Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Heidegger is crucial when it comes to understanding existentialism and various other post-structuralist movements in the late twentieth century. Both Foucault and Derrida were highly influenced by Heidegger, and the term “deconstruction” was directly derived from him. Many of the post-structuralists also mention Kierkegaard, but very few, if any of them, would refer to him as their most important source, including Heidegger. He made one important statement about Kierkegaard, presented as a footnote in Sein und Zeit (Heidegger, 1963). This footnote is often cited, and it explains a lot about the relationship between them: “In the nineteenth century, Søren Kierkegaard explicitly seized upon the problem of existence as an existential problem, and thought it through in a penetrating fashion. But the existential problematic was so alien to him that, as regards his ontology, he remained completely dominated by Hegel and by ancient philosophy as Hegel saw it. Thus, there is more to be learned philosophically by his ‘edifying’ writings than from his theoretical ones—with the exception of his treatise on the concept of anxiety” (Magurshak, 1987, p. 209). Heidegger’s project was primarily to deconstruct old ontology, and in a sense he was right: Kierkegaard had no interest in tearing down 174

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ontology or any other part of metaphysics; instead, he wanted to confirm it. The question is whether Heidegger actually succeeded in formulating a new ontology, which he claimed to have done. Heidegger refused not only Kierkegaard’s philosophy, but also his psychology. According to his universe, philosophy and psychology both depend on a false ontology (Heidegger, 1963, p. 49). Heidegger understands psychology as effectively being the same as anthropology, which he defines as based on a Christian ontology (Heidegger, 1963, p. 49). He also refuses the “self ” or the “subject” as the foundation of a new ontology. In this sense, he represents something different from Fichte. His reason for refusing selfhood as a basis is that selfhood can only be revealed and analyzed through its present being; thus the latter is more fundamental than the subject. But the present living being has two characteristics that also appear as more fundamental: one is time, and the other is interpretation. This is why hermeneutics became so important and was followed up by his pupil Gadamer. Yet it is important to underline that this hermeneutics is not the same as those of Dilthey. Dilthey presupposed that the interpreter is something other than the interpreted, and this distinction is not retained in Heidegger’s hermeneutics. This is also why it is relevant to talk about the hermeneutic circle when it comes to existential hermeneutics; interpretation is the unifying force in Heidegger’s ontology. This aspect is presented in the introduction to the chapter “Dasein und Zeitlichkeit” (“Existence and Temporality,” Heidegger, 1963), which summarizes a previous discussion from this thesis on truth. The footnote in which Heidegger criticizes Kierkegaard ends this discussion (Heidegger, 1963, p. 231). Despite the fact that Heidegger differs from Fichte and directly refuses Hegel, the critique Kierkegaard addressed to Hegel could also target Heidegger. Heidegger builds a castle in the air in which everything looks like a whole and, through his ontology, ignores the fundamental paradox that is highlighted with psychology, which stands in contrast to ontology and all the other parts of metaphysics. This sort of ontology, in which the clear distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is absent, is exactly what Kierkegaard refuses, and that is why Kierkegaard apparently does not have a proper ontology, according to Heidegger. One would expect that the postmodern movement would represent something different. Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) and the publication of his book La condition postmoderne in 1979 triggered this movement very much, which could very well be associated with Kierkegaard. By “breaking up of the grand Narratives” (Lyotard, 175

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1979/1984, p. 15), the fragmented and contradictory aspects of life, as Kierkegaard envisaged, are emphasized. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard is not an important reference point for Lyotard either; in fact, he hardly mentions him at all. But what is even more important in this context is to what extent there is any correspondence, however limited it may be. Lyotard talks about the “performative criterion,” which he derives from pragmatics in linguistics, and which is related to the “speech act” and “language games” that the two philosophers J. L. Austin and L. Wittgenstein respectively formulated (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 9ff ). This corresponds very well with Kierkegaard’s actual philosophy. In addition, Lyotard strongly criticizes the sociological approach and understanding of modernity. “‘Traditional’ theory is always in danger of being incorporated into the programming of the social whole as a simple tool for the organization of its performance; this is because its desire for a unitary and totalizing truth lends itself to the unitary and totalizing practice of the system’s managers” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 12). This is a critique of philosophical systems in general, the grand narratives par excellence, but in this case the critique is directed toward Auguste Comte. Comte was primarily an exponent of modernity in his aim to reach a utopia, in which the human being has total control because the society has been built on scientifically based laws that make society completely predictable. Yet by envisaging this sort of society he is trapped in a premodern pattern of thinking, in the sense that the sum represents the solution. Postmodernism is not an alternative to modernism; it is rather “undoubtedly a part of the modern” (Lyotard, 1979/1984). The point here is that premodern grand narratives, which appear particularly in philosophical systems, also infect modernity. Sociology probably could have avoided this, and notably critical theory attempted to do it, in terms of the Frankfurter school, which was “based on a principle of dualism.” Yet Habermas is probably the one Lyotard criticized most, and the reason is that “his conception is based on the validity of the narrative of emancipation” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 60). In other words, this is just one of the grand narratives that reflects “the notion of system” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 55). Lyotard concludes that the “social subject itself seems to dissolve in this dissemination of language games” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 40), and by this he means that language is social, but it operates at so many different and almost incompatible layers that unification almost ceases. This instead leads Lyotard into aesthetics and Kant’s understanding of the sublime. And the sublime stands 176

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in contradiction to the premodern understanding of beauty, which presupposed a conceptualized totality, but also to the naïve modern understanding of knowledge, which presupposes that all concepts have their references. The sublime takes place “when the imagination fails to present an object which might, if only in principle, come to match a concept” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, p. 78). Thus Lyotard also ignores the role of psychology as a precondition for the understanding of modernity, but on the other hand he does emphasize the role of aesthetics, and that is, as we know, something very close. In this respect, it is hard to categorize Kierkegaard properly, and this has characterized his destiny for more than one hundred and fifty years. He is primarily a deep religious philosopher, but he emphasizes the shortcomings of theology when it comes to dealing with genuine religious problems. These are primarily about how to cope with real life, and psychology is the only discipline that can tell us something about this life. Yet psychology contradicts all objective sciences, and therefore it is the science that really represents the modern revolution. Although radical thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, and Habermas apparently represent modernity, compared with Kierkegaard, they are not radical enough, and therefore we may even say that they are not as modern as Kierkegaard. This is also true when it comes to Husserl, Giddens, and Lyotard. Although they are all very close to Kierkegaard, not one of them admits that modernity is principally based on the appearance of psychology. Thus to have an understanding of what psychology is about is the gateway to achieving an understanding of what a modern life and modernity are all about. Kierkegaard seems to be the only one that really acknowledged this.

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10 Kierkegaard and Modern Psychology Modernity has so far been described in terms of the autonomous and independent revolution that characterized Western thinking after René Descartes presented his systematic thoughts in the year 1637. Cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am”—must be seen as a core formulation of what modernity is all about (Toulmin, 1992). Yet the cogito is primarily based on doubt. This is a point of departure: specifically doubting everything and finding out what is left, which is the thinking subject. And this is a basis for introducing psychology, because psychology was, around this time, gradually turning into being a well-defined discipline dealing with subjectivity. Thus the cogito is not just thinking; it also presents a fundamental doubt about everything except the subject. This is at the same time the introduction of modernity. Modernity was not just a simple shift in thought, for it had very much in common with the Copernican revolution earlier, which implied a complete change in the understanding of what was at the center of the universe. So when Kant referred to this in his introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, it was not only his own critical philosophy he was characterizing, but also the start of the whole epoch of modernity. Kant used the Copernican revolution as an example of the change in the center of thinking, which turned from objectivity to subjectivity. However, it was definitely not Kant who initiated this change, and neither was he the one who drew significant conclusions from the changes brought about by the introduction of modernity. This investigation has demonstrated quite the opposite; Kant’s efforts were more to preserve the objective aspects of thinking after subjectivity had been introduced to metaphysics via psychology. In this sense, the reference to the Copernican revolution is appropriate in another respect as well—for it took at least a hundred and fifty years before the heliocentric model was generally accepted as a substitute for the Ptolemaic model. 179

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Neither Descartes nor Kant fully accepted this revolution in subjectivity, despite the fact that systematic doubt and critical philosophy were both based upon psychology, and both philosophers ignored subjectivity and bodily experiences as a basis for knowledge. Importantly, Kant’s rejection of empirical psychology as a basis for modern self-understanding defined the destiny of psychology. And this has not changed since the postmodern perspective was introduced, either. There are few examples of literature on psychology that highlight the fact that psychology actually carries the key to a complete understanding of what modernity is about. Wundt’s Laboratory in Leipzig Self-understanding, or the discipline’s reflections upon itself in psychology, is crucial. As mentioned, Wilhelm Wundt and the founding of a psychological laboratory in Leipzig in 1879 are normally regarded as the birth of what we now call modern psychology. This makes a disparity between modernity understood in terms of psychology and other disciplines, like philosophy, sociology, and theology, and their use of the same term. The intriguing question, therefore, is to define what this laboratory actually was concerned with. Wundt was himself a physiologist; he had previously been research assistant to Herman Helmholtz for several years, and for a short period he had been a professor of inductive philosophy. He had mathematical interests and skills, but he was also already engaged in the movement for what can be regarded as standing in opposition to experimental psychology, the so-called folk psychology (Völkerpsychologie), or what we would call cultural psychology today. This movement started to publish its own journal in the late 1850s, and Wundt was already a part of the movement in the 1860s, although he did not refer very much to it before the 1880s. Thus Wundt had experienced quite a diverse background before he started up his laboratory in 1879. Another intriguing aspect is the fact that when he established this laboratory, he equipped it with the same instruments as he had worked with in the Helmholtz laboratory. Nevertheless, he insisted that his laboratory was not about physics but about psychology, and he was very clear about the difference. According to him, the content is abstracted from the subject in physics, whereas in psychology the content “is examined with a view to discovering its immediate character and its complete relation to the subject” (Wundt, 1902, p. 11). Thus physics is supposed to be about the object, whereas psychology is about the 180

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subjective impression of the same object. This distinction is crucial. Yet the distinction is, at the same time, quite nuanced, in the sense that it does not imply an exclusion of the subject in physics. Helmholtz’s acoustics is the best example of how intimately acoustic, physiological, and psychological factors are connected. Some combinations of two pitches are experienced as if there were a third tone sounding in addition. The third tone appears because the human ear is constructed in a certain way (Titchener, 1902). These combination tones show how psychoacoustics combines subjective experiences with some physiological and acoustical preconditions, because combination tones are not regarded as a result of psychological illusion but rather as physical objects. In this sense, there is a continuous line from physics to psychology. Nevertheless, there is still a fundamental distinction. In the case of combination tones, psychology is about the subjective impression of the physical object, whereas physics regards combination tones as physical objects. They are so because they are stable and predictable—and organ builders can even apply this knowledge in their work. They can avoid big and expensive pipes by replacing them with different combinations of smaller pipes with lighter tones. The outcome is effectively the same. On this backgound, combination tones are comparable with magnetism and gravitation, of which we are only able to observe the consequences and not the forces, as such, as given objects. The aim of this chapter is to go deeper into what modern psychology is concerned with, and simply referring to a laboratory is clearly insufficient to get a substantial understanding of modern psychology. As Wundt’s institute was equipped with the same instruments as the laboratory Helmholtz had in physics, it could be argued that it is more the activity and the research questions addressed that define the differences between physics and psychology, but this is patently not so. And neither is it sufficient to refer to the terms “empirical” or “experimental” as distinctive criteria. In addition, and as has been presented, both terms were in use long before 1879. What should be focused on is the research questions and perspectives on the research field. Kierkegaard refers to psychology as if it is a clear and well-defined science, whereas he never attempts to make any complete presentation of it. Once more it is necessary to gather the pieces of the puzzle and try to present them in their proper positions. The historical context forms, of course, a constraining framework in the effort to achieve an understanding, and so far one may conclude that Kierkegaard has to be understood in terms of his own historical context. 181

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The most intriguing question, therefore, is to find out to what extent this psychology coincides with the experimental psychology that began in Leipzig in the late 1870s. Here we will focus primarily on Wundt, but some other scholars will also be discussed, without attempting to cover the full spectrum of what modern psychology may be about. Definitions of Psychology As an introduction, it should be noted that Wundt opens one of his works by focusing on “The Problem of Psychology.” This is the title he uses for §1 of his Outlines of Psychology of 1897. Here he refers to two different definitions of psychology, both of which he rejects. One describes psychology as “the ‘science of mind’: psychological processes are regarded as phenomena from which it is possible to infer the nature of an underlying metaphysical mind-substance” (Wundt, 1897, p. 1). This definition brings in metaphysics as having a role in psychology, and the “mind-substance” referred to is very much the same as the Christian understanding of the soul. Wundt does not explicitly refer to Christianity, but it is obvious that it is the more theologically based understanding of the soul that this definition is based upon. He is also very clear by placing this definition historically in a “period of development that lasted longer in this science than in others” (Wundt, 1897, p. 1). This is a definition that does not coincide with Kierkegaard’s understanding of psychology. Kierkegaard is quite explicit when it comes to the relationship between psychology on the one hand and metaphysics and theology on the other. Psychology stands in opposition to both of them and cannot be united with either. So why does Wundt refer to this definition? Obviously it is because it was still thought to be valid by some at that time, and this was so because religion and psychology were so intertwined. Only a hundred years earlier, psychology had been defined as a part of metaphysics, and psychology could not be such a part unless it had been justified by theology. And that was exactly what natural theology did: justify the importance of making observations. At the time, psychology was dependent on theology as a prerequisite for being taken seriously from an intellectual perspective. Another aspect was that Reformation theology, which dominated Leipzig at the time, had interests in psychology, for several reasons. One reason was that the confessional situation presupposed a thorough understanding of human nature, as its dogmatics emphasized personal faith as a consequence of regarding oneself as a sinful person. A second 182

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reason was that an individual had to receive a guarantee that a good Christian life on earth would be rewarded with eternal life in paradise. This connection presupposed continuity between the personality on earth and its appearance in eternity. The link between these appearances is the soul, and this comprehension of the soul still exists today. But this interpretation also implies a very close connection between the understanding of the soul and psychology. Incidentally, this is also why Aristotle’s thesis On the Soul is very often misunderstood even today. If one does not read it carefully, it can easily be understood to be about the entity in a personality that makes a connection between human life on earth and eternity. In other words, psychology was once dependent on theology to be accepted, but in modern times, it is much the opposite; theology is highly dependent on psychology for its acceptance. The other definition Wundt rejects, however, is slightly more important and subtle. This defines psychology as the “science of inner experience” (Wundt, 1897, p. 1). This stands in opposition to outer experience, and this definition restricts psychology to talking about the part that focuses on observations of its own inner activities, such as thinking and feelings. Wundt does not reject these phenomena because they are not interesting, but he does reject the definition in which psychology is restricted to focusing only on inner experience. According to this definition, these phenomena are perceived by a certain “inner sense” (Wundt, 1897, p. 1) that stands in opposition to an outer sense. Wundt does not specify those who represent this tradition, but a unilateral focus on the inner sense brings the association toward rational psychology and in some respects back to Kant, especially back to his initial discussions on pure reason. Fichte and Hegel would be parallel associations, but it is probably not these scholars Wundt primarily had in mind, but simply those who wanted to restrict psychology to being a science of the inner sense. (It is of interest that the English version of Outlines [Wundt, 1897] introduces the term “introspection,” as Wundt relates this term to a definition of psychology he rejects.) According to Wundt, such a distinction is artificial and inconsistent, primarily because it presupposes that there is another sense for outer perceptions. In other words, Wundt regards psychology as the science that deals with all kinds of perceptions, including those related to objective observations in natural science: “There is, then, no such thing as an ‘inner sense’ which can be regarded as an organ of introspection, and thus distinct from the outer senses, or organs of objective perception” 183

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(Wundt, 1897, p. 2). This does not mean that psychology has to be defined in terms of an objective, natural science. It is indeed the opposite that makes the point; natural sciences depend on the subjective perspective of psychology. “Ideas, whose attributes psychology seeks to investigate, arise through the outer senses no less than do the senseperceptions on which natural science is based” (Wundt, 1897, p. 2). The last quotation seems to summarize very well what psychology is about. However, Wundt does not present an explicit definition on which he bases his understanding of psychology. These notions are presented indirectly, such as in the subclasses in the quotation above: “Ideas, whose attributes psychology seeks to investigate” (Wundt, 1897, p. 2). This statement is only a part of the definition, but it is a crucial part. It is the ideas or representations (Vorstellungen) that form the content of psychology. These are fundamentally subjective, and they arise directly from sense impressions. However, this is just one part of the definition of psychology. The other part is the relationship these ideas have to the objects they represent. Psychology includes both these aspects, which are included in the term “perception.” Wundt’s English translator emphasizes that there is a difference between the German and the Anglo-Saxon understanding of this term (Wundt, 1897, pp. vf ). The English term “perception” refers more to what in German would be Wahrnemung, to be aware of something; whereas the German understanding of “perception” includes also representations, or Vorstellungen. Thus the most explicit definition Wundt presents in this discussion is as follows: “Psychology [. . .] has as its subject of treatment the total content of experience in its immediate character” (Wundt, 1897, p. 4). This formulation used as a definition for psychology elicits interest for at least three reasons. First of all, it refers to a totality that includes the object, the idea of the object, and the relationship between them. Secondly, this formulation also underlines the fact that Wundtian psychology is not restricted to an elementary understanding of the mind. He is often misunderstood as suggesting this, because many of his publications refer to elements of the mind. These elements form, of course, an important aspect of Wundt’s psychology, yet they are more representative of a systematic approach than the result of his research. The result is formulated in his Outline of Psychology, of which the original German version appeared the year before, in 1896. Here he concludes that regarding the totality is more important than regarding the elements. 184

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Thirdly, this formulation counts as a sort of conclusion in a discussion on the relationship between psychology and the natural sciences, and this is a very important point. He underlines the fact that physics attempts to abstract the object from the subject, which one may try to do as much as one can, but “the interaction of the subject with the outer world and with other similar subjects is just as much a problem of psychology as are the attributes of the single subject” (Wundt, 1897, p. 4). With this formulation, Wundt quite explicitly states that physics and other natural sciences will never be released from the psychological impacts on observation. In this sense, Wundt follows the line that points directly back to empirical psychology and how it was understood by the natural scientists in the eighteenth century, before Kant arrived and made this interpretation impossible. This is also why he ends the whole section with the statement, “Psychology is the more strictly empirical” (Wundt, 1897, p. 6). This does not mean that psychology is supposed to be a natural science. The empirical is related to sense impressions, and the message is just to highlight the fact that psychology is the science that deals with perception. There is another aspect of the second definition that is of particular interest in this context. This is the term “immediate” and Wundt’s suggestion that an experience has an immediate character. If psychology is supposed to deal with exactly this aspect of perception, there is a close relationship between this understanding and Søren Kierkegaard’s opinion of what psychology should be about. Wundt does not mention “immediate” by chance; he repeats it in italics at the end of the section, almost as a conclusion to the whole discussion. And the discussion is very much about the demarcation criteria for psychology, especially in relation to physics and the natural sciences. Immediacy is, of course, not a factor in the natural sciences; indeed, it is more the opposite. In this sense, Kant’s understanding of the natural sciences was, of course, a breakthrough and one that still is significant. This immediacy is also a factor when Wundt presents the conclusive formulation, “Psychology is the more strictly empirical” than natural science. Immediacy is exactly what makes psychology more strictly empirical than natural science. This statement must be understood in the same way as when Edmund Husserl referred to phenomenology as the true positivism. Phenomenology is not positivism, but if positivists had followed up their positivistic ideology consistently, they would have ended up with phenomenology. It is the same when it comes to the empirical approach. If the empiricists had followed up the empirical approach strictly and 185

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consistently, they would have ended up with the same immediacy that characterizes empirical psychology, which includes subjectivity. There cannot be any doubt about Wundt’s interest in making a clear distinction between the natural sciences and psychology. Yet what he actually achieves is to formulate the same dilemma between psychology and the natural sciences as Kierkegaard had formulated between psychology and theology: “In place of the immediate objects of experience, it sets concepts gained from these objects by abstracting from the subjective components of our ideas” (Wundt, 1897, p. 5). The natural sciences are trapped and exist in a dilemma from which they cannot escape. Just to talk about a natural object “out there” presupposes a perceiver that has a subjective perspective, and in an attempt to look away from the “subjective components of our ideas,” the whole natural object may very well disappear. In the same way as some statements of dogmatics, for example on original sin, can only be revealed through the experience of its consequences, specifically the feeling of guilt; the objects in natural sciences can only be identified through a subjective impression of them. The science that deals with detecting this impression is psychology. In this argument, Wundt is poised on an edge. The outer world is not easy to grasp, because our understanding of it is determined by subjective impressions. Yet the other extreme is also problematic, because the subject is not isolated from the outer world, but rather exists in dialogue with it. Wundt therefore refuses to define the problem of psychology as “self-knowledge of the subject” (Wundt, 1897, p. 4). This only refers indirectly to Hegel; however, Hegel is not the only one that can be targeted by this. It is addressed to the growing understanding that arose after Kant presented his critical philosophy, from which it was very easy to ignore the role of the outer world. As long as the understanding of the outer world depends on the subject’s capacity to have an understanding, an investigation of the outer world would simply result in an investigation of the subject. This is exactly the reason why Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling end up with a subjectivist philosophy, which also makes psychology more or less excessive. According to this philosophy, the psychological problem is restricted to “self-knowledge of the subject.” So when Wundt refuses this limitation of the psychological problem, he also wants to underline that there is a difference between the subjective and the objective. This also emphasizes some similarities between Kierkegaard and Wundt when it comes to certain substantial aspects. In his discussion 186

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on “the problem of psychology,” Wundt attempts to regard psychology as a specific scientific field that is distinct from other sciences. This is also true in the reverse: the natural sciences are very different from psychology. This implies a rejection of psychologism, in the sense that phenomena in nature cannot be fully explained by psychology. In this respect, the Weber-Fechner law is a core expression for what psychology is concerned with. This law created a lot of attention in Wundt’s laboratory, and it is, of course, thoroughly discussed in this introductory presentation of psychology. There are two aspects of the Weber-Fechner law that may shed some light on the differences between psychology and other natural sciences. The first and most important aspect is the logarithmic relationship between the stimulus and the experience of it. This implies that the relationship between the physical object and the psychical impression it makes is asymmetric, such that if the weight is tripled, the experience of it is as if the weight were only doubled: “Sensation increases in proportion to the logarithm of the stimulus (Fechner’s psycho-physical law)” (Wundt, 1897, p. 256). The Weber-Fechner law denotes a law that aspires to being a part of the natural sciences, but with respect to its content, this is not so. This is a law in which regularity demonstrates the discrepancy between the physical and the psychological spheres. According to Wundt, the term “psycho-physical” is problematic, especially when it is applied, as in “psycho-physical methods.” He says, “The name is unsuitable” (Wundt, 1897, p. 256), and the reason is that in experimental psychology it is common to use physical means to examine psychological aspects, but this does not make experimental psychology more “physical”; there are, of course, some psychophysical phenomena, such as combination tones, but these are psychophysical because physics alone is not able to explain their physical appearance. When it comes to the Weber-Fechner law, the situation is the opposite: according to Newtonian laws, physics has no problem explaining the increase of weight in the stimuli, but it is psychology that has to explain how this is perceived. Psychological Laws and Causalities The similarities between Wundt and Kierkegaard are important because there is a common understanding of regarding psychology as an independent science focused on the subjective. If psychology can be regarded as the basis for the modern perspective, this understanding of it must be regarded as crucial and therefore form a basis. A more 187

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open question, however, is how the other parts of psychology should be defined, and, not least, how it can be regarded as a science. And doing so does throw up several discrepancies between Kierkegaard and Wundt. Yet such discrepancies are probably primarily located in areas where Wundt, rather than Kierkegaard, has some difficulties. The most crucial aspect is to what extent psychology can explain the expectations a modern mind has of modern sciences, and some of these are related to the aspect of predictability. It is expected, near given, that modern sciences will tell us something about the future. However, no science can tell anything about the future, just what will happen under certain circumstances. If we know nothing about the circumstances, we can say nothing about the future. Be that as it may, modern science reduces all to causality and certain laws, which constrain possibility. Naturally, this is also true of modern psychology. We have already referred to the Weber-Fechner law, which primarily tells us much about the discrepancies between the physical and the mental worlds. For Wundt it was, of course, important to follow up these requirements from modernity, and he focused very much on laws and causality. These are both of the highest importance when it comes to the mind and its relationship with free will. According to Kierkegaard, free will is a necessary condition—a precondition, if you will—for the existence of a human being. However, this is derived from the fact that man has a scientifically oriented mind; we think in universals, and science depends on our capacity to think in universals. According to Kant, our thinking in universals harmonizes very well with the phenomena out there, and this is why we can operate with the concept of science despite that fact that we do not know anything about the truth value or the ontological status of our conceptions about the external world. However, Kierkegaard’s point is, as we know, that we are also living our lives in a particular time, which stands in contrast to universal thinking in the sense that the two aspects of our existence do not coincide. If we accept Kierkegaard, and particularly his book Repetition, this is exactly what psychology can tell us. So when freedom is a result of the lack of concurrence between the particular and the universal, the modern human being is characterized by freedom as a consequence of being in between these two extremes, and psychology should be the science that explains the conflict of how this science can presuppose that man is predictable in terms of cause and physical laws. This is a big question, and the answer will tell us a lot about the relationship between psychology and modernity, and also its relationship to 188

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postmodernity, especially as it is understood by the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. Wundt’s contributions in this respect are very cryptic but both highly intriguing and interesting. When it comes to the question of causality, he operates within “psycho-physical parallelism,” and this is important for several reasons. The most obvious reason for ending up with a kind of parallel causality is to avoid physiological determinism. Yet on the other hand, our mind is not isolated from what happens in our physiology. This is what empirical psychology from Wolff, and after him, was intended to be about, being the description of the physiological constraints that form the framework for the five senses. Wundt is following up this tradition when he says that the principle of psycho-physical parallelism “leads necessarily to the recognition of an independent psychical causality, which is related to all points with physical causality and can never come in contradiction to it” (Wundt, 1897, p. 320). Wundt acknowledges that there is causality, both in the world and in the mind, but they are not related by causality. He even underlines that physical and psychological causality are as different as the abstraction in physics is from the “immediate, subjective experience” in psychology (Wundt, 1897, p. 320). This is very much the equivalent difference that Kierkegaard points out between metaphysics and psychology. According to Wundt, on the other hand, there is some common ground, in the sense that it is possible to talk about causality too when it comes to psychological phenomena; and in the same way as in physics, causality has to be based upon certain laws that justify it. These laws are of great interest in this context because we encounter the same kind of evasive action when it comes to psychological laws, as is prevalent in Wundt’s understanding of causality. Wundt operates within different forms of psychological laws, but the most fundamental are the three variants of what he calls the “psychological laws of relation” (Wundt, 1897). The first set is what he calls the “laws of psychical [sic] resultants,” which is exemplified by the phenomenon that the whole is perceived as something more than just the sum of the elements. This law is based on the “principle of creative synthesis” (Wundt, 1897, p. 322). Despite the fact that Wundt tried to build up a psychology by focusing on elements, he realized very soon that the whole had to be regarded as something far more than the sum of its components. This is very well demonstrated by presenting the principle of creative synthesis as a basis for understanding psychological causality. Yet this is also a demonstration of the distance between psychology and physics. Sometimes, in addition, 189

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physics regards an object as something more than its elements—for example, when it comes to the understanding of light, which requires two different and contradictory theories to be described. However, this is probably not an ideal situation seen from a physicist’s perspective. Scientifically it is not very satisfactory that the immediate impression of an object represents something other than the elements that can be detected. Nevertheless, this is the most fundamental principle Wundt ends up with when it comes to scientific psychology, being that there are obvious differences between the immediate impression of something and the elements this impression consists of. This first law is primarily about apperception, and this underlines again how strongly Wundt continues the tradition of Wolff. Yet Wundt uses the term with the same meaning as Kant: as the necessary unifying or “synthetic process of consciousness” (Wundt, 1897, p. 324). The second law of relations is highly associated to the first. It is to do with the analytic procedure of consciousness. This reflects the double meaning that is included in both apperception and perception. They both represent a unifying process, but at the same time they represent a process of making distinctions. Thus apperception is not just a unifying and synthetic process; “every apperception is an analytic process whose two factors are the emphasizing of one single content and the marking off of this one content from all others” (Wundt, 1897, p. 324). The two factors referred to in this quotation are “clearness” and “distinctness.” Here Wundt is simply continuing the argument that Wolff started and Kant temporarily fulfilled. Perception is related to the fundamental distinction between the one and the other. Through this fundamental distinction, it is possible to make distinctions in general. This is why Kant follows up his Critique of Pure Reason with the Critique of Judgment. Pure reason is about the unifying process, whereas the ability to make distinctions is based on judgments. Wundt takes this a step further and relates it to an analytical process. Thus this term is being used with another meaning than in the manner that Kant used it. There are connections, in the sense that the idea of clearness also refers to necessary inferences. However, in Wundt’s terminology, the analytical has become synthetic because of the principle of synthetic creativity, where the whole is something more than the sum of its elements. This is also why even contemporary philosophers regard logic as consisting of synthetic statements (Quine, 1953). Kant was not absolutely clear or consistent when it comes to the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. When he argued that mathematics must be 190

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regarded as a synthetic science, he admitted that we “might, indeed at first suppose that the proposition 7 + 5 = 12 is merely an analytical proposition” (Kant, 1974, p. 33). Mathematics is also an a priori science, and it is reasonable to assume that he argues in this way because this gives a solid basis for talking about synthetic statements given a priori in general. It is easy today to agree with Quine that even logic consists of synthetic statements, and Kant’s understanding of mathematics represents important support for this. Yet as a matter of fact, both of these considerations demolish the notion of having a clear distinction between synthetic and analytic statements, and this is what Wundt is opening up by underlining distinction as an embodied aspect of the process of apperception. On the surface, it may seem that the third law, the law of psychological contrasts, only increases apparent evasion. First of all, it is another step in the direction of making distinctions, and in addition it does not bring in very much new information, especially the way it is formulated by Wundt. However, his formulations are very often of the indicating type, and some interesting aspects are pointed out by the somewhat cryptic formulations he applies. He also briefly touches on his theory of affects, which refers to a group of three opposite qualities, namely pleasurable/unpleasurable, exciting/depressing, and straining/relaxing. The point is that these are states that are caused by the relative presence of the contrasts within each group, and they represent very different experiences. The affective states created are at the same time a sort of device for how meaning is made. This is most obvious with the last group of contrasts, which is best illustrated by experiencing art that is unfolding in time. Reading a book, or attending a theater performance or a concert, implies that most of the time the reader or audience is held in suspense. The relaxing part has to come at the end, and if it comes too early, the work is regarded as disappointing or even as a failure. So the process of making meaning in art is very much a consequence of the use of these affective contrasts. However, the contrasts are relative in the sense that the experience of relaxing is relative to the intensity of the stress. Yet the stress must also differ, and it cannot exist on the same level all the time. This is obvious in music, where almost all the time there must be a sort of tension in the harmony, but its intensity may vary significantly. By this, Wundt is building up a universe of meaning that is solely based on contrasts between the elements, and in which the elements as such cannot be said to have any meaning in themselves. Therefore he says that “the related psychical contents range 191

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between opposites” (Wundt, 1897, p. 325). This statement is very close to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of the arbitrary sign. Wundt, de Saussure, and Folk Psychology It is not so important to introduce de Saussure’s semiology in this context. What is more appropriate, however, is how de Saussure manages to create a communicational system in which subjectivity forms the constituting element. Saussure attended Wundt’s lectures on the psychology of language (Blumenthal, 1973), and there are some connections between these two when it comes to the understanding of language. The doctrine of the arbitrary sign represents a form of nominalistic perspective in a more conceptualist sense because of its dependency on the conception of langue. De Saussure does not go into the classical discussion about the existence of the universals or not, but the conflict between nominalism and realism concerns very much an understanding of language. The classical nominal understanding of language implies that terms are only substitutes for their references. This substitution theory, conceived by William of Ockham (Copleston, 1963), is more a conceptualist theory in the sense that it includes universals as mental concepts. In de Saussure’s understanding of language, the mental concepts are still included, but he goes a step further. The terms are not regarded as linked to their references, but they are connected to the references in an arbitrary fashion. The links are between the terms rather than their references, in the sense that the terms stand in opposition to each other. In fact, the differences between terms are more crucial for their ability to generate meanings than what they more or less accidentally happen to refer to. Some terms are, of course, motivated by their references—the so-called motivated signs (de Saussure, 2011)—but the point here is to outline how meaning primarily is created by contrasts and oppositions, and this is precisely what Wundt wants to emphasize in his law of psychological contrasts. In this respect, he stretches this line further by bringing in contrasts as a fundamental and constituting basis for his folk psychology. As an example of this he declares in his autobiography that it was the nominal perspective, which placed religion in a transcendental or ethereal (übersinnlich) sphere, which also included morality and norms (Wundt, 1920, p. 351). Contrary to the most widespread notion, Platonic idealism corresponded directly with folk morality (Volkssitte) in ancient Greece (Wundt, 1920, p. 351). This folk morality was not only given through concepts and ideal thinking; it was revealed in the religion itself at that 192

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time. Worship, morality, norms, and language are constituent parts of culture. Thus Wundt underlines here that culture is first of all given as a sensual experience through actual communication and transformed into general conceptions when it comes to rituals, norms, and the use of terms. This conceptualism is a kind of combination of experienced particularity, which is in dialogue with abstract thinking and the universals. This dialogue between the particular and the universal represents a salient trait of de Saussure’s semiology through the dichotomy, which is given by the terms parole and langue. The point here is to stress that the contrast between an actual, sensual, given particularity and the conception of something universal, given as a determining factor for how the particular is experienced, is significant in Wundt’s psychology. This emphasizes the tight connection between Wundt’s experimental psychology and his folk psychology (see also Wundt, 1907, p. 51). Folk psychology does not focus less on senses, but when experimental psychology was launched, there was an aim to avoid higher cognitive functions for strategic reasons. The big challenge for empirical psychology from Wolff to Wundt was to account for the sensory aspects, and therefore these needed to be focused on exclusively. According to his autobiography, Wundt already (in 1860) thought that experimental psychology was to be regarded as a supportive science (Hilfsmitteln) and that it required a more general science to fulfill the psychological project. This critical aspect of psychology was provided by folk psychology (Wundt, 1920, p. 201). This explains a lot when it comes to his understanding of psychological laws and causality. Causality in a strict sense is a feature effectively absent in psychology, because it requires necessity. Causality in a strict sense is only present in cases where if the effect is absent, the cause will also be absent. In his discussions on psycho-physical parallelism, causality may appear as a sufficient reason for psychological processes, at best. The physical framework, which includes the five senses, is sufficient to provide a certain impression. In this sense, it is sufficient to listen to Beethoven’s fifth symphony to get an impression of it. However, the “laws of psychical [sic] resultants” state that there is a difference between a sense impression and its representation. This implies that the sense impression in itself is probably something quite different from what we would call Beethoven’s fifth symphony. Our understanding of the opening bar may differ, from regarding it as destiny knocking at the door, via an argument in a dialectical discourse inspired by Hegel, to being fascinated by the potentiality that lies in its musical energy. This is the principle 193

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of creative synthesis, which almost contradicts causa efficiens in its strict sense. This principle states that something is always added to the effect, which is not included in the cause. However, this principle is not deduced from listening to demanding musical pieces, but from the very basic sense impressions. Even pressure on the skin is related to something, specifically to another touch to which it is compared. This is the process of meaning, via the principle of creative synthesis, triggered by oppositions. By making distinctions between the different impressions, even the most rudimentary sense impression will produce some kind of meaning. However, if the most rudimentary sense impression causes meaning, then its effect has to be defined as unpredictable. The rudimentary sense impression appears in a certain context, which constrains the representation of the impression. However, even the context does not determine understanding with predictable accuracy. With the principle of creative synthesis, there will be an additional factor, which is highly related to individual free will. In this sense, the laws of psychological resultants contradict what they apparently present; that is, being laws. The most basic criterion of a law is that it forms a basis for predictability to the observer. So what Wundt presents in his discussions on psychological causality and laws are principles that contradict the notions of both causality and laws. However, he does present some frameworks that constrain the options for the psychological processes, because even the principle of creative synthesis is constraining, in the sense that it excludes predictability of the mind. Modern Psychology Revisited With this background, it is highly relevant to revisit the question of modern psychology. At least as long as Wundt and his laboratories form the main reference for how modern psychology should be defined, some aspects can be highlighted. First of all, it is almost meaningless to refer to the laboratory, as such, as the main source. If experimental psychology is regarded only as a tool [Hilfsmitteln] for approaching the psychological field, the laboratory as a device for experimental psychology cannot contribute anything substantial. When it comes to the substantial, Wundt is apparently saying two things. On the one hand, he operates with terms like “law” and “causality,” as if psychology should be understood as a science that satisfies some of these criteria. On the other hand, he formulates forms of causality that contradict causa efficiens, and he puts forward laws that end up with unpredictability. However, this is not necessarily inconsistent; it is an attempt to define 194

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what kinds of constraints determine the psychological sphere. In this respect, there are some other principles that lie behind and form what he counts as psychological laws. The most fundamental principle is free will. This is the creative mind, which does not contradict causality as such, but it strongly contradicts causa efficiens. This is, however, not a hindrance, for the mind itself can cause effects. In this respect, it is highly relevant to talk about intentional causality when it comes to the psychological sphere. The effect may have impact on other minds, but the same principle naturally also applies to other minds, which means that intentional causality in a strict sense counts only for the mind’s impact on physiological and physical entities. When it comes to psychological influences on certain behaviors, thoughts, or intentions, to find a causa efficiens must be regarded as being out of the question. This seems to be a kind of premise for how Wundt defined modern psychology, and it has had a great impact on his understanding, in the sense that unpredictability is almost the only law. Modern psychology, in this respect, is solely about constraints, not about causa efficiens or about predictability. The Wundtian perspective on modern psychology very much highlights the differences between the particular and the universal, and this seems to be a core issue in his understanding of experimental psychology. However, it was not only Wundt that stressed this. His precursor Gustav Theodor Fechner also did so by introducing the distinction between “top-down” and “bottom-up” (Fechner, 1871/1978). Yet he related experimental psychology to aesthetics and called it “experimental aesthetics.” Wundt also applied this term to categorizing a certain type of psychological research that was carried out in his laboratory in Leipzig (Wundt, 1910). By referring to aesthetics, both of these scholars underline how close experimental psychology was to the understanding of psychology during the German Enlightenment. Fechner’s distinction between top-down and bottom-up can still be traced in contemporary psychology, but his older sense is slightly different, in that he relates this distinction solely to aesthetics (Ästhetik von Unten vs. Ästhetik von Oben; Fechner, 1871/1978). However, the substantial meaning is the same. This distinction refers both historically and contemporarily to the differences between the particular and the universal. There is also a concurrence in the historical and contemporary understanding from the fact that psychology is the science that combines these perspectives (Allesch, 2006). When it comes to experimental aesthetics, Fechner introduces the term “direct factor” to underline the notion of 195

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concentrating on the sensory impression itself; i.e., the particular, as such (Fechner, 1871/1978). His aim was to put meaning, content, and intention aside and to be left with the sense impression, as such. In other words, the universal and particular were regarded as standing in close relation to each other, yet they were not the same, and the aim of experimental psychology was to concentrate solely on the particular sense impression. However, Fechner made a distinction between aesthetics and psychology in this respect: the aesthetic perspective was about the bottom-up, whereas the psychological perspective was about a combination of the bottom-up and top-down and about both sensation and cognition in combination (Fechner, 1871/1978). The combination of the two extremes of the process of perception, namely the perceiver and the perceived, is obvious when the term “perception” is applied in the German language; but as already mentioned, it is not so obvious in English. The translator of Wundt’s Outlines of Psychology, Charles Hubbard Judd, comments on this in his preface: “Since the process referred to by ‘Perception’ is so entirely different from that indicated by the English word perception, it seemed to best to employ a word whose signification is not so fixed” (Judd, 1897, p. IIIf). Judd’s solution is to apply the word “apprehension” instead of “perception.” And in this respect, one may wonder if German experimental psychology really ever survived the transformational process from German to English. The person that introduced Wundt’s experimental psychology into the English-speaking world was Edward Bradford Titchener (1867–1927). According to Hergenhahn, Titchener defined psychology rigorously as experimental: “For him, psychology was experimental psychology (as he defined it); and everything that preceded his version of psychology was not psychology at all” (Hergenhahn, 2001, p. 239). However, he also wrote an Outline of Psychology (Titchener, 1902), in which he tries to define psychology, and his definition is not as rigorous as one may expect after having read Hergenhahn’s comments: “Psychology may be defined as the science of mental processes” (Titchener, 1902, p. 7). This formulation does not say very much, but the italicization of the four words indicates how Titchener wanted to emphasize and give each one of them a certain meaning, and the most significant word is process. His point is to underline two aspects of this process. The first is that it can never be understood as a permanent and stable “thing,” only something that is continuously in change. The second aspect he underlines is that psychology “deals always with processes, and never with things” (Titchener, 1902, p. 7). 196

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Titchener’s understanding of experimental psychology strictly follows Wundt in very many respects. But Titchener only cautiously follows Wundt’s core aim: to focus on the elements of sensation in an attempt to build up a full understanding of sensation as the basis for the mental processes. The fundamental question is this: To what extent was this what Wundt advocated? As mentioned above, Wundt underlined wholeness in his understanding of psychology, and by recognizing the limits of experimental psychology by regarding it only as a part of psychology, Wundt indirectly denied an element-based understanding of psychology. However, this is exactly what Titchener focuses on as the principal content of psychology. At the end of An Outline of Psychology, Titchener concludes quite frankly, “We have seen how the developed mind is built up from its elements” (Titchener, 1902, p. 357). This conclusion is a very natural summary, as in the introduction he states that one of the aims of the psychologist is to “analyse concrete (actual) mental experience into its simplest components” (Titchener, 1902, p. 15). An almost atomistic understanding appears when Titchener goes deeper into analyzing the elemental: “When one psychologist says that a process is elemental, other psychologists repeat his analysis for themselves, trying to carry it further than he could do. If they stop short where he did, he was right; if they find his ‘simple’ process to be complex, he was wrong” (Titchener, 1902, p. 17). In this respect, the elements are the bricks that build psychology. Titchener also applies the term “synthesis,” but this is understood as the reverse of movement; i.e., “putting it together again” (Titchener, 1902, p. 17). This is a test of the analysis, in that a synthesis of the elements the analysis ends up with should bring us back to the same entity we started with. Thus “synthesis” is understood very differently compared to how it was applied by Wundt. The term is reserved to concern the scientific method, and there is no room for creativity; in fact, it is the opposite: the synthetic process is just a repetition of the analytic process in the opposite direction, and it does not allow for adding anything else to the process. It is a mechanical process with no human factor added. In this respect, the term “synthesis” stands in opposition to Wundt, and this opposition exemplifies very well the main problem in the translations from German to English, which Judd pointed out. The role of the mind is ignored, and this is a salient trait in Titchener’s understanding of the laws in psychology. In his explanation of Weber’s law, he is exclusively referring to physiological conditions. “The psychological facts embraced under Weber’s law must be brought into connection 197

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with what physiology tells us of the effect produced upon nervous substance by stimuli of different intensities” (Titchener, 1902, p. 96). In this respect, the psychologist’s aim is not just to (1) seek to analyze mental experience into its simplest components, but also “(2) to discover how these elements combine, what are the laws which govern their combination, and (3) to bring them into connection with their physiological (bodily) conditions” (Titchener, 1902, p. 15). There are, in other words, immense differences between Wundt and Titchener in their understanding of what experimental psychology is. Wundt regards it as a device, whereas Tichener sees it as a goal; Wundt suggests parallelism to avoid determinism, whereas Titchener does not regard this as a problem and welcomes a strict causality between physiology and the psychological processes; Wundt defines laws in terms of avoiding causality in a strict sense, whereas Titchener regards laws as including strict causality. These differences are crucial in the understanding of modern psychology, because Titchener made a great impact on the development of the American understanding of psychology, not least through one of his outstanding students, Edwin G. Boring, who wrote A History of Experimental Psychology and many other important publications. Yet the historical presentation Boring gives (Boring, 1929/1950) in which Wundt of course has a central role, is not regarded as having a high degree of fidelity when it comes to the understanding of Wundt. According to the Wundt expert Arthur Blumenthal, very many of the core statements made by Boring contradict Wundt’s own perspective so much that they “were either the opposite of or fundamentally different” (Blumenthal, 1980, p. 118). Thus the most pressing question we must pose is this: Which understanding of psychology can be regarded as the most modern? There are two very different premises for answering this question, namely a pragmatic one and a substantial one, and both of them are valid in practice. The pragmatic premise focuses on what is the most recent understanding, whereas the substantial premise deals with criteria. Seen from a pragmatic perspective, the Titchenerian understanding must be regarded as the most modern. If it is meaningful to talk about a kind of “mainstream psychology,” the Titcherian perspective dominates, in that it is common to at least presuppose causa efficiens as a necessary part of scientific discourse. Also, psychological laws are regarded as being based on physiological causality, and neuroscience is regarded as almost the bottom line in the explanatory power of psy198

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chological phenomena. In this sense, modernity is very much defined in terms of predictability. Autonomy is still an important factor, and as long as predictability is not controlled by the Holy Scriptures but by this understanding of scientific laws and causality, predictability is still a perspective that is included in the framework of modernity. Here is probably the most important difference between modernity and postmodernity. Postmodernity is still a part of modernity, but without the grand narrative that can tell us how the world is and will be. Predictability in science is a part of the grand narrative, because the narrative purports to tell us how the world is and will be. When Wundt has problems with causality and laws in psychology, he is at the same time skeptical of predictability. Without even mentioning the question of the grand narrative, he is at the same time critical of it. He is critical of the Hegelian system, and he is critical of introducing the notion of predictability to the realm of psychology. According to Lyotard’s analysis of postmodernity, predictability is not in harmony with modernity either; it is to be regarded as a reminiscence of a premodern conceptualization of the world. One may say that a substantial understanding of modernity underlines the aspect of autonomy, but also all its consequences, like the dominance of subjectivity, the fundamental conflict between subjectivity and objectivity, and the instability in actual life. This is why Kierkegaard has to be regarded as one of the most elegant representatives of modernity, because he notes all the consequences that follow. But the most interesting aspect of his rationale is how he managed to confirm all the sciences’ self-identities—and, not least, psychology, which he points out as the most outstanding example of what modern science really is all about. On this background, psychology cannot be reduced to any other science, not even physiology or neuroscience. A Science in Crisis There is, however, still an open question about what psychology is seen to be about from a modern perspective. And there are two very different opinions presented here, with Wundt and Titchener forming near stereotypes of the two extremes: one focusing on the particular and multiplicity (Wundt), and the other focusing on universals and oneness (Titchener). These perspectives stand in clear opposition to each other, but according to Kierkegaard there is no winner or loser here. Psychology is admittedly about the particular, but as soon as the pretensions allow it be a science, which Kierkegaard discusses, then universals come in as an unavoidable premise. If we ignore Kierkegaard 199

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for a moment, this conflict was approached by Karl Bühler in 1927 with Die Krise der Psychology, in its second edition in 1929 (Bühler, 1965). However, in 1926 Bühler had already published an article under the same title in the journal Kant-Studien (Bühler, 1926). In this article, he is quite clear that the crisis has been a part of modern psychology since Descartes and Locke. Despite their differences, they had a common idea about presenting psychology in terms of a closed system. However, the unfeasibility of these ambitions was very early realized, and by this “the crisis in psychology became acute” [Und erst durch sie ist die Krise der Psychologie akut geworden] (Bühler, 1926, p. 459). In the work of the following year, Bühler elaborated upon the crisis in psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is important to underline that the crisis is not only related to the differences between German and English traditions in psychology; it is also embodied in the psychology as such. This conflict can easily be traced in German psychology, and Bühler refers to a German thesis written by Eduard Spranger in 1926, which aims to emphasize the unity of psychology. Spranger was highly influenced by Wilhelm Dilthey, and his systematization of five different dichotomies of perspective permeated psychology at that time: (1) explanation versus understanding, (2) the inductive versus the idiographic, (3) the psychology of elements versus structural psychology, (4) psychology free of meaning versus meaning-dependent psychology, and (5) psychology defined as a natural science versus psychology defined as a human science. [“Ich nenne als viel erörtete Gegensätze: 1) Die erklärende und die verstehende Psychologie, 2) die inductive and die ‘einsichtige’ Psychologie, 3) die Psychologie der Elemente und die Strukturpsychologie, 4) die sinnfreie und die sinnbezogene Psychologie, 5) die naturwissenschaftliche und die geisteswissenschaftliches Psychologie” (Bühler, 1965, p. 69).] The most interesting aspect of this systematization is that the internal conflict within psychology is so clearly described. Yet it is also an important point that these five dichotomies represent five different perspectives. This implies that a psychology can shift sides depending on which aspect we are referring to. Wundt is even an example that shows that one psychologist can change perspective with regard to the same aspect. He sometimes has an explanatory approach, and at other times the approach can be rather interpretative. Because of this, it is hard to sort out the “bad guys” from the “good guys” in psychology. However, there is an explicit goal to overcome the dilemmas and the conflicts within psychology. So it is also for Bühler. “According to Bühler, the correct 200

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way would be to go back to the multidimensionality of the ‘psychical [sic]’ itself ” (Cassirer, 1996, p. 151). Without making any references to Kierkegaard, Bühler deals with the same conflict that appears at once when the object of psychology becomes the unification of the multiplicity of life and certain universal aspects of it. In this respect, Bühler is talking about the object of psychology as the still “unnamed unity” (Bühler, 1926, p. 466). [“Gegenstand der Psychologie ist die noch unbenannte Einheit, zu der die Erlebnisse, das sinnvolle Benehmen der Lebewesen und ihre Korrelation zu den Gebilden des objektiven Geistes als die konstitutiven Momente gehören” (Bühler, 1926, p. 466.)] This is exactly the same as what Kierkegaard is suggesting when he, in even more expressive terms, says that psychology invites one to “intoxicate itself in the foaming multifariousness of life” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 23) but at the same time is the science of observation (Kierkegaard, 2009a). Kierkegaard has no other way of overcoming this gap than referring to the dialectical relationship between them. The conflict is not resolved by dialectics, but the two parts are at least related to each other. As a matter of fact, this seems to be the same solution Bühler also ends up with, which Cassirer indicates too. It is not so clearly articulated in the book of 1927, but more directly so in his article of 1926: “The resolution of the crisis must conclusively be a synthesis” [“Die Lösung der Krise wird also eine Synthesis sein müssen” (Bühler, 1926, p. 486).] And this is, of course, the dilemma of modern psychology as a science; i.e., combining the particular with the universal. The crisis is still regarded as salient in modern psychology because of this combination of two incompatible entities, and Kierkegaard was probably the first to point out this quandary within the framework of modernity.

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11 Kierkegaard and Modern Science Kierkegaard was, no doubt, an extreme thinker. And being extreme compels the thinker to pursue the consequences of a principle or a premise to the bitter end. This is exactly what Kierkegaard did. The principles or premises that made him so extreme are not based on theology or metaphysics but on empirical psychology. He was not only a religious thinker; he pursued the principle of particularity. If such a thing as particularity exists in the world, what can be said about what it is? This is the fundamental question Kierkegaard posed, and he ended up with one of the most original, radical, and enlightening contributions to Western thinking ever made. However, Kierkegaard did little more than take into account what psychology really was thought to be about, which was examining the role of perception. Yet perception is not just an innocent, isolated phenomenon, suitable for informal small talk and sloppy chatter. To include perception in science represents an earthquake; it turns everything upside down, in that subjectivity forms the basis and multiplicity and chaos are the outcomes. This stands in stark contrast to our ideals and expectations of science, which stands for objectivity and complete order. This divided, unresolved situation still characterizes science today. There are many paradoxes we simply have to swallow and live with, despite the fact that the embedded contradictions are almost screaming for answers. This implies that the crises we find in psychology are not restricted to psychology, but that they affect the philosophy of science as well as all the sciences. The reason is that psychology is not just a scientific discipline beside the other sciences; it is the science that allows for observation and scientific, empirical orientation in general. This is the historical role psychology had in metaphysics, yet it is not simply a historical truth. Some systematic aspects of this role are still valid too, particularly the fact that observation is based on perception, 203

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and perception is about particularity, and this stands in opposition to the general, which is the main characteristic of scientific knowledge. This is why paradoxes embedded in psychology are also present in all scientific knowledge, as long as an empirical component is included. One of the most dominating paradoxes we are living with in the framework of modernity is the role of induction as a basis for scientific knowledge. There are probably reasons to assert that “induction” is the term that most precisely summarizes the essential hallmarks of the modern revolution. It is the procedure that opens up inferring from the particular to the general, which is the inference that Aristotle and almost all logicians after him rejected because it is invalid from a logical point of view. Nevertheless, if a sense impression forms the basis for knowledge, induction appears as a necessary link between the particular and the general. This is why it actually has become a necessary component in the modern era. Cartesian doubt is a rejection of all given general knowledge. In other words, the modern revolution, in this respect, is a change in focus from the general to the particular as the basis for knowledge. Thus induction also includes the change from a dependent to an independent way of thinking. The individual is no longer dependent on biblical texts, a given cosmology, or ontology to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is not primarily given in books at all, but instead by experiencing how the world is by sensing it. The individual has become an autonomous entity who has direct access to the basis for knowledge through one’s own experiences; therefore, subjectivity is included when we refer to induction. However, there is another aspect embedded in the term “induction,” and that is predictability. Induction is the process that brings knowledge of the particular to a general level. This process ensures predictability, not according to general laws, but according to the fact that what happens will likely happen again. This is not a logical inference, but rather a sort of expectation, which might be based on a lot of different issues. Kierkegaard focuses on some of these in Repetition, which addressed the problem directly as belonging to the realm of psychology. The understanding of the role of induction has gone through a historical change that must be characterized as radical. This is clear when we take into account how Aristotle looked at induction. Yet induction is not easy to understand when it comes to Aristotle, because he seems to make two contradictory statements about this term. He states that induction is a necessary condition for acquiring knowledge 204

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by learning through the senses, “since we learn either by induction or by demonstration” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book 1, Part 18). When he brings in demonstration, he is making an important distinction between “top-down” knowledge and “bottom-up” knowledge. The latter is general knowledge based on sense impressions, whereas the former is the opposite, being general knowledge given a priori that can be demonstrated by example. This implies that Aristotle admits we can get knowledge from sense impressions by means of induction. But in the same paragraph, he states that when it comes to the particulars, “they cannot be objects of scientific knowledge” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book 1, Part 18). The reasons he gives for this are slightly circular when seen from a pair of modern eyes, and he goes on to say “neither can universals give us knowledge of them without induction, nor can we get it through induction without sense-perception” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book 1, Part 18). This formulation states that neither sense perception nor induction qualifies as being scientific knowledge. Thus Aristotle makes a clear distinction between knowledge and scientific knowledge: “We think we have scientific knowledge if we have reasoned from true and primary premisses [sic]” (Aristotle: Posterior Analytics, Book 1, Part 9). Sense impressions, in other words, do not qualify as being “true and primary” premises, and induction therefore does not qualify as a basis for obtaining scientific knowledge. There are parallels between Aristotle and Kant in this respect, and they are important for the understanding of the historical development of this theme. Kant’s notion of pure reason also focuses on general knowledge, which is given a priori, and he regards this form of knowledge as a criterion for what could be called scientific knowledge. On the other hand, he was challenged by the fact that perception already had intervened and had been a factor in science historically. This is why he focuses so much on the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. Empirical statements are always synthetic. However, synthetic statements given a priori form a kind of bridge between the general and the particular, between what is theoretically and what is empirically given. Although he had great influence on the future, Kant did not succeed in bridging the gap between the theoretical and the empirical completely. But Aristotle’s and Kant’s ideals are still traceable, in the sense that scientific knowledge is believed to be characterized by being general and based on necessary inferences. The change that appeared after Kant was that induction appeared as a bridge between empirical and theoretical aspects of scientific knowledge. Starting with 205

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the particular and ending up with general statements characterizes induction. The acceptance of induction in science did not represent a sudden change, and as late as in the 1870s Karl Rosenkranz attacked a widespread but illogical use of the term “induction”: “Now-a-days nothing is spoken of except the inductive method. [. . .] What has science become under the design of proceeding in the inductive method? An entirely methodless, inorganic reflection, narration—an entirely capricious combination—in which the reader must be glad if the authors show that they have not wholly forgotten the principles of formal logic, and at least, attend to a fixed order” (Rosenkranz and Davidson, 1871, p. 250). In a sense, this critique is in accordance with the Aristotelian use of the term. According to Aristotle, induction is not regarded as a logical, valid form of inference, but rather as something else. Although he discusses this in the Analytics, it is primarily to show that induction does not belong to scientific knowledge. According to Aristotle, induction belongs rather to the field of rhetoric, and therefore it is given a lot of attention there instead. This is because, in speeches, we probably most often refer to a certain example as an argument for some general knowledge that can be drawn from this example. This is why Aristotle says that the example “is an induction,” and he continues, “I call [. . .] the example a rhetorical induction” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book 1, Part 2). The historical change that took place during the first three hundred years after the appearance of modernity was, among other things, that different forms of knowledge based on rhetoric became accepted as a part of scientific knowledge. This can be recognized in different subjects, but here it is demonstrated through induction, which epistemologically was originally restricted to rhetoric; but during the age of modernity it became accepted as a scientific device, even for the so-called objective sciences, such as physics. In this respect, one can probably accept Adorno as right and admit that even the relationship and borderline between the subjective and objective can be regarded as historically given. In Aristotle’s time, induction was not regarded as a part of what they would call objective knowledge, whereas today induction is almost presented as a criterion of demarcation for objective knowledge. The latter is principally related to statistical significance, in the sense that the use of statistics forms the main argument for drawing general conclusions based on a certain (and therefore limited) amount of data. Admittedly, induction is seldom mentioned in the statistical procedure; however, all likeliness, which 206

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is the core issue in statistics, is about induction. Statistics is always a case of an inference from the particular to the general. In this respect, one may say that the scientific ideals have changed historically, and as long as science is still regarded as containing an ideal of objectivity, the distinction between the objective and the subjective has changed. Does this historical fact imply that Kierkegaard’s doctrine of a clear and almost universal distinction between the objective and the subjective is ready to collapse? This may seem so, but as a matter of fact, some distinctions have to be made. What has changed over time is the role of induction in science, not our understanding of induction itself. Induction is still regarded as an invalid logical inference, in the sense that everyone would agree with the fact that it is valid to infer from the general to the particular, but not from the particular to the general. “Socrates is mortal, because it is an obvious premise that all human are mortal” is an acceptable statement. “All swans are white, because all the swans I have observed so far are white” is not an acceptable statement, because it is based on my highly limited experience, which does not include the experience of black swans, which actually do exist. These are the elementary principles for logic that Rosenkranz refers to, being that the order is not irrelevant when we talk about inferences between the general and the particular. It is still acceptable to infer from the general to the particular, but not the other way around. This order is an objective constraint that is impossible to violate without at the same time violating rational thinking. In this sense, there are still some aspects that constrain our way of thinking, and these constraints are what form “the objective” in Kierkegaardian thinking. To what extent these constraints are historically given is, of course, an open question, but induction is at least not a good example for demonstrating that the distinction between the subjective and the objective is historically given. It is rather the opposite; induction is a good example for demonstrating that the distinction between the subjective and the objective is not historically given. The same is the case when it comes to the term “evidence” and how this term is applied. “Evidence” has also gone through a historical change, but the change in understanding appeared much later compared to the case of “induction.” Today one talks about evidence-based practice (EBP) in terms of “an approach to health care wherein health professionals use the best evidence possible, i.e., the most appropriate information available, to make clinical decisions for individual patients” (McKibbon, 1998, p. 396). The term “evidence-based practice” is highly 207

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related to the aspects of the particular and the general. Yet the question is in which order these aspects appear and, by this order, give reasons for an adequate or inadequate use of the term “evidence.” In the quotation above, the general and the particular are given in a certain logical order. The point of departure is the “best evidence possible” (particular), from which a general “approach to health care” is derived (general), which is applied “to make clinical decisions for individual patients” (particular). To examine whether this order is in accordance with historical use, again Aristotle’s Analytics is a good source. However, he does not use “evidence” as a strict term at the same level as “induction”; the term is instead associated with what is obvious or necessarily given. When the term is applied in the Analytics, it appears in two different contexts, which generate two different meanings. One is when it is related to syllogisms, and the other is when it is related to a sense impression. Aristotle is primarily interested in the role of syllogisms in the Analytics, and the nature of a syllogism is that it is evidently given “if the major premiss [sic] is universal”—that is, when the first premise is general— whereas “if the minor is universal nothing at all can ever be proved” (Aristotle, Prior Analytics, Book 1, Part 15). The order of the premises is crucial for the outcome, and this is evidently given in the sense that to infer from the general to the particular is a self-evident, valid inference, whereas an inference from the particular to the general is not. In other words, the term “evidence” is applied when an inference is obviously valid. “Evidence” is not a part of the syllogism, but it refers to a logical capacity of the mind, which decides if the inference qualifies as being a syllogism or not. In this sense, it forms the human capacity on which the syllogisms are based. However, criteria that govern this capacity are the same as for the syllogism, being an inference from the general to the particular. In the quotation above, the movement is from the particular to the general and back to the particular. This is instead an inductive inference supplied with a practical purpose. Thus, according to Aristotle, EBP cannot be regarded as scientific knowledge, but rather an approach in acquiring practical knowledge. But there is ambiguity in the term “evidence,” and this is also revealed in Aristotle’s texts. For example, when he says, “The existence of hot and cold is more evident than that of number” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book 1, Part 10), he is referring to what is most evidently given in the immediate sense impression. This is definitely about the particular. Yet the sense impression is not a well-defined entity, but rather a complex experience. Tasting, smelling, or touching an object produces what 208

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Kant calls subjective sense impressions. They are immediate but not always easy to put into words. These immediate sense impressions are what John Locke called secondary sense qualities. What Locke calls primary sense qualities and Kant relates to the objective senses, such as sight and hearing, is related to numbers, in the sense that these senses can give us some details about size and form. Thus the double meaning that is embedded in the term “evidence” can be related both to the premodern and the modern scientific ideal. As long as evidence is related to the general, namely the self-evident in a syllogism, the term reflects the premodern scientific ideal; whereas when it refers to the obvious aspects—the fact and the particular—the term corresponds to a scientific ideal that belongs to modernity and postmodernity. However, the premodern scientific ideal of generality is still present in modernity, and this is probably the reason why terms like “evidence” and “induction” are so salient in the modern era. They stand for a kind of self-contradictory ambiguity that characterizes modernity. By applying such ambiguous terms, a kind of immediate unification of the general and the particular is more or less achieved at the same time. This is also why these terms were so criticized during the last century. The scientific ideals of modernity represent a problematic combination of the general and the particular, and the use of these ambiguous terms conceals the problems they imply. Other terms may have the same function in a modern scientific discourse and can likely be included here—terms such as “description” and “explanation,” for example. When it comes to scientific discourse, there is no doubt that some historical changes have come about; yet this does not imply that everything is historical. Even Kierkegaard is aware of the tendency in modern philosophy to look at everything as historical. Yet when he comments on this, he primarily refers to Hegel: “We have here the whole misunderstanding that crops up again and again in modern philosophy: letting the eternal become historical as a matter of course, and being able to grasp the necessity of the historical” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 83). According to Kierkegaard, there is a fundamental distinction between what is historically given and what is not. History is about changes, and changes are unpredictable, and that is why everything “that becomes historical is contingent” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 83). This statement is based on a fundamental suggestion that states of movement and change must be regarded as consequences of the discrepancy between the general and the particular—the eternal and temporality. Thus the historical stands in opposition to the eternal. Kierkegaard makes a 209

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fundamental distinction between necessity and contingency. According to Kierkegaard, the historical has to be characterized by contingency, because “nothing comes into being necessarily” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 83). If the historical is characterized by contingency, the eternal is given with necessity. But the eternal is nothing we experience in our daily lives; it is given with necessity by thinking. Thus Kierkegaard does not reject thinking and necessity, but he consistently sorts things out and puts them in categories to which they belong. This is also true when it comes to logic. Logic is a sphere that belongs to thinking alone and has nothing to do with the lives we are living. “If a man occupies himself throughout his whole life solely with logic, that does not make him into logic. He himself therefore exists in other categories” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 79). This statement sounds like an obvious and probably redundant statement, but as a matter of fact, the mismatch he is referring to happens to be exactly the same as that when induction is applied in scientific discourse. The particular exists in other categories than the general, and no matter how many particularities inductive reasoning deals with, it will never jump into the category of the general. Induction will always remain in the realm of particularity. It does not help very much to introduce other terms— like “evidence,” for example—that just conceal the distinction between the two categories and make it look as if the differences between the general and the particular do not exist. The considerations Kierkegaard delivers about the historical are important. They are founded on several premises. The one mentioned here—that everything that becomes historical is at the same time contingent—is only a half-truth. A logical problem forms its basis, particularly the one Constantin Constantius presents in the opening paragraph of Repetition: “When the Eleatics denied motion, Diogenes, as everyone knows, came forward in protest, actually came forward, because he did not say a word, but simply walked back and forth a few times, with which gesture he believed he had sufficiently refuted the Eleatic position” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 3.) This opening phrase forms the basic problem that all the successive works pursue and discuss. The point is that on the one hand, movement is regarded as contingent and not with necessity. This is a necessary conclusion when it comes to the condition of the human being, because a human being is necessarily free; however, freedom is not a premise but rather a conclusion. It is a necessary consequence of the fact that man is divided between the particular and the general, between temporality 210

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and the eternal. That is why Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Anxiety, talks about freedom as something contingent and given by necessity (Kierkegaard, 1980a). Existential life for man is contingent on necessity. This relationship between contingency and necessity is also true for history because the same premises that count for human beings also count for history. Admittedly Kierkegaard is defining psychology as being very close to history, and the reason is that history is very much defined in terms of human activity. This was the main problem when history appeared as a science in the early eighteenth century. One of the main issues Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) pursued when he talked about “the new science” was specifically the relationship between the universal and the particular (Vico, 1996). History is about change and stands in opposition to stability and the universal. By questioning the universality of natural law, Vico discloses its embedded contradiction by demonstrating that natural law is also based on some historical premises. What is even more important is that these premises have to be understood if the law is to be understood properly. This is, in other words, another problem concerning the universal versus the particular. The understanding of a phenomenon is general, whereas the historical premise for the same phenomenon is particular. As Daniel Stern indicates, dynamic aspects of human experiences are “rarely talked about” (Stern, 2010, p. 3), but that is in contemporary psychology. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was definitely a very hot topic. Stern’s comment reveals that the historical point of departure for psychology has been almost forgotten. According to Kierkegaard, one may say that it was psychology that introduced the dynamic forces to the philosophical sphere in Western civilization. It is psychology that is the science “which indeed more than any other is allowed almost to intoxicate itself in the foaming multifariousness of life” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 23). Originally psychology was the science of vitality. But the consequences are so extensive and shocking that it still must be repeated that this is exactly what psychology is and always has been about: immediate vitality in life and in the existence of each individual. Constraints versus Causality According to Kierkegaard, freedom is a sine qua non for human life. Yet it is given by necessity and therefore not simply a result of the individual’s need, and one cannot just opt out of it. Freedom is a constraining 211

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condition for human life, which is given with logical necessity based on several premises: Premise 1: Necessity is given by universals. Premise 2: The particular provides only particular knowledge.

As long as these premises are valid at the same time, some conclusions are also given: 1. As long as lives are lived in their particularity, general knowledge derived from experience is contingent and not given by necessity. 2. If our acts and behavior are regulated by knowledge, there is at least one sort that is not given by necessity; i.e., knowledge based on experiences. 3. If some of our thoughts and intentions are not given by necessity, these thoughts and intentions are impossible to predict. 4. If something is impossible to predict, it is free.

Despite the fact that Kierkegaard avoids developing a certain ontology, freedom is an ontological constraint for human life that one cannot ignore. Two aspects appear important in this method of reasoning. One is that the occasional and the random are factors in human life, and the other is that some aspects of necessity also play a role. The one does not exclude the other’s existence, despite the fact that they actually contradict each other. This is the most important aspect of Kierkegaard’s philosophy in general, but probably even more when it comes to his understanding of psychology, because psychology is the science that provides the basis for saying this. Most of the other sciences refer to spheres in life, which are governed by necessity, whereas psychology refers to the sphere, which is not. However, these two spheres are separated. The borderline between the two spheres is at the same time a guide for sorting out the different sciences. Thus logic is one of the spheres given by necessity, because it is always derived from general knowledge, whereas psychology represents a sphere in which necessity is excluded, because it is about man’s experiences of the particular. This is why psychology by necessity has serious problems with causality, and this is also why Wundt omits it. Causality is about necessity, in the sense that a cause is a sine qua non. Wundt’s idea about “psychophysical parallelism” is a clever way of highlighting the difference between the physical and the psychological. The former is governed by causality, and the latter is not. Yet the expression emphasizes something more as well. When Wundt says that the psychological is related to the physical by never contradicting it, he is pointing out some constraining factors 212

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that are given by the physical surroundings. Physiology influences the psychological, but it does not determine it. The quality of the eyes and the ears, of course, influences what we see and hear, but accounting for these qualities is not sufficient to explain all our visions and reveries. Having eyes is not even a necessary condition for having vision. This is why children may say that listening to the radio provides better images than what they actually see on television. Such expression forms the logic of synesthesia, which is principally about an additional aspect of a sense impression that is not a physical part of the actual sense object (Werner and Kaplan, 1964). Seeing colors by hearing certain letters is not a necessary aspect of the sense impression, but it is something that enriches the experience, and it is never in contrast with it. For those who have this capacity, it also appears as if it is given by necessity. However, this is just one aspect of what Wundt called the principle of creative synthesis, namely the capacity of creating something more out of a sense impression than what is objectively given by it. Wundt presented this principle when he talked about psychological laws. His point was to demonstrate that there are some constraining factors, and these factors may even exist by necessity, but the outcome of their influence is never given by necessity. This is precisely what constraining factors are about. They are inevitable conditions that have great influence on human life, but their outcomes are unpredictable. However, the interesting aspect of such constraints is not that they make the outcome unpredictable, but rather the opposite: how they restrict our freedom of action. Despite the fact that human beings are free, their options are still highly limited. A full list of constraining factors is impossible to give, yet there are some factors that are more obvious than others. One of them is what Wundt focused on, namely physiology. This must be regarded as belonging to a broader group of regulating factors, which are all the constraints that are given by nature. Natural constraints are all of the positively given factors in the physical environment that influence and, by this, restrict the individual’s sphere of action. Logic is another constraining factor that may have influence on the individual’s sphere of action. This is an area that primarily influences our way of thinking, but logic may also be a constraining factor for manifest behavior. The same must be said about morality, which forms the third constraining factor focused on here. There are many other constraining factors that may be taken into account, but the natural, logical, and moral constraints are probably the three most important regulating factors for human behavior. 213

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Natural constraints may appear on different levels. Physiology is just one, but it is probably the most inevitable constraining factor for the individual. Yet all other aspects of nature are constraining factors. An individual is located in a certain place on the earth, with a certain climate, with a certain place to live, and with a certain repertoire of devices. The list of all natural constraining factors is, of course, very long, or even endless. But the longer the list is, the more unique and specified is the situation. Yet this is also true the other way around: the more specified the situation is, the more diluted is the generality of the constraining factors. The apple does not fall unless the apple stem releases its attachment to the branch. In other words, by taking all of the natural constraining factors into account, the outcome is a kind of subversion of the general aspects of the situation. The general physical laws may count as factors as long as the situation is not specified. As a matter of fact, gravity, understood as a universal law, makes the world in general very dangerous. By necessity, it makes it highly dangerous to pass a building or a large tree, because the law of gravity says that something above the surface of the soil will fall down, and one can, of course, be broken. However, this is a general risk, and it very seldom happens. Our strategy is that we calculate the likelihood of the risk by taking into account as many actual factors as possible. By considering all of the actual factors, we draw a conclusion that tells us that to pass this tree or house is not dangerous at all, but quite safe in reality. We do this in spite of the fact that the law of gravity says that everything will be dragged toward the center of the earth. Apparently natural constraints should be of the general type, but in practice this is a fallacy. This example demonstrates the opposite: the more universal the statement, the less constraining it is; however, the more specified the situation is, the more constraining it is. This implies that nature is not necessarily given as a general and stable premise. And this is Windelband’s point when he talks about a distinction between nomothetic and idiographic knowledge (Windelband, 1998). This is not a distinction between different sciences but a distinction between different forms of knowledge. Thus natural science might generate nomothetic knowledge, such as the law of gravity, for instance. Yet this is not the only form of knowledge derived from nature, because it can generate idiographic knowledge in addition. This is exactly what is demonstrated in the example above. By specifying a natural situation, it appears as a certain case that characterizes idiographic knowledge. Windelband takes this a step further 214

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by saying that idiographic knowledge is mainly related to history. However, this does not mean that history does not include nature. In the eighteenth century it was more common to refer to the historical aspects of nature by referring to “natural history” rather than “botany,” “zoology,” or “geology” (Gunnerus, 1758). The reason is that our understanding of all these natural phenomena can refer to some aspects of development and are inevitably also perceived in a time perspective. Time and space are combined, in the sense that some synchronic and some diachronic aspects manifest at the same time. Solely to take into account the synchronic aspects, as if time did not exist, would be an abstraction. According to Windelband, this is exactly what characterizes nomothetic knowledge: it is an abstraction. This is the same type of abstraction Wundt talks about: an abstraction away from the subject. This implies that the differences between nomothetic and idiographic knowledge are not related to the differences between the humanities and the natural sciences, but instead to abstraction away from the subject. This abstraction may appear in the humanities as well. The point here is that by uncovering nature as a constraining factor, one has to deal with idiographic knowledge, because the constraining factors are perceived factors and therefore strongly related to the subject. They are experienced as constraining, and in this sense idiographic knowledge is strongly related to psychology. This is why Windelband says “all purposeful activity in communal human life [is] dependent upon the experiences of historical knowledge” (Windelband, 1998, p. 17), and in this sense all purposeful activity is idiographic. Constraining factors are not only related to idiographic knowledge. When the apple stem is released from the branch, the apple will necessarily fall down to the ground. The general law of gravity is, of course, a constraining factor as well, but when it comes to nature, the specified aspects of a certain situation seem to be even stronger factors. This is also why the skeptics, with David Hume at the forefront, deny the necessity of a sunrise and explain our expectations about cause and effect as being based on habit: “It is by habit we make the transition from cause to effect” (Hume, 1738/1961, p. 152). Hume denied general knowledge based on sense impressions, and his argumentation is a strong line of reasoning against induction. In this sense, Hume’s radical empiricism paradoxically confirms logic as a constraining factor for thinking. Although he was a spokesman for psychologism, his argumentation can also be regarded as a confirmation of the fact that psychology and logic have to be regarded as two very different sciences. 215

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This is the conclusion that Kierkegaard draws. And in one respect, there is a similarity between Hume and Kierkegaard: they both draw a radical conclusion from the fact that sense impressions cannot provide any general understanding. However, the differences between the two are even more important. Hume draws the conclusion that logic and other sorts of general knowledge cannot exist. By explaining general knowledge by habits, similarities, and associations, the general is reduced to psychology in a limited sense. Logic is not regarded as a part of rational psychology but of the empirical. In this respect, Hume makes the same mistake and fallacy as did Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel by reducing all the different sciences into only one perspective. However, for Hume this perspective was not given by rational psychology; he only focuses on empirical psychology. In Britain they did not have any tradition of dividing psychology into rational and empirical fields, so in this respect it was natural not to take rational psychology into consideration. And this was exactly what Kierkegaard did as well. However, in opposition to Hume and the systematic thinkers of German idealism, he separated out empirical psychology because of its radical differences from all the other sciences. That is why Kierkegaard ended up with a clear distinction between psychology and logic. According to Kierkegaard, logic is an inevitable factor in our lives. When we think about it, life is subject to a logical assessment. This is still provided for in psychology, not only from a cognitive perspective, but also when psychology deals with the more irrational aspects of the mind. Yet when thinking is regarded from a developmental perspective, the strict boundaries between logic as a general science and subjective experiences are slightly blurred. This forms the background for Piaget’s theory of stages. According to David Elkind, Piaget demonstrates that all intelligence and thinking follow a logical structure (Elkind, 1973). On the other hand, Piaget underlines that intelligence “is an adaption” (Piaget, 1977, p. 15). These statements contradict each other due to the fact that stability contradicts movement. In other words, Piaget puts the same paradox on the agenda as Kierkegaard discusses in Repetition. From this perspective, the statement from Elkind is highly consistent with the statement from Piaget. Logic is a part of thinking, and in this sense, it is a theoretical science. From a Kierkegaardian perspective, logic cannot be defined as a part of actual life, but it is an inevitable reference by which all the multifarious aspects of life are sorted and assessed. In this sense, logic can be regarded as a regulative idea, and that is why Aristotle defined the human being as a rational animal. 216

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Rational thinking is something that comes in addition to actual life. This is also why development is a great challenge when it comes to understanding the human being. On the one hand, development is a self-evident aspect of life, but on the other it is very seldom included in our understanding. This is why the so-called Leipzig school of Gestalt psychology, with Felix Krueger, Friedrich Sander, and Hans Volkelt, was more focused on development than simply perception. This was a difference between them and the Berlin school, and the Leipzig scholars approached the old problem Kierkegaard deals with in Repetition; i.e., to what extent can our existence be described in terms of movements and changes? The Berlin school abstracted perception from development, whereas the Leipzig school tried to include change as a factor in one’s lifespan. This was not an easy task, and Heinz Werner—the core developer of the Hamburg School, who regarded growth as a movement from an undifferentiated to a differentiated state—contributed one of the most elaborate presentations of the role of development ever given. Werner does not make this contradiction between movement and stability easier to understand, but he focuses on some elements that underline the fact that psychological processes are to be understood as something that cannot be comprehended in terms of logic. Logic is about differentiation, and if thinking is just an undifferentiated whole, there will be no space for logical thinking. According to Werner, differentiation and its absence in thinking can be compared to the relationship between the parts and the whole in the organic world. “The more perfect the creature becomes, the less similar become the [morphological] parts to one another. On the one genetic pole, the whole is more or less similar to the parts, and on the other the whole is dissimilar to its parts. The more nearly equal parts, the less are they subordinated one to another. Subordination of the parts indicates a perfect creature” (Werner, 1957, p. 40f ). Thus development is very much about creating differentiation and subordination, not only when it comes to the organic parts, but even more so when it comes to the structure of thinking. The small child often makes connections and sees similarities that can be hard for an adult to follow and understand. As long as the impressions are not differentiated and sorted into a hierarchical order, thinking appears illogical and irrational. The immediate form of thinking is therefore not logical, and this is exactly what both Piaget and Werner have to take into account when they investigate development. Yet both of them regard logic as a regulating aspect to which the goal for all development is compared. 217

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Development is an aspect Kierkegaard deals with as well. This was just as important to him as it was for the Leipzig and Hamburg schools. However, Kierkegaard’s approach is slightly different. Whereas both schools can be regarded as reactions to the psychology of the Berlin school, development appears as a necessary conclusion in Kierkegaard’s reasoning. There are two forms of reasoning, due to the fact that there are two forms of truths. One is empirical, and the other is idealistic. Yet empirical truth is the psychological, whereas idealistic truth is the universal truth that is given by logic and all the universal sciences. The empirical and the idealistic stand in opposition and even contradict each other. On the one hand each individual’s real life appears as uncomplete and by this is, on the other hand, subordinated the completeness of an abstract being. This is the conflict between existence and thinking, and the truth will be defined either in terms of “agreement of thought with being” (i.e. empirical) or “agreement of being with thought” (i.e. idealistic) (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 159). The fundamental problem is that being and thought do not coincide, especially when it comes to development and change. To investigate what being is about, psychology is the device, and this tells us that development and change are inevitable aspects of being. This is an empirical truth, and this form of truth is “posed in terms of becoming, since the empirical object is unfinished and the existing cognizing spirit itself is on the way to being” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 159). This is another way of formulating development. Kierkegaard seems to share the same perspective as Piaget on development, such that there are some definable goals that the individual growth is striving toward, but these are defined by the universal sciences and not primarily by psychology. These goals, therefore, are constraining factors, whereas the psychological aspects of the development are characterized by individual freedom. Some of the most constraining factors in human behavior are, of course, norms and morality. Because of this, it is both astonishing and remarkable how much ethics is ignored as a factor in psychological studies. One scholar who has commented on this, and therefore represents an important exception, is the Danish psychologist Svend Brinkmann. He has tried to argue for defining psychology as a moral science by emphasizing the term “space of reason,” which stands in opposition to “space of causation” (Brinkmann, 2011, p. 4). The point is that human behavior is primarily regulated by this “space of reasoning,” which presupposes both logic and ethics as a basis for how free will is restrained and human behavior is narrowed down to certain patterns 218

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that make it rational and, because of this, even predictable most of the time. Yet according to Kierkegaard, psychology and ethics have to be defined as two very different sciences. Due to the terminology recently mentioned, psychology is about empirical truth, whereas ethics is about idealistic truth. Nevertheless, ethics is so closely related to psychology that it is difficult to draw an exact borderline between them. One may even say that ethics forms the bridge between abstract and universal thinking on the one hand and actual existing on the other. This is why Kierkegaard devoted a huge part of the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” to what he calls “ethical subjectivity” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 252), which sounds like a contradiction, which indeed it is, because ethics is about reconciliation of the two incompatible extremes formed by the universal and the particular. This is why ethics is so important. It reveals the actual situation in which the human being is placed—that is, in existence. “Existence is that child born of the infinite and the finite, the eternal and the temporal, and is therefore constantly striving” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 78). This aspect of striving is primarily connected to this situation of being in between. But at the same time, it is a kind of quality that is characterized by a core term in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, namely inderlighed. Despite the fact that it is almost consistently translated as “inwardness,” inderlighed is about passion, fervor, or something that comes from the bottom of one’s heart. Thus inderlighed is the main hallmark of subjectivity, and it stands in opposition to objectivity, which is characterized by indifference. This is why subjective thinking “has a different kind of reflection, namely the reflection of inwardness [inderlighed], of possession, by virtue of which it belongs to the subject and to no other” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 62). This implies a kind of double reflection, because in thinking, “he thinks the universal, but as existing in this thinking, as assimilating this in his inwardness [inderlighed], he becomes more and more subjectively isolated” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 62). This is also the sphere in which ethics exists. “In order to study the ethical, every human being is assigned to himself ” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 118). This is why the ethical person is very often portrayed as comical, as in Stages on Life’s Way, for example. The ethical is both subjective and incomplete, but it is highly related to the complete and the absolute. “Whoever does not grasp the eternal validity of the ethical, even if it concerned him alone in all the world, does not really grasp the ethical” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 119). This is why the Latin expression sub specie æternitatis—under the perspective of eternity—becomes so 219

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important. Eternity is a reference for everyone, and all acts are regarded from this perspective. Despite the fact that the acts are just founded in subjective isolation, they are regarded in a broader and general perspective, which has nothing to do with reality or real existence. “It is only in a fantastical sense that someone existing can be constantly sub specie aeterni” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 275). This is a more general way of articulating a golden rule from the bible or Kant’s categorical imperative, being that all acts have to be regarded as if they could stand forever and be approved and appreciated by everyone. This perspective of eternity is crucial when it comes to an understanding of the Kierkegaardian subjective ethical. Eternity forms a landmark in life, to which the whole is oriented. However, existence is not a part of eternity, and eternity therefore is a reference that goes beyond existence. Thus the subjective ethical is just an approximation, in which eternity forms some kind of an absolute point of orientation. In this sense, morality is not conventionally given, but at the same time it is not an absolute or a historical entity. This can probably best be described by a distinction Brinkmann indicates, being that morality is a kind of “non-conventional normativity” (Brinkmann, 2011, p. 1), but it is at the same time “conversational” (p. 2). The former refers to some abstract absolutes, whereas the latter refers to actuality. The unification of the unconventional and conversation may sound like a contradiction, but it is not. Kierkegaard is warning us against mixing up approximations with the historical. In the same way as language is changing, “each age has its own moral substance” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 120), but this does not mean that morality is historically given. There are two reasons why he warns us against mixing up morality and history. One is the fact that they are two very different spheres, with very different genealogy. History is generated from actuality, whereas morality is generated from ideality. The other reason for Kierkegaard’s caution is Hegel, who defined history as the final explanatory reason for everything. By doing this he transformed history from subjective actuality to objective abstraction. This is what makes Hegel “objectively superior” and not “satisfied with the so-called subjective-ethical” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 120). In this sense, it is reasonable to highlight the consistency in Kierkegaard’s thinking. Because ethics is about actual acts, it has to be subjective; but it is derived from ideality, especially in terms of the sub specie aeternitatis—under the eyes of eternity. By focusing on the space of reason and defining ethics as an aspect of this space, we are facing a new problem when it comes to 220

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the understanding of psychology. Psychology is very often defined in terms of behavior. This is not restricted to behaviorism but is also true when it comes to directions that take into account observable behavior. As long as the scientific approach is strongly connected with finding reasons and exploring the causational factors in a loose and open sense, psychology is very much about finding the constraining factors behind behavior. What we have found here, which is also very much supported by Brinkmann (2011) and, not least, Levinas (2006), is that ethics is a discipline that is able to give scientific explanations of human behavior. The most urgent question, then, would be whether psychology has to be reduced to ethics. According to Kierkegaard, this would be a very incorrect conclusion. The reason is that psychology is not just about behavior; it is about something quite different. As a point of departure, it is about perception, but as we have seen, this is not a very clear term. It is about the relationship between the perceiver and the perceived, and because of this, it is about a lot of different things. It is about the relationship between the one and the other; it is about the particular, and it is about changes. Psychology is, in this sense, about the multifarious aspects of life, and in Kierkegaard’s thinking, it is about existence. However, it is about the existence of the human being, which implies that it is about subjective existence. This is the reason why Kierkegaard has such a positive attitude toward the Hegelian Karl Rosenkranz. Rosenkranz defined psychology as the science of the subjective, in the sense that subjectivity stands in opposition to the objective and universal abstraction (Rosenkranz, 1863). Thus psychology has to be defined in terms of two very different perspectives. One would be about the immediate experience of existence, and the other would be about the reflection around the immediate experience of life. The former is psychology defined in terms of being a certain field or sphere, whereas the latter is psychology as a science. The issue here is to sort out the different disciplines and not to mix them up. Mixing up different disciplines is something Kierkegaard is quite concerned about. “In our day, everything is mixed up: the aesthetic is defended ethically, faith intellectually, etc. One is finished with everything and yet is far from attentive to in what sphere each question finds its answer” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 271). Thus the aesthetic is beyond morality, because sensation is about pure actuality, whereas ethics has its origin in ideality. Understanding, therefore, is not about being but about reflections on being, which is about what is thinkable. This is not 221

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about the actual being (esse) but about its possibilities (posse), and the human being stands in between. The actuality for the human being, therefore, is this combination of reflection and sensation, which implies that reality (virkeligheden) “is an inter–esse splitting the hypothetical unity of abstraction’s thought and being” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 263). On this basis, Kierkegaard can conclude quite clearly that “interest [. . .] is rooted in subjectivity” (Kierkegaard, 2009b, p. 163), not because of an individual’s drives and needs, but because the existential unstable situation urges or even forces the individual to move in a certain direction when it comes to thinking and acting. This is why Kierkegaard states, both in Repetition and in The Concept of Anxiety, that having an interest in repetition strands metaphysics. This is so because metaphysics does not stand in between reflection and being; it is simply reflection, and therefore “metaphysics as such is disinterested” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 18). Psychology, on the other hand, is the field in which interests in general are studied, and the psychological sphere is in between general thinking and actuality. Yet there is a dilemma by defining psychology as a science, because science is about general understanding and psychology is about the particular. And Kierkegaard puts this dilemma into words by emphasizing it. “Indeed, as a science psychology can never deal empirically with the detail that belongs to its domain, but the more concrete psychology becomes, the more the detail attains a scientific representation” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 22f ). This sounds like a contradiction in terms, and it is indeed. Science is about general knowledge, and psychology is about the particular. The more psychology aspires to be a science, the more it distances itself from its own sphere. This is, of course, a fundamental problem, but the problem is not bigger than life itself. Reflection stands in contradiction to living life. However, thinking is an inevitable aspect of human life. The point is not to avoid this dilemma, but to be aware of it. This is exactly why psychology is such an important science, namely because it highlights these two aspects of life, and this is why Kierkegaard can intensify the dilemma in the second half of the sentence by stating that the more psychology deals with the particular, the more scientific it becomes. In other words, scientific knowledge is not just general knowledge; it is also about the particular. Nonetheless, the more one reflects on the particular, the more general will the knowledge turn out to be. It is also in this process of reflection that the general disciplines are introduced, such as 222

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logic and ethics, which appear as constraining factors in psychology. Kierkegaard also applies metaphysics and dogmatics, which are both sciences dealing with universals, but they very much explain the conditions for the psychological situation of the human being. This is why The Concept of Anxiety deals with theological issues. Yet when it comes to how the theological conditions are experienced, psychology has to be introduced, which is why the word “psychology” is presented in the title of this book. Psychology as a science, however, is deeply embedded in this dilemma between the universal and the particular. In the same way as ethics, science also has its origin in ideality. This was a point of departure for Kant, and he examined different subjects by applying ideality as a yardstick, which was why he rejected psychology as a science. Kant could not accept subjects that contradicted ideality. In this respect, it is both logical and self-evident that psychology had to be rejected. Physics should also have been rejected, but as long as theoretical physics is consistently based on ideality, which Newtonian theoretical physics is, Kant did not reject theoretical physics. What Kierkegaard did was to broaden the understanding of the term “science.” As long as science is about human knowledge, it has to cover all the aspects of life that human beings have knowledge about. This includes knowledge about the particular and the qualities of the sense impressions. Locke made a distinction between the primary and secondary sense qualities. By naming the general aspects of sense qualities “primary,” he admitted that scientific knowledge had its origin in ideality, but also that this aspect of knowledge was the most preferable. However, human knowledge is about all aspects of human life; this includes its particularity. In this sense, it is so important to make a distinction between a discipline and how to obtain knowledge within the subject. This is also why Kierkegaard warns us against mixing up these aspects. Since psychology is about particularity and the multifariousness of life, psychology stands in opposition to the ideality of scientific knowledge. Psychology and science have two very different origins, in the sense that the former is rooted in particularity, and the latter is derived from ideality. Yet we have knowledge, and this knowledge is a mixture of the general and the particular. This is why the subject is one thing, and knowledge of it is another. Our knowledge of the psychological field is also constrained by disciplines other than just psychology. Despite the fact that psychology is about actual acts, these acts are regulated by rational thinking and moral concerns. Thus the understanding of the acts has to take into 223

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account the same factors. In this sense, both logic and ethics play roles as supporting disciplines in the process of obtaining an understanding of psychological issues. However, this does not imply that psychology can be reduced to logic or ethics. Understanding is an approximation, in the sense that the ideality of understanding and the particularity of psychology will never coincide completely. This is why it is more natural to talk about constraining factors that to regulate our understanding of the psychological field. Kierkegaard’s Thought Experiment As has been pointed out earlier, the way Kierkegaard applies the term “experiment” is not so distant from how the term is used today. In his “Unscientific Postscript,” Kierkegaard defines an “experiment” as something we do not know the outcome of (Kierkegaard, 2009b). An experiment is a constructed situation, in the sense that certain factors are designed or have a certain focus, and we are primarily interested in the outcome of the interplay between these factors. Thus an experiment is very much a symptom of modernity, because modernity is characterized by the unpredictability of the world as a premise. On this basis, Kierkegaard appeals to modesty and caution when it comes to psychological experiments. When you do not know the outcome of a situation, it is unethical to bring real persons into it. If we lose control of a situation, it is irresponsible not to take people out of that situation. Thus talking about a controlled experiment is something of a contradiction. However, the expression refers to the factors that are focused on rather than the outcome, and the latter is still an open question in a controlled experiment. It is from this ethical perspective that Kierkegaard introduces the idea of a thought experiment. In a thought experiment, there are still certain factors that are taken into consideration, and the conditions for the persons involved can be harsh enough, but to put them in this situation is not a problem as long as they are not real persons. Nevertheless, the crucial question is, of course, to what extent the outcome can be realistic in a thought experiment. This is an important question, but it can be posed in another way: to what extent would the outcome be less realistic than in a real experiment? An experiment is an abstraction, no matter how “realistic” it is meant to be, but there is still a lot of thinking that lies behind a real experiment. The success of an experiment depends very much on the factors that are taken into account, and to work out a good experimental situation 224

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requires a clever experimenter who knows human nature and all the factors that count in a situation. In this respect, there are many similarities between experiments that involve real persons and thought experiments. Yet the crucial difference is apparently the outcome. In an experiment that involves real persons, the outcome is necessarily unpredictable; whereas in a thought experiment, the experimenter is both the one that defines the premises and also the one that accounts for the outcome. This is an important difference, and also the fact that the individual is free emphasizes the unpredictability of the outcome. Yet this is true as long as we are talking about an individual. An experiment, however, is not only limited to the individual; it also aspires toward saying something about the general behavioral pattern in a certain situation. This is why it is preferable that the N is larger than just 1. However, the different persons that are involved in the same experiment are all free to make their own choices, and they will, of course, act differently. The outcome of an experiment with N > 1 ends up necessarily with an average generated tendency. The general conclusion from an experiment that involves real persons is therefore strongly related to an aspect of likeliness. The same would also be the situation if N were reduced to = 1. However, a thought experiment is also an experiment in which N = 1. There is a real person that thinks through all the factors that are involved in the situation and goes through all the different considerations that create a certain outcome. The big difference is the fact that this is the same person. In this sense, the N is even more consistently = 1. This may be a drawback, but not necessarily so. The crucial aspect here is the fact that an experiment shows how the real persons involved actually act in a certain situation, and this is the situation whether the instructor and the actor are the same or two different individuals. In both cases, generalizations are based solely on likelihood, and in both cases the crucial issue is to what extent the experiment’s designer has taken into account all the factors of interest and is able to make an adequate interpretation of the outcome. These two factors are crucial, and they must count as the most important criteria in the evaluation of an experiment. From this perspective, a thought experiment can be as good as any other experiment, and naturally this includes Kierkegaard’s thought experiments. The critical question is to what extent Kierkegaard is able to formulate the conditions that initially form a convincing situation, and whether he is able to interpret the outcome adequately. 225

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Kierkegaard formulated two explicit thought experiments: the one presented in Repetition and the other in Stages on Life’s Way. Both have very much in common, but they are still quite different. The experiment in Repetition goes in two very different directions. One is about the simple experiment Constantin Constantius wants to make by finding out to what extent one can just repeat an act and, by this, prove that there are no actual changes in life, only repetitions. As we saw, this hypothesis was disproven immediately. If this book had not consisted of more than this experiment, it would have been very thin and without much interest. However, the work is completed with other stories that go in different directions, which makes the piece somewhat incoherent. The young poet shows up randomly, and there are detailed descriptions of the farces at the theater in Berlin, all of which combined makes the whole thing appear as if there are no connecting threads between the parts. But there are, and this becomes clear after having read the other thought experiment in Stages on Life’s Way. In the presentation of this experiment, there is an extended “Letter to the Reader” at its conclusion. Here the author refers to Repetition consisting of a similar experiment, and here he is not referring to Constantius’s travel to Berlin, but rather to the poet and his relationship with the young girl. “Yet, to repeat, the erotic is of minor concern to me. I have utilized it as Constantin Constantius ventured to use in a book entitled Repetition (Copenhagen: 1844), a venture that did not, however, succeed, for he remained within the esthetic” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 402). In this respect, the thought experiment in Repetition and in Guilty/ Not Guilty are similar, but under slightly different conditions. They are each about a young man that falls in love with a young girl, and the young man breaks up with the girl and then treats the girl quite badly. This is, of course, the same story as Kierkegaard himself went through in his relationship with Regine Olsen. So what Kierkegaard’s authorship is about is very much to sort out different conditions for this kind of relationship, to find out the constraining factors and how they determine the outcome of the situation. Kierkegaard is aware of the fact that psychology is principally about observing other individuals. However, a lot of aspects are missed by just observing other real persons, he says. Thus he is quite conscious about why he is arranging a thought experiment instead of dealing with real persons, because “in actual life the case is that passions, psychical states, etc. are found only to a certain degree” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 191). One of the most important aspects he deals with in the 226

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experiment in Guilty/Not Guilty is the ambivalence that represents a definite determining factor in the protagonist’s behavior. In this respect, the experiment is not just about the ambivalence and irrationality in this person’s behavior; it is about the reasons for this form of behavior, which are hard to comprehend and acknowledge. However, the reasons for this behavior are outside of psychology and are rather to be found in theology and dogmatics. Nevertheless, bringing in theology and dogmatics as constraining factors for the odd behavior is also interesting from a psychological point of view. They explain the reasons why such ideas come to a person’s mind, which is exactly what a psychological investigation is looking for. In addition to logic and morality, theology and dogmatics—or, more generally, certain belief systems—are also constraining factors in psychology. This is exactly what Kierkegaard wants to focus on in his experiment, and he wants to go far beyond any normality by taking the constraining factors to the bitter end. So in addition to finding out about the more hidden aspects of a person’s ideas and notions, psychology “also has another kind of delight in seeing passion carried to its extreme limit” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 191). And forcing individuals into an extreme situation is not very acceptable from an ethical perspective, so the arguments for running a thought experiment are several and very well founded. In this respect, there are several similarities between the psychological experiments in Guilty/Not Guilty and in Repetition. In both cases there is a young man who is suffering from melancholy and, because of this, has big problems with having a relationship with a young girl. One of the differences, however, is that in Repetition Constantius is observing the couple, and especially the young man. This is what psychology is about; that is, making observations. However, simply making observations appears to be insufficient to get a full psychological understanding of the case. Thus while it is being worked out, Kierkegaard changes the whole experiment in Repetition. Not only is the experience of repeating the travel to Berlin put aside and almost forgotten after a short while, but the observational approach is set aside too. What is left is the collection of letters the young man writes to Constantius. Through these letters we are invited to take part in all the conflicts and soul anguish the young man is going through, and despite the fact that he has a peculiar and quite strange appearance, his situation sheds light upon the fundamental question, which is about repetition. When something is repeated in reality, it will necessarily appear as something different. This is also true when the same experiment is repeated in Guilty/Not 227

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Guilty. Some of the conditions are changed: the young man in Repetition is a poet and deals with the problem of being in love from an aesthetic point of view, whereas the protagonist in Guilty/Not Guilty deals with the problem from an ethical and religious point of view. This difference in the initial conditions makes a difference in the outcome of the two experiments. The young man’s conflict in Repetition, which is in the framework of the aesthetic, appears trivial and is avoidable. However, the same conflict from a religious perspective is something from which no one can escape. According to Taciturnus, the difference between the two is that the aesthetic is highly associated with an illusion, in the sense that the “esthetic is higher than the actuality prior to actuality” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 423). This implies that a person existing at this stage has no experience of reality. The religious stage is characterized by the opposite: that it is “higher than the actuality after the actuality” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 423). This implies that the religious stage presupposes an experience and understanding of the actual. This is why psychology becomes so important for Kierkegaard, because the religious involves a dilemma that presupposes the experience and understanding of an aspect of life that can only be identified by using psychology. In Repetition the whole experiment is quite randomly worked out. This is not the case in Guilty/Not Guilty. Taciturnus tells the purpose of this experiment and how it is structured, and he accounts for certain variables. The latter also form some of the constraining factors. The task he assigned himself was to present “an unhappy love affair in which love is dialectical in itself and in the crisis of infinite reflection acquires a religious aspect” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 415f ). The dialectical aspect is crucial, in the sense that the experiment depicts a certain conflict. This is portrayed in the asymmetries that exist between the young man and the young girl. One of the headings for the experiment focuses on “misunderstanding,” which characterizes the fundamental asymmetry between the two. However, the factors that cause this asymmetry and misunderstanding are sorted out into five different categories: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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“He is inclosingly [sic] reserved [indesluttet]—she cannot even be that.” “He is depressed—she is full of the joy of life.” “He is essentially a thinker—she is anything but that.” “He is ethical-dialectical—she, esthetically immediate.” “He is sympathetic—she in the sense of immediacy is innocently selfloving.” (Kierkegaard, 1988, pp. 427–432)

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These five factors form the initial conditions for the whole experiment, and in this sense they are constraining factors, which come in addition to logical reasoning and moral considerations. When it comes to Taciturnus’s explanation of the structure of the experiment, one has to take into account the main premise for the behaviour of the young man, being that he is a demoniac character, which in The Concept of Anxiety is explained as being “inclosingly reserved.” The structure of the experiment, therefore, is that the main character writes his diary over a time span of about half a year. Some of the notes are written in the morning and some around midnight. The difference is crucial, in that the notes written in the morning deal with reality, whereas the others are permeated by his own ideality. The latter are religious, because it is an ideality based on actuality. The result of this experiment, however, is that love does not exist between the two, even though they seem to love each other. His love is ethically founded, which is due to duty, whereas her love is aesthetic, which implies that she primarily is in love, not with him, but with his dedicated love for her. Yet from a dialectical point of view, it is impossible to talk about a certain and definitive result from an experiment. “To complete an individuality and put down a summary answer, that is for the great systematic thinkers” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 436). There are always some unpredictable and concealed outcomes of an experiment. It is not difficult to find problems with this experiment. First of all, it is highly influenced by Kierkegaard’s perspective and his ideals. It serves more or less as a justification for the choice he made in his own life when he left Regine Olsen. One of the comments Taciturnus makes about the second constraining factor underlines this. Here he concludes that when the young man decides to leave her, he does not suspect “that precisely this is bound to help him” (Kierkegaard, 1988, p. 429). There is another way of judging a situation like this. Constantius did not endorse that the poet left the girl in Repetition: “It is despicable to deceive and seduce a girl. It is even more despicable, however, to leave a girl in such a way that one avoids becoming a scoundrel, but instead puts her off with the explanation that she was not the ideal” (Kierkegaard, 2009a, p. 12). It is, of course, quite abnormal to behave like both the two young men, and we can include Kierkegaard in this sample of persons with abnormal behavior. The most normal way to react is, of course, the way Constantius reacts. This is an adequate reaction from a moral perspective, which makes the behavior apparently despicable. Yet from a logical perspective, the behavior can appear much more 229

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acceptable and adequate. This is the constraining factor in Taciturnus’s experiment. The young man in his experiment regards the situation from another perspective. Taciturnus talks about differences in ideality between this young man and the poet in Repetition. The ideality referred to here is not the same as idealism; it is strongly related to the fact that thinking is general, and in this sense, thinking is a sort of ideality. What the ideality is based on is the question. The young poet’s ideality in Repetition is just made up of illusions about himself, whereas the other young man’s ideality in Guilty/Not Guilty is based on actual experience, which is of the conflict between an inevitable actuality and a reflection upon it. This constellation, in exactly this order, is what forms religious ideality. Yet the most important aspect in this context is the fact that Kierkegaard regarded the ideality based on sensory experiences as the most precious. This is an ideality that presupposes psychology. Kierkegaard is aware of the problems related to experiments; therefore, Haufniensis presents some considerations and objections in The Concept of Anxiety. In a footnote he asks rhetorically, “So for what purpose is the imaginary construction [experimentet] except to confuse?” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 112). But in the same work, the author also defends experimenting dialectics, which is the method Plato applies in his dialogues “to show contradictions in the concepts themselves” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 83). This is the approach Kierkegaard also applies in his works, admittedly not in the form of a dialogue, but by presenting different perspectives by means of pseudonyms and different characters. In this sense, experimenting dialectics presupposes characters with different attitudes, perspectives, and personalities. This approach does not require a fictional presentation, but there are several reasons for applying fiction in this respect. If contradictions are to be revealed, one has to focus on extreme situations, and it is unethical to place real persons in unpleasant extreme situations. Another aspect is that contradictions in terms can be so concealed that they can only be discovered through subtleties. This is the case in Guilty/Not Guilty, in which the contradiction in the term “love” is not obvious before the subtle distinction between aesthetic and religious ideality is taken into account. Thus an experiment might refer to different forms of approaches. This is included in Kierkegaard’s understanding of it, which highlights the aspect of unpredictability and not the circumstances under which this unpredictability is revealed. An experiment is not just a method; it is also an expression of uncertain knowledge. In this sense, an experiment 230

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will never tell us how the world is, but it may reveal possible aspects of it. Thus an experiment opens up possibilities and not much more. From this perspective, the role of fiction would be of considerable interest. The objection to a fictional experiment is, of course, that the characters depicted and worlds presented are not real. This is a problem Umberto Eco discusses in an article in which he presents some important statements: “First of all, in reading a piece of fiction we subscribe a silent agreement with its author, who pretends that something is true and asks us to pretend to take it seriously. Secondly, we know that every fiction designs a possible world and all our judgments of truth and falsehood must concern that possible world” (Eco, 2009, p. 84). A novel is a presentation of a universe that the reader recognizes and accepts by dedicating himself to it. In this sense, it represents a kind of reality. Especially in the mind of the engaged reader, the fictional world is experienced as real. But Eco makes a distinction between de facto and de dicto truths; i.e., what is actually true and what is said to be true. In this respect, the reality we find in fictional literature is about de dicto truths, and this implies that a fictional character is a semiotic object. Yet the argument Eco applies is of certain interest in this context. The fictional character possesses “a set of properties” (Eco, 2009, p. 89), and these properties make it a semiotic object, he states. The term “properties” can be compared with the term “constraints,” examples of which have been applied here. When Eco applies the semantic triangle in this context, he is locating “properties” in the corner of “meaning,” which stands in opposition to “expression” (the signifier) and “referent” (the signified). By placing the fictional character Anna Karenina in this triangle, her properties are supposed to be all the constraining factors that make it meaningful for the reader to experience that she finally commits suicide. However, Eco does not make a clear distinction between fictional and historical characters in this respect. Even Barack Obama and Adolph Hitler fit the semantic triangle, in the sense that certain properties have determined the outcomes of their lives. In very many respects, our understanding of their lives is also based on de dicto truths. This is taken a step further in an article by Jaan Valsiner (Valsiner, 2009). Valsiner introduces two primary aspects that provide progress. One is to regard the process of semiosis from a psychological perspective, and the other is to underline the fact that a psychological perspective includes changes. Valsiner applies the Bergsonian term “irreversible time,” which also makes some allusions to what Kierkegaard understood by “temporality.” There is certainly concurrence here, in the sense that 231

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the term “irreversible time” underlines the aspect of development as a fundamental factor in a psychological approach. The dynamic aspect of time is a sine qua non in a psychological understanding of a phenomenon. In addition, the fluctuating understanding of a phenomenon forms the basis for a semiological approach. This was a point of departure for Ferdinand de Saussure; i.e., that language is always changing, but at the same time language is the carrier of apparent stability when it comes to its conceptions. As we have seen, de Saussure was inspired by Wilhelm Wundt’s folk psychology, which also highlighted the dynamic aspect of thinking. However, this was exactly what modern psychology was supposed to be about from the very beginning. One of the extended chapters in Christian Wolff’s Psychologia Empirica is on the relationship between sensation and imagination. Empirical psychology was primarily about the disparity between sensation and imagination. Scholars of the German tradition did not see any reason to expect any connections at all, so in that sense empirical psychology was very much about reestablishing the connection between the two. This is why Baumgarten refers to a certain “faculty of signification” (facultatis characteristica; Baumgarten, 2004, p. 142). In connection with this, Baumgarten also discusses the role of the sign and the symbol. There is a historically strong connection between psychology and semiotics, and the main reason is the fundamental disparity that exists between sensation and imagination and the need for connecting these two extremes. Kierkegaard’s great contribution to this is to maintain the disparity between the two extremes, making a clear distinction between irreversible and reversible time, and at the same time making the two opposites equal in defining the conditions for human life. Psychology primarily deals with irreversible time, but as soon as it claims to be a science, it is on the edge of dealing with the reversible aspects of time as well. Science is about reflection and thinking, and in this sense, time has to be abstracted from reality when it is considered from a scientific perspective. It is the same when it comes to fictional characters or historical characters that are given de dicto. On the one hand, they are placed in very concrete and real situations, but on the other hand they appear as abstract characters when they are reflected upon. As long as scientific discourse is made by language, scientific truths are also de dicto truths and scientific discourse is governed by semiosis, which Charles Sanders Peirce eloquently demonstrates. This implies, however, that scientific discourse is an imaginative construct, which is the primary content of what Kierkegaard called a psychological thought experiment. 232

12 The Actuality of Kierkegaard’s Psychology Now it is time to return to the initial, underlying question that has been pursued throughout this whole investigation. This reflects the aim to achieve a full understanding of Kierkegaard’s conception of psychology: what is Kierkegaard’s psychology actually about, and does the term have any relevance to the psychology we describe today in the early years of the twenty-first century? There is no doubt that Kierkegaard’s psychology is very different from how we understand psychology as a science today, the most important difference being how a science is understood. Yet a more intriguing question is what is and what is not science. On the one hand, contemporary science emphasizes general validity, purity, and objectivity. This contradicts at least what Kierkegaard regards as being psychology, and he admits that psychology has big problems with being accepted as a science. Certainly, to be a science, psychology has to deal with general statements in one form or the other. Yet there are some lines in the development of science that make these conflicts fascinating, and at the same time they demonstrate how important a figure Kierkegaard is in Western intellectual history. As mentioned, Aristotle did not accept knowledge based on particular impressions as scientific knowledge, and therefore he refused induction as a valid form of inference in science. However, when it comes to rhetoric, induction is regarded as a fully acceptable device for acquiring knowledge. We have no problems when a speaker refers to just one example in the endeavor of persuading an audience of the truth of what has been said. And Aristotle admits that this is exactly the kind of knowledge we primarily acquire in our daily lives—that a few examples are regarded as sufficient for saying what must be a general truth. This touches on the epistemological change that appeared in the transition from premodernity to modernity, which Husserl described as the “Cartesian overthrow [. . .] of an absolute grounding of science” 233

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(Husserl, 1999, p. 7). The idea that science should be pure and uninfected by particularities was challenged and gradually subverted when psychologia empirica became a part of metaphysics. This is exactly what Kierkegaard is describing in the footnote in The Concept of Anxiety when he says “metaphysics runs aground” when “the whole interest of subjectivity steps forth” (Kierkegaard, 1980a, p. 18). Here he is specifically referring to empirical psychology. Kierkegaard therefore must be regarded as a very special figure in the transition from premodernity to modernity in Western intellectual history. If this transition is characterized by a subversion of the objective ground for scientific knowledge, as Husserl stated, Kierkegaard must be regarded as the person that first faced the consequences of these changes. In this respect, it was not Immanuel Kant who introduced subjectivity into Western philosophy. He simply faced the fact that subjectivity formed the basis and point zero for all of our knowledge. Thus his efforts were rather to restore the objective basis for scientific knowledge, despite the fact that it was not there. Thus Kierkegaard and Kant had two very different perspectives and aims in their thinking. Kierkegaard tried to present the full consequences of the thesis that “man is the measure of all things,” to apply the formulation of the sophist Protagoras. What the pre-Socratic Protagoras had intuitively and provocatively stated appeared two thousand years later as an intrusive truth provided by empirical psychology. Kant can almost be compared with Plato in this sense, since he endeavored to restore the objective foundation of our knowledge. However, this comparison has its shortcomings, primarily because it would be completely wrong to say that Kierkegaard played the role of a sophist in modern times. Rather the opposite, we should say, and this is probably one of the misunderstandings Kierkegaard’s philosophy has had to face. Kierkegaard could not accept that man is consistently the measure of all things. This is why eternity, or sub specie aeternitatis, became so important to Kierkegaard. Our conception of eternity represents the absolute grounding for the world’s existence, and it forms the fundamental objective measure for everything. In this, Kant and Kierkegaard are united. They not only acknowledge the huge difference between subjectivity and objectivity, but they also acknowledge that some knowledge is based on subjective grounds and other knowledge on objective grounds. They differ, however, in their opinions about what grounds empirical science should be based on. Kant presupposed that there exists a pure objective science based on 234

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subjective grounds. This is what his Critique of Pure Reason is concerned with. On the one hand, this thesis is simply a reformulation of what would have been presented as “metaphysics” by other scholars at that time. Yet there are certain differences, and these are crucial. One is the fact that Kant banished empirical psychology from the sphere of metaphysics and science, whereas contemporaneous scholars did not. However, Kierkegaard actually agreed with Kant, because he too contrasted metaphysics with psychology. Yet there is another difference between Kant and other contemporaneous scholars, which includes Kierkegaard. This is Kant’s combination of inner perception with purity in science. This is how he argues for the Twelve Categories and, by this, applies the results of an impure act as an argument for pure reason. Kant transforms an empirical act into purity. Kierkegaard faces the same problems when it comes to psychology, but he draws the opposite conclusion. Psychology and inner perception are both related to the multifarious aspects of life in all its particularity. However, by reflecting upon these aspects of life, some aspects of generality will, by necessity, be included. When some psychological issues are put into words and some explanations are presented, an aspect of generality is introduced, and this stands in conflict with psychology. Yet psychology is, nevertheless, about the particular, and therefore an inevitable paradox is embedded when psychological issues are reflected upon. Since psychology is about sensation and tells us how knowledge through sensation appears and works, this paradox characterizes all other empirical sciences as well. Science therefore can hardly be regarded as pure at all, as long as it is about the actual and experienced. This is why Kierkegaard talks about an “unscientific” reflection upon the actual experiences we have. The Aristotelian and Kantian notions of pure sciences are only valid when we are referring to pure thinking, which is represented by logic, mathematics, and some fundamental notions that in fact are never experienced in real life. Nevertheless, we have an understanding of these notions. This is why eternity becomes so fundamental in the understanding of Kierkegaard’s psychology. It mirrors the objectivity we never will experience in our actual lives. Yet this term is fundamental for more reasons. One of these is related to dialectics, which according to Kierkegaard is a fundamental aspect of human life. But it is not an explanatory term. It is descriptive in the sense that it depicts the existential situation man is in, specifically the multifarious aspects of life. However, the multifarious aspects of life will immediately be negated when they are reflected upon, such that 235

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actual life reveals a mixture of the two extremes, which are given by temporality on the one hand and eternity on the other. Reflections of different sorts stand in the middle of both, because reflection is an inner sensation but also a way of reasoning, and the latter brings in logic and other ideal considerations. Yet the most important reason for why eternity is so fundamental is that it represents pure ideality, of which we have no experience but still have a very clear understanding. This concept has explanatory power, in the sense that all existential dilemmas are rooted in the absence of experienced eternity in actual life. A third aspect is that “eternity” is the term that immediate and intuitively gives us an understanding of the incompatible relationship between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity is primarily given by the notion of eternity, and subjectivity is revealed through temporality. Since psychology concerns the latter, and the former is not experienced without an experience of temporality, the notion of eternity and objectivity is revealed by psychology, through its negation. Consequences for a Contemporary Discussion on Psychology To define psychology in terms of temporality, and as standing in opposition to eternity and objectivity, is probably the most important contribution Kierkegaard came up with. He emphasized the irreconcilability between the objective and the subjective, and the role of psychology as an inevitable device to demonstrate exactly this. This also represents the main difference between Kierkegaard and Kant. Since Kant simply banished empirical psychology, not only from metaphysics, but in practice from what he defined as science as well, he ended up with a criterion for science that subsequently has caused a lot of trouble for psychology. Although scientific self-reflection since the middle of the nineteenth century has been characterized by gradually being released from the Kantian notion of scientific purity, the notion is partly still there, mainly in two contrasting respects. Firstly, the notion is embedded in quantitative approaches in those cases where quantities are applied as if they represent a kind of selfgenerating system—almost untouched by the human mind, so to speak. This does not imply that statistics per se reflects a Kantian notion—only if it is applied as if it represents purity. It is the same when it comes to logic and so-called neutral observations. If they are presented as if they represent objectivity, they fail. However, this does not imply that statistics, logic, or observations are failures. Yet statistics and logic 236

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belong to the ideal world, and they fail if they are applied in the actual world as if actuality does not make a change. Secondly, the Kantian notion can also represent another pitfall, which is probably more widespread but harder to detect. This is related to focusing so much on subjectivity that objectivity is completely absorbed and objectivity appears to be almost nonexistent. This is the tradition Fichte started, Hegel continued, and Heidegger kept alive through the twentieth century. And the problem remains the same: specifically being that objectivity and subjectivity are two completely different areas, but actual life still depends on each, in the sense that one cannot exist without the other. So the challenge here is to balance the two, and even more so to detect and make the right judgments about what is based on subjectivity and what is objectivity in an actual situation. This is what Kierkegaard contributed, and with such sharp insight that posterity has had problems fully understanding and following up on his efforts. Consider the following thought experiment. It would be interesting to speculate what would have happened to psychology if Immanuel Kant had not existed and Kierkegaard had been German, or maybe French or British. One answer would probably be that empirical psychology would not have been set completely aside as it was in intellectual history for almost a hundred years. The focus on subjectivity probably would have been strengthened, but it would have been combined with a notion of objectivity that had been separated more consistently from subjectivity. However, Kierkegaard did not give a completely satisfying answer when it comes to how objectivity and subjectivity should be related. His approach is unsatisfying, as it strongly emphasizes the opposite; i.e., the contradiction and irreconcilability between the two. At that time there was a fundamental need to build up philosophical systems that united both notions (and this need probably still exists), and this need would not be subverted simply by the absence of Kant’s philosophy— perhaps the opposite. As Fichte commented, Kant’s philosophy was not complete, because he left open how to unite subjectivity and objectivity. In this respect, the introduction of psychology as a part of metaphysics would have been sufficient for Fichte and Hegel to base their philosophical systems on subjectivity—but psychology would have been put aside anyway, because at least Heidegger would have furthered this tendency to replace psychology with philosophy in the twentieth century. 237

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So it was a very interesting meeting that took place between the two neo-Kantians Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer in Davos in 1929, and this was just as Karl Bühler had been writing on the crisis in psychology (see Chapter 10). But Bühler was not alone, as Lev S. Vygotsky had also written on the same subject (Vygotsky, 1997, pp. 233ff) at about the same time, and Cassirer had pursued the aspect of “crisis in man’s knowledge of himself” in his English introduction to A Philosophy of Human Culture fifteen years later (Cassirer, 2006). Yet all three were dealing with the same problem, namely to what extent it is possible to acquire general knowledge about human beings, which are characterized by free will and uniqueness. This is the same problem that Kierkegaard highlighted and Kant attempted to define as staying outside the realm of science. From a more fundamental perspective, this is the problem of unifying the particular with the general. So the Davos meeting between Heidegger and Cassirer is of deep interest, and these two modern thinkers represented different solutions to the question. On the one hand, Heidegger’s “‘fundamental ontology’ submerges human subjectivity in the impersonal historical ‘truth of being’” (Cohen, 2006, p. ix). But according to Cassirer, “What defines Kant’s project in the first critique is not ontology but epistemology” (Cohen, 2006, p. xii). This perspective is motivated by prevailing humanism in terms of absolute freedom. This implies a conclusion that states, “Fundamental ontology is but another avatar of naturalism” (Cohen, 2006, p. xxxv). In contrast, Cassirer’s humanism “cannot be divorced from essential idealism that lies in the objective or transpersonal character of its symbolic world as such, whether mythic, artistic, linguistic, religious or scientific” (Cohen, 2006, p. xxv). Culture is the solution Cassirer presents to the question of how to unite the particular with the general. There are many concurrences between Cassirer and Wundt. In fact, Wundt ended up with folk psychology as the only way to achieve an understanding of man’s higher mental capacities, such as thinking. In his view, by investigating norms, language, and beliefs, we will find exactly the proper balance between the ideal and the particular, which tell us how actuality is mirroring ideality. To find this balance is crucial, and there are reasons to highlight the fact that Wundt is not talking about values but “laws of custom” (Wundt 1902, p. 11), which is rather to be understood as “norms.” The difference is that values are more abstract than norms. Norms and customs refer to actual acts in culture. Values, on the other hand, are related to the ideals we have. Nevertheless, in cross-cultural psychology, culture is almost consistently defined in terms of values (Berry et al., 1997). One important 238

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aspect of the term “culture” is that it has to be specific. When we talk about different cultures, it must be possible to talk about those aspects that make them different. What we see from research in which culture is defined in terms of values is that the outcome appears to be very general, so that the world is divided into only two cultures: collective and individual (Hofstede, 2001). What we experience in practice, however, is that when it comes to values, the world can hardly be divided into two. For example, the foundation of the United Nations in 1945 was based on the suggestion that peace is a universal human value. The disagreements among the members are not about peace as a precious value, but rather about the actual means to achieve it. The behavior that makes this value real can be very different around the world. The reason is primarily that a certain value may evoke different behavior, which is mirrored in different norms and customs. What we see, therefore, is the same problem Kierkegaard was dealing with—defining psychology in terms of the particular, and that psychology stands in stark contrast to our ideals of science—and this was pursued as a dilemma from Kant to Bühler and Vygotsky—and not least by Cassirer. Yet something strange happened during the Second World War, or more likely immediately after it had ended. Much of the research in cross-cultural psychology can exemplify this change. By defining culture in terms of values, the irreconcilable conflict between the particular and the general is basically ignored, in the sense that ideals are applied as if they also can demarcate the particular, specifically a single culture. Yet this is not only a problem in quantitative research; this is exactly what the controversy between Cassirer and Heidegger centered on. Cassirer’s endeavor was to find the area in which the ideal and the actual meet, which for him is in culture. Heidegger emphasized the subjective as a fundamental ontological system. This was followed up by many scholars over the following years. When Carla Willig writes, “Discourse analysts conceptualize language as constitutive of experience rather than representational or reflective” (Willig, 1999, p. 2), the aspect of reflectivity in language is almost banished from a perspective on discourse analysis. Willig has become one of the stakeholders in methodological questions in the American Psychological Association (APA) (see Cooper, 2012). Yet the quotation mirrors very much the Heideggerian achievement of deconstructing Western metaphysics into the actual use of language. There is an important difference, though. Heidegger admits that this is almost impossible (Heidegger, 1968); whereas this quotation from Willig gives the impression that this is 239

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just a matter of a simple choice that each one of us has: specifically, to see language either as constitutive or reflective. In other words, the subjectivity Heidegger is dealing with is quite far from the subjectivity of Kierkegaard, and probably so is the subjectivity of Willig’s understanding of discourse analysis. To find a proper balance between the presence of objectivity and subjectivity is what both Kierkegaard and Cassirer looked for. The difference between these two, however, is that Kierkegaard finds the middle ground from thought experiments, whereas Cassirer finds it in culture. Nevertheless, they are not so far away from each other, in the sense that Cassirer is very much looking at the role of empirical psychology in the eighteenth century as a basis for how epistemology was to be understood at that time. As mentioned, the whole discussion was based on what he called the “psychological axiom,” specifically, “Nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses” (Cassirer, 1968, p. 99). This doctrine is not only an argument for empiricism, which Locke adheres to, but it is also a statement telling us that human activity is a mixture of ideality and actuality. This mixture is primarily revealed in culture, which is about human activity in terms of thinking and behavior. The answer both Wundt and Cassirer ended up with, quite independently of each other, is that culture stands in opposition to nature, in the sense that it is about human activity. Yet human activity is a widespread area and has to be specified. Cassirer defined culture in terms of symbol exchanges as the basis, and this is formalized in the three volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, in which language, myths, and knowledge dictate the content. Cassirer wrote an English one-volume version of these called An Essay on Man. This title tells us how much psychology formed the basis for his main work. He had a tremendous influence on some later psychologists that became influential, not least Kurt Lewin, but also Heinz Werner, among others. So it is natural to highlight the concurrences between Cassirer and Wundt. Yet the basis for this result and their way of thinking about psychology is probably even more concurrent with Kierkegaard, because both specify psychology to be about actuality, and both emphasize the paradox in regarding it as a science. Cassirer refers to the same classical conflict between the Eleatics on the one side and the tradition of Heraclitus on the other. Heraclitus represented something new by “standing on the borderline between cosmological and anthropological thought” (Cassirer, 2006, p. 7f ). Although Cassirer does refer back to the empirical psychology of the eighteenth century, he applies the Kantian term 240

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“anthropology” to demonstrate the mixture between generality and actuality in this field, and this is one reason why he must be regarded as a true Neo-Kantian. In brief summary, Kierkegaard made important distinctions that can be considered as crucial in discussions on psychology as a science during the twentieth century and later. This is primarily the uncompromising distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, which makes it necessary to specify how they are to be related in human lives. For Kierkegaard it was necessary to demonstrate how the two irreconcilable areas were actually connected. This is why he had to pursue extremes; either it was objectivity given through metaphysics and dogmatics or subjectivity given by psychology, or mental conflicts, which bring man to the edge of the pathological. This was Kierkegaardian existentialism, which was quite different from Sartre’s. According to Kierkegaard, it would be absurd to make a distinction between existence and essence and argue in favor of the Sartrian statement that says, “The phenomenon of in-itself is an abstraction without consciousness but its being is not an abstraction” (Sartre, 1984, p. 791). This is, nevertheless, expressed more simply in the motto of existentialism, “Existence precedes essence,” which underlines even more the differences between Sartre and Kierkegaard. Sartre’s statement is rather comparable with a Fichteian, Hegelian, or Heideggerian solution to the problem, specifically by stating that subjectivity is the only existent sphere. This one-solution conclusion drawn by Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, or Sartre mirrors, paradoxically enough, a premodern ontology in terms of ending up with unifying systems. This is why Kierkegaard represents something else, which can be regarded as the true modern revolution, by defining subjectivity in terms of standing in diametric opposition to objectivity, which is not and never can be absorbed and replaced by subjectivity. This is the dilemma Wundt also realized and accepted and from which he concluded, “Fichte to Hegel represented a chain of aberrations” (Wundt, 1907, p. 17 a.t.). Yet we live with the irreconcilable conflict between objectivity and subjectivity manifested in what man is living in, namely culture. And this is exactly what Kierkegaard’s psychology is concerned with, no matter how much strain, stress, and worry this may evoke, not only for those who want to define psychology as a science, but even more so for each one of us who wants to understand actual life.

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Name Index Adam, 23f, 44 Adorno, Theodor W., 67, 78, 172ff, 206, 243, 248f Allesch, Christian, 107, 243 Analytics (by Aristotle), 69, 91, 115, 205f, 208, 243 Anderson, Albert, B., 30, 246 Anti-Climacus, 54, 56, 60–63 Aristotle, 67ff, 89, 91f, 94, 96f, 103, 115f, 183, 204ff, 208, 216, 233, 243 Arnheim, Rudolph, 107f, 243 Austin, John L., 176 Bauman, Zygmunt, 155, 243 Baumgarten. Alexander, 75, 91–95, 106, 108ff, 112–118, 125, 127, 129f, 138, 232, 243, 247f Beethoven, Ludvig van, 4, 193 Bergson, Henri, 161, 231 Berlin, 4f, 7, 12f, 217f, 226f, 244, 247f Berlyne, Daniel, 107 Bilfinger, Georg Bernhard, 98 Boring, Edwin G., 198, 244 Boston, 73, 243 Brentano, Franz, 173 Brinkmann, Svend, 218, 220f, 244 Bühler, Karl, 200f, 238f, 244 Carus, Carl Gustav, 83, 244 Cassirer, Ernst, 68ff, 108, 112, 118f, 121, 201, 238ff, 244 Comte, Auguste, 176 Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Crumbs (by Kierkegaard), 65, 219, 224, 247 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de, 69f Constantin Constantius, 4–13, 15, 17, 30, 37, 40, 45, 54, 63, 210, 226f, 229, 247

Copenhagen, 15 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 147 Critique of judgment (by Kant), 139, 145f, 190, 246 Critique of Pure Reason (by Kant), 75f, 126, 131, 134–139, 143f, 147, 179, 190, 235, 246, 248 d’Alembert, Jean-Baptiste le Rond, 120 De Anima (On the Soul by Aristotle), 67f, 183 de Saussure, Ferdinand, 192f, 232, 244 Derrida, Jacques, 174 Descartes, René, 69, 76, 102, 118, 132, 134, 155f, 158, 179f, 200 Diderot, Denis, 120 Diogenes, 5ff, 96, 210 Eco, Umberto, 231, 245 Eleatics, 5ff, 31, 56, 96, 210, 240 Elkind, David, 216 Eriksson, Erik H., 160 Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 107, 151, 187f, 195f, 245 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 75–79, 82, 84, 94, 123, 143, 148, 164, 172f, 175, 177, 183, 186, 216, 237, 241, 245, 247 Foucault, Michel, 174 Frater Taciturnus, 2, 35f, 45ff, 49, 54, 56, 62, 228ff Freud, Sigmund, 63, 160 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 175 Giddens, Anthony, 150, 155–168, 177, 245 Goffman, Erving, 166 Goldbach, Christian, 100 Gunnerus, Johan Ernst, 91, 109, 121f, 125, 170, 243, 245

251

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology Habermas, Jürgen, 176 Halle, 109, 249 Hamann, Georg, 74f, 245 Hannay, Alistair, 74, 149f, 245ff Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 10, 20f, 50, 75, 79–87, 94, 148, 164f, 172–175, 177, 183, 186, 193, 209, 216, 220, 237, 241, 245, 248 Heidegger, Martin, 124f, 172, 174f, 177, 237–241, 244f, 247 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 180f Heraclitus, 31, 240 Herbart, Johann Friedrich, 82, 85, 98, 141, 151 Hergenhahn, B. R., 196, 245 Hilarius Bookbinder, 36 Hong, Howard V. & Edna H., 63, 246 Hume, David, 82, 119, 135, 173, 215f, 246 Husserl, Edmund, 173f, 177, 185, 233f, 246 Ion (by Plato), 111 Job, 8ff Johannes the Seducer, 37f Judd, Charles H., 196f, 246, 250 Kant, Immanuel, 65, 75–78, 81–84, 91, 94, 98, 123–148, 151f, 163f, 166f, 169–173, 176f, 179f, 183, 185f, 188, 190f, 200, 205, 209, 220, 223, 234–240, 243–248 Kierkegaard, Michael Pedersen, 74, 90 Kierkegaard, Niels, 73 Kierkegaard, Peter Christian, 73 Königstädter Theater, 7 Kraft, Jens, 91, 247 Ladies Tailor, 37 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 25f, 70f, 76, 79f, 83, 95–98, 100, 104, 111f, 114f, 126f, 129, 132, 137, 139f, 151, 157f, 163, 166, 247, 250 Leiden, 119 Leipzig, 107, 119, 150, 180, 182, 195, 217f, 246, 248, 250 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 160 Linné, Carl von, 109, 118–122, 170, 243, 245 Locke, John, 68ff, 96, 132, 200, 209, 223, 240 Lyotard, Jean-François, 175ff, 189, 199, 247 252

Married Man, 36, 41f Mead, George Herbert, 160 Meier, Georg Friedrich, 75 Mengal, Paul, 70, 247 Michelet, Karl Ludvig, 86f, 247 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 38 Mrongovius, Cristoph Coestin, 126, 128 Newton, Isaac, 119 New York, 73, 243–250 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 63 Nordentoft, Kresten, 2, 35, 248 Metaphysics (by Aristotle), 89 Mussmann, 84 Møller, Poul Martin, 6, 15, 162 Paris, 119, 247 Parmedines (by Plato), 5, 21 Paterson, New Jersey, 73 Peirce, Charles S., 232 Phaedrus (by Plato), 111f Philosophical Crumbs (by Kierkegaard), 141, 247 Piaget, Jean, 216ff, 245, 248, 245 Plato, 5, 21, 56, 68, 96, 110ff, 120, 161, 230, 234, 245, 248 Protagoras, 234 Pythagoras, 110f, 120, 156, 248 Rhetoric (by Aristotle), 69, 103, 115, 243 Rosenkranz, Karl, 17, 29, 75, 83–87, 206f, 221, 248 Rothfischer, Gregory, 49f Schelling, Friedrich von, 20, 94, 144, 164, 172, 186, 216 Schweizer, Hans Rudolph, 116f, 248 s’ Gravesande, Willem Jacob, 119ff Shestov, Lev, 173 Socrates, 74, 149, 207 Smith, Norman Kemp, 139, 142, 248 Stages on life’s way (by Kierkegaard), 2, 35–52, 108, 112, 161, 165, 219, 226, 246 Stockholm, 119 Stumpf, Carl, 173, Sturm, Thomas, 128, 144, 248 Sulzer, Johann Georg, 12, 248 Symposium (by Plato), 111f Systema naturae (by Linné), 109, 119ff

Name Index Taylor, Charles, 168f, 248 The Concept of Anxiety (by Kierkegaard), 1, 15–35, 44f, 47, 51, 53f, 56, 59, 61, 63f, 80, 150, 158, 161, 163f, 174, 211, 222f, 229f, 234, 244, 246 The Sickness Unto Death (by Kierkegaard), 2, 53ff, 59ff, 62, 65, 150, 161, 166f, 171, 174, 246f Thomas Aquinas, 68, 89, 248 Thomte, Reidar, 30, 246 Tillich, Paul, 172 Timaeus (by Plato), 68, 110ff, 120 Titchener, Edward B., 196–199, 249 Treschow, Niels, 170, 249 Valsiner, Jaan, 231, 249 Vico, Giambattista, 211, 249 Victor Eremita, 37f Vigilius Haufniensis, 15f, 19, 21f, 24, 27–32, 35, 61, 63, 230

Voltaire, Françoise-Marie Arout, 69 Vygotsky, Lev S., 238f, 249 Werner, Heinz, 217, 240, 249 William Afham, 36, 40, 166 William of Ockham, 192, 244 Willig, Carla, 239, 249 Windelband, Wilhelm, 214f, 249f Winnicott, Donald W., 160 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 176 Wolff, Christian, 50, 56, 70, 74f, 79, 83f, 90f, 93ff, 97–106, 109, 113, 115, 126, 129f, 135, 139, 142, 148, 151, 158, 163, 169, 189f, 193, 232, 245, 249 Wundt, Wilhelm, 79f, 95, 98, 107, 125, 141f, 148, 150ff, 180–200, 212f, 215, 232, 238, 240f, 243, 246, 248, 250 Zimmermann, Robert, 118, 250 Zschokke, Johann Heinrich, 107

253

Subject Index Actual, 20ff, 40, 42, 48, 80, 84, 94, 109, 162, 168, 176, 193, 213f, 216f, 219f, 222f, 226, 228, 230, 235ff, 239, 241 Actuality, 8, 51, 65, 150, 220ff, 228ff, 233, 237f, 240f Self-actualization, 161 Aesthetics, 19, 39, 43, 67, 82, 85, 107f, 110, 112, 114f, 117f, 138, 140, 145, 172, 176f, 195f Aesthetic, 19f, 37–41, 43, 46f, 49, 51, 59f, 65, 67, 104, 108, 112, 114f, 161, 165f, 196, 221, 228ff, 244 Esthetic, 19, 226, 228 Aesthetica, 110, 113f, 117 Aesthetical(ly), 48, 115 Aestheticological, 115 Affect(s), 59, 62, 156, 191, 203 Affections, 106, 117 Affective, 191 Ambiguous, 11, 25, 160, 164, 167, 209 Ambiguity, 15, 25f, 29, 32, 38, 60, 144, 161–164, 167f, 208f Analytic(al), 138, 197 Statements, 76, 125f, 138, 140, 205 Oneness, 133 Procedure, 190 Proposition, 191 Antithesis, 7, 10, 80 Anxiety, 6, 16f, 20, 24–34, 44f, 54, 58ff, 64, 157ff, 161, 164, 174, 244 Apperception, 97f, 104f, 114, 127, 139–145, 157, 167, 190f A priori, 76f, 82, 125–129, 133, 127, 138, 140, 143, 145, 148, 172, 191, 205, 249 Appetitio(n), 97, 105f, 112, 129 Axiom, 68, 119f, 240 Axiomatic, 121

Beauty, 37, 43, 67, 110ff, 114ff, 118, 138, 177 Beautiful, 42, 59 Changes, 5, 8f, 21, 30, 80f, 86, 118, 134, 141, 145, 147, 149, 156f, 161f, 166, 168ff, 179, 209, 217, 221, 226f, 231, 234 Christianity, 23, 64, 95, 170f, 182 Christian, 2, 53, 55, 58, 61f, 68, 170f, 175, 182f, 246 Comic, 19, 37, 48, 51 Comical, 19, 43, 45, 165, 219 Conflict, 4f, 8, 11, 19, 26, 28, 31f, 43, 46, 52, 59, 69ff, 77, 80f, 84, 112, 134, 141, 161, 164, 168, 188, 192, 199ff, 218, 227f, 230, 233, 235, 239ff Contradict(s), 5, 18, 25, 32, 47, 51, 60 Contradiction, 20, 25f, 37, 37, 48, 58f, 70f Contradictory, 3f, 12f, 21, 23, 25f, 32, 39, 41–44, 63, 65, 71 Creative, 93, 132, 195 Creativity, 109ff, 190, 197 Creative synthesis, 189, 194, 213 Danish, 1f, 6f, 9, 27f, 30, 33, 35, 42, 50, 54, 61, 63, 73, 109, 162, 218 Death Lead to, 55, 58, 167 Deception Deceive(d), 8, 229 Self-, 166 Demonic, 27f, 61f Depression, 6, 10 Depressed, 228 Depressing, 191 Depressive, 3f, 59 Description, 80, 146, 159, 189, 209, 226

255

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology Despair, 57–61, 63, 162, 164, 167, 247 Destiny, 8, 11, 60, 89, 147, 164, 177, 180, 193 Dialectical, 7, 11, 45, 56, 60, 94, 123, 172, 193, 201, 228f Dialectic(s), 20, 33, 35, 45f, 48, 77, 82ff, 113, 128, 136f, 172, 201, 230, 235 Dialecticize, 45 Dogmatic, 2, 244 Dogmatics, 16, 19f, 22ff, 27ff, 54f, 57, 64, 93, 95, 123f, 159f, 182, 186, 223, 227, 241 Dreadful, 48, 59 Drive(s), 6, 18, 24, 27, 86, 97, 105, 222 Driven, 46, 130 Emotion(s), 30, 86, 102f, 244, 247 Emotional, 26, 30, 43, 47, 59, 61, 63f, 139, 165, 168, 244 Enlightenment, 50, 67–70, 74f, 89–92, 94f, 100, 108ff, 112, 118f, 124, 135, 156f, 172, 195, 244 Epistemology, 68, 238, 240 Epistemological, 68, 233 Eternity, 9, 21f, 28, 34, 37, 40, 51, 57, 59, 61, 63f, 77, 159, 183, 219f, 234ff Eternal, 8, 19, 21, 28, 40ff, 56, 77, 80, 122, 134, 166, 183, 209ff, 219 Æternitatis, sub specie, 219f, 234 Ethics, 19, 28, 74, 82, 85, 97, 218–221, 223f, 243 Ethical, 18, 28, 36f, 40–43, 45, 49, 51, 65, 161, 165f, 219f, 221, 224, 227f Ethico-dialectic, 48 Unethical, 54, 224, 230 Existential, 4, 9, 16, 33, 36, 43, 46, 50, 52, 54, 65, 112, 130, 141, 157ff, 164, 172–175, 211, 222, 235f Existentialism, 141, 158f, 171–174, 241 Existentialist, 50, 173 Experience(s/d), 5, 7f, 10–13, 15, 18ff, 22, 25, 27–30, 34, 38f, 44, 47–52, 58, 65, 67, 73, 77, 92, 95, 97, 104, 111–114, 118, 121, 126f, 132, 137, 155f, 160, 162f, 167, 171, 174, 180f, 183f, 185ff, 189, 191, 193, 197f, 204, 207f, 210ff, 215, 221, 223, 227f, 230f, 235f, 239, 248 Experiment An experiment, 1f, 35, 45f, 53, 61, 224f, 229ff, 245 Thought experiment, 35, 45ff, 51–54, 224–227, 232, 237, 240 256

Experimental Aesthetics, 107, 195f Aspect, 12, God, 61 French experimentale, 102 Laboratory, 151 Psychology, 1f, 4, 12, 53f, 79, 95, 97, 141, 151f, 180ff, 187, 193–198, 224, 244, 248 Psychologist, 45 Research, 12 The translation, 33 Unethical play, 54 Explanation, 21–24, 29, 33f, 61, 68, 76, 83, 114, 117, 147, 159, 197, 200, 209, 221, 229, 235 Faculties, 69f, 79, 81, 86f, 103, 110, 117, 126, 128–134, 148, 232 False, 175 Falsehood, 231 Falsify, 63 Falsified, 12 Fear, 8, 17, 26, 44, 60, 246 Fearlessness, 19 Feeling(s), 15, 23, 27, 29, 34, 43, 48, 55, 58, 77, 79, 86, 89, 101f, 105, 130f, 138f, 183, 186 Free, 8, 57, 113, 149, 200, 210, 212f, 225 Will, 51, 133f, 145, 159, 164, 188, 194f, 218, 238 Freed, 38 Freedom, 26–29, 57, 75, 81, 113f, 133f, 145, 159, 164, 188, 210–213, 218, 238 General, 11, 16, 20, 23f, 35, 39, 43, 52, 69, 74, 81, 86, 91f, 94, 100, 104f, 120f, 124, 127, 137, 146, 167, 169, 176, 193, 204–212, 214–216, 220, 222f, 225, 230, 233, 238f, 244 Generality, 32, 39, 104, 209, 214, 235, 241 Generalization, 20, 116, 225 Gestalt, 217 God, 9, 19, 53f, 57f, 60–63, 68, 74, 76, 81, 85, 93, 95ff, 99, 112, 120, 122, 133f, 149, 156, 169f Godly, 23 Guilty, 25, 43f, 48, 63 Guilt, 8, 24f, 36, 44, 48f, 53, 63, 186 /Not Guilty, 2, 35–52, 59, 62, 65, 226ff, 230

Subject Index Hereditary Sin, 2, 16, 22–25, 34, 54, 246 Heuristic(s), 116f Humor, 43 Humorous, 5, 18, 20 Hypothesis, 12, 47, 61, 146, 226 Ideal(s), 8, 10ff, 23, 31, 40, 42, 59, 113f, 190, 192, 203, 205, 207, 209, 229, 236f, 238f Ideality, 40, 42f, 51f, 65, 166, 220f, 223f, 229f, 236, 238, 240 Idealism, 70, 79f, 95, 133, 158, 172, 192, 216, 238 Idealist(s), 151, Idealistic, 156, 218ff Imaginary, 230 Psychological Construction, 2 Immediate, 11, 13, 32, 37f, 43, 46ff, 60, 85f, 96f, 104f, 139, 142, 163, 180, 184ff, 189f, 208f, 211, 217, 221, 228, 236 Immediacy, 32, 37f, 40, 49, 51, 60, 166, 185f, 228 Immediately, 40, 52, 69, 137, 143, 226, 235, 239 Immanence, 10, 31f Immanent, 20, 32, 83, 119 Impression(s), 7, 31f, 36, 43, 68f, 76, 93, 97, 101–104, 115, 117, 132, 142, 146, 148, 163, 167, 171, 181, 184–187, 190, 193f, 196, 204f, 208f, 213, 215ff, 223, 233, 239 Inner sense, 128, 142, 183 Interest, 1, 7f, 16ff, 27, 31, 38, 47, 48, 53, 64, 76f, 79, 100, 118, 120, 131, 133, 148, 156, 160, 163f, 174, 180, 182–186, 189, 222, 225f, 231, 234, 238 Disinterested, 222 Interpretation(s), 3, 56, 67, 82f, 87, 109, 113, 118, 123, 125, 175, 183, 185, 225 Misinterpretation, 139 Inwardness, 27f, 30f, 102, 144, 219 Marry Irony, 49f, 54, 67, 149, 165 Socratic, 1, 149 Ironic, 3, 74 Self-ironic, 73 Judgment(s), 104, 130, 138ff, 142f, 145f, 190, 231, 237, 246 Letter(s), 4, 8ff, 96, 100, 109, 122, 144, 170, 213, 226f, 243, 248 Logic, 20f, 28, 33, 47, 52, 58, 69, 80, 85, 115, 162, 165, 174, 190f, 206f, 210, 212f, 215–218, 223f, 227, 235f

Love, 6, 15, 112, 163, 228, 230 Anxiety and, 27 Between man and woman/erotic, 36f, 46f, 49, 59, 111f, 162, 226, 228f Kierkegaard’s father, 73 Repetition’s, 6 As a memory, 6, 162 Marriage, 36, 38, 41f Married, 7, 10, 36, 41f Mediation, 7, 10, 81 Memory, 6, 40, 105, 162, 166 Mental, 19, 24, 81, 98, 127, 150, 188, 192, 196ff, 238, 241, 249 Metaphysics, 7, 16, 18ff, 22, 28, 34, 57, 63ff, 68, 71, 74ff, 84, 89–95, 97, 99ff, 103, 106, 108ff, 113, 115, 117, 119f, 122–128, 130f, 133, 135f, 137, 143, 148, 152, 159f, 163f, 167, 169f, 174f, 179, 182, 189, 203, 222f, 234–237, 239, 241, 243, 244, 246 Method(s), 15, 20, 33, 35, 45f, 61, 85f, 90, 94, 102, 109, 115, 121, 146, 152, 187, 197, 206, 212, 230, 243, 244, 249 Methodless, 206 Metodological, 94, 100, 102, 120, 134, 136, 156, 158, 239 Methodology, 54, 94, 104, 116, 102 Mind, the, 21, 25, 38, 67–70, 81f, 84f, 87, 98–102, 111f, 114, 118, 126, 134, 138f, 141, 144, 152, 156, 166, 170, 182, 184, 188f, 194f, 197, 208, 216, 227, 231, 236, 245, 247f Light-minded, 19 Mind-substance, 182 Modern, 1, 6f, 16, 45, 49f, 55, 68, 74, 95, 97, 101, 103, 104, 108, 110, 123ff, 134, 147, 149–153, 155, 158, 161, 162–165, 168–171, 177, 180–183, 187f, 194f, 198–201, 204f, 209, 232, 234, 238, 241, 243ff, 247 Modernity, 149–153, 155–159, 160– 165, 168, 173, 176f, 179f, 188, 199, 201, 204, 206, 209, 224, 233f, 245, 249 Premodern, 111, 134, 152, 155f, 158, 161–164, 176f, 199, 209, 233f, 241 Postmodern(ism/ity), 175f, 180, 189, 199, 209, 243, 247 Moment, 20f, 31ff, 162f Motion, 5, 21, 210 Movement, 5, 7, 10, 20f, 28, 80, 82, 107, 138, 165, 175, 180, 197, 208ff, 216f 257

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology Multidimensionality, 201 Multifarious(ness), 18, 29, 165, 167, 201, 211, 216, 221, 223, 235 Multiplicity, 7, 31f, 70, 78, 85, 114, 137, 140f, 144, 167, 199, 201, 203 Multitude, 29, 96, 100 Music, 3f, 38f, 67, 100, 111, 113, 118, 132, 145, 156, 191, 193f Myths, 240 Mythical, 9, 22f Mythic, 238 Natural History, 215 Law, 211 Naturalism, 238 Science, 12, 32, 107–110, 118f, 121, 125, 128, 135, 143ff, 156ff, 170, 183–187, 200, 214f, 249 Scientist, 49f, 65 Theology, 91, 93ff, 97, 109f, 120, 122, 169f, 182 Object(s), 8, 17, 19, 23, 33, 39, 54, 77, 81, 85, 97f, 101, 105, 115, 118, 120, 125, 127f, 130, 136–140, 142, 144, 148, 152, 157, 160, 170, 172, 174, 177, 180f, 184–187, 190, 201, 205, 208, 213, 218, 231 Objectify(ing), 172 Objective(s), 2f, 27–31, 34, 38, 41, 65, 83, 85, 115f, 125, 133, 135f, 140, 143, 148, 152, 159f, 163f, 170, 172, 177, 179, 183f, 186, 206f, 209, 213, 220f, 234, 236, 238 Objectivity, 17f, 64f, 77ff, 85, 110, 134, 145, 148, 157, 160, 164, 172f, 175, 179, 199, 203, 207, 219, 233–237, 240f Objection(s), 21, 24, 36, 41f, 46, 80, 127, 129, 142, 144, 156, 172, 230f Observe(d), 17, 21f, 26, 30, 80, 169, 181, 207, 226f Observable, 68, 221 Observation(s), 8, 17, 22, 30f, 37, 41, 45, 49ff, 93, 95, 102, 108f, 120ff, 124f, 128, 135, 137, 157, 170, 182f, 185, 201, 203, 227, 236 Observational, 142, 227 Observer, 6, 17, 30, 157, 194 Ontology, 75, 91, 94, 99f, 104, 109, 120, 135, 174f, 204, 212, 238, 241, 245 258

Order, 4, 8, 54, 68, 92, 104f, 110f, 114ff, 121, 155f, 167, 203, 206ff, 217, 230 Original Sin (see also Hereditary Sin), 16, 44, 54, 186 Particular, 4, 9, 11, 20, 24ff, 32f, 39, 41, 51f, 59f, 64, 69, 77, 86, 91, 93ff, 97, 104, 112, 115, 125, 133, 135, 138f, 141, 146, 159, 167f, 188, 193, 195f, 199, 201, 204ff, 207–212, 219, 221ff, 235, 238f Particularity, 9, 11, 18, 20, 23, 29, 52, 78, 81, 100, 114, 117, 134, 139, 193, 203f, 212, 223f, 234f Pain, 8, 10, 45, 47f, 56, 137 Passion(s), 2, 11, 47, 86, 219, 226f Passionate, 6, 162 Passionately, 11 Philosophy, 4, 10, 50f, 57f, 64, 71, 74ff, 90f, 95, 110f, 121, 172, 180, 234, 238, 240, 244f, 248 Applied, 136 Cartesian, 70, Critical, 125ff, 134, 143, 145f, 148, 152, 166, 179f, 186 Existential, 172f Fichte’s, 77ff Hegel’s, 6f, 10, 50, 80–87, 94 Kant’s, 75, 95, 123–134, 135, 152, 237 Kierkegaard’s, 19, 27, 29, 67, 71, 78, 118, 152, 172–177, 212, 219, 234 Leibniz’s, 95–98, 111 Of science, 203 Transcendental, 76–79, 82f, 142, 144 Theoretical, 145f Vs. psychology, 57f, 64, 79, 82, 237 Wolff ’s, 74, 90f, 98–9 Physics, 12, 32, 94, 97, 102, 119, 125, 127f, 136, 144, 180, 185, 189f, 206, 223 Physical, 12, 81, 86, 145, 181, 187ff, 193, 195, 212ff Pleasure, 130 Displeasure, 130 Poet, 10f, 46, 62, 226, 228f, 230 Poetry, 30, 67, 111, 113, 117 Postmodernism, 176 Predictability, 6, 9–13, 119f, 133, 188, 194f, 199, 204 Unpredictability, 9, 29, 32, 44, 52, 58, 161, 174, 194f, 224f, 230 Premodern, 111, 134, 152f, 155f, 158, 162ff, 176f, 199, 209, 241 Premodernity, 155, 161, 233f

Subject Index Psychology As a science, 16f, 20, 23, 25, 28–34, 39f, 43f, 51, 54, 58, 65, 71, 74f, 83–87, 101, 123, 142–148, 165f, 168, 182f, 187, 201, 212, 215, 221ff, 241 Cartesian, 70, 156 Cross cultural, 238f Cultural, 180 Eighteenth century, 56, 74 Empirical, 12, 79, 91–106, 107–122, 123–148, 150, 157f, 163, 166f, 169f, 185f, 193, 203, 216, 232, 234ff, 240 Existential, 50 Experimental, 1, 4, 12, 53, 79, 95, 97, 107, 141, 151f, 180, 182, 187, 193–198 Folk, 151f, 180, 192f, 232, 238 Gestalt, 217 Hegel’s, 79–83, 148 Kierkegaard’s, 2, 15, 18f, 22, 42, 49, 64, 73f, 149–153, 159–161, 170, 211, 233 Modern, 1, 104, 150ff, 179–201 Psychological concupiscence, 24 Rational, 91ff, 99, 105f, 112, 125–128, 133, 135–138, 142, 144, 150, 183, 216 Social, 173 The term, 2, 13, 15f, 41, 43, 53, 59, 67, 86, 89 Overcome, 62, 79 Wolff ’s, 79, 98–106 Wundt’s, 151f, 182–197, 212, 232 Quadrivium, 113, 118 Quality/(ies), 28, 118, 191, 209, 213, 219, 223 Qualitative, 25, 44 Quantities, 236 Quantitative, 20, 236, 239 Recollection, 6ff, 40, 105, 161f, 166 Reflect(s)/(ed), 12, 21, 29f, 36, 40, 98ff, 105, 112–116, 133, 150, 156, 158, 165f, 170, 176, 190, 209, 222, 233, 235f Reflecting, 78, 235 Reflection(s), 7, 21, 28, 40, 47, 51, 54, 60, 68ff, 74–79, 81, 84f, 98, 100, 105, 127, 140, 152, 157f, 161, 163, 166ff, 180, 206, 219, 221f, 228, 230, 232, 235f Reflective, 98, 146, 157, 239f Reflectivity, 161, 239 Reflexivity, 156ff, 160f

Religious, 29, 36, 40, 42ff, 47f, 51, 55, 61f, 65, 119, 161, 165–169, 177, 203, 228ff, 238, 249 Religiousness, 62, 65, 169 Religion, 82, 84f, 149, 182, 192 Religiosity, 166 Remind, 8, 55 Repetition, 1, 3–13, 15, 17f, 20, 31, 33, 35, 37, 40, 46f, 53, 59, 63f, 73, 80, 95, 141, 160–164, 188, 197, 204, 210, 216f, 222, 226–230, 244, 246ff Rhetoric, 103, 113, 115–118, 206, 233, 243 Rhetorical, 55, 69, 78, 116ff, 149, 206 Scenario(s), 45, 47ff, 51, 128 Self, 10, 20, 30, 55–59, 61ff, 140, 160f, 165–168, 245 -awareness, 127 -consciousness, 137, 142 -contradictory/ions, 12, 20, 42, 71, 79, 209 -deception, 166 -evident(ly), 5, 123, 208, 217, 223 -generating, 236 -hood, 175 -identity, 159, 166, 199, 245 -ironic, 73 -knowledge, 186 -loving, 49, 228 -reflection, 28, 78, 100, 105, 127, 236 -reported, 12 -sufficient, 84 -therapy, 165 -understanding, 180 Semiotic(s), 116, 231f, 245, 249 Sensation(s), 31, 38, 43, 51, 56, 67–70, 76–79, 81f, 84, 86, 94f, 98, 101, 105, 111f, 114f, 117, 120, 126, 128f, 134, 138, 142, 151, 169, 187, 196f, 221f, 232, 235f Sentio ergo sum, 102 Silent, 3, 5, 8, 231 Sin, 2, 16–20, 22–26, 34, 44, 54, 62f, 186, 246 Sinful(ness), 27, 33, 182 Spirit, 17, 19, 22, 25f, 29, 31, 55, 57, 86, 99, 168, 170, 218 Spiritual, 10, 55, 168, 170 Stable, 10, 13, 166, 181, 196, 214 Stability, 9, 13, 40, 64, 96, 161f, 164, 166, 211, 216f, 232 Instability, 9, 165f, 199 Unstable, 58, 222 259

Kierkegaard and the Rise of Modern Psychology Stage(s), 1, 36–39, 41, 44f, 49f, 51, 53f, 56, 59, 61f, 64f, 67, 74, 89, 161, 165f, 216, 228 Subject(s), 2f, 6f, 16, 20, 31f, 63, 65, 67, 75, 77f, 86, 96, 99, 107f, 113, 129f, 134–137, 139, 152, 160, 163, 172, 175f, 179ff, 184ff, 206, 215f, 219, 223, 238 Subjective, 17, 19, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 65, 85, 115f, 125, 133ff, 139, 143, 148, 152, 163f, 170–173, 180f, 184, 186f, 189, 206f, 209, 216, 219ff, 234ff, 239 Subjectivity, 17f, 20, 27, 29, 64f, 75, 77ff, 81, 84–87, 95, 110, 113, 117, 118, 125, 134f, 143, 145, 148, 152, 157, 160, 164f, 170–173, 175, 179f, 186, 192, 199, 203f, 219, 221f, 234, 236ff, 240f Sublime, 176f Sub specie æternitatis, 219f, 234 Suffer, 10, 89 Suffered, 10 Sufferer, 49 Suffering, 2, 48, 61, 227 Symptom(s), 27, 58f, 61, 98, 104, 169, 224 Synthesis, 7, 21, 31, 56, 80, 140ff, 189, 194, 197, 201, 213 Synthetic Statements, 76f, 125ff, 140, 143, 145, 148, 191, 205 Judgments, 138 Process, 190, 197 Science, 191

Thesis, 1, 7, 10, 15f, 19, 24, 30, 50, 53f, 64, 67f, 74, 80, 109, 113, 119ff, 138, 141f, 147, 149f, 152, 172, 175, 183, 200, 234f Thinking, 23, 31f, 39, 57, 67ff, 76f, 80ff, 84, 86, 90f, 96, 98, 110ff, 114ff, 118, 120f, 124, 128f, 131, 133–137, 139–142, 145, 149, 151f, 156, 158, 163, 169, 176, 179, 183, 188, 192f, 203f, 207, 210, 213, 215–224, 230, 232, 234f, 238, 240 Time, 2–5, 7f, 10, 18, 21, 29f, 40f, 46, 48, 50, 79, 83f, 86, 91, 95f, 98, 100, 111, 113, 117–122, 123, 130f, 136, 138f, 143, 159, 161ff, 170, 175, 179, 182f, 188, 191, 200, 206, 215, 229, 232, 235, 240 Reversible, 161ff, 231f Temporal, 9, 21, 41f, 56, 61, 77f, 219 Temporality, 22, 28, 34, 42, 51, 59, 63f, 77, 80, 162, 175, 209f, 231, 236 Tragedy, 6, 165 Tragic, 19, 48, 51 Transcendence, 9f, 31f, 80 Transcendent, 9, 32 Transcendental, 76–79, 82f, 133, 136–144, 192, 247 Trivium, 113

Theology, 16, 25f, 28, 34, 44, 50f, 54, 58, 64, 68f, 74, 93, 99f, 110, 152, 157, 159, 168f, 171, 174, 177, 180, 182f, 203, 227 Natural, 91, 93ff, 109f, 120, 122, 182 Rational, 135 Dialectical, 172 Theory, 77, 86, 104, 110–113, 115, 118, 121, 139, 145, 147, 156, 173f, 176, 190ff, 216, 243f, 249 Theoretical, 24, 47, 51f, 54, 86, 113, 145ff, 205, 216, 223

Valid, 31, 35, 50, 67, 69, 76, 89, 91, 94, 123, 134, 137, 176, 182, 198, 203, 206ff, 212, 233, 235 Invalid, 204, 207 Validity, 11, 219, 233 Value(s), 3, 27, 35, 37, 42, 55, 91, 94, 111, 114, 137, 146, 188, 238f Victim, 8, 37, 49, Volition, 97, 105

260

Universal(s), 8f, 11ff, 18ff, 25f, 28ff, 32f, 41, 59f, 77, 85, 94f, 97, 104, 112, 114f, 118f, 120ff, 125, 133f, 137ff, 141, 156, 159, 164, 168, 172, 188, 192f, 195f, 199, 201, 205, 207f, 211f, 214, 218f, 221, 223, 239 Universality, 64, 137f, 211

Young Man, 3, 5f, 8–13, 15, 30, 37, 46ff, 53, 73, 162, 226–230