Kierkegaard Secondary Literature: Finnish, French, Galician, and German 9781472477767, 1472477766

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KIERKEGAARD SECONDARY LITERATURE TOME IV: FINNISH, FRENCH, GALICIAN, AND GERMAN

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 18, Tome IV

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

General Editor JON STEWART Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Editorial Board FINN GREDAL JENSEN KATALIN NUN PETER ŠAJDA Advisory Board LEE C. BARRETT MARÍA J. BINETTI ISTVÁN CZAKÓ HEIKO SCHULZ CURTIS L. THOMPSON

Kierkegaard Secondary Literature Tome IV: Finnish, French, Galician, and German

Edited by JON STEWART

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Jon Stewart; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jon Stewart to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 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. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Catologing-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 9781472477767 (hbk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Cover design by Katalin Nun Copyright © Jon Stewart, 2017. All rights reserved.

Contents List of Contributors List of Abbreviations

xiii xv

I. Secondary Literature in Finnish Torsti Lehtinen, Søren Kierkegaard, intohimon, ahdistuksen ja huumorin filosofi [Søren Kierkegaard, a Philosopher of Passion, Anxiety and Humor] Olli Mäkinen Kalle Sandelin (Sorainen), Søren Kierkegaardin persoonallisuusaatteen kehittyminen Tanskan filosofisten virtausten yhteydessä viime vuosisadan alkupuolella [The Development of Søren Kierkegaard’s Idea of Personality in Connection with the Danish Philosophical Currents of the Early Nineteenth Century] Olli Mäkinen Helge Ukkola, Eksistoiva Ihminen. Ihmisen ongelma Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa [Existing Man: The Problem of Man as Presented in Søren Kierkegaard’s Thought] Olli-Pekka Vainio Helge Ukkola, Lähimmäisenrakkaus Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa [The Love of the Neighbor in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard] Olli-Pekka Vainio

3

7

11

15

II. Secondary Literature in French Rodolphe Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard [Lacan and Kierkegaard] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

21

André Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur [The Twilight of Helsingør]27 Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

vi

Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

Gerta Berberich, La notion métaphysique de la personne chez Kant et Kierkegaard [The Metaphysical Notion of the Person in Kant and Kierkegaard] Frédéric Dubois Rachel Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours. Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, Chestov devant Nietzsche [Paths and Crossroads: Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, Chestov before Nietzsche] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

31

35

Patrice Bollon (ed.), Søren Kierkegaard—Philosophe et dandy: special issue of Le Magazine Littéraire41 Margherita Tonon Philippe Chevallier, Être soi: Actualité de Søren Kierkegaard [To be Oneself: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard] Kjell Bleys André Clair, Pseudonymie et Paradoxe. La pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard [Pseudonymity and Paradox: The Dialectical Thought of Kierkegaaard] Margherita Tonon

45

51

André Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique [Kierkegaard: Existence and Ethics] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

55

Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard, chrétien incognito. La Neutralité armée [Kierkegaard, Christian Incognito: Armed Neutrality] Noreen Khawaja

61

Jacques Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard [History and the Absolute: Essay on Kierkegaard] Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

65

Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie [Kierkegaard and Non-Philosophy]69 Margherita Tonon Michel Cornu, Kierkegaard et la communication de l’existence [Kierkegaard and the Communication of Existence] Fleur Van Bocxlaer

73

Vincent Delecroix, Singulière philosophie. Essai sur Kierkegaard [Singular Philosophy: Essay on Kierkegaard] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

79

Contents

Victor Deleuran, Esquisse d’une étude sur Soeren Kierkegaard [Sketch of a Study of Søren Kierkegaard] Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux Alain Douchevsky, Médiation et singularité: Au seuil d’une ontologie avec Pascal et Kierkegaard [Mediation and Singularity: At the Limit of an Ontology with Pascal and Kierkegaard] Claudine Davidshofer Juliette Favez-Boutonier, L’angoisse. Contribution à la psychologie et la métaphysique de l’angoisse [Anxiety: Contribution to the Psychology and Metaphysics of Anxiety] Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

vii

85

89

95

Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse [The Unhappy Consciousness]99 Mélissa Fox-Muraton Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov [Meetings with Lev Shestov] Mélissa Fox-Muraton Darío González, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne. Idéalité et détermination [Essay on Kierkegaardian Ontology: Ideality and Determination] Claudine Davidshofer Françoise Heinrich, Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien [Kierkegaard: Becoming Christian] Frédéric Dubois Régis Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard [Introduction to Kierkegaard] Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux Régis Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre [The Existentialist Doctrines from Kierkegaard to J.-P. Sartre] Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

105

111

117 121

125

Kierkegaard: special issue of Kairos131 Mélissa Fox-Muraton Kierkegaard vivant. Colloque organisé par l’Unesco à Paris du 21 au 23 avril 1964 [Kierkegaard Alive: A Colloquium in Paris Organized by UNESCO April 21–23, 1964] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

137

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Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

Aude-Marie Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard ou Kierkegaard lecteur de l’Épître aux Romains [The Notion of Forgiveness in Kierkegaard or Kierkegaard as Reader of the Epistle to the Romans] Mélissa Fox-Muraton

143

Jean-François Marquet, Miroirs de l’identité. La littérature hantée par la philosophie [Mirrors of Identity: Literature Haunted by Philosophy] Vasco Baptista Marques

151

Emmanuel Mounier, Introduction aux existentialismes [Introduction to the Forms of Existentialism] Joseph Ballan

155

Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard159 Susanne Rimstad Hélène Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard [Kierkegaard’s Vocabulary]163 Fleur Van Bocxlaer Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception [Kierkegaard in Twentieth-Century France: An Archaeological Reception] Mélissa Fox-Muraton Hélène Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard [The Concept of Philosophy with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard] Nicolae Irina Henri-Bernard Vergote, Sens et répétition: Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, vols. 1–2 [Meaning and Repetition: Essay on Kierkegaard’s Irony, vols. 1–2] Mélissa Fox-Muraton Nelly Viallaneix, Kierkegaard. L’unique devant Dieu [Kierkegaard: The Single Individual before God] Anna Fioravanti and Carlos Raúl Cordero

169

175

181

187

III. Secondary Literature in Galician Oscar Parcero Oubiña, Søren Kierkegaard195 Dolors Perarnau Vidal

Contents

ix

IV. Secondary Literature in German Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal, Die Wiederholung der Philosophie. Kierkegaards Kulturkritik und ihre Folgen [The Repetition of Philosophy: Kierkegaard’s Cultural Criticism and its Consequences] Esther Oluffa Pedersen Tilman Beyrich, Ist Glauben wiederholbar? Derrida liest Kierkegaard [Is Faith Repeatable? Derrida Reads Kierkegaard] Heiko Schulz

201

207

Hermann Deuser, Sören Kierkegaard. Die paradoxe Dialektik des politischen Christen. Voraussetzungen bei Hegel. Die Reden von 1847/48 im Verhältnis von Politik und Ästhetik [Søren Kierkegaard: The Paradoxical Dialectic of the Political Christian. Presuppositions in Hegel. The Discourses from 1847–48 in Relation to Politics and Aesthetics]213 Ulrich Lincoln Hermann Deuser, Dialektische Theologie. Studien zu Adornos Metaphysik und zum Spätwerk Kierkegaards [Dialectical Theology: Studies on Adorno’s Metaphysics and Kierkegaard’s Late Writings] Ulrich Lincoln

219

Hermann Diem, Die Existenzdialektik von Sören Kierkegaard [Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Existence] David Coe

225

Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik [Kierkegaard’s Existence-Dialectical Ethics] Magnus C. Nagel

229

Gerd-Günther Grau, Die Selbstauflösung des christlichen Glaubens. Eine religionsphilosophische Studie über Kierkegaard [The SelfDisintegration of Christian Faith: A Study in the Philosophy of Religion on Kierkegaard] Ulrich Lincoln

235

Wilfried Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien” [Kierkegaard’s Maieutic Ethics: From Either/Or, Part Two to Stages]241 Magnus C. Nagel

x

Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

Jochem Hennigfeld and Jon Stewart (eds.), Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst und Wirklichkeit [Kierkegaard and Schelling: Freedom, Anxiety and Actuality] Henning Nörenberg Jann Holl, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst. Eine Untersuchung über die Voraussetzungen und Formen seines Denkens [Kierkegaard’s Conception of the Self: A Study of the Conditions and Forms of His Thought] Klaus Viertbauer Madeleine Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine. Zur Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen bei Sören Kierkegaard [The Singular and the Universal: On Human Self-Development in Søren Kierkegaard] Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal Klaus-Michael Kodalle, Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen. Kritik des Wunschdenkens und die Zweckrationalität im Anschluß an Kierkegaard [The Conquest of the Useless: Criticism of Wishful Thinking and Instrumental Rationality in Connection with Kierkegaard] Ulrich Lincoln Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung [Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Existential Analysis and its Relation to the Proclamation] Bjørn Rabjerg

247

253

257

263

269

Olaf P. Monrad, Sören Kierkegaard. Sein Leben und seine Werke [Søren Kierkegaard: His Life and His Works] Gerhard Thonhauser

275

Gerhard Niedermeyer, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik [Sören Kierkegaard and Romanticism] Gerhard Thonhauser

279

Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels [Ethical Self-Dialogue: Kierkegaard’s Debate with Kant’s Ethics and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right] Ulrich Lincoln Walter Ruttenbeck, Sören Kierkegaard. Der christliche Denker und sein Werk [Søren Kierkegaard: The Christian Thinker and his Work] Gerhard Thonhauser

285

291

Contents

Klaas Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte des ‘Paradoxon’. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Calvins und des nach-kierkegaardschen Paradoxon [The Historical Concept of Paradox: with Specific Consideration of Calvin’s and the Post-Kierkegaardian Paradox] Wolter Hartog Henning Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem. Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik [The Form of Thought of Paradoxicality as a Theological Problem: An Examination of Kierkegaard and More Recent Theology as a Contribution to Theological Logic] Harald Steffes Heiko Schulz, Eschatologische Identität. Eine Untersuchung über das Verhältnis von Vorsehung, Schicksal und Zufall bei Sören Kierkegaard [Eschatological Identity: An Investigation of the Relation of Providence, Fate and Contingency in Søren Kierkegaard] Henning Nörenberg

xi

297

303

309

Johannes Sløk, Die Anthropologie Kierkegaards [Kierkegaard’s Anthropology]317 Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal Michael Theunissen and Wilfried Greve (eds.), Materialien zur Philosophie Søren Kierkegaards [Materials on the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard] Thomas Posch Helmuth Vetter, Stadien der Existenz. Eine Untersuchung zum Existenzbegriff Sören Kierkegaards [Stages of Existence: An Investigation into Søren Kierkegaard’s Concept of Existence] Gerhard Thonhauser

321

327

List of Contributors Joseph Ballan, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, Copenhagen University, Njalsgade 130, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark. Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Philosophisches Seminar, Leibnizstr. 6, 24118 Kiel, Germany. Kjell Bleys, Ghent University, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. David Coe, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105, USA. Carlos Raúl Cordero, Biblioteca Kierkegaard Argentina, Carlos Calvo 257, C1102AAE, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Claudine Davidshofer, Emory University, Philosophy Department, 516 South Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Frédéric Dubois, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Vakgroep Wijsbegeerte en moraalwetenschappen, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Anna Fioravanti, Biblioteca Kierkegaard Argentina, Carlos Calvo 257, C1102AAE, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mélissa Fox-Muraton, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Clermont-Ferrand, 4 boulevard Trudaine, 63037 Clermont-Ferrand cedex, France. Wolter Hartog, Leuven University, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux, Université Catholique de Louvain, Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 14, Place du Cardinal Mercier, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Noreen Khawaja, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University, 451 College St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA. Nicolae Irena, Department of Philosophy, S 428 Ross Building, 4700 Keele St., York University, Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3. Ulrich Lincoln, German Protestant Ministries London (East), 22 Downside Crescent, London NW3 2AR, United Kingdom.

xiv

Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

Olli Mäkinen, Turku University of Applied Science, Faculty of Life Sciences, ICT and Business, Joukahaisenkatu 3 C, 20520 Turku, Finland. Vasco Marques, Center of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, Alameda da Universidade, 1600–214 Lisbon, Portugal. Magnus C. Nagel, Philosophisches Seminar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i. Br., Platz der Universität 3, 79085 Freiburg, Germany. Henning Nörenberg, Universität Rostock, Institut für Philosophie, 18051 Rostock, Germany. Esther Oluffa Pedersen, Roskilde University, Section of Philosophy and Science Studies, CUID, Universitetsvej 1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Thomas Posch, Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Türkenschanzstraße 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria. Bjørn Rabjerg, Aarhus University, Department of Culture and Society, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 3, 3rd, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Susanne Rimstad, Copenhagen University, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Karen Blixensvej 1, 2300 Copenhagen, Denmark. Heiko Schulz, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Fachbereich 6—Ev. Theologie, Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Harald Steffes, Evangelische Stadtakademie Düsseldorf, Fachbereich Reformation und Moderne, Bastionstr. 6, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany. Gerhard Thonhauser, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna, Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria. Margherita Tonon, c/o Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, University of Copenhagen, Farvergade 27 D, 1463 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Olli-Pekka Vainio, Faculty of Theology, Vuorikatu 3, University of Helsinki, Finland 00014. Fleur Van Bocxlaer, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Vakgroep Wijsbegeerte en Moraalwetenschappen, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Elsene, Brussels, Belgium. Dolors Perarnau Vidal, Departament de Filosofia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterrra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Barcelona, Spain. Klaus Viertbauer, Katholische Privatuniversität Linz, Institut für Theoretische Philosophie, Bethlehemstraße 20, 4020 Linz, Austria.

List of Abbreviations Danish Abbreviations B&A

Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard, vols. 1–2, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1953–54.

Bl.art. S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død, udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter, ed. by Rasmus Nielsen, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1857. EP

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

Pap.

Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, vols. I to XI–3, ed. by Peter Andreas Heiberg, Victor Kuhr and Einer Torsting, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1909–48; second, expanded ed., vols. I to XI–3, by Niels Thulstrup, vols. XII to XIII supplementary volumes, ed. by Niels Thulstrup, vols. XIV to XVI index by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1968–78.

SKS

Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, vols. K1–K28, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, Alastair McKinnon and Finn Hauberg Mortensen, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag 1997–2013.

SV1

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

AN

Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998.

AR

On Authority and Revelation, The Book on Adler, trans. by Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1955.

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

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

xvi

Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

C

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

CA

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

CD

Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

CI

The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

CIC

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

COR

The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982.

CUP1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982. CUP2 Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1982. CUPH Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2009. EO1

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

EO2

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

EOP

Either/Or, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1992.

EPW

Early Polemical Writings, including From the Papers of One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New SoapCellars, trans. by Julia Watkin, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

EUD

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

FSE

For Self-Examination, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

FT

Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983.

List of Abbreviations

xvii

FTP

Fear and Trembling, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1985.

JC

Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.

JFY

Judge for Yourself!, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1990.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vols. 1–6, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk (vol. 7, Index and Composite Collation), Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press 1967–78.

KAC

Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1944.

KJN

Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press 2007ff.

LD

Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik Rosenmeier, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978.

LR

A Literary Review, trans. by Alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 2001.

M

The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998.

P

Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

PC

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

PF

Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985.

PJ

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

PLR

Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require, trans. by William McDonald, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press 1989.

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Kierkegaard Secondary Literature

PLS

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1941.

PV

The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998.

PVL

The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an Author, trans. by Walter Lowrie, New York and London: Oxford University Press 1939.

R

Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983.

SBL

Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1989.

SLW

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

SUD

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980.

SUDP The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Alastair Hannay, London and New York: Penguin Books 1989. TA

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1978.

TD

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

UD

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

WA

Without Authority including The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air, Two Ethical-Religious Essays, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, An Upbuilding Discourse, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

WL

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

WS

Writing Sampler, trans. by Todd W. Nichol, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.

I. Secondary Literature in Finnish

Torsti Lehtinen, Søren Kierkegaard, intohimon, ahdistuksen ja huumorin filosofi

[Søren Kierkegaard, a Philosopher of Passion, Anxiety and Humor], Helsinki: Kirjapaja 1990, 200 pp.

Torsti Lehtinen’s study, Søren Kierkegaard, intohimon, ahdistuksen ja huumorin filosofi (Søren Kierkegaard, a Philosopher of Passion, Anxiety and Humor), was, when published in 1990, the first general introduction in Finnish to Søren Kierkegaard’s life and philosophy. The second edition of this book was published in 2000 (Kauniainen: Mattina), the third edition in 2008 (Helsinki: Arktinen banaani) and the fourth in 2013 (Helsinki: Arktinen banaani). Lehtinen has been a productive Kierkegaard researcher both before and after this work and has published mainly translations of Kierkegaard’s texts but has also translated international works on Kierkegaard: Diapsalmata (1988),1 Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1992),2 In vino veritas (1996),3 and Fear and Trembling (2001).4 He has also made Kierkegaard more popular in Finland with his translations of Kierkegaard biographies such as Peter Thielst’s Livet forstås baglæns, men må leves forlæns (1999)5 and, together with Tytti Träff, Ben Alex’s Søren Kierkegaard: An Authentic Life (1998)6 and also with a comprehensive overview on existentialism with special emphasis on Kierkegaard (2002).7 Søren Kierkegaard, Välisoittoja [Diapsalmata], trans. by Torsti Lehtinen, Helsinki: Kirjapaja 1988. 2 Søren Kierkegaard, Päättävä epätieteellinen jälkikirjoitus [Concluding Unscientific Postscript], trans. by Torsti Lehtinen, Helsinki. WSOY 1992. 3 Søren Kierkegaard, In vino veritas, trans. by Torsti Lehtinen, Helsinki: WSOY 1996. 4 Søren Kierkegaard, Pelko ja vavistus: dialektista lyriikkaa [Fear and Trembling], trans. by Torsti Lehtinen, Helsinki: WSOY 2001. 5 Peter Thielst, Elämä ymmärretään taaksepäin, mutta se täytyy elää eteenpäin: kertomus Søren Kierkegaardista [Livet forstås baglæns, men må leves forlæns], trans. by Torsti Lehtinen, Helsinki: WSOY 1999. 6 Ben Alex, Søren Kierkegaard: ajattelijan elämä [Søren Kierkegaard: An Authentic Life], trans. by Torsti Lehtinen and Tytti Träff, Helsinki: Kirjapaja 1998. 7 Torsti Lehtinen, Eksistentialismi: vapauden filosofia [Existentialism: The Philosophy of Freedom], Helsinki: Kirjapaja 2002. 1

4

Olli Mäkinen

In his work, Søren Kierkegaard, a Philosopher of Passion, Anxiety and Humor, Lehtinen chose a biographical point of view as a starting point, a view typical for earlier Kierkegaard research. Lehtinen reads Kierkegaard’s works and papers, rich biographical and historical literature,8 and different source material dealing with Kierkegaard and his time, bringing in the cultural, religious, and academic life in Copenhagen and local history side-by-side. Lehtinen seems to know the risks he takes when he interprets Kierkegaard’s works as reflections of the author’s life and is well aware of the game Kierkegaard was playing. Lehtinen is also a novelist himself and knows the minefields of biographical fallacy. New Criticism still had a firm hold of the literary research when this study was prepared and published in 1990. The author includes references at the end of the text (in an appendix), and so the style of the research is, strictly speaking, academic writing—the style of the genre of the work is, however, popular science. The author has interpreted Kierkegaard’s inaccessible philosophy and theology as well as the aesthetic works for a general audience; the text is fluent and captivating. Lehtinen has also added a list of sources used and an overview of the course of Kierkegaard’s life, a bibliography of Kierkegaard’s works, a list of all his pseudonyms, and a register of translated works of Kierkegaard into Finnish as well as the most important Kierkegaard research carried out in Finland. Torsti Lehtinen is also a theologian, and this is clearly evident in his text, which is fascinating and full of illustrative examples and metaphors. He knows how to use different rhetorical and stylistic devices, such as irony and humor, and here his expression, also the theoretical articulation, is very similar to that of Kierkegaard. Both the scholar and the subject of the inquiry have the same background. The research follows strictly the course of Kierkegaard’s life. It has been necessary, however, to cut down and condense considerably: the body text is only 200 pages long. Lehtinen uses the main events in Kierkegaard’s life (the great earthquake, the engagement) as explanatory factors for changes in the philosopher’s career—this biographical reading is customary but reader-friendly. Cause and effect is, however, a dangerous way to put two and two together. Hunchbacked Don Juan was one of the images that the weekly satirical and political magazine the Corsair used to make fun of Kierkegaard. Lehtinen named one of the chapters in his book “Hunchbacked Don Juan,”9 and there he interprets and explains Kierkegaard’s relation to women. Lehtinen’s viewpoint on this subject is interesting. He begins with a quotation from the “Diapsalmata” where Victor Eremita states that women do not please him. After that Lehtinen lets all the heroes of “In Vino Veritas” tell what they think is the essence of the woman—and the episode ends when the ensemble sees at the end Judge William and his wife in their idyllic domesticity. Observed from this point of view, Kierkegaard’s image of women is For example, Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaards Forhold til Hegel og til den spekulative Idealisme indtil 1846, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1967; Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaard og Kirken i Danmark, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1985; Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaards København, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1987. 9 Torsti Lehtinen, Søren Kierkegaard, intohimon, ahdistuksen ja huumorin filosofi [Søren Kierkegaard, a Philosopher of Passion, Anxiety and Humor], Helsinki: Kirjapaja 1990, pp. 80–95. 8

Torsti Lehtinen

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quite male chauvinist, and Lehtinen finds many arguments for this standpoint both from the spirit of the time and Kierkegaard’s life experiences, the most important of which, during the writing of Either/Or, was Regine Olsen’s engagement to Frederik Schlegel. Lehtinen ends the chapter by describing the episode where Kierkegaard and Fredrika Bremer corresponded.10 Lehtinen’s conclusion is that in spite of his feebleness and kyphosis Kierkegaard never suspected his charm among women.11 Lehtinen refers to Kierkegaard’s heroes, for instance Don Juan, and Johannes the Seducer, whom Lehtinen sees as Kierkegaard’s alter ego. According to Lehtinen, Kierkegaard was confident of his success as a ladies’ man; he regarded his intelligence or intellectual capacity to be beyond comparison. It is true that Kierkegaard had many chauvinist opinions; however, sexual equality was not a general custom at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Fredrika Bremer, one of the pioneers of the women’s movement, was an exception. Lehtinen goes meticulously through the key concepts and themes in Kierkegaard’s philosophy (the stages, despair, choice, the leap, irony, humor, and so on) and presents the original excerpts from Kierkegaard’s works that are linked to these concepts. Lehtinen has also translated many of the passages from Danish into Finnish. Lehtinen is well aware of the great influence of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy and German Idealism in general on Kierkegaard’s philosophico-literary development.12 However, he does not deal much with the impact of Hegelianism on Kierkegaard’s language, jargon, and argumentation, or with the love-hate relationship he had with the great German philosopher. The back cover of Lehtinen’s book advertises the work as an essay collection consisting of 14 essays and mentions names such as Henrik Ibsen, Karl Barth, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Lehtinen’s work is not, however, a discontinuous essay collection but a harmonious overview of Kierkegaard’s life, his way of thinking and his works. Lehtinen is not interested in outlining the influences Kierkegaard had on his own time (Georg Brandes, for example) or the philosophy and literature of the twentieth century, for example, Sartre, Camus, Husserl, Heidegger and the whole existentialist movement. This oversight was, however, later corrected in Lehtinen’s work Eksistentialismi: vapauden filosofia (Existentialism: The Philosophy of Freedom) in 2002. Olli Mäkinen

10 11 12

Ibid., pp. 93–5. Ibid., p. 95. Ibid., pp. 40–1.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Liljanto, Kaarina, “Tro, hob og Kierkegaard,” Berlingske Tidende, October 10, 1991.

Kalle Sandelin (Sorainen), Søren Kierkegaardin persoonallisuusaatteen kehittyminen Tanskan filosofisten virtausten yhteydessä viime vuosisadan alkupuolella [The Development of Søren Kierkegaard’s Idea of Personality in Connection with the Danish Philosophical Currents of the Early Nineteenth Century], Pori: Satakunnan kirjateollisuus 1927, 279 pp.

Kalle Sandelin’s work is the first Finnish dissertation on Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy. In 1936 Sandelin (1893–1983) changed his last name—as did many other Finns—to Sorainen. He studied Kierkegaard’s influence in Finland (for example, in the lyrics of Juhani Siljo) and also the idea of personality in other connections. It is likely that Sandelin received a lot of inspiration from the Danish philosopher Harald Høffding.1 Obviously the theory of the idea of personality came from Høffding, whom Sandelin corresponded with and also met. Sandelin quotes Høffding frequently in his thesis. According to Sandelin, the idea of personality means the primacy of the individual experience and knowledge instead of influence from different kinds of authorities and abstract systems supported by these authorities. In his thesis Sandelin follows the development of the idea of personality in Denmark during the first half of the nineteenth century and also studies how the idea of personality manifests itself in Kierkegaard’s philosophy and theology. In the first two chapters Sandelin goes through the idea of personality, its birth and growth, both in Denmark and briefly in other Scandinavian countries. He also explores the relation of this idea to the Romantic movement. As an opposing Kalle Sandelin, Søren Kierkegaardin persoonallisuusaatteen kehittyminen Tanskan filosofisten virtausten yhteydessä viime vuosisadan alkupuolella, Pori: Satakunnan kirjateollisuus 1927, p. 4.

1

Olli Mäkinen

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movement, both to himself and Kierkegaard, he sees Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s system. As regards to the Danish tradition, Sandelin goes back to the eighteenth century and Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), who was a playwright and the founder of Danish literature.2 According to Sandelin, in his plays Holberg found the way of using dramatic characters—who represented certain characteristics, ideas and thought, maybe views of life. Holberg’s goal is didactic. He tries to combine faith and knowledge, in contrast to Kierkegaard’s endeavors, because, in Sandel’s opinion, Kierkegaard’s aim is to separate these two things.3 The Romantic movement stressed the individual, inwardness, and the genius who often fought against society and accepted conventions. Sandelin sees Romanticism as a forerunner of the idea of personality. In addition to German Romantic spokesmen (for example, Goethe, Schiller, and Novalis) he deals with Danish romanticists such as Henrik Steffens and Adam Oehlenschläger.4 Sandelin also discusses the Danish anti-Hegelians of Kierkegaard’s era and mentions Poul Martin Møller, who stressed the impossibility of the Hegelian dialectics and mediation and outlined an either/ or theory based on “dilemma.”5 Hans Lassen Martensen was the first in Denmark to express the concept of the idea of personality (Personlighedens Idee), but for him this meant an absolute personality, which only belonged to Christ.6 Frederik Christian Sibbern was, according to Sandelin, the one who introduced a doctrine of evolution (sporadic evolution) to the idea of personality.7 Before Kierkegaard was able to outline his view that subjectivity is equivalent with the truth (Subjektiviteten er Sandheden), he was inspired by the Romantics who used great historical and biblical characters like Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote, Christ, Socrates, Ahasverus, Abraham, and Job. Kierkegaard incorporated these characters or figures into his system of communication as paradigmatic examples. In the third chapter of his study Sandelin follows chronologically Kierkegaard’s literary production side-by-side with his journals and personal life. Kierkegaard’s thesis (The Concept of Irony) was the beginning of the idea of personality in Kierkegaard’s thought. Socrates provided the method (irony, maieutics), the role model (martyr, teacher, exception) and the idea of self-sacrifice that Kierkegaard was interested in.8 When analyzing Kierkegaard’s first great work, Either/Or, Sandelin attends to the strategy of indirect communication, that is, the different pseudonyms and characters who represent different kinds of viewpoints. This, together with Kierkegaard’s life history, gives reason to hypothesize that there is a close connection between Kierkegaard’s personal life and the development of his idea of personality. Sandelin is, however, well aware of the difficulties of combining personal life and literature (sometimes called the biographical fallacy), and Kierkegaard’s communication 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Ibid., pp. 8–13. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 12–17. Ibid., p. 30. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., pp. 26–30; p. 238. Ibid., p. 143.

Kalle Sandelin (Sorainen)

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strategy makes it more problematic. Sandelin also points out that Kierkegaard’s philosophy is not only cryptic but compact, and it has many strata that influence one another.9 Sandelin interprets the latter part of Either/Or such that it already contains the main features of Kierkegaard’s view of the idea of personality. Kierkegaard abandons Hegel’s mediation and advocates negative qualities such as difference, contradiction, and paradox. According to Sandelin, Kierkegaard’s idea of personality means the following: the individual has to make individual choices (one chooses oneself ), and the idea of subjectivity and subjective action is ethically and morally good and correct.10 In his study Sandelin follows Kierkegaard’s views and involvement in the discussion about the idea of personality and Hegelian idealism and its dialectics. Sandelin also points out that Kierkegaard was not fond of the natural sciences and their achievements. As to the idea of personality, the difficulties arise when the concepts of angst and guilt come in. The absolute religious truth and unquestionable relation to God replace the idea of personality. Sandelin says that when Kierkegaard emphasizes the relation between the individual and God, God means objectivity in this relation, and the relation to God is an absolute relation to the Absolute but nevertheless still quite personal and immediate.11 Olli Mäkinen

9 10 11

Ibid., p. 137. Ibid., pp. 159–60. Ibid., p. 235.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Grotenfelt, Arvi, Valvoja-Aika, Helsinki: Söderström & Co. 1927, pp. 521–4.

Helge Ukkola, Eksistoiva Ihminen. Ihmisen ongelma Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa [Existing Man: The Problem of Man as Presented in Søren Kierkegaard’s Thought], Helsinki: Suomalainen teologinen kirjallisuusseura 1961 (Suomalaisen teologisen kirjallisuusseuran julkaisuja, vol. 71), 300 pp.

The first Finnish academic dissertation on Kierkegaard in the Faculty of Theology was Helge Ukkola’s Eksistoiva Ihminen. By the 1960s, some of Kierkegaard’s writings had already been translated into Finnish; there was some interest in Kierkegaard in theological circles, but the main academic interest was outside the discipline of theology in the humanities. Ukkola was thus the first Finnish theological authority on Kierkegaard. In his dissertation, Ukkola argues that the conception of man is the essence of Kierkegaard’s work. This means that nearly everything Kierkegaard wrote had something to do with the idea of becoming a person who exists in this process of becoming. The author summarizes the task of the study with the following questions: (1) How is man’s existence and existing to be understood in Kierkegaard’s thought as a whole? (2) What is Kierkegaard’s conception of man’s sin-consciousness (original sin and sin in general) and freedom, both of which are basic problems of the life of man? (3) How are the various stages of man’s existence and existing expressed by Kierkegaard in the various spheres of existence? The first main chapter analyzes the dialectical concepts of soul and body, time and eternity, possibility and necessity, and finitude and infinity from the point of view of the human being. The second chapter deals with the hamartiological aspects of Kierkegaard’s work: original sin, freedom, sin in general, and the human being’s status as sinner. The third chapter discusses the existential spheres, and the final chapter offers an overview of Christian existence. For Ukkola, the problem of man is perceived as an emphatically theological problem. According to him, Kierkegaard is not interested in pure or abstract notions of the human being; instead, Kierkegaard’s whole literary oeuvre is an exercise in theological anthropology since to be human means to be dependent on God. Also, Kierkegaard is not interested in theology in the sense that he would use his energies to examine the mere concept of God since his focus is on the lived and experienced

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God-relationship. In contrast to anti-realist readings of Kierkegaard, Ukkola tries to defend a more realist line of interpretation. Subjectivity does mean subjectivism but the subjective attitude vis-à-vis something that is objective. Ukkola acknowledges that there is a general existential-ethical level in Kierkegaard’s writings, which is separate from his Christian thinking, yet they are in mutual relation so that Christian existence requires the elements of the lower spheres. There is no necessary ascension from the aesthetic and ethical spheres to the religious one, although it is prima facie possible for everyone. The central concepts like spirit, the moment, freedom, and conscience have their mundane meaning at the lower levels, yet they acquire new meanings when employed in the Christian form of life. For example, for a Christian “the leap” means a movement from the state of innocence to consciousness of guilt and sin, and it is only in this state where the forgiveness of sins can be understood. The view of Christian life that culminates in Ukkola’s work is summarized as follows: “Existing in the sphere of Christian existence thus means the striving of the Christian, which is a continuous struggle, to receive and preserve faith, to change according to Christ’s will and to follow in his footsteps in serving one’s neighbor.”1 Ukkola relates Kierkegaard’s spirituality to the rigoristic medieval imitatio Christi literature, which also emphasizes the processual nature of Christian life. Ukkola’s reading of Kierkegaard’s Christian pilgrim depicts him or her as “a fighter and a striver.”2 The ecclesiology is construed as ecclesia militans, which constantly seeks to maintain its genuine identity and avoid the stagnation and “carefree rejoicing before Christ [which] has even won in the life of an individual.…”3 Ukkola remarks that Kierkegaard’s work should not be evaluated as a standard work on Christian dogmatics or by general dogmatic standards, although he occasionally relates Kierkegaard’s thought to the theological thinking of his time. Here the reader can see how Ukkola tries to soften the audience for a better reception of Kierkegaard’s thought. Instead of dogmatic analysis, Kierkegaard should be used in the context of pastoral care since, in Ukkola’s opinion, Kierkegaard’s thinking is “a storehouse of treasure.”4 The first version of Ukkola’s dissertation was rejected by the Faculty, and after resubmission it received only the second lowest passing grade.5 The work received substantial criticism from the Faculty. Ukkola had decided to introduce his own methodological approach, which was considered unorthodox by the contemporary academia, and for the uninitiated, the work was rather hard to approach. Ukkola Helge Ukkola, Eksistoiva Ihminen. Ihmisen ongelma Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa, Helsinki: Suomalainen teologinen kirjallisuusseura 1961 (Suomalaisen teologisen kirjallisuusseuran julkaisuja, vol. 71), p. 294. 2 Ibid., pp. 283–4. 3 Ibid., p. 296. 4 Ibid., p. 296. 5 Janne Kylliäinen, “Finland: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Finland” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome 1, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 206–8. 1

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continued his academic study of Kierkegaard in his second book Lähimmäisenrakkaus Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa, which appeared three years later and was meant to be a companion volume to his dissertation.6 These works by Ukkola did not, however, have a significant influence in academic circles. It took a long time before the next Kierkegaard dissertation was published by Heidi Liehu in 1990, and contemporary scholars rarely refer to his works, and for obvious linguistic reasons, it did not have any impact on international Kierkegaard scholarship. Ukkola’s works appeared at a time when humanistic circles were already moving away from subjectivist and individualistic philosophies and embracing, on the one hand, communal forms of socialism and, on the other hand, the rise of analytic philosophy, and its emphasis on objectivity did not form a good basis for the interest in Kierkegaard. Despite its deficits, Ukkola’s work is a substantial overview of Kierkegaard’s theological thinking. Ukkola demonstrates a mastery of a considerable amount of secondary literature, which at the time was mostly written in German or Scandinavian languages, although he was criticized by the Faculty for not always treating them fairly. The work contains a fifteen-page English summary and Ukkola also summarizes his views in a German article that appeared in 1968.7 Olli-Pekka Vainio

Helge Ukkola, Lähimmäisenrakkaus Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa [The Love of Neighbor in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard], Helsinki: Suomalaisen Teologisen Kirjallisuuseuran julkaisuja 75, 1964. 7 Helge Ukkola, “Die ethische Existenz des Menschen im Denken Sören Kierkegaards,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, vol. 10, no. 1, 1968, pp. 31–7. 6

Reviews and Critical Discussions Kylliäinen, Janne, “Finland: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Finland,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome 1, Northern and Western Europe (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009, pp. 197–217; see pp. 206–8.

Helge Ukkola, Lähimmäisenrakkaus Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa,

[The Love of the Neighbor in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard], Helsinki: Suomalainen teologinen kirjallisuusseura 1964 (Suomalaisen teologisen kirjallisuusseuran julkaisuja, vol. 75), 183 pp.

Ukkola’s work on the love of the neighbor in Kierkegaard’s thought continues the work he started three years earlier in his dissertation Eksistoiva ihminen. In the preface, he laments that he could not touch all the relevant topics in his previous work but now hopes to offer a more appropriate account of Kierkegaard’s more communal and social thought. Ukkola acknowledges the common critique of Kierkegaard as a highly individualistic thinker who did not care much about the communal aspects of Christian spirituality, and attempts to prove that this is a misconception. Ukkola hopes that this work and his previous book should be read side-by-side to get a more accurate picture of Kierkegaard. The book is structured around Works of Love, which is the main work where Kierkegaard discusses the love of the neighbor, but the author extends his analysis to other relevant sources on this topic. The three main chapters discuss (1) the love of the neighbor in the works before Works of Love, (2) the love of the neighbor in Works of Love, and (3) the love of the neighbor in the works after Works of Love. The work also contains a ten-page English summary which offers a concise view of Ukkola’s argument for non-Finns. According to Ukkola, Kierkegaard’s central understanding of the Christian love of the neighbor is marked by self-denial, which is required from us by God’s law. The self-denial finds its motivation and source from an imitation of Christ’s selfdenial, which is not only an example to be imitated but a sign of God’s own love towards humanity. According to Kierkegaard, there is a way of loving oneself purely without the perverted amor sui. The right kind of self-love rises from transparency before God: the acknowledgment of radical dependence on God and the confession of sins. Here the influence of Martin Luther’s thought on Kierkegaard comes to the fore. Luther’s concept of God’s love is creative. Humans are nothing before God, but God’s love focuses especially on nothingness and uses it to create something anew. Consequently, true agapistic human love is possible only in participation with the love of God. The human–divine relationship ultimately rests on this properly theological grounding.

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This true love is set against natural, erotic loves that are in many ways impure. These loves in lower spheres go through a thorough transformation and cleansing in order to serve higher purposes. This is the topic that several of Kierkegaard’s devotional discourses discuss. Kierkegaard also denies the validity of “universal” love, which does not have a concrete particular object. Works of love are always directed towards someone, and they benefit someone concretely. Claiming to love “universally” is a form of self-deception where a person uses an imagined “neighbor” to cultivate ultimately a distorted God-relationship. In addition to its proper object, love requires a pure inner disposition without which the love is only a form of selfishness. The true love of neighbor is associated heavily with suffering (and with other virtues, such as truthfulness, charity, forbearance, and patience). The suffering should not be taken as a value as such but perceived as a crucial means in the service of others. For example, a lifestyle that does not cherish the accumulation of personal wealth is supposed to lead to generosity towards the poor and needy. In this way Ukkola seeks to demonstrate how the love of God and spirituality in the end always has a communal nature. God is loved by loving our neighbor. However, Ukkola criticizes Kierkegaard for not being able to extend the idea of neighborly love beyond an individual and spiritual context towards a genuinely social theory. Ukkola notes that Kierkegaard was a conservative who did not see much value in developing the structures of society. In addition to his growing antagonism towards Christendom, his implicit political views caused him not to invest in this particular topic. Nevertheless, Ukkola manages to highlight the social nature of Kierkegaard’s spirituality and defend him against the most vocal critics. One of Ukkola’s goals is to trace the development in Kierkegaard’s thought. The love of the neighbor appears somewhat differently in various sources. According to Ukkola’s analysis, “Greek thought,” by which he means the overlapping and nonexclusionary character of eros and agape, is prevalent up until Works of Love, but when the influence of imitatio Christi piety on Kierkegaard grows, they are more and more described as opposite and mutually exclusive. Ukkola concludes that the most fruitful accounts of love of neighbor can be found in Works of Love and the earlier sections of the Papirer. Kierkegaard’s later writings instead develop in a direction where the earlier constructive aspects start to fall aside. Ukkola claims “as a result of what appears to be an at least partially morbid metamorphosis of his mind, Kierkegaard completely shuts himself out of a positive Christian understanding of life.”1 The late works pitch the requirements of being a Christian so high that in the end loving God entails even hatred of the world and its inhabitants. This trajectory leads Ukkola to conclude that it is not possible to systematize Kierkegaard’s notion of the love of neighbor; instead, it can only be discussed by means of a chronological description, which accounts for the fluctuations in his thought. Ukkola’s two academic works are substantial in their scope, but the author’s way of presenting his thesis is rather idiosyncratic, which makes the books relatively hard

Helge Ukkola, Lähimmäisenrakkaus Søren Kierkegaardin ajattelussa, Helsinki: Suomalainen teologinen kirjallisuusseura 1964 (Suomalaisen teologisen kirjallisuusseuran julkaisuja, vol. 75), p. 177.

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to read, at least for non-specialists. They were published at a time when the early twentieth-century interest in Kierkegaard was already starting to falter, and as pieces of scholarship they did not have wide-ranging influence.2 For some time, they were the only substantial academic works on Kierkegaard in Finland that helped the Finnish audience to get in contact Kierkegaard’s thought. Olli-Pekka Vainio

Janne Kylliäinen, “Finland: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Finland,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome 1, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 206–8.

2

Reviews and Critical Discussions Kylliäinen, Janne, “Finland: The Reception of Kierkegaard in Finland,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome 1, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 197–217; see pp. 206–8.

II. Secondary Literature in French

Rodolphe Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard [Lacan and Kierkegaard],

Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2005, 277 pp.

“What meaning can a reference to the solitary theorist of freedom and choice [sc. Kierkegaard] have in the works [of Lacan], where the case is made all throughout for the radical subjection of the speaking subject (l’être parlant)?”1 As Rodolphe Adam points out, finding a point of encounter between the Christian thinker Søren Kierkegaard and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan is anything but a straightforward task. Though Kierkegaard has aroused much interest in the fields of psychology and psychiatry in France since his earliest reception at the beginning of the twentieth century,2 offering the materials for psycho-biographical studies as a clinical case of high interest, little serious work has been done in France to show what impact Kierkegaard might have in fields such as psychology or psychiatry. In his study on Lacan and Kierkegaard,3 Adam attempts to reverse this tendency and to offer a solid examination of the impact that Kierkegaard’s concepts had on Rodolphe Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2005, p. 2. (All translations from the French are my own.) 2 Adam examines some of these materials in Chapter 2: “Le ‘cas’ Kierkegaard” (pp. 19–34). We might add that Kierkegaard attracted great interest in France initially as an exotic and melancholic figure. From the earliest reception, with Victor Deleuran’s Bachelor’s thesis Esquisse d’une étude sur Soeren Kierkegaard (Thèse, Faculté libre de théologie protestante (Paris), 1897), emphasis was placed on Kierkegaard’s biography. Early commentators of Kierkegaard in the 1930s were eager to offer explanations of Kierkegaard’s “secret,” and often resorted to psychological or sexual causes. Benjamin Fondane writes, for example, that Kierkegaard’s early writings can be explained by the fact that the Dane “attempted to turn his impotence to his advantage” through his literary endeavors (Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, ed. by Olivier Salazar-Ferrer, Lagrasse: Editions Verdier 2013 [1936], p. 231). For a more detailed analysis of the reception of Kierkegaard’s works in the French context, see Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005; Margaret Teboul, “La réception de Kierkegaard en France 1930–1960,” in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 89, no. 2, 2005, pp. 315–36; Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421–59. 3 The book is a reworked version of Adam’s doctoral thesis in psychopathology, defended in 2003 at the Université Paris Diderot, Lacan, lecteur de Kierkegaard. 1

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this major figure of French psychoanalysis. Tracing back references to the Danish philosopher throughout Lacan’s writings and seminars, Adam shows that despite the fact that Kierkegaard is a rather marginal reference in Lacan’s expositions, and thus often overlooked, Kierkegaard can be seen to have had a definitive influence on Lacan’s theories, and that from a very early date. As Adam demonstrates, it seems likely, and is also historically possible, that Lacan read Kierkegaard’s works very early on in his life.4 As Lacan himself stated in 1973 during his seminars: “I’ve been doing nothing else since I was twenty: exploring the philosophers on the topic of love.”5 While Lacan gives little explanation as to what he means by this remark, Adam shows that though Lacan’s remarks on Kierkegaard are often cursory, over the course of his seminars they testify to the fact that the Dane was much more influential upon his thought than a cursory reading might indicate. The great merit of Adam’s study is that it does not fall into the trap of situating Kierkegaard within a clinical study, but rather constantly seeks to demonstrate how Lacan himself read Kierkegaard. And as Adam points out, Kierkegaard was one of the few philosophers for whom Lacan did not offer a clinical diagnosis.6 Though the Freudian reworking of the notion of subject calls into question the epistemological value of philosophical discourse in its claims to universal validity, Kierkegaard figures as a privileged interlocutor with psychoanalysis,7 insofar as he offers a means of repositioning the status of philosophical discourse itself by placing the focus upon singularity. We can thus see an evolution in Lacan’s interest in Kierkegaard, which initially stems from a biographical and clinical reading of “Kierkegaard’s life experiences as he reflects them in his philosophy [and which] will be set forth as demonstrative of certain clinical realities,”8 but which later become essentially a reference against which, or alongside which, Lacan is able to build his own conceptual framework and rethink some of the original Freudian concepts.9 The main focus of Adam’s study is an in-depth analysis of the concept of repetition, and the ways in which Lacan’s understanding of this Freudian notion (Wiederholen) evolves over time. In 1964 Lacan defined repetition as one of the “four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis” inherited from Sigmund Freud.10 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, pp. 15–18. Jacques Lacan, Le Séminaire, XX: Encore, ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Editions du Seuil 1975, p. 93. 6 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, p. 19. Cf. p. 35. 7 Despite the fact that Freud himself makes no mention of Kierkegaard in his works. 8 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, p. 35. 9 Lacan maintained throughout his teachings that he was essentially an interpreter of Freud. However, though inspired by the Freud’s discoveries, Lacan’s own system is quite different from that developed by Freud; he offers, notably, a linguistic rather than a biological understanding of the psyche, and many of the divergences between his topology and Freud’s can be understood through Lacan’s engagements with philosophers such as Kierkegaard, but also with logicians, mathematicians, and linguists who contribute to the reworking of the conceptual framework. 10 The other three being the Unconscious, Transference, and the Drive. See Jacques Lacan, Le Séminaire, XI: Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse (1964), ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris: Editions du Seuil 1973. 4 5

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Though the notion of repetition immediately calls to mind the notion of Gjentagelse for Kierkegaard scholars today, the reference to Kierkegaard is nevertheless anything but self-evident in the context of psychoanalytic study. It is therefore not surprising that the main substance of the analysis centers around Lacan’s understanding of the clinical process of repetition and its workings in the unconscious, with respect to the original Freudian concept; other thinkers such as Aristotle and Frege are also drawn on, whose conceptual structures enabled Lacan to offer a new hypothesis on the logical structure of the psyche. However, as Adam demonstrates, despite the fact that Lacan’s main reference is indeed Freud, whose theory of repetition was in no way inspired by the Danish philosopher, Lacan’s understanding of the concept and the increasing insistence he will place on it can be better understood with regard to his readings of Repetition11 (which he specifically mentions during his seminars) and Fear and Trembling (a non-explicit reference). And as Adam suggests, “it is not philosophical knowledge, according to its tradition…but rather the psychoanalytic theory founded by these problems that can retrospectively shed new light on the meaning of Kierkegaard’s discourse.”12 Then, as Adam reveals: “From the beginning to the end of his teachings, the Kierkegaardian concept of repetition returns in Lacan’s writing and speech”13 (from the 1948 text “L’agressivité en psychanalyse”14 to some of his last seminars in 1975), and Lacan’s understanding of the notion of repetition evolves throughout this period.15 Through his close reading of Lacan’s references to the concept of repetition, Adam demonstrates the existence of three distinct periods through which the notion is theorized in Lacan’s works. Whereas he initially assimilates repetition with Kierkegaard’s understanding of the moment (Øieblikket), and thus understands it as the introduction “of the future into the Freudian sphere,”16 Lacan’s understanding of the concept of repetition becomes increasingly nuanced throughout his seminars. Beginning in 1964, Lacan reworks his understanding of the role of repetition, which he henceforth associates with the Real, itself necessary for the Symbolic to appear. As Adam demonstrates, this reworking is necessary since Lacan had begun to “radicalize the Freudian perspective on the question of the object,”17 essentially lost to the speaking subject, and it is against this loss that the unconscious appears as a failure (ratage). As such, though insisting on the fact

This text had been well known in France since Paul-Henri Tisseau’s 1933 translation (La répétition, Paris: Félix Alcan 1933). Fear and Trembling was also made available in PaulHenri Tisseau’s translation in 1935 (Crainte et tremblement, Paris: Fernand Aubier, Editions Montaigne 1935). 12 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, p. 37. 13 Ibid., p. 61. 14 See Jacques Lacan, “L’agressivité en psychanalyse,” in Ecrits, Paris: Editions du Seuil 1966, pp. 101–24. 15 It is beyond the scope of this article to go into an in-depth analysis of this evolution; Adam’s analysis of the evolution of Lacan’s thought and its relation to Freud’s concepts is quite thorough. 16 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, p. 72. 17 Ibid., p. 125. 11

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that repetition is indeed a Freudian discovery, Lacan progressively distances himself from Freud’s understanding of Wiederholungszwang (the compulsion to repeat) as a mere actualization through the process of transference. To the contrary, repetition becomes, as for Kierkegaard, the possibility of a forward movement through which something new is created, precisely through the impossible encounter with the Real. In the final period of his thought, the concept of repetition is more specifically situated with regard to Lacan’s understanding of sexual pleasure (jouissance)18 as irreparable lack or absence. Repetition thus becomes the impossible movement which “the analyst seeks to discover,” whereas for Kierkegaard the aim would have been “to escape it in finding the supposed pleasure (jouissance) in the religious.”19 While the concept of repetition is the central theme in Adam’s analysis, the third part of the book examines implications of Lacan’s understanding of this notion and relations to Kierkegaard with regard to other fundamental concepts of his psychoanalytic theories, such as desire, anxiety, and the refutation of philosophy. Adam suggests that a better understanding of Kierkegaard’s influence on Lacan is essential for comprehending the “tension between the Hegelian reference and the Danish adversary” seemingly inherent in Lacan’s thinking.20 While Lacan seemingly accepts the Hegelian understanding of the constitution of the subject, his theorization unveils something that resists the dialectic movement. Despite their radically different perspectives, then, Kierkegaard and Lacan both point to something fundamental about the structure of existence which traditional philosophical thought cannot take into account. As such, Kierkegaard provides Lacan with a crucial means of critiquing philosophy through philosophy itself. Through close comparison of some of Kierkegaard’s texts, read in the context of their reception in France in the early twentieth century, and Lacan’s theories, Adam is able to demonstrate the importance of how this dialogue may help to respond to some current questions about psychoanalysis, subjectivity, and philosophy. Rather than reading Kierkegaard in light of Lacan’s theories, Adam offers the much more engaging intellectual perspective of a rereading of Lacan through the lens of Kierkegaard’s works. Such a reading can, for example, offer a better understanding of what many see as a tension inherent in Lacan’s works, namely, that between the deterministic aspect of the structure of the psyche and the ethical dimension Lacan evokes with regard to the analytic act.21 While the readings of Kierkegaard in Lacan et Kierkegaard are generally sound and attempt to encounter the Dane on his own terrain, offering enlightening insight Lacan distinguishes between two notions, which in English can both be translated as “pleasure”: plaisir and jouissance. While in Lacan’s analyses plaisir is a more general term linked to the individual’s satisfaction, jouissance is, by contrast, linked with perversion (the term itself initially means right to use, entitlement). Jouissance is precisely not linked to the individual’s interests or satisfaction, since it is to be found both in agreeable and disagreeable events, and Lacan suggests that the pleasurable aspect of jouissance is conditioned, rendered possible, by a primary rupture or displeasure. 19 Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, p. 190. 20 Ibid., p. 195. 21 Ibid., pp. 218–19. 18

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into the ways in which Kierkegaard has been and may be used beyond the fields of philosophy and theology, we may regret, however, that a few of the interpretations that are offered by Adam are rather fantastical.22 Nevertheless, given the depth and rigor of Adam’s study, Lacan et Kierkegaard presents many pertinent new ways of reading Lacan with relation to philosophy, and offers a clear presentation of the historical context in which Lacan read, interpreted, and transformed Kierkegaard’s concepts. As such, this is a useful text both for psychologists and psychoanalysts interested in the relations between philosophy and psychoanalysis, and for Kierkegaard scholars interested in the ways in which Kierkegaard’s concepts can be taken up in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

To give just one example, in his reading of “In Vino Veritas,” Adam suggests that the pseudonym William Afham may be understood as a word-play; as Adam writes: “Although composed, the word af ham, meaning, in Danish, ‘from him,’ evokes an ambiguity in French, of which Kierkegaard had some knowledge, in our opinion sufficient for him to hear the expression differently. From ‘à femme’ [to woman], the seducer’s version, to ‘a-femme’ [a-woman], the renunciation version, all the stakes of the Object a [the undetermined and undeterminable object of desire] will become incarnate in the relation to Regina” (p. 43). While this analysis is an ingenious appropriation of Lacan’s concepts and word-play, it is clear that the interpretation it offers is not only far from Kierkegaard’s own conceptual framework, but also highly improbable, especially since the Danish pronunciation of af ham in no way evokes the French rendering of a-femme, regardless of whatever Kierkegaard’s knowledge of the French language might have been (though a French reader unfamiliar with Danish pronunciation would indeed pronounce the two indeterminately). The desire to understand Kierkegaard in Lacanian terms thus at times has the effect of offering a rather biased understanding of Kierkegaard’s works themselves.

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Reviews and Critical Discussions Assoun, Paul-Laurent, “Préface,” in Rodolphe Adam, Lacan et Kierkegaard, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2005, pp. XI–XIII. Chevallier, Philippe, review in Études, vol. 404, no. 1, 2006, p. 130. Lisandre, Hubert, “Rodolphe Adam Lacan et Kierkegaard,” Le Carnet PSY, vol. 105, no. 1, 2006, pp. 19–20.

André Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur [The Twilight of Helsingør], Paris: Perrin 1926, II + 299 pp.

André Bellesort (1866–1942) was a French poet, writer, and member of the Académie française from 1935 to until his death. His text on Kierkegaard is known as one of the very first in French Kierkegaard research. There are three editions of this text, which compares the Danish thinker with Shakespeare’s hero Hamlet. The work first appeared in 1914 in La Revue des Deux mondes.1 Then it was printed a second time with no modification in 1926 as a chapter in a book under the title Le crepuscule d’Elseneur. A travers le pays et les livres which was issued by the publishing house Perrin.2 This book also contains several articles about “Scandinavian literature”3 (littérature scandinave); among them one important study is dedicated to the Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847–85).4 In 1996 a reprint of the first version of this paper was published along with several pictures and caricatures,5 including those of Kierkegaard made by the cartoonist Peter Christian Klæstrup (1820–82) for the Corsair.6 The article tries to show Kierkegaard’s “Hamletism”7 (hamlétisme), an adjective that in French indicates a state of mind close to that of Hamlet, that is, a spirit made of hesitations and moral problems. Through four main steps of a romanticized biography, Bellesort thus shows the main trends of the “inner sadness”8 (tristesse intérieure) of Kierkegaard’s soul, that is, of the “modern Hamlet”9 (Hamlet moderne) that moves from the problem with his father (the secret) to the final struggle with the Danish State Church. Each stage of his life is here related to a specific work of André Bellessort, “Le crepuscule d’Elseneur,” in Revue des Deux Mondes, vols. 1–3, 1914, pp. 49–83. 2 André Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, Paris: Perrin 1926, pp. 1–60. (We quote this monograph edition throughout.) 3 Ibid., p. I. 4 Ibid., pp. 61–90. 5 André Bellessort, “Le crepuscule d’Elseneur,” in Revue des Deux Mondes, vols. 7–12, 1996, pp. 80–114. 6 Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, p. 38. 7 Ibid., p. 8  p. 11  p. 50. 8 Ibid., p. 6. 9 Ibid., p. 8. 1

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Kierkegaard. The whole biography of the Danish thinker is clearly written under the influence of Georg Brandes’ (1842–1927) book, Sören Kierkegaard. Eine litterarisches Charakterbild.10 It is no surprise that Kierkegaard’s father is described as a “tyrannical man” (homme tyrannique),11 who was the origin of the young Kierkegaard’s joy of suffering, that is, his melancholy. This part of Kierkegaard’s biography is also an occasion for Bellessort to repeat—without quoting them—two earlier analyses of the Danish thinker in the early French reception of Kierkegaard. One of these is that of Henri Delacroix (1873–1937), who described him as a man who was so much egoist that he was indifferent to “the natural and physical sciences.”12 Drawing on this, Bellessort claims, “he wouldn’t pay attention to those ‘futile concerns’ [vaines curiosités].”13 The other analysis that Bellessort uses is that of Victor Basch (1863– 1944), who described Kierkegaard as so self-centered that he was seen in 1903 as the antithesis of socialism.14 From this Bellessort concludes, “he stands apart from the public life.”15 Bellessort placed a huge emphasis on the role played by Regine in Kierkegaard’s life. The originality of this part of the work is that the author mentions here two eye-witness testimonies about this stage of Kierkegaard’s biography: one by the Danish historian Troels-Lund (1840–1921), who knew Regine when she was old,16 and one by the Danish philosopher Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785–1872),17 who is considered by Bellesort as a direct testimony of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic stage. Bellesort is also one of the first French scholars to mention The Point of View, a work where Kierkegaard explains the development of his own work. But the author points out the “illusion”18 of Kierkegaard’s attempt to introduce some “rigorous logic” (logique rigoureuse) into his own works, when actually these were first developed without any “architectural harmony” (harmonie architecturale).19 Moreover, without quoting the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Bellesort also considers that 1846 is a key point in Kierkegaard’s life that leads the Danish thinker gradually to a more radical Christianity, first, with the caricature of him by the Corsair, second with his book Practice in Christianity, and third with his struggle against the Danish State Church in The Moment. Practice in Christianity is, for Bellesort, an occasion to underline something that will be an important pattern in the French reception. With his theory of the Georg Brandes, Sören Kierkegaard. Eine litterarisches Charakterbild, Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius 1879. 11 Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, p. 9. 12 Henri Delacroix, “Sören Kierkegaard. Le christianisme absolu,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 8, 1900, p. 482. 13 Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, p. 12. 14 Victor Basch, “Un individualiste religieux : Soeren Kierkegaard,” in his Essais d’esthétique, de philosophie et de littérature, Paris: Félix Alcan 1934, pp. 282–3. 15 Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, p. 14. 16 Ibid., pp. 22–3. 17 Ibid., p. 27 n. 1. 18 Ibid., p. 32. 19 Ibid., p. 33. 10

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contemporaneity of men and God in faith, the Danish thinker “is among the greatest mystics.”20 Sartre, almost thirty years later, while writing about Georges Bataille’s L’expérience intérieure21 in his Situations I,22 says exactly the same thing. The Moment is, for Bellesort, the most polemical and violent writing of Kierkegaard and is in this perspective comparable to the works of the Irish writer Jonathan Swift.23 This short text is very important in the early French reception of Kierkegaard. Anticipating a few common patterns of the so-called existentialism, it also draws the outlines of Kierkegaard’s life with all the material concerning the Danish thinker that was available at that time. It is also very important to mention that the author quotes a lot more texts than the other French intellectuals who were later interested in the philosophy of existence, but who were also dependent on the first French translations, which is not the case for Bellessort. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

20 21 22 23

Ibid., p. 44. Georges Bataille, L’expérience intérieure, Paris: Gallimard 1943. Jean-Paul Sartre, Situations I, Paris: Gallimard 1947, p. 169. Bellessort, Le crépuscule d’Elseneur, p. 53.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Lafarge, Jacques, “Kierkegaard dans la tradition française. Les conditions d’une réception dans les milieux philosophiques,” in Kierkegaard Revisited: Proceedings from the Conference “Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It,” ed. by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn and Jon Stewart, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 1997 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 1), pp. 280–1. Ziolkowski, Eric, “Saying not quite ‘Everything just as it is’: Shakespeare on Life’s Way,” in his The Literary Kierkegaard, Evanston: Northwestern University Press 2011, pp. 183–214.

Gerta Berberich, La notion métaphysique de la personne chez Kant et Kierkegaard [The Metaphysical Notion of the Person in Kant and Kierkegaard], Fribourg: St-Paul 1942, 81 pp.

La notion métaphysique de la personne chez Kant et Kierkegaard was a dissertation submitted by Gerta Berberich to the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. It was published in 1942 by Imprimerie Saint-Paul. This dissertation did not turn out to get any noticeable publicity, nor did Berberich pursue her academic career any further. This is a bit of a shame, because it was, in fact, the first study dedicated to a comparison of Kant and Kierkegaard. This makes it a pioneering work, indeed. We had to wait no less than 50 years before Ronald Green’s The Hidden Debt would present a similar attempt.1 Due to the infancy of Kierkegaard studies at the time it was written, however, it does fall short of doing justice to the whole of Kierkegaard’s work, as will be discussed below. In a very short introduction, Berberich explains that she sees Kant and Kierkegaard as providing two different accounts of the person. She sets out to show, by means of a faithful reading of their works, that Kant’s transcendental ego is in fact akin to Kierkegaard’s self that stands in the face of God. Although in the course of the introduction one might perhaps suspect her of wanting to make Kant more Kierkegaardian than he is, Berberich makes an earnest attempt to interpret both of them in an original way that does not force them into a scheme. With this in mind, the study is arranged as follows. First is a chapter on Kant, which focuses on the notion of transcendental apperception. In it, Berberich makes the interesting case that Kant’s Copernican Revolution “consists of affirming the spiritual before every material and spatial being.”2 In line with this view, she interprets transcendental apperception as the strictly spiritual unity of man—simultaneously a spontaneous act and an immediate intuition that assert the existence of a

Ronald M. Green, Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt, Albany: State University of New York Press 1992. 2 Gerta Berberich, La notion métaphysique de la personne chez Kant et Kierkegaard, Fribourg: St-Paul 1942, p. 10. 1

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thinking person, making up self-consciousness. Berberich then goes on to argue that transcendental apperception, based as it was on Leibniz’s concept of apperception, was originally a metaphysical notion (as the essence of mind), and would only gradually be transformed into a logical notion (as a condition of the possibility of the human mind and its knowledge) in the Prolegomena (1783) and the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787). She concludes that the metaphysical sense remains indispensable to Kant’s thought, providing “an immediate path that leads man as spirit to God.”3 Then follow two chapters on Kierkegaard. In the first chapter, we notice how Berberich seeks to lift out aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought that are close to Kant’s. After a short but critical review of Kierkegaard’s biography and the ambiguous intentions of his authorship, the analysis concentrates on two notions, namely, consciousness and repetition (together with the moment). Putting a lot of weight on The Sickness unto Death, Berberich reads consciousness as constituting the essence of the person or self. Because the self is permanent, as shown in the universal condition of despair, Kierkegaard analyzes despair in terms of degrees of consciousness and the characteristic forms the self accordingly takes. Analogously, the stages of life are the characteristic forms of man resulting from an analysis of time and becoming. In this analysis, sin is linked with a faulty conception of time. Described with language that we might deem inappropriate today, repetition is said to provide a “metaphysic” of the moment, an “intermediary category” that dialectically synthesizes time and eternity in a “dynamical act of decision.”4 This act is a moral and religious act that constitutes the destiny of man, since it fully realizes the human person. In Berberich’s view, “Kierkegaard is not a speculative thinker, but a metaphysical and passionate moralist,” who presents the spiritual person that seeks God as the real human being that we all should want to become.5 The following chapter develops a long and fierce critique of Kierkegaard’s understanding of religion, which she takes to be skewed in two ways. First, Kierkegaard was driven to an irrationalist conception of faith by transforming the desire to know into the desire for salvation. Kierkegaard suffered from unrelenting uncertainty and could not thereby unburden himself from the urge to reason. As a consequence, he attributed value to reason only for man in the world, and turned faith into passion for the unreachable. But actually, she argues, the leap of faith is not a paradox or a blind sacrifice of reason, but “conditioned by a human and historical certainty.”6 Second, this certainty springs forth from love, itself based on objective principles in the heart of our personal being, which are more unconscious than conscious. This, Kierkegaard could not understand, and, as a result, he gave up the Christian love of one’s neighbor and the social character of truth, and faith became the solitary struggle for a merely personal truth. Berberich’s language comes across quite forcefully at times. Nonetheless, this early study suffers from certain shortcomings. Most obvious is her disregard for the 3 4 5 6

Ibid., p. 76. Ibid., p. 46 and p. 48. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 61.

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distinction between Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous and religious works. Berberich mentions his “religious writings” at one point and appears to have read Works of Love, citing it once. But she seems committed to formulating a uniform judgment of Kierkegaard’s work—a judgment that is, however, hard to reconcile with his religious works. Moreover, it also neglects any historical evolution it had. This flaw is all the more striking when one considers the fact that one of the main threads in her discussion of Kant is the evolution of his work. Third, Berberich’s simplistic assessment also confounds the difference that holds—however equivocally— between Kierkegaard’s personal struggle and the view he wanted to propound. Perhaps it is true that Kierkegaard never quite succeeded in liberating the effect his works were supposed to have on the reader from his own personal issues. Nevertheless, we have to acknowledge and evaluate his intention to separate these two, which Berberich fails to do. In the last chapter, Berberich concludes that Kierkegaard and Kant, however different their views may be, share two broad similarities: their philosophical interrogations proceed from the spontaneous and spiritual unity of the person, and they both consider self-consciousness as the metaphysical foundation of personal being. Her treatment of these similarities is not forced and is overall quite modest, even superficial, only infrequently indicating points of contact. This leaves a lot to the imagination with regard to the extent and importance of these similarities. This is a weakness of the study. Despite its relatively short length, the study is rich in content and generally nuanced in its discussion. But there is room for improvement for the study to present a strong statement. If, at the time, it had been picked up in debate and further developed, it certainly could have altered the history of Kierkegaard studies, presumably to its benefit. Frédéric Dubois

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Rachel Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours. Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, Chestov devant Nietzsche [Paths and Crossroads: Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, Chestov before Nietzsche], Paris: Vrin 1938, XI + 244 pp.

“A  work, for the reader, is first and foremost the possibility of not suffocating, a treasure of uncertainties that give life an inexhaustible meaning.”1 In the preface to Cheminements et carrefours (Paths and Crossroads),2 Rachel Bespaloff (1895–1949) insists on the importance of reading as an encounter, a transformative experience, through which both the reader and the author are engaged. Reading, Bespaloff claims, is itself the “shock of discovery” through which “conscience strips away the dead skin of old concepts, [and] creates new organs for itself.”3 What is at stake is the possibility of a true encounter with the life hidden behind or within the text, the discovery of a possibility of freedom amongst the chaos of existence. Reading as encounter thus becomes a means of taking hold of the soul (âme), which the “violence to which bodies are destined”4 relegates to the domain of ephemeral “moments of embodiment,”5 which Rachel Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours. Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Kierkegaard, Chestov devant Nietzsche, Paris: Vrin 1938, p. V (p. 13 in the 2004 edition). (A second edition of the text, reprinted with a foreword by Monique Jutrin, was issued in 2004 (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin 2004, 252 pp.).) Hereafter, all page references to Cheminements will be given first to the 1938 edition, followed by the page reference in parentheses for the 2004 edition. All the translations from the French are by the author.) 2 The best translation into English of the title would probably be: Pathways and Crossroads. Cheminement, however, does not directly indicate a path (chemin) or pathway, but rather the process through which one moves along the path. For physical beings, cheminement indicates the progress, the movement, the flow; in intellectual terms, the cheminement de la pensée would be the “line of thought.” 3 Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours, p. V (p. 13). 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., p. VI (pp. 14–15). 1

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it is our fate, or our misfortune, to be in a constant struggle to grasp. In Bespaloff’s tragic world-view, the physical world is one of violence and danger, a constant threat to the integrity of the individual, yet it is also “the only [world] that we can love and know.”6 Our lives are spent in seeking unity, but the changing world offers only destruction. We seek transcendence, but find only impossibility. As such, the only real escape from the solitude which is the human condition, Bespaloff suggests, comes through our intellectual and spiritual encounters and confrontations. Cheminements et carrefours is the product of these encounters and confronta­tions, through which “we seek rest in an ultimate truth. We seek…but here the search and the goal merge together.”7 Published in 1938 at the suggestion of Gabriel Marcel, the text presents a series of seven separate articles on Julien Green, André Malraux, Gabriel Marcel, Søren Kierkegaard, Lev Shestov, and Friedrich Nietzsche, previously published in La nouvelle revue française and La revue philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger between 1932 and 1938. These texts, which Bespaloff presents simply as “notes” on her various readings are, according to Bespaloff, mere “journeys of a fragmented experience on the lookout for the actual.”8 In each chapter, Bespaloff unveils her personal spiritual engagement with the author or text being read. Though her readings resound with the penetrating and perceptive nature of their insights, it is nevertheless clear that they are meant less as an analysis of the works than as an exposition of the engagement that Bespaloff herself takes up with regard to their content. Bespaloff’s remarks are thus at once clear and critical. Her aim is to sound out what truth there is to the ways in which human nature and human experience are presented by the authors she reads. This is particularly true of her readings of Kierkegaard, to whom she dedicates two chapters, which constitute some of the first systematic and serious attempts to analyze Kierkegaard’s works published in France. Though Bespaloff was a disciple of Lev Shestov and later became a good friend of Jean Wahl,9 who was responsible for promulgating Kierkegaard studies in France in the 1930s, especially with the publication of his Etudes kierkegaardiennes in 1938, Bespaloff’s writings on Kierkegaard chronologically predate these better-known texts.10 The first, “Notes on Repetition by Kierkegaard,” written in December 1933 and published in 1934,11 focuses essentially on the theme of love in Kierkegaard’s works. Despite the title given to the article, Bespaloff’s “notes” are not merely a commentary on Repetition, but examine the theme throughout Kierkegaard’s writings. Bespaloff draws primarily on Repetition and “In Vino Veritas,” but also appeals to The Concept of Ibid., p. X (p. 18). Ibid., p. XI (p. 19). 8 Ibid., p. VI (p. 14). 9 To whom she was apparently introduced by Gabriel Marcel sometime around 1935 (see Monique Jutrin, “Introduction,” in Rachel Bespaloff, Lettres à Jean Wahl 1937–1947, Paris: Editions Claire Paulhan 2003, p. 14.); their correspondence began sometime before 1937. 10 Bespaloff knew Shestov’s thought and may have known something of his readings of Kierkegaard, but Shestov’s work on Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. Vox clamantis in deserto was not published in France until 1938. 11 Rachel Bespaloff, “Notes sur la Répétition de Kierkegaard,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 117, nos. 5–6, 1934, pp. 335–63. 6 7

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Anxiety, Fear and Trembling, and Works of Love,12 and situates Kierkegaard with regard to other authors, philosophers and poets, such as Plato, Charles Baudelaire, Maine de Biran, Proust, Nietzsche, and Shestov. In her “Notes on Repetition,” Bespaloff attempts to draw out, through her own reading, how “the poetic genius…rebels against the ‘law of indifference’ that subjugates the world.”13 Kierkegaard’s writings on love attempt to get at that moment, that immediacy, from where truth could ultimately reveal itself. Yet if Bespaloff lauds Kierkegaard’s poetic genius, she nevertheless remains critical of Kierkegaard’s perspective. As she notes, “The insuperable repugnance that the bonds and limits of charnel reality inspire within him conceals from Kierkegaard the abysmal origin of remembrance. He wishes to ignore this extreme and mysterious zone where the boundaries between body and mind are erased, [for] he cannot stand that the finite and the infinite are inextricably interwoven within man.”14 Though Kierkegaard has perhaps better than any other thinker seized in his works on the importance of the immediacy of the moment, Bespaloff clearly sees that the notion of repetition, at least insofar as it is presented in Constantin Constantius’ case, is a mere “postulate,”15 and not a viable or actual option. “For Kierkegaard, whatever happens, this reality will never become a homeland ( patrie), even less the site of an authentic repetition.”16 Kierkegaard remains, in Bespaloff’s view, incapable of escaping the radical solitude of existence, despite his desire to make this move, and despite his attempts in Works of Love to show that love is indeed the principle of communion. Though she admires Kierkegaard’s works, Bespaloff nevertheless remains highly critical of what she sees as the irreparably tragic nature of Kierkegaard’s conclusions; as she writes: “He wanted to save poetry in faith and only succeeded in saving his faith in poetry, in celebrating the ‘unchanging’ (immuable) with the help of the very instrument that he had consecrated to the cult of the ephemeral.”17 In her second article on Kierkegaard, “In the Margins of Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard,”18 written in April 1934 and published the following year,19 Bespaloff takes up her reading from a new perspective, this time focusing essentially on Fear Besaploff uses the available French translations of Repetition and “In Vino Veritas” (published under the title Le banquet (In vino veritas) and separated from the rest of Stages on Life’s Way), translated by Paul-Henri Tisseau and published in 1933 by Félix Arcan (Paris). References to other texts by Kierkegaard are taken from the German translations, notably the German edition of Works of Love (Leben und Walten der Liebe, trans. by Albert Dorner and Christoph Schrempf, Jena: E. Diederichs 1924), The Concept of Anxiety (Der Begriff der Angst, trans. by Christoph Schrempf ), and Fear and Trembling (Furcht und Zittern). For the latter two texts, several different German editions were available at the time, and Bespaloff’s references do not give clear indication as to which edition she was using. 13 Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours, p. 101 (p. 119). 14 Ibid., pp. 105–6 (p. 123). 15 Ibid., p. 129 (p. 145). 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 140 (p. 155). 18 Bespaloff actually uses the expression en marge de, which technically means “on the fringe of,” “outside,” but which refers to en marge (in the margins or marginal). 19 Rachel Bespaloff, “En marge de ‘Crainte et tremblement’ de Kierkegaard,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 119, nos. 1–2, 1935, pp. 43–72. 12

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and Trembling and “Guilty?/Not Guilty” from Stages on Life’s Way.20 In this study, she attempts to show that Kierkegaard’s early works (Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, and Stages on Life’s Way) are all an attempt to come to terms, through an “interminable debate” with himself,21 with the “mortal helplessness” (mortel désarroi)22 that his breaking of the engagement with Regine Olsen had left him in. Fear and Trembling and “Guilty?/Not Guilty?” offer a testimony to the experience of a double burden of solitude: solitude before God, and solitude amongst men. The double solitude is the tension of an existence which both craves the ethical, the general—which according to Bespaloff is not, for Kierkegaard, an abstraction, but rather the concrete foundation of community—and recognizes that the general must be superseded if one is to regain the “hope of recommencing along the paths of life through the aid of faith.”23 The struggle in Kierkegaard’s works is a struggle for life, which Kierkegaard takes up, not in the Shestovian manner of revolt, but rather by striving for an acceptance of the necessity which is the obstacle to human freedom. Kierkegaard’s works offer an account of this struggle for salvation, which, with regard to external reality, may appear to be a “luxury,” but which nevertheless is, Bespaloff affirms, “the sole raison d’être of the man who feels himself almost not a man, so much that he is alone in the universe that he creates for himself.”24 The force of Bespaloff’s readings of Kierkegaard stems from the fact that she takes up Kierkegaard as a real interlocutor. Her aim, through her readings, is to “make out the beings behind the texts.”25 However, it is important to note that Bespaloff does not blindly assume that the Kierkegaard-author she encounters is equivalent to the real historical person. As she wrote on June 21, 1948 to Boris de Schlœzer: Under no circumstances, it is true, can one deduce the natural man from the work. Does it follow that this “I,” hero of the story that is the work, is fictional? Could it not be that he is the very being of the creator insofar as he remains irreducible to the qualities and qualifications that are established through social life? The homo faber, as a counterfeiter, an engineer, does not have to be what he produces; the homo faber, as an artist, is what he produces in a manner which is in no way fictional…the artist, when he invents new worlds that the natural man could absolutely not imagine, unveils being.26

While Bespaloff’s readings of Kierkegaard may at times seem biased, it is important to remember that she herself presents them not as philosophical commentaries, but as encounters: the account of her own reading experiences. Though she may at times deform Kierkegaard’s point of view, she does so in light of the fact that reading Kierkegaard in what would later become in her terms “the age of anthologies and concentration camps,”27 reading Kierkegaard from “the most torn-up backdrop of 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Bespaloff read both these texts in German translations. Bespaloff, Cheminements et Carrefours, p. 145 (p. 162). Ibid., p. 145 (p. 161). Ibid., p. 172 (p. 186). Ibid., p. 181 (p. 194). Ibid., p. V (p. 13). Rachel Bespaloff, “Lettres à Boris de Schlœzer (II),” Conférence, no. 17, 2003, p. 538. Ibid, p. 553.

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history” (le fond le plus déchiqueté de l’histoire),28 requires the taking-up of a critical standpoint. Bespaloff’s own engagement with Kierkegaard is a personal one: as an intellectual constantly struggling with her own solitude and the impossibility of transcendence, Bespaloff sees in Kierkegaard both a kindred spirit and a thinker with whom she cannot but take issue. Despite her criticism, however, Bespaloff reads Kierkegaard as a thinker with whom real dialogue, and real appropriation, in Kierkegaard’s terms, is possible. And as she wrote to Boris de Schlœzer in her last letter before her suicide on April 6, 1949: “Dialogue (les échanges) is just as necessary as oxygen.”29 Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Rachel Bespaloff, “La poésie de Jean Wahl,” in Lettres à Jean Wahl 1937–1947, ed. by Monique Jutrin, Paris: Editions Claire Paulhan 2003, p. 129. 29 Bespaloff, “Lettres à Boris de Schlœzer (II),” p. 564. 28

Reviews and Critical Discussions Jutrin, Monique, “Introduction” in Rachel Bespaloff, Lettres à Jean Wahl 1937– 1947, ed. by Monique Jutrin, Paris: Editions Claire Paulhan 2003, pp. 7–39; see pp. 22–3. — “Préface à la deuxième édition,” in Rachel Bespaloff, Cheminements et carrefours, Paris: Vrin 2004, pp. 7–12. — “Rachel Bespaloff: liberté et pensée éthique,” Europe, no. 972, 2010, pp. 198– 208; see pp. 198–202. Message, Jacques, “La mesure d’une difficile sincérité: Rachel Bespaloff lectrice et juge de Kierkegaard,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, no. 95, 2009, pp. 515–31. Salazar-Ferrer, Olivier, “Rachel Bespaloff et la nostalgie de l’instant,” Cahiers Léon Chestov, no. 3, 2002. Tirvaudey, Robert, review in Revue philosophique, vol. 130, no. 3, 2005, pp. 390–1. Wahl, Jean, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 129, nos. 1–2, 1940, pp. 86–104.

Patrice Bollon (ed.), Søren Kierkegaard— Philosophe et dandy,

[Søren Kierkegaard: Philosopher and Dandy] special issue of Le Magazine Littéraire, no. 463, April 2007, 35 pp.

The work published under the title Søren Kierkegaard—Philosophe et dandy is an issue of Le Magazine Littéraire dedicated to Kierkegaard, which appeared in April 2007. The journal Le Magazine Littéraire is a monthly non-academic publication on cultural and literary topics of contemporary relevance. Issue no. 463 of Le Magazine Littéraire appeared on the occasion of the publication of Kierkegaard’s diaries and notebooks in France.1 Some unpublished excerpts from Kierkegaard’s diaries and notebooks on the topic of literature appear here for the first time. Søren Kierkegaard—Philosophe et dandy consists of a collection of short articles, essays, and interviews by different authors, mostly academic philosophers, but also authors coming from different cultural milieus such as literature, cinema, or the publishing world. The texts are intended for an educated non-specialized audience and cover a wide range of topics, yet are loosely structured around Kierkegaard’s three stages of existence, as explained by the editor Patrice Bollon. The special edition in question includes a detailed timeline of Kierkegaard’s life and works, in which the main events, places and figures in Kierkegaard’s life are chronicled with the support of visual documents, borrowed from the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre and the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Printed on the occasion of the publication of Kierkegaard’s diaries and notebooks in France, Søren Kierkegaard—Philosophe et dandy contains an interview by Patrice Bollon with Jacques Lafarge, translator and editor of the French edition of Kierkegaard’s diaries and notebooks. In this respect, one of the guiding threads that characterizes this collection of essays is the relevance given to the biographical aspects of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. A second thread is the modern relevance of Søren Kierkegaard, both in a philosophical and in an ethical-social-political context. A third thread is Kierkegaard’s relationship with literature and the literary aspect of his production. These three threads often intermingle and attest to the multiple readings and interpretative possibilities facilitated by Kierkegaard’s production. Søren Kierkegaard, Journaux et cahiers de notes. Journaux AA–DD, trans. by ElseMarie Jacquet-Tisseau, Anne-Marie Finneman and Jacques Lafarge, Fayard/Éditions de l’Orante 2007.

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The opening piece by the editor Patrice Bollon entitled “Un penseur pour l’avenir” precisely outlines the influence of the Danish philosopher on contemporary philosophical thought, as well as on the literary scene. It specifically addresses the issue of the “multiple actualities” of Kierkegaard’s thought, as a resource to tackle contemporary problems, from the question of religious dialogue to the resistance to an opinion-driven democracy, to the opposition to any authoritarianism and irrationalism. In this respect, Bollon sees in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymity and theory of communication a more apt language to engage with a pluralistic world and society and a valuable lesson in how to treasure and preserve one’s freedom. A second text on Kierkegaard’s modern relevance is Jacques Colette’s article entitled “Le destin philosophique de l’œuvre” which traces the history of Kierkegaard’s reception in the twentieth century by different schools such as Critical Theory, Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics. Colette highlights the seminal role that the Danish philosopher played for diverse philosophers, often belonging to antagonistic fields, such as Lukács, Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger or Wittgenstein. The other texts can be divided, following Bollon’s own suggestion, into the three Kierkegaardian spheres of existence. The aesthetic realm, however, dominates, with five of the seven articles dedicated to it. More specifically, Bollon contributes a short piece on the topic of dandyism, Didier Raymond engages with the figure of the melancholic seducer, and Vincent Delacroix explores the topic of literature as source of philosophical thought. This group of articles also contains an interview with Danièle Dubroux about her film adaptation of the “Diary of the Seducer” and a short literary epilogue by the writer and essayist Charles Dantzig. Raymond’s article, in particular, draws strong parallels between Kierkegaard’s biography and his work, focusing on the broken engagement with Regine Olsen and on the “Diary of the Seducer.” The author suggests that melancholy is the driving force behind both stories of seduction, where the beloved is abandoned in an attempt to avoid contact with a reality rendered unbearable by the experience of the thorn in the flesh. In fact, according to Raymond, melancholy is the engine behind the entirety of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous production, which is read in terms of an escape from reality to a universe populated by imaginary characters and multiple possibilities. Vincent Delacroix, in his article entitled “La littérature, laboratoire de la pensée,” paints a portrait of Kierkegaard as a writer surrounded by other writers. Delacroix emphasizes the role that literature plays for Kierkegaard in order to break with the traditional philosophical discourse through the use of an innovative style. It is in literature that Kierkegaard finds new material to grasp the experience of existence without reducing it to the concept, not to mention the means to address the reader individually. Delacroix interprets Kierkegaard’s predilection for the literary form as a resistance to the degeneration of discourse in philosophy, religion, and journalism. The short essay “L’antiphilosophe” by Alain Badiou can be situated in the ethical sphere, insofar as it portrays the anti-philosopher as the thinker who sets the drama of his own existence over against conceptual constructions. Despite the antiphilosopher’s appeal to an inflexible idea of truth, Badiou claims that, in giving ethical priority to the moment of choice, the anti-philosopher is a true democrat, a proponent of radical equality, insofar as choice concerns all human beings, irrespective of their status or education.

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The religious stage is represented by Jean-Louis Chrétien’s article “Devant Dieu et les hommes.” Chrétien’s thesis is that in the religious discourses Kierkegaard seeks the source of the new in the old, going back to the tradition of St. Augustine and Luther in order to produce a style of intimate communication with the reader, who appropriates and interiorizes the religious message in his or her existence. The term “edifying” hence acquires the meaning of edifying a new life for the individual. The collection of essays Søren Kierkegaard—Philosophe et dandy is intended to be a popularizing publication that introduces the educated and interested public to a selection of important topics and themes in Kierkegaard’s work, and connects his philosophical project to other themes of general interests, such as the literary aspects of his production, his contemporary relevance, and his influence on the arts. It has the aim of drawing the attention of educated readers to the recent publication in France of Kierkegaard’s diaries and notebooks. While the publication offers no new knowledge or original interpretation to the expert reader, it provides a well-documented and comprehensive access to the life and work of the Danish philosopher for the general public, a taste of the multifaceted aspects of his production, as well as an overview of his twentieth-century reception. Margherita Tonon

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Philippe Chevallier, Être soi: Actualité de Søren Kierkegaard [To be Oneself: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard], Paris: François Bourin Éditeur 2011, 160 pp.

Philippe Chevallier’s essay, Être soi: Actualité de Søren Kierkegaard, was published in 2011 by the Parisian publisher François Bourin. It appeared as a volume in Actualité de la philosophie, a series edited by Martin Legros, editor-in-chief of the popularizing French review Philosophie Magazine. As its title already indicates, the series’ aim is to demonstrate the topical relevance of well-known philosophers and their ideas, particularly by letting specialized scholars assess in what way these philosophical thoughts—often perceived as outdated—can deepen our understanding of some of the weighty social issues of today’s world.1 Chevallier, a Ph.D. in philosophy with a special interest in the work of Michel Foucault and Kierkegaard, was invited to elaborate on the specific issue of the contemporary self-understanding. He contributed with the interesting claim that the nineteenth-century ideas of Kierkegaard offer us, twenty-first century people, an insightful and highly inspiring viewpoint on the often debated question of how to be or become a unique self. Throughout his essay Chevallier points out some major problematic aspects of the way modern contemporary culture generally copes with this longstanding question of selfhood. Endorsing the findings of the French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg and adopting one of the latter’s eye-catching concepts, Chevallier argues that the modern individual suffers from the so-called “fatigue of being oneself.”2 By this he means “the disease of the sovereign individual who shrinks from the task of having to decide by and for himself, being exhausted because henceforth he has to bear this charge for an undetermined continuance.”3 According to Chevallier, this existential fatigue is primarily caused by the dominating cultural ideal of “authenticity,” which has its historical roots in Romanticism. Under this ideal’s hegemony, the modern individual is constantly compelled to be herself and relentlessly urged to lead a truly, “authentic” life. In order to live such a truthful life it is everyone’s personal project, first to rediscover introspectively her own unique inner self, and then, once that is Philippe Chevallier, Être soi: Actualité de Søren Kierkegaard, Paris: François Bourin Éditeur 2011, p. 2. 2 Ibid., p. 99. 3 Ibid., pp. 99–100. 1

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found, to manage its cultivation, paying thereby careful attention not to be overtaken by colonizing exterior elements, such as society, rational theoretical systems, the masses, history, and so on. In this respect the author lays the blame at the door of phenomenology, existentialism, and psychoanalysis for philosophically substantiating this ideal. He also refers to the various techniques for personal development, so overwhelmingly available and practiced since the 1960s, asking more or less ironically if “the explorers of this new century have become travellers of the inward?”4 Chevallier’s explicit intention was to denounce this problematic modern ethos. It is with this in mind, that he appealed to the philosophical ideas of Kierkegaard. Although acknowledging that Kierkegaard’s preoccupation with becoming a true individual is omnipresent and colors his whole work—which could make him equally blameworthy as being a “traveller of the inward”—it is nonetheless in these writings that he detected a perspective on selfhood that is both different from and very critical of the currently dominant vision. His proposal is to read Kierkegaard as a voice of protest, that indeed suggests to us that we search for our uniqueness as individuals, but that likewise dissuades us from relying on the Romantic procedure for achieving this goal. While for the Romantics the individual’s uniqueness was ultimately to be found psychologically, that is, in a pure, substance-like, and exclusively interior entity, Kierkegaard, by contrast, advocated that it can only be realized by means of an ethical stance. This stance implies an exposure to the exterior and an approval of a demand by something or somebody, a “vocation”5 that is addressed to each of us individually, and through which we are called to leave behind our ego-centeredness and become practically engaged in a not necessarily freely chosen reality external to our own individuality. A reading of Kierkegaard in this outspoken social critical way may rightfully evoke the criticism of being very functional and of therefore risking giving rise to an all too free or tendentious interpretation. In Chevallier’s approach these possible objections have proactively been countered, since important parts of his interpretation are grounded in widely approved results from academic research. It is true, however, that Chevallier explicitly declares that he has relinquished his ambition of lifting his essay up to an overly high a degree of scientific accuracy.6 But this seems to be only due to stylistic reasons or out of concern for the specific type of readers the editor was targeting. Behind the deliberate popular form of Chevallier’s book, one indeed observes its content to be highly influenced by distinguished scholarly work, first and foremost, by the studies of André Clair.7 Moreover, Chevallier already treated some of the arguments developed in this essay in more depth in previously published academic papers.8 Finally, where Chevallier introduces a highly significant and an intensively debated issue, that is, the assessment of Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., p. 33. 6 Ibid., p. 146. 7 In particular André Clair, Kierkegaard: Penser le singulier, Paris: Cerf 1993; André Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et Éthique, Paris: P.U.F. 1997; André Clair, Kierkegaard et autour, Paris: Cerf 2005. 8 See, for example, Philippe Chevallier, “Abraham et le commandement de l’amour chez Kierkegaard,” Archives de Philosophie, vol. 67, no. 2, 2004, pp. 321–35. 4 5

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Kierkegaard as the reader of G.W.F. Hegel, he aptly pleads for a nuanced view, referring to Jon Stewart and his groundbreaking study, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered. Seemingly backed by sound scholarly work, Chevallier’s Kierkegaardian rejection of the hegemonic view on the self, results in a line of thought divided into four chapters. Throughout these chapters Chevallier proceeds elegantly by using a mixture of three recurring components, the combination of which varies according to the position in the argumentation. The first component consists in Chevallier giving an outline of some of Kierkegaard’s actual ideas regarding the central issue as he articulated them in his pseudonymous as well as other writings. The second component is a critique of the hegemonic view by means of a refutation of some philosophies that ground this view. The third component is Chevallier’s exquisite illustrative usage of literature. Chevallier starts the first component with Kierkegaard’s “vexed romanticism”9 and illustrates this critical appraisal of the Romantics with some relevant passages from the early journals and notebooks. Then, Chevallier directs us to the letters of the Judge in Either/Or in order to elaborate on why, according to Kierkegaard, it is existentially important as an individual to be related to the common “ethical” world, and thus to live by the category of the “universal.” Here Chevallier highlights the existential significance of the notions of “absolute choice,” “repentance,” “marriage,” and “vocation,” and emphasizes in a profound way Kierkegaard’s indebtedness to Hegel, especially focusing on his appropriation of the Hegelian notion of Sittlichkeit. After this, Chevallier continues with some of Kierkegaard’s reflections on the famous case of Adler to finally arrive at the core part of his essay: the description of Kierkegaard’s ethics of love. Referring to Fear and Trembling, Chevallier comes to the conclusion that for Kierkegaard the ethical, besides being essentially “fragile,” is remarkably insufficient for taking “incommensurable” decisions in certain existential situations.10 Therefore, says Chevallier, as a substitute for the social rules of the ethical, Kierkegaard developed an “ethics of the event,”11 featuring an original rehabilitation of the New Testament command to love thy neighbor as thyself. This ethics of love, as exemplified in Works of Love, is passionately discussed in Chevallier’s fourth chapter and constitutes for the author the major antidote for the paralyzing “fatigue of being oneself.” If Chevallier’s essay were solely composed of this first component just sketched, it would already be a stimulating confirmation of its thesis concerning Kierkegaard’s relevance for the contemporary issue of selfhood. The two other components are less prominent than the first one, but add an additional argumentative force. While the first component is Chevallier’s “direct” Kierkegaardian critique, the second component is more or less “indirectly” Kierkegaardian. This is because there the author enters into a critical discussion with some of the twentieth-century philosophical schools which recognize Kierkegaard as one of their founding fathers and which refer explicitly to his thoughts to give support to their theories of “authenticity.” 9 10 11

Chevallier, Être soi, p. 21. Ibid., Chapter III. Ibid., p. 99.

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For Chevallier these philosophies of authenticity are based on a wrongful or selective reading of Kierkegaard. Here Chevallier uses his more complete reading of Kierkegaard to rebut a deformed and inauthentic Kierkegaardianism. His main target is undeniably Jean-Paul Sartre, whose existentialist solutions to the modern question on selfhood are attacked in more than one chapter of the essay. Finally, a last and praising word on the third component. Here Chevallier shows himself to be an excellent, didactical writer since one of the most remarkable and at the same time most attractive features of his essay are the numerous examples of literature used to illustrate his point. Anyone who is interested in gaining insight into the relation between Kierkegaard and the literary texts of Euripides, Lewis Carroll, or Henrik Ibsen is most kindly invited to start with reading Chevallier’s essay. Kjell Bleys

Reviews and Critical Discussions Politis, Hélène, “Chronique kierkegaardienne,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 139, no. 3, 2014, pp. 396–402. Rognon, Frédéric, review in Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, vol. 92, no. 2, 2012, p. 316.

André Clair, Pseudonymie et Paradoxe. La pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard

[Pseudonymity and Paradox: The Dialectical Thought of Kierkegaaard], Paris: Vrin 1976, 374 pp.

André Clair’s study Pseudonymie et Paradoxe. La pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard was first published in 1976 by Vrin in the series Bibliothèque d’histoire de la philosophie. Shying away from fashionable interpretations and appropriations of the thought of the Danish philosopher, the author purports to offer a rigorous and comprehensive reading of Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. The principle that guides such an examination is that of the paradox as the driving force behind the dialectical development of Kierkegaard’s thought. The study of the paradox is not limited to the Philosophical Fragments but covers the entirety of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous work. Andre Clair’s book Pseudonymie et Paradoxe. La pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard develops a systematic reading of the entire pseudonymous works of Søren Kierkegaard. Clair explains his methodological approach by claiming that, although the notion of the paradox lies at the heart of Kierkegaard’s thought, the structure and organization of his philosophy is by no means incoherent, but is instead strictly articulated and organized according to concepts. It is in the pseudonymous works that, in Clair’s view, it is possible to recover the conceptual structure that shapes Kierkegaard’s work in its logical and dialectical development. Hence, Clair claims to give expression to the internal rigor of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre, without nonetheless addressing it as a positive doctrine. In this respect, Clair fully acknowledges the central role that the style of communication plays in Kierkegaard’s thought, by expounding the fundamental function of the notion of “atmosphere” as a necessary correlate of concepts. Clair therefore addresses Kierkegaard’s entire pseudonymous work as a totality in which the different works, each of them characterized by their own independent structure and internal movement, are unified by the underlying principle of the absolute paradox. Clair also identifies the category of repetition as the original Kierkegaardian category around which his original notion of dialectics is developed. Even though the category of repetition is developed in the homonymous work Repetition, and rarely shows up in other texts, Clair convincingly makes a case for

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repetition as an underlying category which is at work throughout the entire Kierkegaardian production. The category of repetition is analyzed in conjunction with the Kierkegaardian notions of dialectics and paradox. Clair’s study is divided in three parts. In the “First Part” Clair focuses on Kierkegaard’s so-called “methodological” texts, where he clarifies issues of authorship and communication, with particular emphasis placed on the novel question of pseudonymity. He also highlights the category of repetition as central to the development of a dialectics of quality, existence, and paradox. In the “Second Part,” Clair explores the way in which the dialectics of paradox is actualized in Kierkegaard’s four more conceptual works, that is, Fear and Trembling, the Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, and The Sickness unto Death. By doing so, Clair aims to shed light on the conceptual ground, which, according to Kierkegaard, gives meaning to the concrete reality of life. Hence, he investigates pivotal existential concepts such as sin, faith, the moment, contemporaneity, anxiety, and despair. In the “Third Part” of his book Clair relates the above conceptual organization to the different forms of reality, that is to say, he demonstrates that the so-called theory of the stages is to be deduced from the structure of Kierkegaard’s qualitative dialectics. This scholarly work engages in a close reading of the pseudonymous production of Kierkegaard and sets out to give a comprehensive account of his thought by seeking a unifying principle within Kierkegaard’s own production. That said, Clair’s systematic approach does not come without the price of the betrayal of Kierkegaard’s own theory of communication, which sets itself against any positive doctrinal claim to objective truth. On the contrary, Clair fully acknowledges the pivotal role of language and style in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, giving voice to Kierkegaard’s own reflections on the issue, and exploring at great length the topic of communication and pseudonymity. Clair’s interpretation of Kierkegaard has the great merit of drawing attention to the pivotal role of the category of repetition throughout Kierkegaard’s work, and of highlighting its connections with the principle of the paradox, as well as with Kierkegaard’s own notion of dialectics. In this respect, Clair acknowledges the originality of Kierkegaard’s notion of dialectics as a qualitative dialectics, to be understood in terms of reduplication and double reflection, and explores its significance with regard to communication and existence. Clair’s study demonstrates that Kierkegaard’s work can be treated exhaustively, coherently, and systematically without betraying the author’s own intention. The book draws attention to those important concepts (paradox, repetition, dialectics) of Kierkegaard’s philosophy that up until then had not been fully acknowledged or comprehensively treated, and challenges the standard interpretations, such as that of the primacy of the division into three existential stages, in favor of the primacy of what he sees as the underlying conceptual structure of Kierkegaard’s work. Margherita Tonon

Reviews and Critical Discussions Carignan, Maurice, review in Dialogue, vol. 21, no. 1, 1982, pp. 137–41. Campredon, Alain, review in Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, vol. 111, 1979, pp. 63–72. Reix, André, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 76, no. 32, 1978, pp. 479–80.

André Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique [Kierkegaard: Existence and Ethics], Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1997, 125 pp.

Published in 1997, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique is André Clair’s third fulllength book on Kierkegaard, following Pseudonymie et paradoxe,1 and Kierkegaard. Penser le singulier,2 as well Clair’s 1989 work Ethique et humanisme: Essai sur la modernité.3 As such, the work is clearly the product of Clair’s shift of focus from the more literary aspects of Kierkegaard’s works to the existential and ethical concerns found in Kierkegaard’s writings. This movement can also be attributed to much of French Kierkegaard scholarship from the 1990s onward, of which André Clair is an eminent figure. Despite the shift in focus, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique may also be considered as a continuation of the work done in Penser le singulier since the book focuses especially on an ethics for the singular individual, where singularity is conceived of as the synthesis between the particular and the universal. While the existential themes in Kierkegaard’s writings have profoundly marked French scholarship from the beginnings of Kierkegaard’s serious critical reception in France in the 1930s, André Clair’s return to the concept of existence and its relation to the ethical in Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique seeks to offer a fresh perspective on what existing as a single individual means for Kierkegaard, by showing that the ethical is more than just a “stage on life’s way”—the ethical, as exteriority, is also primarily linked to the very possibility of positing oneself as individual through one’s relationships to others and to general norms, and as such, serves as the foundation for self-actualization. Clair argues thus that the ethical is not to be found merely in the ethical sphere, but is essentially “linked to all forms of existence.”4 Despite the fact that no direct reference is made in the work, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique reads like an attempt to respond to arguments drawn out by Emmanuel Levinas in his

1 2 3

1989.

André Clair, Pseudonymie et paradoxe, Paris: Vrin 1976. André Clair, Kierkegaard. Penser le singulier, Paris: Editions du Cerf 1993. André Clair, Ethique et humanisme: Essai sur la modernité, Paris: Editions du Cerf

André Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1997, p. 6.

4

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article bearing the same title.5 It seeks to demonstrate that Kierkegaard’s existential or interior perspective does not necessarily exclude ethical engagement and moral responsibility toward others, as Levinas had suggested. Clair’s Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique is divided into two parts, the first dedicated to the concept of existence (Tilværelse), entitled “Penser l’existence,”6 the latter to the concept(s) of the ethical (Ethik, Sædelighed, Moralitet), entitled “L’éthique, entre decision et norme,” corresponding respectively to the categories of interiority and exteriority. Despite this apparent dichotomy, however, the work explores a vast array of Kierkegaardian concepts, most notably those of subjectivity, passion, love, and singularity. Clair’s analyses seek to show that despite the fact that Kierkegaard’s works present a variety of forms and conceptual perspectives, they can in fact be read from a unified perspective, and all lead to one essential question: “What does it mean for a man to exist as a single individual?”7 While the questions taken up in the first part of Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique may at first appear rather banal, despite the pertinence of Clair’s analyses, they are certainly of great import to French Kierkegaard scholarship, which has long confused the existential questions posed by Kierkegaard with the existentialist questions of his followers. The merit of Clair’s work resides therefore in offering a clear and conceptual reading of Kierkegaard’s concepts and categories, essentially through the pseudonymous authorship. We may suggest, however, that the real interest of this analysis resides in its relation to Levinas’ critique, which similarly approaches the question of existence in Kierkegaard’s works through the notions of subjectivity, passion, and truth. Contrary to Levinas, however, who concludes that Kierkegaardian subjectivity is necessarily a form of violence and a refusal of the otherness of the Other, Clair’s reading attempts to show that human existence, as subjectivity and passion, necessarily demands and presupposes the ethical, since the existential or qualitative disjunction of subjectivity precludes the identity of the subject, which only the ethical can provide. As such, the latter part of the book, focusing on the concept(s) of ethics, is Clair’s real contribution to French Kierkegaard scholarship. Clair offers substantial discussion of Kierkegaard’s concepts of Ethik, Sædelighed, and Moralitet, analyzing the difficulties that these concepts pose for translation into French.8 He suggests that Kierkegaard’s term Ethik should be interpreted as the ethical stage or the ethical order, whereas Sædelighed more properly refers to the ethical life. Through these distinctions, it is possible to understand that despite an apparent proximity to Hegel in certain presentations of the “ethical” in Kierkegaard’s works, Kierkegaard’s true stance is quite different from Hegel’s Sittlichkeit, since for Kierkegaard “ethics first Emmanuel Levinas, “Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique,” in his Noms propres, Paris: Fata Morgana 1976, pp. 77–87. (English translation: “Kierkegaard: Existence and Ethics,” in his Proper names, trans. by Michael B. Smith, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1996, pp. 66–74.) 6 Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique, pp. 7–62. 7 Ibid., p. 5. 8 As in English, the French language only has two terms: éthique (ethical/ethics) and morale (moral/morals). 5

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and foremost requires the affirmation of the individual.”9 Such affirmation can only be understood in relationship to both individual decision or choice, and the existence of social norms which give meaning to this choice. The ethical is therefore a stage, but not one which can be isolated from the other stages of existence. As an intermediary term, the ethical is precisely what makes possible the constitution of the subject as subject, since existence, which is essentially subjectivity or passion, is essentially a question of identity. This identity must therefore be exteriorized in order to be spoken about and understood, and this necessarily leads to the ethical, which, as otherness or generality, must in turn be interiorized by each individual in order to have any meaningful role to play in the definition of one’s actions and decisions, as well as in the definition of social rules and norms. Clair underscores the fact that the specificity of Kierkegaard’s approach is to question how it is that being an individual relating to others through rules and norms can mean anything for us at all, and what this might mean. Despite his insistence on the concepts of existence and the ethical, the real theme of Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique is neither existence nor the ethical, but rather love. Love, according to Clair, is the one passion that reunites all of the perspectives developed in Kierkegaard’s pluralistic authorship, from the love that can be seen in the aesthetic sphere as self-interest, to the command to love presented in Works of Love as gift or grace. Love, as difference-oriented, is indeed the common theme between Clair’s analyses of existence (difference residing in the self ) and ethics (difference between self and other). However, as Clair states, love is not the synthesis, but rather the “origin ( principe) of all syntheses.”10 As such, it is the passion which founds both existence (Tilværelse) and ethics, both self-interest and interest for others, or perhaps more pertinently: self-actualization through choice and the institution of social norms and rules. Using love as a meta-ethical principle, Clair seeks thus in Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique to develop a Kierkegaardian ethics of the singular, suggesting that the “aim of ethical life is the actualization of the individual’s singular existence, which requires differentiation.”11 This actualization is our obligation and our task (Pligt), but also our vocation as human beings. While Clair’s Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique has not been discussed at length in later French scholarship, this work seems nevertheless to have played an important role in the revival of interest in Kierkegaard’s ethics amongst French scholars, and in a rethinking of the role and status of ethics in relationship to singularity. Notably, a conference was organized in 2003 by the Société Søren Kierkegaard on the theme of “Pensée et problèmes de l’éthique chez Søren Kierkegaard,” which resulted in the publication of a collection of articles in 2009 under the title Søren Kierkegaard, pensée et problèmes de l’éthique.12 Other important works have since sought to examine Kierkegaard’s ethics and the role of singular existence with regard to ethics in greater detail, especially Joël Janiaud’s Singularité et responsabilité: Kierkegaard, Clair, Kierkegaard: Existence et éthique, p. 84. Ibid., p. 102. 11 Ibid., p. 111. 12 Søren Kierkegaard, pensée et problèmes de l’éthique, ed. by Anne-Christine Habbard and Jacques Message, Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion 2009. 9

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Simone Weil, Levinas,13 and Dominique Desroches’ Expressions éthiques de l’intériorité: éthique et distance dans la pensée de Kierkegaard.14 Though Clair’s work has played an important role in encouraging French Kierkegaard scholarship to rethink the importance of the ethical in Kierkegaard’s works, it may be regretted that it has had very little influence outside French scholarship, and that the work offers no dialogue with other important critical work done on Kierkegaard’s ethics outside France. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Joël Janiaud, Singularité et responsabilité: Kierkegaard, Simone Weil, Levinas, Paris: Honoré Champion 2006. 14 Dominique Desroches, Expressions éthiques de l’intériorité: éthique et distance dans la pensée de Kierkegaard, Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval 2008. 13

Reviews and Critical Discussions Politis, Hélène, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 193, no. 1, 2003, p. 118.

Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard, chrétien incognito. La Neutralité armée [Kierkegaard, Christian Incognito: Armed Neutrality], Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 1968, 76 pp.

Jacques Colette’s 1968 Kierkegaard, chrétien Incognito. La Neutralité Armée is a book composed of diverse elements.1 At the center of the work is a translation of Kierkegaard’s essay, “Den bevaebnede Neutralitet,” or “Armed Neutrality,” written in 1848 but published posthumously in 1880, in the first Danish edition of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass.2 In addition to his translation, Colette’s text includes an introduction to Kierkegaard’s essay as well as two appendices written by Colette exploring some of the essay’s key themes. Colette also provides extensive historical and contextual notes to his translation, which together form a commentary approaching the length of Kierkegaard’s essay itself. Kierkegaard, chrétien incognito is remarkable for being the first French translation of “Armed Neutrality.” It is also one of the very rare instances of the publication of “Armed Neutrality” as a stand-alone essay. Contemporary reviews expressed gratitude for the volume, crediting it for explaining, at last, why Kierkegaard refused to declare himself a Christian.3 Colette thanks Gregor Malantschuk in his translator’s preface for the inspiration to publish a French translation, and cites Malantschuk’s 1965 Danish edition of the work as a key source for historical information about Kierkegaard’s text.4 In addition to Malantschuk’s edition, Colette relies heavily on contemporary entries from Kierkegaard’s journals and papers to establish the historical context for the essay. Based on these entries, Colette proposes that the essay Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard, chrétien incognito. La Neutralité armée, Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 1968. 2 In Søren Kierkegaard, Efterladte Papirer VI, ed. by Hermann Gottsched, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1880, pp. 556–73. 3 See Peter Henrici’s review in Gregorianum, vol. 52, no. 1, 1971, p. 207; and Henri Declève’s review in Laval théologique et philosophique, vol. 26, no. 1, 1970, pp. 95–6. 4 Søren Kierkegaard, Den bevæbnede Neutralitet, ed. by Gregor Malantschuk, Copenhagen: Lohses Forlag 1965. 1

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be read together with The Point of View for My Work as an Author and Practice in Christianity, as three works documenting Kierkegaard’s attempt to make the “turn” from pseudonymity to a more direct style of religious authorship. Kierkegaard may have been “exhausted by his incognito,” as Colette puts it, but ultimately he decided not to publish “Armed Neutrality” during his lifetime, having seen quickly “what an error it would be from the perspective of indirect communication”5 to have presented the defining account of “what it means to be a Christian” under his own name.6 The recognition on Kierkegaard’s part of the need to remain at a distance from his writings is linked to the idea of Christ as divine incognito and as model for Christian mimesis, both themes at the center of Kierkegaard’s essay. Colette formulates the analogy between the human poetic and the divine cosmogenic on the idea that each represents a form of mediated authorship: “Like the author of nature, the author of writing is presence and absence.”7 In his notes Colette develops this authorial analogy by culling supporting material from Kierkegaard’s earlier writings and, especially, from his unpublished notebooks and journals. “Armed neutrality”––a phrase whose political connotations were as audible then as they are now, Colette is careful to point out––is not just an essay about one of Kierkegaard’s concepts. It is a name for his overall religious standpoint vis-à-vis his age and the surrounding world. “Armed neutrality” is how Kierkegaard “defines his attitude and his program: not to attack the age, not to take the initiative of combat [but to] propose poetically the image of the ideal Christian without identifying himself with this model. To wait and to see how the spirit of the age reacts. Not to have recourse to arms except if the age does not confess, if it does not confess its estrangement from true Christianity.”8 Like its more famous associate, The Point of View, Colette claims, “Armed Neutrality” should be read as a key to understanding the religious objective of Kierkegaard’s authorship as a whole. Colette’s two appended essays deal with the text in a more theological perspective. The first, “The Incognito of Christ,” addresses the complex nature of Kierkegaard’s Christology. “It is difficult to speak of Kierkegaard’s Christology,” Colette writes, not only because Kierkegaard rejects dogmatic deductions in his theology, but also because he insists on reading the Gospel from the standpoint of “his own problem concerning the dialectic of intersubjective communication, concerning the limits of communicability between human beings.”9 Colette’s primary claim in this essay is a bold one: Kierkegaard’s Christology is not an ontological discourse speculating about Christ’s “two natures,” but an attempt to imagine “the freedom of the subject in the adventure of intersubjectivity.”10 Colette notes that the crucial paradox of Kierkegaard’s Christology is not the “two-natured” God-man, but the fact that the divine incognito must have been recognizable as such in order that Christ’s death not pass completely unnoticed by the world. From this point Colette concludes, 5 6 7 8 9 10

Colette, Kierkegaard, chrétien incognito, p. 12. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., pp. 19–20 n. 1. Ibid., p. 58. Ibid., p. 60.

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suggestively, that the idea of scandal represents Kierkegaard’s commitment to a terrestrial Christianity.11 The second appendix, “Judaism and Christianity,” is one of the earliest––and lamentably still one of the few––attempts to address the polemical and anti-Semitic comparisons between Christianity and Judaism in “Armed Neutrality” and other of Kierkegaard’s works. Colette’s contention is that Kierkegaard’s hyperbolical rhetoric should be interpreted more as a byproduct of his flight from the Hegelian philosophy of history than an expression of his own attitude toward Judaism or Jews: “Kierkegaard could not have avoided situating himself against Judaism since, as the first after the construction of the speculative and historical system of Hegel, he wanted to think Christian existence.”12 Colette wants to suggest that Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christian existence has more in common with Judaism than Kierkegaard could have recognized in his time. But since it is far briefer than a treatment of this important subject ought to be, the impact of Colette’s argument is limited. Moreover, the quick references to Franz Rosenzweig, whom he knows apparently only through Levinas’ interpretation, do little to support his rather jarring claim that Kierkegaard “would surely not have been insensitive to the idea of Rosenzweig, according to which ‘Judaism and Christianity would be, above all, two ways of relating the time of the individual, of the flow of instants, to absolute time, to the Day of the Lord, in order to advance or anticipate the Kingdom of God.’ ”13 This appendix deals with a subject of prime importance as we continue to assess Kierkegaard’s complex legacy in the pluralistic contexts of twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought, and should be commended for its effort to offer some way of dealing with the error and prejudice of Kierkegaard’s attempt at comparative theology. But without a more sustained reading of Kierkegaard’s understanding of Judaism, to say nothing of the Jewish thought meant to be consistent with Kierkegaardian Christianity, Colette’s attempt to bridge the divide between Jewish and Christian theology remains largely hypothetical. Noreen Khawaja

11 12 13

Ibid., p. 61. Ibid., p. 68. Ibid., pp. 68–9.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Declève, Henri, review in Laval théologique et philosophique, vol. 26, no. 1, 1970, pp. 95–6. Decloux, Simon, review in Nouvelle révue théologique, vol. 92, no. 10, 1970, p. 1109. Henrici, Peter, review in Gregorianum, vol. 52, no. 1, 1971, p. 207. Maldamé, Jean-Michel, O.P., “Kierkegaard,” Revue thomiste, vol. 73, no. 1, 1973, pp. 164–70; see especially p. 165; p. 168. Sales, Michel, “Dix ans de publications kierkegaardiennes en langue français: 1960– 1971,” Archives de philosophie, vol. 35, no. 4, 1972, pp. 649–72; see especially p. 656.

Jacques Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard [History and the Absolute: Essay on Kierkegaard], Paris: Desclée et Cie 1972, 281 pp.

Jacques Colette’s (1929–) book Histoire et Absolu is probably one of the most important studies about the philosophy of existence in the field of French Kierkegaard reception. It was first published in 1972 by Desclée et Cie in the collection “L’athéisme interroge.” Dedicated to Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95), this study is an attempt to “understand the main texts where a global and rigorous [rigoureuse] conception of human existence is expressed in relation with the Christian faith.”1 In 2014, a brand new edition of the Essai sur Kierkegaard2 was published by Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux and Jean Leclercq at the Presses Universitaires de Louvain along with an unpublished essay of Jacques Colette entitled “Le désespoir. Le possible et l’impossible” (Despair: the possible and the impossible).3 The latter replaces the former two “annexes” that were dedicated, on the one hand, to the question of time, “L’existence dans le temps et la dialectique paradoxale,”4 and, on the other hand, to the theme of the deus absconditus entitled “La volonté d’être soi et le Dieu caché.”5 The Essai sur Kierkegaard focuses exclusively on five pseudonymous works by Kierkegaard, that is, Philosophical Fragments, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, The Concept of Anxiety, The Sickness unto Death and, finally, Practice in Christianity. Furthermore, this study is divided into three main parts, through which its author shows that the “thought of existence”6 (la pensée de l’existence) is a genuine “conceptual construction”7 (construction conceptuelle) that places Kierkegaard’s

Jacques Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard, Paris: Desclée et Cie 1972, p. 10. (We quote this first edition of this text throughout.) 2 Jacques Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard. Nouvelle version conforme à la première édition suivie d’un nouvel essai, Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain 2014. 3 Ibid., pp. 133–68. 4 Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard, pp. 215–38. 5 Ibid., pp. 239–75. 6 Ibid., p. 23. 7 Ibid., p. 10; p. 13; p. 19. 1

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works at “the origin of a new way to do philosophy.”8 The author does this by a general presentation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy and by apparently using the strategy of Climacus in the Postscript, that is, a gradation that leads the reader from immanence to transcendence. The first chapter is entitled “le rapport absolu à l’absolu”9 where the author gives his own interpretation of the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, religiousness A (religiosité A) and the first degree of the paradox ( premier degré du paradoxe). A second chapter is dedicated to “historical knowledge”10 (connaissance historique) and deals with the notions of reality, possibility and necessity, time and eternity and, finally, history and historical knowledge. A third and last chapter deals with the “absolute paradox”11 ( paradoxe absolu), that is, with the break of immanence (la rupture de l’immanence), the paradoxical instant (l’instant paradoxal), and the question of time and contemporaneity (contemporanéité). As one can easily observe, the content of this book, like many other French studies about Kierkegaard, consists of a general overview of the philosophy of existence. In that sense it is not possible to say that Histoire et Absolu differs from the rest of what was done before in France. However, it is necessary to show why this book can also be considered to mark a revolution in the field of French Kierkegaard research. In fact, we should consider the year 1972 as the end of a certain way of reading the Danish thinker and thus as a new beginning for Kierkegaard research in France. This book is first a double “rupture” with the early French reception of Kierkegaard. In this perspective, the Dutch philosopher Bernard Delfgaauw (1912–93) underlines how Colette radically distinguishes himself in his reading of the philosophy of existence by not quoting Jean Wahl’s (1888–1974) Etudes kierkegaardiennes,12 a book that used to be an unavoidable reference for every Frenchman who wanted to make a study of the Danish thinker: “we see with astonishment [étonnement] how Jacques Colette does not make the effort to quote the Etudes kierkegaardiennes of Jean Wahl, the starting point of the French studies [on Kierkegaard].”13 However, Colette is the first French scholar ever to refer to the works of Kierkegaard by not using the many and fragmentary translations—those of PaulHenri Tisseau (1894–1964) or even Knud Ferlov (1881–1977), Jean-Jacques Gateau (1887–1967), and Paul Petit (1893–1944), but directly referring to the Danish Samlede Værker: There’s a huge difficulty if we want to study Kierkegaard in a scholarly way and more specifically when one is not able to read Kierkegaard in his own language. We could imagine what it would mean to study Plato or Aristotle without knowledge of the Greek language. The problem becomes even harder with Kierkegaard, because not a single translation of the Papirer is available.…[But] Colette knows the Danish very well.14

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., pp. 27–78. Ibid., pp. 79–124. Ibid., pp. 125–202. Jean Wahl, Etudes kierkegaardiennes, Paris: Aubier 1938. Bernard Delfgaauw, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9, 1974, p. 354. Ibid., p. 348.

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Making a tabula rasa with the whole early French reception of Kierkegaard leads Colette to a philological relation to Kierkegaard’s texts in order to show that the Danish thinker has his own philosophy, which is the thought of the paradox that should be neither considered a form of irrationalism (Lev Shestov, Benjamin Fondane),15 nor turned into, for example, an existential ontology (Heidegger) in order to be a genuine philosophy. The main point for Colette is as simple as it is radical: the thought of existence (la pensée de l’existence) is per se a philosophy in which the single individual in his own comprehension (comprehension de soi) produces: “new categories”16 (de nouvelles categories): The “subjective thinker” is existing [existant], but he is also a thinker. It will be all about appreciating the originality [la nouveauté] of a conceptual construction [construction conceptuelle] that serves the absolute relation to the absolute [le rapport absolu à l’absolu], which is recognized beyond the atmosphere in which the categories are constructed.17

Histoire et absolu also represents a revolution in the field of the French Kierkegaard research by its influence on the leading scholars who came to study the Danish thinker after 1972. We can here mention André Clair (1939–) and his book Pseudonymie et paradoxe,18 Henri-Bernard Vergote (1931–96) (Sens et repetition)19 and, even more recently, Vincent Delecroix (1969–), who wrote in 2006 a new “Essai sur Kierkegaard” entitled Singulière philosophie.20 All these authors seem to have heard the decisive words of Colette at the end of the introduction to his own study on Kierkegaard: “a new interpretation of Kierkegaardian thought could present itself as a partner [partenaire] in the contemporary philosophical debate.”21 Very common in its content, Histoire et Absolu is probably the most important book in the last quarter of the twentieth century about the philosophy of existence in the field of the French Kierkegaard reception. The new edition of this essay still waits for its English translation. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard, p. 11. Ibid., p. 13. 17 Ibid.: “Le ‘penseur subjectif existant’ est un existant, mais il est aussi un penseur. Il va donc s’agir d’apprécier la nouveauté d’une construction conceptuelle mise au service d’un rapport absolu à l’absolu, reconnu comme plus haut que l’atmosphère dans laquelle sont élaborées les categories.” 18 André Clair, Pseudonymie et paradoxe. La pensée dialectique de Kierekgaard, Paris: Vrin 1976. 19 Henri-Bernard Vergote, Sens et répétition. Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, Paris: Cerf/Orante 1982. 20 Vincent Delecroix, Singulière philosophie. Essai sur Kierkegaard, Paris: Editions du Félin 2006. 21 Colette, Histoire et absolu. Essai sur Kierkegaard, p. 20. 15 16

Reviews and Critical Discussions Delfgaauw, Bernard, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9, 1974, pp. 348–54. Politis, Hélène, “Kierkegaard philosophe: problèmes posés par les traductions françaises,” in Traduire les philosophes. Actes des Journées d’études organisées en 1992 par le Centre d’Histoire des Systèmes de Pensée Moderne de l’Université Paris-I (U.F.R. de Philosophie), ed. by Jacques Moutaux and Olivier Bloch, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne 2000, p. 238. Stewart, Jon, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421–74; see p. 455.

Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie [Kierkegaard and Non-Philosophy], Paris: Gallimard 1994, 241 pp.

Jacques Colette’s Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie was published in France in 1994 by Gallimard. The book is not meant to be an historical account of the philosophical work of Søren Kierkegaard, but rather offers a reading of Kierkegaard in the context of twentieth-century philosophy. For this reason, it does not provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, but instead focuses on selected themes and topics that find resonance in twentieth-century thought. The aim of this work is to show the contemporary relevance of Kierkegaard’s thought by putting it in dialogue with the most relevant schools and traditions of the twentieth century. In this respect, the book engages with three distinct yet interconnected issues in Kierkegaard’s thought by exhaustively exploring them in its nine essays from different perspectives: the problem of language and communication, the question of temporality, and the paradox. Colette argues that these three topics constitute Kierkegaard’s innovative philosophical contribution and determine his break with the nineteenth century and his belonging by right to the twentieth century. As the title of the book suggests, the concept of non-philosophy is central to Colette’s interpretation of Kierkegaard. It is Maurice Merleau-Ponty who first employs the notion of “non-philosophy” in relation to Kierkegaard: “non-philosophy” is that type of philosophy that opposes itself to the dominant approaches and established methods in favor of themes and topics traditionally situated outside the reach of philosophical discourse, first and foremost the existence of the singular individual. With this in mind, Colette interprets Kierkegaard’s “non-philosophy” as standing firmly in opposition to Hegelian philosophy and to the speculative approach that was dominant at the time. “Non-philosophy,” as a philosophical exploration of nonphilosophical topics, hence differs from what goes by the name of “anti-philosophy,” which is that specific anti-Enlightenment attitude that opposes a religious apologetics to the critical questioning of philosophy. Hence, Kierkegaard’s “non-philosophy” is not to be read as a return to religious dogmatism, but rather as a thinking that situates itself at the limits of philosophical thinking, pushing against what does not allow itself to be thought. Colette examines the twentieth-century French reception along the axes of the definitions of philosophy, anti-philosophy, and non-philosophy. Kierkegaard’s belonging to one of the three fields in question is defined in relation to Hegel. Those thinkers like Ricœur who underplay Kierkegaard’s opposition to the Hegelian systematic

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project have no difficulties in integrating his thought within the definition of philosophy. On the opposite field, Sartre reintroduces the definition of “anti-philosophy” by emphasizing the opposition between (Hegelian) knowledge and (Kierkegaardian) existence in order to draw Kierkegaard into the existentialist field. It is MerleauPonty who appropriately introduces the definition of “non-philosophy” to refer to the approach of those nineteenth-century thinkers such as Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche who abandon the idea of pure, all-encompassing thought and engage with the non-philosophical, that is to say, with experience itself. Colette draws attention to the fact that the defining aspect of such “non-philosophy” is the adoption of a new philosophical manner of communicating. The nine essays in Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie deal with the way in which Kierkegaard criticizes and goes beyond modernity, represented by Hegelianism, by inaugurating a philosophical reflection on language and on the form of communication. Colette deals at length with Kierkegaard’s theory of communication and with the issues of pseudonymity and multivocality, as well as with the relationship between the writer and his reader. Colette also decisively connects the problem of style and communication with the paradox and the centrality of the religious question. The relationship with the absolute other, which is God, is expressed in the experience of speaking a foreign language. Similarly, the truth of the God-relation exceeds any objective exposition and demands to be conveyed to the reader in such a manner that he or she can freely appropriate it in his or her own existence. Thus Colette analyzes Kierkegaard’s critical relation to modernity from the perspective of a reflection on language, which is required properly to reproduce subjectivity, while simultaneously curtailing reason’s tendency towards pure thinking. Colette illustrates at length the topic of double reflection and indirect communication, as accounting for the experience of existence both on the part of the writer and the reader. The qualitative difference between the existing individual and the divine is precisely laid bare in the style of communication, which reveals the gap between finitude and infinity, the temporal and the eternal, as well as the paradox of the revelation of the divine in history. Colette explores in detail Kierkegaard’s original understanding of history and time as being marked by the discontinuity introduced by revelation, a discontinuity that shatters any understanding of history as a totality, in favor of the break, the qualitative leap, and decision as crucial existential categories. This forces Colette to deal with the original Kierkegaardian category of the moment. This, in Colette’s view, is eminently a post-modern category, insofar as it de-centers the subject out of itself in the here and now of decision-making in relation to the incomprehensible and inconceivable. Finally, Colette engages with the topic of music by emphasizing Kierkegaard’s break with the Hegelian understanding of music as expressing reconciliation, instead invoking the duality of the musical medium as standing in a tension between the erotic and the religious. Colette’s work belongs to that specific interpretative tradition that appropriates Kierkegaard to twentieth-century post-modern thought. It has the merit of placing the accent on the question of language, style, and communication, and recognizing its pivotal role in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, as well as its innovative character.

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In emphasizing the topicality of Kierkegaard’s thought, Colette puts Kierkegaard in dialogue with philosophers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Ricœur, Derrida, Benjamin, and Adorno. Having said this, Colette engages critically with the interpretations and appropriations on the part of the above philosophers of Kierkegaard’s concepts and ideas, and defends the originality and autonomy of Kierkegaard’s own thinking. Having anticipated many themes and approaches which were to become dominant in the twentieth century, Kierkegaard is not merely seen as a source and receptacle of ideas for contemporary philosophical movements and thinkers, but as a twentieth-century philosopher in his own right. In arguing for the relevance of Kierkegaard, and in placing the accent on his critique of modernity, Colette, however, circumvents Kierkegaard’s notable Hegelian debt and downplays the legacy of idealism and Romanticism in his thought. Margherita Tonon

Reviews and Critical Discussions Politis, Hélène, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 128, no. 1, 2003, pp. 103–36.

Michel Cornu, Kierkegaard et la communication de l’existence [Kierkegaard and the Communication of Existence], Lausanne: Éditions L’Age d’Homme 1972, 306 pp.

Michel Cornu’s work Kierkegaard et la communication de l’existence was published by Éditions L’Age d’Homme in Switzerland. As a part of the series “Collection Dialectica,” edited by Ferdinand Gonseth and Edmond Bertholet, it is devoted to epistemological issues in line with, but at the same time diverging somewhat from, the topics related to analytic philosophy and philosophy of science that are mainly featured in the series. When Cornu’s work was published in 1972, the francophone world was still very much dependent on German translations of the Danish works, although PaulHenri Tisseau had undertaken the task of integrally and systematically translating Kierkegaard into French, based on Kierkegaard’s Samlede Værker. Following in his footsteps, his daughter Else-Marie Jacquet-Tisseau completed the gargantuan task, and all twenty volumes were published by Éditions de l’Orante in 1986.1 Therefore, it is not surprising that Cornu—unfortunately, but given the absence of Danish language skills, necessarily—had to use the then rather limited number of French translations available and the more easily accessible German translations.2 One text that cannot be overlooked with respect to the treatment of Kierkegaardian communication in the French language is Henri-Bernard Vergote’s introduction to and translation of Kierkegaard. This work, entitled “Dialectique de la communication. Texte de Kierkegaard,” was published in 1971 in the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale.3 Thus it became increasingly more feasible for the French reader to compare his own findings with statements of the so-called Kierkegaard connoisseurs.4 Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I: Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 430–1. 2 Michel Cornu, Kierkegaard et la communication de l’existence, Lausanne: Éditions L’Age d’Homme 1972, p. 18. 3 Henri-Bernard Vergote, “Dialectique de la Communication. Texte de Kierkegaard,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 76, no. 1, 1971, pp. 53–76. 4 Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France aux XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une reception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, pp. 201–4. 1

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In the decades prior to the philosophical enterprise of Michel Cornu in general and more specifically surrounding this publication, Kierkegaard was very much regarded as a precursor of the then active interdisciplinary intellectuals. On the one hand, just like Kierkegaard, they found the use of novels and dramas better suited to elaborate on human thought than dry philosophical tracts—a tradition established in the previous centuries. On the other hand, by doing so, thinkers inscribed themselves in the practice of many of their predecessors, the dialogues of Plato, for example, using literature as an important ingredient in the philosophical kitchen. What followed from this compatibility between these contemporary writers and Kierkegaard in general were more elaborate explorations of the Kierkegaardian œuvre in ways that had been bypassed before, specifically, in ways that focused on the more formal and literary side of his writings. Especially the use of Kierkegaard in matters concerning communication of a less than straightforward kind became the center of attention. What happened though was not a faithful rendering of Kierkegaard’s personal views but rather an eclectic use of some of his ideas to provide a stepping stone for the interpreter’s own philosophical framework, such as with the existentialists, phenomenologists, and poststructuralists, where the focus lay on the disruption of direct communication.5 With this background in mind, Cornu can be seen as one of the more loyal Kierkegaard readers, along with Colette, Viallaneix, and Vergote, who from the 1960s onwards attempted to grasp Kierkegaard’s own authorial project, instead of grafting themselves on highly particular interpretations.6 Consequently, in his book the links to Kierkegaardian works are abundant: references to Either/Or, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life’s Way, and Fear and Trembling are manifold, and the citations, mainly from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, illustrate Cornu’s attempt to truly ground his reflections in Kierkegaard. It might be argued that the reader of this book can become overwhelmed by the thorough use of referencing, and this can lead one to be unable to distinguish between Cornu’s secondary account and the actual writings of Kierkegaard while reading the book. Nonetheless, Cornu’s approach can be regarded as based on the best intentions and succeeding in the aim of his work: to explore the literary categories at work in the Kierkegaardian communication in order to grasp the meaning and effects his writing evokes. To do so Cornu starts out by pointing towards the problematic reception of Kierkegaard’s heteronomous language, which has been the cause for the old debate amongst scholars whether to read him as a philosopher or as a theologian. Cornu starts his exposition by explaining why and how the duality in Kierkegaard does not cease to confuse contemporary readers who would like straightforwardly to categorize the author, or more specifically, the texts at hand. On the one hand, he says, in those Kierkegaardian texts we clearly have the terminological remnants of what is called the domaine du savoir. This field of knowledge is traditionally connected to the utterances concerning “truth” within a certain system, in particular those of the

Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” pp. 450–5. 6 Ibid., pp. 455–6. 5

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eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophers. On the other hand, the content of Kierkegaard’s texts manifestly ventures out into what Cornu calls the field of power, le domaine du pouvoir, understood as individual choice and connected to belief. Whereas communication, the third element which forms the key to understanding this confusion of disciplines, is normally assigned to the field of pure knowledge, Kierkegaard, according to Cornu, tries to adopt this knowledge tool to the field of power because existence, says Cornu, “does not belong to the domain of knowledge since it requires a continual choice and a relentless ethical responsibility.”7 This unusual language, resulting from the combination of both domains, justifies, for example, the generous use of literary genres in a traditional rational discourse aimed at results and truth claims: the mix of knowledge language and power language makes it possible to suggest inalienable human givens without posing them as definite facts, thus enabling readers actively to start working towards understanding their own complex life situation via a language which corresponds to the paradoxical nature of human existence in toto. Although by addressing the pseudonymous works and the works published as strictly religious discourses separately—and seeing that the majority of texts referred to are pseudonymous—Cornu implicitly marks a separation between the theological and philosophical aspects present in the two parts of Kierkegaard’s œuvre, he does not want to underline this dualistic side of Kierkegaard. On the contrary, in the debate Cornu points towards a third, only indirectly specifiable, option. If we want to understand this, at first glance rather vague, take on the problem of double recollection in Kierkegaard, we have to consider Cornu’s two methodological demands. He claims that solely by accompanying Kierkegaard on his path to communicating human existence, trying to retrace his steps in practice— not just theoretically criticizing his work—we can grasp the non-essentialist take of Kierkegaard on the reciprocal relation between the act of actual meaning-making in matters concerning existence and the transmission of that given via communication.8 A short description of the structure in Cornu’s work and a closer look at his method illustrate the complexity of this enterprise: in the first half of his book he tries to denote how the quality of existence and that of communication are connected. Here he builds up his philosophical investigation by creating a dialogue between the richly present primary Kierkegaardian literature and some major figures of philosophy. In the first chapter, devoted to the development of the stages, Cornu addresses Schlegel, mainly while describing the aesthetic phase, Hegel in Kierkegaard’s treatise on the concept of irony, and Nietzsche in a chapter on art in the pseudonymous works. In the second half of the book he wants to form a judgment on whether or not Kierkegaard’s result—if we may pin his writings down as such—has succeeded in communicating the intrinsically difficult to describe given of existence and the problems that arise in such an attempt. This part is concerned with the role of art, namely, literature, and Ricoeur, Deleuze, Adorno, and Sartre help to formulate in more detail that side of the communication of existence that is related to form.

7 8

Cornu, Kierkegaard et la communication de l’existence, p. 11 (my translation). Ibid., p. 16.

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Cornu does not frame Kierkegaard in his contemporary cultural context very elaborately: he only mentions Kierkegaard’s own critical account of Martensen in a footnote.9 His use of the French tradition in which Cornu himself is situated, is excellent though: references to Jean Wahl and Jacques Colette are abundant. Via his heuristic and anti-dogmatic method Cornu wishes to remain faithful to Kierkegaard, keep his formulation of existence intact and underscore the irreducibility of it—he does not want to be exhaustive—thus indicating his full awareness of the specific delineation of his study: “thus we discover existence producing itself, we question existence rather than defining it.”10 Even though Cornu explores Kierkegaard anew, inseparably linking form and content in order to comprehend the problematic legacy of Kierkegaard’s œuvre, throughout the book the practical side and theoretically critical notes announced in his methodology remain in the background. His stance that the way we ask questions has implications for the presentation of content and that this reasoning leads us to the core of Kierkegaardian philosophical writing can be regarded as very probable and innovative, but nonetheless this leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the book due to the great difficulty of the issue Cornu is tackling. Moreover, though Cornu’s attitude is fully understandable given the scholarly context surrounding Kierkegaard in the French philosophical climate indicated above and given his statement that “choosing a method is already opting for a certain intellectual stance,”11 nonetheless the contemporary reader risks remaining dissatisfied, missing a clear philosophical positioning of the author. However, it is precisely this hiatus in the literature at that time that Cornu wants to point out: the preoccupation with content and thus the neglect of form. On the one hand, this creates a unique rendering of Kierkegaard, and, on the other hand, this indicates his likemindedness with the then prevailing formalist movements, such as the structuralists in France and the New Critics in America. We can conclude that Cornu, by trying to remain close to the primary texts, fulfills his role appropriately, given the historic context of a Kierkegaard being used as a pretext for highly specific philosophical frameworks. In retrospect this might seem like an overly mimicking approach, but let us not forget that the so-called pioneering research of today needs to be build on high-quality secondary reference works, of which Cornu’s book happens to constitute a prime example. Fleur Van Bocxlaer

9 10 11

Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 15 (my translation). Ibid., p. 16.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Delfgaauw, Bernard, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 9, 1974, pp. 348–54. Despland, Michel, review in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, vol. 4, 1974– 5, p. 70. Gagnebin, Charles, review in Études de lettres, series 3, vol. 6, no. 1, 1973, pp. 91–5. Villard, Jean, review in Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, vol. 23, 1973, pp. 250–4.

Vincent Delecroix, Singulière philosophie. Essai sur Kierkegaard

[Singular Philosophy: Essay on Kierkegaard], Paris: Editions du Félin 2006, 260 pp.

“Singular philosophy”: the “milieu where the real person of the philosopher, of which only a strictly biographical perspective could offer an account, is literarily reconfigured and produced.”1 It is precisely this milieu that Vincent Delecroix (1969–) seeks to capture in his engaging monograph on Kierkegaard’s “singular philosophy,” which takes up Kierkegaard’s works from a multiplicity of perspectives, in keeping with the polyphony inherent in the works themselves, and seeks, through a variety of modes of questioning, to offer a “portrait”2 of Kierkegaard as an author and philosopher. Despite this aim, however, Delecroix does not rely on psychobiographical analyses; rather, his efforts draw upon modern theories of language and discourse in order to reflect upon what Kierkegaard’s authorship and philosophy do through their linguistic construction, and to offer a theory of what philosophizing and writing mean within the context of literary and philosophical reception. Delecroix’s essay presents itself through the double-lens of hermeneutics and discourse analysis; through its very structure—the work is divided into two parts, the first on “Philosophizing,”3 the second on “Writing,”4 with both prefaced by an introduction focusing on the notion of readership as the site of Kierkegaard’s discourse5—it seems to mirror in its construction the falsely dichotomic structure of Either/Or.6 Vincent Delecroix, Singulière philosophie. Essai sur Kierkegaard, Paris: Editions du Félin 2006, p. 37. (All translations are ours.) 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., pp. 41–124. 4 Ibid., pp. 125–212. 5 Ibid., pp. 9–40. 6 The work itself is followed up by three appendices—much in the way that Kierkegaard played with the writing of postscripts—on various literary aspects of Kierkegaard’s works. The first focuses on Repetition as a pseudo-Bildungsroman (ibid., pp. 213–40), the second on the use of fiction in Fear and Trembling (ibid., pp. 241–8), and the third, entitled “Histoire en miettes et lecture explosive” (“Fragmented Story and Explosive Reading,” ibid., pp. 249–57), focuses on religion and its relation to historicity and contemporaneity. 1

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Kierkegaard’s heritage to philosophy, insofar as philosophy has deemed necessary to take heed of Kierkegaard’s message, has obviously been that no philosophizing is possible outside of the specific contexts of an “I” that philosophizes, with regard to its own personal and socio-historical contexts. Yet, though Delecroix draws upon this notion, his aim is to demonstrate that the construction of that philosophical “I” is not as self-evident as it might at first appear. For a self which can posit itself through discourse, construct a coherent representation through the use of language, requires some formal means of “reducing the gap, exhausting the distance between self and self.”7 Reading Kierkegaard rightly thus requires that the reader take heed of work’s formal structure: how it says what it says, and to whom. And reading Kierkegaard rightly implies seeing that the “Kierkegaard” to whom we have access through the texts is not an historical person—though socio-biographical elements do figure as a backdrop for the texts’ construction—but rather that “the total-name Kierkegaard is actually the name of the Reader.”8 Though the essay bears the subtitle “Essay on Kierkegaard,” Delecroix’s monograph takes Kierkegaard’s work essentially as a backdrop upon which a more general theory of what philosophizing and writing do and mean are built. Kierkegaard figures thus as the beginning of a new way of conceiving of philosophy, but he is certainly not the end. Delecroix’s analyses carry strong Ricoeurian undertones, and references to Paul Ricoeur, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilles Deleuze, and HansGeorg Gadamer serve as a framework upon which the reading of Kierkegaard is drawn out. The main topic of the essay is thus less Kierkegaard than the status of philosophical writing itself. By singularizing the philosophical “I,” Kierkegaard has opened up the path to a critique of philosophy as a whole. As Delecroix writes: “The history of philosophy thus explodes under the double pressure of hermeneutic contemporaneity and stylistic reading. What springs forth from this explosion? More small stories. Philosophical fragments.”9 The first part of Singulière philosophie proposes an examination of the nature and works of philosophizing, and develops the concept of “singular philosophy,” which is precisely a singular philosophy because a philosophy singularized through its anchorage in the singular personality of the author (or authors) which is signaled, precisely, by the style. This preoccupation with style constitutes…a revolution (tournant) in the history of philosophical discourse. And it is not a matter of aesthetic ornament: style is the singularization of discourse. A stylized discourse is a discourse in which an “I” speaks, in which speech (la langue) is singularized.10

Such a manner of conceiving of philosophy implies, as Delecroix notes, a recognition of the fact that what is essential to philosophical discourse is less its conceptual content—though this is certainly also important—than its potential for expression 7 8 9 10

Ibid., p. 208. Ibid., p. 20. Ibid., p. 257. Ibid., p. 47.

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(  fonction expressive).11 As such, Delecroix’s notion of singular philosophy is an understanding of philosophy which sees content and concept as dependent upon form or style, reliant upon modes of thought, and productive of new philosophical instruments.12 What Kierkegaard has taught us, Delecroix notes, is that the question of who is philosophizing is central to philosophy itself, that philosophy cannot, should not, be dissociated from its singular origin, the decision to philosophize on the part of a singular subject.13 There is no meaning, there are no truth conditions, outside of the discourse itself, which is conditioned by the context of enunciation and reception. As such, Delecroix understands Kierkegaard’s philosophy of existence though the lens of the discursive possibilities through which subjectivity manifests itself and begins to make sense: “Existence is the milieu in which subjectivity actively interprets itself, in which it attempts to grasp itself, whereas pure thought is the milieu in which the subject theoretically knows himself (and thus does not understand himself ).”14 The act of philosophizing is, then, an ethical task, through which experience itself, as well as the categories of thought through which we understand our lived experiences, are formed. Should we wish to move beyond old and perhaps sterile thought categories that determine our ways of thinking about existence, this can only be done by reworking the discourse itself, especially its formal aspects, since it is “discourse, through its form, that brought them into existence.”15 As such, discourse itself brings about a series of serious philosophical problems: what type of knowledge, if any, does it convey? How is it transmitted and received? If subjective experience is not universal, can it still be shared? What is the truth status of existence propositions? These are some of the major philosophical questions which Kierkegaard’s works bring to light, and which Delecroix attempts to analyze.16 Yet these questions cannot be asked without the background of a discourse: Kierkegaard’s writing. The second part of Singulière philosophie focuses on the act of writing, which Kierkegaard described as his highest task; as he writes in Works of Love: “being an author is my only work and my only task.”17 Yet, though Delecroix affirms that writing is for Kierkegaard a necessary task, necessary in order to “break with the melancholy or the hermeticism that threatens subjectivity,”18 writing is not merely an aesthetic preoccupation for Kierkegaard, but rather a “philosophical necessity.”19 Drawing upon Ricoeur’s analysis of text and speech,20 Delecroix notes that philosophizing is essentially an oral practice, whose transposition into written form performs a historical reification: “the text is the passage into philosophy, i.e., the 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ibid., p. 49. Ibid., p. 52. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 95. See especially Chapter 3 of Part 1: “Le dit du philosophe,” pp. 93–121. SKS 9, 80 / WL, 73. Delecroix, Singulière philosophie, p. 125. Ibid., p. 129. Paul Ricoeur, Du texte à l’action, Paris: Editions du Seuil 1986.

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System.”21 However, it is also through the written text that Kierkegaard is able to radicalize the “disembodiment”22 of traditional philosophical writing so as to arrive at a new means of expressing subjective existence. By breaking down the traditional logical discourse structure, Kierkegaard develops a “new logic”23 and a “new scheme of conceptual productivity.”24 Fiction thus becomes a tool through which the interiority of subjectivity can be observed and described, with its own propositional structure, which “separates meaning from the truth scheme as understood through realism (where a proposition refers to an actual referent).”25 It is thus the site from which singular philosophy—or philosophizing—can commence, from which the “I” takes on a function as “formal operator” and a “logic of argumentation,”26 and through which new possibilities of philosophical discourse, as well as readership, may be constructed. Delecroix’s monograph offers a rigorous analysis of the problems of logic and language at play within Kierkegaard’s texts. Drawing upon hermeneutics and discourse analysis, the book is not merely a study on Kierkegaard, but draws out a coherent and engaging theory on “singular philosophy,” its modes of expression and possibilities for constructive action. While it may be regretted that although the work draws highly on Ricoeur and Gadamer and does not specifically engage with current research on questions of narrative identity or discourse analysis in Kierkegaard’s works, Singulière philosophie nevertheless offers a convincing and original approach to the status of the first person within the context of philosophical discourse. We might wonder, however, whether Delecroix does not give too much priority to the aesthetic, as well as to the notion of subjective singularity in Kierkegaard’s works. For while many of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works do indeed draw upon the author’s personal experience and present characters who speak for themselves, Kierkegaard’s religious writings suggest to the contrary that becoming as nothing is the condition for understanding and living rightly. In these works, Kierkegaard says “you” rather than “I.” While Delecroix certainly does not neglect this fact, we might wish to see it given more attention, since it indeed is within the space of Delecroix’s notion of “singular philosophy,” in order to see what possibilities—and problems— this approach might bring up.27 Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Delecroix, Singulière philosophie, p. 132. Ibid., p. 135. 23 Ibid., p. 145. 24 Ibid., p. 149. 25 Ibid., p. 164. 26 Ibid., p. 197. 27 We ought, however, to note that though Singulière philosophie adopts an aesthetic approach to Kierkegaard’s writings, it was published simultaneously with a new French translation of Indøvelse i christendom (Exercice en christianisme, trans. by Vincent Delecroix, Paris: Editions du Félin 2006). Delecroix might again here be seen to be adopting a Kierkegaardian editorial strategy. 21 22

Reviews and Critical Discussions Chevalier, Philippe, review in Archives de philosophie, vol. 69, no. 4, 2006, pp. 636–7. — review in Études, vol. 406, no. 1, 2007, pp. 129–30. Vidal, Daniel, “Søren Kierkegaard, Exercise en christianisme,” Archives des sciences sociales des religions, vol. 140, no. 4, 2007 (online journal).

Victor Deleuran, Esquisse d’une étude sur Soeren Kierkegaard

[Sketch of a Study of Søren Kierkegaard], Paris: Charles Noblet 1897, IV + 99 pp.

The Esquisse (sketch), which was a dissertation in theology, was the first systematic study on Kierkegaard that was ever written in French. Before this important step in early French reception, the Danish thinker was unknown except in some theatrical circles in Paris.1 The main goal of Victor Deleuran is thus to make him know in France, but he does not present in this very short book a “detailed analysis” of Kierkegaard’s “main works,” but a “brief overview” (un aperçu sommaire) of the “content of those literary monuments” (monuments littéraires).2 Concerning its structure, the book draws a pattern that became very common in the subsequent studies on Kierkegaard, at least in the French reception. First, the author gives a description of Kierkegaard’s “childhood” (enfance),3 which was dominated by the influence of his father and his melancholy. Second, Deleuran presents a chapter dedicated to the “problem” and the “method” of Kierkegaard’s works,4 mainly through an analysis of The Point of View, where the Danish thinker tries to introduce a unity into his own intellectual life. Third, the author tries to explain the content of Kierkegaard’s works,5 that is, his theory of knowledge (théorie de la connaissance), his theory of the “leap” (le bond), and a linear interpretation of the stages of life (stades). A fourth and last chapter presents a brief analysis of Kierkegaard’s struggle against the Danish State Church.6 At the very beginning of the Esquisse we find a very interesting bibliography containing the Danish and the German editions and some secondary literature on Kierkegaard that was available at that time.7 The author seems to be very aware of Peter Kemp, “ ‘Le précurseur d’Henrik Ibsen’. Quelques aspects de la découverte de Kierkegaard en France,” Les Etudes philosophiques, vol. 139, 1979, pp. 139–50. 2 Victor Deleuran, Esquisse d’une étude sur Soeren Kierkegaard, Paris: Imprimerie Charles Noblet 1897, p. 48. 3 Ibid., pp. 17–35. 4 Ibid., pp. 36–50. 5 Ibid., pp. 51–83. 6 Ibid., pp. 84–92. 7 Ibid., pp. 3–8. 1

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the whole content of Kierkegaard’s works and, above all, of its intellectual context. In fact, Deleuran shows how the Danish thinker constructs his own philosophical position against Hegelianism as it appeared among Danish intellectuals at the time, mainly Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791–1860) and Hans Lassen Martensen (1808–84).8 If in later French reception this typical Danish context would be fully forgotten, it is also important to point out a few interesting remarks made by Deleuran that remain very original when we compare them to what happened to the philosophy of existence later when it was finally taken up among French thinkers of the twentieth century. In this perspective it is first amazing to see that Deleuran no doubt anticipates the now very common theme in the field of contemporary Kierkegaard research, that is, the so-called problem of the death of the author (as presented in thinkers such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault). In fact, when describing Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect communication, Deleuran points out how being a pseudonym or even an anonym remains crucial for an author who cares about his readers, that is, who wants them to keep focused on themselves and not on another element that might divert him from his subjectivity: The former [the author] should remain unknown to the latter [the reader]. Otherwise the reader would be either repelled, or attracted by the book, concentrating his attention… on the person of the author who, in that case, would impose himself as an authority, so that the goal would be missed. The individual would in fact place the center of gravity of his spiritual life outside himself.9

Kierkegaard’s struggle against Hegel’s speculation is a second key point of the Esquisse. To some extent Deleuran gives a very common interpretation of the antisystematic view that is placed at the heart of a philosophy of the single individual: “Knowledge [connaissance] can never become certitude, because…existence is an eternal becoming [devenir], and the evolution of ideas is never accomplished [close].”10 In the later French Kierkegaard reception, Lev Shestov (1866–1938) considered this impossibility of the system an irrationalism: the paradoxical structure of the faith, that is, the absurd, contradicts reason.11 In this short detour via Shestov’s Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle it is necessary to underline one of Deleuran’s main points of curiosity in his interpretation of Kierkegaard. Although the author does not neglect the irrational trends of the philosophy of existence,12 in a few but significant pages, he puts a strong emphasis on Kierkegaard’s “rationalism”13 (rationalisme) and even mentions the idea of the “system of Kierkegaard” (système de Kierkegaard).14 Furthermore, Deleuran Ibid., pp. 12–15. Ibid., pp. 46–7. 10 Ibid., pp. 52–3. 11 Léon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, Paris: Vrin 2006 [1936], pp. 65–7. 12 Deleuran, Esquisse d’une étude sur Soeren Kierkegaard, p. 33,  p. 40, p. 77. 13 Ibid., p. 74. 14 Ibid., p. 76. 8 9

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stresses, “the intellectualist and rationalist trend…characterizes Kierkegaard’s conception of faith, more specifically when we see that for him the antithesis of faith is offense.”15 Although not directly connected with the destiny of Kierkegaard in existentialism, there is a third and last curiosité in the Esquisse that has to be mentioned. In the third chapter of his book, Deleuran makes a very astonishing parallel between the philosophy of three stages of life and Auguste Comte’s views: “Mutatis mutandis: we have here Auguste Comte’s theory of the three states [états].”16 But the author does not compare Kierkegaard’s aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages of life with the trois états: theological, metaphysical, and scientific. Deleuran’s book was the very first systematic study on Kierkegaard’s philosophy in France. It thus represents an important step in French Kierkegaard research. Although it had no real impact on later reception, it contains several original theses that should be carefully reconsidered. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

15 16

Ibid., p. 79. Ibid., p. 57.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Stewart, Jon, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421–74; see p. 425.

Alain Douchevsky, Médiation et singularité: Au seuil d’une ontologie avec Pascal et Kierkegaard [Mediation and Singularity: At the Limit of an Ontology with Pascal and Kierkegaard], Paris and Montréal: L’Harmattan 1997, 246 pp.

Alain Douchevsky’s book, Médiation et singularité: Au Seuil d’une ontologie avec Pascal et Kierkegaard, was published by L’Harmattan in 1997. Douchevsky’s book is an important study in Kierkegaardian scholarship because it is the first full-length monograph—written in any language—that discusses the relationship between Kierkegaard and Blaise Pascal. Since Douchevsky’s book, there has only been one other work written about Pascal and Kierkegaard, Stefania Lubańska’s book, Pascal i Kierkegaard—filozofowie rozpaczy i wiary [Pascal and Kierkegaard: Philosophers of Faith and Despair].1 In his work, Alain Douchevsky seeks to answer the following questions: according to Kierkegaard, what is “singularity”? How do we understand and describe singularity?2 The category of singularity is central to Kierkegaard’s work. He constantly speaks to each one of us, in our own singularity as this particular existing individual and no other, urging each of us to become a self, to become a Christian self. But, as Douchevsky notes, while singularity is fundamental to Kierkegaard’s work—it is that which separates each human from all other humans but also that which unites all humans as sharing this common, defining trait of singularity—it is a difficult category to grasp.3 Singularity lies somewhat outside the purview of reason; there is something incomprehensible, mysterious, and “infinite”4 about it.5 Traditional ontology, particularly Hegelian mediation, cannot properly understand singularity, because it seeks precisely to mediate all contradictions, to overcome the mysterious and the paradoxical.6 Stefania Lubańska, Pascal i Kierkegaard—filozofowie rozpaczy i wiary, Kraków: Universitas 2001. 2 Alain Douchevsky, Médiation et singularité: Au seuil d’une ontologie avec Pascal et Kierkegaard, Paris and Montréal: L’Harmattan 1997, pp. 9–13. 3 Ibid., pp. 9–19. 4 Ibid., p. 13. 5 Ibid., pp. 9–24. 6 Ibid., pp. 29–70. 1

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Throughout his book, Douchevsky claims that if we want to understand singularity, we cannot follow the dialectic of Hegelian mediation, but rather, we must develop a “dialectic of immediation,”7 which is an original term he coins to distinguish his method from the Hegelian one. A dialectic of immediation allows singularity as such to appear, because, unlike mediation, it respects the incomprehensible and the paradoxical, characteristics that are essential to singularity.8 Douchevsky claims that this dialectic of immediation must proceed “according to mystery” itself.9 In developing this dialectic, Douchevsky brings Pascal into conversation with Kierkegaard. He claims that many of Kierkegaard’s central themes regarding immediation, mystery, and singularity are also found in Pascal’s work. Pascal’s work can help us to better understand Kierkegaard’s work. Throughout his work, Douchevsky describes many points of intersection between Kierkegaard and Pascal. We will briefly mention a few: (1) Pascal and Kierkegaard both use indirect communication to convey their existential-religious truths. Pascal explains that there are different types of individuals, and the subjective thinker must use various modes of persuasion to meet each individual as an individual.10 Similarly, Kierkegaard uses a multiplicity of pseudonyms and the maieutic method to appeal to different types of individuals. (2) Both philosophers maintain that there exist absolute contradictions and absolute paradoxes that cannot be mediated and overcome by reason, such as the infinite qualitative difference between God and the human and the absolute paradox of the Incarnation. Both preserve singularity, incomprehensibility, and mystery.11 (3) Both philosophers explain that the human is essentially a contradictory creature.12 The human is a “paradoxical synthesis” of contraries, and not the “resolved synthesis” of mediation.13 The human is always an inter-esse14 between unmediatable extremes. (4) Pascal and Kierkegaard both emphasize that the life of faith is a continual effort, a constant repetition of the beginning, of that moment when grace is accepted and the life of sin is transformed into the life of faith.15 Ultimately, Douchevsky claims that if we follow the dialectic of immediation— if we follow the dialectic according to mystery—we see that for both Pascal and Kierkegaard, but especially for Kierkegaard, singularity cannot be thought and cannot be made into a universal, abstract category. Grasping the singular as the singular requires that the individual personally experience the singular. Singularity is experienced as singularity by the single individual himself when he experiences himself in his own “infinite singularity.”16 Singularity is experienced deep within the Pascalian heart or the Kierkegaardian subjective interiority of the single individual himself. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., pp. 18–24. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., pp. 148–66. Ibid., pp. 39–47. Ibid., pp. 32–8. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 94. Ibid., pp. 193–4. Ibid., pp. 17–18.

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He feels his infinite singularity in that moment when he realizes that he is before God, before the absolute paradox and the possibility of repentance.17 The instant of singularity is decisive. It can serve as the beginning, as the beginning of the life of faith. The instant of singularity is the opportunity to live as singularity itself, as the inter-esse between the Absolute and the absolutely singular, between the Infinite and the infinitely singular.18 Overall, Douchevsky’s book makes valuable contributions to the literature on Kierkegaard, of which we will mention two. First, Douchevsky accomplishes the difficult task of bringing a basic structure and definition to the concept of “singularity.” “Singularity” is ubiquitous in Kierkegaard’s texts—indeed, the very goal of his authorship is to urge the single individual to become a self—and in the secondary literature that discusses Kierkegaard’s views on subjectivity, becoming a self, and becoming a Christian. Yet, few scholars have tried to define and bring coherence to what exactly Kierkegaard means by the category of singularity itself. Singularity is often lost in the folds, is gathered into larger discussions about the self and becoming subjective, and it is not treated on its own, as one of the most basic categories in Kierkegaard’s texts. Douchevsky does us the service of bringing philosophical, ontological structure to singularity, to this category that underlies the very goal of Kierkegaard’s entire authorship. In doing so, he also brings new depth and clarity to many of the familiar ideas surrounding the theme of becoming a self in Kierkegaard, such as paradox, instant, inter-esse, and repetition. Second, in writing the first full-length monograph discussing the relationship between Pascal and Kierkegaard, Douchevsky fills a noticeable gap in the literature. It is indeed somewhat surprising that no scholar before him (and few scholars after him) has written an in-depth study on the relationship between Pascal and Kierkegaard, two Christian philosophers who, it would seem, would go together quite naturally. Douchevsky’s book is, therefore, a foundational work in Kierkegaard studies. As we mentioned above, it provides us with many interesting points of interaction between Pascal and Kierkegaard, and, therefore, it lays the groundwork for future study of the two philosophers. However, Douchevsky’s method for comparing the two philosophers is not, perhaps, the most effective. For the most part, he treats each philosopher separately and makes only brief, occasional remarks highlighting the points of comparison between them. For example, the first book is devoted almost entirely to Kierkegaard’s critique of mediation, the first half of the second book to Pascal’s work, and the second half of this book to Kierkegaard’s work. The reader has continually to hold together both philosophers and to make the direct comparisons largely unassisted. By the end of the book, the reader does wonder a little bit how some of the more minute details of Pascal’s apologetics, which the author discusses at some length, help us to understand Kierkegaard’s view of singularity and immediation. But regardless of this, Douchevesky’s book is an impressive and interesting study, and hopefully it will inspire other scholars to take up anew the relationship between Pascal and Kierkegaard.

17 18

Ibid., pp. 71–97. Ibid., pp. 190–212.

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In sum, Douchevsky’s work will be helpful to anyone studying the relationship between Pascal and Kierkegaard and Kierkegaard’s views on singularity, becoming a (Christian) self, inter-esse, and repetition. It will also be useful for those interested in studying Kierkegaard’s view of dialectics, a dialectics of immediation, which— in contrast to Hegel’s dialectics of mediation—preserves contradiction, paradox, mystery, and singularity. Claudine Davidshofer

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Juliette Favez-Boutonier, L’angoisse. Contribution à la psychologie et la métaphysique de l’angoisse [Anxiety: Contribution to the Psychology and Metaphysics of Anxiety], Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1945 (Bibilothèque de Philosophie Contemporaine), 311 pp.

Juliette Favez-Boutonier (1903–94) was a French philosopher, doctor of medicine and psychologist. In 1945 she defended her doctoral thesis (thèse d’Etat) in philosophy under the direction of Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) on the topic of anxiety. The book L’angoisse (Anxiety) was published the same year at the Press Universitaires de France in the collection Bibilothèque de Philosophie Contemporaine and consists of a study of this concept in several research fields, mainly philosophy and psychoanalysis.1 The author tries to explain how psychology is slowly turned into metaphysics (métaphysique) and focuses on several topics related to anxiety, such as freedom, instinct and healing (guérison). In this thesis there are two important mentions of Kierkegaard’s works—both referring to The Concept of Anxiety—the first one in the second chapter entitled “Anxiety and Existential Philosophy”2 (L’angoisse et la philosophie existentielle), and the second one in Chapter Six called “The Cure to Anxiety” (La guérison de l’angoisse). The first reference to Kierkegaard appears in a general overview about the uses and misuses of the concept of anxiety in the field of the so-called “existential philosophy” ( philosophie existentielle). Favez-Boutonier underlines how this concept was misused by Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre: they both turn philosophy into a system that negates the content (contenu) and the reality (réalité) of the “psychological anxiety”: “every metaphysics that informs the real, tends to distort it [déformer]. Metaphysics is always pretty much like a jardin à la française.”3 But if we do not want to reduce the reality of the fact to its interpretation, that is, to turn psychology into a metaphysics, it is necessary to find “a more modest phenomenology that is

Juliette Favez-Boutonier, L’angoisse. Contribution à la psychologie et la métaphysique de l’angoisse, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1963 (1945), pp. 43–64. 2 Ibid., pp. 173–203. 3 Ibid., p. 46. 1

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able to respect the facts,”4 says Favez-Boutonier. In that sense both Kierkegaard and Edmund Husserl, because they both give a critique of the system are relevant to draw the outlines of a “psychology of anxiety”5 ( psychologie de l’angoisse) that fits with the idea that this phenomenon has a real content (contenu), and thus refers to the thing itself (la chose même). Heidegger has made the concept of anxiety into a metaphysics of nothingness that does not add anything to the real fact, that is, it is “useless [inutile] and maybe harmful [nocif  ] for a psychology of anxiety.”6 In his book What is Metaphysics? the German philosopher, under the influence of Kierkegaard’s distinction between fear and anxiety, pretends that the latter is not related to any content (contenu) but is the notion of nothingness (rien), whereas Favez-Boutonier insists that anxiety, in common experience, has a content and is related to a thing. This is what she underlines by using the Husserlian definition of intentionality: “most of the time anxiety is anxiety of something” (l’angoisse est angoisse de quelque chose).7 In this perspective, Sartre, in his famous book called L’imaginaire is also somehow missing the reality of anxiety because he pretends that the image is a product of the unreal, that is, of nothingness (Néant). Favez-Boutonier concludes that both authors, because they reduce anxiety to nothingness, are trapped in a “metaphysical prejudice”8 that negates the “psychological truth,” that is, that the anxiety has a real content, that is to say that it is lost in a system of nothingness. In order to establish an authentic psychology of anxiety, that is, a non-Heideggerian approach to this phenomenon, Favez-Boutonier proposes what we will call here a Kierkegaardian reading of Husserlian phenomenology. Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy was well known at that time in France for its critique of any kind of philosophy that forgets the concreteness of the living and existing subjectivity in an identity of being and thought. Quoting Nicolas Berdiaeff’s (1874–1948) Cinq meditations sur l’existence, Favez-Boutonier emphasizes that, according to Kierkegaard, “human experience…cannot be a system.”9 In other words: “we should not turn the lived experience [l’expérience vécue] into a system”10 In this perspective Husserl himself can be considered a philosopher of existence because, according to Favez-Boutonier, consciousness (conscience) is for him never “completed” (achevée) but always remains “unfinished”11 (incomplète) and thus open with regard to its “content” (contenu). In that sense it is possible to make another interpretation of anxiety as an experience referring to a content by means of several images or sketches (Abschattungen).12 The other main reference to Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy takes place in a chapter where Favez-Boutonier draws the outlines of a psychoanalytical remedy 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid. Ibid., p. 47. Ibid., p. 53. Ibid., p. 60. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid., p. 54. Ibid.

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(guérison) of anxiety: “it is not possible to cure anxiety without anxiety.”13 If this chapter is already placed in a Kierkegaardian atmosphere, the main point of this important text consists in an analysis of the relationship between the psychoanalyst and his patient. The remedy to anxiety is to place the patient in another context than the everyday, that is, to create with him an “uncommon situation” (situation insolite) where he is able to express the root of his trouble.14 In this perspective Favez-Boutonier draws a parallel between the silence of the demonic and the psychoanalyst. In order to make the patient speak, that is, to express himself and to “externalize” (extérioriser) his anxiety,15 the psychoanalyst should be silent: “the passivity and the silence of the doctor [le médecin] is the unique method [règle] proposed to the patient [le patient] so that he can say everything what he wants to say.”16 By referring to a thesis which was apparently first formulated by René Lacroze (1894–1971),17 Favez-Boutonier insists that in this perspective the psychoanalyst is fully comparable to the judge described by Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety: There is certainly something deeply true in the principles that are at the roots of the psychoanalytical cure of anxiety, because it is very striking [frappant] to observe that, years before the development of that research, Kierkegaard already had the intuition of it. In this way he noticed the power of the silence [la puissance du silence] to reveal [faire éclater] anxiety: “A man with a bad conscience cannot endure silence. If placed in solitary confinement, he becomes apathetic. But this silence while the judge is present…is the most penetrating and acute questioning. It is the most frightful torture and yet permissible.”18

This study was strongly criticized at that time by Alphonse De Waelhens (1911– 81), who wrote bluntly: “this book is not a success” (cet ouvrage n’est pas une réussite).19 However, it can nowadays be considered very original because it gives new perspectives on the concept of anxiety, independent of the well-known interpretations by Heidegger and Sartre. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

p. 327.

Ibid., p. 198. Ibid., p. 178. Ibid. Ibid. René Lacroze, L’Angoisse et l’Emotion, Paris: Boivin 1937, p. 262. Favez-Boutonier, L’angoisse, p. 201. SKS 4, 426-–7 / CA, 125. Alphonse De Waelhens, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 44, 1946,

Reviews and Critical Discussions Anonymous, review in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 51, 1946, pp. 279–80. De Waelhens, Alphonse, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 44, 1946, pp. 326–8. Debesse, Maurice, review in Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 136, 1946, pp. 240–4.

Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse [The Unhappy Consciousness], Paris: Éditions Denoël 1936, XXV + 309 pp.

Published in 1936, La conscience malheureuse, Benjamin Fondane’s (1898–1944) only book-length philosophical work, offers a polemical and intellectually engaged analysis of the human condition and the “unhappy consciousness” at the heart of the modern human condition.1 As such, the work, although largely forgotten in the French intellectual scene after Fondane’s death in 1944, constituted one of the major foundations of the movement of existential philosophy in its early developments in the 1930s, alongside the works of Jean Wahl (1888–1974), Rachel Bespaloff (1895– 1949), and Lev Shestov (1866–1938), the latter of whom was one of the greatest influences on Fondane’s thought. As a Jewish-Romanian born writer, critic, poet, and philosopher, exiled in France in 1923, Fondane adhered largely to Shestov’s critique of the dualism inherent in the Western world—the dualism, in Shestov’s terms, between Athens and Jerusalem, that is, philosophy and religion, or reason and the irrational. It is this dualism which is at the heart of “the unhappy consciousness,” or the absolute divide between reason and existence, and which therefore requires a critique of philosophy and of the human condition, which Fondane sees as necessary resignation. As he writes: “So long as reality is what it is, in one way or another— through poetry, through cries, through faith or through suicide—man will bear witness to his resignation, even if this resignation be—or seem to be—absurdity and madness.”2 Yet the struggle inherent in any lived existence also calls for a new type of philosophy, which Fondane finds in figures such as Lev Shestov, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Søren Kierkegaard: a philosophy which seeks not knowledge, but rather being itself, and which as such becomes “the very act whereby the existing being posits its existence, the act of the living, seeking its very life possibilities within and outside itself, in accordance with or against all evidence.”3 While references to Kierkegaard can be found throughout the work, Fondane’s main engagement with Kierkegaard is concentrated in three chapters, which propose Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, Paris: Éditions Denoël 1936. This work was reprinted by Éditions Plasma (Paris) in 1979, and again in a new edition in 2013 presented and annotated by Olivier Salazar-Ferrer (Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier). 2 Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, p. 25. (All page references are to the 2013 edition. All translations are the author’s.) 3 Ibid., p. 20. 1

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comparative analyses: “Martin Heidegger. Sur les routes de Kierkegaard et Dostoïevski” [“Martin Heidegger: Along the Paths of Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky”],4 “Søren Kierkegaard et la catégorie du secret” [“Søren Kierkegaard and the Category of Secrecy”],5 and “Chestov, Kierkegaard et le serpent” [“Shestov, Kierkegaard and the Serpent”].6 In the chapter dedicated to Heidegger, Fondane proposes to re-examine some of his earlier writings on Heidegger, which by his own admission had been too eager to see in Heidegger a new type of philosopher whose writings contained “a latent force which was merely awaiting its time before breaking down the dams and making itself evident.”7 Fondane admits, however, to having been deceived by the apparent novelty of Heidegger’s work, which, as he became more familiar with Kierkegaard’s writings, revealed itself to be, to the contrary, a mere reconciliation of Kierkegaard’s themes with Edmond Husserl’s phenomenological methodology. As Fondane writes: The themes that had moved us, those audacious melodies that returned the world to care, anxiety, and death, all of that belonged only to Kierkegaard; the dense and rigorous method that wove these “motifs” together and prevented them from freely expressing themselves—all of that belonged to Husserl. Only the attempt to reconcile these two incompatible ways of thought by bringing them together, the will to bring existence into a system which hates existence and proposes that we abstain from it, belonged to Heidegger.8

Despite this severe critique, however, Fondane does not concentrate his efforts strictly on refuting the novelty of Heidegger’s philosophy, but attempts rather, throughout this chapter, to demonstrate a serious philosophical problem at the very origin of Heidegger’s thought. For, as Fondane notes, the attempt to take up existential themes using the phenomenological method is itself an attempt to reduce existence itself down to a describable and analyzable phenomenon—that is, an object for philos­ophy. As such, the danger, as Fondane sees it, is that such an attempt renders ineffectual both Kierkegaard’s critique of rationalism and Husserl’s logicism.9 Beyond this danger, however, Fondane’s main contention against Heidegger is that he does not go far enough in his analyses of Angst and their repercussions for our understanding of human existence. Fondane indeed credits Heidegger with seeing and clearly exposing the possibility of the irrationality at the heart of human existence, but suggests immediately afterward that where Heidegger fails is in contradicting his own insights, attempting to show that this irrationality is itself docile. Fondane, however, suggests that, were we to take Heidegger’s insights seriously (which are, after all, already Kierkegaard’s own in Fondane’s view), we would have to see that “It may be—and I shudder at the thought—that absurdity precedes evidence, whim the principle of contradiction, and that freedom was born before necessity.”10 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ibid., pp. 195–222. Ibid., pp. 223–50. Ibid., pp. 251–78. Ibid., p. 196. Ibid., p. 197. Ibid., p. 198. Ibid., p. 204.

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Whereas Heidegger’s analysis, according to Fondane, leads to a finite and incomplete notion of human freedom, which is, as Fondane states, nothing more than “the scholar’s joy to work in his library” and with which Heidegger seems content,11 what Kierkegaard or Fyodor Dostoyevsky enable us to see is that true freedom must be something else, something more, and must stem from the irrational or the absurd. While combatting metaphysics, Heidegger remains, according to Fondane, imprisoned in the metaphysical approach which seeks out “Being in its totality” but only finds a “chipped and mutilated being.”12 And while Fondane recognizes that it may indeed be impossible, in thought, to go beyond this mutilated notion of human freedom, Kierkegaard at least had the courage to “struggle dreadfully in order to break the chains that bound him and, defeated, to fall back and run toward his own failure,” whereas Heidegger, and philosophy as a whole, struggle only to remain imprisoned.13 More than a simple debate with Heidegger, Fondane’s reading proposes a rejection of philosophy as a whole—rejection of philosophy which becomes necessary in order to ensure human existence and human freedom, rejection of philosophy which refuses to ask questions to which answers cannot be given and which develops systems exclusive of large domains of human interest, rejection of philosophy which, in fine, destroys the category of hope. The second chapter dedicated to Kierkegaard in Fondane’s essay, “Kierkegaard et la catégorie du secret,” offers a psycho-biographical reading of Kierkegaard, whom Fondane reads essentially through the reference to the secret of the “thorn in the flesh” and attempts to offer an interpretation of how Kierkegaard’s own secret, the impossibility of living, of becoming an embodied being, led to the development of his theories on despair and anguish. Fondane notes that Kierkegaard, for a long time, “attempted to turn his impotence to his advantage,”14 consecrating his work to ridiculing marriage, despising love, and intellectually justifying his own withdrawal from the world. These attacks on physical love and their institutions, found in his early works, lead, however, to a new and more fundamental question, according to Fondane: “to know if one can have a body, if the body has the right to think out loud.”15 Fondane’s response to this question is that Kierkegaard himself became the living refutation of the philosophical and theological theories of his times, not by erecting contradiction, despair, sin, and paradox as metaphysical principles, but rather by offering a demonstration of his own sins, despair, and lived existence. As such, Kierkegaard presents himself in all the horrible comedy of the impossible reconciliation between reason and existence. And yet, Kierkegaard’s works are not mere romanced biographies, Fondane affirms, but rather contain a universal appeal, despite the fact that their own internal necessity is a “secret” which must remain unspoken. What Kierkegaard’s works bring to the forefront is essentially “the absolute right of the individual to place ‘his drama’ at the center of the philosophical

11 12 13 14 15

Ibid., p. 214. Ibid. Ibid., p. 218. Ibid., p. 231. Ibid.

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problem, even if this entails shattering it to pieces.”16 In order to live, it may be necessary to reject all scientific, philosophical, or rational considerations, to break down the ramparts of necessity in order to penetrate into the domain of freedom and possibility. In the final chapter dedicated to Kierkegaard, “Chestov, Kierkegaard et le serpent,” Fondane again takes up the question of the irreconcilability between freedom and necessity, suggesting, however, that despite Kierkegaard’s cries of revolt against philosophy—Fondane sees Kierkegaard primarily as a figure who “shouted from the rooftops that we must ‘suspend the ethical’ ”17—Kierkegaard’s revolt remains ineffective, since Kierkegaard himself is still a philosopher, “a student of Hegel.”18 It was Shestov, Fondane claims, who was finally able to free thought from the constraints which philosophy imposes upon it: “In my opinion, Shestov clearly and unfailingly expressed that which Kierkegaard, careworn by this ‘thorn,’ demonic and abstruse, complicates, muddles, and exaggerates at will.”19 Yet Fondane attempts to demonstrate that there is a similarity between Shestov’s and Kierkegaard’s conceptions and methods. What Kierkegaard and Shestov share, according to Fondane, is a particular conception of what the philosophical quest entails (a conception inherited from Blaise Pascal and in rejection of the dominant Cartesian tradition): “they underscore the impossibility of knowledge through ‘clear and distinct’ ideas; they insist on the fact that the philosophical method par excellence is to ‘search while wailing’ (chercher en gémissant).”20 Fondane insists that for Shestov, the problem of philosophy is that it has imposed conditions of necessity and truth as constraints to the freedom of thought—this original “offense” which we have all now forgotten and which we “obey” in “resignation.”21 Freedom has thus become for us “a word we can say, but in no way think,”22 since freedom would be the possibility of moving beyond the laws of nature and logical necessity— in other words, freedom is synonymous with the miraculous, the impossible, which is “a crime against Spirit, according to Hegel.”23 This crime against Spirit is incarnated, for Kierkegaard and Shestov, in the figure of Job. What Job teaches us, is precisely that there is a difference, an eternal difference, in the manners of obedience which we take up. For “Even if we must obey, Shestov will also say, it is not indifferent whether we obey necessity ‘which cannot be persuaded,’ or God, who may be persuaded. Even if we must obey, if obedience is an eternal truth, it is not indifferent to be constrained thereto by necessity or to be brought thereto by a first-hand source, by God.”24 The difference is fundamental, since the manner of obedience is also the acceptance of life itself: “It is not life that we sacrifice to the 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Ibid., p. 248. Ibid., p. 253. Ibid. Ibid., p. 270. Ibid., p. 256. Ibid., p. 257. Ibid. Ibid., p. 258. Ibid., p. 261.

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categories of thought, it is thought that, now, is restored to its rightful place, within the categories of life.”25 Yet Fondane remains highly critical of Kierkegaard, suggesting that the Dane was not able to make the move of liberation that Shestov had, and had remained prisoner of a philosophical conception of thought. In this Fondane is quite correct, since Kierkegaard was not, as Fondane seems to believe, a fideist, and contrary to Shestov did not seek to abolish the general and the temporal, but rather to show how to better live in the world through a proper understanding of the categorical differences between the temporal and the infinite. Fondane’s reading of Kierkegaard remains thus rather stereotypical, and his references are generally only to a few of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works: Fear and Trembling, The Concept of Anxiety, Repetition, and The Sickness unto Death.26 As such, Fondane gives privilege to Shestov’s tragic reading of the human condition over Kierkegaard’s tragi-comic understanding of human life. For Fondane, as for Shestov, human existence is tragic in nature, since all one can do is struggle against the evidence of knowledge which can never be dispelled but which always remains for man an essential offense. Fondane’s engagement with Kierkegaard throughout La conscience malheureuse is certainly polemical and symptomatic of the psycho-biographical trend which inaugurated Kierkegaard’s reception into the Francophone world in the 1930s. However, we might suggest that Kierkegaard should be perceived, in Fondane’s work, more as a philosophical character than as a philosopher in his own right, in much the same way that Kierkegaard himself played with the figures of Socrates or Hegel throughout his works. As such, La conscience malheureuse certainly deserves a much wider reception than it currently receives as a masterpiece of early existential philosophy, a critique of the systematic trend of philosophy and the division of knowledge inherent in modernity, and as an appeal to each individual to struggle against the “total alienation of man’s powers” which modern science imposes upon us.27 Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Ibid. The latter in the 1932 translation by Knud Ferlov and Jean J. Gateau, under the title La maladie mortelle. La maladie mortelle was actually the subtitle of the work, published under the title Traité du désespoir. 27 Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, p. 21. 25 26

Reviews and Critical Discussions Finkenthal, Michaël, “Benjamin Fondane, philosophe existentiel,” Europe, no. 972, 2010, pp. 170–183. Hyde, John Kenneth, “Lev Šhestov’s French Apologist Benjamin Fondane,” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 1970, pp. 24–32; see pp. 26–8. — Benjamin Fondane: A Presentation of His Life and Works, Geneva: Librairie Droz 1971, pp. 33–40. Politis, Hélène, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, pp. 85–108. Salazar-Ferrer, Olivier, Benjamin Fondane, Paris: Le Félin 2004, pp. 117–33. — “Avant-propos,” in Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier 2013, pp. 7–13. Teboul, Margaret, “La réception de Kierkegaard en France 1930–1960,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 89, no. 2, 2005, pp. 315–36.

Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov [Meetings with Lev Shestov], Paris: Plasma 1982, 256 pp.

On June 18, 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Benjamin Fondane (1898–1944) handed over to Victoria Ocampo (1890–1979) for safekeeping in Buenos Aires an “unfinished manuscript,” which he considered to be his “most precious belonging.”1 This manuscript, containing letters from Lev Shestov (1866– 1938) and notes on their conversations from 1924 up to Shestov’s death in 1938,2 was to be published, prefaced by Fondane’s essay recounting his relations with Shestov, “Sur les rives d’Ilissus” (On the Shores of Ilissus), in the event that Fondane and his family “disappear from the world” (dispar[aître] de terre) during the upcoming war.3 Fondane’s premonitions turned out to be justified: as a naturalized French citizen of Jewish-Romanian origins, he was arrested in March 1944 and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he died in the gas chambers in October 1944. The manuscript, extracts of which were published in 1967,4 was only published in full in 1982, with the addition of some supplementary material, including letters and reprinted essays by Fondane. Though by Fondane’s admission incomplete and “lacking form,”5 Rencontres avec Léon Chestov is an important work insofar as it offers a testimony to Shestov’s later period of thought—as well as to some of the last years of Fondane’s life—and gives key insights into the developments of existential philosophy in the pre-war period. Fondane met Shestov in 1924, and quickly became a friend and disciple of the Russian philosopher. Having no training in philosophy or interest in the subject (by his own claims), Fondane was, at the time of their encounter, a well-known poet. His friendship with Shestov led him to read philosophy under Shestov’s supervision and eventually to embrace Shestov’s existential philosophy, of which he became a defender. In 1934, as he notes, he realized that “no one had really grasped Shestov’s

Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, ed. by Nathalie Baranoff and Michel Carassou, Paris: Plasma 1982, p. 253. (All translations from the French are the author’s.) 2 The notes on conversations begin in 1933. 3 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 253. 4 Léon Chestov, Œuvres 2: Le pouvoir des clefs (“Potestas clavium”), trans. by Boris de Schlœzer, preface by Benjamin Fondane, Paris: Flammarion 1967. 5 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 253. 1

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thought, his works were little read, or not at all, and he lived in an absolute and terrifying solitude.”6 Fondane thus began his own philosophical work with the mission of making Shestov’s thought better known in France and defending the idea that philosophy begins with resistance; as he writes: “true philosophy (contrary to the perennis philosophia) is not the domain of the ‘I know’; true philosophy begins where the ‘I know’ has come to a stop; where one must fight against the ‘I know’ and must do so, be the price what it may, even if the price be the ‘martyrdom of reason.’ ”7 As Fondane makes clear in his last philosophical text, Le Lundi existentiel et le dimanche de l’histoire (The Existential Monday and the Sunday of History), Shestov’s and his own existential philosophy is highly at odds with that which would win out in the memory of history—that of Martin Heidegger (1889– 1976), Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), and Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), which seeks to acquire knowledge about existence.8 On the contrary, Shestov’s and Fondane’s philosophical approach centers around questioning the existing being’s possibilities for and relations to knowledge, and rejecting the determinism to which knowledge’s pretention to universality and necessity subject us. As Fondane remarks, philosophy must in the future choose between these two radically different positions: “do we really want to know what Knowledge thinks of the existing being (l’existant), or rather, for once, what the existing being thinks of Knowledge? Is it existence, as has always been the case, or is it at last knowledge that is to be called into question?”9 Though the central focus of Rencontres avec Léon Chestov is Shestov’s own thought, which gives insight into his philosophy and intellectual encounters, the work is of interest to Kierkegaard scholars, especially those interested in the historical reception of Kierkegaard’s works in France, insofar as it covers the exchanges between Fondane and Shestov over the period during which both were reading and writing about Kierkegaard. Though his book on Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. Vox clamantis in deserto,10 had great impact on the French reception of Kierkegaard, Shestov had only come across the Danish philosopher in 1928 in Frankfurt, where Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) “made [him] promise to read Kierkegaard.”11 Fondane was also engaged with Kierkegaard’s thought during the 1930s, writing a series of lectures and articles, some of which were later republished, in reworked versions, in Fondane’s influential book: La conscience malheureuse (The Unhappy Consciousness).12 Shestov’s letters, as well as the records of

Ibid., p. 43. Ibid., p. 249. 8 Benjamin Fondane, “Le Lundi existentiel ou le dimanche de l’histoire,” in his Le lundi existentiel, Monaco: Editions du Rocher 1990, pp. 11–68. (First published in 1945 in Jean Grenier, L’existence, Paris: Gallimard 1945, pp. 25–53.) 9 Ibid., p. 23. 10 Léon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. Vox clamantis in deserto, trans. by Tatiana Rageot and Boris de Schlœzer, Paris: Vrin 1936. (Though written in Russian, the text was first published in French translation, and only published in its original version in 1939.) 11 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 114. 12 Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, Paris: Editions Denoël 1936. 6 7

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their exchanges, show how influential Shestov’s thought was on Fondane’s understanding of Kierkegaard, but also attest to points of divergence13 in their readings.14 The exchanges are also of interest insofar as they attest to the interpretive gap separating Shestov and Fondane from the other highly influential figures of Kierkegaard studies in the 1930s, such as Karl Jaspers or Jean Wahl (1888–1974), who, according to Shestov, “knows Kierkegaard perfectly and everything that has been written on him.…But he hasn’t understood that one cannot write that way about Kierkegaard.…With a man of his caliber, one must take a stand.”15 Of particular interest to Kierkegaard scholars is the article reprinted in the appendices: “A propos du livre de Léon Chestov: Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle”16 (On Lev Shestov’s Book: Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy). Fondane’s aim in this article is to offer a presentation of Shestov’s philosophy in general and more in particular of his work on Kierkegaard. As Fondane points out, Shestov’s approach is not a biographical or historical reading of the Dane, but rather an attempt to relive Kierkegaard’s “passion” and make it come to life in his own thought and experience.17 Fondane notes: “Kierkegaard’s philosophy, in its very essence, is linked to Shestov’s by more than one thread,” notably in the fact that one finds in both thinkers “the same hatred of the speculative, the same justification of faith as the ‘second dimension of thought,’ …the same opposition between Hegel and Job.”18 Fondane insists on Abraham and Job as the two figures of the movement of the absurd in Kierkegaard’s writings, two figures of the private thinker, who offer the possibility of seeing faith not through a non-philosophical lens, but rather as another mode of philosophy, a true philosophy as opposed to those “professors” of philosophy who offer only consolation, but no true thought.19 Despite this, however, Fondane remains highly critical of Kierkegaard, whom he sees as unable to maintain the demand for the possible which is articulated in Job’s lamentations: Kierkegaard, Fondane claims, “knows how to describe faith, but he doesn’t have courage.”20 The Shestov has some reservations about Fondane’s chapters on Kierkegaard in La conscience malheureuse, stating that Fondane has made some unfounded critiques and has failed to take into account the importance of indirect communication (Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 123). 14 As Jacques Message has pointed out, although Fondane is traditionally seen as a disciple of Shestov, and by his own admission entered into philosophy in order to please the master, it was Fondane and not Shestov who first pointed out the fact that the French commentators of Kierkegaard did not take enough notice of the question of contradiction in Kierkegaard’s works. See Jacques Message, “L’absolu, l’absurde, l’absence: Kierkegaard et l’existence selon Chestov,” Europe, no. 960, 2009, p. 67. 15 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 68. 16 The last word actually reads éternelle (eternal) in the text. We assume that this is an error, which we have taken the liberty to correct—the original text, published in 1937 in the Revue de philosophie reads existentielle, which is also the term used in the title of Shestov’s book. The title is also given as existentielle in the book’s table of contents. 17 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 187. 18 Ibid., p. 186. 19 Ibid., p. 14. 20 Ibid., pp. 199–200. 13

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problem with Kierkegaard, in Fondane’s view, is that he is constantly moving back into the general, moving back toward philosophy—and thus, a further move, which Shestov’s philosophy makes, is necessary in order to render Kierkegaard’s thought pertinent. However, Fondane insists that taking up Kierkegaard’s thought, even as an adversary, is indeed the only genuine way in which to read him. “There are two ways in which one can miss the point of Kierkegaard’s thought: 1. To take it for a ‘philosophy,’ envisaging it as a reintegration of the existential into the speculative… 2. Not to take it to be a philosophy; and then Kierkegaard is again lost.”21 Fondane sees the first option as the most dangerous and lauds Shestov for enabling Kierkegaard’s thought to escape the speculative and moral prison in which it was tied up, and to find new expression in Shestov’s cries of revolt. Fondane’s reading of Kierkegaard is certainly far from the scholarly work being done today, and it is to be noted that Shestov’s position is far more nuanced than Fondane portrays it to be.22 What is, however, of great interest in this essay, as well as throughout the whole of Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, is the passionate engagement with which these early twentieth-century readers of Kierkegaard took up his thought and saw in it the possibility for setting the philosophical enterprise upon a new footing. What is to be found in Fondane and Shestov is a philosophy that seeks not just to know the world but also to change it. What does existence reveal, if not “the horrors of being,”23 of embodied existence as a path toward death and decay, of socio-historical engagement as a preparation for war and cruelty? Faced with the undeniable evidence of these truths, we cannot but obey—but, as Shestov reminds us, this does not mean that we ought to accept these situations and posit them as necessary and immutable. Though certainly far removed from Kierkegaard’s real philosophical and theological positions, Shestov and Fondane reveal themselves to be truly Kierkegaardian in the way in which they passionately take up the search for freedom and possibility, and say “No!” to the biological and socio-historical determinisms placed upon human liberty. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Ibid., p. 204. This is despite the fact that Shestov’s reading of Kierkegaard is based on his own philosophical position: the absolute divide between two manners of understanding truth, that posed by philosophy, and that depicted in the Bible. While Shestov reads Kierkegaard through the lens of his own critique of scientific evidence, he nevertheless has a much better command of the Dane’s thinking than did Fondane (Shestov, though not trained in philosophy at the university, had studied the history of philosophy, and had access to the German translations, whereas Fondane read Kierkegaard in the few newly-published French translations, especially of Fear and Trembling and Repetition, and in terms of his own aesthetic position as a poet and writer). 23 Fondane, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov, p. 204. 21 22

Reviews and Critical Discussions Coates, Carrol, “A New Look at Shestov,” Books Abroad, vol. 42, no. 3, 1968, pp. 385–7. Hyde, John Kenneth, Benjamin Fondane: A Presentation of His Life and Works, Geneva: Librairie Droz 1971; see pp. 61–70. — “Lev Šestov’s French Apologist Benjamin Fondane,” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 1970, pp. 24–32. Lucescu-Boutcher, Arta, “Shestov and Fondane: Life beyond Morals,” in Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, vol. 16, no. 1, 1994, pp. 79–86. Salazar-Ferrer, Olivier, Benjamin Fondane, Paris: Oxus 2004; see pp. 59–66.

Darío González, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne. Idéalité et détermination [Essay on Kierkegaardian Ontology: Ideality and Determination], Paris and Montreal: L’Harmattan 1998, 220 pp.

Darío González is a well-known Argentinian scholar who has worked in Copenhagen for many years in association with the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre. His study, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne. Idéalité et détermination, was published by L’Harmattan in 1998. It was originally a Ph.D. thesis that was defended at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen in 1997. In this in-depth, nuanced work, González seeks to answer the following question: Can we develop an ontology that takes into account the existential character of Kierkegaard’s thought?1 Traditionally, philosophers speak about ontology by using abstract language and universal, eternal categories. But existence deals with the concrete, the singular, and the temporal, with the existing individual who continually becomes in time. How can we develop a Kierkegaardian ontology of existence if traditional ontology excludes the most distinctive features of existence?2 In answering this question, González sees his project as in conversation with much of the influential French scholarship of the time, particularly that of André Clair and Jacques Colette, both of whom discuss the themes of the non-conceptual, paradox, and how to think about existence and the singular.3 González argues that we can indeed develop a Kierkegaardian ontology of existence if we recognize that Kierkegaard creates a whole new set of ontological categories specific to existence itself.4 González’s overall claim is that the basic structure of Darío González, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne. Idéalité et détermination, Paris and Montreal: L’Hartmann 1998, p. 11. 2 Ibid., pp. 11–25. 3 André Clair, Kierkegaard. Penser le singulier, Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1993; André Clair, Kierkegaard. Existence et éthique, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 199; André Clair, Pseudonymie et paradoxe, la pensée dialectique de Kierkegaard, Paris: Vrin 1976. Jacques Colette, Histoire et absolu, essai sur Kierkegaard, Paris: Éditions Desclée et Cie 1972; Jacques Colette, Kierkegaard et la non-philosophie, Paris: Gallimard 1994. 4 González, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne, pp. 19–25. 1

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existence is the “inter-esse.”5 The existing individual is always inter-esse, is always being-between two absolutely incommensurable, non-mediateable contraries. The “there” of the “being-there” of determinate being is the intermediary place of beingbetween two extremes. This intermediary place is indeterminate, non-conceptual, and not fully open to rational explanation, but it is nonetheless acutely felt by the individual, especially at certain moments in existence.6 González maintains that Kierkegaard deliberately creates several “negative concepts”7—that is, negative, paradoxical categories—which, unlike traditional ontological categories that subsume being under rational, conceptual determinations, are precisely meant to highlight and to infinitely repeat the paradoxical, intermediary, and non-conceptual structure of the inter-esse of existence.8 González devotes his book to describing many of these “negative concepts,” such as paradox and absurdity (in Chapter 2),9 the moment and occasion (in Chapter 3),10 and the crucial “dialectical moments,”11 in which they are existentially felt as sin and despair (in Chapter 2), anxiety (in Chapter 3), and doubt (in Chapter 4). González shows that each of these negative categories has the same structure: the individual is being-before and being-between. He is always being-before God, the eternal, the transcendent, and therefore, he is always being-between God and the human, the eternal and the temporal, the transcendent and the immanent. Each category reveals the same inter-esse structure of existence, but each highlights different sets of extremes as the endpoints of the inter-esse. For example, “paradox” and “offense” show that the individual is being-before God and therefore is being-between God and the human (Chapter 2).12 And “moment” and “occasion” show that the individual’s temporal-historical life unfolds before the eternal, and therefore he is being-between the eternal and the temporal-historical (Chapter 3).13 Finally, González also claims that these negative concepts are not primarily meant to explain existence—indeed, they are meant to highlight what is inexplicable and paradoxical in existence—but rather, they are meant to transform existence. González makes the interesting claim that, for Kierkegaard, ontology is not just ontology but primarily an ethics. These categories bring the individual back to himself and situate him in this tense, intermediary place of existence. In the interesse, he realizes that he is (quite likely) in sin and that he can embrace repentance and move to an ethical-religious way of life.14 By embracing “repetition” (Chapter 4),15 the individual can live as the inter-esse, can live as being-between the Divine and

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., pp. 163–76. Ibid., p. 91. Ibid., pp. 19–25. Ibid., pp. 67–98. Ibid., pp. 101–46. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., pp. 67–98. Ibid., pp. 101–46. Ibid., pp. 19–25; pp. 163–97. Ibid., pp. 163–97.

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the human, the eternal and the temporal. It seems rather fitting that a study of the structure of existence should lead the individual to a transformation of his existence. Overall, González’s book is an impressive, nuanced treatment of Kierkegaard’s ontology of existence. His book makes valuable contributions to the literature, of which we will mention three in particular. First, González is one of the few scholars who analyzes Kierkegaard’s existentialist thought from a metaphysical, ontological perspective. Most scholars focus more on the ethical-religious aspects and the existentially-felt moments of Kierkegaard’s existentialist thought, without looking for the ontological structures that underpin these commonly discussed elements. By grounding the existentialist Kierkegaard in the metaphysical, ontological Kierkegaard, González provides us with a core set of categories that undergird and give structure to Kierkegaard’s many and varied views on existence, a set of categories which holds across different pseudonyms and different texts. González’s work brings unity to the Kierkegaardian corpus as a whole, which, in itself, is no small feat. Second, González does a good job of situating Kierkegaard in relation to other philosophers, like Plato, Kant, Hegel, the Danish Hegelians, and Heidegger. Particularly impressive and helpful to the reader is that González continually situates his discussion of Kierkegaard’s existential categories in relation to Hegel’s logical categories. He shows throughout that Kierkegaard’s categories come out of a direct engagement with Hegel’s categories. We should note that, during this time, Kierkegaardian scholarship was dominated by Niels Thulstrup’s anti-Hegelian interpretation,16 and so it is refreshing to see that González takes a more unbiased look at some of the points of interaction between Hegel and Kierkegaard. We can briefly cite a few of his examples: (1) Kierkegaard’s category of qualitative leap is a response to how Hegel views the relation between quantity and quality, namely, that qualitative change happens by a gradual quantitative change.17 (2) Kierkegaard’s view of sin is a reaction to Hegel’s view of determinate negation, which treats sin as simply one negative among all other negatives that gets easily mediated into a new positive (into repentance).18 (3) Kierkegaard stresses that the inter-esse is a contradictory synthesis made of incommensurable contraries—for example, eternal and temporal—which absolutely cannot be mediated into a higher Hegelian-type unity.19 (4) In Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus dubitandum est, Kierkegaard seems to draw something positive from Hegel. He describes the structure of repetition and the inter-esse as a collision of ideality and reality,20 which is exactly how Hegel describes the relation between ideality and actuality in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in the section on “Sense Certainty.”21 Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, trans. by George L. Stengren, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980. 17 González, Essai sur l’ontologie kierkegaardienne, pp. 29–62. 18 Ibid., pp. 81–98. 19 Ibid., pp. 81–98; pp. 105–29; pp. 163–71. 20 Ibid., pp. 163–90. 21 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by A.V. Miller, New York: Humanity Books 1991, pp. 58–66. 16

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Finally, we should note that González’s work is an important forerunner, though perhaps a little-studied and little-cited forerunner, to more recent literature. In discussing the points of contact between Hegel and Kierkegaard, he pre-empts the renewed interest in the Hegel–Kierkegaard relationship that has been gaining strength over the last decade with the publication of works by Jon Stewart,22 Clare Carlisle,23 and David J. Kangas,24 to name a few. Also, González’s book explores many of the same themes that appear in Kangas’ book—for example, the non-conceptual, the moment, the inter-esse, and repetition—and in Patrick Stokes’ book25—for example, interest and inter-esse. Anyone interested in these recent works will also be interested in González’s book. Overall, González’s book will be useful to anyone studying Kierkegaard’s relation to the history of philosophy, particularly to Hegel, and to anyone analyzing the ontological structures that undergird Kierkegaard’s existentialist thought, particularly paradox, moment, inter-esse, and repetition. Readers would do well to look not just forward to current literature but also backward to González’s work. Claudine Davidshofer

Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003. 23 Clare Carlisle, Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming: Movement and Positions, Albany: State University of New York Press 2005. 24 David J. Kangas, Kierkegaard’s Instant: On Beginnings, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 2007. 25 Patrick Stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self, and Moral Vision, New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2010. 22

Reviews and Critical Discussions Ake, Stacey E., review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 21, 2000, pp. 184–5. Desroches, Dominic, review in Horizons philosophiques, vol. 14, 2003, pp. 147–9.

Françoise Heinrich, Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien [Kierkegaard: Becoming Christian],

Paris: Éditions du Centurion 1967 (Humanisme et religion), 173 pp.

Françoise Heinrich’s Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien was originally published by Éditions du Centurion in 1967, as part of the series Humanisme et religion.1 This edition sold out and has become hard to come by. In 1997, when Heinrich was lecturer in German Studies at the University of Limoges, she decided to have it reissued in the interest of introducing her department to Kierkegaard. This reprint was published by Presses Universitaires de Limoges, keeping the label Humanisme et religion.2 It features an updated chapter on Kierkegaard’s reception (which is, however, unsatisfactory and unworthy of the study) and an updated bibliography of Kierkegaard translations and commentaries in French.3 Although Heinrich’s academic distinction and her purpose of reissuing the work may appear humble, the study itself is excellent and a worthwhile read for anyone who seeks a general and thoughtful reading of Kierkegaard’s entire work. The study is basically introductory in design—yet, it shows great depth of comprehension. Its primary virtue is the subtlety and discretion of Heinrich’s analysis, which succeeds in giving a nuanced picture of Kierkegaard’s authorship that is clear and succinct, without, however, reducing its ambiguity or complexities. Its prose is also of high literary quality and flows easily, which makes it very pleasant to read. Somewhat remarkably, the book lacks an introductory chapter, diving straight into the analysis from the beginning. Fortunately, this does not impede the reader in following its course, but seems rather to be part and parcel of the qualities of the book. When reading, it is clear enough what Heinrich intends to convey. Instead of an introduction, we are informed of her method only in the blurb on the back of the book: “By constantly going back and forth between the work and the life of This first edition appeared under the author’s maiden name, Françoise Sur, but this review will employ her married name, Heinrich, since this is the name under which she is best known. 2 Françoise Heinrich, Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien, Limoges: PULIM 1997. 3 The reader is referred to the more complete bibliography in Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421– 74; see pp. 460–74. 1

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Kierkegaard, a method that fits someone who passes for the founder of existentialism, Françoise Heinrich emphasizes that which was at the same time the goal of the man’s existence and the fundamental concern of his thought.” The study aims to provide a narrative that links up Kierkegaard’s life and writings. In  a superficial sense, this means that Kierkegaard’s writings are presented in the context of the major events in his life and with frequent reference to his journals. More profoundly, Heinrich manages to interpret Kierkegaard’s works as episodes in his religious existence, that is, as developments of his personal relation to God. Although we do not find any explicit methodological discussions on how Kierkegaard should be interpreted, it becomes clear from the content of the book that Heinrich proposes to interpret Kierkegaard’s works as steps on the way of his own faith. Therefore, the study should be read not so much as an overview of the particular works Kierkegaard wrote (although it outlines the bulk of them), but rather as an attempt to elucidate Kierkegaard’s authorship. Here it exceeds its introductory nature and becomes really interesting for the reader. There is much of value in the parts where Heinrich locates Kierkegaard’s significance on the level where he and his writing are at one with each other. Nevertheless, Heinrich is careful to make the distinction—no doubt indispensable— between Kierkegaard the individual and the (ideal) Christian he puts forward in his works. Take, for example, her answer to Jean Wahl’s claim that Kierkegaard’s failure to resume his relations with Regine also meant the failure of his thought.4 Wahl argues that Kierkegaard, for this reason, changed to a different concept of faith after Fear and Trembling and Repetition, as evidenced in the subsequent disappearance of the concept of repetition. Heinrich objects that it is only for Kierkegaard the individual that his relationship with Regine ended up as a failure. In fact, she says, his relation to Regine “only deepened his relation to God.”5 So she sees repetition, far from disappearing, as “the category typical of every movement of faith,” remaining “at the center of the Kierkegaardian reflection on the place of the Christian in the world.”6 If repetition ceased to be mentioned, it was only because his later works would move on to emphasize the paradox of faith. In line with this distinction, Heinrich repeatedly highlights “the tragedy of Kierkegaard’s life,” that he could not live up to that which he knew to be the truth.7 The friction that this inner discordance created is convincingly portrayed as the impetus of Kierkegaard’s authorship. As suggested by the title of the study, Heinrich discerns a development in his work, which she, citing an important phrase Kierkegaard used to characterize the meaning of his work, calls his “becoming Christian.” By this she does not mean to declare, however, that he in fact succeeded in becoming Christian, stressing that we are no judge of his saintliness.8 But she does sound favorable to the view that he managed to make progress in his pursuit. Françoise Heinrich, Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien, Paris: Éditions du Centurion 1967, p. 85 (Heinrich, Kierkegaard: le devenir chrétien, 1997, p. 76). Hereafter, all page references to this work will be given first to the 1967 edition, followed by page references in parentheses to the 1997 edition. 5 Ibid., p. 86 (p. 77). 6 Ibid., p. 87 (p. 78). 7 Ibid., pp. 86–7 (p. 77). 8 Ibid., p. 156 (p. 131). 4

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This becomes particularly apparent in her assessment of The Sickness unto Death. This work signifies for Heinrich a turning point in Kierkegaard’s authorship, because rather than reveal the nature of faith as his earlier pseudonymous works did (from Fear and Trembling up to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript), it establishes more clearly (building on the insight he attained in The Concept of Anxiety) what sin consists of, namely, despairing in the face of God: “That’s why Kierkegaard without a doubt has never gone so far in opening up his soul to Christianity as in this treatise.”9 Because, just as despair in Either/Or would prove to contain the possibility of the ethical choice for oneself, despair in the face of the eternal contains the possibility of repentance and grace: “Sin proceeds from the individual and the individual who knows himself to be sinner before God knows at the same time that in God is the forgiveness of his sins.”10 She concludes that this insight was liberating for Kierkegaard, granting him the way to relieve himself (at least in part) of the weight of his personal sin. In this way, Heinrich attempts to make plausible the idea that, “in all of his writings, it is his own spiritual itinerary that Kierkegaard proposes to us.”11 This approach equips her with the means to explain the chronology of his works. Thus, after discussing Kierkegaard’s relation to his father (Chapter 1) and to Regine (Chapter 2), the study pursues the thread of the main body of his work in several stages. Chapter 3 discusses Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and Repetition, the works in which Kierkegaard develops the conclusion that he lost Regine through lack of faith. Chapter 4, which discusses the notion of becoming Christian, is mainly an examination of Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Chapter 5 features The Sickness unto Death and The Concept of Anxiety and pertains to the authenticity of Kierkegaard’s relation to God. Chapter 6 examines Practice in Christianity and The Moment, and discusses Kierkegaard’s dream to become a martyr, his attack upon the church, and the end of his life. Finally, Chapter 7 treats Kierkegaard’s direct communication (the upbuilding discourses, Works of Love, The Point of View for My Work as an Author) and the relation between his pseudonymous and religious works. Along the way, Heinrich also touches upon many of the issues that have become debates in their own right, such as Kierkegaard’s relation to mysticism, his allegedly aberrant sexuality, as well as his reputed irrationalism and masochism, both of which she denounces. Although at some points Heinrich proposes outdated views, for example, that Kierkegaard was a dandy, these points are mostly of minor importance. Altogether, the study depicts an engaging portrait of Kierkegaard, which earns a rightful place among the French interpretations from the twentieth century. It comes recommended to every reader who is looking for a general account of Kierkegaard in the French language. Frédéric Dubois

9 10 11

Ibid., p. 106 (pp. 91–2). Ibid., p. 111 (p. 95). Ibid., p. 111 (p. 96).

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Régis Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard [Introduction to Kierkegaard],

Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille: Editions de Fontenelle 1946, XI + 254 pp.

Régis Jolivet (1881–1966), a French Catholic priest who founded in 1932 the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Lyon, presented his introduction to Kierkegaard in 1946. Very similar but yet shorter than Jean Wahl’s famous Etudes kierkegaardiennes, this book is divided into three main parts: a short “sketch” of Kierkegaard’s life (Esquisse biographique),1 a description of the non-philosophical elements in Kierkegaard’s existentialism, that is, the “soul of Kierkegaard” (L’âme de Kierkegaard)2 and, finally, a description of the main philosophical aspects under the rubric “Kierkegaard’s thought” (La pensée de Kierkegaard).3 This work was later reprinted in 1958 under the title Aux sources de l’existentalisme chrétien.4 Only the title was changed, apparently emphasizing and using (but never quoting) Jean-Paul Sartre’s distinction between “Christian existentialism” (existentialisme chrétien) and “atheistic existentialism” (existentialisme athée) in his L’existentialisme est un humanisme.5 Concerning the “non-philosophical” elements in Kierkegaard’s existentialism, Jolivet is under the influence of two main trends in the early French reception of Kierkegaard: on the one hand, an irrational or “non-rational” conception of faith, and, on the other hand, Blaise Pascal, who used to be considered a French Kierkegaard, while Kierkegaard was regarded as a “Nordic Pascal” (Pascal du Nord). This refers to a study of the relation between both authors and more specifically their relation to Christ.6 Régis Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille: Editions de Fontenelle 1946, pp. 3–48. 2 Ibid., pp. 49–96. 3 Ibid., pp. 97–212. 4 Régis Jolivet, Aux sources de l’existentialisme chrétien. Kierkegaard, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard 1958. 5 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris: Les éditions Nagel 1946, pp. 16–17: “Ce qui rend les choses compliquées, c’est qu’il y a deux espèces d’existentialistes: les premiers, qui sont chrétiens, et parmi lesquels je rangerai Jaspers et Gabriel Marcel, de confession catholique; et d’autre part, les existentialistes athées parmi lesquels il faut ranger Heidegger, et aussi les existentialistes français et moi-même.” 6 Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, pp. 99–100. 1

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In 1936 Lev Shetov (1866–1938), who had already been in Paris for more than a decade, published his Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle,7 which had a great impact in France after it was translated by his friend Boris de Schoelzer (1881–1969). The main claim of the book was to say that Kierkegaard’s polemical gesture against speculation, that is, against Hegel’s systematic philosophy was to always play faith, that is, the absurd against reason: “Quitter Hegel, signifie renier la raison et se jeter tout droit dans les bras de l’Absurde.”8 Although Jolivet does not agree with Lev Shestov on the status of the ethical elements in the philosophy of existence,9 he always refers to his main thesis by constantly underlining “le caractère gratuit et absolument irrationnel de la foi.”10 There are many examples that show Jolivet’s irrational interpretation of faith in Kierkegaard. He claims: “Il faut prendre au sens fort le terme de paradoxe (contre la raison) dont Kierkegaard se sert pour désigner le ressort de la foi.”11 The polemical relation between faith and reason in Kierkegaard’s existentialism is a way for Jolivet to handle the relation between Kierkegaard and Pascal, a classic theme since the first article published on this topic by Harald Høffding (1843–1931) in 1923 in La Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale.12 Kierkegaard and Pascal are very similar because they both underline the paradoxical structure of the single individual, that is, existence as a passion. That means that Kierkegaard and Pascal belong to an “anti-intellectualist” (anti-intellectualisme) trend in philosophy.13 But at the same time these authors are quite different in the way they consider the relation between faith and reason. If Kierkegaard can be considered as an non-rational thinker: “Pascal would certainly not admit this point of view, because faith, the way he considers it, is above [au-dessus] reason but not against [contre] it.”14 According to Jolivet, despite the fact that Kierkegaard cannot so easily be described as a philosopher because he puts a paradox at the heart of thought, we have to underline that in doing so he still remains a thinker. This is exactly what Jolivet tries to show by giving a general overview of the struggle against the system (la lutte contre le système), the principle of the stages (le principe des stades), but above all by explaining the problem of the unity of Kierkegaard’s work as a whole. Since Jolivet is using The Point of View for My Work as an Author, he talks about a “continuity” (continuité) and also an “organic development”15 (croissance organique) in Kierkegaard’s writings that ultimately contains a proper “living logic.”16 Another important aspect of this study is that the author is a Catholic priest, and he focuses in two ways, from this point of view, on Kierkegaard’s conception Léon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, Paris: Vrin 2006 [1936]. Ibid., pp. 65–7. 9 Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, p. 151. 10 Ibid., p. 58. 11 Ibid., p. 61. 12 Harald Høffding, “Pascal et Kierkegaard,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 30, 1923, pp. 221–46. 13 Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, p. 60. 14 Ibid., p. 60. 15 Ibid., pp. 119–20. 16 Ibid., p. 120. 7 8

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of Christianity. First, he considers along with Erich Przywara (1889–1972) the fact that Kierkegaard could have been a Catholic thinker. Here he refers to Przywara’s hypothesis of an “implicit Catholicism” (catholicisme implicite) in his Das Geheimnis Kierkegaards.17 This thesis is based on the many occasions where Kierkegaard insists on the necessity of priestly ordination. By doing so, he distinguishes himself from orthodox Lutheranism. Second, the author strongly criticizes the fact that Kierkegaard’s conception of faith—a private relation between man and God—does not lead to any ecclesiology: “le rôle de l’Eglise comme maîtresse de foi paraît assez incertain.”18 Although at that time, that is, in 1946 this book was not so original in the field of the French reception of Kierkegaard, it is important to mention here a few uncommon connections made by Jolivet between Kierkegaard and other authors or commentators. First, several French-speaking authors are mentioned and more specifically Bossuet (1627–1704) on the necessity of engagement.19 Also, when talking about the aesthetic stage, Jolivet mentions twice a similarity between Kierkegaard and the French Academician Maurice Barrès (1862–1923),20 specifically his book Le jardin de Bérénice,21 in which he describes le culte du moi (the veneration of the self ). Along the same lines, there is finally a parallel made about the topic of anxiety (l’inquiétude) and the work of the Swiss writer Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–81).22 Second, Jolivet also quotes a few Kierkegaard commentators. Focusing on Kierkegaard’s psychology and the origin of his melancholy, Jolivet refers to the Danish psychiatrist Hjalmar Helweg (1886–1960) and his book entitled S. Kierkegaard. En Psykiatrisk Studie.23 Another commentator on Kierkegaard, Carl Frederik Koch (1860–1925), and his book Søren Kierkegaard, are mentioned when Jolivet focuses on Kierkegaard’s anti-vital asceticism (ascétisme anti-vital).24 This book can be considered as a typical product of the early French reception of Kierkegaard. We have seen the influence of Lev Shestov and Jean Wahl. Although it was classic in its own style, it made a few original connections between Kierkegaard and some other French authors that were and still are relevant for new research. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

17 18 19 20 21

1910.

Ibid., p. 181. Ibid., p. 183. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., p. 68  p. 133. Maurice Barrès, Le jardin de Bérénice. Le culte du moi, Paris: Emile-Paul Editeur

Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, p. 68. Hjalmar Helweg, S. Kierkegaard. En Psykiatrisk Studie, Copenhagen: Hagerup 1933. 24 Carl Koch, Søren Kierkegaard, tre Foredrag, Copenhagen: Karl Schønberg 1898. Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, pp. 166–7. 22 23

Reviews and Critical Discussions De Waehlens, Alphonse, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 44, 1946, pp. 448–9.

Régis Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre [The Existentialist Doctrines from Kierkegaard to J.-P. Sartre],

Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille: Editions de Fontenelle 1948, 368 pp.

In this book, the author seeks to explore the influence of Kierkegaard on existentialism. The first part is a general overview of the sources of this broad philosophical movement, and this includes a presentation of Kierkegaard’s and Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical views. The second part focuses on the main leaders of existentialism, on the one hand, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre, who both represent atheistic existentialism (existentialisme athée), and, on the other hand, Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, who are considered to belong to the so-called “Christian existentialism” (existentialisme chrétien). The originality of Régis Jolivet’s (1891–1966) book is that it also tries to distinguish Kierkegaard’s thought (la pensée de Kierkegaard) strongly from the “new forms of existentialism” (nouvelles formes d’existentialisme): “It has become very difficult to talk about Kierkegaard’s existentialism [l’existentialisme de Kierkegaard], since new forms of existentialism came to develop and to contradict the main themes of Kierkegaardian thought [la pensée kierkegaardienne].”1 But what does “existentialism” actually mean? Jolivet is very aware, as Sartre was, that it is very hard to give a definition of this “climate of thought” (climat de pensée)—as Albert Camus used to say.2 But still he describes this broad postKierkegaardian philosophical movement in two ways: streams (courants) and main philosophical claims. First, in terms of “streams” (courants), existentialism can be divided into three main tendencies. It is interesting to observe that, for Jolivet, Kierkegaard belongs with Karl Jaspers to the “philosophy of existence” ( philosophie de l’existence).3 The main claim of those authors is to negate the Hegelian system, that is, to put the single Régis Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille: Editions de Fontenelle Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille 1948, p. 33. 2 Albert Camus, Le mythe de Sisyphe. Essai sur l’absurde, Paris: Gallimard 2013 [1942], p. 42. 3 Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, p. 9. 1

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individual (Individu) at the heart of thought. A second stream is mainly represented by Heidegger and Sartre, both of whom are trying to build not only a “philosophy” but a “philosophy of being” ( philosophie de l’être).4 A third group is represented by Albert Camus and Georges Bataille, since they put a broad emphasis on the “absurdity of existence” (absurdité fondamentale de l’existence).5 Although the definition of existentialism is not “self-evident” (ne vas pas du tout de soi), it can also be described in terms of claims.6 On the one hand, the broadest way to define existentialism is to observe that all the authors who belong to this stream, without exception, begin their philosophy by an analysis of the “concrete and lived experience” (analyse de l’expérience concrete et vécue), that is, with an analytic of the “human being” (l’homme).7 But, as Jolivet emphasizes, this thesis might be too broad because in that sense Augustine, Pascal and so many other thinkers would then also have to be considered existentialists. Another thesis remains crucial for this stream: essence is the existence, that is, the essence is in itself existence, as, for example, Heidegger claims in Being and Time8 and as Sartre repeats in another way in L’existentialisme est un humanisme.9 This leads Jolivet to pay attention to a typical French existentialist question. What, in this perspective, would be the opposite of existentialism? Many French commentators, such as Paul Foulquié (1893–1983) have answered that not being existentialist is to be an “essentialist.”10 But, as Jolivet concludes, it is also very difficult to define what essentialism means. But Jolivet’s book is also an attempt to sketch the main aspects of Kierkegaard’s philosophy by leaving aside the new philosophical movements (   faire abstraction des courants nouveaux), that is, existentialism. In this perspective Kierkegaard might be à l’origine du movement existentialiste (at the origin of existentialism),11 but this does not necessary mean that he belongs to this movement. In accordance with his goal, Jolivet explains Kierkegaard’s own philosophical views in three main steps: the sources of “Kierkegaardian existentialism”12 (l’existentialisme kierkegaardien), the “conditions of existence”13 (les conditions de l’existence) and the concept of “existential philosophy”14 ( philosophie existentielle). “Sources”—a word that is used very often by Jolivet15—does not mean the many authors whom Kierkegaard used to build his own philosophy but rather his Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 10. 6 Ibid., p. 8. 7 Ibid., p. 11. 8 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 2006 [1927], p. 42. 9 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris: Gallimard 2006 [1946], p. 29: “l’existence précède l’essence.” 10 On this question see Paul Foulquié, L’existentialisme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1952. 11 Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, p. 34. 12 Ibid., p. 35. 13 Ibid., p. 44. 14 Ibid., p. 56. 15 See, for example, the title of his later book: Régis Jolivet, Aux sources de l’existentialisme chrétien. Kierkegaard, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard 1958. 4 5

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“psychology” since it refers to the content of his own “personality” ( personnalité). According to Jolivet, this latter content, that is, the content of Kierkegaard’s life is what has to be deepened by reflection (réflexion). This is how we should read the main dynamic of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, which consists first in a redoublement of la personnalité concrète.16 In that way, he is very close to Augustine, Pascal, or even Maine de Biran. Because Hegel’s rationalism consists in the abstraction of the living subjectivity, that is, the comprehension of the self in existence, another key point of Kierkegaard’s “sources” is the attempt to “break”17 (  faire éclater) the system in order to discover the paradoxical structure of the self apart from the identity of thought and being. Mentioning this polemical gesture against the abstraction of the existing reality, Jolivet makes three important remarks. First, breaking with the system leads Kierkegaard to turn philosophy into an “irrationalism,”18 that is, a “non-philosophy.” Second, the Hegelianism that Kierkegaard puts aside is not that of the Phenomenology of Spirit,19 which was translated into French in the early 1940s by Jean Hyppolite (1907–68), but rather Hegel’s idealism. Third, although the negation of “objectivity” is the main goal of Kierkegaard’s own existentialism, he is still somehow trapped in the concept.20 Here Jolivet refers the readers to the titles of Kierkegaard’s books such as Le concept d’angoisse (The Concept of Anxiety) or Le traité du désespoir (The Sickness unto Death).21 A third “source” for Kierkegaard is Christianity, that is, the subjectivity considered in the pattern of the paradox. In that sense, Jolivet emphasizes that the only authentic existentialism is Christianity: “l’existentialisme vrai, c’est le christianisme.…Un existentialisme cohérent…ne pourra jamais être qu’un existentialisme chrétien.”22 There are also three “conditions of existence” (conditions de l’existence): engagement and risk (engagement et risque), the priority of subjectivity (le primat de la subjectivité) and the negative effects, such as despair and dread (désespoir et angoisse). The main thesis of Jolivet through this systematic explanation of Kierkegaard’s existentialism is to refuse any kind of subjectivism and to emphasize the transcendence of the non-objective truth. In fact, if, according to Kierkegaard, there is no objective truth (science), this does not mean that the philosophy of existence leads to a subjectivism. Against Theodor Haecker’s thesis in his book entitled La notion de la vérité chez S. Kierkegaard, which was translated into French in 1934,23 Jolivet insists that faith is the canonic form of engagement, that is, it is the passion of subjectivity that leads to the transcendence, that is, to a “contact with the transcendent” (contact avec le

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, p. 37. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 39, n. 7. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 43–4. Ibid., p. 45.

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transcendant),24 that is, to some reality that does not belong to subjectivity. This is why the priority of subjectivity based on the “objective uncertainty” is “less subjectivist than one first might think” (moins subjectiviste qu’on pourrait d’abord le croire).25 In this perspective faith is grounded on choice. If in reflection—anxiety and despair—there is no reality but only possibilities, then there it is always about choosing the reality of the possibility, that is, faith is a movement ab posse ad esse. Jolivet ends his own interpretation of Kierkegaard’s “philosophy” with a few remarks about the status of this particular “philosophical” gesture: “Can we say that Kierkegaardian existentialism is a philosophy?”26 Like Lev Shestov (1866–1938),27 he thinks that Kierkegaard’s philosophy should be considered an “existential philosophy” ( philosophie existentielle).28 If in his previous book on the philosophy of existence called Introduction à Kierkegaard published in 1946, Jolivet puts an extreme emphasis on the irrationality of this polemical gesture against speculation,29 it seems that here he considers “Kierkegaardian existentialism” an authentic philosophy. The fact that in a philosophy of existence, subjectivity has to be deepened by reflection (réflexion), leads to a new way of understanding what a philosophie existentielle is; it no longer plays faith against reason, but it draws the outlines of an “existential method” (méthode existentielle),30 that is, a genuine science that is not a system any more, that is, a science of existence, in other words, an ethics. Two main points about this book remain very important in the field of French Kierkegaard research. First, the author tries to separate Kierkegaard’s philosophy from the mainstream of existentialism, that is, from Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, and Marcel. Second, Kierkegaard’s own existentialism is a genuine philosophy, a “méthode existentielle” and not an irrationalism any more. We can thus regard this systematic presentation of Kierkegaard as one of the first attempts to consider the Danish thinker as a philosopher but without trying to turn this particular kind of existentialism into an ontology, that is, a philosophy of being. Joaquim Hernandez-Dispaux

Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., p. 47. 26 Ibid., p. 56. 27 Léon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, Paris: Vrin 2006 [1936]. 28 Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, p. 56. 29 Régis Jolivet, Introduction à Kierkegaard, Abbaye de Saint-Wandrille: Editions de Fontenelle 1946, p. 60. 30 Jolivet, Les doctrines existentialistes de Kierkegaard à J.-P. Sartre, p. 58. 24 25

Reviews and Critical Discussions Anonymous, review in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 54, 1949, pp. 202–5. Anonymous, review in Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 140, 1950, pp. 224–5. De Waelhens, Alphonse, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 47, 1949, pp. 145–6.

Kierkegaard, special issue of Kairos, no. 10, 1997, Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 247 pp.

This special issue of the journal Kairos, dedicated to Kierkegaard, contains the proceedings of the Franco-Danish Colloquium “Retour de Kierkegaard / Retour à Kierkegaard,” organized by Henri-Bernard Vergote and held on November 15–16, 1995 at the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail. Published after Vergote’s death in 1996, the volume is both a homage to Vergote’s efforts to promote Kierkegaard studies in France, and a testimony to the growing interest in Kierkegaard’s philosophy and desire to move beyond traditional French representations of Kierkegaard and to serious dialogue with Kierkegaard scholarship at an international level. As Vergote noted in his opening statement for the colloquium, the guiding line behind the organization of the conference was “the need to put to the test of discussion the idea that the new interest that our age seems to feel for Kierkegaard may well stem from the fact that it has discovered in Kierkegaard’s writings something that it had not found there before.”1 Returning to Kierkegaard’s philosophy, re-examining it in the context of the newly available French translations of Kierkegaard’s œuvre and in light of international scholarship, and particularly Danish scholarship on the historical aspects of Kierkegaard’s writings, thus unveils a Kierkegaard of surprising modernity and interest for our contemporary age. As the various contributions in the volume attest, and as Vergote mentions in his opening statement, these new readings and research contributions do not aim to define “the truth” about Kierkegaard, but rather to show that Kierkegaard’s contemporaneity resides precisely in the multiplicity of interpretations, and that it is the “eternal capacity to engender that we discover in Kierkegaard” that renders him a philosopher with whom all ages can fruitfully engage.2 The contributions in the volume are divided into four major sections: “Philosophica,” “Vor Tid,” “A Work of a Thousand Diverse Aspects,” and “Readings of Kierkegaard.” The first section, “Philosophica,” seeks to draw out Kierkegaard’s position with regard to Schelling, Hegel, and Trendelenburg. It includes a contribution by Jacques Colette on Kierkegaard and Schelling, in which Colette seeks to articulate the points of divergence but also of encounter with Schelling’s phi­losophy. Colette notes that though Kierkegaard’s knowledge of Schelling’s work was only partial, there are at least two main points where a convergence can be noted: on the idea of the positivity of Christianity, and in the representation of the Henri-Bernard Vergote, “Introduction au colloque,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 9. (All quotations from the volume are our translations from the French.) 2 Ibid., p. 15. 1

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“tension and attraction between two poles.”3 The second article in the section, by Pierre Fruchon, offers a rereading of Hegel’s philosophy, and more especially the Phenomenology of Spirit in light of the Lutheran tradition, and seeks to demonstrate that this reading offers many points of convergence with Kierkegaard’s thought. Fruchon insists on the fact that, in France especially, Hegel’s reception was up until recently limited to the systematic aspect of his philosophy, which accentuated the differences with Kierkegaard’s thought. Rereading Hegel’s texts in another light, however, we can find a convergence “between the essential mobility of the ‘becomingChristian,’ according to the Postscript…and the mobility no less essential to ‘absolute knowledge,’ as it is presented…in the last pages of the Phenomenology of Spirit,” especially when taking into account the return, in both Kierkegaard’s and Hegel’s thought, of Luther’s insistence on the nature of man simil justus et peccator.4 The final contribution in the section on “Philosophica” is an article by Jacques Message, which examines Kierkegaard’s readings of Trendenlenburg, especially from 1844 onward, and the ways in which Kierkegaard draws on Trendelenburg’s Logische Untersuchungen in order to combat the confusion between “the unchangeable necessity of logic…and the changeable world where things move.”5 While Message notes that Kierkegaard’s relation to Trendelenburg is certainly complex, they do converge on the point of a radical distinction between actual being and thinking.6 Trendelenburg’s Aristotelian-Leibnizian position thus makes him an ideal ally for rejecting, in part, Hegel’s logic, which fails to give sufficient importance to modal categories. The analyses of Kierkegaard’s relation to some of his contemporaries offered in the first section of the volume are followed, in a section entitled “Our Age” (Vor Tid), by a series of reflections in various spirits. André Clair offers an analysis of Kierkegaard’s various notions of ethics, insisting on the distinction between det Etiske, det Sædelige, and Moralitet, which are often confused due to the difficulty of translating these terms into French. This distinction should enable us to better understand the interplay in Kierkegaard’s works between norms and decision. As Clair remarks, the difficulty in Kierkegaard’s thought is that: “Generality and norms constitute a common pole in the ethical order, that through which the ethical world is independent of all individuals, the pole of the impersonal. But the law is addressed to each of us and must be applied by everyone in a singular manner.”7 This tension can be found in the various portrayals that Kierkegaard gives of the ethical in his texts. Yet despite the divergence, Clair insists on the coherence of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the relationship between norms and decision: the individual decision is at once prior to his appropriation of normative constraints, and thus an exception, and at the same time the condition by which the universal becomes integrated in the Jacques Colette, “Kierkegaard et Schelling,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 19. Pierre Fruchon, “Le ‘oui de la réconciliation’ comme accès au ‘savoir absolu,’ ” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 34. 5 Jacques Message, “Kierkegaard, Trendelenburg: la logique et les catégories modales,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 49. 6 Ibid., p. 52. 7 André Clair, “La pensée éthique de Kierkegaard: l’articulation entre norme et décision,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 66. 3 4

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singular individual. “Decision is thus simultaneously the means and the principle of normativity,” as Clair concludes.8 In the second contribution in this section, Hélène Politis offers a reflection on Kierkegaard’s understandings of “the demands of the times” (Tidens Fordring), drawing the concept back to Kierkegaard’s contention about Heiberg’s insistence on the significance of philosophy for the present age.9 While Politis notes that Kierkegaard is distinctly aware that we are all children of our age, she underscores the fact that Kierkegaard rejects Heiberg’s response to this fact—which consists in “invent[ing] some novel sophistic artifice”10—and instead chooses to invert the problem in two ways: first, by moving the focus from the collective to the individual, as in A Literary Review and “A Crisis and the Crisis in the Life of an Actress.” Politis thus suggests that while these texts are often seen as minor works in Kierkegaard’s writings, they do have great philosophical import insofar as they offer a response to Heiberg and show how “from the point of view of the esthetic itself, it is possible to thwart the false worldly [mondaine] esthetics of the demands of the times.”11 Second, beyond mere esthetic considerations, Kierkegaard also seeks to subvert the question by suggesting that the individual must distinguish between the demands of God and those of his age, and that it may be impossible to follow both. The section entitled “Vor Tid” also includes a contribution by Olivier Cauly, which examines Magnus Eiriksson’s critique of Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard’s proposed responses sketched in his papers,12 and an analysis by Jacques Lafarge of the editorial considerations which have had an impact on Kierkegaard’s reception in France, Germany, and Denmark.13 The third section of the volume, which is also eclectic, opens up to more subjective readings of Kierkegaard’s works. Jean-Louis Chrétien offers a reflection on Kierkegaard’s understanding of prayer and the problematic site of prayer in his works,14 while Adam Diderichsen offers a textual reading of “The Seducer’s Diary” (from Either/Or) and attempts to show how this work can be understood as a metaphorical and psychological exploration of the constitution of a new mode of subjectivity applicable to all of Kierkegaard’s works. As Diderichsen notes, the construction of this text points toward “a new form of subjectivity that knows how to hear the silent testimony that we have forgotten in our haste to become autonomous, rational and free…a new form of properly religious subjectivity.”15 Michel Olsen’s contribution focuses on Kierkegaard’s polyphony and questions the role of Ibid., p. 84. Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Om Philosophiens Betydning for de nuværende Tid. Et Indbydelses-Skrift til en Række af philosophiske Forelæsninger, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1833. 10 Hélène Politis, “Kierkegaard et ‘l’exigence du temps,’ ” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 92. 11 Ibid., p. 94. 12 Olivier Cauly, “La foi est-elle un paradoxe ou ‘une vertu de l’absurde’? A propos d’une critique de Magnus Eiriksson (Theophilus Nicolaus),” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 99–114. 13 Jacques Lafarge, “L’œuvre de Kierkegaard: approches éditoriales,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 115–27. 14 Jean-Louis Chrétien, “La prière selon Kierkegaard,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 131–40. 15 Adam Diderichsen, “Les billets de Cordélia,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 151. 8 9

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Kierkegaard’s return to contemporary debates. As Olsen remarks, though the number of recent publications on Kierkegaard’s works seems to attest to the interest of his thought for the contemporary era, this interest is itself not unproblematic. Indeed, contemporary readings often refer to certain aspects of Kierkegaard’s works and leave out what does not fit in with their own preoccupations, often neglecting what constitutes the real difficulty of accessing Kierkegaard’s thoughts, and even the impossibility of determining a single position attributable to Kierkegaard.16 Olsen thus questions the idea of Kierkegaard’s pertinence for modern thought, asking: “This Kierkegaardian cogito, simultaneously transparent to itself and dependent, is it thinkable outside of Christian thought…? At the time of the split subject, what would such a self mean?”17 The two remaining contributions in this section offer responses to this question, though it is probable that Olsen himself would not have accepted either of these. David Brézis proposes a reading of Kierkegaard’s specular subjectivity, demonstrating how the interplay within the texts between a critique of speculative philosophy and a critique of paternal determinism offers a model for rethinking individual subjectivity.18 Henri-Bernard Vergote focuses, for his part, on the notion of upbuilding in Kierkegaard’s works, both as a philosophical concept and as a communicative method. And as he remarks: The entire Kierkegaardian device [dispositive] relies on the confidence that is given to the ontopoietic value of Christian religious language. But can it still play its role? Has it not already become so highly folklorized that it has nothing more to say to anyone, as Michel Olsen seemed to suspect? It is indeed because I do not believe so that I believe that the current return of Kierkegaard can still be bought back to a return to Kierkegaard.19

The final section of the volume offers three articles on how Kierkegaard has been read in the twentieth century by philosophers and theologians. Élisabeth Rigal offers an analysis of Wittgenstein’s relationship to Kierkegaard, insisting on the fact that if Wittgenstein was certainly more indebted to thinkers such as Russell, Frege, or Schopenhauer, there is nevertheless “a true proximity between Wittgenstein’s initial treatment of the ‘Lebensproblem’ and Kierkegaard’s approach to the same theme.”20 Peter Kemp’s contribution focuses on the veiled controversy between Knud Ejler Løgstrup and Johannes Sløk, and the consequences this had on the reception and interpretation of Kierkegaard among Danish theologians between 1950 and 1970.21 Finally, François Bousquet offers a reflection on Kierkegaard’s reception amongst the major theologians of the twentieth century, and shows that despite an interest in Michel Olsen, “Kierkegaard et le désir triangulaire: Pseudonymie et polyphonie,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 160–1. 17 Ibid., p. 162. 18 David Brézis, “La subjectivité en miroir,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 163–75. 19 Henri-Bernard Vergote, “L’œuvre édifiante de Søren Kierkegaard,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 189. 20 Élisabeth Rigal, “Wittgenstein, lecteur de Kierkegaard,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, p. 193. 21 Peter Kemp, “Une controverse voile sur Kierkegaard: L’opposition K. E. LøgstrupJohannes Sløk,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 215–29. 16

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Kierkegaard’s thinking by some Protestant theologians, Kierkegaard’s thought has generally been received in fragmented form and rejected from the domain of serious theology.22 As a whole, this volume of Kairos attests to the plurality and profundity of contemporary Kierkegaard scholarship, both in terms of historical and textual research, and in terms of Kierkegaard’s importance as an interlocutor for modern thought. While not all of the contributors adhere to Vergote’s claim that the return to Kierkegaard is significant for our present age, their articles nevertheless open up a wide variety of questions for continued research and reflection. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

François Bousquet, “L’héritage morcelé: Kierkegaard chez les grands théologiens du XXe siècle,” Kairos, no. 10, 1997, pp. 231–47.

22

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Kierkegaard vivant. Colloque organisé par l’Unesco à Paris du 21 au 23 avril 1964

[Kierkegaard Alive: A Colloquium in Paris Organized by UNESCO April 21–23, 1964], Paris: Gallimard 1966, 319 pp.

Published in 1966, Kierkegaard vivant is the printed transcript of a conference organized by UNESCO to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Kierkegaard’s birth; it was held in Paris, April 21–23, 1964.1 The first part of the text2 contains the opening statement made by René Maheu (1905–75), followed by transcripts of the conference presentations of the invited speakers: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), Jeanne Hersch (1910– 2000), Enzo Paci (1911–76), Lucien Goldmann (1913–70), Jean Beaufret (1907–82), Martin Heidegger (1889–1976),3 and Jean Wahl (1888–1974). The second part of the text4 presents a transcript of the discussions held during two Round Table sessions regrouping leading Kierkegaard specialists5 invited to reflect on Kierkegaard’s works and importance for contemporary philosophy. In conclusion to the text, an extract from Niels Thulstrup’s (1924–88) contribution on Kierkegaard and Hegel is presented.6 As René Maheu affirms in his opening statement, the aim of this conference was not to “dissect”7 Kierkegaard’s works—conceived of as an anti-Kierkegaardian endeavor—but to understand the ways in which Kierkegaard remained alive in contemporary philosophy. Maheu presents the commemoration itself as a “challenge to

1 The word vivant can be translated either as “living,” “alive,” or “lively” (i.e., active, animate). The title plays on different possible interpretations: living with Kierkegaard, living through Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard’s thought as active in contemporary philosophy. 2 Kierkegaard vivant, Paris: Gallimard 1966, pp. 9–212. 3 Heidegger was not present at the conference; his text was presented by Jean Beaufret. 4 Kierkegaard vivant, pp. 215–313. 5 Jean Beaufret, Frederik Julius Billeskov Jansen (erroneously cited as F.T. BilleskovJansen in the text), Jean Brun, Fernand Brunner, Jacques Colette, Lucien Goldmann, Jacques Havet, Jeanne Hersch, Jean Hyppolite, Emmanuel Levinas, Gabriel Marcel, Enzo Paci, Niels Thulstrup, Walpola Rahula, Gabriel Widmer, and Jean Wahl. 6 Kierkegaard vivant, pp. 314–17. 7 Ibid., p. 11.

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philosophy,”8 insofar as Kierkegaard’s reception in France at the time marked him essentially as a scandalous figure of exception, yet also an inevitable encounter, since “the trace [of Kierkegaard] can be found at almost all the crossroads where modern thought seeks itself out.”9 It is therefore not surprising that the focus of these collected articles and exchanges is less Kierkegaard’s works and concepts than an attempt to draw out the influences his reception had had on the development of contemporary philosophy. As such, the aim of this conference organized by UNESCO was to bring together some of the era’s most reputed thinkers from various domains (philosophy, theology, and sociology) and different countries (France, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy), in order to rethink Kierkegaard’s place in contemporary Continental philosophy and to ask, as Wahl formulates the question: “On what conditions can we claim to adhere to Kierkegaard? And what would Kierkegaard himself say?”10 In order to understand the interpretative angle taken up by the various conference participants, it is important to remember that Kierkegaard’s works had become known in France essentially through Martin Heidegger and early French existential thinkers such as Jean Wahl, who had greatly reinterpreted Kierkegaard’s concepts in the development of their own philosophical perspectives. Though a much-cited thinker, Kierkegaard’s philosophy itself remained only partially discovered in France in the 1960s, some of the major works not yet existing in French translation. It should therefore be of no surprise that some of the papers presented in Kierkegaard vivant have rather little to say about Kierkegaard. Nevertheless, they constitute an essential moment in the history of philosophy, insofar as they attest to a general willingness to engage in dialogue with Kierkegaard and are more importantly the documentation of an essential philosophical moment which brought together many of the leading figures in Continental philosophy to discuss their own works. The text thus constitutes an invaluable key to Kierkegaard scholars seeking to understand the history of Kierkegaard’s reception in France, as much through the individual papers presented as through the contrast that can be found between the contributions of the French philosophers and those of the non-French philosophers. Insofar as Kierkegaard scholarship is not the sole focus of the text, this document is also invaluable to scholars seeking to understand the developments of Continental philosophy in the 1960s. As Sartre points out in his opening paper, the theme of the commemoration constitutes in itself a paradox, since speaking of Kierkegaard’s being “alive” alludes necessarily to the historical fact of his death, yet also to the subjective fact that he remains alive through intellectual appropriation in the thought and discourse of others. As such, Sartre argues, Kierkegaard can only be understood insofar as his works help us discover ourselves (as readers or philosophers), and thus Kierkegaard is still alive, no longer as a single, unique subject, but “in becoming a multiple subject,”11 demonstrating “the singularity of the universal and the universalization

8 9 10 11

Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., p. 254. Ibid., p. 61.

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of the singular.”12 This unfolded or multiple subjectivity seems to categorize the conference itself, which consists of a variety of perspectives and stances which are in some cases much more indicative of the philosophical positions of their authors than of any form of critical reading of Kierkegaard. Yet as Sartre suggests, this may precisely be the only way in which Kierkegaard can remain alive through us. And we may suggest that the philosophical interest of Kierkegaard vivant resides precisely in the fact that the volume is itself the printed testimony of an intense exchange, if not debate, as to the nature and future of what philosophy is and should be. Though intended as an open dialogue, and therefore lacking somewhat in coherence, the contributions to be found in this volume can be divided into two categories: those which seek to offer an interpretative stance on Kierkegaard, and those which function more as an homage to Kierkegaard through an exposition of various philosophical questions. Among the first category, we may cite Jeanne Hersch’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s concept of the moment, Paci’s contribution on Kierkegaard and the notion of history, and Jaspers’ analysis of the importance of loyalty for Kierkegaard. Among the second category, we may cite Sartre’s paper on the concept of the singular universal, Gabriel Marcel’s autobiographical presentation of his own—admittedly slight—relationship to Kierkegaard and more essentially of his own intellectual evolution, Lucien Goldmann’s presentation of Georges Lukács’ (1885–1971) Kierkegaardian influences and work in general, and Martin Heidegger’s reflection on the end of philosophy and the task for thought.13 Intended as a conclusion to the series of conferences, Wahl’s contribution falls outside of these categories, offering an attempt to situate Kierkegaard both within the philosophical context of his time and that of contemporary philosophy, and underscoring the fact that such a reading presents us with “essentially diverse forms [of philosophy…] that sometimes seem to be in conflict with one another.”14 The transcripts from the two Round Table discussions can be similarly categorized: the first discussion focuses essentially on interpretations of Kierkegaard, moving between very different topics, from an attempt to resituate Kierkegaard within the Danish cultural context of his time, to questions of subjectivity, truth, singularity, and paradox. The second Round Table discussion moves away from Kierkegaard to questions about Kierkegaard’s relevance to modern philosophy and importance in the modern world. This is initiated by Goldmann’s remark about the necessity of moving beyond the singular perspective to that of collective consciousness. This then leads to Widmer’s remark that we must ask “whether Kierkegaard’s time is already past, or whether, to the contrary, this is only the commencement of the questions and appeals that Kierkegaard today addresses to us.”15 Despite the various standpoints exposed in Kierkegaard vivant, a common theme does emerge: that of Kierkegaard’s relevance for modern thought, or perhaps more precisely of his necessity for the present and future of philosophy. Though greatly Ibid., p. 63. Jean Beaufret’s contribution is a short introduction on how Heidegger understands Kierkegaard. 14 Kierkegaard vivant, p. 209. 15 Ibid., p. 279. 12 13

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influential in the shaping of modern philosophy, Kierkegaard is also portrayed essentially in Kierkegaard vivant as a figure of scandal and source for “irritation,”16 as Hyppolite points out. For while the questions Kierkegaard asked remain alive and present, Kierkegaard himself, as well as the historical and cultural conditions which rendered these necessary, escape us. While more recent scholarship has greatly contributed to filling in these gaps and bringing us closer to Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard vivant remains an important work, perhaps less for Kierkegaard scholarship than as a testimony to the fundamental impossibility of any scholarship to coincide with its object of study, and as an appeal to philosophy not to forget what is truly an existential and passionate taking-up of questions in a Kierkegaardian manner. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

16

Ibid., p. 218.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Aalbæk-Nielsen, Kaj, “Den levende Kierkegaard,” Exil, vol. 3, 1968–69, pp. 24–6. Levinas, Emmanuel, “Kierkegaard: existence et éthique,” in his Noms propres, Paris: Fata Morgana 1976, pp. 7–87. (English translation: “Kierkegaard: Existence and Ethics,” in his Proper Names, trans. by Michael B. Smith, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1996, pp. 66–74.) — “A propos de ‘Kierkegaard vivant,’ ” in his Noms propres, Paris: Fata Morgana 1976, pp. 88–92. (English translation: “A Propos of ‘Kierkegaard vivant,’ ” Proper Names, trans. by Michael B. Smith, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1996, pp. 75–9.) Poole, Roger C., “A propos de ‘Kierkegaard vivant,’ ” La table ronde, vol. 230, March 1967, pp. 139–44. Stewart, Jon, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421–59. Teboul, Margaret, “La réception de Kierkegaard en France: 1930–1960,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 89, no. 2, 2005, pp. 315–36.

Aude-Marie Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard ou Kierkegaard lecteur de l’Épître aux Romains

[The Notion of Forgiveness in Kierkegaard or Kierkegaard as Reader of the Epistle to the Romans], Paris: J. Vrin 1983, 143 pp.

Initially submitted as a doctoral dissertation in 1970,1 Aude-Marie Lhote’s La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard 2 constitutes one of the early contributions to a new wave of Kierkegaard scholarship in France and marks the renewal of interest in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, giving import to serious philosophical investigation of Kierkegaard’s concepts. Though drawing deeply on Jean Wahl’s analyses of Kierkegaard in his Études Kierkegaardiennes,3 the main source of Kierkegaardian interpretation in French thought since the late 1930s, Lhote nevertheless moves away from the highly biographical interpretations of Kierkegaard’s works in vogue in France in the 1930s and 1940s, and seeks to offer a coherent reading of Kierkegaard’s works through a strict analysis of what she sees as one of the central themes4 of the published works and private papers: the notion of forgiveness, and the corresponding themes of sin, guilt, love, and grace. Drawing upon the Pauline interpretation, according to which the opposite of sin is not innocence, but rather faith, Lhote seeks to demonstrate that the logic of sin in Kierkegaard’s works can only be fully understood with this theological background. What meaning are we, however, to give to Paul’s affirmation Aude-Marie Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard ou Kierkegaard lecteur de l’Épître aux Romains, dissertation, Paris, 1970. 2 The published version from 1983 is slightly reworked from the original doctoral dissertation, and notably includes an appendix which brings Lhote’s analysis into dialogue with the theses developed by André Vergez in Faute et Liberté, Paris: Belles-Lettres 1969 (Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon, vol. 90). 3 Jean Wahl, Études Kierkegaardiennes, Paris: F. Aubier 1938. (New editions in 1949 and 1967.) 4 Aude-Marie Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard ou Kierkegaard lecteur de l’Épître aux Romains, Paris: Vrin 1983, p. 123. (All quotations from Lhote are from the published version, and all translations are by the author.) 1

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that: “Whatever is not from faith is sin,”5 especially since, as Kierkegaard poses the problem in his journals in 1837: “It is certainly true that, on the one hand, sins are forgiven through Christ’s death; but, on the other hand, man is not, as if by magic, torn away from his former condition, that ‘body of sin’ that Paul speaks of (Rom. 5:25)”?6 As Lhote notes, the notion of forgiveness is particularly complex in Kierkegaard’s works, since God’s forgiveness of sins requires both a universal understanding of forgiveness granted to all individuals, and a singular, subjective ideal that forgiveness must be appropriated through individual decision. As such, the paradoxical nature of divine forgiveness must be understood both “objectively, [as] that of the genus entirely redeemed through the Incarnation; [and] subjectively, that of the forgiven individual who, conscious of his despair, must appropriate forgiveness for himself by a decision where, through faith, he becomes Christ’s contemporary.”7 As Lhote remarks, the aim of her study is to demonstrate that “Kierkegaard [is] not a commentator of Paul’s Epistle, but a thinker whose reflections on sin, grace, and faith are infused with the spirit of the Epistle to the Romans.”8 As such, she sets out to demonstrate how Kierkegaard’s specific portrayal of sin and the corresponding forgiveness of sins differs from the moral interpretations of forgiveness which can be found in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or in Vladimir Jankélévitch’s work on the notion of forgiveness.9 Whereas these attempts to understand forgiveness from the perspective of moral philosophy seem to “take away all meaning from the notion of offense (  faute),”10 Kierkegaard’s positioning of the notion of forgiveness in a strictly religious sphere enables us to understand both the ontological and the ethical dimensions of man’s sinfulness. The most insightful part of Lhote’s work is that which is dedicated to the analysis of Kierkegaard’s understanding sin. Indeed, despite Lhote’s claims, the concept of forgiveness is relatively secondary in the text.11 Lhote offers a remarkably clear analysis of Kierkegaard’s account of the introduction of sin into the world and its inheritance.12 Beyond this analysis, however, the link with the notion of forgiveness Romans 14:23. SKS 17, 52, AA:51 / KJN 1, 46. (Our translation from the Danish. Lhote quotes this passage at the beginning of her text, p. 13). 7 Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p. 79. 8 Ibid., p. 17. 9 Vladimir Jankélévitch, Le pardon, Paris: Aubier-Montaigne 1967. 10 Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p. 40. 11 This fact is perhaps not surprising in itself, since Kierkegaard himself describes God’s forgiveness of sin as the paradoxical or impossible gift which can only be grasped through faith, and not through reason, making philosophical analysis of the concept difficult. 12 As Lhote notes, though Kierkegaard may have taken from Hegel his disagreement with the representation of the Creation offered in Genesis (see Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p. 65), which leads him to see sexuality and reproduction as a false mode of attaining eternity, Kierkegaard’s understanding of Spirit which must seek liberation from the flesh opens up a definition of the eternal radically different from the notion of universality proposed by Hegel. The notion of inherited or original sin in Kierkegaard’s works cannot properly be understood, Lhote argues, if one fails to understand that for Kierkegaard sin is not inherited through the human condition (mortality, sexuality) in itself, but rather through 5 6

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is unfortunately not drawn out, and Lhote’s analysis is fraught with a number of weaknesses. The limits of the study can be seen already from the works she references, which include both published texts and Kierkegaard’s journals, but in early French translations.13 The state of Kierkegaard research in France in the 1960s and the unavailability of translations of many parts of Kierkegaard’s works at the time certainly explain why Lhote offers a portrait of Kierkegaard as a recluse, isolated, and even hostile thinker, for whom sin and despair are the human condition, despite her efforts to dissociate philosophical concepts from the biographical portrait commonly accepted by French scholars. In addition to these perhaps excusable interpretative biases, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard also presents some major shortcomings with regard to the analysis of the notion of forgiveness itself in Lhote’s commentary. Despite the subtitle of the work, Lhote’s analysis gives relatively little space to the Biblical or theological underpinnings of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the notion of forgiveness, and regrettably fails to situate Kierkegaard’s position with regard to other theological accounts of forgiveness, sin, or the ontological difference between the Creator and the creation predominant in Danish theological discussions in Kierkegaard’s day. As such, Lhote’s analysis, though attentive to the soundness of her exegetical reading, offers no insight as to why Kierkegaard’s Pauline understanding of the relationship the conflict which arises in the individual between two modes of relating to the eternal, or to man’s telos: the first and most natural, as the act of reproduction of the species; the second as spirit which can only relate properly to the Absolute once it has torn itself away from the constraints of embodied existence. Imprisoned in this double obligation—moral obligation to the species, spiritual obligation to the Creator—sin and anxiety become the conditions of every engendered individual, insofar as every individual finds himself in a relation of both freedom and dependency toward the Creator. As engendered beings, man differs radically from Adam whose freedom and actuality were given to him in immanence; since the Fall, man’s freedom can only be attained by transcendence, which in turn requires man’s recognition of his sinfulness and the conscious decision to believe in God’s forgiveness (see ibid., pp. 92–3). 13 Lhote’s main references are to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, The Concept of Irony, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety (in the 1932 translation presented under the misleading title Traité du désespoir, translated by Ferlov and Gateau), and Works of Love (in the 1945 translation by Pierre Villadsen presented under the title Vie et règne de l’amour), as well as to selected journal entries, but many key passages where the notion of forgiveness is discussed in Kierkegaard’s discourses are given little consideration. All references to Kierkegaard’s works are given to French translations, with the exception of The Concept of Irony, where Lhote quotes the German edition (Über den Begriff der Ironie, vol. 31, in Gesammelte Werke, vols. 1–28, trans. by Emanuel Hirsch, Düsseldorf and Cologne: Diederichs 1950–69). No references are given to the original Danish editions. The lack of reference to the Danish texts, or to Kierkegaard scholarship outside of the French context, is particularly problematic with regard to her use of the journal references, where she cites the extracts translated and published by Knud Ferlov and Jean-Jacques Gateau (Søren Kierkegaard, Journal: extraits, vols. 1–5, trans. by Knud Ferlov and Jean-Jacques Gateau, Paris: Gallimard 1941–61), which in addition to being rather liberal translations of Kierkegaard’s writing, also present Kierkegaard’s thought in a biased manner (the selections made by Ferlov and Gateau attest to a biographical interest in Kierkegaard as a solitary thinker, and omit many passages that do not fit the psycho-biographical portrait of the Dane in vogue in France at the time).

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between sin and faith is necessary in the philosophical construction of the rest of his works, coherent in the development of Kierkegaard’s position, or useful to any scholars wishing to draw upon Kierkegaard but who would not share Kierkegaard’s theological positions. Lhote seems to recognize, moreover, the weakness of her study, as in the concluding chapter of the work, where she makes the argument that we may need to go beyond Kierkegaard. Her argument consists in saying Kierkegaard’s “dualistic conception of Christianity” has the effect of rendering love “so disembodied that, far from uniting men, it makes communication amongst them absolutely paradoxical and transforms each of them into a monad estranged from the earth.”14 She suggests that if we want to move away from this conception, we ought to “reread the Bible”15 and understand that if the human condition prevents true communication, then it is nevertheless through works of art that man fulfills his true task, and becomes a creator of himself. In a Kierkegaardian view, she argues, this is untenable, since a “work of art builds no one up, neither its author, nor its listener nor spectator.”16 In making this argument, she references a line from Works of Love,17 where Kierkegaard argues that “if the artist, out of love for a man, smashed [his masterpiece] into pieces, [only] this spectacle would be edifying.”18 Lhote’s conclusion from this passage— that Kierkegaard expresses a “pathological taste for failure and destruction”19— is symptomatic of a methodological approach fraught with over-hasty readings of poorly translated texts, and unfortunately undermines the value of what might otherwise have been a pertinent analysis of the relationship between sin and faith in Kierkegaard’s works. A further shortcoming of the work can be found in Lhote’s claim that the concept of forgiveness, in Kierkegaard’s understanding, is strictly limited to God’s

Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p. 126. Ibid., p. 128. 16 Ibid., p. 129. 17 It is nevertheless clear in these arguments, as in many others made throughout the text, that Lhote does great injustice to Kierkegaard, who decidedly viewed his œuvre as his life’s task and, moreover, as a task oriented toward upbuilding. It moreover takes out of context this line from Kierkegaard’s discourse “Love Builds Up,” where the main argument is that “There is no word in the language that in itself is upbuilding, and there is no word in the language that cannot be said in an upbuilding way and become upbuilding if love is present” (SKS 9, 216 / WL, 213). Kierkegaard’s argument here consists in saying that the possibilities for language to be upbuilding are not reserved for “a few gifted individuals,” but rather are accessible to every ordinary individual (SKS 9, 216 / WL, 213). With regard to the (anecdotal) example of the artist, Kierkegaard affirms that the work of art is not uplifting in itself, simply because it is a “masterpiece,” but only insofar as the artist relates to the work through his acts, “out of love for a person” (SKS 9, 217 / WL, 214). 18 Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p. 129. See SKS 9, 217 / WL, 214. (Our translation from the French quoted by Lhote; the inserts are Lhote’s. Lhote references an early French translation of Works of Love, published under the title Vie et règne de l’amour, trans. by Pierre Villadsen, Paris: Aubier 1945, p. 232.) 19 Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, p 129. 14 15

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forgiveness of the individual’s sins and cannot thus be extended to human forgiveness.20 While it is true that Kierkegaard does make this claim in some passages of his writings,21 it is nevertheless clear that human forgiveness (both of others and of oneself )22 is also central to his thinking, notably in Works of Love, where Kierkegaard insists on the fact that forgiveness is not a given (or a gift to be taken for granted), but rather that it is dependent upon the individual’s capacity to forgive: “God forgives you neither more nor less nor otherwise than as you forgive those who have sinned against you. It is only an illusion to imagine that one oneself has forgiveness although one is reluctant to forgive others.”23 Another regrettable consequence of this restricted reading is that it evacuates all possibility of understanding Kierkegaard’s concept of forgiveness with regard to human or moral failings. Lhote’s analysis focuses on sin as an ontological determination of the human being, with forgiveness as the corresponding ethical dimension only understandable through the notion of decision. This analysis leads Lhote to the conclusion that evil is posited solely through sinful acts.24 However, it is far from clear that this is indeed Kierkegaard’s position; on the contrary, his works also engage with the notions of offense and wrongdoing toward others in the world, and he notes that forgiveness should not be understood as the wiping away of guilt or of acts of wrongdoing, but rather as “the reassuring consciousness that guilt is forgiven even if the consequences of guilt remain.”25 Thus, despite the fact that Kierkegaard does indeed suggest that only God can forgive sins, it is clear that for Kierkegaard this should not be seen as an excuse to reject our worldly obligations.26 While La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard is a text of historical interest for the reception of Kierkegaard’s thought in France, and a laudable attempt to analyze

As John Lippitt has demonstrated, Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the forgiveness of sins is certainly central to his thinking, but also directly related to discussions in his works on the themes of self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness. See John Lippitt, “Forgiveness,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts, Tome III, Envy to Incognito, ed. by Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2014 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 15), pp. 81–7. See also John Lippitt, “Kierkegaard and Moral Philosophy: Some Recent Themes,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. by John Lippitt and George Pattison, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, pp. 504–27 (see especially pp. 514–24). 21 See, for example, Kierkegaard’s remarks near the end of The Sickness unto Death: “there is one way in which man could never in all eternity come to be like God: in forgiving sins” (SKS 11, 233 / SUD, 122). 22 In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard clearly presents the refusal to forgive oneself as a “subterfuge” (en Mystification) (SKS 11, 224 / SUD, 112) and “despairing of the forgiveness of one’s sins” as an “offense” (SKS 11, 225 / SUD, 113). 23 SKS 9, 373 / WL, 380. 24 Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, pp. 136–7. 25 SKS 27, 355, Papir 340:12 / JP 2, 1205. 26 On the contrary, as Kierkegaard wrote in 1855, there are indeed worldly crimes that are so serious that they cannot be the object of worldly punishment—but it is precisely for this reason that they must “be punished only in eternity” and that “the criminal whose distinction was that he cannot be punished in this world consequently cannot be saved; by not being able to be punished within time, he cannot be saved for eternity” (SKS 13, 365 / M, 306). 20

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the philosophical import of Kierkegaard’s writings on sin, faith, and forgiveness, the limited scope and interpretative biases of the study unfortunately render the text of little interest either for scholars interested in the history of philosophy, or for those wishing to explore the moral dimensions of forgiveness in Kierkegaard’s writings. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

Reviews and Critical Discussions Gouhier, Henri, “Préface,” in Aude-Marie Lhote, La notion de pardon chez Kierkegaard, ou Kierkegaard lecteur de l’Épître aux Romains, Paris: Vrin 1983, pp. 7–8.

Jean-François Marquet, Miroirs de l’identité. La littérature hantée par la philosophie [Mirrors of Identity: Literature Haunted by Philosophy], Paris: Hermann 1996, xvii + 329 pp.

The work of Jean-François Marquet, Miroirs de l’Identité. La Littérature Hantée par la Philosophie or Mirrors of Identity: Literature Haunted by Philosophy, is a collection of essays, covering authors from Diderot to Rilke, intended to explore the philosophical elements that have overshadowed and haunted the literary production of the authors here at stake. This is done under the double perspective defined by the title of the work, that is, identification and mirroring. These are two related perspectives, since the one’s identification with oneself already presupposes mirroring as reflection in someone else (and this is the main thesis that connects all the articles). The two essays dedicated to Søren Kierkegaard—the “paradoxical individuality who is obstinately classified (despite his denials) among philosophers”1—focus on the problem of mirroring, which is the main topic of “Kierkegaard, or the Mirrors of Identity,”2 and on the problem of identification, which is treated in “The Message and its Labyrinth.”3 In the first, Marquet proposes to analyze the characters that Kierkegaardian melancholy chooses to impersonate in the parables that set the frame of the confessional novel “Guilty?/Not Guilty?” in Stages on Life’s Way. Marquet refuses any psychiatric explanations for Kierkegaard’s melancholy and prefers to define it as a disproportion between the soul and the body, that is to say, as an excess of the possible (the soul) over the real (the body). It so happens that in the above-mentioned parables, that excessive possibility is condensed in a series of symbolic characters (from Solomon to Nebuchadnezzar), who, according to Marquet, reflect melancholy enigmatically as the consequence of an ineradicable sin of a sexual nature (a rape, for example), which, once perpetrated by a father, would inevitably be inherited by the son. As the anxious discovery of oneself by the other, Jean-François Marquet, Miroirs de l’Identité. La Littérature Hantée par la Philosophie, Paris: Hermann 1996, p. xv: “individualité paradoxale…que l’on s’obstine (malgré ses dénégations) à classer parmi les philosophes.” 2 Ibid., pp. 253–73. 3 Ibid., pp. 275–92. 1

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melancholy finds the one and only remedy in faith—according to what Kierkegaard writes in his journals. But since it invites the subject to “translate himself in face of a meaningful signifier.…[t]hat will…act as a mirror and thus reflect to the subject his latest identity,”4 faith seems to be, just like melancholy, a process of identification of oneself with an enigmatic alterity (God, in this case) that constitutes him by reflection. What does this mean? It means—and this is Marquet’s conclusion in this essay—that faith only annuls melancholy inasmuch as faith corrects it, by giving it a true object (since in Kierkegaard, only God has the right to act enigmatically) and by teaching us that the incomprehensible should be a motive, not a passive anxiety, but an active resolution of the soul. Concerning the actual content of such a resolution, Marquet’s article deliberately remains silent. In turn, Marquet’s second essay, “Le Message et son Labyrinthe,” chooses as its task the examination and decoding of the complex architecture of Kierkegaard’s production between 1842 and 1848, surveying the relation established between the different pseudonymous authors, taking mainly into account the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and The Point of View of My Work as an Author. In fact, Marquet starts by reducing Kierkegaard’s philosophy to the transmission of a fundamental message (“we are not Christians”),5 and then he proceeds to tell us that this message is basically characterized by the non-existence of an immediate relation between the sender (the author), the meaning (the production) and the receiver (the reader). For Marquet, Kierkegaard thus emerges as the ultimate modern writer, since in his production, the act of writing appears for the first time as the place of a profound self-reflection on the very concept of authorship, that is, on the possibility of an identification of the author with himself, with his work and with his reader. This kind of self-reflection is now manifest primarily by the mode of transmission of Kierkegaard’s message, which, according to the first section of The Point of View, functions in a double mode: the indirect (corresponding to the pseudonymous works of a worldly nature) and the direct (corresponding to the signed works of an upbuilding nature). Divided as it is in accordance with the modes of transmission, Kierkegaard’s message seems to trust the reader with all the responsibility for its meaning, since the reader is invested with the mission of refounding the unity of the work. However, if this “polar architecture of the message”6 was to become self-evident, Marquet underscores that the author would have to become like a “guide within his own cathedral,”7 that is to say, would formulate something like a message on the message, which, by articulating the direct and indirect modes of communication, could account for the inner structure of Kierkegaard’s production. This message in a second potency arrives with the Postcript, where the author, Johannes Climacus, stands side-by-side with the editor, Kierkegaard himself, thus bringing forth a moment of combined action in the production. At the core Ibid., p. 272: “se traduire devant un signifiant irréductible…qui va…jouer comme un miroir et réflechir vers le sujet son ultime identité.” 5 Ibid., p. 276: “nous ne sommes pas chrétiens.” 6 Ibid., p. 279: “architecture polaire du message.” 7 Ibid., p. 281: “cicerone de sa propre cathédrale.” 4

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of the infamous press campaign against the author led by the Corsair, there lies the revelation in the Postscript that under the name of Kierkegaard, one should understand the author of all his works until then, the pseudonymous ones and the upbuilding discourses. That revelation implied, as is well known, the subsequent reduction of Kierkegaard’s work to the signed works of a religious content. Within this frame of mind and based on The Point of View, Marquet tries to understand the intent and the meaning of this voluntary act of circumscribing the production. His thesis consists in the claim that, like Christ, Kierkegaard needed to be himself de-authorized by the world if he wanted to target his reader ethically and individually. Nevertheless, for Marquet, this means that the author’s gesture of taking off the mask of the pseudonym did not give rise to a direct relation with the reader, and, instead, it compelled the reader to look for the essence of the author’s message beyond the appearances imposed by the lampooning in the Corsair affair. In fact, since the publication of the Postscript coincided with the transformation of the name of Kierkegaard into a caricature, the one who later will claim the paternity of upbuilding discourses is still an author whose real identity must be reconstructed by the reader. Eventually this means that in both cases, the pseudonymous and the signed works, “the true transmitter of the message…actually remains unknown.”8 The veiling of the true identity of the author will only be overcome with the posthumous publication of The Point of View, which, appearing as an essay on the direct elucidation of the inner structure of the totality of Kierkegaard’s production, and, on the other side, as the place where Kierkegaard became fully aware of the meaning of that structure, eventually becomes the place where his own name (that is, his identity) was finally restored to him. But that place, as we know, is posthumous; the voice that “guides us in the labyrinth of the Kierkegaardian cathedral,”9 comes from beyond the grave, and it is a voice that tells us, in Marquet’s opinion, that Kierkegaard did not want to avoid in life the possibility of a worthy and meritorious encounter with a reader capable of reconstructing the true face of his message. Vasco Baptista Marques

8 9

Ibid., p. 289: “Le véritable émetteur du message…reste proprement inconnu.” Ibid., p. 292: “qui nous guide dans le labyrinthe de la cathédrale kierkegaardienne.”

Reviews and Critical Discussions Leduc-Fayette, Denise, “De l’Identité Spéculaire,” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger, vol. 122, 1997, pp. 59–62. Tilliette, Xavier, review in Les Études Philosophiques, vol. 3, 1997, pp. 409–10.

Emmanuel Mounier, Introduction aux existentialismes

[Introduction to the Forms of Existentialism], Paris: Éditions Denoël 1947, 159 pp.

Gallimard published a second edition of Emmanuel Mounier’s 1947 Introduction aux existentialismes in 1962, after the author’s death. This later edition is identical to the earlier one, published by Éditions Denoël in the same year that Jean Wahl sent his Petite histoire de “l’existentialisme” into the world. An English translation appeared one year after the French original, but it is so full of errors and infelicities that it is practically useless.1 Wahl’s Petite histoire and Mounier’s more extensive book share a great deal in common. Both register an appreciation of Kierkegaard’s achievement along with a qualified criticism of it. Like Wahl, Mounier gives Kierkegaard a prominent place as a forerunner of contemporary existentialist thought, and doing so leads Mounier to speak of both Christian and atheistic existentialism as a “return of the religious” in the modern world,2 some fifty years before that phrase became something of a buzzword. But Mounier also searches out earlier figures who might have anticipated the intellectual currents that were so popular in the France of his day. It is common to place Pascal and Tertullian in such a genealogy, as Mounier does, but he also makes the comparatively novel suggestion that sensationalist philosopher of action Maine de Biran is a predecessor of Kierkegaard.3 A striking, somewhat curious visual graphic early in the book provides a diagram of “the existentialist tree” with Christian (Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux) and non-Christian (Socrates, the Stoics) roots, and Christian (Berdiaev, Barth) and non-Christian (Sartre, Buber) branches, but whose trunk is constituted by one name alone: Kierkegaard, with Pascal and Maine de Biran occupying a lowly spot at the base of the trunk.4 Later in the book, however, Mounier suggests that existentialism consists of two sets of branches or, to take another metaphor, streams of thought, with most atheist existentialists on the one side and the Christian existentialists and Karl Jaspers on the other side.5 Emmanuel Mounier, Existentialist Philosophies: An Introduction, trans. by Eric Snow, London: Rankin Brothers 1948. 2 Emmanuel Mounier, Introduction aux existentialismes, Paris: Éditions Denoël 1947, p. 158. 3 Ibid., p. 9. 4 Ibid., p. 6. 5 Ibid., p. 153. 1

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So Mounier places Kierkegaard at once as a source for all the existentialisms and as an expression of one particular stream of existentialist thought, to be opposed to Nietzsche, who is the source of the other, atheist stream. This tension at the historiographical level gives some indication of Mounier’s priorities as a writer, and of the approach that he takes in the book. He is, first of all, interested in identifying a cluster of traits uniting the varied thinkers called “existentialists,” without a corresponding concern for establishing clear historical lines of influence. One often finds rather sweeping claims such as “every existentialism develops a dialectic of conversion.”6 “Existentialism” refers as much to an historical movement as to the essential character of any mode of thought worthy of being called “philosophy.”7 As just noted, Mounier does occasionally make historical claims, but he organizes his survey of existentialism according to broad conceptual categories such as “awakening,” “alienation,” “conversion,” and “the other,” rather than according to an historical narrative. In discussing these categories, Mounier moves rather freely from the writings of Gabriel Marcel to those of Karl Jaspers to those of Kierkegaard. This is not necessarily to say that he is historically reckless. In addition to the standard opposition between atheistic and religious existentialism, Mounier makes a further distinction between two poles of existentialism, between which any number of different theories can be ranged. On one end is the “Kierkegaardian pole,” identified with a “mistrust of objectivity” and assimilated to “Romanticism,” and on the other hand is the phenomenological pole, identified with a concern with the connection between human existence and “being.”8 A secondary concern of the Introduction is the delineation of points of contact between existentialism and personalism, the school of thought with which Mounier is associated. Personalism and existentialism share a non- and even anti-systematic orientation, and they are united, above all, Mounier suggests, in their refusal of the objectivization of the individual human being, whether that objectivization is a result of totalizing philosophies or totalitarian political systems. Kierkegaard’s opposition between the human race and the single individual is a definitive example of the existentialist protest on behalf of the person.9 Another fundamental tenet of personalism, however, is that “the fundamental nature of the person…lies not in separation but in communication,”10 and on this measure, Kierkegaard, who despairs of the possibility of direct communication, succumbing to the “temptation of the incommunicable” and the unsayable, comes up short.11 Kierkegaard, trapped in a “lofty solitude,” does not share the “passion for the other” evinced by later existentialists like Marcel and Jaspers,12 and has no affirmative account of Christian community.13 Mounier affirms

6 7 8 9 10

p. 17.

11

12 13

Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., pp. 64–6. Emmanuel Mounier, Le personnalisme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1949, Mounier, Introduction aux existentialismes, p. 135. Ibid., p. 93. Ibid., p. 34.

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that the task of thought in the twentieth century is to unite Marx, as a thinker of the social, and Kierkegaard, as the thinker of the individual par excellence. Mounier concludes that one of the threads that unites existentialists across the spectrum stretching from the Kierkegaardian Romantics on the one hand to the phenomenologists on the other is a renewed concern with transcendence. As one would expect, however, transcendence means very different things for these different thinkers. Mounier adapts and builds upon Wahl’s account of transcendence, adding to his categories, “transascendence,” which is a desire for and a movement toward that which exceeds the horizon of human existence and “transdescendence”14 (which Mounier does not discuss), a third, “transproscendence,” which Mounier defines as the human capacity to be ahead of oneself, to project oneself into the future: “the human being is always more than that which he is (at the moment).”15 Only transascendence is “transcendence properly speaking,” and one finds this concept only in the religious existentialists (and in Jaspers, whose project Mounier, following Wahl, links closely to Kierkegaard’s).16 This true transcendence, however, admits of two paths: there is the happier form of transcendence, which is experienced as the plenitude of being and which “is not a solitary experience,”17 and there is the less happy way represented by the “Kierkegaardian shock of existence,” in which “I do not bathe in the soothing light of the eternal, but I come up against the eternal as against an absolute Other, frustrating in its alterity, hostile to my projects, wounding to my reason.”18 It is typical of Mounier’s complicated relationship to Kierkegaard that Kierkegaard’s writings can be used to illustrate both “ways” of transcendence. In the end, however, Mounier faults Kierkegaard with a privileging of experiences of “absolute discontinuity” that strip the individual of any positive relationship with the world,19 which is why, in concluding his book on a variety of existentialist philosophies, he pleas for a return to a modest rationalism. He does not equate existentialism with irrationalism, but he sees alarming tendencies toward the latter in certain existentialist writings (including, as noted, those of Kierkegaard), and registers a hope that those with existentialist leanings will rediscover, as a way toward transcendence, “the lucid exercise of reason.”20 Joseph Ballan

On these two terms, see Jean Wahl, Existence humaine et transcendance, Neuchâtel: Éditions de la Baconnière 1944, pp. 37–8. 15 Mounier, Introduction aux existentialismes, p. 40. 16 Ibid., pp. 152–3. 17 Ibid., p. 153. 18 Ibid., p. 155. 19 Ibid., pp. 65–6. 20 Ibid., p. 159. 14

Reviews and Critical Discussions Brown, Stuart M., review in The Philosophical Review, vol. 59, no. 4, 1950, p. 570. Gendreau, Bernard A., “The Role of Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier in the Creation of French Personalism,” The Personalist Forum, vol. 8, no. 1, Supplement, 1992, pp. 97–108. Hartt, Julian N. “On the Possibility of an Existentialist Philosophy,” The Review of Metaphysics, vol. 3, no. 1, 1949, pp. 95–106. Leclerc, Jacques, review in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, vol. 53, 1948, p. 92. Paton, H.J., review in Philosophy, vol. 24, no. 91, 1949, p. 355. Petrovic, Sreten, review in Socijalizam, vol. 10, no. 10, 1967, p. 1347. Piguet, Jean-Claude, review in Revue de théologie et de philosophie, new series, vol. 38, 1950, p. 252.

Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard, Paris: Elipses 2002, 70 pp.

Hélène Politis’ book on Kierkegaard was published in 2002 by Les Éditions Ellipses as part of a book series introducing various philosophers. The series called Philophilosophe, edited by Jean-Pierre Zarader, comprises thirty-one works. Readers who wish to explore the world of some of the great thinkers through history can read these works as a guide. The Ellipses publishing house specializes in readers’ guides and educational books for French college students. All of the books in the Philo-philosophe series are edited in a way that facilitates a coherent introduction of the essential thoughts of a philosopher. They are divided into three parts: while the first part is a general introduction to the key concepts of the thinker, the second part comprises a selection of extracts of original texts with commentary by the author. This gives the reader the opportunity to encounter the philosopher’s original text. The third part offers vocabulary help: the “Vocabulaire” part of the book explains different concepts and ideas present in the thinker’s writings and contextualizes them. The first part of Politis’ Kierkegaard treats some of the central ideas in Kierkegaard’s authorship in seven chapters. Every chapter introduces new works. For example, Chapter 5, entitled “Kierkegaardian Stages in Bible Readings: Job, Abraham” introduces the reader to Repetition and Fear and Trembling, while Chapter 6, “Christianity and Contemporarity: The Importance of the Historical Factor,” makes its starting point Philosophical Fragments. Thus, Politis makes sure that the reader becomes familiar not only with the ideas of Kierkegaard, but also with the actual works. It is noteworthy that Politis draws upon both the published and unpublished works in Kierkegaard’s authorship (a chapter is dedicated to The Book on Adler) as well as Kierkegaard’s papers (published posthumously) in this introduction of his ideas. This introduces the reader to the complexity of the authorship. The text extracts with commentary include excerpts from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Philosophical Fragments, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The Concept of Anxiety, “The Crisis and the Crisis in the Life of an Actress,” and The Concept of Irony. The works are only from the published part of the authorship, presumably because this is the most central to any new student of Kierkegaard. However, Politis has chosen works both by the pseudonyms and by Kierkegaard himself. In this way, she is able to underscore the distinction between Kierkegaard’s own voice and those of his pseudonymous authors.1 Separating Kierkegaard from his 1

Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard, Paris: Ellipses 2002, p. 51.

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pseudonyms is an important point to make, because, as Politis observes,2 in the French reception, Kierkegaard’s views have often been mistaken for one of his pseudonyms. In the vocabulary section, Politis treats some of the most central concepts in Kierkegaard’s oeuvre. “Dialectics,” “existence,” and “leap,” among others, are explained in relation to Kierkegaard’s thoughts and put into a context with other relevant thinkers. The vocabulary serves as an optimal tool for anyone who is new to the world of Kierkegaard or for anyone who wishes for a concise explanation of the complex ideas. In 2002, the same year as the publication of Kierkegaard, Politis published a similar work, also a part of an Ellipses series and edited by Jean-Pierre Zarader, entitled Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard.3 This work gives an even more extensive overview of Kierkegaard’s vocabulary, and the two books can be used to complement each other. Politis has published several books on Kierkegaard and has made it a point to try to make the French reception of Kierkegaard more nuanced. Particularly her later work, Kierkegaard en France au XXe Siècle: Archéologie d’une reception,4 challenges the traditional French view of Kierkegaard as the “father of existentialism,” “the romantic Scandinavian,” or the “lonesome melancholic.”5 In Kierkegaard, Politis also tries to present the French reader with a different view of Kierkegaard. She stresses in her introduction that he cannot be reduced to the character of Johannes the Seducer, as a large part of the French reception of Kierkegaard has done for a long time.6 Nor is he the hopeless romantic whose authorship should be seen through his love story with Regine Olsen. When trying to understand Kierkegaard, Politis claims, it is far more important to know that all his life he considered the Epistle of James his first love than to know all of the stories about his feelings for Regine.7 Politis does not introduce the reader to Kierkegaard’s personal story but focuses solely on his ideas as a philosopher and theologian. According to her, Kierkegaard is first of all a philosophe engagé: a person who has chosen to think above all else.8 Politis’ Kierkegaard is one of the few introductory reader’s guides to Kierkegaard in the francophone world. Among others, France Farago’s Comprendre Kierkegaard from 2005 (also part of a book series introducing different thinkers and targeted at education) can be mentioned.9 Charles le Blanc’s Kierkegaard from 1998 is also in the same genre (part of the series Figures du Savoir).10 Politis introduces Kierkegaard’s ideas of irony, the ethical and the aesthetic, abstract thought, Christianity, history, anxiety, love, and language in 70 pages. The book gives a brief, but thorough, introduction to his thoughts and is a good starting point for anyone beginning to explore the philosophical world of Søren Kierkegaard. Susanne Rimstad Ibid., p. 5. Hélène Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard, Paris: Ellipses 2002. 4 Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France aux XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une reception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005. 5 Ibid., pp. 251–2. 6 Politis, Kierkegaard, p. 5. 7 Ibid., p. 24. 8 Ibid., p. 5. 9 France Farago, Comprendre Kierkegaard, Paris: Armand Colin 2005. 10 Charles Le Blanc, Kierkegaard, Paris: Belles Lettres 1998. 2 3

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Hélène Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard [Kierkegaard’s Vocabulary], Paris: Ellipses 2002, 64 pp.

Hélène Politis’ work, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard, was published by Les Éditions Ellipses in 2002. It was also published as a part of the series Le Vocabulaire des Philosophes, directed by Jean-Pierre Zarader.1 The chronological compilation dedicates five volumes to Western philosophers, giving an overview of the key concepts of some of the great figures in the history of philosophy from antiquity to the twentieth century. Politis’ work appears in the third volume, entitled La philosophie moderne (XIXe siècle), which starts by treating the ideas of Kant and continues up to the thoughts of Nietzsche. While English and Danish readers had at their disposal Kierkegaard dictionaries by authors such as Julia Watkin2 and Gregor Malantschuk,3 this was not the case in France. An influential reference work of the same genre had been published, but it was a translation: Else-Marie Jacquet-Tisseau adopted and supplemented Malantschuk’s glossary in the context of the series Œuvres Complètes.4 If we make the comparison with this earlier work, we notice that Politis’ dictionary deals with some of the concepts listed there, but proceeds in a distinctive way. Her selection seems based on making the Kierkegaard œuvre in general accessible to a philosophically engaged audience. While her range is not as wide as that of the Index Terminologique, her explanation of each of the concepts is more comprehensive. Just like the latter, Politis’ work is alphabetically organized in contrast to the English reference work Concepts and Alternatives in Kierkegaard, which was edited by Marie Mikulová Thulstrup back in 1980.5 Hélène Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard, Paris: Ellipses 2002 (Le Vocabulaire des Philosophes, Tome 3, La Philosophie moderne (XIXe siècle)). 2 Julia Watkin, Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard’s Philosophy, Lanham, Maryland, and London: Scarecrow Press 2001 (Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements, no. 33). 3 Gregor Malantschuk, Nøglebegreber i Søren Kierkegaards tænkning, ed. by Grethe Kjær and Paul Müller, C.A. Reitzels Forlag 1993. 4 Gregor Malantschuk, Index Terminologique, Principaux concepts de Kierkegaard, trans. by Else-Marie Jacquet-Tisseau, Paris: Éditions de l’Orante 1986 (Søren Kierkegaard, Œuvres Complètes, Tome 20). 5 Marie Mikulová Thulstrup (ed.), Concepts and Alternatives in Kierkegaard, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 1980 (Bibliotheca Kierkegaardiana, vol. 3). 1

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To be able to comprehend the background of Politis’ authorial project, in which this little work is embedded, we must take into consideration the context of the reception of Kierkegaard in the Francophone world: on the one hand, translations of Kierkegaard’s œuvre were only available after 1927 (with the exception of Johannes Gøtzsche’s En quoi l’homme de génie diffère-t-il de l’apôtre? Traité éthique-religieux,6 which appeared in 1886). On the other hand, a phantasmatic image of Kierkegaard had been created; Kierkegaard was regarded as an anti-systematic, tragic individual fighting against the masses and authority, a mysterious figure originating from the north, and not the creator of a complex œuvre.7 The two commentators who contributed most to this philosophical picture were fellow countrymen George Brandes and Harald Høffding. By his almost exclusive psychological take on Kierkegaard, Brandes, a literary critic, consolidated the Danish philosopher as a literary legend with his influential biography of Kierkegaard8 and his controversial work Søren Kierkegaard. Ein Literarisches Characterbild.9 Fifteen years after Brandes, the Danish philosopher and theologian Harald Høffding echoed this distorted image of Kierkegaard as a baroque figure, constantly finding himself in existential crisis. Although his philosophical approach leans more towards Kierkegaard’s actual ideas, his argumentation still mainly revolved around the unilateral, so-called “melancholic” personality of Kierkegaard that opposes itself radically to “quantitative” Hegelian philosophy.10 Through the first quarter of the twentieth century in France, Kierkegaard was considered the Danish counterpart of Ibsen’s fictional literary character Brand, a view maintained by modern philosophers Jean Wahl and Gabriel Marcel.11 Against this background, Politis tries to rectify the image of Kierkegaard as a fictitious construction, as well as provide the contemporary reader with a critical rendering of the currently available French translations. In the preface to her concise glossary she sets herself a twofold goal: first to create clarity in the confusion that tends to surround the arbitrary French translations of key Kierkegaardian notions. By doing so, she wants to help the reader grasp a general overview of Kierkegaard’s œuvre in order to be prepared for an independent reading of his works: “I have opted for the following pedagogical option: to direct myself to readers inspired by goodwill and philosophical intelligence, who will be able, aided by the material provided in this Vocabulaire, to look at the texts of Kierkegaard directly themselves.”12

Søren Kierkegaard, En quoi l’homme de génie diffère-t-il de l’apôtre? Traité éthiquereligieux, trans. by Johannes Gøtzsche, with a notice on the life and works of Kierkegaard by H.P. Kofoed-Hansen, Copenhagen, Hagerup and Paris: Nilsson 1886. 7 Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France aux XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une reception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, pp. 24–5. 8 George Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard. En kritisk Fremstilling i Grundrids, Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag (P. Hegel & Son) 1877. 9 George Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard. Ein Literarisches Characterbild, Leipzig: J.A. Barth 1879. 10 Politis, Kierkegaard en France aux XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une reception, p. 174; pp. 176–8. 11 Ibid., pp. 33–4. 12 Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard, p. 4 (my translation). 6

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Second, Politis’ short introductory work has been conceived to warn her readers against the prevailing paradigm in France, which portrays Kierkegaard as the anti-philosopher par excellence, in general, and, more specifically, as the radical opponent of Hegel. She writes: “The anti-systematism of Kierkegaard is by no means an anti-Hegelianism in the first place.”13 She counters the clichés surrounding his philosophical competence and position all throughout the issues covered; for example, while clarifying the Kierkegaardian understanding of dialectic, she underscores Kierkegaard’s denial of not proceeding dialectically.14 Politis follows in the footsteps of her tutor Henri-Bernard Vergote and continues the tradition of source-work research.15 She is fully aware of the problems and pitfalls in the French practice of translation: although after 1927 there was a rapidly increasing number of translations and reviews available, Kierkegaard’s texts were still very much the victim of simplistic and subjective interpretations. Furthermore, only certain sections of the vast œuvre could capture the attention of contending translators such as Maury, Ferlov, Gateau, and Tisseau. The latter was the first to undertake a complete and systematic exploration of Kierkegaard’s Værker and Papirer: not until 1986 was it possible for the French reader to compare his own findings on Kierkegaard’s authorship with statements of the so-called Kierkegaard connoisseurs.16 Although the translation of the whole œuvre was a step in the right direction, Politis points out some deficiencies: “this edition often remains erroneous, especially with regard to the choice of philosophical vocabulary, which is almost always approximate and arbitrarily, sometimes leading to inconsistency.”17 Countering these flaws, Politis uses a method by which she proceeds with great attention to the original terminology in Danish―remembering Kierkegaard’s explicit choice to formulate his thoughts in his mother tongue. Le Vocabulaire de Kierkegaard presents 21 classical concepts such as “existence,” “irony,” and “religiousness” in the format of a more elaborate explanatory dictionary. For a more comprehensive list, including less-standard Kierkegaardian concepts, she refers the reader to her other publication of 2002.18 The concepts range from seemingly straightforward nouns such as “apostle,” “genius,” “tragic hero,” and “abstract thinker,” to more complicated subjects such as “the demand of the age” (Exigence du temps) and the “teleological suspension of the ethical” (Suspension téléologique de l’Éthique). Although she herself states that she has kept the references to a minimum,19 her dictionary creates a useful philosophical frame. Next to a myriad of references to major figures in Kierkegaard’s thought such as Socrates, Kant, and Hegel, she also includes contemporaries (among others Mynster, Gyllembourg, and Heiberg) Ibid., p. 59 (my translation). Ibid., p. 17. 15 Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), p. 456. 16 Politis, Kierkegaard en France aux XXe siècle, pp. 201–4. 17 Ibid., p. 204 (my translation). 18 Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard, Paris: Ellipses 2002. 19 Politis, Le vocabulaire de Kierkegaard, p. 4. 13 14

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and philosophers such as Jacobi, Levi-Bruhl in her clear explanations. Links to the primary Kierkegaardian works are even more richly present: in every section Politis connects her own explanations with the original text, by quoting or referring to key phrases in Kierkegaard’s own writings. Furthermore, she covers the theological as well as the philosophical aspects of Kierkegaard without any distinction, opening the eyes of the reader to a kaleidoscopic view on Kierkegaard. Politis concedes that she has simplified the complex philosophical thought in order to present us with a highly useful conceptual system.20 Although her procedure does not emphasize the changes or developments within Kierkegaard’s œuvre, she provides us with a clear overview of some of the main ideas at work in his writings, alongside nuances and remarks that open the road to discussion. In sketching a more sophisticated but nonetheless brief account of Kierkegaard’s inheritance, Politis’ method, oriented to central concepts, succeeds in furnishing the reader with an arsenal of concepts and terms that enable one to read the sometimes dense primary texts on one’s own. Moreover, she also reveals an adapted perspective on how Kierkegaard is generally perceived from the viewpoint of the French audience. Politis’ work distinguishes itself from the persistent French tradition to reduce Kierkegaard’s work to biographical facts (for example, simply perceiving him as a dandy, an obstinate myth in France21) and engages in making an in-depth understanding of his writings possible for scholars unfamiliar with the texts of Kierkegaard by using a clearly structured approach to his philosophical and theological jargon. Her appeal for a more critical and coherent approach to translators has found fertile soil: in 2007 the first volume of an extensive translation project by Jacquet-Tisseau and Finneman, entitled Journeaux et cahiers de notes, and based on the latest Danish edition, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, was published: a fresh start for French Kierkegaard studies.22 In short, this concise vocabulary is a helpful tool for scholars in the Francophone world to access and explore Kierkegaard’s thought in a fruitful way. Fleur Van Bocxlaer

20 21

p. 456.

22

Ibid., p. 4. Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” Ibid., p. 459.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception

[Kierkegaard in Twentieth-Century France: An Archaeological Reception], Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, 275 pp.

Much recent French-language scholarship on Kierkegaard, attentive to the “archaeology” of Kierkegaard’s reception in France, has sought to demarcate itself from earlier and often less scholarly readings of Kierkegaard, insisting on the fact that much of the earlier reception was profoundly influenced by the unavailability of proper translations of Kierkegaard’s works and a general lack of knowledge of the Danish language and cultural context. This is indeed the point of departure of Hélène Politis’ archaeology of Kierkegaard’s reception. As she writes: “To summarize the French reception of Kierkegaard’s works is principally to recount the history of a failure, the adventure of a non-introduction, the uncertain drawing out of a debatable representation through which the Danish philosopher was only rendered present in our country in trompe-l’oeil style or present in the mode of absence.”1 As Politis attempts to demonstrate, the ways in which Kierkegaard was introduced into French thought, rendered possible by the inaccessibility of the original texts and the exegetical biases of early commentators,2 have had a lasting and pernicious influence on Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, p. 11. (All translations are the author’s.) 2 It is true that the image French-language readers may develop of Kierkegaard’s thought is partially dependent on the availability, or unavailability, of adequate translations. As Jacques Lafarge has pointed out: “for over a half-century, we spoke about a work that we could not read. And…then, when, timidly, almost sixty years behind Germany, some translations appeared, allowing for a general ( populaire) reading, often, alas! deformed, scholars had to rely on German translations of Kierkegaard or on works published in German, to such an extent that we were able to speak about the presence, in France, of a German Kierkegaard” (Jacques Lafarge, La diffusion éditoriale d’une œuvre: l’œuvre de Søren Kierkegaard au Danemark, en Allemagne et en France (1834–1984), vols. 1–2, Thèse Bordeaux III, 1985, vol. 1, p. 17). While many texts had been made available in various translations and modes of presentation earlier, the complete (published) works were only made available to the French reading public with the publication, between 1966 and 1986 of the Œuvres complètes by the publishing house Éditions de l’Orante, and to this day some of the Papirer remain unavailable. We may note, however, that many efforts have been made in recent years to fill this 1

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Kierkegaard’s reception, reducing him to a series of masks, caricatures, and “mortiferous paradigms.”3 Among these she cites the figure of the precursor of Sartrean existentialism, that of the biographical caricature of Kierkegaard as the melancholy Hamlet, or the model for Ibsen’s Brand. Politis’ main argument in her monograph is that the ways in which Kierkegaard has been read, historically, have had a negative impact on his “philosophical” reception in France and still today prevent Kierkegaard from being duly recognized as a serious philosopher. In order to restore Kierkegaard to his rightful place in the history of philosophy, it is necessary to dispel the myths, “dissociate fable from reality, poetry from truth, inventions of zealous biographers from Kierkegaardian authenticity.”4 In order to get at a more realistic and philosophical reading of Kierkegaard, Politis offers a study of the history of French reception along the lines of three interwoven themes. The first part of the work focuses on the literary interpretations of Kierkegaard which constitute some of the earliest introductions of Kierkegaard into French-language literature. In the second part, Politis examines philosophical reappropriations of Kierkegaardian themes in French existential philosophy and shows how the insistence on certain themes and notions are misused by thinkers such as Jean Wahl (1888–1974), Lev Shestov (1866–1938), and Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973). In the third part, Politis seeks to “get back to the origins of the ‘misunderstanding,’ ”5 by showing how the problems inherent in the translations and diffusion of Kierkegaard’s works inevitably led to certain misinterpretations. What is characteristic of the early French reception of Kierkegaard is the persistent over-emphasis of the biographical, which fascinated the writers, artists, and literary theorists who were the first to take a real interest in the mysterious Dane. As Politis notes, “most of them kept coming back to the same accepted themes, drawing the explanation of the entire works from a simplified and dramatized biography (the anomic education received from his father, the engagement episode, the Corsair affair, the final crisis).”6 That the early reception was dominated by a fascination for Kierkegaard’s melancholy should, however, be understood, Politis argues, according to the context in which they were read. In the early part of the twentieth century, French readers were confronted with the published extracts of Kierkegaard’s journals and papers, commented and selected by Georg Brandes and Harald Høffding, and there was thus a natural tendency to seek therein the “true” Kierkegaard that the published works did not contain.7 Moreover, one ought not to forget that Kierkegaard was void: critical editions of the Journaler were published in 2007 (AA–DD) and 2013 (EE–KK), Kierkegaard’s correspondence was published in 2003, translated and annotated by AnneChristine Habbard, and much critical work has been and is being done on the questions of reception and diffusion. Despite these efforts, however, and as Jacques Lafarge and others have noted, access to Kierkegaard’s writings by the general reading public remains difficult, as partial and non-technical translations are constantly being re-edited, and Kierkegaard’s thought is generally presented to the French reading public in fragmented form. 3 Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle, p. 63. 4 Ibid., p. 10. 5 Ibid., p. 165. 6 Ibid., p. 53. 7 Ibid., p. 54.

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introduced to the French reading public with a decided cultural and temporal gap, and that early twentieth-century readers were thus incited to see certain Kierkegaardian motifs (such as melancholy and genius) as exotic and original, whereas they might otherwise have been read as common motifs of German Romanticism.8 The aesthetic and biographical representation of Kierkegaard that developed in the early twentieth-century French reception can shed light on the philosophical appropriations of his works starting in the 1930s. As Politis notes, “the mere fact that the terrain [of reception] changed does not abolish the earlier developments, which will remain active, although most often below the surface.”9 The ways in which philosophers such as Wahl and Shestov, Jean-Paul Sartre and Benjamin Fondane, use Kierkegaardian motifs in the development of their own philosophy can only be understood against the backdrop of this earlier reception. Indeed, the “supposedly philosophical interpretations”10 offered by these thinkers put special emphasis on certain concepts while neglecting others, giving privilege to certain notions, such as absurdity, the concrete, and existence. Kierkegaard’s status as more of a literary figure than a serious philosopher within the intellectual context of the period made it possible for philosophers to bend his thought to their own ends, as can be seen in Albert Camus’ discussion of the absurd11 or Shestov’s theory of dualism.12 Beyond a tendency, however, to see Kierkegaard essentially as a biographical figure, serious philosophical discussion of Kierkegaard was impeded by the fact that philosophers such as Wahl had to rely on the German translations and commentaries of the texts, and therefore were inclined to over-Germanize, if not overHegelianize, Kierkegaard’s thought. Though Kierkegaard was highly lauded in early twentieth-century France as the “father of Existentialism,” and associated with the existentialist movement, Politis demonstrates that the impact of Kierkegaard’s philosophy on French existentialism was in fact rather limited. Gabriel Marcel, by his own admission, knew very little about Kierkegaard,13 and as far as Sartre’s philosophy is concerned, “if we examine the place that he gives to Kierkegaard, we are forced to recognize that, contrary to the legend, he owes him very little.”14 Politis suggests, thus, that despite the great interest for Kierkegaard in France, very little serious philosophical work has been done on the Dane, very little, that is, in the way of understanding Kierkegaard as a philosopher. As she notes: “Despite different works, for example, those of André Clair, Hélène Politis, [and] Henri-Bernard

Ibid., pp. 54–5. Note as well that, in the early twentieth century, Scandinavian culture was seen as highly exotic in the French context, and it would have been difficult for readers at the time to realize how highly indebted Kierkegaard’s works (and Danish scholarship as a whole) were to German philosophy and literature. 9 Ibid., p. 86. 10 Ibid., p. 83. 11 See Albert Camus, Le mythe de Sisyphe, Paris: Gallimard 1942. 12 See Léon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. Vox clamantis in deserto, trans. by Tatiana Rageot and Boris de Schlœzer, Paris: Vrin 1936. 13 See Gabriel Marcel’s reflections on his relation to Kierkegaard’s thought, “Kierkegaard et ma pensée,” in Kierkegaard vivant, Paris, Gallimard 1966, pp. 64–80. 14 Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle, p. 135. 8

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Vergote which present Kierkegaard as a full-fledged philosopher, insisting on the conceptual rigor of his thought and his voluntary insertion in the history of philosophy, the platitudes, an analogous absence of information, and similar ambiguities live on almost without exception.”15 In order to move beyond these sterile readings, it is necessary to make Kierkegaard more generally accessible to the reading public, presenting the whole of his works in conceptually rigorous translations, and engaging in serious scholarship. In fine, what Politis suggests is that the French reading public needs, finally, to take heed of Kierkegaard’s own indications about his authorship, and to “learn to read”16 him within the context of the historical and conceptual framework which is his own. While Politis certainly presents a convincing argument for the need for rethinking some of the standard interpretations of Kierkegaard in French-language scholarship, and for understanding the role that Kierkegaard’s reception has played in French philosophy as a whole, we may, however, regret that more emphasis is not placed upon the very important role that Kierkegaard’s reception did play in the development of French philosophy in the twentieth century.17 For despite the fact that Kierkegaard’s reception in France has undoubtedly been influenced by editorial, linguistic, and interpretative conditions, it is essential to note as well that, however imprecise readings of Kierkegaard may have been, France is certainly one of the countries outside of the Scandinavian and Germanic contexts in which Kierkegaard’s works have had the greatest resonance. To characterize such modes of reception as “failed” is to overlook the much more significant fact of the great importance that the reception of Kierkegaard has played in the development of various intellectual movements, or at least moments, in “French” thought. For more than in many other cultural areas, Kierkegaard’s works have greatly contributed to the development of literary, philosophical, and intellectual models in the twentieth century,18 however imperfectly these works may have been understood. Mélissa Fox-Muraton Ibid., p. 153. Ibid., p. 243. 17 As well as the fact that some very important figures are overlooked, such as Rachel Bespaloff (1895–1949), who in her 1934 and 1935 articles on Kierkegaard’s Repetition and Fear and Trembling offered some of the first in-depth analyses of Kierkegaard’s works, which in turn were greatly influential on figures such as Jean Wahl and Albert Camus. For an analysis including some the figures left out of Politis’ monograph see Margaret Teboul, “La réception de Kierkegaard en France 1930–1960,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, vol. 89, no. 2, 2005, pp. 315–36. See also Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 421–59. 18 For an analysis of the contribution Kierkegaard’s influence has made to French philosophy, see Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism.” As Stewart writes in his conclusion: “In contrast to…other traditions, Kierkegaard has played a significant role in the work of many mainstream French philosophers and thinkers to this day.…Thus, one can say that Kierkegaard’s writings are still very much alive in France, as they continue to inspire new generations of French thinkers” (p. 459). 15 16

Reviews and Critical Discussions Chevallier, Philippe, review in Etudes, vol. 403, vol. 10, 2005, pp. 420–1. Dagonet, François, “Postface,” in Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005, pp. 251–3. Pouivet, Roger, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 132, no. 2, 2007, pp. 262–4.

Hélène Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard [The Concept of Philosophy with Constant Reference to Kierkegaard], Paris: Éditions Kimé 2009, 384 pp.

A Professor Emerita of the Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Hélène Politis has made a valuable contribution to the history of philosophy notably centered on an exhaustive interpretation based on source-work research of Søren Kierkegaard’s work, in the tradition of Henri-Bernard Vergote (1931–96), whom she greatly admired. Indeed, Vergote is generally viewed as a central figure in contemporary Kierkegaard studies and the main representative of Quellenforschung in France.1 Politis’ in-depth analysis of Kierkegaard’s writings essentially started with her monumental (1,735 pages!) doctoral thesis titled Le discours philosophique selon Kierkegaard, directed by Bernard Bourgeois and defended on January 15, 1993, at the Sorbonne in front of Vergote himself.2 Almost a decade and a half later, Politis’ 2009 book reviewed here is dedicated to both Vladimir Jankélévitch and Henri-Bernard Vergote. The 1993 thesis itself remained unpublished. Bourgeois confirms, however, in the “Postface” to Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard (obviously mirroring Kierkegaard’s dissertation title), that the analysis presented herein builds on the preliminary research done by Politis for her doctorate. Indeed, much of Politis’ 2009 book continued the exploration of some of the most significant aspects already present in her doctoral thesis, which can be seen as a “melting pot” of later developments in her work. The first part of the 1993 thesis recaps the main stages in the reception of Kierkegaard’s works in France with its Jon Stewart, “France: Kierkegaard as a Forerunner of Existentialism and Poststructuralism,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), p. 455. 2 The jury included also Paulette Carrive, André Clair, François Dagognet, and Peter Kemp. Hélène Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, Paris: Editions Kimé 2009, p. 361. See also Álvaro L.M. Valls, “Hegel no Pós-escrito de Kierkegaard, hoje no Brasil” [Hegel in Kierkegaard’s Postscript, Today in Brazil], Pensando—Revista de Filosofia, vol. 2, no. 4, 2011, pp. 69–84. 1

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various interpretations and inaccuracies, which Politis later developed and published in 2005, in a volume titled Kierkegaard en France au XXème siècle: Archéologie d’une réception.3 The second part of Politis’ doctoral thesis offers a fairly comprehensive survey and assessment of Kierkegaard’s own resources as reflected in his writings and papers. Most interestingly, the third part shows how Kierkegaard constructs many of his own notions via a thorough analysis of the doctrines and concepts of other philosophers (above all Hegel). Finally, the last part is dedicated to the various methods of indirect communication employed by the Danish thinker. The doctoral candidate Politis indicated two inseparable facets of her thesis, seeing Kierkegaard as both a reader of philosophers, as well as a fully-fledged philosopher himself, markedly influenced by his readings. In 2009, Professor Politis still sees the Dane as a “lecteur des philosophes et philosophe à son tour.”4 This time though, the French scholar employs the means of indirect communication herself in order to deliver a possible key that would facilitate the understanding of Kierkegaard’s thinking. The motto chosen by Politis is quite relevant in that respect, translating one of Kierkegaard’s posthumously published lines from The Book on Adler: “Having understood a thought is like being able to decline a paradigm: if one can decline the paradigm, one can also decline all the words that follow it.”5 To that end, Politis embarks on a long journey that commences with a critical analysis of Kierkegaard’s dissertation, focusing at first on modern and ancient irony in an attempt to show how the 1841 work is itself a crucible of Kierkegaard’s later conceptual developments, marking “a decisive moment in Kierkegaard’s strategy.”6 Chapter 1 reveals the underlying dialogue that Kierkegaard has with Hegel about the value and the effects of Romantic subjectivity. Politis emphasizes that Kierkegaard acknowledges Hegel’s ability to show the limits of Romantic irony, subscribing to the Hegelian definition of irony as self-annihilating, “absolute infinite negativity.”7 Politis’ analysis of Kierkegaard’s pursuit of a different, foundational type of irony continues in Chapter 2, which deals, on the one hand, with the prominent role played by Hegel’s concepts of morality and ethical life in Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Socratic irony, while also attempting, on the other hand, to clarify how Kierkegaard’s response to Hegel’s Socrates does justice to Socratic irony. Politis suggests that if Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Socrates is correct, it is precisely because Kierkegaard makes brilliant use the Hegelian framework, namely, the powers of dialectical irony, when he turns Aristophanes, whom Hegel admired, against Hegel himself. As Politis puts it: “Neither a disciple of Hegel, nor an unconditional opponent, Kierkegaard takes the Hegelian discourse seriously enough to hold a different discourse, in the constitution of which Hegelianism is a fundamental component, as well as a

Hélène Politis, Kierkegaard en France au XXe siècle: Archéologie d’une réception, Paris: Éditions Kimé 2005. 4 Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, p. 12. 5 SKS 15, 230 / BA, Supplement, 283. (Pap. VII–2 B 235). Politis offers her own translations from SV3 and Papirer throughout the entire book. 6 Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, p. 19. 7 Ibid., p. 44. 3

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fundamental condition.”8 At this point, Politis commends the meticulous reader, whose patience was thus rewarded with a valuable key to many doors leading to Kierkegaard’s thought. Politis joins an increasing number of scholars claiming that Kierkegaard was never concerned with “going beyond Hegel.”9 Chapter 3 attempts to amend Jean Wahl’s standpoint on Kierkegaard’s relation to Descartes and modern philosophy. To that end, Politis re-examines briefly Hegel’s and Martensen’s different construals of Cartesianism and then turns to a thorough analysis of Kierkegaard’s own interpretation of Descartes. Politis shows that Kierkegaard, beyond any form of anachronism, associates Descartes with the Ancient Greeks,10 looking at Cartesianism through a different lens than the Hegelian one, thus “challenging the systematic interpretation of Cartesian doubt.”11 Chapter 4 aims at revealing the structure of Kierkegaard’s critique of the Hegelian system. Politis considers Kierkegaard’s approach to be a “systematic critique of the system”12 rather than a caricatured rejection, and urges the reader not to see Kierkegaard’s anti-systemic stance as a weak anti-Hegelianism.13 Chapters 5 and 6 help us to grasp the prominent position of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in Kierkegaard’s conceptual mechanism (playing a crucial part not only in Kierkegaard’s own conceptual development of the “paradoxical qualitative leap,”14 for instance, but also in his aesthetic views) and to understand Lessing’s importance as a model for the “subjective thinker” “striving to be den Enkelte, the unique individual.”15 Here, Politis draws attention to a generally ignored note in Kierkegaard’s papers, which describes Lessing as a subjective thinker.16 In her examination of the complex relationship between Kierkegaard and Lessing, Politis points out that Kierkegaard uses Lessing as a major ally against Hegel and even more so against contemporary philosophy,17 which makes Lessing “appear as an excellent antidote to the system.”18 Finally, Politis brings out the implications of her analysis (from Chapter 2) of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Socratic irony in support of her remarks (Chapter 7) regarding Kierkegaard’s unique individual. Politis contrasts Adler’s inauthenticity with the sacrificial model of the paternal infanticide cases of the tragic heroes (Agamemnon, Brutus, and Jephthah), viewed as archetypes of authentic extraordinary Ibid., p. 89. See also Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003, p. 65. 10 Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, p. 127. 11 Ibid., p. 141. 12 Ibid., p. 153. 13 Ibid., p. 158. In his book review, Philippe Soual claims that “Politis destroys a harmful prejudice which makes Kierkegaard an opponent of Hegel,” indicating in fact Kierkegaard’s admiration and constant dialogue with the German philosopher. See Philippe Soual, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 135, no. 2, 2010, p. 294. 14 Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, p. 225. 15 Ibid., p. 268. 16 Ibid., p. 269. Politis refers to Pap. VI B 35, 7. 17 Politis, Le concept de philosophie constamment rapporté à Kierkegaard, p. 208. 18 Ibid., p. 243. 8 9

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individuals. Politis goes on to show that, although “oriented towards the ethical,”19 the tragic heroes ignore the paradox, in contrast with Kierkegaard’s Abraham, who is presented as the “paradigm of Biblical faith”20 and of the “religious paradox.”21 Politis’ concludes by re-emphasizing the creative way in which Kierkegaard attempts to clarify two different perspectives reciprocally, placing one in the light of the other. This can be interpreted as a subtle invitation to do the same when it comes to fathoming the relationships between Kierkegaard himself and various other thinkers. To the persistent reader, Politis offers a plethora of examples and methodological suggestions to pursue this goal. Nicolae Irina

19 20 21

Ibid., p. 290. Ibid., p. 299. Ibid., p. 303.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Cugno, Alain, review in Études: Revue de culture contemporaine, vol. 9, no. 10, 2009, p. 416. Soual, Philippe, review in Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 135, no. 2, 2010, pp. 284–5. Valls, Álvaro Luiz Montenegro, “Sobre a recepção atual das relações de Kierkegaard com Hegel por Helène Politis,” in Anais da XIII Jornada Internacional de Estudos de Kierkegaard da SOBRESKI—Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos de Kierkegaard, vol. 1, no. 1, 2013, pp. 9–19. Valls, Álvaro Luiz Montenegro and Jon Stewart, “Polémica en torno a la figura de Lessing en Kierkegaard,” in El Arco y la Lira. Tensiones y Debates, no. 1, 2013, pp. 25–37.

Henri-Bernard Vergote, Sens et répétition: Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, vols. 1–2 [Meaning and Repetition: Essay on Kierkegaard’s Irony, vols. 1–2],

Paris: Éditions du Cerf/Orante 1982, vol. 1, 385 pp. + vol. 2, 586 pp.

Initially presented as a Habilitation thesis,1 Henri-Bernard Vergote’s magnum opus, Sens et répétition: Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, constitutes one of the first major attempts to present a comprehensive overview of Kierkegaard’s thought to the French reading public, drawing on the Danish texts and most especially on extracts from the Papirer that were then still unknown to many French-language readers.2 As such, Vergote justifies this lengthy study from the “evident necessity to communicate to the current public, in concentrated form, useful and immediately exploitable knowledge,”3 which had hitherto been unavailable to Francophone Kierkegaard scholarship, and to demonstrate the “benefit that we may today still take from”4 a Kierkegaard who, despite his popularity, had still yet “never [been] read” in France.5 As Vergote notes, the true Kierkegaard can only come to light when his work is read as a whole, beginning with The Concept of Irony and ending with The Moment,6 both of which were considered, especially in Francophone scholarship at the time of the work’s publication, to be secondary to Kierkegaard’s authorship. Bringing these works, alongside Kierkegaard’s Papirer and international Kierkegaard scholarship,

Henri-Bernard Vergote, Sens et répétition: essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, vols. 1–3, Thèse, Université de Dijon, 1977 (1154 pp. + 244 pp. appendices). 2 While extracts from Kierkegaard’s journals had been published as early as 1941 (in a five-volume translation by Knud Ferlov and Jean-Jacques Gateau, published under the title Journal: extraits between 1941 and 1961), a complete translation of Kierkegaard’s journals and papers is still being produced. 3 Henri-Bernard Vergote, Sens et répétition: Essai sur l’ironie kierkegaardienne, vols. 1–2, Paris: Editions du Cerf/Orante 1982, vol. 1, p. 13. (The translations from the French for all references to Vergote are our own; all of the references given in the present article are to the published version of the text.) 4 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 14. 5 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 13–14. 6 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 23. 1

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into a comprehensive understanding of Kierkegaard’s philosophical project, Sens et répétition has had a profound impact on Francophone Kierkegaard studies. As Jean Brun remarked, “this thesis constitutes an event and, henceforth, everyone interested in Kierkegaard’s thought and in Christianity will have to refer to it.”7 The publication of Sens et répétition had, especially, the great merit of opening up many yet unexplored areas of Kierkegaard research, especially with regard to the historical and intellectual context of Kierkegaard’s production. Some of these were notably elaborated upon at the Franco-Danish conference Retour de Kierkegaard/Retour à Kierkegaard, organized by Vergote in November 1995 at the Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail, the proceedings of which were published in a special edition of the journal Kairos.8 Drawing on the notion of irony, which Vergote sees as central to all of Kierkegaard’s written productions, Sens et répétition seeks to demonstrate the conceptual rigor and internal coherence of Kierkegaard’s writings as a totality. The work embraces too great a number of themes to be presented within the scope of this article, from an examination of the historical interpretation of Kierkegaard within the French context to the “Danishness” (danité, Danskhed) characteristic of Kierkegaard’s position,9 through the logical problems of truth, meaning, existence, and reality (and their relation to the ethical), and on to the question of the “space one must be in to be in truth.”10 Despite the breadth of these concerns, there is nevertheless a consistent orientation in Vergote’s analysis: the themes of meaning and repetition, which underlie all of Kierkegaard’s productions. These themes are inextricably interwoven with what Vergote sees as “Kierkegaard’s fundamental question,” which as he formulates it, is “How does one move from misunderstanding to faith? Is there really a passage (Overgang)?”11 As Vergote notes, this notion of passage had been overlooked in much Kierkegaard scholarship, and yet is fundamental to understanding how Kierkegaard’s philosophy resituates the question of faith as one of how (Hvorledes) rather than what (Hvad). But as Vergote affirms, these questions can only be fully understood once Kierkegaard is seen as an author who is, from beginning to end, ironic—in other words, once the well-known historical figure has been set aside to leave open the possibility of an encounter with a de te fabula narratur, and Vergote, moreover, emphasizes that “Kierkegaard’s work has no other foundation for its organic unity than this qualitative dialectic as a specific remedy against dizziness.”12 The method employed by Vergote in his study is to “extend the method recommended by G[regor] Malantschuk for reading The Moment to the whole of Kierkegaard’s works,”13 which consists in reading “the polemicist of The Moment as making use of the method described by the philosopher in the dissertation on irony.”14 Jean Brun, review in Les études philosophiques, no. 3, 1985, p. 428. Henri-Bernard Vergote (ed.), Retour de Kierkegaard/Retour à Kierkegaard: Colloque franco-danois, Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail 1997 (Kairos, no. 10). 9 Vergote, Sens et répétition, vol. 1, p. 46. 10 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 504. 11 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 94. 12 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 278. 13 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 513. 14 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 204. See Gregor Malantschuk and Niels Hansen Søe, Søren Kierkegaards kamp mod kirken, Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1956. 7 8

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Vergote maintains that this method not only enables us to understand Kierkegaard’s final polemics as an integral part of his production, and moreover as the necessary conclusion to his earlier works, but also sheds light on the method employed both in the pseudonymous writings and in the signed discourses. Such a method should enable the reader to avoid the pitfalls both of seeking Kierkegaard’s true position in the discourses, and of seeing the pseudonymous authorship as mere literary production, devoid of conceptual rigor—or worse, as Kierkegaard’s way of working through his own psychological torment. Vergote insists on the fact that Kierkegaard is not at all the anti-conceptual thinker he has often been made out to be; to the contrary, Kierkegaard sees “truth” in concepts, but on the condition that one recognize that “the concept is not the being; it is even less the reality of the being-true of the phenomenon. But it is to be found in reality and may be a rule for thought.”15 Beyond this appeal to Malantschuk’s reading of Kierkegaard as an ironist throughout the whole of his productions, Vergote’s aim is to show that in order to see Kierkegaard as a contemporary for modern thought, one must first and foremost understand him in the context of his times. The rather lengthy introduction to the work attempts to situate Kierkegaard both with regard to earlier French readings and to the Danish intellectual and cultural context. While this positioning can certainly be understood with regard to the time of the work’s publication and its destined readership, Kierkegaard scholars today might wish to skip directly to the main body of the text. The first tome includes two major sections, dedicated to how Kierkegaard should properly be read: seeing Kierkegaard through-and-through as an ironist should enable the reader to evacuate all psycho-biographical considerations about the author, and to resituate him within the atopia from which the reader might himself engage in an understanding of the how of individuality or Christianity. Vergote insists on the fact that this position is also necessary fully to take into account Kierkegaard’s philosophy as a theanthropic anthropology, overlooked by the reception of Kierkegaard in France that was eager to see in den Enkelte the ideal of individual uniqueness or absolute singularity. In the second tome of the work, also comprised of two major sections, Vergote elaborates upon the concepts and readings drawn out in the first part in order to establish a reading of Kierkegaard’s “second philosophy,”16 which he also applies to readings and interpretations of the earlier works, both the discourses and the pseudonymous texts. Vergote insists on the importance of redoubling, both with regard to the structure of Kierkegaard’s philosophy and to its content. The notion of the meaningfulness of religious discourse is explored with regard to the question of the position of the speaker, examined in its ontological as well as its ethical dimensions. Kierkegaard’s ontology is presented here as interwoven with logical and epistemological questions relative to true affirmations and true being, and particular emphasis is given to the intermediary passages, or leaps, which Vergote sees as central to Kierkegaard’s conceptual structure. As Vergote notes, “if this concept [secunda philosophia] appears late in Kierkegaard’s works, it is nonetheless thereby the site in which all of the fundamental themes of the works are gathered together 15 16

Vergote, Sens et répétition, vol. 1, p. 375. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 245ff.

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in their most profound unity.”17 The concluding chapter of the work focuses on how irony as a method opens up a place for subversion, a nothingness (rien) which is at the same time openness in which the individual can find “the courage (Mod) to be and the patience (Taalmod) to think.”18 Though the reader may not find Vergote’s methods or conclusions entirely convincing, the efforts by which the author seeks to situate Kierkegaard in the historical and intellectual context of his times, but also with regard to the internal coherence of the works, open up a great number of areas for further research and reflection. One of the great merits of the work is that it demonstrates that sound research on the history of Kierkegaard’s philosophy does not estrange us from contemporary philosophical questions, but rather reveals a Kierkegaard of surprising modernity. Despite the fact that some of the analyses drawn out by Vergote may seem outdated or foreign to contemporary Kierkegaard scholars, Sens et répétition remains an invaluable contribution to Kierkegaard studies, and an incredibly rich presentation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. Most notably, this work provides insightful and pertinent analyses of Kierkegaard’s logic and epistemology: two fields which today still remain under-exploited within the vast domain of Kierkegaard research. The work is of particular interest to scholars working in the traditionally analytic fields on questions of meaning, discourse, and narrative unity, especially insofar as it opens up the possibility of dialogue with philosophers such as Wittgenstein, but while maintaining a sound Kierkegaardian understanding of these questions. More generally, given the breadth and depth of Vergote’s study, all Kierkegaard researchers will find something valuable to take away from this reading. Mélissa Fox-Muraton

17 18

Ibid., vol. 2, p. 307. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 546.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Brun, Jean, review in Les études philosophiques, no. 3, 1985, pp. 428–30. Delfgauuw, Bernard, review in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, no. 3, 1884, pp. 517–18. Fruchon, Pierre, review in Archives de Philosophie, vol. 51, no. 2, 1988, pp. 341–7. Kemp, Peter, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 13, 1984, pp. 179–82. Naert, Émilienne, review in Revue Philosophique de Louvain, vol. 81, no. 52, 1983, pp. 647–8. Viallaneix, Nelly, “Chroniques kierkegaardiennes,” Revue philosophiques de France et de l’étranger, vol. 173, no. 3, 1983, pp. 323–8; see pp. 325–8.

Nelly Viallaneix, Kierkegaard. L’unique devant Dieu [Kierkegaard: The Single Individual before God], Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1974, 190 pp.

Nelly Viallaneix’s study, Kierkegaard: L’unique devant Dieu, was published by Éditions du Cerf of Paris in 1974. This work should be considered very important because its aim is to provide an overview of a darker and quite unknown side of Kierkegaard’s thought as it resounds in his papers, journals, Christian and upbuilding discourses, that is, his non-pseudonymous production. Initially it may seem curious that Viallaneix appears to underestimate Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. Yet she intends to draw attention to Kierkegaard’s religious writings and emphasize that these are not merely a part of his works, but rather the quintessential message. Through the religious writings, Kierkegaard encourages us to take a different path than the usual one: a back road. However, we tend to ignore his struggle to rediscover authentic Christianity, whose followers, according to Viallaneix, ought to say: “Let’s hurry up and listen.”1 If Kierkegaard’s voice really had been heard, we would have realized that he urges us not to confuse himself with the fictitious authors of his pseudonymous books. Kierkegaard always wanted to be a religious writer as he records over and over in The Point of View for My Work as an Author and also in journals and papers. How should we listen to and fulfill the message of Christianity in practice? First of all, he tells us that the relationship with God is communication. In order to have a dialogue with us, God reveals himself in Christ and brings into being a new creature called “(hin) Enkelte”—a category, which Viallaneix prefers to translate as “the unique” instead of “the individual” or “the singular” as per usual. But this relationship is very special: it is a filial relationship not based on nature but on spiritual freedom because only divine goodness renders the unique independent. This way, God/Father grants us the promise of freedom which essentially does not belong to human nature: it is a gift, or rather grace. Paternity and love must be learned from God. This paternal love is “the only firm and unbreakable thing in life, the true

1

Nelly Viallaneix, Kierkegaard. L’unique Devant Dieu, Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1974, p. 24.

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Archimedean point.”2 God is love, but concrete love, love as action, not an abstract idea of love. That is why, in a journal entry from May 18, 1838, Kierkegaard writes: There is an indescribable joy that glows all through us just as inexplicably as the apostle’s unmotivated exclamation: “Rejoice, and again I say, Rejoice.” —Not a joy over this or that, but a full-bodied shout of the soul “with mouth and lip and heart so deep”: “I rejoice at my joy, of, in, with, at, upon, and with my joy”—a heavenly refrain which as though suddenly interrupts our other songs, a joy which like a breath of air cools and refreshes, a puff from the trade winds that blow across the plains of Mamre to the eternal mansions.3

This refrain that interrupts any other singing, as Kierkegaard puts it, is not something you can take from somebody else’s hand. Only you can hear it, with your own ear. Kierkegaard’s name is often related to the modern construction of self-identity, which should be acquired through the activities of the self and not through the reliance on God. Contrary to this, Viallaneix does not insist upon the importance of subjectivity but upon the voice of God: “Shema, Yisrael!” This Hebrew verb has three different implications: “hear,” “listen,” and “obey.” In a religious sense, hearing is quintessential for the unique, because it is God who speaks to him, so he has to listen to the calling with his own ears—the calling, which cannot be forgotten once he has heard it.4 This way, every possibility of philosophical speculation and intellectual contemplation is excluded. Nevertheless, we do not want to listen to the word of God because his forgiveness of our sins reminds us of our sins. In fact, we only become aware of sin before God. Speculation is unable to conceive of it. There is no interest in God making saints out of sinners. Only the sufferings of Christ allow us to discover the horror of the sin, something ignored by paganism and avoided by those who call themselves Christians. But it is not a question of being related indefinitely and painfully to the sin. What is really decisive is reconciliation. However, anguish and despair in Kierkegaard’s works are often emphasized, but the one needful thing, listening to the word of God, is always forgotten, for nobody wants to believe that sin has already been forgiven. We, the sinners, are deaf (dumme, that is, deaf and stupid),5 and so we think that faith is absurd (in Latin, ab-surdus, that is, deaf ). Therefore, the absurd is a dissonance coming from deafness. The absurd is not something irrational, contrary to reason, but something implausible, the paradox. It is not at all nonsensical, as many philosophers have clumsily inferred. Believing is leaping to the absurd and moving away from what reason has to offer. What is decisive is not related to an order of doctrine but to an order of faith: neither philosophy, theology, nor history can help us to believe. According to Kierkegaard, only in the situation of contemporaneity with Ibid., p. 24. SKS 17, 254–5, DD:113 / KJN 1, 245–6. Quoted by Viallaneix, Kierkegaard. L’unique Devant Dieu, p. 29. 4 Cf. Søren Kierkegaard, Hâte-toi d’écouter, Quatre discours édifiants de 1843, trans. by Nelly Viallaneix, Paris: Aubier 1970, quoted by the author in Kierkegaard. L’unique Devant Dieu, p. 33. 5 Viallaneix, Kierkegaard. L’unique Devant Dieu, p. 42. 2 3

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Christ can the believer relate to the possibility of “the offense” of faith, which should result in the imitation of his life so that one can really become a believer. Consequently, the decisive choice is not whether to doubt or to believe. Everyone must either believe in Christ or be offended or scandalized by him: this is the dialectic of faith. This dialectic belongs to the realm of experience, not the realm of science. Becoming a Christian is not a permanent state of being (one cannot be born a Christian) but a continuous task, which lasts one’s whole life. Only the unique one can become a Christian. That is why Kierkegaard avoided considering himself a true Christian. He even denied being one. Contemporaneity with Christ is the principle and the beginning of our own personal history, for thereby we are allowed to be free spirits. As a result, the task of our freedom is repetition, recovery, and restoration (Gjentagelse). Eternal salvation should not only have to be decided in time, but also the initial decision should be recovered by renewed actions which allow hope to appear. The sickness unto death, which the pseudonym Anti-Climacus calls “despair,” can and must be cured by obedience, the ear of faith, that is, the recuperation of the word of God. Obedience is the answer to God’s love and nothing less. And the answer to his love lies precisely in the imitation of Christ. Without that imitation, there is no Christianity at all. Christianity degenerates into mythology and dogma. However, this task is very hard to achieve, because it is impossible for anyone if divine help and grace are missing. The most serious risk is that aesthetic relationships could reappear in the religious sphere and consequently man is still the center of his own universe at the expense of the God-man. The dialectic of faith takes place on two inseparable fronts. One of them, the relationship with God, is internal. The other one, the fight against men, is external. The unique one can only exist by means of the relationship to which God invites him, whereby the believer must love his neighbor. Having received grace, he who wants to become a Christian cannot keep the good news of salvation to himself; he must speak up, because God’s love is inseparable from the love of his neighbor. It is not possible for a man to love another deeply in an immediate way. He is too content to recognize that he has a neighbor. He has to renounce himself, suffer and even “die” (afdø) from all earthly joy. Only in this way can we start talking about love of neighbor, not as an abstract, impersonal love of humanity but as a tangible, concrete, and real love of the neighbor. This is the only sign by which one recognizes a follower of Christ. Therefore, when one has accepted the filial relationship, it instantly opens up to a fraternal relationship based on the words of Christ: your sins are forgiven. These words are able to transmit every suffering into joy. “The joy, then, is that it is eternally certain that God is love.”6 But even if God stands by his word, in Jesus Christ, he remains hidden, incognito, refusing to reveal His divinity, taking the form of a slave, and appearing in the ultimate degree of humiliation. This remains a folly to the Gentiles and an offense to the Jews, so only faith may recognize the divine glory behind the veil of abasement.

6

SKS 8, 375 / UD, 279.

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There is no direct communication, not even for the disciples on the way to Emmaus, who could not realize who was walking beside them. To make us understand this rift, this fissure, which neither a psychological, philosophical, nor theological system can make go away despite endless attempts, Kierkegaard thought it was time to take action. Having always wanted to be a voice for reminding people of the message of Christ as opposed to being considered an extraordinary individual, he, on the eve of his death, in 1855, believed he had to sacrifice himself for the truth. The man hidden behind the various pseudonyms, behind the mask of the poet or the maieutic art, felt forced to reveal the priesthood as oratorical frauds rather than true Christian preachers. His last action to defend the truth and attack the betrayal perpetrated by the established church was to speak directly through the violent pamphlets of The Moment. Before publishing the tenth issue of the broadsheet, he collapsed because of distress and died on November 11, 1855, just 42 years old, “in peace before God,” as Kierkegaard himself declared to his friend Emil Boesen at hospital.7 Perhaps that is why Nelly Viallaneix considered Kierkegaard a witness of truth and why Ludwig Wittgenstein called him “a saint.”8 Anna Fioravanti and Carlos Raúl Cordero

7 8

p. ix.

Viallaneix, L’Unique devant Dieu, p. 182. Quoted from Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982,

Reviews and Critical Discussions Vergote, Henri-Bernard, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10, 1977, pp. 353–5.

III. Secondary Literature in Galician

Oscar Parcero Oubiña, Søren Kierkegaard, A Coruña: Baía Edicións 2009 (Baía Pensamento, vol. 33), 135 pp.

Written in memory of Rafael Larrañeta, this is a work by a scholar who somehow continues with the former’s task of presenting “Kierkegaard’s real face”1 in Spain, yet this time to the Galician reader. In contrast to the one-sided Catholic or existentialist readings typical of the Spanish research tradition, Oscar Parcero strives to give, in this small-format book of only 135 pages, an up-to-date and accurate portrait of Kierkegaard’s life and thought. This is an enterprise that seems to require that the author row upstream “to become unfamiliar with certain previous ideas and…become familiar with the ‘new ones.’ ”2 Moreover, this happens to be the first introduction to Kierkegaard in Galician, which, together with his Galician translation of a Kierkegaard work,3 also the first, makes Parcero’s endeavor an already significant contribution. Søren Kierkegaard belongs to a series of introductions to philosophers aimed primarily at students.4 This is a relevant piece of information, if we consider the status too often given to Kierkegaard in the history of philosophy: a long footnote to Hegelian or existentialist philosophy. This introduction, however, chooses not to continue along this path and instead turns the image upside down and presents the Danish philosopher as a major figure in his own right. It is worth mentioning that the book follows the structure common to all the titles in the series, which consists of a chronological table, an account of the life and thought of the philosopher, a brief anthology of texts, a glossary and, finally, a selected bibliography. Here an exception is made, though. The author says in the preface that he will be giving a little more attention than usual to the biography in order to give an account of the textual dimension Kierkegaard’s life has in his work: “Kierkegaard’s biography is much more than the author’s life story outside of the

Rafael Larrañeta, “El verdadero rostro de Kierkegaard,” Revista de Filosofia, vol. 10, no. 18, 1997, pp. 83–112. 2 Oscar Parcero Oubiña, Søren Kierkegaard, A Coruña: Baía Edicións 2009, p. 12. 3 Nicolaus Notabene [Søren Kierkegaard], Prólogos. Lectura lixeira para certos estamentos segundo tempo e ocasión, trans. by Oscar Parcero Oubiña, Vigo: Galaxia 2008. It is worth stressing the fact that Parcero published this translation of Prefaces in Galician crediting Nicolaus Notabene as the author, which constitutes an interesting novelty in the field of Kierkegaard’s editions. 4 Baía Pensamento, vol. 33.

1

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work…it is first an integral part of it.”5 Nevertheless, the biographical account takes pains to get rid of the novelistic approach and offer the reader, instead, a more distanced depiction, one that can put the student on an academic path rather than a romantic one. A good example of this can be found at the very beginning, where the story of Kierkegaard’s father is explained. Parcero refers to this as “a story that the once fashionable psychologizing and romanticizing readings to a large extent turned into legend,”6 adding in a footnote that Kierkegaard himself was in large part responsible for this “mythologizing.” Right after the biography we find a chapter that deserves some special attention; it is just a few pages, but it nonetheless may easily represent an improvement in the reader’s grasp of Kierkegaard. Instead of the reference to the Hegelian philosophy that one might expect, “A obra de Kierkegaard no seu contexto” (Kierkegaard’s Work in its Context) introduces the reader to those other figures who were important for Kierkegaard’s work but most likely unknown to the reader: Heiberg and Martensen on the intellectual side, and Mynster or Grundtvig on the religious. The names of Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schelling, or Schlegel are, of course, also mentioned, but since the reader is presumably already familiar with them, the attention is focused on the Danes. Once the context is set, the next chapter daringly attempts to summarize the philosophy of Kierkegaard, which is presented in about half the length of the book. Revealing an underlying personal interpretation, a first point about Kierkegaard’s thought is made under the title “O lugar da filosofía: A negatividade” (The Place of Philosophy: Negativity). Parcero argues that the whole philosophical endeavor of Kierkegaard has to do with negativity or, in other words, with a “Socratic project” that aims to give nothing, but only to take away.7 In the historical polemics between faith and reason, with truth on the side of faith, Kierkegaard would have chosen neither to embrace reason nor to reject it, but “a kind of intermediate way that was far from conciliatory.”8 Following this kind of preliminary clarification, “A  obra e as obras de Kierkegaard” (The Work and Works of Kierkegaard) goes on to deal with the philosophical production, organized into five groups and introduced by a list of Kierkegaard’s works, as well as the journals and papers. It goes without saying that this register will be of great help to students, since they will find here the whole production arranged chronologically, each book with its translated and original Danish title, date of publication, and a few lines of commentary. As for the aforementioned five groups, the first one corresponds to The Concept of Irony, which is presented as an isolated element that lays the foundations of the whole Forfatter-Virksomhed or “activity as an author.” The second group, “a produción estética” (The Aesthetic Production), focuses on Either/Or, Fear and Trembling and Stages on Life’s Way, and aims to explain to the reader Kierkegaard’s play on texts, paying attention to the distinction between what the text says and 5 6 7 8

Oubiña, Søren Kierkegaard, p. 13. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid.

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how it is said. This is followed by the third section, namely, what Parcero calls the philosophy of Johannes Climacus, which obviously concentrates on the works of this central pseudonymous author. Next comes “A psicoloxía kierkegaardiana” (The Kierkegaardian Psychology), which expounds Kierkegaard’s understanding of the human being, or Spirit, based on what the author depicts as the “psychological trilogy”: The Concept of Anxiety, The Sickness unto Death, and Practice in Christianity. Last but not least, the section entitled “Os puntos de vista” (The Points of View) analyzes very briefly Kierkegaard’s self-referential texts, such as the paradigmatic The Point of View. After a chapter on Kierkegaard’s intellectual legacy, a brief selection of texts and a useful glossary of some 20 main terms, Parcero ends his introduction with a bibliography—as a guide for further reading—that covers both primary and secondary sources in a very concise and helpful way. To conclude, we could say that, although Oscar Parcero’s book might at first glance be seen as yet another study of Kierkegaard’s life and work written for those who want to have a panoramic view of the Dane, it is also something else. It is, in the first place, an introduction created with a view to giving a complete and unbiased updated presentation of Kierkegaard as a philosopher; but, in addition, it is the first one custom-made for the Galician reader, on grounds not only of the language but also of the particular points of reference used here and there by the author when introducing the work of the Dane. And this certainly makes a difference. Dolors Perarnau Vidal

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

IV. Secondary Literature in German

Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal, Die Wiederholung der Philosophie. Kierkegaards Kulturkritik und ihre Folgen

[The Repetition of Philosophy: Kierkegaard’s Cultural Criticism and its Consequences], Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 2015 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 32), 298 pp.

Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal’s study, Die Wiederholung der Philosophie. Kierkegaards Kulturkritik und ihre Folgen, is a revised version of her dissertation in philosophy at the University of Kiel, Germany from 2014. It was published as volume 32 in the Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, published by De Gruyter with Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge as series editors. As the title indicates, Becker-Lindenthal’s main interest is in Kierkegaard as a philosopher of culture and more precisely a philosopher of culture critique. BeckerLindenthal follows the path of Karl Löwith’s study, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, first published in 1941,1 translated into English by David E. Green in 1964 as From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in 19th Century Thought.2 Löwith placed the thinking of Kierkegaard in relation to the movement of the Young Hegelians in the German intellectual landscape of the 1840s. Becker-Lindenthal develops Löwith’s thesis further. Kierkegaard’s thinking is interpreted in relation to the German Young Hegelians such as Bruno Bauer, Moses Hess, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, and August von Cieszkowski. What unites Kierkegaard with the young Hegelians is the endeavor to do philosophy after philosophy. Becker-Lindenthal emphasizes the young Hegelian movement as striving to develop alternative methods and means of writing philosophy as a reaction to the philosophical system erected by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Thereby they reformulated the objective of philosophy into a philosophy of action (Philosophie der Tat)—a Karl Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, vol. 4, in Sämtliche Schriften, vols. 1–9, ed. by Klaus Stichweh, Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1981–88. 2 Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in 19th Century Thought, trans. by David E. Green, New York: Columbia University Press 1964. 1

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designation borrowed above all from Hess’ 1843 publication of the same name but further developed by Horst Stuke.3 Here the similarities and differences between Kierkegaard and the Young Hegelians are evident. Kierkegaard’s understanding of philosophy as deed aims at existentially moving and unsettling the reader. It is not concerned with a political program or a promise to root out alienation. Becker-Lindenthal is careful from the start to point out that Kierkegaard would be misunderstood if he were simply interpreted as “Marx’s brother in spirit.”4 Even so, Kierkegaard’s reaction to the superficial traits in bourgeois culture as well as to the epigone continuation of the systematic endeavors of Hegel, exemplified through the university philosophy in Denmark in the 1840s, made him a Danish affiliate to the Young Hegelian movement. The particular wringing with the philosophical form and the possible philosophical content in post-Hegelian times is convincingly displayed as a common trait between Kierkegaard and the Young Hegelians. In the comparative reading of Kierkegaard and the Young Hegelians, BeckerLindenthal displays how the attentive reading of the literary presentation of philosophy may locate differences in view. She highlights how the post-Hegelian philosophy took issue with Hegel’s view of the assignment of philosophy as retrospective reflection. Hegel employed the metaphor of the Owl of Minerva in order to argue that the endeavors of philosophy mature in the backward glance and understanding of what has been. Against this the Young Hegelians and Kierkegaard alike reacted with a “regular metaphor swarm of day-active birds to underline the prophetical, life-affirmative, and energetic character of the new philosophy. Eagles, roosters, and songbirds are brought in position against the owl.”5 But where the Young Hegelians chose bird metaphors with heroic or fighting spirit connotations, Kierkegaard identified with the curlew, numenius arquata, a bird only seen in times of violent weather. Becker-Lindenthal emphasizes how Kierkegaard’s bird metaphor is directed at emphasizing the individual effort needed to liberate oneself from the existential amnesia of the bourgeois culture of the nineteenth century. Thus, Kierkegaard, in accord with the Young Hegelians, considers the individual’s alienation. But Kierkegaard does not suggest any future-oriented community efforts either in the species being or in the proletariat. Rather Kierkegaard’s writings are meant to “bring the reader into motion.”6 The route to argue this point involves interpreting Kierkegaard’s writings as critique of culture as well as critique of philosophy. Kierkegaard’s critique of culture shows that cultural development is impossible to restore to some past golden age (what Becker-Lindenthal calls its post-restitutive character),7 and it is dialectical 3 Horst Stuke, Philosophie der Tat. Studien zur Verwirklichung der Philosophie bei den Junghegelianern und den Wahren Sozialisten, Stuttgart: Klett 1963. Moses Hess, “Philosophie der Tat,” in Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz, ed. by Georg Herwegh, Zürich: Verlag des Literarischen Comptoirs 1843, pp. 309–31. 4 Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal, Die Wiederholung der Philosophie. Kierkegaards Kulturkritik und ihre Folgen, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 2015, p. 37. (All translations are by the author.) 5 Ibid., p. 264. 6 Ibid., p. 220. 7 Ibid., pp. 119–23.

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in the sense that there is neither a route leading back nor the possibility of standing still. Only through the numerous forms of despair can the existential amnesia of modern culture be overcome. The critique of philosophy, on the other hand, displays the ideal of a philosophical completion as speculative blasphemy in which being a practicing Christian is misunderstood as a matter of right thinking.8 As alternative to this double-framed critique of respectively contemporary culture and contemporary philosophy, Becker-Lindenthal argues that Kierkegaard develops a philosophy of repetition. It turns reading into an activity with existential tenors. The repetition is Kierkegaard’s method of existential reading. It relies on literary figures in the philosophical text as well as on arousing moods such as boredom in the reader. The method aims to incite an existential reading that impels the reader to repeat himself or herself as an altered self through the process of reading.9 The methodological approach of Becker-Lindenthal is consciously pluralistic. Situating the study of Kierkegaard in the tradition of Löwith’s reading of Kierkegaard as a Young Hegelian, Becker-Lindenthal also employs the German tradition of philosophy of culture. References to Hans Blumenberg, Ralf Konersmann, and Georg Bollenbeck prove a substantial ground for understanding Kierkegaard as a philosopher of culture. Thus, Becker-Lindenthal borrows the central image of “philosophizing after philosophy” from Konersmann,10 and her interpretation of Kierkegaard as a philosopher of culture owes much to this tradition. This interpretation strategy is followed up by a comprehensive discussion of the specific research literature on Kierkegaard as well as extensive references to the writings of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries. Becker-Lindenthal’s proficiency in reading Danish supports and substantiates her interpretative effort of understanding Kierkegaard as a culture critic of his times. To warrant this line in the overall interpretation, Becker-Lindenthal refers to Dieter Henrich’s idea of constellation research as it has been employed by Jon Stewart in contextualizing Kierkegaard as a voice within the constellation of voices in 1840s Copenhagen.11 Drawing upon insights of such contextual readings, Becker-Lindenthal strives to bring forth the specifically modern traits of Kierkegaard’s authorship. This is done with reference to Jacques Derrida and his theory of dissemination.12 To emphasize the performativity of Kierkegaard’s authorship, Becker-Lindenthal employs Derrida’s contention that philosophy and literature are closely connected because language as such is haunted by diffusion, absence, and the risk of loss of meaning. She excavates the performativity of repetition throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship in the pseudonymous as well as edifying writings and journal notes. In the multifaceted interpretation of Becker-Lindenthal the ambiguities of Kierkegaard’s texts turn into a specific philosophical method. For example, in the figure of Socrates Becker-Lindenthal displays how Kierkegaard’s philosophical method is See the chapter “Weitergegangen? Spekulation als Blasphemie,” in ibid., pp. 133–8. See the chapter “Die Wiederholung als Lektüre, die Lektüre als Wiederholung,” in ibid., pp. 196–202. 10 See ibid., p. 8. 11 See ibid., pp. 15–16. 12 See ibid., pp. 168ff. 8 9

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one of disturbing the reader. In the nineteenth century it was not possible to repeat Socrates’ way of living philosophically. Alternatively, Kierkegaard sets forth to develop a way of writing philosophy that will awaken the reader from existential amnesia. The strange and self-contradictory composition of metaphors in the depiction of Socrates’ maieutic is interpreted as Kierkegaard’s way of repeating the philosophical endeavor of Socrates, even to turn it into action.13 Kierkegaard is not to be blamed for catachresis or to be read in a straightforward manner. On the contrary, the disturbing compilations of metaphors are employed in order to turn the philosophical text into an existential struggle that forces the reader to choose. The rich methodological approach makes it possible coincidentally to show Kierkegaard as a thinker along the current of thought of the Young Hegelians, as a philosopher of performativity, as philosopher of culture who criticizes bourgeois culture for its calculating cleverness in handling life, as critic of the excessive faith in rationality exemplified in Hegelian systematic philosophy, as well as a reformer of Christianity. As to Kierkegaard’s complex understanding of Christian faith, BeckerLindenthal undertakes to establish how Kierkegaard, in the edifying discourse “One Who Prays Aright Struggles in Prayer and is Victorious—in that God is Victorious” (1844), productively interprets Meister Eckhart in order to hint at the right understanding of the relation between reflection and the leap of faith as the vita activa. The main argument is that even though the kenosis of self-emptying is requisite as part of the double movement of faith, the rebirth in God returns the individual to the finitude of human existence.14 Becker-Lindenthal discloses nuances in the relation between reflection and faith in the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s discourse in close connection to Hans Lassen Martensen’s discussion of Eckhart as well as to modern research literature, but most of all through her sensitivity towards Kierkegaard’s literary presentation. Becker-Lindenthal develops an original interpretation of Kierkegaard as a philosopher of culture. As such, the book should be of interest to Kierkegaard scholars along with readers interested in the philosophy of culture and post-Hegelian philosophy. Esther Oluffa Pedersen

13 14

See ibid., p. 218. See ibid., p. 243.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Tilman Beyrich, Ist Glauben wiederholbar? Derrida liest Kierkegaard [Is Faith Repeatable? Derrida Reads Kierkegaard],

Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2001 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 6), vi + 398 pp.

The present study, which earned its author a theological doctorate at the University of Greifswald, is one of the first German monographs to offer a comprehensive account of the relation between Kierkegaard’s authorship and (the theological implications of ) postmodernism, in particular: the philosophy of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). Tilman Beyrich’s enquiry is motivated by a more ambitious goal than the mere retracing of direct lines of reception; based on the assertion that not only superficial, but rather “more profound connections”1 between Derrida’s and Kierkegaard’s thought are recognizable, the author, on one hand, intends a “rereading of Kierkegaard from Derrida’s perspective,”2 and, on the other hand, a “reading of Derrida from Kierkegaard’s point of view.”3 However, a quick glance both at Beyrich’s fundamental methodological decisions and the content of the study as a whole, reveals that his statement of intention promises too much, whereas the book’s subtitle (“Derrida Reads Kierkegaard”) promises too little: with the demonstration of “profound connections” between the two thinkers certainly more than a merely direct, but still less than a reciprocal reception study (which, under the given circumstances, would only be hypothetically reconstructible, anyway) is offered. Furthermore, it is not without a certain irony that Beyrich’s book found its place in the Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, although its author freely admits that one can hardly call his study a genuine “contribution to Kierkegaard research” in any stricter sense.4 This somewhat confusing divergence of communicative form and content seems to Tilman Beyrich, Ist Glauben wiederholbar? Derrida liest Kierkegaard, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2001 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series 6), p. 5; all translations from Beyrich’s book are my own. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p. 18. 1

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expose the reader to a deliberate deconstructive disruption of expectation right at the beginning of the book.5 After a detailed Introduction6 describing Kierkegaard as the “Socrates of postmodernism” and placing him beforehand in relation to Derrida’s challenge to contemporary theology, Beyrich’s extensive investigation (369 pages plus bibliography and index) spells out in great detail the aforementioned connections between both thinkers in three parts. In light of the thesis that neither Kierkegaard nor Derrida takes any pains to found a new doctrine, of whatever nature, but, on the contrary, are interested in the “avoidance of any doctrine,” the two chapters of Part I are an attempt to show that Derrida’s focus on the conditions of both the possibility and the boundaries of writing finds its Kierkegaardian counterpart not only in its skillful execution, but also and primarily in the theoretical reflections about the meaning, function and importance of literary style in matters of communication.7 In this context Beyrich focuses the discussion on a thesis which seems to be the most interesting throughout the whole book, at least in terms of its theological implications: He maintains “that the question of style in Kierkegaard…is [not only] fitted to his theological intention and literary gift, but also generates essential decisions in his theology.”8 The extensive and topically centered Part II consists of Chapters 3–59 and offers a detailed interpretation of Donner la mort (1992),10 that is, the book in which Derrida explicitly and extensively refers to Kierkegaard, in particular to Fear and Trembling. Under the heading, “Kierkegaard’s Repetition,” Chapter 6 discusses Derrida’s concept of “religion without religion” and his principal challenge to Christian theology (as does Part III).11 Beyrich’s brief Afterword12 invokes Kierkegaard’s warning against the “urge to go further,” thereby seeking to disempower the obvious objection that the book stops “at the foreword”13 instead of pushing on to the theological “things themselves”;14 it does so by pointing to the inevitably “preliminary character of anything like theology.”15 Beyrich’s inquiry is overall convincing wherever, beyond a mere demonstration of Derrida’s direct references to Kierkegaard, the author succeeds in bringing certain (sit venia verbo) “central ideas” of the former into a common perspective with the latter’s thoughts and theorems, such that the rereading of the Danish thinker inspired by deconstructionism actually shows substantial parallels between his work and that of Cf. ibid., p. 363. Cf. ibid., pp. 1–20. 7 Cf. ibid., pp. 21–127. 8 Ibid., pp. 9–10; cf. pp. 20–1; p. 52; p. 75. 9 Cf. ibid., pp. 129–319. 10 Jacques Derrida, “Donner la mort,” in L’Ethique du don: Jacques Derrida et la pensée du don: Colloque de Royaumont, décembre 1990, ed. by Jean-Michel Rabaté and Michael Wetzel, Paris: Métailié-Transition 1992, pp. 11–108. Later this was published as an independent monograph: Donner la mort, Paris: Éditions Galilée 1999. 11 Beyrich, Ist Glauben wiederholbar? Derrida liest Kierkegaard, pp. 321–65. 12 Cf. ibid., pp. 367–9. 13 Ibid., p. 368. 14 Cf. ibid., p. 18 and p. 363. 15 Ibid., p. 369. 5 6

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Derrida. That this attempt is not always crowned with success is due at least in part to certain methodological shortcomings. The overall architecture of the book remains in certain parts opaque, and the perspicuity of the argumentation is impaired by repeated digressions. Beyrich’s conclusion,16 in which the fruits of his rereading are concisely summarized, does much to make up for this. I cite the four most important results, the first of which concerns the book’s central question (Is faith repeatable?). With this formulation, admittedly at first somewhat strange, Beyrich alludes to Fear and Trembling, specifically to Kierkegaard’s question, whether a “[re-]appropriation of… Christian faith under the circumstances of his time” is possible or not.17 As a matter of fact this question remains unanswered in Kierkegaard; however, according to Beyrich the theological point lies precisely here. That it “remains uncertain…whether that faith be repeatable,” creates “precisely that freedom for repetition with which Kierkegaard is chiefly concerned”;18 as such it does not call for the mere remembrance of a purportedly original and normatively established “essence of Christianity,” but rather for a “self-responsible reinvention of faith by each individual…in his or her own existence.”19 In the author’s opinion this conclusion has far-reaching parallels in Derrida’s central deconstructionist concerns. In the most general terms, a grammatology grown out of a critique of Western logo- or phonocentrism no longer builds the semantics of language signs upon any transcendental significat, but rather upon the process of endless “supplements,” a process, within which meaning can never be fixed once and for all, but only preliminarily, in a never-ending deferment (différance) or by virtue of mere “traces” of something irretrievable. This applies also and paradigmatically to the concept of religion. Insofar as it can be determined in its individual character by its being dependent on the tradition of sacred texts, it necessarily entails the “willingness for new interpretation and description of tradition”;20 for only then does religious faith have the chance “to remain faith: namely, risk, decision and responsibility before God, the entirely other.”21 This formulation leads to the second central aspect, which Beyrich summarizes under the heading “God and Mystery.” In and with that form of religious faith, for which the Kierkegaardian Abraham is a model (especially in “Problema III” of Fear and Trembling), God only comes into play where the individual can “keep a… secret between himself and God”;22 and yet, precisely by willing to leave behind any relieving mediation of an ecclesiastical and/or social public, the individual deserves to be called individual in the fullest sense. Derrida reinforces and surpasses this idea with an interpretation of faith which explains it as a relation to God which “leaves open who this god is.”23 From the perspective of religious faith God appears only as a name or place holder for the “totally other,” which as such escapes all generalizing 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Cf. ibid., pp. 352–65. Ibid., p. 353. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 354. Ibid., p. 355. Ibid. Ibid., p. 356.

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representations, whereas the term “faith” stands for the “experience of unappropriatable otherness in general.”24 The third comparative aspect refers to Kierkegaard’s critique of ethico-religious teleology. The leap of faith as such expresses a transgression of all salvation-historical speculations: The believer “does not make an exchange in any respect, but…gives without any in order to.”25 Derrida again surpasses this “transeconomic” structure of faith by means of what is called a “thinking of the gift.”26 On one hand, the logic of the gift entails an absolute asymmetry in the (duty-)relation of man to God; on the other hand, it functions as the basis for a far-reaching claim about the problem of death in the history of Western philosophy: According to Derrida, Western thought from Socrates to Heidegger can be read as a misdirected attempt to “give death” (donner la mort) to oneself, that is, to endow death with a meaning (more exactly, an “economically” distorted meaning) which ignores the fundamental fact that death can only be conceived of as an absolute gift, as an “overtaxation with no return, without…any predictability.”27 A fourth aspect of comparison integrates this diagnosis into the context of what can be labeled the “ethics of the gift.” The fundamental idea of such an ethics can only be accentuated paradoxically, namely, in terms of a “moral of morals.” Whereas, according to Fear and Trembling, the ethical qua universal is teleologically suspended only in exceptional cases and by virtue of a genuinely religious movement, Derrida holds that the ethical as such already and paradoxically enough begins “beyond the ‘universal’: wherever we deal with the demand of ‘the other,’ we are always already involved in Abraham’s paradox.”28 It is already the ethical perspective as such which confronts the individual with the disquieting possibility that “every other is the entirely other” (tout autre est tout autre), that is, the other, to whom we are absolutely obliged against all exchange economy. Thus ethics as such is to be plagued by the very dilemma which Kierkegaard had reserved for ethicoreligious border conflicts alone: There is “no righteousness without that unconditional, incalculable, universally unjustifiable opening vis-à-vis the entirely other.”29 The moral imperative, and a fortiori its fulfillment, always already begin beyond and necessarily remain in irreconcilable tension with any rationally universalizable duty. Beyrich’s study has, without a doubt, considerable merit in many respects. First, it tackles a theologically promising and hitherto insufficiently researched topic. Second, it documents an impressive familiarity with the pertinent primary and secondary literature. Third, the author not only shows an extraordinary feel for the stylistic nuances and idiosyncrasies of his sources, but he also integrates his respective observations convincingly into the overarching argumentative structure of his book.30 Fourth and finally, he puts forward a thesis which is both stimulating and theologically 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ibid., p. 357. Ibid., p. 358. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 358–9. Ibid., p. 360. Ibid., p. 361; my emphasis. Cf. ibid., pp. 43–50; pp. 108ff.

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far-reaching. It is this very thesis, however, which, on the other hand, appears to be based on and to promote a foreshortened picture of Kierkegaard. The claim that the latter’s communicative forms “generate” fundamental decisions in his theology31 still, if tacitly, presupposes and involuntarily ascribes to the authorship that very doctrinal content, which, according to Beyrich, had been abandoned by Kierkegaard. Moreover, Beyrich’s thesis does not seem to do full justice to Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity, for the latter obviously holds fast to a “transcendental” (more exactly, eschatological) significat of the expression “Christian faith.” Heiko Schulz

31

Cf. ibid., p. 10.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Kim, Hyok-Tae P., Konstruktive Dekonstruktion? Zur theologischen Rezeption Jacques Derridas im deutschsprachigen Raum, Th.D., Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg 2004, pp. 118–44. Nientied, Mariele, Kierkegaard und Wittgenstein. “Hineintäuschen in das Wahre,” Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series 7), pp. 327–8. Schulz, Heiko, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 127, 2002, pp. 1328–32. — review in Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter, no. 47, 2004, pp. 17–20.

Hermann Deuser, Sören Kierkegaard. Die paradoxe Dialektik des politischen Christen. Voraussetzungen bei Hegel. Die Reden von 1847/48 im Verhältnis von Politik und Ästhetik

[Søren Kierkegaard: The Paradoxical Dialectic of the Political Christian. Presuppositions in Hegel. The Discourses from 1847–48 in Relation to Politics and Aesthetics], Munich and Mainz: Chr. Kaiser Verlag & Matthias Grünewald Verlag 1974 (Gesellschaft und Theologie. Systematische Beiträge, vol. 13), 254 pp.

This book, based on the author’s theological dissertation from 1973, is one of the ground-breaking studies in German-speaking Kierkegaard scholarship of the last decades. There are several threads that Hermann Deuser weaves into one coherent interpretation. For one, he conducts an in-depth investigation into the Kierkegaardian key concepts of the paradox and its related notion, the dialectical; for this debate it is especially Hegel’s understanding of dialectics which serves as the main point of reference. Second, the book offers a “political hermeneutics” of Kierkegaard’s work.1 According to Deuser, Kierkegaard’s work has to be interpreted from the point of its culmination, that is, with the attack on the Danish State Church as its final consequence and intrinsic telos. Here it is Adorno’s critical reading of Kierkegaard, which for Deuser proves to be a key that unlocks the political dimension of Kierkegaard’s texts.2 Furthermore, Deuser argues that this political hermeneutics is mirrored by the close relationship between the aesthetic and the religious spheres Cf. Hermann Deuser, “Versuch einer ‘Politischen Hermeneutik’ der Theologie Sören Kierkegaards,” Evangelische Theologie, vol. 30, 1977, pp. 557–67. 2 Cf. Theodor W. Adorno, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans. by Robert Hullot-Kentor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1989. 1

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in Kierkegaard’s work. Again, this is an insight from Adorno, which is put to the test in this study. Finally, Deuser argues, the textual genre which best exemplifies the specific correlation of paradoxical dialectics, religious aesthetics, and political dynamics is the edifying discourse, especially the various collections of such discourses from the revolutionary times of 1847–48. This is the first time in Germanspeaking scholarship, as far as I can see, that these texts are taken seriously for their aesthetic form, that is, their linguistic and textual strategies, as well as for their theological and political depth. The categorical differentiation, so deeply anchored in older Kierkegaard interpretation, between philosophically relevant texts (that is, the pseudonymous works) and merely religious and thereby ostensibly non-philosophical writings (that is, the discourses), is overcome, once and for all. Deuser’s argument starts out with an investigation into the concept of the paradox in Kierkegaard’s work. The paradox is grounded in passion, in both its anthropological (Lidenskab) as well as its theological connotations (Lidelse). And it comes in many different forms, such as the absurd, anxiety, despair, and the ultimate demand and duty of discipleship. However, the paradox is also crucial for an understanding of the textual forms and strategies which are applied in the religious discourses. These discourses describe ways in which the individual life relates to the real, concrete God within time. “The edifying attempts to grasp the actual [das Konkrete]; it is here where it is close to the paradox.”3 To this effect the discourses apply their various literary means and strategies, like repetitions, and monotony. The texts construct a simplicity and Christian equality which tends to hide all political and social realities and inequalities in a reactionary social conservatism; however, Deuser argues convincingly that these texts also include economic arguments, and that the sharp critique of bourgeois society and capitalism in these discourses contain all the seeds for Kierkegaard’s broad attack on church and society in his final years. What now are the dialectics of the paradox? As is well known, Kierkegaard tries to overcome the Hegelian speculative dialectics by his version of the dialectics of human existence. The notion of the paradox is his strongest weapon in this intellectual battle, because it defies any mediation of actual contradictions between different forms of life, culminating in the ultimate contradiction between the Christian demand and the reality of the Danish Church. However, as Deuser points out, the stronger this tension becomes, the more the negative, that is, the socio-political reality, comes to the fore: Kierkegaard’s denouncing of this objectiveness, this actual entanglement, is only imaginary. The protest against the worldliness and political gets stuck with him; this correlation we shall call dialectical, because despite the paradoxical disruption there is dependence within the contradiction. The more strongly Kierkegaard expresses the Christian paradox, from the “Thought Project” to Practice in Christianity and beyond, the closer he moves toward his own attack on the state church.4 Hermann Deuser, Sören Kierkegaard. Die paradoxe Dialektik des politischen Christen. Voraussetzungen bei Hegel. Die Reden von 1847/48 im Verhältnis von Politik und Ästhetik, Munich and Mainz: Chr. Kaiser Verlag & Matthias Grünewald Verlag 1974 (Gesellschaft und Theologie. Systematische Beiträge, vol. 13), p. 73. 4 Ibid., pp. 83–4. 3

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The deeper the dialectics of Christian inwardness are followed through, the more it has to be played out in the realm of the negative, that is, of the political. Finally, the attack on the church functions as an “explosive opening of inwardness.”5 The concept of the paradox always includes the dialectical turn outwards, that is, towards the socio-political reality of historical existence over against which it was conceived in the first place. Deuser quotes Adorno: “The paradox is a chiffre [Deckbild] for revolution.”6 This correlation is reflected in the way in which the image of the Crucified is meditated in the Christian Discourses from 1848. Having revealed that Kierkegaard’s paradox never moves far away from the dialectical, Deuser now turns to the other side of the story by demonstrating that also the dialectical requires a constant reinterpretation by means of the paradox. To this effect an interpretation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is offered. Deuser reminds us of this book’s pre-history: in order to constitute the speculative unity of religion and philosophy, Hegel had to substitute the concept of Christian love, that he had developed in his earlier works, with the new concept of spirit and its stages of self-articulation. Only this concept was able to construct the speculative reconciliation between self and world. Kierkegaard, by contrast, turns to the notion of love, as seen in Works of Love, in order to keep the very non-reconciled reality of personal and socio-political reality open. Kierkegaard insists on the irrevocable position of the individual, its actuality and suffering, and Christian love becomes an agent of the paradox. Kierkegaard searches for “a new mediation of dialectics and paradox out of the experience that any dialectical unity, be it idealistic or materialistic, creates an anonymous totality whose system does not sublate the individual…but rather, by appearing according to Hegel’s scheme, allows oppression. Over against this, the paradox is an act of self-defense.”7 The final chapter of the study, entitled “Dialectics as Paradox,” turns to an interpretation of the edifying and religious discourses of 1847 and 1848.8 After having demonstrated that dialectical form and paradoxical actuality constantly and reciprocally presuppose each other, Deuser now follows the ways in which the specific correlation of both poles is reflected in the composition of these texts within their historic context. The context is qualified by Kierkegaard’s experience of the modern press (in the Corsair affair) as well as his own critique of society in A Literary Review of Two Ages. The texts themselves, however, reveal a vast wealth of dialectical forms and rhetorical devices, which are closely examined. In fact, Deuser offers a reception-oriented analysis of the texts by reading these rhetorical devices in view of their imagined reader and her situation. The point is to demonstrate how this dialectical rhetoric, which is so deeply embedded in Kierkegaard’s texts, slowly but inevitably points to an emergence of an ever more paradoxical appropriation and decision on the side of the reader. In the texts and their aesthetics, the dialectical Ibid., p. 86. Ibid., p. 98. 7 Ibid., p. 173. 8 It has to be noted that Works of Love is not included in this group. Deuser argues that this book of “deliberations” (Overveielser) belongs to a different genre in Kierkegaard’s theory of discourse. 5 6

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becomes more and more paradoxical, and thereby political. The dialectical rhetoric and its implicit promise of reconciliation is overtaken by the paradox which emphasizes the unbearable tension of the actual existence and its socio-political subtext. “The paradox is not the end of dialectics, but its actual beginning; politically direct and poetically disguised, Kierkegaard’s discourses at the time of revolution include both.”9 Even today, 40 years after its publication, Deuser’s book is fresh and full of original insights. The unlocking of the rhetorical substance of Kierkegaard’s texts and the creative as well as critical engagement with the texts opens up new ways of reading Kierkegaard. Adorno’s intuition which he had once directed against Kierkegaard, turns out to reveal the strength of the Dane: that in these texts the religious, aesthetic, and political dimensions are closely correlated, and can only be understood in their mutual dependence. To have carried the insights of the Critical Theory into a fresh conversation with Kierkegaard scholarship remains a merit of this study. Still, there are questions to be asked: What does the notion of the political (which actually is never explained in the book) really mean with regard to Kierkegaard? And what about the ethical sphere, which seems to get lost between all these other categories? In light of more recent research it becomes evident that in the Kierkegaard of 1847– 48 there is more than just the prophet who demolishes bourgeois morality: here we find also the conceptual search for a constructive Christian ethics and social ontology, in the very wake of the dialectical and rhetorical power of the paradox. Ulrich Lincoln

9

Deuser, Sören Kierkegaard, p. 242.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Malantschuk, Gregor, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 10, 1977, pp. 346–9.

Hermann Deuser, Dialektische Theologie. Studien zu Adornos Metaphysik und zum Spätwerk Kierkegaards

[Dialectical Theology: Studies on Adorno’s Metaphysics and Kierkegaard’s Late Writings], Munich and Mainz: Chr. Kaiser Verlag & Matthias Grünewald Verlag 1980 (Gesellschaft und Theologie: Fundamentaltheologische Studien, no. 1), 333 pp.

Hermann Deuser’s second major work on Kierkegaard picks up where the first book ended,1 and it applies the same two axioms to this interpretation of Kierkegaard as the earlier investigation. Firstly, Deuser argues that Kierkegaard’s theological thinking culminates in his attack on Christendom, and consequently his whole work must be interpreted under the perspective of this culmination. Accordingly, Deuser focuses his interpretation on the Anti-Climacus writings and the journals from 1848 to 1855; he calls this whole body of work Kierkegaard’s Spätwerk (late work). In particular, his interpretations of the journals are highly significant and innovative in German scholarship. Deuser reveals the unique literary and theological character of these texts within Kierkegaard’s oeuvre: “The unique rank of the journals after 1848 results from the crisis at the beginning of the Spätwerk which culminates in the new notion of the religious poet”;2 the journals are the main battleground for the final stage of Kierkegaard’s work. The second axiom for Deuser’s interpretation is his conviction that a major help in unearthing the theological relevance of the late work is to be found in the writings of Theodor W. Adorno, in particular his main philosophical work, Negative Hermann Deuser, Sören Kierkegaard. Die paradoxe Dialektik des politischen Christen. Voraussetzungen bei Hegel. Die Reden von 1847/48 im Verhältnis von Politik und Ästhetik, Munich and Mainz: Chr. Kaiser Verlag & Matthias Grünewald Verlag 1974. 2 Hermann Deuser, Dialektische Theologie: Studien zu Adornos Metaphysik und Kierkegaards Spätwerk, Munich and Mainz: Chr. Kaiser Verlag & Matthias Grünewald Verlag 1980, p. 65. 1

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Dialectics.3 Deuser does not aim at a simple comparison between these two writers and their respective works, nor is he merely philologically interested in Adorno’s own Kierkegaard interpretation.4 Rather, the intention is theological: to interpret Kierkegaard’s work with the help of Adorno as a “dialectical theology.” According to Deuser, Kierkegaard is the only true dialectician among Protestant theologians, and Adorno’s negative dialectics helps us to see that more clearly. Surely, a specific reading of Adorno is implied here: the main theoretician of the Frankfurt School in this reading cannot be understood without the Dane; and Deuser indeed offers a concise interpretation of Adorno’s texts from this perspective. But the other, and perhaps the real, interlocutor for Deuser’s book is the Protestant theology of the twentieth century. Neither Karl Barth nor the Barth school nor Wolfhart Pannenberg nor Trutz Rendtorff has succeeded in constructing a truly dialectical model of theological rationality which is able to take the horrific experiences of this century into its theological account. It is Kierkegaard’s paradoxical dialectics which is able to deliver that task, Deuser claims. And 100 years later, Adorno’s attempt to outline a philosophy after Auschwitz results in a dialectical thinking which owes much more to Kierkegaard than it will admit. But surely, Deuser claims, Kierkegaard’s radical paradoxical thinking resurges in Adorno’s notion of metaphysics5 in the sense of “a thinking of that which cannot be thought yet.”6 Out of this ambitious interpretative program I would like to highlight three main points. First, the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s Spätwerk: as the constitutive element for these texts Deuser identifies a biographical as well as strategic compromise on Kierkegaard’s side: around 1848–49, being aware of the emerging crisis of Christendom, and faced with his own financial problems, Kierkegaard decided to remain a poet whose task it is to depict true Christian discipleship in its purest ideality, in the clear awareness of his own personal shortcomings. Kierkegaard accepts the task to determine the relationship of immediacy and reflection (which is the general theme of his earlier existential dialectics), now with continuous respect to the social, economic, and political conditions of his time. He is able to reveal the elements of systemic coercion in contemporary society very clearly, and he reacts to that with an ever more intensified attempt to create a counter-picture of true Christianity. At times the dialectics is in danger of becoming a cruel dualism of God and world, and Deuser takes this danger very seriously. Kierkegaard’s dualism can only be overcome, he argues, by interpreting it within the wider frame of his dialectics which again is rooted in his theological critique of society. Second, Deuser develops the concept of the dialectical by bringing Kierkegaard and Adorno into a closer dialogue. As an example, a closer look at the dialectics of Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. by E.B. Ashton, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1973. 4 Cf. Theodor W. Adorno, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans. by Robert Hullot-Kentor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1989. 5 Cf. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, pp. 361–408. Adorno’s “meditations on metaphysics” correspond to his critique of existential ontology by Heidegger and Husserl. See ibid., pp. 97ff. 6 Deuser, Dialektische Theologie, p. 152. 3

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subjectivity and objectivity reveals that Kierkegaard after 1849 clearly corrects his earlier notion of hidden inwardness. In the current age the individual needs to become concrete in the practical situation of truth, that is, the socio-political realities of his time. Kierkegaard still holds on to the priority of subjectivity, but more and more the objectivity of socio-political relations comes into focus as the inevitable space where truth has to be found and witnessed to. Adorno, by contrast, always stresses objectivity in the form of social mediation as well as the bodily experience of the individual. But he also has to acknowledge that truth can never be without subjectivity, as his metaphysical-utopian claim to happiness in an objectified form indicates. In the course of their thinking both authors arrive at the necessity to come up with a “double dialectics” which transcends the simple mediation of subject and object: the dialectical mediation of subject and object does not result in a new position but needs to relate to itself once more. This structure is mirrored in Kierkegaard’s notion of the self as well as his understanding of God: God alone is infinite reduplication, and he alone relates objectively to his own subjectivity.7 In a similar way Deuser demonstrates for a couple of other dialectical moments how the respective focuses of both thinkers converge in a new dialectic: Kierkegaard’s “Contemporaneity” and Adorno’s “history of nature,” the method of existential dialectics and Adorno’s notion of the non-identical, the relationship of theory and practice, and finally the common thread of an ideological criticism—in summary, it is “the structure of the dialectical thought” which both writers share, “and thereby they interpret reciprocally what they have in common, and what they don’t.…What they share is the practical resistance against the perversion of reality without being able to verify their respective truth in praxis.”8 Both authors demand a praxis which they themselves cannot deliver. Adorno tends to escape this dilemma by turning to aesthetics. The politically conservative Kierkegaard is more radical in this respect. His Spätwerk is an attempt to stay true to the perceived opposition against the sclerotic social realities. However, his theology, which at times is selfsacrificial, dualistic, and violent, must be rescued from its own misunderstanding and reification. It is a dialectical theology of the cross which is able to articulate how Kierkegaard’s late writings dialectically hint at a realization of a truly humane future. Here we are at our third point. The last chapter of Deuser’s book finally outlines the concept of a dialectical theology. Now it is Martin Luther who becomes the main interlocutor for the Kierkegaard interpretation, whereas Adorno recedes into the background. The Lutheran categories of servum arbitrium (the unfree will over against God), simul iustus ac peccator (the existential contemporaneity of grace and law) and finitum capax infiniti (the Christological co-presence of Christ the Redeemer and the Prototype) are applied to Kierkegaard’s texts. “Christology becomes dialectical when the situation of the crucified, and the suffering under the existing coercions, become the impulse for liberating action in the power of the resurrection.”9 Adorno’s notion of the impulse is at work here, as well as Kierkegaard’s

7 8 9

SKS 26, 265, NB33:23 / JP 4, 4571. Deuser, Dialektische Theologie, pp. 193–4. Ibid., p. 281.

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concept of the situation of action, both of which play a key role for Deuser’s interpretation. They serve to identify the practical and political upshot of this theology. But this dialectical praxis necessarily has theological assumptions. In the end it is the dialectical understanding of God’s self-constitution as infinite reduplication which is presupposed as the truly universal mediation and reconciliation which is yet to come. The way in which this concept informs Kierkegaard’s theology, as much as it judges and corrects its inherent cruelty, is exemplary for a late twentiethcentury Protestant theology of hope. Deuser’s Kierkegaard interpretation stands out in German scholarship in the way in which it combines a thorough and highly innovative philology of the texts with an ambitious theological project. Thereby Kierkegaard is rescued from the irrelevance of a merely historic interest and elevated to contemporary discourse. The critical potential that his writings hold for a constructive theology is brought to light in this book. The critique of the ideologizing of Christianity is an ongoing task. Still, it can be asked if this dialectical theology needs more clarification and articulation— with the help of Kierkegaard! It seems that in the course of his complete oeuvre Kierkegaard has more to say about constructive theology and political praxis than the focus on negative dialectics would reveal. The hermeneutical premise to found Kierkegaard interpretation on his late writings must not become a constriction for the conceptual wealth of this author. Ulrich Lincoln

Reviews and Critical Discussions Kodalle, Klaus-M., Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen. Kritik des Wunschdenkens und der Zweckrationalität im Anschluss an Kierkegaard, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 1988, pp. 223–33.

Hermann Diem, Die Existenzdialektik von Sören Kierkegaard

[Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Existence], Zollikon-Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag 1950, 207 pp.

“In my opinion, no book written about SK in any language during the last twenty years is so illuminating and instructive as this work.”1 So wrote the eminent Kierkegaard translator Walter Lowrie in 1951 regarding Hermann Diem’s Die Existenzdialektik von Sören Kierkegaard. Lowrie thought very highly of Die Existenzdialektik: “More than twenty years ago Hermann Diem wrote one of the best books on SK which appeared between the two world wars: Philosophie und Christentum bei Sören Kierkegaard, Kaiser Verlag, München, 1929.…This new book of Diem’s is smaller and better than the first.”2 Lowrie, the translator, respects Diem’s extra effort: “In the day when German enthusiasm of SK was at its height and every man of distinction thought he must write about him, Diem was one of the very few Germans who took the pains to learn Danish so that he might have access to the Journals, which were sparsely translated.”3 Lowrie was anxious to see Die Existenzdialektik translated: “Professional philosophers and theologians are able to read this book in German, but it is very desirable that this work be translated into English, and if I were not so old I should put my hand at once to this task.”4 Thankfully, it was translated into English by Harold Knight in 1959.5 Die Existenzdialektik also comes with the recommendation of the Kierkegaard Society of Denmark after winning the 1950 award for best dissertation on “Sören Kierkegaard’s Concept of Dialectic.”6 While the dialectical theology of Barth and Brunner and the existential philosophy of Jaspers and Heidegger each claimed Kierkegaard’s influence, “Diem is convinced that many aspects of existentialist thought today are quite un-Kierkegaardian and that the various misunderstandings of Kierkegaard’s thought are due to a failure to Walter Lowrie, review in Theology Today, vol. 8, no. 2, 1951, p. 276. Ibid., p. 275. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p. 276. 5 Hermann Diem, Kierkegaard’s Dialectic of Existence, trans. by Harold Knight, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd 1959. 6 Harold Diem, Die Existenzdialektik von Sören Kierkegaard, Zollikon-Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag 1950, p. 2. 1 2

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grapple with his dialectic.”7 Diem was confident: “Enquiry into the idea of ‘dialectic’ in the thought of Kierkegaard must not only furnish us with the key to the understanding of his work itself, but will also help considerably towards the elucidation of the contemporary situation.”8 Diem defines Kierkegaard’s dialectic in its most general sense as “the activity of that type of thought which reaches its goal by moving between question and answer or assertion and contradiction in dialogue.”9 Diem nicely illustrates this dialectic as a dialogue taking place between Plato and Socrates on the topic of thought’s correspondence to reality.10 Plato represents the presentation of an abstract idea of speculative thought as an ontological reality. Socrates represents the antithetical questioning of Plato’s thesis, suspicious of a supposed knowledge of reality.11 Diem explains that while Hegel’s dialectic of Plato’s thesis and Socrates’ antithesis eventually merge in synthesis, Kierkegaard’s existential dialectic consists not in synthesis, but in holding Plato and Socrates together in tension without allowing either the former to fly to fantastical heights of pure abstraction or the latter to sink to depths of abyssal void.12 In the face of Hegel’s assertion that his triadic, dialectical thought was itself ontological reality, Diem asserts that Kierkegaard’s dialectic heightened the focus upon the concerned existence of the thinker, especially emphasizing the Socratic antithesis of dialectic, so as to temper the infinitude of the thinker’s speculation with the finitude of the thinker’s reality.13 For Kierkegaard, although the thinker desires the infinite ideal to come about in reality, the ideal does not come about merely by ontological necessity or philosophical thought. Instead, the thinker infinitely strives to realize the ideal in passionate action. In this endless striving, Kierkegaard wants the thinker to become more and more self-consciously aware of the ongoing tension between the infinite ideal and finite reality, rather than presuming their synthesis. Here the thinker is prevented from losing himself in boundless, fantastical thought and “becomes aware of himself as existent and so wins reality.”14 Thus, for Kierkegaard, dialectic is not a statement of objective thought. Instead, dialectic is the concrete existence of the individual thinker who both thinks the ideal and longingly gauges his active existence against it.15 Dialectic is an ongoing dialogue between Plato and Socrates rather than the ignorance of either or the synthesis of both. After expounding Kierkegaard’s dialectic, Diem demonstrates how this central key affects other Kierkegaardian loci, namely, the Absolute Paradox, offense and faith, irony and humor, direct and indirect communication, his attack upon the Danish Church, and his criticism of Luther and Lutheranism. Regarding the latter, for 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Donald V. Wade, review in Canadian Journal of Theology, vol. 7, no. 1, 1961, p. 71. Diem, Die Existenzdialektik, p. v. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., pp. 8–13. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., pp. 13–19. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 35.

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example, in light of Kierkegaard’s dialectic, Diem makes several points. Positively, Kierkegaard applauds Luther’s discovery of the Gospel through Luther’s agonizing struggle. Out of this struggle, Luther became self-consciously aware of the infinite qualitative difference between the God-man and other men, that is, the dialectical tension between the infinite ideal and finite striving.16 The problem, Diem notes, is that from Kierkegaard’s perspective Luther’s teaching and preaching did not do justice to the dialectical tension he discovered.17 Luther’s thesis—free grace— was not amply expressed in dialectical tension with its antithesis—struggling discipleship, resulting in an easy subscription to Luther’s discovery by the masses without Luther’s struggle. Hence, Luther needed to be clearer about the dialectical nature of the antithesis so as to prevent the presumption and abuse of the thesis. Donald Wade warns that Die Existenzdialektik “is of limited value as an introduction to Kierkegaard, and the reader will sometimes find himself quite lost unless he has some familiarity with the various writings under discussion. To the knowledgeable reader, however, the book is indeed worthwhile.”18 Alan Richardson rightly noted: “Not the least valuable part of this study is the copious quotation of Kierkegaard’s own words.”19 Lowrie affirms: “When I affirm that Diem illumines SK’s dialectic more clearly than anyone else has done, I have said enough to recommend this book.”20 David Coe

16 17 18 19 20

Ibid., p. 160. Ibid., p. 164. Wade, review in Canadian Journal of Theology, p. 71. Alan Richardson, review in Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 1960, p. 227. Lowrie, review in Theology Today, vol. 8, no. 2, 1951, p. 276.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Lowrie, Walter, review in Theology Today, vol. 8, no. 2, 1951, pp. 275–6. Richardson, Alan, review of the English translation in Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 1960, pp. 227–8. Scott, Percy, review of the English translation in Expository Times, vol. 71, no. 6, 1960, pp. 170–1. Thomas, John Heywood, review of the English translation in Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 13, no. 3, 1960, pp. 315–18. Thompson, H.M., review in Christian Century, vol. 68, no. 27, 1951, p. 796. Wade, Donald V., review of the English translation in Canadian Journal of Theology, vol. 7, no. 1, 1961, pp. 71–3.

Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik [Kierkegaard’s Existence-Dialectical Ethics], Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1968 (Philosophische Abhandlungen, vol. 29), xii + 194 pp.

Constituting the first part of his postdoctoral thesis or Habilitation, Helmut Fahrenbach’s important study, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, was published by Vittorio Klostermann in 1968 as volume number 29 in the series Philosophische Abhandlungen.1 When Fahrenbach’s book appeared in the late 1960s, it followed in numerous respects a paradigmatic study presented in 1957 by Walter Schulz: Existenz und System bei Sören Kierkegaard.2 Therein, Schulz’s principal objective was to show that even a thinker who made the “negation” of the systematic “the essential matter of his philosophizing” can be interpreted systematically.3 Proceeding in this way, Schulz opposed a tendency in German philosophical research which in fact took notice of the overall context of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings, but did not discuss it in a particularly philosophical way.4 Contrary to this, Schulz’s interpretation wanted to demonstrate that it is possible to set forth “Kierkegaard’s interpretation of existence as a consistent totality, a system.”5 Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik incorporated this methodological approach, both in trying to fathom the whole of Kierkegaard’s thinking through an internal interpretation of his pseudonymous works and in taking its point of departure from the self-interpretation of the thinker in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.6 However, Fahrenbach at the same time modified the given approach, firstly, Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1968 (Philosophische Abhandlungen, vol. 29). 2 Walter Schulz, “Existenz und System bei Sören Kierkegaard,” in Wesen und Wirklichkeit des Menschen: Festschrift für Helmuth Plessner, ed. by Klaus Ziegler, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1957, pp. 107–28. 3 Ibid., p. 107 (all translations from the German are mine). 4 See Philipp Schwab, “ ‘Ein altes, seltsames Buch kommt uns aus dem Dänischen zu’— Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Entweder/Oder,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2008, p. 409. See Schwab’s discussion of Fahrenbach, ibid., pp. 411–13. 5 Schulz, “Existenz und System bei Sören Kierkegaard,” p. 108. 6 See Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaard-Literatur. Die gegenwärtige KierkegaardAuslegung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von 1948 bis 1962, Tübingen: Mohr 1962 (Philosophische Rundschau, supplement, vol. 3), pp. 39–42. 1

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by characterizing this internal system as a “dialectic of existence” (Existenzdialektik), and secondly, by putting this dialectic in an essential relation to Kierkegaard’s ethics, at the same time examining it with regard to this connection. Accordingly, Fahrenbach’s study focuses on a particular theme-oriented problem, namely, Kierkegaard’s theory of the ethical, and therein also lies the reason for its significance: in taking this particular subject as its primary object, the book explicitly and for the first time in German research moves ethics into the center of academic examination of Kierkegaard. Instead of giving an interpretation of the complete works of the thinker as Schulz continues to do, Fahrenbach’s aim is “to fill a gap in Kierkegaard research, namely, to clarify the meaning of ‘the ethical’ both in Kierkegaard’s thinking and for his interpretation of human existence.”7 Correspondingly, the task of his interpretation is “to explain the purpose of the ethical and ethics in connection with the dialectic of existence,” which is in this context recognized as “the formal title for the thematic and methodological totality of Kierkegaard’s thinking.”8 According to Fahrenbach, the ethical has to be consulted in its role in this totality. Throughout, his interpretation seeks to show that the ethical, as conceptualized by Kierkegaard, does not hold the mere function of a stage in the concept of existential spheres, but is inasmuch central for the dialectic of existence as such since “the task of becoming a self, which is set by human existence, is originally ethical.”9 Fahrenbach provides evidence for this claim by means of a twofold approach: Directly after the introduction (Chapter 1), he both reveals the existential-dialectical presuppositions of the ethical existence (Chapter 2), and brings the ethical way of existence, that is, “the self-interpretation of the ethical existence,”10 into focus (Chapter 3). Against this backdrop, he examines the dialectic of the ethical in Fear and Trembling and Repetition (Chapter  4), and finally discusses ethical existence in the context of the dialectic of existence as a whole (Chapter 5). As textual basis for his interpretation, Fahrenbach selects what he considers to be thematically most decisive in this connection, namely, the pseudonymous writings, especially the second part of Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and the Postscript. As a consequence of his theme-oriented approach, Fahrenbach commits himself to a procedure that is, in his opinion, appropriate both to his formal approach and to its ethical object. In this connection, the study introduces an effective distinction for future research on the matter: it differentiates between an analytical and a synthetic way of interpreting the ethical. Thus, the analytical method would reconstruct the development of the phased model of existential spheres, following the concrete line of the pseudonyms,11 in order to reveal the original position of the ethical Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, p. xi. Ibid., p. 1. 9 Ibid., pp. 172–3. 10 Ibid., p. 3. 11 With respect to a categorization by Gregor Malantschuk, who differentiates between a “concrete line” and an “abstract line” in relation to the pseudonymous works, the notion “concrete” refers to the so-called concrete-pseudonymous writings (Either/Or, Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s Way), whereas the term “abstract” is supposed to 7 8

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interpretation of existence. In contrast, the synthetic method would deal with the fundamental determinations of existence in the first place before in any way discussing the existential spheres, thus adopting the Postscript’s procedure. Considering his general approach, Fahrenbach argues for the synthetic procedure based on the argument that this method is “more appropriate to a principle-oriented interpretation, since it makes the concrete-thematic interpretation of existence transparent from its fundamental principals and structures.”12 However, this synthetic approach is based on a controversial assumption: to define a structure of existence in Kierkegaard through only a few selected works would require that the underlying textual basis is representative, that is, if the respective results are to be understood as general ones. With that, however, one assumes a uniform anthropology throughout Kierkegaard’s works. Contrary to this, many scholars maintain the view that the existential structure in Kierkegaard is defined in different and partly inconsistent ways throughout the œuvre: divergences are located between the concrete and the abstract writings, within the abstract writings themselves, as well as between the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and The Sickness unto Death.13 That this is not the case and that such divergences therefore do not exist would at least call for a proof of its own. Nevertheless, despite these possible shortcomings in his structural approach, Fahrenbach provides specific and detailed analyses of problems of concrete existence. As such, even his synthetic method includes a successful analysis of existence— though one might remark that his preference for the anthropological dimension results in a suppression of the maieutic aspect in Kierkegaard’s writings.14 For Fahrenbach, however, the analytical and the synthetic approaches basically go together and must therefore both be passed through in the course of investigation in so far as they are—as alternative possibilities—“rather ways of representation than ways of understanding.”15 Against the background of what has been expounded so far, Fahrenbach’s specific approach can be described as follows: in focusing on the second part of Either/Or, it firstly comprises a remarkably pertinent reconstruction of the ethical position of B, which at the same time is integrated in a comprehensive ethical theory of Kierkegaard’s thinking. However, recent research is critical towards Fahrenbach’s attempt to extract a consistent ethical position from Kierkegaard’s separate pseudonymous writings.16 Secondly, his approach consists in deriving the genesis of the ethical

denote the abstract-pseudonymous works (Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety). According to Malantschuk, both lines meet in the Postscript (see Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1971, pp. 214–15). 12 Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, p. 3. 13 See Wilfried Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1990, p. 33, especially notes 48–50. 14 See ibid., p. 34, note 53. 15 Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, p. 3. 16 With regard to Either/Or, primarily in relation to B’s notion of moral standards and its definition in connection with Kant’s concept of negative morality, see Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der

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out of the problem of aesthetic existence, corresponding to the structure of Either/ Or. Concerning the determination of the relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical in this context, one has to be aware of the fact that both stages form essential anthropological structural definitions for Fahrenbach,17 although he characterizes the transition to the ethical as a “neutralization of immediacy” of the aesthetic.18 Ultimately, Fahrenbach’s book also stands out due to its close reading of Kierkegaard’s works. It describes Kierkegaard’s contemplation of the problems of the ethical throughout the pseudonymous writings in a comprehensive context, at the same time directing attention to a certain consistency in the authorship. Furthermore, his study makes a commendable effort to clarify a particular conceptual differentiation in Kierkegaard: it sheds light on the double use Kierkegaard makes of some of his main concepts, depending on whether they are intended to emphasize an abstract-intellectual meaning for theoretical knowledge or an ethical-practical one for concrete existence (compare, for example, the notions “ideality,” “reality,” “possibility,” “actuality,” “necessity”).19 All things considered, there is no doubt that Fahrenbach’s work is and will remain a classic in Kierkegaard studies. Not only did it methodologically advance modern Kierkegaard research by setting an example with its structural approach and strictly theme-oriented procedure, but it also continues to give multifarious stimuli for a proper analysis of the ethical in Kierkegaard. Magnus C. Nagel

Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), pp. 350–6. 17 While the aesthetical, as “immediate” being, denotes the “determination of human existence,” the ethical, as the sphere of “becoming,” represents the human “self-determination” (Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, pp. 61–2). 18 Ibid., p. 69. 19 See Annemarie Pieper, review in Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger, vol. 22, 1969, pp. 193–6.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Greve, Wilfried, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1990, pp. 33–4. Pieper, Annemarie, review in Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger, vol. 22, 1969, pp. 193–6. Rapic, Smail, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), pp. 350–6. Romano, Bruno, review in Rivista Internationale di Filosofia del Diritto, 1968, no. 45, pp. 663–4. Schwab, Philipp, “ ‘Ein altes, seltsames Buch kommt uns aus dem Dänischen zu…’—Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Entweder/ Oder,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2008, pp. 411–13.

Gerd-Günther Grau, Die Selbstauflösung des christlichen Glaubens. Eine religionsphilosophische Studie über Kierkegaard

[The Self-Disintegration of Christian Faith: A Study in the Philosophy of Religion on Kierkegaard], Frankfurt am Main: Verlag G. Schulte-Bulmke 1963, 344 pp.

This book is an investigation into the implications that Kierkegaard’s work holds for the modern critique of religion. In the wake of  Nietzsche’s intellectual battle against Christianity Kierkegaard is interpreted as an involuntary witness to the self-contradiction, and indeed the disintegration, of Christian faith. Grau takes his line of interpretation directly from Nietzsche.1 The Nietzschean notion of Selbstauflösung (self-disintegration) of the Christian faith carries the main argument: Christianity was founded on Jesus’ eschatological expectation of a salvation of human history as the end of this history. But the sheer absence of a historically verifiable salvation has haunted Christianity ever since and has delegitimized it completely, according to Nietzsche. Grau applies key motifs from Albert Schweitzer, who, influenced by Nietzsche, discovered the eschatological expectation in the New Testament as the founding force of the early Christian faith—although it was never to be fulfilled. What Grau wants to demonstrate is that Kierkegaard exhibits a hidden awareness of this historical situation: his texts bear witness to the way in which Christianity is haunted by the endless deferral of the παρούσία, that is, of actual salvation in history. Grau’s argument hangs on two hinges: First, his interpretation can only come about indirectly, by reconstructing a development in Kierkegaard’s work which See his earlier work on Nietzsche: Gerd-Günther Grau, Christlicher Glaube und intellektuelle Redlichkeit, Frankfurt am Main: Verlag G. Schulte-Bulmke 1958. The Kierkegaard book is a second step in the larger project of unearthing the post-Nietzsche situation of Christian faith. Grau was originally trained as a chemist and later studied philosophy with Karl Löwith and Hans-Georg Gadamer, among others. In 1966 he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hanover.

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can be understood as a reflection, or a mirroring, of the larger historical situation of Christianity. Second, the interpretation attempts to show a close familiarity between Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s point of departure, thereby legitimizing the interpretation of the earlier thinker in the light of the author of The Anti-Christ. By building a bridge from Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, Grau follows a line of interpretation that had famously already been put forward by Georg Brandes.2 The notion which brings both thinkers into this constellation, according to Grau, is Redlichkeit, in the sense of intellectual integrity, or honesty. He differentiates between a relative and an absolute form of integrity. Kierkegaard’s faithful, “relative,” honesty carries the Christian faith intellectually forward to its last consequences, thereby bordering on the anti-Christian, “absolute” honesty that Nietzsche deploys. In the end, the absence of historical salvation renders the truth claim of Christianity mere wishful thinking. Kierkegaard’s notion of despair is a hidden statement about this situation, and the ethical rigorism of his later works can be understood as a compensation for the loss: “There is hardly any other religious writer…who experienced, understood, and shaped the situation which has been brought about by the ignorance on the side of the faithful with regard to the absence of salvation, as deeply and profoundly as Kierkegaard.”3 Naturally, Grau needs to verify this argument by interpreting Kierkegaard’s texts. In his reading, it is the theory of stages that, with the development of the different stages and figures, mirrors Christianity’s failure to verify its truth claims with regard to historical reality. To this end the respective stages of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious form of existence are scrutinized. On this interpretation, the aesthetic and the religious stages appear as very closely connected. It is the notions of the moment and temporality that exhibit the relation between these stages. The desperate emptiness of the aesthetic experience of the moment reappears at the religious stage in the new meaning that the moment is supposed to take on here. The positive value that it is given cannot hide the continuing problem of temporality: There is simply no eternal within historical time. Kierkegaard’s desperate attempt to claim contemporaneity with Christ, thereby wiping out 1,800 years of history, only underscores this underlying experience. Grau calls this the circular destruction of faith: “Isn’t it the case that Christianity, as a historical religion, which was principally founded upon the end of history, after the absence of the eternal’s appearance in an historical moment, was forced to founder on time, again and again?”4 Kierkegaard’s failure to solve the problem of the moment is but a reflection of the larger historical circularity in which Georg Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard. En kritisk Fremstilling i Grundrids, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1877. See Gerd-Günther Grau, “Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus. Brandes, Nietzsche und Kierkegaard,” in his Vernunft, Wahrheit, Glaube. Neue Studien zu Nietzsche und Kierkegaard, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann 1997, pp. 64–94. See also Julie K. Allen, “Georg Brandes: Kierkegaard’s Most Influential Mis-Representative,” in Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art, Tome II, Denmark, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2013 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 12), pp. 17–42. 3 Gerd-Günther Grau, Die Selbstauflösung des christlichen Glaubens. Eine religionsphilosophische Studie über Kierkegaard, Frankfurt am Main: Verlag G. SchulteBulmke 1963, p. 54. 4 Ibid., p. 77. 2

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Christianity, in the end, succumbs to the misunderstanding of its beginning: that there would be salvation, that is, a fundamental change of human reality, in history. The problem of the ethical stage is its very position between the aesthetic and the religious. Although the ethical demands continuity in order to gain time,5 thereby answering to the inherent problem of the moment, it fails to achieve that. The bourgeois defense of marriage cannot persist over against the religious rigorism of Kierkegaard’s last writings, which seeks to burn away all forms of religious continuity and institutionality. Instead of a happy repetition of the temporal in the ethical, faith arrives at a religious-rigorous life and its disunity of the religious moment. The two forms of the religious stage point to the larger story. Abraham from Fear and Trembling is able to achieve his religious ideals in hidden inwardness and therefore can count as a representative of religiousness A; however, religiousness B is left without any form of expression in historical Christianity, thereby testifying to the failure of faith in the first place. According to Grau, Kierkegaard himself applies this historical scheme in his critique of Luther’s historical impact: Protestantism only gets as far as religiousness A, but for the last form of religiousness a Christian rigorism is recommended which seems to be completely out of the world—or pointing backwards to Catholicism. Again, it is a circular movement in Kierkegaard’s thinking which indicates the historical failure of Christianity. Finally, Grau claims the figure of Job, as portrayed in Repetition, as the main representation for his interpretation. By bringing these passages into a dialogue with the Christological themes from Philosophical Fragments and Practice in Christianity, Grau counts the young man’s Job as a key witness for God’s final silence over against humanity’s endless search for his answer to their call.6 The “Job-situation of the religious thinker” is the final image of modern man who knocks at God’s door, but receives no answer.7 Against his intentions, Kierkegaard has expressed this situation in a unique way. He is a true witness to Christianity’s historical self-disintegration. Grau’s book has often been overlooked, which is perhaps due to its long-winded language, which sometimes borders on incomprehensibility. However, it has to be recognized as an original contribution. By reading Kierkegaard against Kierkegaard and his Christian followers, Grau is able to reopen the connection to Nietzsche, a constellation which was quite important in earlier phases of Kierkegaard research.8 This book joins a long tradition of secular and atheist readings of Kierkegaard, going back to Georg Brandes and Christoph Schrempf,9 who wanted to take Kierkegaard’s radical critique of Christendom seriously. However, there are serious questions to be raised with regard to Grau’s hermeneutics. By reading all texts within a scheme of an unfolding development, Grau often fails to do justice to the texts in their own right. SKS 3, 135–41 / EO2, 136–43. Grau, Die Selbstauflösung des christlichen Glaubens, p. 267. 7 Ibid., p. 287. 8 See Karl Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz. Fünf Vorlesungen, Munich and Zurich: Piper 1987 (4th edition). 9 See Heiko Schulz, Aneignung und Reflexion. Studien zur Rezeption Søren Kierkegaards, Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 2011 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 24), pp. 128–32. 5 6

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Also, his hermeneutics of suspicion is not suspicious enough towards its own main presuppositions: first, the psychologistic idea that Kierkegaard’s texts are nothing but an endless verbalization of a psychological pattern of repression and compensation; and second, the axiom that eschatological salvation in history is impossible. An interpretation which intentionally ignores the basic premises of its subject runs the risk of rendering itself the master of the text (and its author) in the name of some higher truth. While this book is philosophical in style and method, it sometimes cannot avoid appearing as a merely psychologistic account of Kierkegaard’s allegedly repressed crisis of faith. Ulrich Lincoln

Reviews and Critical Discussions Bejerholm, Lars, “Ein Existenzphilosoph studiert Kierkegaard,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 5, 1964, pp. 80–4.

Wilfried Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien” [Kierkegaard’s Maieutic Ethics: From Either/Or, Part Two to Stages], Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1990, 353 pp.

Constituting his doctoral thesis, Wilfried Greve’s influential work, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” was published by Suhrkamp in 1990.1 To put Greve’s book in its proper context, one should be aware of the fact that, when Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik appeared, it placed itself simultaneously in two different fields of Kierkegaard research. With its topic, the study engaged both in the discussion of Kierkegaard’s ethics and in the debate on the Kierkegaardian theory of communication. Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik stands out, with respect to its ethical subject, by scrupulously taking into account the particular contextuality of Kierkegaard’s individual writings within his œuvre—regarding both the pseudonymous authorship and the chronological-systematic position in the complete works. While former surveys on the topic tended to exclude the form of communication from their analyses of the ethical,2 Greve’s study examines both the ethical implications of Kierkegaard’s theory of communication and the maieutic function of his ethics, being the first to scrutinize the correlative relationship between them. Accordingly, the book plays a leading role in establishing that ethics and a theory of communication are intrinsically linked in Kierkegaard’s works. At the same time, it also indicates the difficulties that lie in the attempt to investigate both subjects exclusively in themselves, at least for a proper examination of Kierkegaard. Considering the maieutic character of Kierkegaardian ethics, Greve begins his study with a thorough reflection on his own methodology. First and foremost, he Wilfried Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1990. 2 Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1968 (Philosophische Abhandlungen, vol. 29); George J. Stack, Kierkegaard’s Existential Ethics, University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press 1977 (Studies in the Humanities, vol. 16); Friedrich Hauschildt, Die Ethik Søren Kierkegaards, Gütersloh: Mohn 1982 (Studien zur evangelischen Ethik, vol. 15). 1

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deliberates on the problem of a theoretical and especially philosophical approximation of Kierkegaard. He objects to this kind of approach on the grounds of its disregard for Kierkegaard’s literary concern, which is, in his opinion, “not a theoretical but an existential one.”3 Consequently, for Greve, “a theoretical approach to the Kierkegaardian or rather pseudonymous works must be considered forbidden.”4 In his view, this verdict refers in particular to Kierkegaard’s ethics, as the intention of his maieutic method is an existential one: for Kierkegaard, “indirect communication is ethical communication.”5 Greve resolves the problem of preserving Kierkegaard’s existential intentions while approaching his writings theoretically with the central thesis of his study: he interprets Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works as a theory, “but as a theory with a particular structure: as an appropriation-oriented maieutic theory.”6 Accordingly, he understands the form of indirect communication as an integral part of Kierkegaard’s works. His approach can thus be characterized as communication-oriented. Nonetheless, despite being the first comprehensively to include the concept of indirect communication in an analysis of Kierkegaardian ethics, Greve implements this aspect through a very particular lens. He unreservedly accepts Kierkegaard’s self-description in The Point of View for My Work as an Author, correspondingly interpreting his maieutic approach as having a religious aim.7 Following up on these methodological reflections (Chapter  1), Greve’s study initially is divided into three chapters. The first two are devoted to Either/Or, addressing the ethical criticism of the aesthetic existence (Chapter 2) as well as the ethical lifeview itself (Chapter 3). The following chapter reconstructs the criticism of the ethical sphere as unfolded in the writings preceding Either/Or (Chapter 4). Each chapter concludes with a passage situating the respective section in its historical-systematic context. In addition, the development of the ethical in The Concept of Anxiety, Philosophical Fragments, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript is outlined in its essentials (Chapter 5) before the analysis as a whole is subject to a concluding reflection (Chapter 6). Greve’s concrete approach can be outlined as follows: on the one hand, he interprets the theory of indirect communication in view of both Kierkegaard’s ethics and the “maieutic intentions”8 of the second part of Either/Or. On the other hand, he identifies the indirect element in Kierkegaard with the maieutical and defines it

Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” p. 15 (all translations from the German are mine). 4 Ibid., p. 15. 5 Ibid. (Greve’s emphasis). 6 Ibid., p. 21. 7 For a comprehensive discussion of this methodological preliminary decision and its implications regarding the Kierkegaardian concepts of appropriation and self-activity, see Philipp Schwab, Der Rückstoß der Methode: Kierkegaard und die indirekte Mitteilung, Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2012 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 25), pp. 168–73. 8 See Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” pp. 79–80. 3

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as the constitutive basis for the pseudonymous works: as an “overall structure,” the maieutical “comprehends any dichotomy of form and content,” constituting the determinant both for “the form of expression and the train of thought.”9 At the same time, according to Greve, the Kierkegaardian maieutic takes place in the form of the theory of stages, namely, in the way that the pseudonyms set forth “the problem of existence by unfolding stages of existence.”10 In his view, Kierkegaard’s theory of existential spheres forms “an intellectual-argumentative line that makes the religiousChristian emerge at the end.”11 The fact that Greve links the maieutical with the theory of stages also determines the systematic position of the ethical in his survey. Instead of interpreting it as a sphere of particular moral duties, he understands the ethical as a “theory of eudaimonia, in terms of a type of existence.”12 Being situated between the aesthetic sphere and the religious one, the ethical first has to “establish its superiority” to the aesthetic: with reference to the imperfections of his own life-view, the aesthete must be maieutically “provoked into the conversion to the ethical.”13 Following this, according to Greve, the same process has to be re-enacted “disadvantageously to the ethical and in favor of the religious.”14 Hence, one existential sphere is derived from the other by means of a purely immanent criticism. On this procedure, the agenda of Greve’s analysis of the concept of stages as ethics becomes apparent: the outlined course of theory is to be reconstructed carefully in its single maieutic steps. For the object of his examination, however, Greve exclusively chooses “ethics with a ‘dialogical’ structure.”15 According to him, only this form of the ethical can be understood as “maieutic ethics.”16 Arguing thus, Greve deliberately reduces Kierkegaard’s use of the term “maieutic” to the so-called concrete pseudonyms; his understanding of the maieutical hence determines the textual basis of his study. To Greve, only these works can lay claim to the “guiding principle” of the Kierkegaardian concept of indirect communication: namely, to pick up, so to speak, the one who shall be guided to existential reflection at that place he or she is existentially.17 Ibid., p. 21 (Greve’s emphasis). Ibid., p. 23. 11 Ibid. Greve refers to a distinction by Gregor Malantschuk, who differentiates between a “concrete line” and an “abstract line” in relation to the pseudonymous works: while the notion “concrete” relates to the so-called concrete-pseudonymous writings (Either/Or, Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s Way), the term “abstract” is supposed to denote the abstract-pseudonymous works (Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety). According to Malantschuk, both lines meet in the Postscript (see Gregor Malantschuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1971, pp. 214–15). 12 Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” p. 24. 13 Ibid., p. 24. 14 Ibid., pp. 24–5. 15 Ibid., p. 32. 16 Ibid. (my emphasis). 17 Ibid., p. 32. Greve refers to the “secret in the entire art of helping,” the maxim of maieutics in The Point of View (SKS 16, 27 / PV, 45). 9

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As Greve’s study locates this point of departure in the aesthetic sphere, its principal method may best be exemplified by reconstructing his account of the ethical criticism of the aesthetic (Chapter 2). Thus, Greve reconstructs B’s maieutic approach in two separate ways: as representation and criticism of the aesthetic life-view. Throughout, both ways are unfolded in parallel: Greve first retraces the internal structure of the aesthetic existence, focusing on the moments of enjoyment, immediacy, and dependence on the object of enjoyment. Then, he reconstructs the temporal structure of the aesthetic, focusing on the isolated instant. At the same time, Greve thoroughly compares B’s approach with A’s standpoint and reflects critically on its maieutic nature. In his opinion, the ethical characterization of A’s existence is not persuasive at first since it “turns the real causal relationship between nihilism and melancholic hedonism on its head.”18 However, although the judgment on B’s “maieutic method” must be a “negative one,” the ethicist nonetheless names the “existential problems” of the aesthetic existence, including, above all, A’s melancholy.19 In this context, according to Greve, the success of B’s maieutic is dependent on what existential alternative he is able to provide for A: “The burden of proof that there are alternatives and that the situation of the aesthete is only a point against himself but not against the conditio humana—the burden of proof for that rests with B.”20 In what has been expounded so far, Greve’s method can be summarized as follows: with reference respectively to Kierkegaard’s and Climacus’ maieutic-theoretical ambitions, Greve reconstructs the pseudonymous thought process by means of a purely immanent criticism within which the single existential spheres are unfolded. As a necessary precondition of this method, Greve interprets the series of works from Either/Or to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript as offering a “consistent theory of existence.”21 In this context, the second requirement for reconstructing a maieutic theory of the ethical is to retrace the course of the theory of stages by reproducing the “progression” of the concrete-pseudonymous works, namely, “from the criticism of the pre-ethical life-view in Either/Or to the criticism of the ethical in Stages.”22 Despite the fact that Greve’s representation of the problem of ethics in the abstract-pseudonymous writings (Chapter 5) is a bit brief, and although his study Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 76. For both a reconstruction of Greve’s argumentation in this connection and an analysis of the position the second part of Either/Or holds in his study, see Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), pp. 267–81. 20 Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” p. 76. For an extensive reconstruction of Greve’s analysis of B’s maieutic approach, see Philipp Schwab, “ ‘Ein altes, seltsames Buch kommt uns aus dem Dänischen zu…’— Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Entweder/Oder,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2008, pp. 420–2. 21 Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik. Von “Entweder/Oder II” zu den “Stadien,” p. 34. At the same time, Greve does not include the concurrently published upbuilding discourses in this theoretical unity since, in his opinion, these works do not have a systematic relationship with the pseudonymous writings. 22 Ibid., p. 35. 18 19

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does not provide an overall interpretation, either of Kierkegaardian ethics in general or of the pseudonymous ethics in their entirety, nonetheless, by its reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s maieutic ethics, Greve’s survey usefully highlights a concept of the ethical which had received scarce attention in Kierkegaard studies previously. As such, it can be concluded that Greve’s work undoubtedly constitutes a landmark in Kierkegaard research. Not only did it take the discussion of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous ethics to a new level by including the form of expression in its analysis, but it also contributed to sparking philosophical interest in the very form of communication in Kierkegaard’s works. Magnus C. Nagel

Reviews and Critical Discussions Disse, Jörg, review in Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 18, no. 3, 1993, pp. 89–91. Gabriel, Hans-Jürgen, review in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 40, no. 1, 1992, pp. 185–7. Grøn, Arne, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 16, 1993, pp. 140–2. Rapic, Smail, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), pp. 267–81, pp. 357–62. Schwab, Philipp, “ ‘Ein altes, seltsames Buch kommt uns aus dem Dänischen zu…’—Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Entweder/ Oder,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2008, pp. 419–22. — Der Rückstoß der Methode: Kierkegaard und die indirekte Mitteilung, Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter 2012 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 25), pp. 63–5. Taels, Johann, review in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, vol. 56, no. 4, 1994, pp. 783–4.

Jochem Hennigfeld and Jon Stewart (eds.), Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst und Wirklichkeit

[Kierkegaard and Schelling: Freedom, Anxiety and Actuality], Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 8), viii + 262 pp.

The papers collected in this volume are the proceedings of a workshop on Schelling and Kierkegaard that took place in Copenhagen at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre in 2000. Although there are only few experts for both authors, the editors did a very good job in gathering such excellent contributions to this field of research. The volume opens with Tonny Aagaard Olesen’s detailed chapter presenting the sources of Kierkegaard’s understanding of Schelling.1 Olesen’s research gives further evidence to Emmanuel Hirsch’s hypothesis that Kierkegaard became much more acquainted with Schelling’s thought by reading the works of Rosenkranz,2 Rötscher,3 and others than by attending the lectures or reading the books of Schelling himself. Despite this rather indirect connection, the general result of all the contributions in this volume is that Schelling’s philosophy has influenced Kierkegaard’s thought in various ways. Beside the fact that their respective comments on of the Hegelian system aim at similar aspects, both thinkers have many themes in common. They share the concept of freedom in connection with the concept of anxiety, faith in terms of immediate certainty, a practical accentuation with regard to this certainty, since a specific notion of actuality is involved, and the crucial role of kenotic Christology, just to mention a few. The main difference between Schelling and Kierkegaard, however, concerns their respective viewpoints. Whereas the late Schelling, obviously a Cf. Tonny Aagaard Olesen, “Kierkegaards Schelling. Eine historische Einführung,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, ed. by Jochem Hennigfeld and Jon Stewart, Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter 2003 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 8), pp. 1–102. 2 Karl Rosenkranz, Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, Danzig: Gerhard 1843 (ASKB 766). 3 Heinrich Theodor Rötscher, Aristophanes und sein Zeitalter, Berlin: Voss 1827. 1

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thinker of the system after all, seems to be primarily interested in a more general treatment of the matter as well as in the cognitive aspects of life orientation, Kierkegaard refers to the single individual and faith in terms of absolute paradox. The themes presented in the different contributions interweave with one another to such an extent that they give the impression of some kind of background communication between the authors. Jochem Hennigfeld works out systematic congruencies between Schelling and Kierkegaard with regard to their respective concepts of freedom and anxiety.4 In these two points, Hennigfeld argues, Schelling’s influence on Kierkegaard is greater than the latter himself would have admitted. However, Schelling is closer to Kierkegaard’s existential thought than his program of the absolute system would allow.5 The eventual failure of this program prefigures in Schelling’s various reformulations of the system and is mirrored in Kierkegaard’s rehabilitation of the individual.6 Human freedom and anxiety is also the topic of Axel Hutter’s chapter. He investigates the fundamental relation between these concepts as Schelling and Kierkegaard assume it. In order to have an adequate understanding of both this relation and the link between the two thinkers, Hutter suggests focusing on Schelling’s concept of the Unprethinkable. Being prior but not superior,7 the Unprethinkable belongs to the domain of pre-conceptual experience and is the starting point for becoming a free person in terms of an emancipation from that which shall not be (first and foremost the problematic tendency towards self-sufficiency). Human freedom, Hutter writes, is essentially an overcoming of the Unprethinkable—an overcoming, however, of a special kind, since the matter that is overcome becomes the foundation of the human being’s concrete existence.8 Anxiety, as it is understood by Schelling and Kierkegaard, qualifies as a pre-conceptual experience of the Unprethinkable, a sense for the foundation of one’s existence.9 In human freedom, anxiety has an additional trait resulting from a person’s capacity to relate herself to this foundation. Lore Hühn’s chapter is dedicated to Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel, this critique’s inspiration from Schelling, and a defense of Hegel’s position against a misunderstanding on Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s side. Hühn presents a very thorough reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s argument against Hegel. However, when he criticizes Hegel for confusing actuality and potentiality, he draws on Schelling to such an extent that it is hard to see where Kierkegaard contributes anything substantially new to the dispute.10 Even more, according to Hühn, Kierkegaard’s (as well as Cf. Jochem Hennigfeld, “Angst—Freiheit—System. Schellings Freiheitsschrift und Kierkegaards Der Begriff Angst,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, pp. 108ff.; pp. 105ff. 5 Cf. ibid., p. 115. 6 Cf. ibid., pp. 114–15. 7 Cf. Axel Hutter, “Das Unvordenkliche der menschlichen Freiheit. Zur Deutung der Angst bei Schelling und Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 118. 8 Cf. ibid., p. 121. 9 Cf. ibid., p. 122. 10 Cf. Lore Hühn, “Sprung im Übergang. Kierkegaards Kritik an Hegel im Ausgang von der Spätphilosophie Schellings,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 170.

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Schelling’s) critique of Hegel is misleading. It is obvious that Kierkegaard does not present Hegel in the light of his argumentative strength, but rather in the shadows of the speculative overextension characteristic to his system.11 Thereby Kierkegaard misses the productive potential of Hegel’s logic with regard to the HeracliteanPlatonic problem of suddenness.12 Hegel wishes to conceptualize the sudden and immediate transition from pure being to pure nothingness (and vice versa) in the perspective of present perfect.13 He has no interest in the perspective of the present (progressive). In this line of thought it is more important to conceive that something has become instead of something is becoming. However, it would have been interesting to investigate, whether the nonetheless decisive difference between the Hegelian moment of present perfect and the Kierkegaardian moment of what is to come involves a critical potential that could be used against Hegel’s logic. Further critical potential with regard to Hegelian thought is involved in Schelling’s project of positive philosophy. Hartmut Rosenau reconstructs the development of this project. Over the course of time, Schelling’s original idea that reason can approach the absolute with its own resources and can become absolute for itself is dropped. Furthermore, Schelling’s project seems to take a Christological turn when the concept of kenosis is adopted.14 Reason in terms of an all-encompassing system is no longer supposed to produce scientific securitas but rather to provide some kind of certiduo within the life world.15 The God presupposed by Schelling plays a central role in establishing this certainty by guaranteeing the unity on the ground of all life-worldly disparateness.16 In Rosenau’s view, however, Schelling differs from Kierkegaard, insofar as he underestimates that the religious meaning he wishes to incorporate is also a home for uncertainty; the will to knowledge cannot find rest here.17 Kierkegaard, on the other hand, is much more conscious about this fact, since he points out the paradoxical character of faith.18 In contrasting the difference between Schelling and Kierkegaard, Rosenau makes a similar point as Hennigfeld. The notion of certainty, however, plays also an important role in the next chapter. With impressive expertise, Anders Moe Rasmussen works out the most relevant conceptual similarities and differences between Jacobi, the late Schelling, and Kierkegaard. The main thesis is this: Jacobi’s criticism of Spinozist rationalism was an important source for the development of Schelling’s as well as Kierkegaard’s philosophical thought in critical distance to Hegel. One of the examples Rasmussen

Cf. ibid. Cf. ibid., pp. 170–1. 13 Cf. ibid., p. 171. 14 Cf. Hartmut Rosenau, “System und Christologie. Schellings und Kierkegaards Kritik des systematischen Denkens,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 206. According to reviewer Christian Danz, Rosenau should have considered more that the death of Christ plays a central role in Schelling’s conception of the free mind. Cf. Christian Danz, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 129, 2004, p. 556. 15 Cf. Rosenau, “System und Christologie,” p. 207. 16 Cf. ibid. 17 Cf. ibid., p. 208. 18 Cf. ibid. 11

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offers is that both Kierkegaard and Schelling share the notion of faith as an immediate certainty with Jacobi. Both, however, regard it necessary to reformulate Jacobi’s notion in practical terms because of their stronger interest in action, movement, and becoming.19 In addition to his investigation of the conceptual nexus between the three authors, Rasmussen also points to a methodological inspiration from Jacobi’s work. Informed by his distinction between two forms of knowledge—demonstration and illumination20—Schelling and Kierkegaard opt for the latter when developing their different kinds of phenomenology in their respective works Philosophie der Mythologie, The Concept of Anxiety, and The Sickness unto Death.21 Sharing a central theme with Hutter’s investigation, Steen Brock’s chapter discusses human freedom first and foremost in terms of emancipation. Brock’s focus, however, is rather on self-liberation in Schelling and Kierkegaard. Whereas Schelling seems to aim at reason, set free from itself, Kierkegaard is mainly interested in volition, set free from itself. Brock discusses both concepts in detail and points out their respective shortcomings. The problem with Schelling’s approach is that it implies a tendency to preserve the present state of the art as some kind of “final stage” with regard to the actualization of positive freedom.22 According to Kierkegaard, however, who conceives freedom in terms of existence, self-liberation would designate a way of transcending the given situation without essentially changing it but rather by seizing it in terms of Christian faith.23 In contrast to these shortcomings, Brock opts for a synthesis of both approaches. A person’s selfliberation should be reconceived as a person’s capacity to choose from the different possibilities of emancipation provided in the course of the historical development so far (being a matter of historical events that reshape the space of what is possible or impossible—and what is normative—to us) in order eventually to realize the respective emancipatory potential chosen.24 The volume concludes with Michelle Kosch’s investigation of actuality in Kierkegaard and Schelling. After having distinguished three notions of actuality which are operative in Kierkegaard’s authorship, Kosch focuses on the notion significant for a famous passage in the Postscript, a person’s ethical actuality25—and the question how Schelling might have informed that notion. “The source of the worry, for both [sc. Kierkegaard and Schelling] is the suspicion that if we admit that the actual falls into the grip of necessity, we shall have to give up freedom and moral responsibility.”26 However, according to Kosch, Kierkegaard and Schelling differ with Cf. Anders Moe Rasmussen, “The Legacy of Jacobi in Schelling and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 217; p. 219. 20 Cf. ibid., p. 215. 21 Cf. ibid., p. 222. 22 Cf. Steen Brock, “Self-Liberation, Reason and Will,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 233. 23 Cf. ibid., p. 227; p. 233. 24 Cf. ibid., pp. 233–4. 25 Cf. SKS 7, 288 / CUP1, 316. 26 Michelle Kosch, “ ‘Actuality’ in Schelling and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard und Schelling. Freiheit, Angst, Wirklichkeit, p. 248. 19

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regard to their respective solutions. Whereas Schelling tries to preserve an account of empirical cognition as a genuine source for our understanding of actual things,27 Kierkegaard invokes Humean skepticism. He holds that there is a gap between empirically cognizing a thing and interpreting it as an effect of something else—a gap that can only be filled by an act of free will, that is, by a person’s respective ethical actuality.28 With these observations, Kosch adds a further nuance to the contrast between Schelling as a systematic thinker of life orientation and Kierkegaard as a radical thinker of faith. With all these instructive contributions to a rather special, but also long-time neglected field of research, this volume will remain an important source for further research on the relation between Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s thought. Henning Nörenberg

27 28

Cf. ibid., p. 251. Cf. ibid., p. 249.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Cruysberghs, Paul, Johan Taels, and Karl Verstrynge, “Descriptive Bibliography: Recent Kierkegaard Literature: 2000–2004,” Tidschrift voor Filosofie, vol. 67, no. 4, 2005, pp. 801–2. Danz, Christian, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 129, no. 5, 2004, pp. 554–6.

Jann Holl, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst. Eine Untersuchung über die Voraussetzungen und Formen seines Denkens

[Kierkegaard’s Conception of the Self: A Study of the Conditions and Forms of His Thought], Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain 1972, 280 pp.

Jann Holl’s study, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst. Eine Untersuchung über die Voraussetzungen und Formen seines Denkens, published in 1972, is based on his Ph.D. thesis Das Selbst als Verhältnis zum Verhältnis. Beobachtungen zu den Voraussetzungen und Formen des Denkens in der Philosophie Sören Kierkegaards, which was defended at the Albert Ludwig University, Freiburg im Breisgau in 1970. Thereby Holl tries to connect Kierkegaard to the philosophical tradition of Modernity, especially within the framework of German Idealism. In this more systematically than historically orientated work Holl uncovers Kierkegaard’s premises for constructing his concept of a self: “This study deals with Kierkegaard’s precondition and—forms of thinking, which means that we are enquiring more into the ‘how’ and less into the ‘what’ of Kierkegaard’s philosophy.”1 By doing so Holl’s aim is to describe the Kierkegaardian self as a proposal to the modern discourse of subjectivity. What distinguishes Holl’s framework from other studies is his effort to bring Kierkegaard not only together with G.W.F. Hegel, but also with J.G. Fichte.2 Jann Holl, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst. Eine Untersuchung über die Voraussetzungen und Formen seines Denkens, Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain 1972, p. 4: “Diese Arbeit fragt nach den Denkvoraussetzungen und—formen in der Philosophy Kierkegaards […, womit] es in dieser Untersuchung primär um das‚ Wie und weninger um das‚Was des Denkens geht.” 2 Cf. Holl is referring to the following works which develop the relationship of Hegel and Kierkegaard: Wilhelm Anz, Kierkegaard und der Deutsche Idealismus, Tübingen: Verlag Mohr Siebeck 1956; Max Bense, Hegel und Kierkegaard: Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung, Cologne: Verlag Staufen 1948; Udo Johansen, “Kierkegaard und Hegel,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, vol. 7, 1953, pp. 20–53; Richard Kroner, “Kierkegaard und Hegel,” 1

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By juxtaposing Kierkegaard with Fichte, Holl discovers a new way of reading Kierkegaard, which can be used even today to reflect on the structure of subjectivity in following discussions of, for example, ethics or philosophy of religion.3 To handle this approach Holl splits his monograph into two parts: the first one deals with the question of the dialectic of beginning (Chapter 2, “Die Dialektik des Anfangs”)4 as well as the paradigms of monism (sketched by Fichte’s and Hegel’s concepts) and dualism (Chapter 3, “Denkmodelle”).5 Holl achieves this by focusing on the precondition of thinking. For this reason the opening part can be understood as an introduction in the context of how to think subjectivity in the age of Kierkegaard.6 Its aim is to set Kierkegaard in a series with philosophers like Descartes, Kant, Fichte or Hegel and to rationalize his viewpoint on faith and reality not only as a theological approach but also as a philosophical approach next to others. The second part of Holl’s study deals with the construction of Kierkegaard’s concept of the self. Although his explanations are strongly oriented on The Sickness unto Death, Holl also refers to other texts, such as The Concept of Anxiety, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Either/Or, Philosophical Fragments, Fear and Trembling or The Book on Adler. He justifies this by arguing “there is no place where Kierkegaard’s philosophy is summed up in a nutshell.”7 Thereby he relates these texts loosely to each other, because he seems to be much more interested in presenting Kierkegaard as a thinker than in recognizing the autonomy of the different pseudonyms. As in the first part, the subjective idealism of Fichte plays a role as important as the objective idealism of Hegel. Holl achieves an excellent and concise definition of terms and elements in Kierkegaard’s philosophy such as the paradox, truth, immediacy, freedom, or necessity. In addition to this, Holl validates the concept of a self by asking how to relate it to the “thou” or “the world.”8 At this point it seems as if Holl Kant Studien, vol. 46, 1954–55, pp. 19–27; Dietrich Ritschl, “Kierkegaards Kritik an Hegels Logik,” Theologische Zeitung, vol. 11, 1955, pp. 437–65; Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Kierkegaards Angriff auf die Spekulation, Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Suhrkamp 1967; Niels Thulstrup, “Kierkegaards Kritik an Hegels Logik,” Theologische Zeitung, vol. 13, 1957, pp. 200–202. 3 This thought was primarily brought forward in the early paper of Heinrich Schmidinger “Kierkegaard und Fichte,” Gregorianum, vol. 62, 1981, pp. 499–542, the Ph.D. thesis of Anton Hochbleicher-Schwarz, Das Existenzproblem bei J.G. Fichte und S. Kierkegaard, Königstein: Verlagsgruppe Athenäum/Hain/Hanstein 1984 and the collection Kierkegaard and Fichte. Praktische und Religiöse Subjektivität, ed. by Jürgen Stolzenberg and Smail Rapic, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 2010 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 22). 4 Holl, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst, pp. 13–57. 5 Ibid., pp. 58–107. 6 As far as I see it, Schleiermacher is no factor in the argumentation of Holl’s reconstruction of the Kierkegaardian self. In contrast to Holl’s book, see Andreas Kriechbaum’s monograph titled Kierkegaard und Schleiermacher. Eine historisch-systematische Studie zum Religionsbegriff, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 2008 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 18). 7 Holl, Kierkegaards Konzeption des Selbst, p. 1: “Die Philosophie Kierkgeaards liegt niergendwo geschlossen vor.” 8 Ibid., pp. 150–8; pp. 158–74.

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switches pretty quickly from the term “the other” from The Sickness unto Death to “God” as Christian creator. In a nutshell Holl’s main interest is to argue from the very first page onward for the aporia of monism, when he sums up his thesis: “The self as self has become a monad, whose determination ‘before God’ means becoming a final metaphysical and lonely individual.”9 The merits of Holl’s book are that it connects Kierkegaard to the tradition of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel and analyzes Kierkegaard’s self as a philosophical and not as a theological desiderandum. Thus Holl’s focus is much more systematically than historically or hermeneutically orientated. Klaus Viertbauer

Ibid., p. 141: “Das Selbst ist als Selbst zu einer Monade geworden, deren Bestimmung ‘vor Gott’ letzte metaphysische Vereinzelung und Vereinsamung bedeutet.”

9

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Madeleine Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine. Zur Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen bei Sören Kierkegaard

[The Singular and the Universal: On Human Self-Development in Søren Kierkegaard], Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg 1989, 127 pp.

Madeleine Kim is one of the first East Asian scholars to have studied Kierkegaard in the West and subsequently to have shaped the perception of Kierkegaard in her home country Korea.1 Her dissertation Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine. Zur Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen bei Sören Kierkegaard, defended in Vienna, investigates the relation of the singular and the universal from two different angles. From a historical perspective, German idealism, Young Hegelianism, and also Cartesianism are considered, while the author reconstructs the intellectual horizon of Kierkegaard’s thought and his unique contribution to a long philosophical tradition. Kim also approaches Kierkegaard’s work systematically: She distinguishes between a schematic structure of existence and an existential phenomenology.2 Her analysis of the existential scheme is based on The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death. Kim follows Helmut Fahrenbach,3 focusing on the dialectical concepts of possibility and reality, freedom and necessity, temporality and eternity, body and soul as much as—and this is her specific contribution—universality and singularity. With regard to the existential phenomenology of the particular moods, sentiments, and feelings emerging in the different existential stages, Kim mostly concentrates on Either/Or. It is Kim’s explicit research goal to establish a reading of Kierkegaard as a philosopher. She opposes interpretations of him as a solely religious writer, stressing that See Pyo Jae-myeong, “Korea: The Korean Response to Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome III, The Near East, Asia, Australia and the Americas, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research. Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 8), pp. 125–48; p. 143. 2 Madeleine Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine. Zur Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen bei Sören Kierkegaard, Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg 1989, p. 40. 3 See Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1968. 1

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until 1980, it has been overlooked that Kierkegaard is concerned with the “fundamental problem of philosophy after Hegel and of the 19th and 20th century,”4 namely, the reality of concrete human existence and freedom. Following the path of Karl Löwith5 and Johann Mader,6 Kim reminds us that the philosophical context is essential for understanding Kierkegaard’s concepts of singularity, individuality, and universality. Kierkegaard addresses what Hegel and the Young Hegelians have neglected: In Kierkegaard research, it has not been noticed much that Kierkegaard considers the question of the Singular [die Frage nach dem Einzelnen] under pre-existing conditions: German idealism and its negation after “the revolution in nineteenth-century thought.” Thus, Kierkegaard was compelled to highlight specific elements of his thought and to radicalize them, particularly with regard to the universal problem of man, the existence of the individual as “singular.” Therefore, with regard to freedom, the relation of the self to itself and the religious connection to God is dominant, whereas the relation to other humans, community and society are given less attention.7

Always keeping this historical-philosophical context in mind, Kim follows two main theses. First, she demonstrates that, according to Kierkegaard, the meaning of man is to be found in the reality of existence, that is, in the fact that the individual develops as a being that has a sensual body as much as a soul (leiblich-seelisches Wesen),8 and must endure the tensions that arise from this opposition. Second, Kim argues that contrary to the research tenor and existentialism’s perception of Kierkegaard, it is not solely the singular or the individual that Kierkegaard’s thought is aiming at. Instead, Kierkegaard is concerned with the dialectics of individual singularity and universality, which reaches deeply into the concrete realization of existence. Kim points out that “also Kierkegaard’s demand…to become single individuals has not only the formal and abstract universality of addressing everyone, but also the material and concrete [universality], which consists in the fact that every concrete realization of human existence as a singular individual, and with regard to every stage of its pursuit, includes a constitutive universal element.”9 Kim develops these two theses in six sections. In the Introduction, Chapter 1, she explicates the philosophical tradition from which Kierkegaard’s concept of the Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine, p. 13. See Karl Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts, in Sämtliche Schriften, vols. 1–9, ed. by Klaus Stichweh, Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1981–88, vol. 9 (first published in 1941). This work was translated into English as Hegel to Nietzsche: the Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought, trans. by David E. Green, London: Constable 1964. 6 See Johann Mader, Zwischen Hegel und Marx. Zur Verwirklichung der Philosophie, Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg 1975. Mader also wrote the preface to Kim’s book, highlighting that to “classify Kierkegaard as philosopher depends on how far it is possible to regard his existential and certainly religiously determined thought as [being concerned with the] universal, as having universal relevance” (Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine, Preface, p. 10). 7 Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine, pp. 13–14. 8 Ibid., p. 22. 9 Ibid., pp. 25–6. 4 5

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singular and the universal proceeds. Here, Kim observes that Kierkegaard turns around “the starting position of modern thought.”10 Whereas Fichte and Hegel elaborated on the priority of self-consciousness above being as established by Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, Kierkegaard follows Schelling, who claimed that conceptual thinking cannot grasp existence, because existence always realizes itself in particular, concrete and contingent situations. Even though Kierkegaard perceives being and thought as equal constituents of the human spirit, he insists that they cannot be mediated. This distinguishes Kierkegaard’s “dialectic of existence” from the Hegelian dialectic: “Dialectical thinking, according to Kierkegaard, is a thinking in oppositions, using thesis and antithesis, but in such a way, that the synthesis, e.g. the spirit [Geist] as synthesis of body and soul is something totally new and cannot become the thesis of yet another dialectical movement.”11 The spirit, which is always concrete in an individual human being, is not the result of a double negation, but rather the result of a leap. Chapter 2, on Kierkegaard’s anthropology, follows Wolfgang Struve and focuses on Kierkegaard’s definition of man’s existence as “inter-esse.”12 Kim then, in Chaptere 3, proceeds to analyze Kierkegaard’s account of “abstract” and “concrete” thinking, mostly considering the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and the relation of possibility and reality. In Chapter 4, Kim shows how universality is essential for Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication, stressing that “in the mere assumption of a possible communication of being, even if it is individual existence that is to be communicated, there is already a certain universal validity of the message intended.”13 Chapters 5 and 6 analyze the stages of existence with regard to Kierkegaard’s understanding of singularity and universality. Kim points out that it is the dialectic of individuality (respectively singularity) and universality, being and thinking, sensuality and spirituality that drives the process of self-actualization. However, she guides the reader’s attention to the fact that “in this dialectical process, the concepts of individuality and universality change.”14 Still, they are both essential for every stage of existence: it is the particular feature of Kierkegaard’s anti-thetical existential dialectic that also at the last stage (the religious existence), “the individual [das Individuum] is not ‘sublated’ [aufgehoben] in the universal and reconciled with it,”15 but rather, the individual stays essentially opposed to the universal represented by the “aesthetic” crowd as much as by the ideal human of ethical existence. Only by enduring this opposition does one become the true individual (der Einzelne).16 Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., pp. 20–1. 12 According to Struve, Kierkegaard’s anthropological concept of man as a being of “inter-esse” “resolves the basic equation of modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel: Being = Thinking.” Wolfgang Struve, “Die neuzeitliche Philosophie als Metaphysik der Subjektivität. Interpretationen zu Kierkegaard und Nietzsche,” Symposion. Jahrbuch für Philosophie, vol. 1, 1949, pp. 207–335; p. 235. 13 Kim, Der Einzelne und das Allgemeine, p. 66. 14 Ibid., p. 105. 15 Ibid., p. 109. 16 See ibid., p. 109. 10 11

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But Kim is far from suggesting that the individual existence reaches its fulfillment in isolation. Rather, her whole study warns against a distortion of Kierkegaard’s intentions, resulting from “a one-sided accentuation of the individual’s particularity,”17 a view that has been influentially held by Theodor W. Adorno and Hermann Schweppenhäuser.18 In sum, Kim’s book illuminates the coherence of Kierkegaard’s diverse writing, and she provides a careful analysis of the often neglected, yet constitutive, function which the universal fulfills for all existential stages and throughout Kierkegaard’s work. In the 1980s, the contextualization of Kierkegaard’s thought in the philosophical discourse of the nineteenth century was truly innovative. Today, the study remains a very relevant introduction to Kierkegaard’s writing as a manifestation of post-Hegelian philosophy. Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal

Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), p. 106. 18 See Theodor W. Adorno, Kierkegaard. Konstruktion des Ästhetischen, in Gesammelte Schriften, vols. 1–20, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970–86, vol. 2; Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Kierkegaards Angriff auf die Spekulation. Eine Verteidigung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1967. 17

Reviews and Critical Discussions Undetermined.

Klaus-Michael Kodalle, Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen. Kritik des Wunschdenkens und die Zweckrationalität im Anschluß an Kierkegaard

[The Conquest of the Useless: Criticism of Wishful Thinking and Instrumental Rationality in Connection with Kierkegaard], Paderborn: Ferdinand Schönigh 1988, 324 pp.

This is a provocative book, and so is its title: “The Conquest of the Useless.” Uselessness for Kodalle is of great value: Roughly following Kant’s definition of the human person as an end in itself, and applying Max Weber’s concept of instrumental rationality, this book tries to locate Kierkegaard’s contribution to philosophy within these parameters of the modern historical situation. The book is composed of five parts and an introduction. The Introduction discusses the concepts of instrumental rationality and wishfulness, as well as what Kodalle recommends as an antidote: the radically non-utilitarian existence of the Christian form of life. The task to carry out the “conquest of the useless” is introduced as a project which claims to be true to the wider theological task: to think the Christian truth as the “presence of the Absolute.”1 Methodologically, the book is not intended to be an “historical” interpretation of Kierkegaard’s text, but rather it aims to show his modern relevance. Kierkegaard displays a thinking “which confronts the modern critique of religion and the development of modern rationality as much as the practical rationalization and functionalization of our Lebenswelt.”2 Klaus-Michael Kodalle, Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen. Kritik des Wunschdenkens und die Zweckrationalität im Anschluß an Kierkegaard, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schönigh 1988, p. 13. For a brief summary of Kodalle’s book in English, see Klaus M. Kodalle, “The Utilitarian Self and the “Useless” Passion of Faith, in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998, pp. 397–410. 2 Kodalle, Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen, p. 20. 1

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Part One opens the debate between Kierkegaard and contemporary thinking. Kodalle discusses philosophers such as Blumenberg, Habermas, and Spaemann, as well as representatives from Critical Rationalism and modern French philosophy. The closest comradeship with Kierkegaard that Kodalle finds are academic outsiders such as Paul Feyerabend and Georges Bataille and their sharp critiques of teleological and utilitarian thinking. Very insightful is Kodalle’s critique of Habermas’ theory of communicative action. With the help of Kierkegaard, he demonstrates convincingly that Habermas’ assertion of the continuing “verbalization of the sacred” serves as a strategy to exclude from discourse those language games that are not rationally domesticated.3 Part Two focuses on Kierkegaard. Entitled “Critique of Apathy: An attempt with Kierkegaard,” these 100 pages form the core of Kodalle’s interpretation. The author tries to verify the very Kierkegaardian approach that he had applied to the contemporary discussion in the first part. This reconstruction of Kierkegaard’s concept of a non-utilitarian, spiritual understanding of human existence centers around two main pillars: first, a theory of the self which is based on a concept of the presence of the Absolute; and second, a theory of the political praxis of this self. As for the first task, the theory of a self is developed in five steps: (1) A concept of God which leaves behind the idea of an almighty god. Kodalle claims that Kierkegaard’s understanding of God as a relational reality calls for a communicative union in which human freedom and God’s empowering communicative freedom meet. The idea of God as a monological super-ego must be criticized—with Kierkegaard against Kierkegaard who time and again falls back behind this critical stance, especially in his religious literature. (2) Kierkegaard’s understanding of God’s sovereignty points to a radical anti-utilitarian sovereignty: love is the negation of all utilitarian rationality. For Kierkegaard, God is the image of absolute freedom, that is, the communicative freedom of love which articulates God’s being as the manifestation of the human person’s self-relation. (3) Empowerment and the loss of self: Kierkegaard’s polemics against some features of modern bourgeois society, such as the press and the public, point to pervasive ideological strategies of the modern self’s empowerment. Kierkegaard’s critique exhibits the opposite way in which the Christian faith faces the world: as a passionate way of human selftranscendence. (4) The paradox: Kierkegaard’s concept of the paradox has to be understood against the background of Feuerbach’s critique of religion as a mere projection of human ideas. Kierkegaard’s reply outdoes Feuerbach by applying a logic of suspicion. The paradox makes sure that God is not a mere compensator for human deficits: “Eternal truth is only free from any suspicion to be the mere product of rational construction, when it appears…within a medium which is determined by its sheer opposition to it: i.e. within the total alterability of history.”4 (5) Suffering: Kodalle defends Kierkegaard’s work against accusations of displaying a masochistic rigorism. Suffering has no other meaning than to realize the God-relationship of love in a way which is completely free of ends. What are now the corresponding notions of action, communication, and society? Action is portrayed as a passionate decision which defies all forms of mediation by 3 4

Ibid., pp. 45–51. Ibid., pp. 111–12.

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history, society, or science. Abraham’s silence in Fear and Trembling is the example of this resistance against mediation. Kodalle insists that this kind of internal action is neither irrational nor solipsistic, but rather it lays the foundation for any political praxis which seeks to defy the powers of the utilitarian discourse. This constellation is reflected in Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect communication. Over against contemporary theories of discourse Kodalle aims to demonstrate with Kierkegaard that any discursive praxis of recognition presupposes values which are not part of the discourse itself. For Kierkegaard, it is the God-relation which functions as the basis of communicative action. The indirect communication takes this basic insight seriously. Finally, these findings are spelled out with regard to a theory of society. Kierkegaard is presented as a conservative revolutionary who fights against the loss of responsibility in his time. He confronts the bourgeois self and its ideological instruments of self-assurance only to force it to acknowledge the new revolutionary reality. Kierkegaard aims at an affirmation of political order, only to discover that in the age of public opinion the fight for political order must articulate itself in the existence of the exceptional individual standing outside all normative constructions. Kodalle reconstructs in Kierkegaard a speculative concept of God which identifies the human self as the place of the self-realization of the Absolute, and which functions as the basis for a non-teleological understanding of social praxis. Unfortunately, the concept of intersubjectivity, as it is found in Works of Love and other texts, is completely left out by Kodalle. Generally, his use of Kierkegaard’s sources is quite selective and unbalanced. The two following parts of the book are dedicated to a lengthy discussion with Kierkegaard research. Part Three deals with the Kierkegaard interpretation in Adorno and his followers. Kodalle claims that Adorno,5 while he has no understanding for the radical non-utilitarian content of Kierkegaard’s thoughts, remains fixated on the question of reconciliation within history. By thereby claiming history as the only medium in which the self can secure its freedom, he not only misses Kierkegaard’s intention, but also falls into a kind of wishful thinking. The same critique is applied to Hermann Schweppenhäuser’s interpretation,6 and to Hermann Deuser, who uses Adorno’s reading of Kierkegaard constructively for his own theological interpretation.7 Deuser interprets Adorno’s Negative Dialectics as a form of Christology, that is, as a way of dealing with historical negativity. For Kodalle this amounts to a “theology of deferral,” waiting for the reconciliation within history, which is quite different from Kierkegaard’s concept of the powerless God of love.8 Part Four stages a “Dialogue with the Kierkegaard Research,” including fifteen brief discussions of various authors. These sketches focus mainly on the question of how philosophy and theology are to be related with regard to Kierkegaard. Kodalle Theodor W. Adorno, Kierkegaard. Konstruktion des Ästhetischen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1962. 6 Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Kierkegaards Angriff auf die Spekulation. Eine Verteidigung, Munich: Text & Kritik 1967. 7 Hermann Deuser, Dialektische Theologie. Studien zu Adornos Metaphysik und zum Spätwerk Kierkegaards, Munich: Chr. Kaiser-Verlag 1980. 8 Kodalle, Die Eroberung des Nutzlosen, p. 230. 5

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finds his closest ally in Joachim Ringleben’s book on the speculative thinking in Kierkegaard; here the idea of “God as absolute subjectivity” is made relevant for an understanding of Kierkegaard.9 However, Kodalle criticizes Ringleben for not taking seriously the practical and critical aspects of Kierkegaard’s thinking. Part Five applies these results to the Christological question. Kodalle’s Christology aims at thinking God’s powerlessness in a way so radical that all human projections and wishful phantasies are rendered impossible: a God who engages as deeply with human finitude as the God of Jesus does, can never be an object for these projections. The point of Christology is human freedom. Finally, it is Abraham and his silence who becomes the point of reference for a Christology which follows the traces of the Absolute in stories “in which a seemingly senseless engagement at the risk of losing one’s life, and without chances to win, expresses the infinite weight of undoubted certainty.”10 Kodalle’s book provides a fascinatingly one-sided interpretation that engages the Kierkegaard scholar in many new dialogues and fresh perspectives. However, the book lacks coherence: it appears as an accumulation of previously published texts which are loosely lumped together. Often a deeper engagement with Kierkegaard’s texts is missing. Ulrich Lincoln

Ibid., p. 261. Cf. Joachim Ringleben, Aneignung. Die spekulative Theologie Sören Kierkegaards, Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 1983. 10 Ibid., p. 312. 9

Reviews and Critical Discussions Braun, Dietrich, review in Evangelische Theologie, vol. 52, 1992, pp. 369–74. Harbsmeier, Eberhard, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 15, 1991, pp. 161–4. Kloeden, Wolfdietrich von, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 114, 1989, cols. 837–9. Stack, George J., review in Review of Metaphysics, vol. 45, 1991, pp. 405–7.

Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung

[Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Existential Analysis and its Relation to the Proclamation], Berlin: Erich Blaschker Verlag 1950, 128 pp.

Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s first work focusing explicitly on Kierkegaard,1 Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung (Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s Existential Analysis and its Relation to the Proclamation), is an often overlooked, though highly interesting exposition of Kierkegaard’s thought. It is also unique, as it contains one of the first internal critiques raised against Kierkegaard from within Danish academia. Løgstrup had been professor of ethics and philosophy of religion since 1943, and since 1936 a part of the Danish existential theological movement, Tidehverv, which was deeply influenced by Kierkegaard.2 This work contains Løgstrup’s most important evaluation of and position on Kierkegaard, together with his “Polemical Epilogue” (1956)3 and Controverting Kierkegaard (1968).4 As such, it marks an important moment in Danish Kierkegaard reception, and the critical questions raised by Løgstrup in 1950 are thus to be seen as a beginning of what turned out to be an influential critique of Kierkegaard. The text itself is comprised of a series of four lectures given by Løgstrup in January at the Freie Universität in Berlin under the title “Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy.” The entire second chapter of the book (“Concerning the Doubling of the Relation of the Spirit in Kierkegaard”) was published as a chapter in Løgstrup’s Kunst og etik Apart from a lengthy article also written in 1949: Knud Ejler Løgstrup, “Die Kategorie und das Amt der Verkündigung im Hinblick auf Luther und Kierkegaard,” Evangelische Theologie, vol. 9, 1949, pp. 249–69. 2 The word tidehverv means “epoch” or “age” and is the Danish equivalent to the German journal, Zwischen den Zeiten. 3 Found in Løgstrup’s main work, Den etiske fordring, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1956; in English: The Ethical Demand, trans. by Theodor I. Jensen, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1971 (2nd ed., London: University of Notre Dame Press 1997). 4 Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Opgør med Kierkegaard, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1968. 1

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(Art and Ethics) in 1961.5 In 2013 Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung was reissued in a Danish edition based mainly on the German text, supported further by Løgstrup’s original manuscripts in Danish.6 This edition is supplemented by an instructive postscript by Professor Svend Andersen and provides an overview of both the background and key points of the book. It is important to emphasize that Løgstrup’s position on Kierkegaard in 1950 is not primarily that of critique or controversy, when one bears in mind the development over the next 20 years. In fact, Løgstrup himself takes his point of view to be Kierkegaardian and indeed his philosophical project as taking place in the context of a Kierkegaardian and Heideggerian understanding of human existence. Initially, Løgstrup clarifies his juxtaposition of Kierkegaard and Heidegger. He acknowledges that they differ in very important respects, but argues that, in spite of this, their basic conceptions are formally comparable and can be held together as a joint philosophical analysis of existence. His intentions in this regard become clear in Chapter 1 (“Life in the Crowd according to Kierkegaard and Heidegger”) and Chapter 3 (“The Relation between Heidegger’s and Kierkegaard’s Existential Analyses”). Løgstrup focuses on four unifying points between Kierkegaard and Heidegger: (1) Being a self or oneself is not merely being (conscious); (2) the central existential problem is being or becoming oneself; (3) being is becoming, meaning existence is related to possibility; and (4) a negativity lies at the root of becoming.7 However, this negativity is also where they differ. According to Kierkegaard, becoming is rooted in a negativity caused by the inner, infinite (ethical) demand, whereas, according to Heidegger, the negativity rests in man’s pre-ethical existence, that is, in Sorge or Cura. Nevertheless, the central matter remains the same, Løgstrup concludes: The “affair is the same. For both of them the main question is how the individual is to live authentically without losing oneself to the crowd.”8 Kierkegaard and Heidegger may have differing substantial answers as to how this is to be done, but, according to Løgstrup, they agree formally with regard to the main question and in their analyses of existence, and so too does Løgstrup. Furthermore, he acknowledges Kierkegaard’s analysis of existence and his answer, that the negativity in existence is rooted in an ethical demand. However, Løgstrup criticizes Kierkegaard for locating this negativity in the inner sense of responsibility. As such, Kierkegaard’s negativity becomes a purely formal possibility, and because of this the other merely represents an existential function—necessary for my own existential becoming and thus a means for my own existential ends. After having presented this quite specific critique of Kierkegaard, Løgstrup proposes a correction to Kierkegaard’s conception of the demand: “The critique of Kierkegaard I  have presented here necessitates a clarification of how the infinite demand appears in the concrete, outer existence, if it does not want to abandon every Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Kunst og Etik, Copenhagen: Gyldendal 1961. Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Kierkegaards og Heideggers eksistensanalyse og dens forhold til forkyndelsen, ed. by Svend Andersen, Aarhus: Klim 2013. 7 Knud Ejler Løgstrup, Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung, Berlin: Erich Blaschker Verlag 1950, p. 36. 8 Ibid., p. 43. 5 6

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conception of an infinite demand and with it Kierkegaard’s entire understanding of existence.”9 This task is exactly what Løgstrup aims at in Chapter 6, “The Absolute Demand of Concrete Existence,” and six years later he develops this critique to a much greater extent in his major work, The Ethical Demand. Løgstrup addresses another central topic in the book, namely, his view on the relationship between philosophy and the Proclamation (of Christ). Here he again offers an argument for juxtaposing Kierkegaard and Heidegger, this time with respect to the connection between their formal existential analysis (ontology) and any kind of substantial philosophical, political, ethical, or religious view of life. This relationship, Løgstrup stresses, is of absolute importance since any substantial ethos, ideology, religion, or other proclamation of what existence is (or ought to be like) must have an existential analysis and its results as its prerequisite if it is to be intellectually conceivable and existentially understandable. Løgstrup thus acknowledges the formal structure in Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s existential analysis (with the correction regarding the ethical demand’s appearance in concrete, outer existence), and he applies it as a criterion for establishing existential and intellectual meaning in ethical and political theory and religious teachings. Any statement about existence must correspond to the formal analysis of existence if it is to be legitimate intellectually and existentially. Here Løgstrup probably does not yet realize that he is discovering Kierkegaardian and Heideggerian munitions for what will eventually turn into a certain critique of mainly Kierkegaard, one accusing him of irrationalism/fideism, claiming that a theology founded upon Kierkegaard’s religious views is bound, by Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s own standards, to be held as philosophically illegitimate. This is the main point of Chapter 7, “Philosophy and Proclamation.” Here Løgstrup emphasizes that he is dealing with Kierkegaard as an existential philosopher only, and in this respect Løgstrup agrees with him. But later on, especially in 1968 in Controverting Kierkegaard, Løgstrup takes issue with Kierkegaard’s theology, which in turn leads to an almost outright rejection of Kierkegaardian existential theology in particular and existentialism in general. Although Kierkegaards und Heideggers Existenzanalyse und ihr Verhältnis zur Verkündigung received little attention, it did not go completely unnoticed. In the early 1950s it drew strong objections from the Kierkegaard authorities of their time, Kristoffer Olesen Larsen (Løgstrup’s compatriot in Tidehverv) and Johannes Sløk (Løgstrup’s colleague from Aarhus University). Sløk termed Løgstrup’s reading “a heavy-handed and ill-fated simplification of Kierkegaard’s determinations,”10 and Olesen Larsen wrote a lengthy article in Tidehverv, “The Infinite Demand and the Love of the Neighbor,” where he characterized it as a “misunderstanding.”11 Due to Løgstrup and Sløk’s formation of a non-aggression pact, this controversy hereafter played itself out as a discussion between Løgstrup and Olesen Larsen. This resulted Ibid., pp. 84–5. Johannes Sløk, “Tre Kierkegaard-tolkninger,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 1, 1955, p. 96 (my translation). 11 Kristoffer Olesen Larsen, Søren Kierkegaard læst af K. Olesen Larsen, vols. 1–2, ed. by Vibeke Olesen Larsen and Tage Wilhjelm, Copenhagen: Gad 1966, vol. 1, p. 182 (my translation). 9

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in several articles over the following years, written as an open debate between the two, with The Ethical Demand as its peak and Controverting Kierkegaard as its culmination. Løgstrup’s early work on Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s existential analysis and its relation to the Proclamation marks the beginning of what turned out to become a fierce critique of Danish Kierkegaardian existential theology, and it persisted for more than 20 years. It could therefore be seen as the most enduring critique of Kierkegaard in Denmark; it has been and remains influential in Danish academia— even though the book initiating it has been almost completely overlooked. This blind spot obscures the fact that Løgstrup did not start out as a fierce critic of Kierkegaard and Kierkegaardian theology, and that he must actually be seen as an existentialist thinker, rooted in Kierkegaardian views of philosophy and existentialism. However, in time, what began as a suggested correction grew to become an insurmountable difference. Bjørn Rabjerg

Reviews and Critical Discussions Hansen, Knud, “Den absolutte fordring,” Tidehverv, vol. 25, 1951, pp. 82–92. — “Filosofi og forkyndelse,” Højskolebladet, vol. 77, 1952, pp. 306–17; pp. 316– 17; pp. 338–9. Herrlin, Olle, review in Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift, vol. 27, 1951, pp. 78–80. Larsen, K. Olesen, “Den uendelige fordring og kærligheden til næsten. IV,” Tidehverv, vol. 26, 1952, pp. 44–56. Rohde, Peter P., “Skovstien, der ender blindt,” Information, July 21, 1951. Rubow, Paul V., “Søren Kierkegaard i spekulativ Belysning,” Berlinske Aftenavis, January 13, 1951. Sløk, Johannes, “Tre Kierkegaard-tolkninger,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 1, 1955, pp. 89–101.

Olaf P. Monrad, Sören Kierkegaard. Sein Leben und seine Werke

[Søren Kierkegaard: His Life and His Works], Jena: Diederichs 1909, 152 pp.

Olaf P. Monrad’s Sören Kierkegaard. Sein Leben und seine Werke was published by Diederichs in 1909. It accompanied the first German edition of Kierkegaard’s Collected Works, which was edited by Christoph Schrempf and Hermann Gottsched in the same publishing house.1 The significance of Monrad’s book is not only based on its connection with Schrempf and Gottsched’s edition, but also on the fact that it was only the second or maybe third German monograph—with the first two dating all the way back to the translations of Georg Brandes’ Søren Kierkegaard: En kritisk Fremstilling i Grundrids from 18792 and Harald Höffding’s Søren Kierkegaard som Filosof from 18963—that can be characterized as a comprehensive introduction to Kierkegaard’s life and work. Monrad (1849–1920), a Danish pastor, relies primarily on Scandinavian sources and shows a profound knowledge of Kierkegaard’s own texts, including his journals, and the secondary literature of his time. The book was widely known among German readers interested in Kierkegaard. We know, for example, that it was read among the Christoph Schrempf (1860–1944) was one of the main translators of Kierkegaard at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Hermann Gottsched (1848– 1916) played a very important role as the editor of the first edition of Kierkegaard’s Efterladte Papier, in which he followed Hans Peter Barfod. Their German edition of Kierkegaard’s Gesammelte Werke (Diederichs 1909–22) was very influential and—together with the translations by Theodor Haecker—the most important source for reading Kierkegaard in German prior to the edition by Emanuel Hirsch. It has to be taken into consideration though that Schrempf, after the death of Gottsched, published a second edition (Diederichs 1922–25) with remarkably altered translations (see Olaf P. Monrad, “Christoph Schrempfs Tätigkeit als Übersetzer und Interpret Søren Kierkegaards,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2011, pp. 435–63). 2 Georg Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard, ein literarisches Charakterbild, anonymous translation, Leipzig: Barth 1879. 3 Harald Höffding, Sören Kierkegaard als Philosoph, with a preface by Christoph Schrempf, trans. by Albert Dorner, Stuttgart: Frommann 1896. 1

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people involved in the Brenner circle, namely, Ludwig von Ficker, Theodor Haecker, and Carl Dallago.4 It also received eight German reviews and even one English one. Monrad himself declares that it was his intention to describe Kierkegaard, the person and the author, as objectively as possible, and that he did not understand it as part of his role to provide any sort of critique.5 Only in the final chapter does he allow himself to depart from this principle, offering a critical evaluation of Kierkegaard’s work. In his presentation of Kierkegaard, Monrad follows a chronological line and combines an account of Kierkegaard’s biography with an introduction to his works. Monrad presupposes a close link between life and work and, hence, attempts to trace the genesis of the work from the biography. The first chapter offers an overview of the main figures of intellectual life in Golden Age Denmark. It introduces, among others, Grundtvig, Heiberg, Mynster, Martensen, Poul Martin Møller, Rasmus Nielsen, and Sibbern to the reader. In the following chapter, Monrad gives an overview of the life of Søren’s father, Michael Kierkegaard Pedersen, and discusses the role he played in the intellectual development of his son. He especially highlights the rigorous, orthodox Christian education by the father and the role of the Herrnhuter Brotherhood. Thereby, Monrad provides a short, but substantial outline of the intellectual landscape in which Kierkegaard was born and raised. In the chapter on Kierkegaard’s youth, Monrad provides factual information—as well as the legends coming along with it—with regard to the normality or abnormality of Kierkegaard’s body. Those insights and rumors, which were already publicly known in Denmark because of the publication of Kierkegaard’s own journals and because of the accounts of contemporaries, had not been available in German, at least not in such a detailed fashion. It is remarkable that Monrad was the first German interpreter who included the publications prior to Either/Or in the discussion of Kierkegaard’s authorship. Previously, those writings had been widely ignored in the German reception. This was due to the fact that the early German reception broadly followed the perspective on Kierkegaard’s authorship, which Kierkegaard himself provided in The Point of View.6 Thus, Monrad’s inclusion of the early works marks an important break with the authority of The Point of View in the German reception. Monrad briefly mentions From the Papers of One Still Living and goes on to an in-depth discussion of The Concept of Irony. He wants to defend the thesis that Kierkegaard’s whole authorship has to be read against the background of Kierkegaard’s irony.

See the letter from Ficker to Haecker from March 20, 1914, published in Ludwig von Ficker, Briefwechsel, vols. 1–4, ed. by Ignaz Zangerle, et. al., vol. 1, Salzburg: Otto Müller 1986; vols. 2–4, Innsbruck: Haymon 1988–96, vol. 1, p. 215. Monrad’s book was still part of the discussion several years later when tensions arose between Haecker and Dallago, Letter from Haecker to Ficker from April 23, 1921, Ficker, Briefwechsel, vol. 2, p. 296. 5 Monrad, Sören Kierkegaard, p. 133. 6 The same point has been stated by Philipp Schwab, “Der ‘ganze Kierkegaard im Keim’ und die Tradition der Ironie. Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Kierkegaards Der Begriff der Ironie,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2009, pp. 374–5, and even Monrad himself, see Monrad, Sören Kierkegaard, p. 45. 4

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Thus, Monrad claims that irony, as presented in Kierkegaard’s dissertation, is not only an object of scientific investigation, but also, and more importantly, a main characteristic of Kierkegaard himself.7 Kierkegaard’s engagement with Regine and his breaking off of the engagement are described with reference to Kierkegaard’s letters to Regine and Regine’s own memoirs, which had only been published a few years earlier, after Regine’s death in 1904. These documents were also immediately translated into German8 and constituted, together with a selection from Kierkegaard’s journals, which was edited and translated by Gottsched,9 the first wave of texts providing insights into Kierkegaard’s personal life to the German reader. Starting from this event in Kierkegaard’s life, Monrad works his way through Kierkegaard’s authorship, discussing all the major writings, both the pseudonymous ones and the discourses (with the sole exception of the early edifying discourses), up to the open attack on the Danish Church. In his discussion of this final episode in Kierkegaard’s life, Monrad includes passages from contemporaries, most prominently excerpts from Martensen’s reply. In his concluding critical evaluation, Monrad targets what he considers the onesidedness of Kierkegaard’s view of Christendom. Monrad claims that this view, which in his interpretation stems from the upbringing by the father, causes Kierkegaard, on the one hand, to get tangled up in a set of problems that only originate from his one-sided perspective, and, on the other hand, to set the standards for being a true Christian so high that they are virtually impossible to reach, even for Kierkegaard himself; by doing so, Kierkegaard loses sight of important intermediate stages and differentiations. In his final conclusion, Monrad praises Kierkegaard for being an “existential prophet of a free, Christian personality”10 but claims—maybe in contrast to Kierkegaard’s own position, but certainly in contrast to the interpretations of Brandes and Schrempf—that this does not imply an estrangement from the church. In contrast, he claims that the free personality is precisely the basic principle of Protestant Christianity, at least in the version of it that Monrad wants to defend.11 To sum up, Monrad’s book is a thoroughly informed, well-written, and balanced introduction to Kierkegaard’s life and work, and, as such, unmatched at the time of its publication. Together with the first German edition of Kierkegaard’s Collected Works, it became very influential in spreading the word about Kierkegaard and increasing the knowledge about his life and work in the German-speaking world. Gerhard Thonhauser Here the dissertation by Niedermeyer needs to be mentioned, which appeared in the same year and defended a similar claim. Gerhard Niedermeyer, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik, Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1910. 8 Søren Kierkegaards Verhältnis zu seiner Braut. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus seinem Nachlaß, ed. by Henriette Lund, trans. by Emilie Rohr, Leipzig: Insel 1904; Sören Kierkegaard und sein Verhältnis zu “ihr.” Aus nachgelassenen Papieren, ed. and trans. by Raphael Meyer. Stuttgart: Axel Juncker 1905. 9 Sören Kierkegaard: Buch des Richters. Seine Tagebücher 1833–1855 im Auszug, ed. and trans. by Hermann Gottsched, Leipzig: Diederichs 1905. 10 Monrad, Kierkegaard, p. 146. 11 Ibid. 7

Reviews and Critical Discussions Anonymous, review in Der Bund, December 13, 1909. Anonymous, review in Das Reich, December 17, 1909. Anonymous, review in Tilsiter allgemeine Zeitung, December 19, 1909. Anonymous, review in Die Philosophie der Gegenwart, ed. by Arnold Ruge, Heidelberg: Weiss 1910, pp. 129–30. Bell, Richard, review in Review of Theology and Philosophy, vol. 6, no. 5, 1910, pp. 304–8. Hoffmann, Karl, “Gestalten und Lebensbilder,” Die Tat, vol. 5, 1913–14, pp. 910–12. Lehmann, Edvard, review in Deutsche Rundschau, vol. 144, 1910, pp. 474–5. Malik, Habib C., Receiving Søren Kierkegaard: The Early Impact and Transmission of His Thought, Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press 1997, p. 353 and p. 382. Schwab, Philipp, “Der ‘ganze Kierkegaard im Keim’ und die Tradition der Ironie. Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Kierkegaards Der Begriff der Ironie,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2009, pp. 374–5; pp. 391–7; p. 401; p. 404. Uckerley, Alfred, review in Theologischer Literaturbericht, vol. 33, 1910, no. 5, pp. 129–30. Zillesen, Alfred, review in Evangelische Freiheit, vol. 10, 1910, no. 8, pp. 287–8.

Gerhard Niedermeyer, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik [Sören Kierkegaard and Romanticism],

Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), 84 pp.

Gerhard Niedermeyer’s study, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik was first released as Sören Kierkegaards philosophischer Werdegang, that is, “Sören Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Development” before it was published as volume 11 in the series Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte. The first version was the author’s dissertation, which he submitted at the University of Erlangen. For the second publication, Chapters 6 and 7, and the closing words were added. For the most part, Niedermeyer refers to German translations of and texts about Kierkegaard. However, it is remarkable that he wrote a book about Kierkegaard and Romanticism that primarily focused on irony, because the obvious source for such a work, Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony, had not yet been published in German. In fact, it would take another twenty years before the first translation was published.1 Niedermeyer must have worked with the Danish original, even though the extent of his Danish skills remains unclear, since The Concept of Irony is the only Danish text to which he refers. By contrast, he shows profound knowledge of the German secondary literature. In particular, he makes extensive use of several texts about Kierkegaard’s life that were published in the first decade of the twentieth century.2 We can clearly see that his study would not have been possible without these publications— this is an excellent example of how these sources substantially altered and advanced the possibilities of receiving Kierkegaard in German.3 Then, in 1929, two translations were published independently from each other: Über den Begriff der Ironie mit ständiger Rücksicht auf Sokrates, trans. by Hans Heinrich Schaeder, Munich and Berlin: Oldenburg 1929; and Der Begriff der Ironie mit ständiger Rücksicht auf Sokrates, trans. by Wilhelm Kütemeyer, Munich: Kaiser 1929. 2 Aus den Tiefen der Reflexion. Etwas für den Einzelnen aus Søren Kierkegaards Tagebüchern 1833–1855, ed. and trans. by F. Venator, Zweibrücken: Lehmann 1901. Søren Kierkegaards Verhältnis zu seiner Braut. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus seinem Nachlaß, ed. by Henriette Lund, trans. by Emilie Rohr, Leipzig: Insel 1904. Sören Kierkegaard und sein Verhältnis zu “ihr.” Aus nachgelassenen Papieren, ed. and trans. by Raphael Meyer, Stuttgart: Axel Juncker 1905. Søren Kierkegaard: Buch des Richters. Seine Tagebücher 1833–1855 im Auszug, ed. and trans. by Hermann Gottsched, Leipzig: Diederichs 1905. 3 Moreover, Purkarthofer points out that Niedermeyer’s study is the first instance of a work that uses materials from the Nachlass as more than a mere source of biographical 1

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It was also in the context of the German reception of Kierkegaard that Niedermeyer wanted to contextualize his work. Niedermeyer, who announces that he is writing from “the point of view of the historian,” states that the goal of his study is, “to provide the historical basis to enable the German reader to get a deeper understanding of Sören Kierkegaard.”4 He mentions the different perspectives that the works of Harald Høffding, Albert Bärthold, Christoph Schrempf, and Georg Brandes provided, but states that none of them has offered what he wants to accomplish.5 As a model for his work he refers to Wilhelm Dilthey’s study on the young Hegel.6 Niedermeyer’s project can most adequately be described as a genetic-biographical approach. As the title of his dissertation suggests, his aim is to understand the philosophical development of Kierkegaard. His main thesis is that in order to understand this development, one needs to examine Kierkegaard’s relation to Romanticism: thus the title of the final publication. On the one hand, Niedermeyer wants to show the extent to which Kierkegaard was dependent on Romanticism for his philosophical development. On the other hand, he tries to examine the way in which Kierkegaard was a critic of Romanticism. These two sides of the interpretation are also reflected in the structure of his study: after an outline of the romantic’s irony, Niedermeyer examines Kierkegaard, first, as a romantic and, second, as somebody who overcomes Romanticism. At this point, I will examine these two aspects more closely. On the one hand, Niedermeyer’s claim is that “under certain conditions, Romanticism and irony have to be acknowledged as the key to his [Kierkegaard’s] life.”7 Romanticism and irony allowed Kierkegaard to thrive within the contradiction in which he was placed. Niedermeyer identifies these contradictions throughout his life, for example, in several aspects of his childhood and in his engagement. But, by that point in his study, he has to clarify that Kierkegaard’s irony differs from romantic irony: Kierkegaard’s irony is a more serious irony, for it is simultaneously more inward and in tighter relation with actuality. Nevertheless, he defends his claim that Kierkegaard has to be seen as a “romantic poet.”8 He is a romantic on the poetic side of his nature: a romantic in the freely, ironically performed stance towards his time, a romantic in the way in which he—in an outwardly joking, inwardly deeply serious irony, indeed an irony that goes far beyond the romantic—understands the relation to his bride (the way, in which he) as a knight of irony breaks one side of the relationship, but retains its other, ideal side, faithful until

information. Richard Purkarthofer, “Zur deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Kierkegaards Nachlass,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2003, p. 340. 4 Niedermeyer, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik, Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1909 (Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, vol. 11), p. 9. 5 Ibid., p. 10. At this point, he also mentions Albert Bärthold and Hermann Gottsched as “commendable translators” of Kierkegaard. 6 Wilhelm Dilthey, Die Jugendgeschichte Hegels, Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften 1905. 7 Niedermeyer, Sören Kierkegaard und die Romantik, pp. 31–3. 8 Ibid., p. 31.

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death.…Without the irony of this kind, which can only be understood through the acquaintance of Socrates and Romanticism, his writings cannot be understood.9

In other words, Niedermeyer maintains that Kierkegaard’s entire life and authorship needs to be seen against the background of this genuine Kierkegaardian irony. Interestingly enough, he also suggests that we should see Kierkegaard’s pseudonymity in light of his irony.10 In the next chapter, Niedermeyer attempts to show the way in which Kierkegaard overcame Romanticism, focusing primarily on The Concept of Irony. For the most part, this chapter is more a paraphrase of Kierkegaard’s text than an interpretation of it; at times, Niedermeyer almost literally translates whole passages.11 Even though this procedure seems strange from our perspective, seen from the perspective of his contemporaries who were still waiting for a translation one can hardly underestimate the role this played in the transmission of Kierkegaard’s thought. In his evaluation of Kierkegaard’s argumentation, Niedermeyer highlights the legitimate aspects of Kierkegaard’s critique—especially the assertion that the Romantics understood irony solely as a game and therefore lacked a root in actuality—but he concludes that Kierkegaard’s judgment is nevertheless unbalanced and unfair. Niedermeyer explains this psychologically by way of Kierkegaard’s need to distance himself from the object of his judgment, an object with which he has been so closely related.12 In his view, Kierkegaard has indeed overcome Romanticism, but only through an intense struggle with it, a struggle that initiated and promoted his intellectual development and strengthened his thought.13 Thereby, Niedermeyer indicates that we should see Kierkegaard’s life and work under a developmental aspect—that is, it precisely was an intellectual development. Unfortunately, he does not further elaborate on this line of interpretation. The last four chapters add little to Niedermeyer’s interpretation. They serve more as a historical contextualization, and, most importantly, they provide compact information on other figures who had influence on Kierkegaard, such as Johann Georg Hamann, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and the late Schelling. In an intriguing remark, Niedermeyer states that Kierkegaard’s relation to Hegel cannot be seen as the mere

Ibid., pp. 44–5: “Er ist Romantiker nach der dichterischen Seite seines Wesens hin, Romantiker in der freien, ironisch durchgeführten Stellung zu seiner Zeit, Romantiker in der Art, wie er in äußerlich scherzender, innerlich tiefernster, ja das Romantische weit überschreitender ‘Ironie’ sein Verhältnis zu seiner Braut auffaßt, als Ritter der Ironie eine Seite des Verhältnisses löst und die andere, die ideale Seite desselben…treu bis in den Tod festhält.…Ohne die Ironie in diesem nur aus der Kenntnis des Sokrates und der Romantik verständlichen Sinne sind seine Schriften nicht zu verstehen.” 10 Ibid., p. 45. 11 He even does so without giving references. This procedure, which nowadays would most likely be considered plagiarism, can partly be justified by the lack of a translation. Additionally, he explicitly states at the end of his paraphrase/translation: “Kierkegaard himself has spoken through this concise excerpt” (ibid., p. 57). 12 Ibid., pp. 57–9. 13 Ibid., p. 61. 9

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controversy between Kierkegaard and Hegel, since this is an all too simplified view.14 Unfortunately, he also fails further to elaborate on this matter. It is a general tendency of Niedermeyer’s interpretation that he offers many hints and ideas for an interpretation of Kierkegaard—some of which might still be worth discussing—but he often fails sufficiently to elaborate on them. Taking into consideration that it was a dissertation of only eighty-four pages, this is probably what one can reasonably expect from this kind of text. Then again, Niedermeyer’s language displays a richness and beauty that can hardly be found in academic writings of our days. But most importantly, he revealed aspects of Kierkegaard’s life and work—first and foremost his intellectual development prior to Either/Or—that had previously been unknown or neglected in the German reception, and thereby opened up entirely new perspectives for receiving Kierkegaard. Gerhard Thonhauser

14

Ibid., p. 68.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Braun, Otto, review in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol. 145, no. 1, 1912, pp. 124–5. Ollion, Henri, review in Revue de philosophie, vol. 17, no. 8, Paris 1910, pp. 189–91. Purkarthofer, Richard, “Zur deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Kier­kegaards Nachlass,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2003, pp. 340–1. Schwab, Philipp, “Der ‘ganze Kierkegaard im Keim’ und die Tradition der Ironie. Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Kierkegaards Der Begriff der Ironie,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2009, pp. 396–400.

Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels [Ethical Self-Dialogue: Kierkegaard’s Debate with Kant’s Ethics and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right],

Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), XII + 489 pp.

Smail Rapic’s book, his Habilitation at the University of Cologne, is an investigation into the ethical theory of Kierkegaard’s first major work, Either/Or. Rapic suggests reading the early book in the light of Kierkegaard’s lecture notes on ethical communication from 1847, where a concept of ethical theory as maieutic-indirect communication of ethical knowledge is outlined. Accordingly, Rapic’s interpretation of Either/Or is a maieutic reading, which concentrates on the book’s second part, the two letters by Judge William. Only a maieutic interpretation of these texts, in the context of the whole book, Rapic argues, is able to reveal its substantial contribution to philosophical ethics. The specific philosophical background for Either/Or is mainly formed by the legacy of Kant’s moral philosophy and Hegel’s philosophy of right.1 On the one hand, according to Rapic, Kierkegaard’s theory of indirect ethical communication takes up Kant’s concept of practical judgment by giving the highest ethical priority to the individual’s conscientious choice in ethical situations; on the other hand, Judge William also presupposes Hegel’s notion of Sittlichkeit as a socio-political embodiment of the common good. And the core question of any ethical theory is how these two basic ethical models can be related. According to Rapic, a maieutic reading of Either/Or reveals that its author outlines the “restitution of morality in the realm of Rapic’s main reference for Hegel’s ethics is not the Philosophy of Right from 1821, but his treatment of “Objective Spirit” in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Science (1817).

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Sittlichkeit.”2 The ethics of Either/Or deals with the question how the individual conscience can be upheld as the main point of reference for ethics when, at the same time, the substantial historical forms of the common good have to be recognized but cannot claim to be the realized forms of objective spirit. In the end, Either/ Or suggests a reading of Hegel’s philosophy of right which does not spell out an ideological justification for a given societal order, but rather confronts this order with a critique of its actuality. The book’s strategy corresponds to Kierkegaard’s understanding of existential reduplication and ethical realization, and thereby deals with the question of how to apply universal norms to individual ethical cases.3 In his maieutic interpretation Rapic follows Wilfried Greve’s earlier book on Kierkegaard’s maieutic ethics.4 Just like Greve, Rapic understands Kierkegaard’s ethical texts strictly as pseudonymous texts, and the whole body of pseudonymous books as an ongoing dialogue between different ethical positions. However, he departs from Greve, and the majority of interpreters, in his interpretation of the two main fictional authors of Either/Or, the Aesthete A and the Ethicist B. He dismisses the temptation to rank A and B in the hierarchy of the theory of stages whereby B’s ethical position in its entirety would have simply surpassed A’s aestheticism. Rather, Rapic identifies many signs in the texts which suggest a much more complex picture. He argues that the texts of Either/Or suggest that in fact B is wrong and selfcontradictory on many points, and that A has to be given much more ethical credit than a traditional reading would assume. Now, Rapic is not the first interpreter to point out the ironic characterization of the Judge as a petit bourgeois and conventional conservative in some parts of the text. He also claims that the text contains very critical hints at B’s opinion regarding poverty, social responsibility, work ethics, and religion. However, in order to arrive at these in-depth messages of the maieutic text Rapic needs to orchestrate a dialogue between a multitude of ethical authors. And here things become rather complicated. Rapic differentiates not only between A and B, but also discovers various positions and authors within B: first, there is B himself, the fictional author of Either/Or, Part Two; second, there is “the Judge,” the petit bourgeois, whose very problematic opinions are being exposed; and third, there is “the Ethicist,” who is labeled by Kierkegaard as the “winner” in Either/Or.5 The ethicist is seriously concerned with the problem of moral philosophy: how morality can be implemented as well as saved in a given form of Sittlichkeit. Finally, all these different positions come together in the figure of a super-author, the very fictional author who is responsible for the whole book: Victor Eremita. According to Rapic, he is not only the discoverer and editor, but actually the author of the papers. Rapic Smail Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung. Kierkegaards Auseinandersetzung mit der Ethik Kants und der Rechtsphilosophie Hegels, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2007 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 16), p. 26. 3 Ibid., p. 6. 4 Wilfried Greve, Kierkegaards maieutische Ethik, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1990. Another important contribution to the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s ethics in German scholarship, and also a point of reference for Rapic, is Helmut Fahrenbach, Kierkegaards existenzdialektische Ethik, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1968. 5 SKS 18, 243, JJ:326 / KJN 2, 224. 2

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argues that A and B can be understood as two stages of development in a single biography, as an internal dialogue in one person.6 When Kierkegaard in a later note talks about “the speculative” in Either/Or, he hints at the integration of these different stages in one singular person. And this integration has ethical relevance. In the end it is the notion of self-choice from Either/Or, Part Two which can be interpreted as the theorem of freedom which necessarily is presupposed by individuals taking part in the continuous societal debate about actual ethical decisions. In an exemplary way, the literary character of Victor Eremita displays, and indeed performs, the program of an ethical theory which not only addresses the main problem of moral philosophy in the aftermath of Kant and Hegel; but it also demonstrates the need for a maieutic form of the ethical theory. Moral philosophy takes on the form of ethical self-dialogue. By bringing these various voices into a conversation Rapic applies a discourseethical approach to the interpretation of Either/Or. As we have already seen, this discourse has even more members than just the different voices in Either/Or: Kant and Hegel also take part in it, as do Schiller, Aristotle, and Socrates-Plato. And finally, there is Kierkegaard himself and a few of his other pseudonymous authors, who at times appear on the stage. Rapic himself seems to function as the director of this performance who not only invites the different actors to speak, as well as to listen to their verdict, but also spells out the rules of the discourse.7 This discourse, and the book as a whole, seems to have two very different sides. On the one hand, there is the philosophical question that the book wants to address, and the historical contextuality which goes with that. Rapic convincingly demonstrates the various debates and backgrounds that make up the fabric of Either/ Or, Part Two. The pervasive relevance that the theories of Kant and Hegel have for the text is brought out in great detail, as is the important contribution that Friedrich Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics bring to the substance of the book. Many contemporary discussions are also woven into the argument, for example, the inner-Hegelian debate about the political dimension of the philosophy of the right or Heiberg’s interpretation of the state of religion in Golden Age Denmark. Rapic contributes to the new research initiated by Jon Stewart and others who want to demonstrate that the old stereotype of Kierkegaard as a stern anti-Hegelian author needs to be challenged. And by bringing Hegel’s philosophy of right to the discourse, Rapic is able to show the social-political dimension of the debate which is implicit in Either/Or. Strangely enough, Rapic does not identify more than one author in A, even though the polyphony of discourse in Either/Or, Part One is much more striking than in the second part of the book. The lack of a discussion of the texts from Either/Or, Part One seems to weaken the aim of the study: to provide an interpretation for the whole of the book. 7 It could be asked if it is justifiable to apply the model of discourse ethics, which is a philosophical tool for ethical debates between actual agents in society (cf. Jürgen Habermas, Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics, trans. by Ciaran P. Cronin, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1994) to the realm of authors and literary relations. Clearly, Rapic’s literary performance of discourse has a certain degree of artificiality and fictionality, which sets it apart from any societal discourse. 6

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On the other hand, the way in which the debate between the various voices in Kierkegaard’s, or rather Eremita’s authorship, is conducted, raises questions. Not only is the difference of voices within B difficult to justify, but also the result proves to be questionable. By claiming various positions and speakers are present in one passage Rapic in fact undertakes a meta-discourse, which at times seems hardly compatible with the actual text. The text disintegrates by means of a parallel discourse hovering over it. The reader is reminded of some types of biblical exegesis, which put so much energy into dismantling the text into a multitude of different authors that in the end the text as a whole is lost. This method affects especially the way in which Judge William is seen—and indeed judged. The Aesthete, contrary to William’s judgments, appears as the righteous critic of the Judge; his non-conformism seems to be far more ethically substantial than William’s boring and ideological conventionalism. However, it might be asked if this picture of the two protagonists is not a misleading caricature as well. Sometimes it is hard to see the logic by which Judge William is judged, especially when other pseudonymous authors are brought in, such as, for example, the author of The Concept of Anxiety: Haufniensis’ notion of the “school of possibility”8 is mentioned in order to prove that the Judge’s notion of absolute self-choice has to be interpreted in a strictly non-theistic fashion,9 contrary to his own old-fashioned theism. How Haufniensis’ insight could be pitted against William’s (and why it should be superior) is not comprehensible; and by what right can this foreign voice be brought into the cosmos of Victor Eremita’s discourse in the first place? Finally, the question of religion needs to be addressed. Rapic wants to neglect it for his investigation, which claims to deal exclusively with philosophical ethics. However, is it really possible to leave religion out of this book? When Rapic dismisses the sermon which concludes Either/Or he argues that this text is theologically questionable because it is not compatible with the message of Jesus.10 Yet, what is questionable seems mainly the fact that here the real super-author (Rapic) in the discourse suddenly invokes a religious authority without verifying it. Rapic’s book provides a revaluation of the Aesthete, but not of his aesthetics (which is completely left out); by contrast, it argues for the devaluation of the Judge—for the sake of an upgrading and actualization of a maieutical ethics which can be found somewhere in their book. Ulrich Lincoln

8 9 10

SKS 4, 455 / CA, 156. Rapic, Ethische Selbstverständigung, pp. 247–8. Ibid., p. 250.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Schwab, Philip, “ ‘Ein altes, seltsames Buch kommt uns aus dem Dänischen zu…’ Grundlinien der deutschsprachigen Rezeptionsgeschichte von Entweder/Oder,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2008, pp. 365–427; see pp. 425–7.

Walter Ruttenbeck, Sören Kierkegaard. Der christliche Denker und sein Werk [Søren Kierkegaard: The Christian Thinker and his Work],

Berlin and Frankfurt/Oder: Trowitzsch & Sohn 1929 (Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche, vol. 25), xii + 379 pp.

Walter Ruttenbeck’s study, Sören Kierkegaard. Der christliche Denker und sein Werk was first published in 1929. It was reissued by Scientia Verlag Aalen in 1979 as a photographic reprint of the first edition. To put the book into proper perspective, we need to consider the situation of the German Kierkegaard reception at that time. As Heiko Schulz shows,1 it was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that we can speak of a real reception of Kierkegaard in the German-speaking world. Most importantly, the publication of the first German edition of Kierkegaard’s Collected Works by Diederichs (with Christoph Schrempf and Hermann Gottsched as editors) from 1909 to 1922 and the concurrent publication of translations by Theodor Haecker (mainly in the journal Der Brenner and the accompanying publishing house) made many texts available in German for the first time and were a major stimulus of further interest in Kierkegaard. By the 1920s, Kierkegaard was one of the most discussed figures in German intellectual life. The relation to Kierkegaard that most thinkers at that time had, however, is best characterized as “productive reception”;2 even though they were inspired by Kierkegaard and drew (in some cases heavily) on his work to develop their own thoughts, they did not conduct actual research on him. Only toward the end of the 1920s can we talk of the development of genuine Kierkegaard research. It is in this context that Ruttenbeck’s work needs to be located. Heiko Schulz, “Germany and Austria. A Modest Head Start: The German Reception of Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard’s International Reception, Tome I, Northern and Western Europe, ed. by Jon Stewart, Aldershot: Ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception, Resources, vol. 8), pp. 307–87. 2 See Heiko Schulz’s definition of the term (ibid., p.  309): “A  genuinely productive reception is characterized by the central role that author A’s work takes on in author B’s work vis-à-vis type, content, and genesis—even if explicit and implicit traces of the former are only recognizable in isolated passages of the latter.”

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Ruttenbeck’s book is one of the first pieces that can be characterized as the result of genuine research interest in Kierkegaard.3 The book is too voluminous and complex to be considered an introduction. In addition, it not only considers Kierkegaard’s authorship, but also places great emphasis on the investigation of his reception. Therefore, the book can also be said to constitute the first work on the history of reception—at least in German. Ruttenbeck included a bibliography of the German and the Danish Kierkegaard literature in his publication, which made it even more useful as a tool for further research. Ruttenbeck was very aware that Kierkegaard was an intensively and controversially discussed author, and he explicitly wanted to place his book within this ongoing debate. He states: “The theological question of the present is essentially the question about the theological significance of Kierkegaard. What the work in hand wants to offer is a contribution to this discussion. Therefore, it will lead to a concluding chapter, which will discuss Kierkegaard’s position within the theology of the 19th century in Germany.”4 Ruttenbeck shows an awareness of the different methods of Kierkegaard research as well. He states that one of the most important issues of Kierkegaard research is the question about the relation of a systematic and a genetic-biographical approach. In his opinion, these two approaches need to be combined. He claims that, on the one hand, the genetic-biographical approach leads in itself to the systematic one, but, on the other hand, that this does not imply that the systematic approach should be allowed to completely suppress the genetic-biographical one.5 Ruttenbeck claims that, without question, there is “a tight connection between the personality, the life of Kierkegaard and his thought,” and it is therefore “that precisely by virtue of an inspection of his thinker-individuality the point of view needs to be revealed, under which his entire world of thought has to be seen.”6 Consequently, “this means nothing less than to regard the hints, which Kierkegaard himself apparently offers for the understanding of his world of thought, as irrelevant.”7 Thus, it implies a renunciation of the authority of Kierkegaard’s The Point of View. The main body of the text consists of three parts: 1. The Thinker, 2. The Work, and 3. Kierkegaard and German Theology. Two aspects are worth highlighting about the In this context, the works by Eduard Geismar (even though not German) and Hermann Diem need to be mentioned as well. 4 Walter Ruttenbeck, Sören Kierkegaard. Der christliche Denker und sein Werk, Berlin and Frankfurt/Oder: Trowitzsch & Sohn 1929 (Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche, vol. 25), p. 3: “Die theologische Frage der Gegenwart ist eben wesentlich die Frage nach der theologischen Bedeutung Kierkegaards. Einen Beitrag zu dieser Frage will auch die vorliegende Arbeit bieten. Sie wird darum in einem Schlußteil münden, der die Stellung Kierkegaards innerhalb der Theologie des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts in Deutschland zum Gegenstand hat.” 5 Ibid., p. 4. 6 Ibid., p. 7: “Es besteht ganz unverkennbar ein enger Zusammenhang zwischen der Persönlichkeit, dem Leben Kierkegaards und seinem Denken.…daß gerade durch die Betrachtung der Denkerindividualität der Gesichtspunkt eröffnet wird, unter dem die ganze Gedankenwelt geschaut werden muß.” 7 Ibid., p. 6: “Das bedeutet nichts weniger, als die Andeutungen, die Kierkegaard selber augenscheinlich für ein Verständnis seiner Gedankenwelt gibt, für nichts achten.” 3

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first part: First, the overview of Kierkegaard’s biography is not only well-informed by Kierkegaard’s journals, but also includes a critical evaluation of the sources, that is, the first two Danish editions of Kierkegaard’s Papirer. Second, Ruttenbeck includes a profound discussion of Kierkegaard’s intellectual environment. Focusing on the conception of God, he provides a close examination of Hegel’s thoughts on the philosophy of religion and the counter-movements against it, beginning with the late Schelling and advancing to Carl Daub, Adolf Trendelenburg, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. This section also contains a five-page footnote on Hegelianism in Denmark. Ruttenbeck’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s work is very profound and complex and still worth reading even today. He takes his point of departure in the notion of existential individualism, which he claims to be of an ethical nature; this individualism is based on the primordial fact of the existence before God.8 From here, Ruttenbeck develops a systematic analysis which begins with the discussion of the stages of existence, continues with an investigation of Kierkegaard’s notion of the consciousness of sin and his understanding of revelation, and culminates in his concept of faith. Ruttenbeck writes that just as Kierkegaard’s notion of revelation is paradoxical, so is his concept of faith. For Kierkegaard, faith implies a passivity of the human—insofar as it is God who effects faith—but, simultaneously, it also implies a human activity—insofar as faith is an act of the free will.9 Correspondingly, Ruttenbeck identifies an “authoritarian strain” in Kierkegaard’s concept of faith, a “theocentrism,”10 alongside the already mentioned “existential individualism.”11 In the final subchapter “The Shaping of Life through Faith” (“Die Gestaltung des Lebens durch den Glauben”) Ruttenbeck attempts to offer a productive solution to this paradoxical tension. For him the solution can “neither be Catholicism nor the negation of life [Lebensverneinung], but evangelic Christendom based on personal appropriation of the objectively given and worldly asceticism, that takes the idea of God seriously and precisely therefore also the idea of world.”12 The part on the history of Kierkegaard’s German reception is very comprehensive. I can only provide a list of the figures which Ruttenbeck included. In the chapter on the nineteenth century, Ruttenbeck—in several aspects relying on Albert Bärthold’s works—deals with Albrecht Ritschl and Wilhelm Herrmann (pp. 278–81), Johann Tobias Beck (pp. 282–6) and Hermann Cremer, a student of Beck (pp. 286–9). In the chapter on the German theology of his time, Ruttenbeck addresses Christoph Schrempf (pp. 290–3), Eberhard Grisebach (pp. 293–6), Hermann Diem (pp. 296–9), Karl Heim (pp. 299–303), Karl Barth (pp. 304–11), Friedrich Gogarten (pp. 311–14), Emil Brunner (pp. 314–17), Erik Peterson (pp. 318–22), Emanuel Hirsch (p. 326), Paul Althaus (pp. 326–30), Werner Elert (pp. 330–4) and H.E. Weber (pp. 335–9); Ibid., p. 135. Ibid., p. 221. 10 Therein Ruttenbeck also identifies the aspect of Kierkegaard that makes him appealing to a Catholic reading. Ibid., p. 234. 11 Ibid., p. 232. 12 Ibid., p. 275: “Nicht Katholizismus und nicht Lebensverneinung, sondern evangelische Christentum persönlicher Aneignung des objektiv Gegebenen und innerweltliche Askese, die den Gottesgedanken und eben deshalb auch den Weltgedanken ernst nimmt!” 8 9

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he also dedicates a footnote to what he calls the Catholic Kierkegaard reception (pp. 322–5), including Theodor Haecker (pp. 322–3), Carl Dallago (p. 323), Ferdinand Ebner (p. 323), Romano Guardini (pp. 323–4) and Peter Wust (p. 324). In addition, he comments on a few Kierkegaard scholars from Scandinavia, namely, Torsten Bohlin (pp. 339–48) and Eduard Geismar (pp. 348–9 and 356–8) and their predecessors Fredrik Petersen (pp. 350–1), Niels Teisen (pp. 351–3) and Rasmus Nielsen (pp. 353–5). To sum up, Ruttenbeck’s book marks—both methodologically and with respect to content—an important step in the development of genuine Kierkegaard research. In addition to its historical relevance, it is still used as an important reference work and resource by scholars interested in the history of reception. Gerhard Thonhauser

Reviews and Critical Discussions Alker, Ernst, review in Literarischer Handweiser, vol. 66, no. 6, 1930. Anonymous, review in Nieuwe theologische studien, vol. 13, 1930, p. 155. Bohlin, Torsten, review in Svensk teologisk Kvartalskrift, vol. 6, no. 2, 1930, pp. 167–71. — review in Theologische Blätter, vol. 9, 1930, pp. 182–4. Brunner, A., review in Scholastik, vol. 5, 1930, pp. 410–11. Geismar, Eduard, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 56, no. 19, 1931, pp. 449–50. Rundt, Max, review in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, vol. 31, nos. 3–4, 1934, pp. 46–7.

Klaas Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte des ‘Paradoxon’. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Calvins und des nach-kierkegaardschen Paradoxon

[The Historical Concept of Paradox: with Specific Consideration of Calvin’s and the Post-Kierkegaardian Paradox], Kampen: J.H. Kok 1933, 472 pp.

Despite the fact that this dissertation was written, as well as defended, in the German language at the Philosophical Faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen, it fits entirely within the context of the Dutch-speaking Kierkegaard reception. It was published by a Dutch publisher and written by the Dutch Reformed pastor and professor, Klaas Schilder, who takes up a position, not only in an international, theological debate, but also in a specifically Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical polemic. At first sight, the title of the dissertation seems to announce a rather unbiased analysis of the conceptual history of the concept of the paradox, and this is confirmed indeed by the first two chapters. However, the rather peculiar reference to John Calvin in the subtitle already arouses the suspicion that there is more going on, as will be confirmed by a reading of the next two chapters on the role of the paradox in dialectical theology (Chapter 3), followed by an analysis of its conception of the paradox in light of Reformed theology, in particular Calvin (Chapter 4). The latter chapters can be seen as instrumental in Schilder’s attempt to resist what he saw as the blurring of good old Reformed (that is, Calvinistic) theology, amongst others by means of the (ab)use of the Kierkegaardian paradox in Barthian, dialectical theology, resulting in an increasing emphasis on the unintelligibility and irrationality of the Christian faith. However, as indicated, the first two chapters do not betray anything with regard to the ulterior motive of this study and are valuable in themselves as insightful historical research into the meaning and the role of the paradox in the philosophical and theological tradition. Chapter 1 examines etymologically and linguistically the common meaning of the Greek adjective παράδοξος in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modernity. Schilder argues that, despite contingent, historical developments,

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the essential scope of the ancient meaning of the word “paradox”—ranging from contradictory opinions, something contradictory to common opinion (δοξα), to something which goes against common expectations (δοξα as well) and thereby becomes the object of astonishment, that is, admiration (in Latin, (ad)mirabilia)— was retained until the beginning of modernity. Most importantly, also the use of the word “paradox” by the Reformers, in particular by Calvin, must be understood in this fashion, that is, not as a predication of the irrational, unintelligible object of faith, but as a predicate of the subjective attitude towards something which runs against common opinion, but which nevertheless always should be overcome. In a final, short paragraph on the biblical conception of the paradox, Schilder explicitly opposes the Barthian rendering of the Greek παράδοξος with “against appearance,” because it leaves open the possibility that the object of faith is itself contradictory and absurd.1 This is not “only uncalvinistic, but also unbiblical,” Schilder already concludes (obviously quite prematurely).2 Against the claim of, notably Augustinus De Morgan and Andreas Duhm,3 that a definite shift in the use of the word paradox—from something which merely goes against common opinion, and therefore, must be resolved, to something that is absurd and contradictory in itself—took place in the seventeenth or the eighteenth century, Schilder argues that such a definite shift does not begin before Kierkegaard’s thought becomes influential.4 The central novelty in Kierkegaard’s use of the concept of the paradox, which was introduced by him for the first time as a specific Danish word, as Schilder notes, is that the paradox is posed absolutely over against the relativity of the system; in contrast to the Socratic paradox, which represents the relative, mutual relationship between humans, it brings the human being into an absolute relation with the Divine Other.5 Schilder continues by summing up at least seventeen additional distinguishing characteristics of the Kierkegaardian paradox, in particular on the basis of the writings Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in order to point out the “radicalness of the Kierkegaardian turn”6 with regard to the traditional meaning and use of the word “paradox.” In contrast to the traditional paradox it cannot be overcome; instead of being an incitamentum intellectus it leads to a sacrificium intellectus.7 It removes the tragic connotation of the traditional paradox and turns it from being mere incidental into an objective category. In Chapter 2, Schilder offers an examination of the meaning and the role of the paradox in contemporary mathematics, as well as in the theology of Rudolph Otto, including its two main sources of inspiration, the philosophy of Jakob Friedrich Fries

Klaas Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte des ‘Paradoxon’. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Calvins und des nach-kierkegaardschen ‘Paradoxon’, Kampen: J.H. Kok 1933, p. 36. 2 Ibid., p. 85. 3 Augustus de Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, Reprinted with the Author’s additions from the “Athenaeum,” London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1872; Andreas Duhm, Paradoxe Jesusworte in der Predigt, Leipzig: M. Heinsius Nachf., Eger & Sievers 1927. 4 Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte, p. 89. 5 Ibid., p. 90. 6 Ibid., p. 115. 7 Ibid., p. 97. 1

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and oriental mysticism. On the basis of this account, he tries to distinguish, out of what he calls the contemporary “Babylonian confusion of tongues,”8 two other types of paradoxes. In addition to the traditional and the Kierkegaardian meaning of the paradox, he first distinguishes the paradox which is predominant in contemporary mathematics. This paradox is, in contrast to the “vertical” paradox of Kierkegaard (type II), strictly horizontal, but in contrast to the traditional paradox (type I), “constructive” instead of “obstructive” for rational thought (type III).9 Secondly, Schilder distinguishes the Eastern, mystical paradox, which as a means to overcome the contradictions in the world of appearance, could be characterized as a kind of a mixture between type I and type III, but which should be distinguished as a fourth type of paradox, according to Schilder, because of the innumerable differences between the Eastern and the Western tradition (type IV).10 All of this eventually leads to Schilder’s main target, namely, contemporary dialectical theology which, according to him, is hopelessly internally divided and which confuses the meaning of the paradox completely. While the genesis of this movement, in particular with Karl Barth’s Der Römerbrief, was explicitly connected to the influence of Kierkegaard’s conception of the paradox, applied to the infinite qualitative difference between eternity and time, God and man, transcendence and immanence, the later Barth restricted the application of the paradox to the revelation of the divine itself, and thereby, changed its meaning. As a result, the early Barth first took over Kierkegaard’s misinterpretation of the biblical distinction between the skandalon and the paradox in 1 Corinthians 1:23, which are connected with the “will-opposition” of the Jews and the “thought-opposition” of the Greeks respectively, as well as many other Kierkegaardian misconceptions.11 In addition, by attributing the paradox to the communication of the Divine as das Ganz-Andere itself, instead of the relation between God and man, later on, Barth leaves open the possibility of there being a contradiction between the subject of God’s word and its appearance. By making faith wholly dependent upon the subjective and existential relation to God, Barth excludes the possibility of a point of connection (Anknüpfungspunkt) for any natural knowledge of the divine. Against this position, with regard to which Kierkegaard’s point of view remains ambiguous and self-contradictory, according to Schilder, he brings in Calvin’s teaching of the accomodatio dei. With this teaching, he is able to make sense of the “great ‘paradox’ of the inseparability of God’s transcendence and immanence,” and thus to resolve it.12 Schilder’s study has never attracted much attention, either in the field of Kierkegaard studies or in the more general theological and philosophical realm.13 Ibid., p. 145. Ibid., p. 144. 10 Ibid., p. 284. 11 Ibid., pp. 309–13; pp. 331–2. 12 Ibid., p. 434. 13 Johannes van der Hoeven points to Ernst-Riediger Kiesow, Dialektisches Denken und Reden in der Predigt. An Beispielen aus der Predigtliteratur der Gegenwart untersucht, Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1957, and Henning Schroër, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem. Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik, Göttingen Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1960, in his “Schilder en de wijsbegeerte,” in Ontmoetingen met Schilder, ed. by George Puchinger, Kampen: J.H. Kok 8 9

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Noteworthy are the references to this study in Taeke Dokter’s dissertation The Structure of Kierkegaard’s Oeuvre. As a student of one of the most prominent representatives of dialectical theology in the Netherlands, Theodorus Lambertus Haitjema, he first cites it approvingly, in order to demonstrate that Kierkegaard appropriated the paradox in his own unique way, but subsequently, opposes Schilder’s assertion that Kierkegaard’s identification of the paradox and the skandalon is contradictory to Paul’s distinction in 1 Corinthians 1:18–25.14 In addition, he also denies Schilder’s claim that Barth considered himself to be a “Kierkegaard-interpreter.”15 Although Dokter is right in implicitly rejecting Schilder’s biases, these remarks do no justice to Schilder’s sharp argumentation against both Kierkegaard and Barth, as well as his comprehensive and valuable overview of the history of the concept of the paradox. Schilder’s bias has the advantage that his position is clearly delineated and offers a few provoking challenges to Kierkegaard’s conception of the paradox. Although this study offers an interesting and valuable perspective on Kierkegaard’s specific use of the paradox in light of the history of this concept, it should be handled with the necessary precaution. Wolter Hartog

1990, pp. 84–92. In this contribution, he himself gives the most extensive reproduction of its content that exists in Dutch as well. 14 Taeke Dokter, De structuur van Kierkegaard’s oeuvre, Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V. 1936, pp. 131–3. 15 Ibid., pp. 146–7.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Dokter, Taeke, De structuur van Kierkegaard’s oeuvre, Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V. 1936, pp. 131–3; pp. 146–7. Hoeven, Johannes van der, “Schilder en de wijsbegeerte,” in Ontmoetingen met Schilder, ed. by George Puchinger, Kampen: J.H. Kok 1990, pp. 84–92. Kiesow, Ernst-Riediger, Dialektisches Denken und Reden in der Predigt. An Beispielen aus der Predigtliteratur der Gegenwart untersucht, Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1957, pp. 29–30; p. 41. Schröer, Henning, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem. Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1960, p. 28; p. 68.

Henning Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem. Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik

[The Form of Thought of Paradoxicality as a Theological Problem: An Examination of Kierkegaard and More Recent Theology as a Contribution to Theological Logic], Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1960, 207 pp.

When Schröer’s (1931–2002) dissertation of November 1957 was published in 1960 the author was pastor of the German-speaking congregation at St. Petri Church in Copenhagen. Most of his further publications on Kierkegaard were released during his tenure as Professor of Practical Theology in Bonn (1971–96).1 The monograph pursues different aims and interests, but this complexity does not diminish its main interest of proving the concept of paradoxicality discovered and examined in Kierkegaard as the only appropriate theological category or thought pattern in contemporary issues. The idea is illustrated by the example of natural knowledge of God and by a phrase of Luther’s that carried central significance for Kierkegaard and for Bultmann as well: simul justus et peccator. Schröer starts with an analysis of scientific theory. He quickly analyzes what he takes to be a shortcoming: apart from a very few exceptions, he sees no appropriate attempts to relate the peculiarity of theological thought to philosophical logic by means of clearly defined forms of thought. Surely it is no coincidence that Schröer, in looking for works he can use to positively support his effort, winds up with A list of Schröer’s works on Kierkegaard (16 in all) is found in Henning Schröer, In der Verantwortung gelebten Glaubens. Praktische Theologie zwischen Wissenschaft und Lebenskunst, ed. by Gotthard Fermor, Ruddat Günter, and Harald Schroeter-Wittke, Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 2003, p. 250, p. 252, pp. 253–4, p. 264.

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ecumenical thinkers such as his teacher Eduard Schlink from his time at Heidelberg, for one, and Hans Urs von Balthasar with his well-known monograph on Barth for another. These authors are united by the wish to guarantee a theological faculty a say or speech beyond the limits of its own discipline. To serve this faculty of speech, Schröer defines the term “form of thought” (paradoxicality is one such form) as “the logically verifiable structural connection between concept (Denkgebilde, e.g., paradox) and movement of thought.”2 That means a theology that has its center with Kierkegaard in paradoxes, which will be examined below, will invariably operate with paradoxicality as a form of thought due to an adequate movement of thought. This attempt to first examine the terms “concept” and “paradox” in a formal, logically systematizing, and structuring manner appears to be a strength and at the same time a weakness in Schröer’s approach. The strength is clear: theology is to be made philosophically expressible. The weakness is equally apparent: especially in Kierkegaard’s only pertinent continuous text on the concept of the paradox, his Philosophical Fragments, Chapter 3, the subject is not logical or philosophical necessities but historically prescribed paradoxes, in particular the paradox that Christ is at once God and man, and that the eternal becomes temporal. The chapter dedicated to the different uses of the term “paradox” in Kierkegaard is critical to Kierkegaard research.3 When Schröer discusses the history of the term “paradox,” he falls back on a paper by Dutch theologian Klaus Schilder from 1933.4 Schilder uses an analysis of Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, and the Postscript, in order to issue a harsh criticism of dialectical theology’s rash and inconsistent use of Kierkegaard and his concept of paradox. Schröer’s references to equivalent and contradictory terms are quite brief. He justifiably emphasizes the importance of the terms “absurdity” and the “absurd.” A short but significant digression clarifies the difference between paradox and annoyance.5 The book is as yet unmatched in its listing of the semantic variety of the term “paradox” in Kierkegaard. The variety suffers, however, somewhat from Schröer’s simultaneous attempts to systematize it, without regard to the fact that some uses of the term only occur with a single one of the pseudonyms. Schröer correctly shows that the term “paradox” first gains central importance in Fear and Trembling. Since, as was typical for the 1960s, his analysis is oriented almost exclusively on the study of life stages, he also calls the use of the term in this work the anthropological or Socratic paradox. The analysis of the Fragments then uncovers the absolute or Christological paradox. According to Schröer, this is where the essence of the paradox becomes tangible: the collision of the two spheres existence and thought. In The Sickness unto Death, the paradox of the awareness of Henning Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem. Eine Untersuchung zu Kierkegaard und der neueren Theologie als Beitrag zur theologischen Logik, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1960, p. 14. 3 Ibid., pp. 54–96. 4 Klaus Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte des Paradoxons, Kampen: J.H. Kok A.G. 1933. 5 Schröer, Die Denkform der Paradoxalität als theologisches Problem, pp. 81–3. 2

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sin is at work. Aside from the analysis of those main paradoxes, Schröer also refers to others, for example, the paradox of the apostle. After this longest chapter, which is dedicated primarily to the perception of the semantic range of the term “paradox” in Kierkegaard, the evidence collected is compared to the biblical evidence. Then the work culminates in an examination of contemporary theological approaches. It appears crucial that contemporary authors materially localize paradoxicality as a form of thought in different contexts: Barth in the doctrine of the Trinity, Tillich in the dogma of Incarnation, and finally Bultmann in the phrase simul justus et peccator. Schröer then accurately points to Bultmann as the formative German theologian of the 1960s who has been most intensively influenced by Kierkegaard. This has recently been proven by various studies in the history of reception. While Schröer also analyzes the use of the term “paradox” in Gogarten, Althaus, and Heim, there is strangely no mention of Brunner, whose anthropology is known to be very close to Kierkegaard’s approach. Schröer’s book is one of a number of works that contributed individual examinations of central aspects and concepts in the early 1960s after the great attempts at a biographical or systematic overall presentation of Kierkegaard. In this sense, Schröer’s monograph is comparable to Künzli’s book on anxiety,6 Gerdes on Christology,7 or Schäfer on ontology.8 The majority of references to Schröer are, of course, found in other studies on the term “paradox,” and even more numerously in the interpretations of the Philosophical Fragments. Many examples of this are to be found in the study on the history of reception by Schulz.9 Schröer presented a specification and enhancement of his study in 1992.10 This appears in the context of the most comprehensive and representative anthology on the term “paradox” in the German-speaking region, where other authors also emphasize Kierkegaard’s central role in the development of the concept. Here Schröer makes reference to positions that were published after the release of his dissertation.11 He states that the separation between Cultural Philosophy and Revelation Theology Arnold Künzli, Die Angst als abendländische Krankheit, Dargestellt am Leben und Denken Soeren Kierkegaards, Zürich: Rascher Verlag 1948. 7 Hayo Gerdes, Das Christusbild Sören Kierkegaards verglichen mit der Christologie Hegels und Schleiermachers, Düsseldorf: Eugen Diederichs Verlag 1960. 8 Klaus Schäfer, Hermeneutische Ontologie in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, Munich: Kösel Verlag 1968. 9 Heiko Schulz, “Rezeptionsgeschichtliche Brocken oder die Brocken in der deutschen Rezeption. Umrisse einer vorläufigen Bestandsaufnahme,” in his Aneignung und Reflexion. I. Studien zur Rezeption Sören Kierkegaards, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2011 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 24), pp. 167–72. 10 Henning Schröer, “Das Paradox als Kategorie systematischer Theologie,” in Das Paradox. Eine Herausforderung des abendländischen Denkens, ed. by Roland Hagenbüchle and Paul Geyer, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann 1992, (2nd ed., 2002), pp. 61–70. 11 For example Anders Nygren, Sinn und Methode, trans. by Gerhard Klose, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck  & Ruprecht 1979; Richard Schaeffler, “Logisches Widerspruchsverbot und theologisches Paradox,” Theologie und Philosophie, vol. 62, 1987, pp. 321–52. 6

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has remained unbridged.12 However, he observes that current theology is more likely to distance itself from the use of the term “paradox.” Schröer himself insists on the necessity of its theological use, since only the paradox offers a corrective measure against the peril of forming theological systems.13 The function of the paradox is to set a limit. The transcendent cannot and should not be objectified. The paradox avoids this objectification. Yet since it utters the unspeakable, it allows something like the perception of, and participation in, the transcendent.14 When he describes the paradox as a necessary key of thought that cannot guarantee what lies behind the door,15 the crucial difference to Kierkegaard becomes apparent. While Schröer always asks about the appropriate forms of expression and thus takes the paradox into his service, Kierkegaard remains obligated to the “whence” of the paradox. He is, then, less concerned with the power of the thought key, and instead rejoices that the door was opened to us by the paradox. Harald Steffes

Cultural Philosophy is represented by Tillich and his thought that the theological paradox is recognized in the symbolic character of every revelation. Barth is the most important supporter of a Theology of Revelation. He accentuates that the paradox owes its existence to the incarnation of Christ. 13 Schröer, “Das Paradox als Kategorie systematischer Theologie,” p. 61. 14 Ibid., p. 67. 15 Ibid., p. 69. 12

Reviews and Critical Discussions Anonymous, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 4, 1962, p. 127. Brinkschmidt, Egon, Sören Kierkegaard und Karl Barth, Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag 1971, pp. 67–72. Deuser, Hermann, Sören Kierkegaard, Die paradoxe Dialektik des politischen Christen, Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag 1974 (Systematische Beiträge, no. 13), pp. 17–18. Fahrenbach, Helmut, “Die gegenwärtige Kierkegaard-Auslegung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von 1948 bis 1962,” Philosophische Rundschau. Eine Vierteljahrsschrift für Philosophische Kritik, 1962 (Beiheft 3), pp. 1–77; see pp. 74–5. Schulz, Heiko, “Rezeptionsgeschichtliche Brocken oder die Brocken in der deutschen Rezeption. Umrisse einer vorläufigen Bestandsaufnahme,” in his Aneignung und Reflexion. I. Studien zur Rezeption Sören Kierkegaards, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 2011 (Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series, vol. 24), pp. 115–86; see pp. 168–70.

Heiko Schulz, Eschatologische Identität. Eine Untersuchung über das Verhältnis von Vorsehung, Schicksal und Zufall bei Sören Kierkegaard

[Eschatological Identity: An Investigation of the Relation of Providence, Fate and Contingency in Søren Kierkegaard], Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 1994 (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann, vol. 63), xii + 624 pp.

Heiko Schulz’s dissertation examines Kierkegaard’s existential dialectical theory of providence. Providence, in this perspective, is analyzed in terms of providentia specialissima. Schulz’s interpretations of the relevant passages in Kierkegaard’s work refer to Johannes Sløk, Klaus Schäfer, Anton Hügli, Hermann Deuser (Schulz’s teacher), Wilfried Greve, and many others. With regard to style, craft, and focus, the book displays some problems typical of dissertations.1 Readers will find many passages which display profound observations and skilled treatment of the matter. Yet, it is hard to find a common thread that could account for the gathering of all (or at least the most of ) the themes investigated in this book. However, far from addressing any problema specialissima, Schulz’s investigation of eschatological identity indeed features highly original insights (as well as some problems) that are eminently suitable for informing the discussion on providence and self-formation (selv-dannelse) in Kierkegaard. In the first part, Schulz sketches the history of the concept of providence, beginning with Thomas Aquinas and leading to those theologians contemporaneous In his review Walter Dietz criticizes, among other things, the disproportion between the amount of pages and the output of Schulz’s investigations of a rather special topic in Kierkegaard research, the author’s inclination to jargonize and, most of all, the lack of concluding considerations or at least summarizing remarks after a journey of nearly 600 pages through a great deal of Kierkegaard’s theories. It is claimed that in the end this leaves the reader “clueless” regarding the aim and the motive of Schulz’s whole enterprise. Cf. Walter Dietz, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 119, 1994, pp. 1126–9.

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with Kierkegaard (Martensen, Clausen, and Hahn). Against the background of this sketch, Kierkegaard’s theory of providence, which is supposed to be a “principle of eschatological identity,” counts as a continuation of the process of subjectivization.2 Providence, and with it the concept of conservation, become a subjective concern in terms of the subject’s identity and continuity.3 In this perspective, Kierkegaard is in line with Luther, Descartes, and Schleiermacher.4 However, Fichte is conspicuously absent here, although he treated subjectivity in terms of infinite reflection and thus cleared the way for Romantic irony (which in turn remained a constant challenge for Kierkegaard’s thought). Distinctively larger than the first part, the second part is dedicated to Kierkegaard’s theory of providence. It sets out with an analysis of what Schulz calls the objective aspects of the concept of providence: predestination and prescience—and their reconciliation with human freedom. What Kierkegaard has to say about them, Schulz maintains, amounts to claims that prove to be aporetic in the end. Schulz’s problem here is not the aporetical as such, but rather that Kierkegaard seems to be incapable of giving any criteria in order to discern which aporetic doctrine about God’s “objective” features should be appropriated in terms of the paradox of faith and which should rather not.5 Subsequently, the subjective dimension of Kierkegaard’s theory of providence is investigated in the second section. The existential dialectical key idea, which is repeated time and again in this dissertation as well as in Schulz’s later work,6 is a quotation from Kierkegaard’s journals: “God himself is indeed this: how one involves oneself with him.”7 Among other things, this means that the mode of the individual’s relation to the Divine must be taken seriously as the medium in which the Divine comes into view. The same goes for providence: it is supposed to be a matter of how the individual relates to it. In other words, which possible modes of relating to one’s determination are there and under which conditions does this determination turn out to be fate (skjebne), mere contingency (det tilfældige), providence (  forsyn), governance (styrelse), and the like? In Schulz’ eyes, it seems, all these modes need to be investigated with painstaking accuracy. The fact that they all are gathered under the main topic of “Kierkegaard’s theory of providence” indicates that Schulz suggests considering fate, contingency, governance, and so on, as genuine parts of such a theory. In the nearly 500 pages remaining he provides no less than a Kierkegaardian

Cf. Heiko Schulz, Eschatologische Identität. Eine Untersuchung über das Verhältnis von Vorsehung, Schicksal und Zufall bei Sören Kierkegaard, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter 1994, pp. 20–1. 3 Cf. ibid., p. 21; p. 62. 4 Cf. ibid., p. 20; pp. 60ff. 5 Cf. ibid., p. 113. 6 Cf. Heiko Schulz, “ ‘Gott selbst ist ja dies: welcherart man sich mit ihm einlässt’. Subjektivität und Objektivität dogmatischer Reflexion bei Søren Kierkegaard,” in Dialektik der Freiheit. Religiöse Individualisierung und theologische Dogmatik, ed. by Hermann Deuser and Saskia Wendel, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012, pp. 65–84. 7 Cf. SKS 23, 215, NB17:70 / KJN 7, 219: “Gud selv er jo dette: hvorledes man indlader sig med ham.” 2

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phenomenological typology of how the subject relates herself to fate, an intermezzo on contingency, and a theory of providence in the stricter sense. These issues are mapped onto the stages of aesthetic, ethical, and religious existence. Even more, in order to obtain a “clear picture”8 of providence, Schulz regards it necessary to discuss Kierkegaard’s theories of time, creation, freedom, volition, theodicy, self, despair and the like. Readers will find most instructive what Schulz has to say about these issues, since he offers very plausible accounts in terms of existential dialectics. Correspondingly, he draws from nearly the entire pseudonymous work and various passages from Kierkegaard’s edifying discourses and journal entries, thereby proving a remarkable hermeneutical competence as well as a profound familiarity with Kierkegaard’s writings and secondary literature. Besides these nevertheless remarkable strengths, however, the common thread of Schulz’s enterprise sometimes gets lost. Certainly, in order to reconstruct Kierkegaard’s rather implicit theory of providence one would have to gather the relevant statements scattered here and there in his work. However, even if one were sympathetic to the Hegelian idea that the truth is the whole, one might remain skeptical about the necessity to integrate such scrupulous analyses of fate, contingency, or theodicy (just to mention a few) in order to work out the concept of “eschatological identity” that Schulz is up to. His ideas about unconditioned obedience and freedom qualified as the individual’s realization of having only one possibility may surely not be discussed completely independently of Kierkegaard’s notions of the aesthetic, the ethical, and religiousness A. But it is hard to see that they should become more (or less) convincing if, for instance, this or that detail of the Kierkegaard–Schulz doctrine of aesthetic contingency turned out to be defensible against naturalism (or in need for a reconceptualization). Schulz argues that providence in the stricter sense is a meaningful category in the perspective of the latter two Kierkegaardian stages only. Of course, further differentiation between the ethical, religiousness A, and religiousness B imply further distinctive modes for providence to come into play. The aim of Schulz’s investigations is to elucidate what providence means in terms of religiousness B. Here, the subject’s identity qualifies as “eschatological” in the sense of being definitive and ultimate. As Walter Dietz remarks, other notions of the term “eschatological” do not seem to play any significant role in Schulz’s analysis.9 And indeed, in Schulz’s project the “eschatological” does not refer to any descriptions of an “end time”; rather, it seems to function as a kind of operator that enables the author to determine the ultimate notion of concepts like self, despair, freedom, or sin. The ultimate (“eschatological”) notion of a concept is what turns out to be its meaning when its dialectics is ideally driven to a consistent end. This, however, is not accomplished without any frame of reference; the point of view that guides this operation is a certain notion of God. Given this point of view, one may make explicit how things ultimately look, nothing more and nothing less.10 Cf. Schulz, Eschatologische Identität, p. 14. Cf. Dietz, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, p. 1126. 10 Of course, this procedure must not be isolated from what Schulz regards to be Kierkegaard’s central idea that “God himself is just this: how do you get involved with him.” 8 9

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Schulz explicates the existential dialectical relation between “eschatological identity” and providence (which correspondingly qualifies as providence in the ultimate sense) in the following way: the individual realizes her determination by resting selftransparently before a god who appears within the medium of the individual’s most rigorous sense of sin and her need for reconciliation.11 The consciousness of sin, however, in its most rigorous sense is connected to volition as such. Volition, Schulz says, is de facto in despair—it is an implication of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of original sin that it cannot be otherwise under post-lapsarian conditions.12 Despair in the ultimate sense is precisely to failure to be a self in terms of one’s own measure, thereby wishing to get rid of the self that God originally posited. In turn, becoming self-transparent before God must be construed as a suspension of volition, that is, as faith in terms of unconditioned obedience. Schulz interprets this in a rigorous formal existential dialectical manner. In this sense, unconditioned obedience first and foremost means accepting the divine perspective that qualifies oneself as a sinner in the strictest sense and becoming a tool in the hands of providence, having no will at all. Providence, by contrast, seems to be nothing else than God’s projective determination of the individual’s self as a kind of repetition of her original self. In the state of unconditioned obedience, the individual no longer wishes to get rid of her determined self (as in the state of despair). Rather, nothing that happens is experienced in terms of contingency or fate, but as an inducement to realize one’s determination.13 In this perspective, the suspension of volition as well as unconditioned obedience should preserve freedom in the sense that the individual is able to do what she wants to do.14 According to Schulz, this is the case for the post-volitional self that realizes having one option only (since, phenomenologically speaking, all the other options that might provoke doublemindedness simply disappear): to consent to whatever God wishes her to do in any given moment.15 There are at least two problems here. From a pure logical point of view, it is problematic that Schulz repeatedly employs expressions suggesting that the whole phenomenon of self-transparency could be a matter of volition, too. Given the correctness of the claim that volition is always already in despair, Schulz should have restricted himself to the more adequate term “accordance”16 in order to describe self-transparency. The second problem concerns the limitations of the account of unconditioned obedience presented. It remains unclear how to relate inwardness (being the realm of faith and unconditioned obedience as kinds of “inner” acts) to “external” actions (ostensively belonging to a sphere of sheer objectivity). The Kierkegaardian God may very well provoke my sense of sin and demand that I accept myself as a sinner. However, As far as I see, Schulz’s application of the “eschatological” operator does not do injustice to this insight. 11 Cf. Schulz, Eschatologische Identität, pp. 541ff. 12 Cf. ibid., p. 386; p. 507. 13 Cf. ibid., pp. 572ff. 14 Cf. ibid., p. 558. 15 Cf. ibid., p. 560. 16 Cf. ibid., p. 571: Einverständnis.

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what are the consequences with regard to my acting in the world? Does God’s determination of my self include, for instance, any orientation about what to do (or not to do) with my son? If so, how can it be conceived? If not, how satisfactory is such an account, which construes identity, freedom, faith, self-transparency, providence, and the like, in terms of glimpses at ideality in detached inwardness? Moreover, which of the two alternatives reflects the Kierkegaardian position more adequately?17 Although Schulz attempts to avert some aspects of this problem by insisting on the distinction between factuality and ideality,18 a longer footnote indicates that he is sensitive to this problem himself.19 According to his interpretation, Kierkegaard, on the one hand, demands that inwardness expresses (or even objectifies) itself within the medium of external actions. On the other hand, Kierkegaard is supposed to deny that the realm of inwardness could be normatively informed by the external medium in any stricter sense. In Schulz’s words: “The decisive question is: Is there anything that under no circumstances could be done in faith—or, correspondingly, that could under no circumstances be sin? In my eyes, Kierkegaard would have to answer both questions consistently in the negative.”20 Most likely, this problem is part of the heritage of irony after Fichte. An objective fact such as an external action is construed as being primarily indifferent and receiving its meaning by way of subjective projection only. Granted, Kierkegaard is prone to many problems involved in this heritage. However, here and there he consciously counts on a somewhat non-indifferent world of intersubjectivity. Just to mention one example: in the first of the Two Minor Ethical-Religious Essays, he argues that it would be better for the single individual to level her reduplication of the truth sufficiently in respect to others than to allow that they become guilty of putting her to death. Even the one and only exception to this rule (being Christian among Non-Christians) refers to external circumstances and intersubjective relations in given historical contexts rather than to secret commands resonating within detached inwardness. Schulz may have his reasons for refraining from a discussion of this and corresponding passages, but avoiding such a discussion and at the same time stating that Kierkegaard would have to deny any relevant normativity beyond the individual’s “inward” relationship to God does not seem convincing. Here, the limitations of Schulz’s nevertheless impressing account of faith in terms of unconditioned obedience are evident, for in the end Schulz is not ready to deal with the problems involved in the distinctions between subjectivity and objectivity, inward and outward, factuality and ideality. Reviewer Niels Henrik Gregersen sees a similar problem. His critique is that, when it comes to faith in terms of religiousness B, Schulz’s analyses tend to turn into “neo-Lutheran common places” lacking precisely the phenomenological exemplification of which the earlier passages were so rich. Gregersen recommends enriching the descriptions of religiousness B by drawing upon Kierkegaard’s edifying discourses, which in turn presupposes taking the orthodox stage model less seriously. Cf. Niels Henrik Gregersen, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 18, 1996, pp. 240–4; p. 243. 18 Cf. Schulz, Eschatologische Identität, pp. 560ff. 19 Ibid., pp. 561–2 (footnote 190). 20 Ibid., p. 562 (footnote 190). 17

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However, it is also here where it could be of great interest to readdress what Schulz’s whole investigation very convincingly points out as one of the most central questions in Kierkegaard. What does it mean that “God is just this: how one involves oneself with him”? Because of its rigorous orientation towards this question as well as its author’s remarkable competences in existential dialectical analysis and Kierkegaard scholarship, Heiko Schulz’s book on eschatological identity is indeed an important source for further work on providence and self-formation. Henning Nörenberg

Reviews and Critical Discussions Dietz, Walter, review in Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 119, no. 12, 1994, pp. 1126–9. Gregersen, Niels Henrik, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 18, 1996, pp. 240–4.

Johannes Sløk, Die Anthropologie Kierkegaards [Kierkegaard’s Anthropology],

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger 1954, 144 pp.

Today, Johannes Sløk’s study Kierkegaard’s Anthropology is a classic in the Kierkegaard literature. By providing a “long overdue”1 analysis of the concepts involved in Kierkegaard’s understanding of human existence, the Danish theologian Sløk addressed a research desideratum at that time. Sløk uses the term “anthropology” to designate Kierkegaard’s conceptualization of the self, and he argues that anthropology, understood in this way, should be regarded as the philosophical fundament of Kierkegaard’s writings. It is Sløk’s explicit goal to demonstrate the coherence of Kierkegaard’s many heterogeneous works, unified by this anthropology. Furthermore, Sløk shows how Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity is the logical consequence of his anthropology. The book consists of two parts: “Anthropological Conceptualization” and “The Theological Significance of the Anthropology.” The first part investigates the “concepttrilogies”2 which Kierkegaard applies to define the self: prototype, individual, and species; possibility, reality, and necessity; as much as time, eternity, and the moment. Sløk sets out to establish Kierkegaard’s understanding in opposition to the Aristotelian approach that distinguishes between genus proximum and differentia specifica. He stresses that Kierkegaard’s differentiation between the individual and the universal is not synonymous with a distinction between the scientific definition of man and the traits that distinguish one particular individual from others. Such a distinction could be empirically observed (at least partially), but, as Sløk highlights, this is not what Kierkegaard has in mind. According to Kierkegaard, human universality (in Danish, det Almene-Menneskelige) is not a set of properties. Rather, it is the attitude the individual takes towards his or her specific characteristics. Sløk’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s account of the individual thus culminates in the observation that through the relation to universality, individuality becomes ambiguous.…The individ­ual is that what it readily is. Defined like this, the individual receives his or her task Helmut Fahrenbach, “J. Sløk, Die Anthropologie S. Kierkegaards,” in Die gegenwärtige Kierkegaard-Auslegung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von 1948 bis 1962, ed. by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Helmut Kuhn, Tübingen: Mohr 1962 (Philosophische Rundschau, Sonderheft), p. 42. 2 Johannes Sløk, Die Anthropologie Kierkegaards, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger 1954, p. 35. 1

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Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal as  a  fixed task.…But now a new task arises…individuality is essentially not the separated individuality, but the individuality to which the individual relates itself universally. Thus, in addition to the task it needs to solve individually, every individual is confronted with the same task as everyone else.3

From here, Sløk takes the analysis to different aspects of the self-relation. Kierkegaard has prominently investigated the elements of this relation in The Sickness unto Death; however, as Sløk shows, these elements (for example, possibility-necessity) essentially constitute the arguments in Kierkegaard’s other works as well. Sløk carefully rejects the attempt to assign a fixed content to Kierkegaard’s core concepts. Instead, he requests the reader to develop an awareness of the different contexts, where the same term highlights yet another aspect of the existential task of relating oneself to one’s “content.”4 In the first section, Sløk retraces how Kierkegaard applies the “concept-trilogies” in order to analyze the formal task of relating to one’s self, including its failures. In the section “Possibility, Reality and Necessity,” Sløk demonstrates how Kierkegaard deconstructs Hegel’s definition of necessity as the identity of possibility and reality. He further shows how Kierkegaard develops his concepts of choice, fear, despair, and regret in close interrelation with the concepts of history, freedom, and fate. The central challenge of the existential task emerges from the fact that the individual always finds itself set into a particular life with contingent preconditions restricting the range of choices. Michael Theunissen deeply appreciates Sløk’s analysis of this facticity (Faktizität).5 He writes: The circumstances I am born into…are necessary only insofar as I cannot change them anymore.…But they are only relatively unchangeable.…Truly remarkable in Sløk’s interpretation is the thesis that the theologically constituted necessity includes the aspect of change. According to this thesis, the concept [of necessity] indicates that I can only correctly relate myself to circumstances that are hard to bear…if I acknowledge that they cannot be changed by me, and at the same time believe that they can be sublated by God.6

Sløk argues that the thought of God constitutes the core of Kierkegaard’s anthropology: “it is only through the concept of God that his definitions add up.”7 In the subsequent section on time, eternity, and the moment, Sløk analyzes Kierkegaard’s anthropology with regard to the temporal dimension. A comparison with Plato’s dualism carves out the specific features of Kierkegaard’s understanding of eternity. In the last section, Sløk further specifies Kierkegaard’s concept of the self with regard to the relation of soul and body, with particular regard to sexuality. The second part of the book investigates how Kierkegaard’s anthropological views are expressed in his understanding of Christianity. As Sløk shows, Kierkegaard depicts

Sløk, Die Anthropologie, p. 23. Cf. ibid., p. 36. 5 Sløk, Die Anthropologie, p. 46. 6 Michael Theunissen, Das Selbst auf dem Grund der Verzweiflung. Kierkegaards negativistische Methode, Frankfurt am Main: Anton Hain 1991, p. 46. 7 Sløk, Die Anthropologie, p. 50. The section on “Möglichkeit, Wirklichkeit und Notwendigkeit” is therefore regarded as the argumentative center of Sløk’s book; cf. Fahrenbach, “J. Sløk, Die Anthropologie S. Kierkegaards,” p. 45. 3 4

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Christianity as the only way to solve the existential task. Sløk follows Kierkegaard’s example and approaches Kierkegaard’s concept of Christianity indirectly, that is, by analyzing failing self-relations. Sløk first addresses immediacy and its corresponding existence form: the bourgeois (§ 1), and he subsequently shows how the self-annihilation of immediacy is characteristic for the fatalist and the aesthete alike (§ 2). Sløk then analyzes Kierkegaard’s concept of mediateness (Mittelbarkeit). There are wrong forms of mediateness, mainly described in Either/Or and Repetition: mysticism, the monastery movement, and the poet-existence (§ 3). The adequate form of mediateness is the ethical existence (§ 4), which, however, breaks down under the experience of deep regret (§ 5). According to Sløk, it is the concept of regret and resignation that makes Kierkegaard’s understanding of religiosity evident: total resignation establishes the relation to God, but at the same time it totally exhausts the individual’s energy. Thus, in Kierkegaard’s view, forgiveness is necessary to fulfill one’s duty on earth. This leads to the final topic of Sløk’s analysis: Jesus Christ, the redeemer—the God in time. Sløk addresses the provocation that arises from Kierkegaard’s understanding of Christianity: a historical fact (the life of Jesus), belonging to the past and dependent on past contingent cultural circumstances, should be the “fundamental”8 point of reference to which every individual relates as contemporary. Sløk’s investigation culminates in the observation that the paradox of Christianity has the same structure as the paradox of existence, “as far as to ‘exist’ means to synthesize time and eternity, that is per definition, to grant such validity to relative and as such invalid content that it turns from a sheer illusion into a firm reality.”9 In terms of reception, Sløk’s book did not attract much attention in the Germanspeaking research community at first. The cause for this might have been that it was released in Copenhagen by a Danish publishing house. While the book received numerous reviews in Denmark, the immediate reaction in Germany was rather reserved. Liselotte Richter radically questioned Sløk’s approach to apply the categories of Aristotelian logic to Kierkegaard’s texts. According to her, Sløk ignored the essential features of Kierkegaard as a religious writer. Richter, therefore, concludes that Sløk’s book should be regarded as “an experiment that at one time had to be done simply to prove the inadequacy of this method.”10 Over the years, however, the German Kierkegaard community increasingly appreciated Sløk’s study. In 1962, Fahrenbach reckons the book “without doubt among the best Kierkegaard interpretations,”11 and also today, Sløk’s investigation is regarded as “groundbreaking”12 and recommended as an introduction to Kierkegaard’s work. Due to its meticulous analysis of Kierkegaard’s concepts, while at the same time never losing sight of the whole oeuvre, Kierkegaard’s Anthropology still serves as an excellent vantage point for further investigations of Kierkegaard’s concept of the self. Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal Sløk, Die Anthropologie, p. 134. Ibid., p. 136. 10 Liselotte Richter, review in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, vol. 77, no. 3, 1956, pp. 168–70. 11 Fahrenbach, “J. Sløk, Die Anthropologie S. Kierkegaards,” p. 42. 12 Tilo Wesche, Kierkegaard. Eine philosophische Einführung, Stuttgart: Reclam 2003, p. 87. 8 9

Reviews and Critical Discussions Buhl, H.O., review in Vestkysten, January 6, 1955. Fahrenbach, Helmut, “J. Sløk, Die Anthropologie S. Kierkegaards,” in Die gegenwärtige Kierkegaard-Auslegung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur von 1948 bis 1962, ed. by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Helmut Kuhn, Tübingen: Mohr 1962 (Philosophische Rundschau, Sonderheft), pp. 42–8. Malantschuk, Gregor, review in Meddelelser fra Søren Kierkegaard Selskabet, vol. 5, no. 1, 1954, pp. 20–1. Richter, Liselotte, review in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, vol. 77, no. 3, 1956, pp. 168–70. Rubow, Paul V., review in Berlingske Aftenavis, May 15, 1954. Søe, N.H., review in Kristeligt Dagblad, May 1, 1954. Theunissen, Michael, Das Selbst auf dem Grund der Verzweiflung. Kierkegaards negativistische Methode, Frankfurt am Main: Anton Hain 1991, pp. 45–6.

Michael Theunissen and Wilfried Greve (eds.), Materialien zur Philosophie Søren Kierkegaards [Materials on the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard],

Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main 1979 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, vol. 241), 624 pp.

The introduction to this work—written by the editors and more than 100 pages long—begins with a short biography. It continues with a description of influences on Kierkegaard (Romanticism, German idealism, ancient Greek philosophy) and an extensive overview of Kierkegaard’s writings in chronological order. The last part of the introduction provides a concise overview of Kierkegaard’s legacy in the fields of literature, theology, and philosophy, the latter clearly being the authors’ focus. Three main philosophical traditions, which were all significantly inspired by Kierkegaard, are portrayed: dialogical philosophy (Ebner, Rosenzweig, Buber), existentialism (Jaspers, Heidegger, Camus, Sartre) and critical Marxism (Lukács, Adorno, Bloch, Marcuse, and others). With profound knowledge, the authors show in which way Kierkegaardian thoughts have been modified or even distorted in the respective appropriations. For example, they analyze Heidegger’s transformation of Kierkegaardian terms such as “anxiety” and “temporality” without narrowing this analysis to a historical narration, but rather including the question of the rigor of Heidegger’s conclusions. The subsequent “historical” part of the book contains ten contemporary documents which give an outstandingly vivid impression of the reception of Kierkegaard between 1843 and 1850—primarily in Denmark, but including one article published in Germany by an anonymous reviewer. Theunissen and Greve were the first to make these documents readily accessible to German-speaking readers. To be more precise, four of the ten documents are reviews or comments on Kierkegaardian works in journals, one is a book by Magnus Eiríksson (1806–81), and the remaining five documents are drafts of replies by Kierkegaard. Two of the reviews are by one and the same Danish contemporary of Kierkegaard, namely, Johann Frederik Hagen (1817– 59). He commented on both Either/Or and Fear and Trembling, the former with approbation, the latter with a predominantly critical attitude. The abovementioned

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anonymous German reviewer wrote on the Philosophical Fragments. His review was published in 1845 in Berlin. Kierkegaard seems to have been satisfied, in this one case, to see a sign of recognition abroad. Hans Jørgen Trojel, editorial journalist from the newspaper Nyt Aftenblad, wrote a short comment on the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, defending some of its basic ideas—as he understood them— against a polemic by P.L. Møller. Trojel agrees with Kierkegaard that the essence of Christian faith cannot be grasped by a system of metaphysical theorems, but only by a painful process of subjective appropriation. Kierkegaard’s drafts of replies to these reviews are very interesting, but in a way disappointing. Most of them are full of irony and disdain, regardless of whether the respective author’s judgment had been predominantly positive or negative. In fact, we learn from the extracts collected in this volume that benevolent reviews provoked Kierkegaard’s contempt much more than any criticism did. In principle, one could imagine a Kierkegaard more willing to conduct a virtual dialogue with his reviewers, but probably his character and his reclusiveness prevented him from doing so. Magnus Eiríksson’s book Er Troen et Paradox og i Kraft af det Absurde? (Is Faith a Paradox and by Virtue of the Absurd?), published in 1850 under the pseudonym Theophilus Nicolaus, goes far beyond a review. It provides an early example of an intensive discussion of Kierkegaard’s ideas. Eiríksson, from his side, considered Kierkegaard as a confederate in his polemic against Hans Lassen Martensen, but criticized him at the same time for his understanding of “the absurd” as a basis of Christian faith. According to Eiríksson, Kierkegaard had appropriated the principle credo, quia absurdum and developed it to “an extreme which cannot be defended.”1 Another important objection raised by Eiríksson is this: if, according to Kierkegaard’s Postscript, the paradox which is the subject of Christian faith is God’s incarnation, then Abraham’s faith, as praised in Fear and Trembling, cannot be the very faith based on this specifically Christian paradox. Kierkegaard’s draft responses to Eiríksson include a distinction between the apparent absurdity of Christian faith as judged from an external point of view and as seen from the believer’s own perspective, within which faith is not, or at least not constantly, absurd. He writes, “While I do believe, neither belief nor its content is absurd…but as soon as I’m no longer a believer, or become weak in my faith, with doubts beginning to rise, then both belief and its content become the absurd.”2 As for the difference between Abraham’s absurd faith and the Christian faith in the paradox of incarnation, Kierkegaard concedes that there is indeed a conceptual difference between the two, the former representing only the subjective version of existential faith, the latter, by contrast, determining faith as a doctrine. In the same vein, Kierkegaard delivers a general definition of the absurd: “The absurd is the negative feature of that which is higher than human understanding and human knowledge.”3 Magnus Eiríksson, “Ist der Glaube ein Paradox ‘in kraft des Absurden’?,” in Materialien zur Philosophie Søren Kierkegaards, ed. by Michael Theunissen and Wilfried Greve, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main 1979 (suhrkamp taschenbuch wissenschaft, vol. 241), p. 149. 2 S. Kierkegaard, “Entgegnungen auf Eiríkssons Kritik,” in Materialien zur Philosophie Søren Kierkegaards, p. 162. 3 Ibid., p. 166. 1

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Remarkably, even in the virtual debate with Eiríksson, which could have become a fruitful one, had it taken place publicly, Kierkegaard only comes to a negative conclusion in the end: “The misunderstanding is of such an extent that there is hardly any hope for comprehension.”4 One could be tempted to think that Kierkegaard even feels comfortable with this role. The “systematic” part of the book, which is by far the most extensive one, contains secondary literature on Kierkegaard from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. The respective studies are by Danish, German, French, American, and other authors. This part of the book truly contains jewels of Kierkegaard scholarship. Some of them shall be presented in more detail below in a subjective selection; however, we will first give an overview of the individual chapters. In his contribution “The First Stage of Existence and its Critique: On the Analysis of the Aesthetic in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or II,” which was written exclusively for this volume, Wilfried Greve reconstructs Judge William’s criticism of aesthetic beauty, pointing out that the latter, in its true sense, is (paradoxically) not accessible to anyone who does not transcend the aesthetic sphere. The aesthetic or hedonistic existence is understood as immediacy, as being immediately what one is. Greve points out that Kierkegaard does not condemn the aesthetic existence as evil, but views it as being beyond ethical categories. It can, however, be criticized as finite reasoning (endliche Verständigkeit) and as a form of desperation. Helmut Fahrenbach, in his essay “Kierkegaard’s Ethical Analysis of Existence” (originally published in 1970), examines the relation between Kantian, Fichtean, and Kierkegaardian moral philosophy. He points out that, while the three philosophers are obviously all convinced of a general and absolute ethical obligation, only Kierkegaard connects otherwise “abstract” ethical ideals of the Kantian tradition to the task of existing as an individual. For this reason, Fahrenbach calls Kierkegaard’s ethics a corrective to idealistic moral philosophy. Johannes Sløk, in his paper “Man’s Relation to his Future: A Study of Two Edifying Discourses” (originally published in 1963), analyzes the relation between wishes, future, and faith. With Kierkegaard, Sløk asks whether there is any good that we can wish, in an unconditioned way, for a beloved person, especially concerning his or her relation to his or her future. Any good that is one of a plurality of goods does not have this property; but faith, and only faith, has it. It is accessible to everybody as an inner good; it is not one of many goods, but a potentially all-encompassing single good. This line of reasoning is developed by Sløk in great detail and clarity. Greve and Theunissen have reprinted another essay by Johannes Sløk in their volume, “Greek Philosophy as a Frame of Reference for Constantin Constantius and Johannes de silentio.” Here, Sløk elaborates on the unity of Fear and Trembling, Repetition, and Three Edifying Discourses (from 1843), which, in his view, can be understood as one single oeuvre. Among the common features of the aforementioned works, Sløk highlights Kierkegaard’s recourse to central concepts of Plato and Aristotle, such as ἀναμνησις, κίνησις and εὐδαιμονία, which, however, only serve as a foil for his concepts of repetition, the moment, and the paradox of faith.

4

Ibid., p. 167.

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In his essay “Kierkegaard’s Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: A Study of Cases of Exceptions,” Elmer Duncan devotes himself to one of the most intriguing questions of Kierkegaard scholarship, that is, whether the apologia of Abraham in Fear and Trembling is convincing. Duncan denies that a religious system of ethics is the necessary premise for establishing exceptions to universal moral rules. Rather, he argues, such exceptions can be justified also within non-religious (or not explicitly religious) ethical doctrines. The willingness of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he denotes with reference to Kant, may, however, end up as entirely non-justifiable in such a perspective, that is, as a delusion. The essay by Louis Reimer entitled “Repetition as Problem of Salvation in Kierkegaard” was originally written on the occasion of a seminar held by Hermann Diem in 1960. It is the work of a student and was published by Diem after Reimer’s early death in view of its high level of erudition. Reimer focuses on repetition as a religious category; he also compares, meritoriously, Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s concept of repetition, showing that the latter is closer to Nietzsche’s idea of “monumental history” than to Kierkegaard’s thought. Walter Schulz, in “The Dialectic of Mind and Body in Kierkegaard: Remarks on The Concept of Anxiety” (originally published in 1972), gives lucid answers to central questions of Begrebet Angest. Is sexuality per se sin? What is the relation between anxiety and corporality? Has original sin been committed by Adam in such a way that each and every later individual has simply inherited it, even though being personally completely innocent? Schulz explains the dialectic that is inherent to these questions. In the final section of the paper, Schulz briefly comments on Heidegger’s and Sartre’s interpretations of Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety. The two subsequent essays are essentially devoted to the same question, which we saw already at the core of Kierkegaard’s controversy with Eiríksson: is Christian faith, in its very essence, irrational or not? Herbert M. Garelick, in “The Irrationality and Supra-Rationality of Kierkegaard’s Paradox” (originally published in 1964 and amended for the present volume) comes to the conclusion that there is an insurmountable opposition between faith and reason (Vernunft). Faith, says Garelick, is irrational according to Kierkegaard, and there is no way to deny this. However, Robert Perkins, in his “Kierkegaard’s Epistemological Preferences” (originally published in 1973), presents a more differentiated view. He doubts that Kierkegaard had an acute “hatred” for reason, as claimed, for example, by Leo Shestov. Rather, Perkins argues that the real antagonism is the one between Hegel’s version of reason and Kierkegaard’s view of faith. John Heywood Thomas, in his paper on “Logic and Existence in Kierkegaard” (originally published in 1971), examines Kierkegaard’s objections against the unity of thought and being (Denken und Sein) as defended by Plato and Hegel. Like Perkins, he argues that Kierkegaard does not aim at an annihilation of idealist philosophy, but that he sees a fundamental problem that Hegel fails to fully account for, that is, the relation between the empirical subject of thought and the subject of pure (absolute) thought. An outstanding paper in the present volume is the one by Richard Kroner entitled “Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of Hegel” (originally published in 1955). Kroner—who fully acknowledges Kierkegaard’s basic concern with speculative

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philosophy—demonstrates in which sense the author of the Postscript was nevertheless “blind” against Hegel’s historically unique achievement, that is, the synthesis of the Greek concept of an immutable and unmoved God and the Christian concept of a dynamic God whose essence does not exclude moments of finitude. The final essay in this volume is Paul Ricoeur’s “Philosophy after Kierkegaard” (originally published in 1963). Ricoeur emphasizes Kierkegaard’s much closer relationship to German idealism than to modern existentialism. In the same vein, he doubts a contradictory disaccord between Kierkegaard and philosophy from Kant to Hegel. Kierkegaard tries to solve several problems inherent in Hegel’s philosophy, but also problems posed by the trinity Kant–Fichte–Schelling—especially the alleged opposition between ideality and reality. The problem of idealism is reality, says Ricoeur: idealism is not about abstractions or idealizations.5 This view has important consequences for his interpretation of Kierkegaard, who is otherwise often reduced to a critic of alleged idealistic abstractions. Thomas Posch

5

Paul Ricoeur, “Philosophieren nach Kierkegaard,” in ibid., p. 588.

Reviews and Critical Discussions Hultberg, Helge, review in Kierkegaardiana, vol. 13, 1984, pp. 166–7.

Helmuth Vetter, Stadien der Existenz. Eine Untersuchung zum Existenzbegriff Sören Kierkegaards [Stages of Existence: An Investigation into Søren Kierkegaard’s Concept of Existence], Vienna: Herder 1979, 205 pp.

Helmuth Vetter’s Stadien der Existenz. Eine Untersuchung zum Existenzbegriff Sören Kierkegaards is based on the author’s Habilitation, which he submitted at the University of Vienna in October 1977 and which was accepted in spring 1978. The book should be read in connection with an article by the author which was published the same year as the book.1 The subtitle of the article actually describes better than the book’s title, what both the article and the book want to accomplish, namely, to establish a point of view for the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s authorship as a whole. Vetter attempts to include and contextualize Kierkegaard within the philosophical tradition, while taking his religious project seriously. Needless to say, this attempt concerns fundamental aspects of the relation of philosophy and faith and particularly Kierkegaard’s ambivalent relation to philosophy. On the one hand, Vetter bears in mind Kierkegaard’s effort to sharply distinguish his work from philosophy understood as metaphysics, speculation, or first philosophy ( philosophia prima). On the other hand, Vetter, with reference to the introduction of The Concept of Anxiety,2 points to the possibility of a second philosophy ( philosophia secunda) indicated Helmuth Vetter, “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch. Vom Gesichtspunkt einer Interpretation des Gesamtwerkes von Sören Kierkegaard,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, vol. 101, 1979, pp. 175–87. 2 Vetter refers to the following passage: “It is common knowledge that Aristotle used the term first philosophy primarily to designate metaphysics, though he included within it a part that according to our conception belongs to theology. In paganism it is quite in order for theology to be treated there. It is related to the same lack of an infinite penetrating reflection that endowed the theater in paganism with reality as a kind of divine worship. If we now abstract from this ambiguity, we could retain the designation and by first philosophy understand that totality of science which we might call ‘ethnical,’ whose essence is immanence and is expressed in Greek thought by ‘recollection,’ and by secunda philosophia [second philosophy] understand that totality of science whose essence is transcendence or repetition.” SKS 4, 328–9 / CA, 21. 1

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in Kierkegaard’s thought.3 Thus, his project is to “call for a reflection on the possibility of a philosophy, in which the specificity of Christendom is preserved as irresolvable.”4 In connection with this project, Vetter is also quite critical about some of Kierkegaard’s general assumptions. First and foremost, he insists that it remains an open question––most notably so based on Kierkegaard’s own thought––whether a sharp distinction between philosophy and faith can be maintained after all.5 Kierkegaard himself, however, fails to grasp the possible connection of philosophy and faith in a philosophia secunda both in his pseudonymous writings (because they remain too attached to the traditional philosophia prima which they attempt be overcome) and in his upbuilding writings (because they leave the necessary philosophical dimension of the question all too hastily).6 As a consequence, Vetter suggests that Kierkegaard, on the one hand, opens up a set of intriguing questions and new themes worth further exploration, while, on the other hand, immediately obscuring them by virtue of his own approach. Vetter’s interpretation of the pseudonymous writings needs to be seen in this context as well. Despite the title of his book, Vetter is quite critical about Kierkegaard’s focus on and understanding of existence. For him, the existential dialectic is precisely the reason why the pseudonymous writings remain bound to metaphysics and speculation. Thus, he raises the question if it might be the case that Kierkegaard’s understanding of subjectivity is in fact completing what he was fighting against, namely, first philosophy.7 On a positive note, he suggests reading the pseudonymous works as “the concretely presented aporia of an arrogated autonomy of knowledge.”8 Consequently, the theory of the stages of existence as a whole should be seen as an aporetic outline, raising the question of its possible transgression in Kierkegaard’s work.9 This is the context in which Kierkegaard’s upbuilding writings come into the picture, as Vetter suggests that they might present further insights into a possible philosophia secunda, which he envisions as a Christian anthropology.10 It becomes apparent that one of the main aims of Vetter’s interpretation––and maybe its most intriguing aspect––is to offer a perspective that allows us to understand the different parts of Kierkegaard’s work in their function for the authorship as a whole. In the aforementioned article he makes his claim even stronger and more

Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, pp. 13–14 and pp. 59–72. Ibid., p. 196: “zur Besinnung auf die Möglichkeit einer Philosophie aufzurufen, in der die Spezifität des Christentums als etwas Unaufhebbares bewahrt ist.” 5 Ibid., p. 18. 6 Ibid., p. 37. 7 Ibid., pp. 168–9. 8 Ibid., p. 169: “die konkret gewordene Aporie einer angemaßten Autonomie des Wissens.” 9 Vetter offers also general reflections on the understanding of stages or spheres of existence. Ibid., pp. 39–44. 10 Vetter, “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch,” p. 187. 3 4

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explicit, stating that the multiplicity of forms of expression in Kierkegaard’s work might offer an answer to the question of the possibility of a Christian philosophy as philosophia secunda.11 Even though he distinguishes five groups of texts,12 his main focus lies on the pseudonymous and upbuilding writings, their defining features (science vs. edification) and their function in relation to Kierkegaard’s project. A sharp distinction between the different parts of the work cannot be sustained, Vetter claims, the various groups of texts rather have to be seen as different modi or generi discendi, modes or genera of communication.13 In other words, in order to understand the different parts of Kierkegaard’s work in their function, we need to understand the meaning of this rhetorical differentiation.14 Vetter maintains that the fundamental question of Kierkegaard’s entire work, from beginning to end, is directed towards the introduction to becoming a Christian.15 This is also the context for the question about the various modes of communication, or in other words, the multiplicity of genera of discourse (logos) in his work. Vetter is particularly keen to specify further the understanding of the upbuilding in Kierkegaard’s authorship,16 but he also treats the pseudonymous works in their maieutic function.17 In a certain way, the pseudonymous writings can be seen as the destruction of the past, the upbuilding writings as a glance at the new.18 Accordingly, the pseudonymous writings correspond to the first ethics (as outlined in The Concept of Anxiety), the upbuilding writings to the second;19 the first group of texts represents the worldly cares of the pagans, the second group the composure of being Christian.20 The unity of Kierkegaard’s work lies, in Vetter’s view, in its direction towards the goal of an authentic form of existence: as the single individual.21 But everything depends on how this goal is understood. Vetter wants to read it with regard to the distinction of the Old Man and the New Man, as found in the apostle Paul. He claims that Kierkegaard’s entire anthropology––which structures the various parts of his work in their function might be the answer to the question of the possibility of the sought-after philosophia secunda––is constituted by this distinction between Old Man and New Man, Pagan and Christian, non-believer and believer.22 Hereby we Ibid., p. 177. Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, pp. 19–21. 13 Ibid., pp. 19–32. 14 Vetter, “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch,” p. 176. 15 Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, p. 111. In the article Vetter states accordingly: “Das Ziel des gesamten schriftstellerischen Werkes von Sören Kierkegaard war es, seine Leser auf das Christ-Sein hinzuführen.” “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch,” p. 175. 16 Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, pp. 24–9. 17 Ibid., pp. 29–32. 18 Ibid., p. 15. 19 Vetter, “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch,” p. 180. 20 Ibid., p. 187. 21 Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, p. 189. 22 Hence the title of his article: “Alter Mensch und neuer Mensch” (Old Man and New Man). 11

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have reached the point of view for the interpretation of Kierkegaard’s works as a whole which Vetter wants to suggest.23 Since the publication of his Habilitation, Helmuth Vetter has made a name for himself in the field of phenomenology and hermeneutics,24 and especially through his dedication to research on Martin Heidegger.25 In the field of Kierkegaard research, however, it seems that a similarly important role has not been granted to him. Nevertheless, his book is still worth reading and would arguably deserve more echo. Gerhard Thonhauser

As a side note, Vetter’s interpretation of Kierkegaard’s entire work in its unity implies that he is rather critical of his late work. Specifically, he thinks that it emphasizes the estrangement from life too radically. More generally, he insists that Kierkegaard’s authorship does not directly lead to his late work as a point of culmination, but that it includes a much greater openness. Vetter, Stadien der Existenz, pp. 195–6. 24 For instance, he is the editor of the dictionary of phenomenological concepts. Wörterbuch der phänomenologischen Begriffe, ed. by Helmuth Vetter, Hamburg: Meiner 2004. 25 Helmuth Vetter is the editor of one volume of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe. Martin Heidegger, Geschichte der Philosophie von Thomas von Aquin bis Kant (Wintersemester 1926/27), Gesamtausgabe, vol. 23, ed. by Helmuth Vetter, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 2006. He is the sole author of a handbook on Heidegger, including an introduction, a lexicon, and a bibliography. Helmuth Vetter, Grundriss Heidegger. Ein Handbuch zu Leben und Werk, Hamburg: Meiner 2012. 23

Reviews and Critical Discussions Scarey, Heinz-Horst, review in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 65, 1983, pp. 337–8.